Conclusion

The EZLN has at its heart the confrontation between Indian traditions of rebellion and self-organization, the influence of the militant Church, and the Guevarist-inspired model of guerrilla war against the state. This model, in its most successful phase of the early 1990s, fuzed with, but was not overcome by, the Indian tradition. The failure of the January 1994 uprising forced the EZLN to change its ideas and to an extent challenged its very organizational forms. Out of the crisis came both a commitment to a gradualist democratic change for Mexico and a deep confusion as to the future for the autonomous municipalities. The uprising had however expelled the influence of the PRI and hacendados from many areas of Los Altos, and the Zapatista villages set about reclaiming land and reorganizing their communities with enthusiasm. It is likely that a cadre still exists in the highlands, though they are not separate from, but rather a part of, the communities in struggle. The cadre role, however informal, along with that of specialized negotiators and mediators, is part of Zapatismo — roles which would obviously be overcome in a more radical social movement.

The Zapatistas are on the margins of a highly industrialized nation. Not proletarian, yet not entirely peasant, their political ideas are riven with contradictions. We reject the academics’ argument of Zapatismo’s centrality as the new revolutionary subject, just as we reject the assertions of the ‘ultra-left’ that because the Zapatistas do not have a communist program they are simply complicit with capital. However we are keen not to fall into the orthodox Marxist trap of dismissing this struggle as an unimportant peasant uprising. The Zapatistas may be marginal but we cannot deny them their revolutionary subjectivity.

Instead we see the Zapatistas as a moment in the struggle to replace the reified community of capital with the real human community. Their battle for land against the rancheros and latifundistas reminds us of aspects of capital’s violent stage of primitive accumulation, which, for billions, still continues — reminds us, in other words, of capital’s (permanent) transitions rather than its apparent permanence.

In their exclusion of caciques, PRIistas and alcohol we see a rejection of the state as it affects them, and in the new confidence of the armed Indians we see its replacement with self-organization. A crucial part of this self-definition is their refusal to lay down their guns, following in the best tradition of the original Zapatistas, and their refusal to allow state forces into their areas. By so doing they have avoided the possibility of recuperation by the PRI — the fate of so many worker, peasant and student struggles in twentieth century Mexico.

Moreover the racism which has done so much to bond this organized expression of class struggle has not been transformed into Indian nationalism, unlike the Black Power movements of 1970s America. Instead we see communication with Mexico and the rest of the world. The visiting delegations of striking UNAM students and electristas, the Consulta and the Encuentros — all are attempts to generalize their experience of struggle. In these moments of generalization, in the self-activity of the autonomous municipalities, we perceive the beginnings of a new world within the old.