Mexico: The Frozen Revolution (1971) - full transcript
A thorough analysis of the social- politics of Mexico, within the historical context of the Mexican Revolution reality. Includes footage of the 1910s, interviews with farmers, politicians, intellectuals, middle class, trade and unionists.
60 years after the Mexican Revolution,
Mexico is preparing for a new election
50 million inhabitants,...
a fifth of the population
cannot read or write.
This is the retinue of Luis Echeverr?a,
candidate presidential...
in a caravan 62 vehicles...
three hundred people
and thousands of posters
travels to far-off in
the country in this land
His campaign costs Mexico
many millions of dollars.
Last every 6 years, the President
chooses his successor.
The government party make him candidate...
and he wins with
more 85% of the votes.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party
known as the PRI,...
sole inheritor of the slogans
of the Revolution 1910...
has never lost an election...
and obvious it won't lose this one.
He promised land distribution.
The Revolutionary phraseology,
the demagoguery and deception,...
cascade down over Mexicans.
Long live Echeverr?a!
Long live!
One must believe, one has to be...
this candidate will,
at last long last...
make dream of the Revolution
a living reality.
So, we say with
Luis Echeverr?a...
with the Constitution and
the Revolution...
upwards and forwards!
The youth from the
Mezquital Valley...
to whom the Mexican Revolution...
has given the opportunity
to have an education...
finds in you the man...
who will push forward...
the development and the
liberation of women.
We believe with you as President...
Mexican women will have
a greater opportunity...
to broaden their horizons,
and stop...
being just man's companion...
or the indispensable person
at home.
Party comrades in Actopan...
and this whole region.
If our party were seriously
concerned...
about the outcome of
this election...
if our opponents...
truly represented...
an electoral threat,
may this signify...
the people's renewal
of its faith...
on the government
of the Revolution.
And from the future
government of the Revolution...
this offering made by the people...
not only of its vote
but of...
the highest and most
enthusiastic cooperation...
which springs from its faith
in the future.
Thank you very much, comrades...
from Actopan, for this welcome.
We will study all the
problems of the region...
and we will strive...
passionately to resolve
them.
Long live the PRI!
Long live the candidate
of the Revolution!
Long live the
Mexican Revolution!
The Mexican Revolution was the...
first great revolution
of the 20th century.
One of the most desperate.
There was hunger for bread,
hunger for land,
hunger for justice and freedom.
Mexico was an enslaving
and feudal society...
where 1% of the population...
owned 97% of the land.
Mexican Revolution was soon betrayed.
MEXICO: THE FROZEN
REVOLUTION
I heartily salute
my compatriots...
from the land of
Felipe Angeles...
the artillery man of the Revolution.
Mexico's history has been...
a struggle for
ideological freedom...
which now is fully
consolidated.
The task is to produce
more wealth...
and to distribute it...
in a revolutionary sense.
I've come to Hidalgo
to tell you...
on behalf of the
Mexican Revolution...
that the principles of the Revolution,
its ideas...
its team of men,
in constant...
renovation, are
powerful enough...
to allow us, with an
undisputable...
electoral victory...
to press ahead rapidly.
A moment ago I told...
the people with whom...
I discuss these matters...
how right was the
Mexican Revolution.
In 1876, Porfirio D?az
took power.
He consolidated the control
of the land...
by a small, despotic
aristocracy.
It was Porfirio D?az
who opened Mexico...
to Anglo-American investments.
Mexico began to play
a new role...
as a semi colonial country.
In 1910, after 35 years
of brutal dictatorship...
Francisco I. Madero led...
an insurrection against D?az.
The conditions for a
revolution were the right ones.
The rebellion burned the whole country
Rebel groups recruited
expert marksmen...
and the best horsemen.
until form guerrillas that
ended up defeating the army.
In 7 years, that bloody
struggle left...
more than a million dead.
Please, what's your name?
Carlos S?nchez Col?n.
- How old are you?
- 73.
Did you take part
in the Revolution?
Yes, I did.
- When did you join in?
- 1911.
Tell me Mr. Carlos, What did you fight for?
For the lands. Now we...
see them and they are ours.
What did you have before?
We had nothing. We had to work...
for the hacienda, as laborers.
Now we work the land...
with our own hands.
Were you with General Zapata?
In his troops, not with him.
Let me tell you, it's one thing...
to be with him,
with the High Command...
and another to be
with other chiefs...
fighting for the same cause.
What cause was that?
What were you looking for
in the Revolution?
To expel the hacienda owners.
Why?
For the lands we now own.
Why did you want
to expel the landowner?
Because we were his slaves...
and now we are free.
Aren't we free now?
Porfirio Diaz
But the overall fall of Porfirio D?az...
wasn't enough for the peasants...
who wanted to overthrown
his feudal regime as well.
When Porfirio Diaz was defeated,
Francisco I. Madero...
entered the capital on June 7, 1911...
as the undisputable leader
of the Revolution.
Behind him, there was
a coalition of individuals...
who only knew one another...
and didn't share an ideology.
Lacking an ideological
tradition...
they had no links to
a universal philosophy.
Of the many groups at the time...
only the agrarians in the South...
were sure much of their aim.
Their leader was Emiliano Zapata.
How did people call you?
- The Attilas of the South.
- Why, tell me?
We stole cows,
raped women.
We were the worst for
the government at the time.
Since Don Francisco I. Madero...
didn't deliver the distribution
of lands and waters and mountains, then...
we protested against him...
until victory or death.
Madero was just a reformist
anxious to make moderate measures
But the oligarchy feared
and hated him.
A counterrevolution
was organized...
and General Huerta assassinates
President Madero in 1913.
Huerta set up a
Neo-Porfirista dictatorship.
The struggle going on.
In the North,
General Venustiano Carranza...
led the true the
Army of the Constitution...
against the ruling clique.
The same time, Pancho Villa,
General Obreg?n and Emiliano Zapata...
fought against
the same enemy.
The people, when they
learned of...
the Plan of Ayala, started
coming in groups to us...
and they gave us
all kinds of help...
and food, anything we asked.
The government came hard
after us.
They killed many peaceful people...
because they helped us...
they hanged them, and that
favored us a lot...
because there were entire towns...
that went over to us.
Zapatismo became the most
important and famous agrarian...
movement of the Revolution.
The peasants found in Zapata
the possibility of expressed...
their demands of
land and liberty.
In the North, Pancho Villa's men
rioted to the countryside.
They were cowboys, new guys
railway workers...
the Villistas lacked
definite class interests.
Pancho Villa himself was
half political leader, half bandit.
Pancho Villa told them
at a meeting:
Tomorrow morning
we'll take Torre?n.
Generals, get ready
the artillery
cavalry officers
and infantry men.
Saddle up my Seven Leagues
to go to Torre?n
even if they're devils
we'll take the town.
I'm going to sing a "corrido"...
about a friend of my land
his name was Valent?n...
he was shot and hanged on the sierra.
I'd rather forget.
It was a winter afternoon
when for his bad luck
Valent?n fell in the hands
of the government.
This is the song
of a brave man
who was Valent?n.
With the fall of the cities of Torre?n
and Zacatecas, Huerta's regime collapsed.
General Carranza entered
the capital...
on 20 August, 1914.
But the Revolution was greatly divided.
Pancho Villa continued
his rebellion...
and Zapata refused to recognize
Carranza.
The country was in chaos.
A bloody faction struggle
engulfed the nation.
On December 6, 1914,
the forces of Pancho Villa and
Emiliano Zapata occupied the capital.
Never was The Mexican
Revolution more popular.
But this demonstration of...
the people will went nowhere.
Spontaneity isn't enough
to consolidate power.
Now more than ever, the absence
of a program...
influenced the outcome.
The Revolution
was stillborn.
If the great masses do not have as their
objective the transformation of society,
they fail in the seizure of power.
The Bourgeoisie that does
have an ideology, awaits its turn.
Emiliano Zapata
Pancho Villa
Carranza orders
divisions and,...
the General Obreg?n into actions
against Pancho Villa.
Villa suffered a new defeat.
The new working class...
true support began in
Carranza and Obreg?n.
Later, in 1915, The World Worker House...
of anarchist roots,
even organized...
the Red Battalions,
to fight against Villa.
Mexico was devastated
by civil war.
Brother against brother...
hungry and epidemics
plague the countryside.
Alvaro Obregon
Venustiano Carranza was the true victor...
of the Mexican Revolution.
His ability to manipulate
political situations...
returned him to the Presidency.
With victory assured and previous
bourgeoisie rulers satisfied.
Carranza did little
the carry out land reform.
In 3 years, the government
distributed...
somethings less than
200 thousand hectares.
The workers who supported
Carranza in his quest for power,
now went on strike
and were brutally repressed.
The people remained hungry...
for bread, land and justice.
Venustiano Carranza - Alvaro Obregon
In the South, Zapata continued
the fight for land.
The government forces were losing
the battle against the guerrilla.
The only way to end Zapatism was to
assassinate Emiliano Zapata.
Don Venustiano Carranza...
gave orders to Pablo Gonz?lez...
chief of operations in Morelos...
to kill general Emiliano Zapata...
by whatever means.
They planned a shameful
act of treason.
It was a plan they
had beforehand, because...
Jes?s Guajardo ordered
to pursue Zapata in...
the hills, but there
they could never kill him.
So they arranged for...
Guajardo to surrender to Zapata...
to see if that way
they could kill him.
We told him,
"General, they'll kill you".
He wouldn't listen to us.
"Hey you, go in front".
When he reached the portal,
he saluted...
two men who were on
the top floor.
A bugle was heard above
and when it sounded...
30 men stood up
behind a railing...
like this...
and shot Zapata.
He got two shots here...
the horse was hit on the leg...
7 bullets on the poor horse.
Zapata still managed
to pull the reins...
the horse stood on two legs...
but in the air Zapata expired...
and fell sideways.
The struggle was for land, water...
justice and freedom.
What do you have now?
Land, freedom and justice
when...
they feel like it.
If they don't, they don't.
But whose lands are really these?
- The government's.
- Why?
Because it owns them.
The government owns the land.
We just borrow them,
to sustain ourselves.
The Mexican Revolution
did in fact redistributed...
the land among the peasants,
but in an unequal.
50% of the people don't have land.
The rest of them 3.5 million
work the lands of others.
The government didn't give them
irrigation, nor machinery,
technical assistance or agriculture
co-produced and organized.
But the peasants continue to work...
with the primitive
methods, the 5 hectares
scarce that the
Revolution gave them.
In the Southeast, in Yucatan...
nothing there
is worse than the
conditions of the 500
thousand Mayan Indians.
Nothing remains of the
great Maya Empire.
In Palenque, the jungle
covers everything.
Temples and palaces,
imprisoned by...
foliage, half submerged
by a sea of vegetation.
The drama, the beauty and
the spirit of greatness...
of the Maya are preserved
in superb bas-reliefs.
In Chichen-Itza, the Maya
transported...
statues and capstones with
ropes sisal hemp.
With that fiber they made traps...
strong bows, wove nets...
and bound their prisons.
Yucatan is a great
desert of limestone land...
where it is only possible to grow
"henequen", the sisal fiber normal is hemp.
In 1875, sisal rope was used...
as twine in grain-harvesting.
Grain-harvesting machines ate up...
millions of meters of rope.
The low prices paid by
US companies...
for the rope could only
be maintained...
paying slave wages...
to Mayan peasants.
In 1900 the International Harvester Co.
was organized by Morgan Bank...
and became the principal buyer of henequ?n.
The first move of this monopoly...
was to lower still
further the price henequ?n.
The landowners to were
as chained to imperialism...
as their own slaves.
Here, as in all haciendas...
there was slavery
in the time...
of Porfirio D?az,
during the "Porfiriato".
And here, mister
Gregorio Tzul...
was one of those slaves.
This man was a slave.
He says there was the time
the "fajina".
They didn't get paid.
There were haciendas where
the "fajina" took...
place in the morning and the afternoon.
One worker was
hanged on a tree...
with rope...
until he said, "there isn't any"...
they didn't bring him down.
When the Revolution triumphed,
Alvarado came.
And then there was justice...
to put an end to slavery.
There was no more slavery.
But for Don Gregorio Tzul
slavery has not ended.
He's 73 years old and he still works...
so as not to die of hunger.
My name is Antonio L?pez
Hern?ndez.
I was born in Yucatan.
My life has been tough.
because I was orphaned while to small
I began to work selling...
newspapers, shining shoes...
struggling to live while I grew up
When I was 28,
I started to make a home...
and I my search for a wife.
So far, we've had
11 children.
9 are alive, 2 died.
- This tortilla is from yesterday?
- Yes.
- There's nothing else?
- Nothing.
Buy sugar or coffee,
or something.
How can I buy anything?
There's no money.
With stones, if we don't
have money!
Maria, take this to the mill,
so that Don Daniel will grind it.
Take it.
Tell them grind it up fast.
It's late.
Nicely ground. And fast.
I've worked here
24 years.
We all have 4 hectares.
Of course, while the family go
largest those 4 hectares stay the same.
So when more us,
are the less we earn.
We live in misery.
There's not enough
to keep us alive.
It's a miracle that
we're still here.
There's enough to eat,
even there is not enough to wear.
We can't have both clothes and food.
The federal government
wants us to believe...
that we own the land,
but we only have the land,
not its produce.
We can't go on that way.
There must be a radical change completely.
We have to erase the present...
and start all over,
with a new system.
I remove Juan and put another, but I remove
them and I put them and I manage them
There had to be a new
organization, a new system
The system that exists
today is already old.
Nothing but high-ranking
politicians have had results.
At the end of the first World War,
the henequen...
from Yucatan was rob and
transplanted to Kenya and Tanganyika.
The monopolists preferred to cultivate
it in a land where men were poorer...
and more enslaved even than in Yacatan.
When Agrarian Reform
came to Yucatan...
the landowners apparently divided
their great properties...
and registered them under the
names members of family or friends.
This also happened
in the rest of the country.
For us from the field...
the only thing that came from
the revolution was a slogan:
"Land for the peasants".
We work the land, but we
don't share in its product.
He who works the land did not
get the benefit of the revolution.
We haven't seen it.
We break the back to 5 AM
to 2 PM...
and never get more than
beans and tortillas.
And the revolution that had
been to planed has been betrayed.
It is frozen. Completely frozen.
In the evening we only eat
tortillas and coffee.
We don't have breakfast.
At noon we do get food.
Maybe one or two eggs
for the family.
Sometimes my husband says:
"Let the children eat.
I'll just have a little
flour meal".
He eats and goes to work.
Give me the tortillas, woman,
for my lunch.
Here you are.
Eat, son. Eat.
Don't you want to eat?
I'm the one that must go hungry.
That's my lot.
I go hungry some days, but I live in peace.
If I filled my stomach...
one of the kids would die.
What peace could I have?
- Good morning.
- Good morning.
I wonder if you can do me
a service.
Loan me 20 pesos.
Antonio, 2 days ago
I gave you a loan.
I can't give you more.
My situation is pretty serious.
I do this for a living.
Next week you can discount
what I owe you...
and then you lend me some
for the following week.
If things get a little better,
I'll pay off my debt.
What I get now is not enough
to live on.
Just to avoid dying of hunger.
What will you do?
Discount it and then
you lend me some more...
for next week and so on...
until things get better.
We must find a solution
to life.
OK, I'll give you 20 pesos.
Thank you very much, Iv?n.
I'll pay you back next week.
I'm going to write them down.
Do you think
government policy is wrong?
From what we can see...
the way it is acting...
we do believe it is wrong.
They don't grant us
free trade, the freedom...
to sell our hemp
to whomever we choose.
One is forced...
to go through them.
Even if you process it elsewhere,
you have to...
go to them, because nobody
else buys it.
If you have your little
sisal hemp...
and you scrap,
de-fiber and pack it...
you put it on a truck and say:
"I'll sell it in Campeche"...
the police will stop you
at the check point.
They started dealing it.
To the poor peasants
they said...
the land was theirs...
but it turns out they get nothing.
They got good money.
You can see...
they improved their
palaces, their houses...
they party big time...
they have nice cars.
The poor peasant sees that
and says:
"Am I going to work hard...
for others to enjoy? I don't think so.
I'll work half a day,
no more".
They keep seeing the same and say:
"We'll work only 3 hours.
We'll go through it
as quickly as we can".
That's why they say that...
poor peasants aren't good workers.
The decadent oligarchy still
preserves the French palaces
built by the bourgeoisie
in times of Porfirio D?az.
This family,
which previously on 21 haciendas.
Today has they only 14.
The aristocracy weeps
for times gone by.
Before, it was very nice,
we often went...
to the haciendas, we really
loved the people...
we took their children...
to be baptized. They loved us.
All our domestic staff
came from the haciendas.
There never were ill feelings
between us.
Quite the contrary.
Here we never had that race thing.
It was all the same to us to sit...
with an Indian or a White.
That thing they had in the USA...
we never had it here.
Thank God.
They never were despised?
Never. They never felt
bad or anything.
We had very nice stays...
in the haciendas, we had
good horses...
we went with our friends.
Why don't you go now?
They're very sad now.
Their life is over.
Now it's only the indispensable
for them not to die of hunger
that's the work we give them...
we can't afford to pay more.
Sisal hemp has gone down
in price...
because of the synthetic fibers.
Now they have those things...
that didn't exist before.
Before, every cord or rope...
had to be made of hemp.
How are the Maya workers like?
A bit lazy, young man.
They have good taste.
The heat overwhelms
anybody.
Who wants to work
in this heat?
That's why they work
early in the morning...
until 11:30, 12 o'clock.
How do you see the future
in Yucatan?
I've better not think about it...
or I'll get hysterical!
That bad?
Terrible. If you don't
have what to live with...
outside the haciendas,
you starve to death.
A woman who doesn't have
a small house...
or a son who already works,
because sons...
don't manage the haciendas anymore.
Did the situation change...
at the time of C?rdenas, for example?
With C?rdenas it was then that when
things started going bad for us in Yucatan.
Hemp was grown only
in Yucatan.
C?rdenas began to
take it out of the...
big henequen haciendas.
The oligarchy will never forgive...
President C?rdenas to bring
the Mexican Revolution...
and Agrarian Reform
to Yucatan.
During his administration,
almost 18 million
hectares were distributed
among the people.
And it tried to implement the
socialist policy in Yucatan.
But C?rdenas failed to organize the people
to destroy the power of the oligarchy
and the oligarchy appropriated the
revolution for itself.
- Did you vote against the PRI?
- Most of the peasants, yes.
Because they are seeing the reality.
In the elections, here in
Motul, it was found...
there were certain people...
close to the ruling party...
who had up to 3 or 4
ballots...
they could vote 4 times.
They're sure to win that way.
The people has lost even
its fear.
Yucatan is one of the most
interesting cases...
in Mexico's political life.
Like never before in any State,
the people...
decided to vote for the
opposition, for National Action (PAN).
This forced the PRI to
perform incredible acts...
which we thought had been
historically superseded.
For example, tampering
with the census...
stealing ballot boxes,
using the army...
to keep the people submissive...
to the imposition decided...
by the Governor.
What can you do?
They have no choice,
but to keep on enduring...
this situation
and see where it goes.
There's a saying:
"There's no evil that
lasts a hundred years...
or a body that endures it".
Nearly all great Mexican
fortunes are recent.
The new entrepreneurs in the cities
were not damaged by the revolution.
On the contrary, they benefited from it.
In 1925, the country was...
devastated by civil war.
There was death and
destruction everywhere.
Lines communication
were destroyed.
Mexico needed railroads,
housing, roads and industries.
The State contracted with private
companies for public works.
Generals and colonels of
the Revolution...
became influence peddlers.
Intermediaries between
the State and bourgeoisie.
Thus, from the revolutionary
ranks themselves,...
a new national bourgeoisie is born.
This is the new Mexican bourgeoisie
Adaptable and content.
They dream the North American dream.
Here there's conspicuous consumption...
cars, luxury apartments.
Investors, foreign entrepreneurs...
lend names...
merchants of every kinds,
lend speculators...
land buyers, corrupt officials;
this nascent bourgeoisie
is the most important base of...
support for the present government.
The bourgeoisie is the
one that drags and puts
other social classes at
the service of the regime.
Workers, peasants, middle class,
who do not participate
in the decisions of the government,
much less in the control of wealth.
Development has not meant better
standards of living for the population.
Only for a small privileged minority
that squanders the country's resources
on luxury items.
This increasing accumulation of capital
has caused a dramatic spread of poverty.
For 40 million Mexicans,
luck has worsened or is simply dire.
If the Mexican revolution
in the first 60 years
has not been able to
rescue the bulk of the
population from the
most atrocious misery,
how are we going to hope that in the
next 60 years the situation will improve?
The development thus conceived is inhuman.
The revolutionary
bourgeoisie did not solve,
does not solve,
and cannot solve any of
the fundamental problems.
To be called a revolutionary one
must end the exploitation of man by man
We must nationalize industries and banks,
we must end privilege,
we must distribute wealth,
we must carry out a Social Revolution.
In the South, near Guatemala.
The Indians live in misery.
Indian communities in Mexico have...
all the characteristics of a
colonial society.
In the area San Crist?bal
de las Casas, Chiapas...
a small group of "ladinos"
whites of Spanish ancestry
exploit the Indians,
economically and culturally.
The dispossession of land
from indigenous communities,
fulfills the purpose
of the Colonial Society.
Convert them into farmhand or wage-earning.
Indigenous people are excluded from
development, culture, politics.
They have arid lands,
rachitic animals...
unhealthiness, high infant mortality...
and illiteracy.
The "ladinos" promote
prostitution and...
alcoholism among
the Indians.
- What's your name?
- Miguel L?pez Panela.
- Where are you taking that wood?
- To San Crist?bal, to sell it...
to buy little salt, corn...
some beans...
and some "chicharr?n".
Some meat. That's all.
We can't speak,
we can't write.
I can't even write my name.
We have 3 daughters...
Dominga, Manuela...
and Mar?a.
We have to spruce up and
fertilize the "milpa".
I spend 3 months sprucing up
the land.
Sub-men, often drunk
with white alcohol...
Indians form part of the...
great group of the dispossessed.
11 million Mexicans
don't eat wheat bread.
9 million do not eat meat,
fish, milk, eggs.
8 million wear sandals.
5 million go barefoot.
23 million live in adobe or
wood huts...
without bathroom or running water.
Little.
We eat little.
We eat a bit of "pozol"...
some coffee and that's it.
Then to work.
It's that my mom is sick..
Her body and her head ache.
She can't walk
or carry firewood.
She can't put in the
fertilizer. Nothing.
We cut firewood...
with slit the machete,
with the ax.
That's something I know how
to do: Working.
We sell the firewood in
San Crist?bal de las Casas.
and I earn 2 pesos, three pesos
We cut it with the ax...
with the machete...
and the we carry it.
I carry it to San Crist?bal.
Some 18 kilometers.
It's very heavy.
L?pez Panela, an authority
among the Chamulan Indians...
is called to resolve arguments
in San Juan Chamula.
Because, the Indians don't
confident the white authorities.
We hope the woman comes.
She may come tomorrow.
She comes today and
the donkey is detained.
My husband went to work...
in the coffee plantations...
six months ago.
Some whites took him away
and he never came back.
My mother cries
bitterly for this situation.
What am I going to do
without my husband?
The Chamula children learn
Spanish.
Horse!
Chicken.
Turkey.
Chicken.
Cat.
Here we have a boy.
Boy.
This boy has hands...
feet and head.
Head.
Hair.
How many ears does he have?
Two.
The boy has...
what is this?
Hair.
Two hands, five fingers.
Add them up and there are 10 fingers.
What is this?
Hand.
What is this?
Jacket.
What is this?
Shirt.
Button.
What are we?
Chamula Indians.
This is the State of Chiapas.
This is the Mexican flag.
Three colors.
Green, white and red.
Pole.
This boy salutes the flag Mexican.
Our Mexican flag.
God Almighty, I ask you...
for the health of the Chamulas.
Don't forsake us,
your children...
who are so poor and
so needful of your help.
We need to eat.
We ask you for a good harvest
let there be no draught or lack of water.
Don't let the whites
harm us.
May all the saints bless our
homes and our work.
May we be happy.
We are ignorant,
we are blind.
We know we live on this land, but...
we know nothing of the government.
We work the land...
because that is our lot in life
and they gave us this piece of land...
to work, to sustain ourselves.
But only the men in
government know...
how they do their business.
We just work, we don't know
how or when.
The PRI exercises absolute
control of the country.
Long live Echeverr?a!
This crowd of peasants are carried
to party meeting in government trucks.
They are not allowed to refuse.
The press and all the information
are controlled.
Any agitation in the countryside...
is brutally suppressed
and the silence is absolute.
The peasant says to himself:
"I'm not going to lose my job
by of some fucking elections.
Anyway, the PRI will win".
The party was transformed
the revolution...
into a firm and immovable
institution,...
reaches the farthest
corners of the country.
In Amatenango del Valle there are...
3179 Tzeltal Indians...
dedicated almost exclusively...
to the production of artisan pottery.
They have never seen the lands
that the Revolution promised them,
remain in the hands
develop "ladino".
Once every 6 years,
around the elections time...
the party arrives to put up
its farce...
to welcome the candidate.
They prepare the food, the beer,
the orchestra...
and wallpaper the town pictures
of a man they have never seen,...
who will be the deputy every town.
The PRI has finally created an
ideology the ideology of the poster.
The poster offers the
possibility of being seen...
when the candidate arrives.
Perhaps tomorrow the political
boss will say:
"You has been a good boy, Fern?ndez...
I saw you raise your poster".
Those who do not attend they combat them,
they segregate them.
The poor man does
not participate who cannot...
explain his absence, who
soon returns to the fold.
Distinguished Mexicans of
Amatenango del Valle...
you are Mexicans with
the same rights...
that all Mexicans have.
The Mexican Revolution,
the Revolution of...
Obreg?n, Carranza,
Zapata...
Villa, is carried out by...
the economically weaker...
like you.
Its goal is to have less poor
people...
and that the rich become less rich.
We are saddened when we see
shoeless children.
We are embittered to know that...
they don't have their daily bread.
That they don't have schools.
That they don't have sanitation.
My role won't be
to solve these problems...
but to oversee that other...
authorities do solve them.
Those who attend
get a notebook...
those who don't,
don't get anything.
The long arm of the PRI
reaches the most humble hut.
The conditions of the rural
population in our country...
are defective right from a...
nutritional point of view.
First of all, their
diet is poor...
in proteins, rather than
in calories.
There's a protein
malnutrition.
The amount of proteins...
the people eat is less...
than the recommended amount...
but the worst part is that
those proteins...
are of bad quality,
because they don't have...
proteins of animal origin.
Mexican diet is basically
made up of...
of maize, beans...
some fruit and some pulse...
but basically maize.
The people eat 400 grams...
of maize per day, per person...
and that is the poorest food...
you can have
anywhere in the world.
Almost as poor as what
you can get...
from any herb in the fields.
The working class, that once
organized the Red Battalions...
to fight in the Revolution...
now is another base support
for the government.
Attendance at the May Day demonstration...
is obligatory.
Those who don't attend
are marked as absent and punished.
Unions can't oppose...
any official government policy.
President Diaz Ordaz
Fidel Velazquez
Secretary General CTM
Mexican unions are
free...
democratic, self-determined...
in its internal life, with a
magnificent relationship...
with the regime of
the Revolution.
A group of corrupt leaders prototype
of treacherous has taken control...
of the unions,
and once inside...
they have defended the
policies of the ruling bourgeoisie.
The Popular Socialist Party,
founded...
by Vicente Lombardo Toledano...
as a Marxist-Leninist party...
fights to strengthen
the State economy...
that makes it possible to advance...
to fight...
successfully, against
foreign pressure.
How do you justify
the support of a Marxist...
party for the candidacy
of Lu?s Echeverr?a?
Well, that's easy to explain
in the specific case of...
countries like ours...
that is, developing countries...
where North American imperialism...
bears upon the economic...
social and political life.
This tactical problem has been...
greatly discussed
within the...
working class parties.
We believe it is
possible, convenient...
necessary, in order to have...
a democratic advancement...
with independence
towards foreign countries...
and the unity of all forces...
which are patriotic, nationalistic...
progressive of a
evolutionary country...
as is the case in Mexico.
That's why our party
has promoted and applied...
a historical experience
of the Mexican people:
The national front,
patriotic and democratic.
That's why we find in the candidacy
of Echeverr?a, fundamental...
coincidences in terms of program...
with the electoral platform
of our party...
and he also publicly
accepted...
our party's nomination and...
stated that he had
fundamental coincidences.
The rest of the
Mexican Left in illegality...
working underground and
is tiny and divided.
It does not take advantage of
historical opportunities,
because it has not known how to overcome
its petty bourgeois opportunism.
Maoists, communists,
trotskyists, spartacists...
Promos quo-prochain, the vanguard
must emerge from the struggle itself.
The student movement of '68
reveals the flaws of the system...
and opens a stage of popular struggles.
For the first time in 40 years,
the unity of workers and students
frightens the Government
of the Frozen Revolution,
which it's brutally represses.
The PRI found a new law
in suppression.
The students were the
consciousness...
of a tortured people.
The image of the regime
as a stable democracy...
was destroyed by
the bazookas and tanks.
We won't back down,
we'll accept the challenge...
and to cut a long story short...
Cueto can go fuck himself.
That repression,
so well known...
that even the corrupt press
had to retract.
Because the student says
we won't back down.
To tell the simple truth,
not meaning to bother...
anyone D?az Ordaz wants
to destroy...
science and culture.
It's true that thousands...
of students took part.
But it was interesting to see...
the presence of, let's say...
pseudo revolutionary elements...
in particular, militants...
of international trotskyism...
spartacist and maoist groups...
with ties to the US Embassy.
University classrooms were renamed...
Mao Tse-tung and
Che Guevara.
Demonstrations were presided by...
pictures of Che Guevara,
Ho Chi-min...
just like they did in Paris.
To us, in any aspects
it was...
an extra logical copy.
October 2, 1968.
300 tanks and 6 thousand soldiers...
surrounded the Tlatelolco Square.
In a few hours, they fired
against students...
women and children.
The government of the
frozen Revolution with...
orders from its
President, Gustavo D?az Ordaz
and his Secretary of
State, Lu?s Echeverr?a...
assassinated in one
afternoon 400 persons.
To make sure the glorious Olympics
were never forgotten
the government had
400 comrades killed
Alas, Tlatelolco Square
how your bullets hurt me
400 hopes
snatched away by treason
What do the grenadiers do
when they go home?
Do they love their women
with bloodied hands?
Those stains don't come off
with soap and water
I ask you, grenadier
what will you use to wash them off
Students walk
with the truth in their eyes
Nothing will stop them
Neither flowers, nor bullets
They bring to their dead
actions, not words
So that this Mexican land
is never forgotten
the government had
400 comrades killed.
The revolution in Latin
America will be socialist or
will it be a parody of the revolution.
Che Guevara.
Mexico is preparing for a new election
50 million inhabitants,...
a fifth of the population
cannot read or write.
This is the retinue of Luis Echeverr?a,
candidate presidential...
in a caravan 62 vehicles...
three hundred people
and thousands of posters
travels to far-off in
the country in this land
His campaign costs Mexico
many millions of dollars.
Last every 6 years, the President
chooses his successor.
The government party make him candidate...
and he wins with
more 85% of the votes.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party
known as the PRI,...
sole inheritor of the slogans
of the Revolution 1910...
has never lost an election...
and obvious it won't lose this one.
He promised land distribution.
The Revolutionary phraseology,
the demagoguery and deception,...
cascade down over Mexicans.
Long live Echeverr?a!
Long live!
One must believe, one has to be...
this candidate will,
at last long last...
make dream of the Revolution
a living reality.
So, we say with
Luis Echeverr?a...
with the Constitution and
the Revolution...
upwards and forwards!
The youth from the
Mezquital Valley...
to whom the Mexican Revolution...
has given the opportunity
to have an education...
finds in you the man...
who will push forward...
the development and the
liberation of women.
We believe with you as President...
Mexican women will have
a greater opportunity...
to broaden their horizons,
and stop...
being just man's companion...
or the indispensable person
at home.
Party comrades in Actopan...
and this whole region.
If our party were seriously
concerned...
about the outcome of
this election...
if our opponents...
truly represented...
an electoral threat,
may this signify...
the people's renewal
of its faith...
on the government
of the Revolution.
And from the future
government of the Revolution...
this offering made by the people...
not only of its vote
but of...
the highest and most
enthusiastic cooperation...
which springs from its faith
in the future.
Thank you very much, comrades...
from Actopan, for this welcome.
We will study all the
problems of the region...
and we will strive...
passionately to resolve
them.
Long live the PRI!
Long live the candidate
of the Revolution!
Long live the
Mexican Revolution!
The Mexican Revolution was the...
first great revolution
of the 20th century.
One of the most desperate.
There was hunger for bread,
hunger for land,
hunger for justice and freedom.
Mexico was an enslaving
and feudal society...
where 1% of the population...
owned 97% of the land.
Mexican Revolution was soon betrayed.
MEXICO: THE FROZEN
REVOLUTION
I heartily salute
my compatriots...
from the land of
Felipe Angeles...
the artillery man of the Revolution.
Mexico's history has been...
a struggle for
ideological freedom...
which now is fully
consolidated.
The task is to produce
more wealth...
and to distribute it...
in a revolutionary sense.
I've come to Hidalgo
to tell you...
on behalf of the
Mexican Revolution...
that the principles of the Revolution,
its ideas...
its team of men,
in constant...
renovation, are
powerful enough...
to allow us, with an
undisputable...
electoral victory...
to press ahead rapidly.
A moment ago I told...
the people with whom...
I discuss these matters...
how right was the
Mexican Revolution.
In 1876, Porfirio D?az
took power.
He consolidated the control
of the land...
by a small, despotic
aristocracy.
It was Porfirio D?az
who opened Mexico...
to Anglo-American investments.
Mexico began to play
a new role...
as a semi colonial country.
In 1910, after 35 years
of brutal dictatorship...
Francisco I. Madero led...
an insurrection against D?az.
The conditions for a
revolution were the right ones.
The rebellion burned the whole country
Rebel groups recruited
expert marksmen...
and the best horsemen.
until form guerrillas that
ended up defeating the army.
In 7 years, that bloody
struggle left...
more than a million dead.
Please, what's your name?
Carlos S?nchez Col?n.
- How old are you?
- 73.
Did you take part
in the Revolution?
Yes, I did.
- When did you join in?
- 1911.
Tell me Mr. Carlos, What did you fight for?
For the lands. Now we...
see them and they are ours.
What did you have before?
We had nothing. We had to work...
for the hacienda, as laborers.
Now we work the land...
with our own hands.
Were you with General Zapata?
In his troops, not with him.
Let me tell you, it's one thing...
to be with him,
with the High Command...
and another to be
with other chiefs...
fighting for the same cause.
What cause was that?
What were you looking for
in the Revolution?
To expel the hacienda owners.
Why?
For the lands we now own.
Why did you want
to expel the landowner?
Because we were his slaves...
and now we are free.
Aren't we free now?
Porfirio Diaz
But the overall fall of Porfirio D?az...
wasn't enough for the peasants...
who wanted to overthrown
his feudal regime as well.
When Porfirio Diaz was defeated,
Francisco I. Madero...
entered the capital on June 7, 1911...
as the undisputable leader
of the Revolution.
Behind him, there was
a coalition of individuals...
who only knew one another...
and didn't share an ideology.
Lacking an ideological
tradition...
they had no links to
a universal philosophy.
Of the many groups at the time...
only the agrarians in the South...
were sure much of their aim.
Their leader was Emiliano Zapata.
How did people call you?
- The Attilas of the South.
- Why, tell me?
We stole cows,
raped women.
We were the worst for
the government at the time.
Since Don Francisco I. Madero...
didn't deliver the distribution
of lands and waters and mountains, then...
we protested against him...
until victory or death.
Madero was just a reformist
anxious to make moderate measures
But the oligarchy feared
and hated him.
A counterrevolution
was organized...
and General Huerta assassinates
President Madero in 1913.
Huerta set up a
Neo-Porfirista dictatorship.
The struggle going on.
In the North,
General Venustiano Carranza...
led the true the
Army of the Constitution...
against the ruling clique.
The same time, Pancho Villa,
General Obreg?n and Emiliano Zapata...
fought against
the same enemy.
The people, when they
learned of...
the Plan of Ayala, started
coming in groups to us...
and they gave us
all kinds of help...
and food, anything we asked.
The government came hard
after us.
They killed many peaceful people...
because they helped us...
they hanged them, and that
favored us a lot...
because there were entire towns...
that went over to us.
Zapatismo became the most
important and famous agrarian...
movement of the Revolution.
The peasants found in Zapata
the possibility of expressed...
their demands of
land and liberty.
In the North, Pancho Villa's men
rioted to the countryside.
They were cowboys, new guys
railway workers...
the Villistas lacked
definite class interests.
Pancho Villa himself was
half political leader, half bandit.
Pancho Villa told them
at a meeting:
Tomorrow morning
we'll take Torre?n.
Generals, get ready
the artillery
cavalry officers
and infantry men.
Saddle up my Seven Leagues
to go to Torre?n
even if they're devils
we'll take the town.
I'm going to sing a "corrido"...
about a friend of my land
his name was Valent?n...
he was shot and hanged on the sierra.
I'd rather forget.
It was a winter afternoon
when for his bad luck
Valent?n fell in the hands
of the government.
This is the song
of a brave man
who was Valent?n.
With the fall of the cities of Torre?n
and Zacatecas, Huerta's regime collapsed.
General Carranza entered
the capital...
on 20 August, 1914.
But the Revolution was greatly divided.
Pancho Villa continued
his rebellion...
and Zapata refused to recognize
Carranza.
The country was in chaos.
A bloody faction struggle
engulfed the nation.
On December 6, 1914,
the forces of Pancho Villa and
Emiliano Zapata occupied the capital.
Never was The Mexican
Revolution more popular.
But this demonstration of...
the people will went nowhere.
Spontaneity isn't enough
to consolidate power.
Now more than ever, the absence
of a program...
influenced the outcome.
The Revolution
was stillborn.
If the great masses do not have as their
objective the transformation of society,
they fail in the seizure of power.
The Bourgeoisie that does
have an ideology, awaits its turn.
Emiliano Zapata
Pancho Villa
Carranza orders
divisions and,...
the General Obreg?n into actions
against Pancho Villa.
Villa suffered a new defeat.
The new working class...
true support began in
Carranza and Obreg?n.
Later, in 1915, The World Worker House...
of anarchist roots,
even organized...
the Red Battalions,
to fight against Villa.
Mexico was devastated
by civil war.
Brother against brother...
hungry and epidemics
plague the countryside.
Alvaro Obregon
Venustiano Carranza was the true victor...
of the Mexican Revolution.
His ability to manipulate
political situations...
returned him to the Presidency.
With victory assured and previous
bourgeoisie rulers satisfied.
Carranza did little
the carry out land reform.
In 3 years, the government
distributed...
somethings less than
200 thousand hectares.
The workers who supported
Carranza in his quest for power,
now went on strike
and were brutally repressed.
The people remained hungry...
for bread, land and justice.
Venustiano Carranza - Alvaro Obregon
In the South, Zapata continued
the fight for land.
The government forces were losing
the battle against the guerrilla.
The only way to end Zapatism was to
assassinate Emiliano Zapata.
Don Venustiano Carranza...
gave orders to Pablo Gonz?lez...
chief of operations in Morelos...
to kill general Emiliano Zapata...
by whatever means.
They planned a shameful
act of treason.
It was a plan they
had beforehand, because...
Jes?s Guajardo ordered
to pursue Zapata in...
the hills, but there
they could never kill him.
So they arranged for...
Guajardo to surrender to Zapata...
to see if that way
they could kill him.
We told him,
"General, they'll kill you".
He wouldn't listen to us.
"Hey you, go in front".
When he reached the portal,
he saluted...
two men who were on
the top floor.
A bugle was heard above
and when it sounded...
30 men stood up
behind a railing...
like this...
and shot Zapata.
He got two shots here...
the horse was hit on the leg...
7 bullets on the poor horse.
Zapata still managed
to pull the reins...
the horse stood on two legs...
but in the air Zapata expired...
and fell sideways.
The struggle was for land, water...
justice and freedom.
What do you have now?
Land, freedom and justice
when...
they feel like it.
If they don't, they don't.
But whose lands are really these?
- The government's.
- Why?
Because it owns them.
The government owns the land.
We just borrow them,
to sustain ourselves.
The Mexican Revolution
did in fact redistributed...
the land among the peasants,
but in an unequal.
50% of the people don't have land.
The rest of them 3.5 million
work the lands of others.
The government didn't give them
irrigation, nor machinery,
technical assistance or agriculture
co-produced and organized.
But the peasants continue to work...
with the primitive
methods, the 5 hectares
scarce that the
Revolution gave them.
In the Southeast, in Yucatan...
nothing there
is worse than the
conditions of the 500
thousand Mayan Indians.
Nothing remains of the
great Maya Empire.
In Palenque, the jungle
covers everything.
Temples and palaces,
imprisoned by...
foliage, half submerged
by a sea of vegetation.
The drama, the beauty and
the spirit of greatness...
of the Maya are preserved
in superb bas-reliefs.
In Chichen-Itza, the Maya
transported...
statues and capstones with
ropes sisal hemp.
With that fiber they made traps...
strong bows, wove nets...
and bound their prisons.
Yucatan is a great
desert of limestone land...
where it is only possible to grow
"henequen", the sisal fiber normal is hemp.
In 1875, sisal rope was used...
as twine in grain-harvesting.
Grain-harvesting machines ate up...
millions of meters of rope.
The low prices paid by
US companies...
for the rope could only
be maintained...
paying slave wages...
to Mayan peasants.
In 1900 the International Harvester Co.
was organized by Morgan Bank...
and became the principal buyer of henequ?n.
The first move of this monopoly...
was to lower still
further the price henequ?n.
The landowners to were
as chained to imperialism...
as their own slaves.
Here, as in all haciendas...
there was slavery
in the time...
of Porfirio D?az,
during the "Porfiriato".
And here, mister
Gregorio Tzul...
was one of those slaves.
This man was a slave.
He says there was the time
the "fajina".
They didn't get paid.
There were haciendas where
the "fajina" took...
place in the morning and the afternoon.
One worker was
hanged on a tree...
with rope...
until he said, "there isn't any"...
they didn't bring him down.
When the Revolution triumphed,
Alvarado came.
And then there was justice...
to put an end to slavery.
There was no more slavery.
But for Don Gregorio Tzul
slavery has not ended.
He's 73 years old and he still works...
so as not to die of hunger.
My name is Antonio L?pez
Hern?ndez.
I was born in Yucatan.
My life has been tough.
because I was orphaned while to small
I began to work selling...
newspapers, shining shoes...
struggling to live while I grew up
When I was 28,
I started to make a home...
and I my search for a wife.
So far, we've had
11 children.
9 are alive, 2 died.
- This tortilla is from yesterday?
- Yes.
- There's nothing else?
- Nothing.
Buy sugar or coffee,
or something.
How can I buy anything?
There's no money.
With stones, if we don't
have money!
Maria, take this to the mill,
so that Don Daniel will grind it.
Take it.
Tell them grind it up fast.
It's late.
Nicely ground. And fast.
I've worked here
24 years.
We all have 4 hectares.
Of course, while the family go
largest those 4 hectares stay the same.
So when more us,
are the less we earn.
We live in misery.
There's not enough
to keep us alive.
It's a miracle that
we're still here.
There's enough to eat,
even there is not enough to wear.
We can't have both clothes and food.
The federal government
wants us to believe...
that we own the land,
but we only have the land,
not its produce.
We can't go on that way.
There must be a radical change completely.
We have to erase the present...
and start all over,
with a new system.
I remove Juan and put another, but I remove
them and I put them and I manage them
There had to be a new
organization, a new system
The system that exists
today is already old.
Nothing but high-ranking
politicians have had results.
At the end of the first World War,
the henequen...
from Yucatan was rob and
transplanted to Kenya and Tanganyika.
The monopolists preferred to cultivate
it in a land where men were poorer...
and more enslaved even than in Yacatan.
When Agrarian Reform
came to Yucatan...
the landowners apparently divided
their great properties...
and registered them under the
names members of family or friends.
This also happened
in the rest of the country.
For us from the field...
the only thing that came from
the revolution was a slogan:
"Land for the peasants".
We work the land, but we
don't share in its product.
He who works the land did not
get the benefit of the revolution.
We haven't seen it.
We break the back to 5 AM
to 2 PM...
and never get more than
beans and tortillas.
And the revolution that had
been to planed has been betrayed.
It is frozen. Completely frozen.
In the evening we only eat
tortillas and coffee.
We don't have breakfast.
At noon we do get food.
Maybe one or two eggs
for the family.
Sometimes my husband says:
"Let the children eat.
I'll just have a little
flour meal".
He eats and goes to work.
Give me the tortillas, woman,
for my lunch.
Here you are.
Eat, son. Eat.
Don't you want to eat?
I'm the one that must go hungry.
That's my lot.
I go hungry some days, but I live in peace.
If I filled my stomach...
one of the kids would die.
What peace could I have?
- Good morning.
- Good morning.
I wonder if you can do me
a service.
Loan me 20 pesos.
Antonio, 2 days ago
I gave you a loan.
I can't give you more.
My situation is pretty serious.
I do this for a living.
Next week you can discount
what I owe you...
and then you lend me some
for the following week.
If things get a little better,
I'll pay off my debt.
What I get now is not enough
to live on.
Just to avoid dying of hunger.
What will you do?
Discount it and then
you lend me some more...
for next week and so on...
until things get better.
We must find a solution
to life.
OK, I'll give you 20 pesos.
Thank you very much, Iv?n.
I'll pay you back next week.
I'm going to write them down.
Do you think
government policy is wrong?
From what we can see...
the way it is acting...
we do believe it is wrong.
They don't grant us
free trade, the freedom...
to sell our hemp
to whomever we choose.
One is forced...
to go through them.
Even if you process it elsewhere,
you have to...
go to them, because nobody
else buys it.
If you have your little
sisal hemp...
and you scrap,
de-fiber and pack it...
you put it on a truck and say:
"I'll sell it in Campeche"...
the police will stop you
at the check point.
They started dealing it.
To the poor peasants
they said...
the land was theirs...
but it turns out they get nothing.
They got good money.
You can see...
they improved their
palaces, their houses...
they party big time...
they have nice cars.
The poor peasant sees that
and says:
"Am I going to work hard...
for others to enjoy? I don't think so.
I'll work half a day,
no more".
They keep seeing the same and say:
"We'll work only 3 hours.
We'll go through it
as quickly as we can".
That's why they say that...
poor peasants aren't good workers.
The decadent oligarchy still
preserves the French palaces
built by the bourgeoisie
in times of Porfirio D?az.
This family,
which previously on 21 haciendas.
Today has they only 14.
The aristocracy weeps
for times gone by.
Before, it was very nice,
we often went...
to the haciendas, we really
loved the people...
we took their children...
to be baptized. They loved us.
All our domestic staff
came from the haciendas.
There never were ill feelings
between us.
Quite the contrary.
Here we never had that race thing.
It was all the same to us to sit...
with an Indian or a White.
That thing they had in the USA...
we never had it here.
Thank God.
They never were despised?
Never. They never felt
bad or anything.
We had very nice stays...
in the haciendas, we had
good horses...
we went with our friends.
Why don't you go now?
They're very sad now.
Their life is over.
Now it's only the indispensable
for them not to die of hunger
that's the work we give them...
we can't afford to pay more.
Sisal hemp has gone down
in price...
because of the synthetic fibers.
Now they have those things...
that didn't exist before.
Before, every cord or rope...
had to be made of hemp.
How are the Maya workers like?
A bit lazy, young man.
They have good taste.
The heat overwhelms
anybody.
Who wants to work
in this heat?
That's why they work
early in the morning...
until 11:30, 12 o'clock.
How do you see the future
in Yucatan?
I've better not think about it...
or I'll get hysterical!
That bad?
Terrible. If you don't
have what to live with...
outside the haciendas,
you starve to death.
A woman who doesn't have
a small house...
or a son who already works,
because sons...
don't manage the haciendas anymore.
Did the situation change...
at the time of C?rdenas, for example?
With C?rdenas it was then that when
things started going bad for us in Yucatan.
Hemp was grown only
in Yucatan.
C?rdenas began to
take it out of the...
big henequen haciendas.
The oligarchy will never forgive...
President C?rdenas to bring
the Mexican Revolution...
and Agrarian Reform
to Yucatan.
During his administration,
almost 18 million
hectares were distributed
among the people.
And it tried to implement the
socialist policy in Yucatan.
But C?rdenas failed to organize the people
to destroy the power of the oligarchy
and the oligarchy appropriated the
revolution for itself.
- Did you vote against the PRI?
- Most of the peasants, yes.
Because they are seeing the reality.
In the elections, here in
Motul, it was found...
there were certain people...
close to the ruling party...
who had up to 3 or 4
ballots...
they could vote 4 times.
They're sure to win that way.
The people has lost even
its fear.
Yucatan is one of the most
interesting cases...
in Mexico's political life.
Like never before in any State,
the people...
decided to vote for the
opposition, for National Action (PAN).
This forced the PRI to
perform incredible acts...
which we thought had been
historically superseded.
For example, tampering
with the census...
stealing ballot boxes,
using the army...
to keep the people submissive...
to the imposition decided...
by the Governor.
What can you do?
They have no choice,
but to keep on enduring...
this situation
and see where it goes.
There's a saying:
"There's no evil that
lasts a hundred years...
or a body that endures it".
Nearly all great Mexican
fortunes are recent.
The new entrepreneurs in the cities
were not damaged by the revolution.
On the contrary, they benefited from it.
In 1925, the country was...
devastated by civil war.
There was death and
destruction everywhere.
Lines communication
were destroyed.
Mexico needed railroads,
housing, roads and industries.
The State contracted with private
companies for public works.
Generals and colonels of
the Revolution...
became influence peddlers.
Intermediaries between
the State and bourgeoisie.
Thus, from the revolutionary
ranks themselves,...
a new national bourgeoisie is born.
This is the new Mexican bourgeoisie
Adaptable and content.
They dream the North American dream.
Here there's conspicuous consumption...
cars, luxury apartments.
Investors, foreign entrepreneurs...
lend names...
merchants of every kinds,
lend speculators...
land buyers, corrupt officials;
this nascent bourgeoisie
is the most important base of...
support for the present government.
The bourgeoisie is the
one that drags and puts
other social classes at
the service of the regime.
Workers, peasants, middle class,
who do not participate
in the decisions of the government,
much less in the control of wealth.
Development has not meant better
standards of living for the population.
Only for a small privileged minority
that squanders the country's resources
on luxury items.
This increasing accumulation of capital
has caused a dramatic spread of poverty.
For 40 million Mexicans,
luck has worsened or is simply dire.
If the Mexican revolution
in the first 60 years
has not been able to
rescue the bulk of the
population from the
most atrocious misery,
how are we going to hope that in the
next 60 years the situation will improve?
The development thus conceived is inhuman.
The revolutionary
bourgeoisie did not solve,
does not solve,
and cannot solve any of
the fundamental problems.
To be called a revolutionary one
must end the exploitation of man by man
We must nationalize industries and banks,
we must end privilege,
we must distribute wealth,
we must carry out a Social Revolution.
In the South, near Guatemala.
The Indians live in misery.
Indian communities in Mexico have...
all the characteristics of a
colonial society.
In the area San Crist?bal
de las Casas, Chiapas...
a small group of "ladinos"
whites of Spanish ancestry
exploit the Indians,
economically and culturally.
The dispossession of land
from indigenous communities,
fulfills the purpose
of the Colonial Society.
Convert them into farmhand or wage-earning.
Indigenous people are excluded from
development, culture, politics.
They have arid lands,
rachitic animals...
unhealthiness, high infant mortality...
and illiteracy.
The "ladinos" promote
prostitution and...
alcoholism among
the Indians.
- What's your name?
- Miguel L?pez Panela.
- Where are you taking that wood?
- To San Crist?bal, to sell it...
to buy little salt, corn...
some beans...
and some "chicharr?n".
Some meat. That's all.
We can't speak,
we can't write.
I can't even write my name.
We have 3 daughters...
Dominga, Manuela...
and Mar?a.
We have to spruce up and
fertilize the "milpa".
I spend 3 months sprucing up
the land.
Sub-men, often drunk
with white alcohol...
Indians form part of the...
great group of the dispossessed.
11 million Mexicans
don't eat wheat bread.
9 million do not eat meat,
fish, milk, eggs.
8 million wear sandals.
5 million go barefoot.
23 million live in adobe or
wood huts...
without bathroom or running water.
Little.
We eat little.
We eat a bit of "pozol"...
some coffee and that's it.
Then to work.
It's that my mom is sick..
Her body and her head ache.
She can't walk
or carry firewood.
She can't put in the
fertilizer. Nothing.
We cut firewood...
with slit the machete,
with the ax.
That's something I know how
to do: Working.
We sell the firewood in
San Crist?bal de las Casas.
and I earn 2 pesos, three pesos
We cut it with the ax...
with the machete...
and the we carry it.
I carry it to San Crist?bal.
Some 18 kilometers.
It's very heavy.
L?pez Panela, an authority
among the Chamulan Indians...
is called to resolve arguments
in San Juan Chamula.
Because, the Indians don't
confident the white authorities.
We hope the woman comes.
She may come tomorrow.
She comes today and
the donkey is detained.
My husband went to work...
in the coffee plantations...
six months ago.
Some whites took him away
and he never came back.
My mother cries
bitterly for this situation.
What am I going to do
without my husband?
The Chamula children learn
Spanish.
Horse!
Chicken.
Turkey.
Chicken.
Cat.
Here we have a boy.
Boy.
This boy has hands...
feet and head.
Head.
Hair.
How many ears does he have?
Two.
The boy has...
what is this?
Hair.
Two hands, five fingers.
Add them up and there are 10 fingers.
What is this?
Hand.
What is this?
Jacket.
What is this?
Shirt.
Button.
What are we?
Chamula Indians.
This is the State of Chiapas.
This is the Mexican flag.
Three colors.
Green, white and red.
Pole.
This boy salutes the flag Mexican.
Our Mexican flag.
God Almighty, I ask you...
for the health of the Chamulas.
Don't forsake us,
your children...
who are so poor and
so needful of your help.
We need to eat.
We ask you for a good harvest
let there be no draught or lack of water.
Don't let the whites
harm us.
May all the saints bless our
homes and our work.
May we be happy.
We are ignorant,
we are blind.
We know we live on this land, but...
we know nothing of the government.
We work the land...
because that is our lot in life
and they gave us this piece of land...
to work, to sustain ourselves.
But only the men in
government know...
how they do their business.
We just work, we don't know
how or when.
The PRI exercises absolute
control of the country.
Long live Echeverr?a!
This crowd of peasants are carried
to party meeting in government trucks.
They are not allowed to refuse.
The press and all the information
are controlled.
Any agitation in the countryside...
is brutally suppressed
and the silence is absolute.
The peasant says to himself:
"I'm not going to lose my job
by of some fucking elections.
Anyway, the PRI will win".
The party was transformed
the revolution...
into a firm and immovable
institution,...
reaches the farthest
corners of the country.
In Amatenango del Valle there are...
3179 Tzeltal Indians...
dedicated almost exclusively...
to the production of artisan pottery.
They have never seen the lands
that the Revolution promised them,
remain in the hands
develop "ladino".
Once every 6 years,
around the elections time...
the party arrives to put up
its farce...
to welcome the candidate.
They prepare the food, the beer,
the orchestra...
and wallpaper the town pictures
of a man they have never seen,...
who will be the deputy every town.
The PRI has finally created an
ideology the ideology of the poster.
The poster offers the
possibility of being seen...
when the candidate arrives.
Perhaps tomorrow the political
boss will say:
"You has been a good boy, Fern?ndez...
I saw you raise your poster".
Those who do not attend they combat them,
they segregate them.
The poor man does
not participate who cannot...
explain his absence, who
soon returns to the fold.
Distinguished Mexicans of
Amatenango del Valle...
you are Mexicans with
the same rights...
that all Mexicans have.
The Mexican Revolution,
the Revolution of...
Obreg?n, Carranza,
Zapata...
Villa, is carried out by...
the economically weaker...
like you.
Its goal is to have less poor
people...
and that the rich become less rich.
We are saddened when we see
shoeless children.
We are embittered to know that...
they don't have their daily bread.
That they don't have schools.
That they don't have sanitation.
My role won't be
to solve these problems...
but to oversee that other...
authorities do solve them.
Those who attend
get a notebook...
those who don't,
don't get anything.
The long arm of the PRI
reaches the most humble hut.
The conditions of the rural
population in our country...
are defective right from a...
nutritional point of view.
First of all, their
diet is poor...
in proteins, rather than
in calories.
There's a protein
malnutrition.
The amount of proteins...
the people eat is less...
than the recommended amount...
but the worst part is that
those proteins...
are of bad quality,
because they don't have...
proteins of animal origin.
Mexican diet is basically
made up of...
of maize, beans...
some fruit and some pulse...
but basically maize.
The people eat 400 grams...
of maize per day, per person...
and that is the poorest food...
you can have
anywhere in the world.
Almost as poor as what
you can get...
from any herb in the fields.
The working class, that once
organized the Red Battalions...
to fight in the Revolution...
now is another base support
for the government.
Attendance at the May Day demonstration...
is obligatory.
Those who don't attend
are marked as absent and punished.
Unions can't oppose...
any official government policy.
President Diaz Ordaz
Fidel Velazquez
Secretary General CTM
Mexican unions are
free...
democratic, self-determined...
in its internal life, with a
magnificent relationship...
with the regime of
the Revolution.
A group of corrupt leaders prototype
of treacherous has taken control...
of the unions,
and once inside...
they have defended the
policies of the ruling bourgeoisie.
The Popular Socialist Party,
founded...
by Vicente Lombardo Toledano...
as a Marxist-Leninist party...
fights to strengthen
the State economy...
that makes it possible to advance...
to fight...
successfully, against
foreign pressure.
How do you justify
the support of a Marxist...
party for the candidacy
of Lu?s Echeverr?a?
Well, that's easy to explain
in the specific case of...
countries like ours...
that is, developing countries...
where North American imperialism...
bears upon the economic...
social and political life.
This tactical problem has been...
greatly discussed
within the...
working class parties.
We believe it is
possible, convenient...
necessary, in order to have...
a democratic advancement...
with independence
towards foreign countries...
and the unity of all forces...
which are patriotic, nationalistic...
progressive of a
evolutionary country...
as is the case in Mexico.
That's why our party
has promoted and applied...
a historical experience
of the Mexican people:
The national front,
patriotic and democratic.
That's why we find in the candidacy
of Echeverr?a, fundamental...
coincidences in terms of program...
with the electoral platform
of our party...
and he also publicly
accepted...
our party's nomination and...
stated that he had
fundamental coincidences.
The rest of the
Mexican Left in illegality...
working underground and
is tiny and divided.
It does not take advantage of
historical opportunities,
because it has not known how to overcome
its petty bourgeois opportunism.
Maoists, communists,
trotskyists, spartacists...
Promos quo-prochain, the vanguard
must emerge from the struggle itself.
The student movement of '68
reveals the flaws of the system...
and opens a stage of popular struggles.
For the first time in 40 years,
the unity of workers and students
frightens the Government
of the Frozen Revolution,
which it's brutally represses.
The PRI found a new law
in suppression.
The students were the
consciousness...
of a tortured people.
The image of the regime
as a stable democracy...
was destroyed by
the bazookas and tanks.
We won't back down,
we'll accept the challenge...
and to cut a long story short...
Cueto can go fuck himself.
That repression,
so well known...
that even the corrupt press
had to retract.
Because the student says
we won't back down.
To tell the simple truth,
not meaning to bother...
anyone D?az Ordaz wants
to destroy...
science and culture.
It's true that thousands...
of students took part.
But it was interesting to see...
the presence of, let's say...
pseudo revolutionary elements...
in particular, militants...
of international trotskyism...
spartacist and maoist groups...
with ties to the US Embassy.
University classrooms were renamed...
Mao Tse-tung and
Che Guevara.
Demonstrations were presided by...
pictures of Che Guevara,
Ho Chi-min...
just like they did in Paris.
To us, in any aspects
it was...
an extra logical copy.
October 2, 1968.
300 tanks and 6 thousand soldiers...
surrounded the Tlatelolco Square.
In a few hours, they fired
against students...
women and children.
The government of the
frozen Revolution with...
orders from its
President, Gustavo D?az Ordaz
and his Secretary of
State, Lu?s Echeverr?a...
assassinated in one
afternoon 400 persons.
To make sure the glorious Olympics
were never forgotten
the government had
400 comrades killed
Alas, Tlatelolco Square
how your bullets hurt me
400 hopes
snatched away by treason
What do the grenadiers do
when they go home?
Do they love their women
with bloodied hands?
Those stains don't come off
with soap and water
I ask you, grenadier
what will you use to wash them off
Students walk
with the truth in their eyes
Nothing will stop them
Neither flowers, nor bullets
They bring to their dead
actions, not words
So that this Mexican land
is never forgotten
the government had
400 comrades killed.
The revolution in Latin
America will be socialist or
will it be a parody of the revolution.
Che Guevara.