El Machete on Zapata

This article from El Machete, the organ of the Communist Party of Mexico, originally appeared in its 159th edition of April 6, 1929, number 159; and was reprinted by Memoria: Revista de Crítica Militante. We thank Memoria for permission to translate and republish the article on the 146th anniversary of Zapata’s birth, and encourage you to support Memoria and the Center for Studies of the Labor and Socialist Movement (CEMOS). Since 2021, El Machete has been reborn as a publication of the Communist Party of Mexico.

Next April 10th marks the 10th anniversary of Zapata’s assassination. Fallen in the ambush by Pablo González, sanctioned by Carranza, Zapata concluded his long and bloody struggle with the sacrifice of his life. Now dead, the apostle of the earth has been included in official martyrology. Let us remember that even the current Minister of War, during his presidential campaign, went to Cuautla and promised to fulfill Zapata’s program. And how did he fulfill it?

The specters of Primo Tapia, Cardel, Francisco Moreno, and the hundreds of peasants who fell under the lead of the White Guards, the Federalists, or the Cristeros, paying for their thirst for land for the people, still rise, bleeding.

How the ruling petite bourgeoisie has forgotten its promises!

Now, after years, the figure of Zapata rises again before the masses, wrathful, terrible, covered in his blood, showing the way to all who fight and condemning all those who give up and betray the struggle for land.

Zapata, a product of the peasant class, with its inherent flaws, brave in his audacity, selfless in his sacrifice, calls for a new struggle. The peasant’s hour of in pas has not yet come. The land does not belong to him. The latifundia have barely been touched. The hunger for land, the hunger for bread, persists and brooks no delay.

Zapata, a symbol of the struggle for land, called on peasants to fight and organize the struggle. Zapata did not want the ejido of the viceroyal era, adored by the cunning and treacherous Mexican petite bourgeoisie. Zapata fostered in his generous heart the ideal of a land free of lords and masters.

Zapata is not dead! He lives on in every peasant who wants land and fights for it!