Evening star., 1934-12-09


augurated administration in
Mexico will be largely deter
L mined by the extent to which
the government of Gen. Car
denas carries out the agrarian program
of ia Revolucion."
OF course, there are other major
problems confronting the new admin
istration, such as the educational ques-
ton. the church issue, the fulflllment
OF the six-year plan, etc. but, in the
end. it Is the land problem which will
decide the place the Cardenas regime
is to occupy in history. And the reason
for this is simple enough. The revolu-
ton itself-and by the revolution is
meant the social and political move
ment which began in 1910 with the
overthrow of the Diaz dictatorship,
and has continued to this day through
civil war and peace-wili be finally
measured by the change it forces in
the land system Of the country, where
the roots of most of the other problems
seem to converge.
The other consequences of the revolu-
ton are, really, incidental. As Frank
Tannenbaum, who has written the
most comprehensive and intelligent in
terpretation of it. declares, the destruc-
ton Of the old ruling class, the
weakening of the church, the awaken
ing of nationalism, the emergence of
racial consciousness, the rising power
of labor, the abolition of peonage, the
widening base of the government, with
the peasant and the city laborer added
as supports for social and political
power, all of these are by-products
whose meaning will, in the long run,
be determined by the altered social
structure that a change in the land
system involves.
Peon Kept in Debt.
After all, it was the demand for this
change that started the revolution
The Diaz dictatorship had increased
tremendously the injustices of the
plantation system, under which two
thirds of the Mexican population lived
virtually life of slavery. Although
the peon received wages and was,
therefore, theoretically free to take
himself and his services wherever he
wished, the wages were very nominal,
and paid in kind and credits from the
plantation store, with the result that
the peon was invariably and carefully
kept in permanent debt to the land
owner or "hacendado." and practically
enchained to the plantation for the
rest of his days.
Moreover, the plantation was not
an economic institution or business
enterprise built up by purchase and
capital saving. It was political in
Stitution, the fruit of the Spanish
Conquest, "the result of theft, robbery
and murder, of age-long conflict with
the neighboring villages" 1t was a
family heritage, unprogressive, sta
tionary, which permitted a small
group of privileged individuals to
live luxuriously in European capitals
at the expense of millions of ex-
plotted and downtrodden people. Un-
der Diaz this state of affairs reached
its height. The destruction of the
remaining "free villages" and their
absorption by the privately owned
plantations was frankly and openly
CllCUuIdScu ullucI tIlc l1llluCllCc VI d
philosophy of capitalism, individual
ism and material progress which
sought to supplant the traditional pat
tern of life and culture of the Indian
with more modern and apparently
more desirable system of 1arge-scale
private ownership, with large credits,
efficient production, competent util-
ization." BY 1910 only a fraction of
the rural population Of Mexico had
any land at all. The plantations held
more than 80 per cent of the inhab-
tied communities. There were nearly
$1,000 plantation communities as
against some $4,000 free villages.
But this policy of the Diaz dictator
ship, of rapid capitalistic develop
ment through the destruction Of the
last vestiges Of communal land, the
villages, and eventually the Indians
themselves, as Frank Tannenbaum
has put it, reckoned without the In
dians. To use his own words: When