Will This Struggle Be Drowned in Blood? – Voltairine de Cleyre (1911)

_{Art by Clifford Harper}

From ‘Regeneración’, English Section, November 11 to November 18, 1911, Los Angeles, California, edited by William C. Owen

The following is the English copy of an article contributed recently by the well-known writer Voltairine de Cleyre, to “Volne Listy,” the noted Bohemian weekly [… of] New York City. [-William C. Owen]

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Since the publication of my report of the work of the Mexican Liberal Defense Conference I have received a number of requests, on the part of those interested and anxious to do work, for an article of explanation, giving some idea of the scope and present status of the revolution.

And indeed, remembering my own ignorance of the subject no longer ago than last May, and the fact that our daily and weekly press, including the Socialist and other reform journals, is almost absolutely silent on the matter, and that the chief source of information is a paper but little known, even to our own comrades — I mean “Regeneración,” the organ of the Mexican Liberal party — I believe it is quite important that an explanatory article be written for the information of the readers of “Volne Listy.”

It is important that all anarchists, and sympathizers with anarchistic tendencies and developments among the people, should know that the Mexican Revolution neither began nor ended with the spectacular military movements which culminated in the overthrow of Diaz and the substitution of the present government in Mexico.

Those movements were but brief, though important, incidents in the whole mighty effort of a people to overthrow an economic system foisted upon them partly by politicians of their own people, but largely by capitalists of this and other countries, whereby they, the genuine children of Mexican soil, have been reduced to a most hateful slavery.

The details of that slavery I do not intend to rehearse; those who wish to inform themselves as to its almost unbelievable horrors should read [John Kenneth] Turner’s “Barbarous Mexico.”

Mexico and its People

Mexico consists of twenty-nine States and Territories and a Federal district similar to the District of Columbia. The smaller, but more thickly populated States are those to the southward, in the vicinity of the Federal district. The entire population of Mexico is some fifteen millions, out of which four million are of unmixed Indian blood, descendants of its pre-European-invasion occupants. Of the remaining eleven million, the greater portion are of mixed breed, a relatively small number being of pure Spanish descent.

The mass of the population is agriculturist by instinct, habit and the general conditions of economic development in the country.

The various tribes of Indians have from time immemorial had communal land-holding arrangements which are very interesting, both for the insight they afford into the character of the people and for the comparisons they afford between theoretic and practical free communism.

These Indians have within the last half century seen these communal lands of theirs granted away, thousands of acres at a time, to native or alien landlords, and themselves driven to a hateful toil merely to create profit for the landlords. They have rebelled, and, as the reward of their rebellion, have been shot, tortured or sent away to pestiferous districts where they were bound to die within a few months. Thus the landlords get rid of their “undesirable” tenants.

The half-breed population is also communist, having harked back to their Indian forbears in this respect. And both Indian and half-breed have an utter hatred of work for work’s sake. They wish to work in order to live, but they have no wish to work to make others rich.

A Rebel Against Slavery

The Indian’s “laziness” is proverbial among white men; but, far from its being what the white man thinks it is, it is rather the intense protest of a free soul against a useless and degrading waste of life. He wishes to feel himself a child of the sun and sky, a being through whom moves the breath of life, a thing of the soil and the air, and not a tool for the aimless production of heaps of goods at some one else’s orders.

The half-breeds, on the white side again, are the descendants of Latins; and, while the Latin peoples work, they have never hungered and thirsted after purely commercial gain as have northern nations; they have always preserved a devotion to the beautiful (even the useless beautiful) and the mere joys of life — song, dance and festival — unknown to the Anglo-Saxon.

Add to all this the enervating climate of much of Mexico, and you have an understanding of what our grab-and-get system of life stigmatizes as “Mexican laziness.”

These people want the land; they do not want to live in cities; they want to use the land in their own way, according to their inherited communal customs.

Time and time gain they have rebelled, and their rebellions have been murderously put down, but this instinctive hunger for the free field of life is so essentially a part of their being that the only way to kill it to to kill the entire agrarian population. At the present time it has risen up more invincible than ever; and although the people are ignorant — less than 20 per cent being able to read and write — they need no book learning to convince them that the land is theirs by right.

Passion of Mexicans for Liberty has been Unquenchable

So far as the Mexican government is concerned (we Anarchists knew it in advance, and the revolutionists are learning it by experience), the present one, which rode into power at the behest of the great financiers of this country and on the crest of a wave of temporary popular infatuation is no more the friend of the revolting people than was the Diaz regime.

Why in the name of common sense should any one suppose that Madero, who is one of the greatest landlords of Mexico, and whose own haciendas are cultivated by the same exploited labor as that employed on other great estates, would favor the restoration of the land to the people? On the contrary, he has announced himself in favor of defending all rights of property, and has appealed to the industrial population not to strike and embarrass its employers at the present critical period.

However, neither the industrial population nor the rural one is heeding his appeal. Despite the silence of newspapers in the eastern and central sections of this country, the revolution — the economic revolution — is in full swing, and heading straight for free land. No amount of hushing up will put a stop to it; nor can any power at present in sight in Mexico crush it.

Three outcomes of this immense movement are possible:

1. A military organizer of the Diaz type may arise, and unite military forces so as to subdue the people for a time. But at present no such man has appeared.

2. When the vacillators now endeavoring to solve the governmental problems shall have proved themselves incompetent to keep the Mexican revolters from violating “property rights” of American citizens, the U.S. government may be compelled to drop its mask, and openly intervene. Which means possible protectorate or ultimate annexation — a consummation devoutly to be avoided.

3. The Mexican people triumphant, and an immense, irrecoverable blow given to property in land the world over.

Intervention Feared

The present condition — that of sporadic fighting, and general insubordination — may go on for a year, or two or three. It cannot go on indefinitely. The great property owners will ask more drastic measures; these not forthcoming, some governmental change must follow.

Of the three possibilities, the worst will be the second. It should therefore be the business of us, in the United States, to keep the purpose of the revolution before the working people of this country, as well as its development from week to week, that they may appreciate the situation of the Mexican workers and its relation to their own struggle. Then, when agitation for interference by the U.S. begins, they may oppose such interference intelligently, and with might and main.

Now, the best means of keeping informed is to read “Regeneración,” published at 914 Boston St., Los Angeles, California. Three-fourths of the paper is in Spanish, but the fourth page is in English. I would suggest that every reader of these lines who is able to read English, send 60 cents for a three months’ subscription to the above given address; and read every line of it, from week to week.

The Spanish editors and publishers of the paper are now under indictment for having violated the neutrality laws and need financial aid for their defense; but more than all the paper should be sustained, since it is really the voice of the heart of the great revolt. Many thousand copies are smuggled in to Mexico, and read aloud to those who are themselves unable to read, and thus the strength and encouragement of fellowship grow and spread.

While the paper refuses to label itself with any “ism,” its war cry is “land and liberty,” its teachings anarchistic. It is intensely alive, having little space for theory but much for facts supporting those theories which are dear to all of us.

To sum up: Our Mexican brothers have appealed to us in a really heart-rending manifesto not to remain ignorant of their struggle; not to believe it is a political one but an economic one, coming down to the primal needs of man; not to ignore the fact that their battle is our battle; and that we sustain them in this immense struggle which must go on a long time yet. We owe it to them to respond. Sustain and circulate “Regeneración”; raise money for the defense; hold meetings where these things may be made known. Any money sent for them to me, or to “Volne Listy,” 217 E. 66th St., New York, will be forwarded to Los Angeles.

Voltairine de Cleyre,

2038 Potomac Ave., Chicago.

Treasurer Mexican Liberal Defense Conference.

Help This Propaganda, by Joseph Kucera (1911)

From ‘Regeneración’, English Section, November 18, 1911, Los Angeles, California, edited by William C. Owen. Republished in ‘Solidarity‘, November 25, 1911, New Castle, Pennsylvania, and ‘Industrial Worker‘, Spokane, Washington, November 30, 1911

Comrades!

The International revolutionary group in Los Angeles has published 10,000 copies of Voltairine de Cleyre’s leaflet, “The Mexican Revolt,” with the intention of giving the widest possible publicity to the fact that the Mexican revolution did not culminate with the mere change of rulers, but is proceeding on its onward march to liberate the worker.

To attain this end we want your assistance. Since we are boycotted by the political Socialist press, we resort to these means of publicity. Our particular aim is to keep the working class of this country informed on the real state of affairs in the Latin republic, and for that purpose we shall try to distribute the “Mexican Revolt” in every local of organized labor.

Are you willing to co-operate with us? If so, tell us how many leaflets you can distribute in your local, enclose some money to help us pay the printer’s bill and postage, and we will send you the amount asked for. If you have no money, ask for the leaflets just the same, as we shall be only too glad to hear from fellow-workers who, at least, are trying to assist us somehow in our work. Remember that when the first lot is distributed another one will be coming. Get in line.

Send communications to

Jos. Kucera,

914 Boston St.,

Los Angeles, Cal., U.S.A.

I.W.W. and other radical papers please copy or comment.