A WORLD TO WIN    #20   (1995)

The Peasant Uprising in Chiapas
by Meche Sierra Rojas

This issue of AWTW includes two articles and one statement on Mexico and the uprising in Chiapas that shook that country in January 1994. The first article, by Meche Sierra Rojas from Mexico, presents a valuable overview of the peasant uprising. Rojas draws important lessons from the uprising for developing the road to revolution in Mexico, arguing for the path of New Democratic Revolution against the illusory road of electoral democracy.

Second is the statement of the Committee of RIM which supports the uprising and stresses that the road to revolution in Mexico can only be developed under the leadership of a party that is armed with the scientific ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and that bases itself on the strategy of people's war, as is illustrated by the People's War in Peru led by the Communist Party there.

Finally, there are excerpts from an in-depth analysis by Isidro Serrano of the oppressive nature of Mexican society. Serrano shows how some of the seemingly "modern" features of the Mexican economy disguise its semi-feudal essence and explains the key role of agrarian revolution as part of an overall New Democratic Revolution led by the proletariat and its party. - AWTW

Thousands of Indian peasants rose up in arms on the 1st of January, 1994 in Chiapas, a state in southern Mexico, under the leadership of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional- EZLN). They seized the county seats of Ocosingo, Chanal, Las Margaritas, Altamirano and Oxchuc, as well as San Cristobal, the biggest city of this region of Los Altos and the Lacandon Jungle. They carefully protected the civilian population and the tourists, but they sacked the government offices and burned the papers they found there. They liberated 179 prisoners from the prison near San Cristobal, the majority of which were Indian peasants that had been unjustly imprisoned by the landlords and their government. They gave them the arms they found in the prison and called on them to join the rebellion. They declared that "the oppressor government's shops and stores will be opened so that the people of San Cristobal can take what they need." They sacked the National Bank of Mexico and burned a meeting place of the Cattle Ranchers' Association, a reactionary organization of the landlords in the region.

The uprising electrified the entire nation. Among the masses, especially the poorest masses, it was common to hear the comment, "if they come here, I'm joining". On the other hand, dismay predominated among the better-off strata, promoted by the mass media and the government, who didn't lose any time in charging that the Indian peasants of Chiapas were "foreign terrorists." The reporters from the main mass media received orders from their superiors not to mention the name of the EZLN, but rather to use terms like "transgressors of the law."

The federal army was not well prepared. There were reports in 1993 of the presence of guerrillas, which was used as an excuse to repress peasants. Nevertheless the government, which was in the final stages of approving the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada, wished to minimize the importance of the matter, so as not to harm the efforts to attract foreign investors. The Yankee embassy also maintained that there were no guerrillas, for the same reasons.

The federal army reacted with caution, in part because they didn't know how strong the peasant army was, but also because, although the EZLN wasn't going to be able to defeat the federal army with offensive actions, it was very possible that the rebellion might spread and there might be rebellions in other parts of the country. So the army first acted to isolate the rebellion.

The EZLN, on the other hand, pulled out of San Cristobal and attacked and laid siege to the military base at Rancho Nuevo, 25 km from the city. In their previous actions, they had the element of surprise and initiative in their favour, and they defeated the limited resistance of the police forces and the landlords' white guards (paramilitary groups). The peasants took away their weapons and in this way became better armed: although they had begun with some modern weapons that they had bought during their years of preparation, the majority of their weapons were old, small calibre guns used for hunting, and many fighters, including the new people that were joining the ranks of the Zapatista army, entered battle without a gun. Although at first they were able to penetrate the military base, the positional warfare involved in laying siege to it favoured the reactionary forces, which had the advantage of better arms and fortified positions.

Meanwhile, more than ten thousand federal army troops occupied San Cristobal and the main county seats and unleashed bloody repression of the people. In order to cover up their brutality, they prohibited the press from entering the zone. Although in general the EZLN troops retreated in the face of the enemy offensive, there was an important battle in Ocosingo. Some reporters photographed Zapatistas there who had been taken prisoner and then murdered, shot point blank in the back of the head. There were other reports of dead bodies that the army spirited away to try to hide their criminal assassinations, as well as reports of clandestine graves and various cases of torture. They bombed the civilian population near San Cristobal, and then the National Defence Secretary had the gall to deny it. When it came out that they had even bombed reporters from the national press, they said that it wasn't bombing, because they used missiles instead of bombs against the people! They "disappeared" various individuals and jailed peasants, including even some who were members of the official government party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional- PRI). During these military actions, the U.S. State Department issued a statement approving the measures taken by Salinas de Gortari, the president of the reactionary government in Mexico.

After occupying the small cities of the region, although the federal army carried out some "combing" operations, they didn't pursue the guerrillas in a serious way in the countryside, where the rebellion enjoys immense support among the population and the terrain also favours the rebel army. It wasn't going to be easy to finish off the guerrillas militarily in the countryside, and trying to do so could have destabilized the already shaky reactionary regime even more. So the government decided to declare a ceasefire on January 12, as various representatives of U.S. imperialism advised them to do. The EZLN also declared a ceasefire. Salinas demanded that the rebels turn in their guns, as a condition for having the talks. The EZLN, on the other hand, demanded recognition as a belligerent force. In the end there were talks between Manual Camacho Solís, the government-appointed "Peace Commissioner" and subcommander Marcos and other leaders of the EZLN, without the EZLN turning in guns and without the government recognizing them as a belligerent force. In June the Zapatistas rejected the government proposal in the negotiations and Camacho Solís resigned his post, but the government has named another commissioner who the EZLN has accepted, and there continues to be talk of more negotiations, although there has been nothing concrete so far.

The EZLN's political positions include the struggle for "Democracy, Liberty and Justice", and their "10 points": "work, land, housing, food, health, education, independence, liberty, democracy, justice and peace." In their communiques, a central demand has been "the resignation of the illegitimate government of Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the formation of a democratic transition government to guarantee clean elections in the entire country and on all levels of government." Their "revolutionary laws" include limiting agrarian property to 25 hectares (or 50 in some versions) of good quality land, expropriating the "big agricultural enterprises", price and wage controls by "a local price and wage commission... composed of freely and democratically elected representatives of the workers, people from the neighbourhoods, employers, merchants and authorities," and that foreign companies pay their workers the same wages they pay in their own countries, among other points.

Nevertheless, the true importance and meaning of what has happened in Chiapas can't be understood from only looking at the positions and communiques of the EZLN, which are similar on various points, to the positions of other political forces that haven't inspired the people nearly as much. The true importance of this movement lies, on the one hand, in that it is the just armed rebellion of the peasants and Indians, that has awakened the people and fanned the flames of rebellion throughout Mexico and has inspired and heartened the oppressed and revolutionary people throughout the world. The country will never be the same as it was before January 1st, and the most important change is the revolutionary awakening of the masses throughout the country. The importance of the Chiapas rebellion, on the other hand, lies in that it expresses and represents an intensification of a revolutionary situation that continues to develop, although unevenly, in the entire country.

THE END OF THE MYTH OF SOCIAL PEACE

It is important to learn the lessons of this just rebellion and to analyze the development of the revolutionary situation. It is a rapidly changing situation that requires more investigation and analysis. However, as an initial assessment, it can be said that the rebellion confirms five important conclusions.

The first lesson and a great achievement of the rebellion was that it demolished the myth of social peace. Before January 1st the media was full of propaganda about the marvels of the imperialist system: communism was dead; revolution was a thing of the past; Mexico was now leaving behind a decade of crisis; with the negotiation of NAFTA, the promotion of foreign investment and the privatization of state enterprises, they even told us that we were about to "become part of the first world." Reality was quite different. Imperialist modernization meant increasing misery for the great majority: half of the population is malnourished, the minimum wage is half of what it was in 1982, and there has been accelerated ruin and bankruptcy of peasants and small businesses. On the other hand, imperialist modernization policies also led to an enormous increase in foreign investment, weak growth of the economy and the outrageous accumulation of wealth by a handful of individuals. An example: in the last three years the number of Mexican multimillionaires in Forbes' list of the world's richest men has almost doubled, putting Mexico in fourth place in the world. The annual income of these 24 multimillionaires is greater than the total income of 40% of the national population. (And it should be kept in mind that in addition to these individuals, the richest members of the Mexican big bourgeoisie, the Mexican people are also exploited by the imperialists who take billions of dollars out of the country every year).

The growing misery of the majority and the outrageous accumulation of wealth by a few were expressed in the rebellion of the poorest and most oppressed, the Indian peasants of Chiapas. They entered into combat saying "Better to die fighting than die of dysentery." The Zapatista peasants say that "The people themselves said 'now, let's start now'. We don't want to keep suffering because we're dying of hunger." "Years and years have gone by like this. Because where we live, for a long time, I think since about 1974, we have been asking for land, housing, the construction of roads and rural clinics. But nothing has been accomplished. The only responses they give us are tricks, false promises and lies." Another peasant says, "We aren't going to give up our guns because we prefer to die fighting, with dignity, than die of cholera, of measles, or from repression by the landlords that make us live like pigs."

After January 1st, the politicians and mass media who had promised a little while ago that Mexico was going to "become part of the first world", found themselves obligated to "recognize" the injustice of the conditions of the peasants, the Indians and the poor in general and to admit that the "policies of the government" haven't been "adequate." Among the people, new hope for revolution has been born and their struggles are increasing. Yesterday it was said that revolution was a thing of the past. Today it's the happening thing. The lesson is that, however strong the ideological offensive of the reactionaries may be at any particular moment in time, the nature of the system inevitably provokes the rebellion of the masses.

THE LAND STRUGGLE

The second lesson is that the struggle of the peasants for land is still very important. The struggle for land was the main detonator of this rebellion, and the rebellion has also encouraged various land seizures in Chiapas and in other states. As one Zapatista says: "In these communities it's a miracle that the people are still alive, because families of seven or twelve people have survived from just a little plot of land, maybe a hectare, or half a hectare of infertile, uncultivable land. That's how our people have survived. And that's why we see and feel an urgency to have land in our hands, as peasants. We need that land... none of the Indian villages have got land. That's why we've been fighting for a plot of land for 30 or 40 years, but they don't ever give us anything. At the same time, we know about people that aren't peasants that have thousands of hectares of land where they feed cattle. That means its worth more to have hundreds of heads of cattle than to have hundreds of peasants. It means we're worth less than animals."

For a long time, a lot of the so-called "left" in our country has argued that, because of capitalist development, neither the struggle for land nor the peasants are very important as a revolutionary force and that semifeudalism no longer exists, or never did exist. It's true that there has been an important growth of bureaucrat capitalism, i.e., of capitalism subordinated to imperialism. Especially in the northern part of the country this has created a modern agriculture that appears to be predominantly capitalist in its internal relations. However, the basis for this sector is the peasant economy, which is still subjugated with semifeudal forms and which provides the more capitalist sector with a superexploited labor force and which is also exploited and oppressed with more openly semifeudal forms by the landlords and "caciques" (the reactionary landlord chieftains).

This is why, as Isidro Serrano analyzed in his 1991 pamphlet, Revolución agraria y semifeudalidad [Agrarian Revolution and Semifeudalism, key sections of which are reprinted in this issue - AWTW], "Taken as a whole, the system of exploitation in the countryside is predominantly semifeudal." Moreover, in the past, "ardent and ferocious legions have arisen from among the peasants that have ignited the entire country with the flames of revolution, while official society staggered with shock and fear. They tell us that this is all a thing of the past; Mexico is no longer an agricultural country; much of the land has already been divided up; now everything is capitalist (or a "mixed economy"); now the peasants are only a sector that can either provide the [ruling] PRI with captive audiences or the opposition with votes.

Those who think this are mistaken. There are innumerable signs that indicate that the country is approaching a decisive moment once again. The downtrodden will arise again from the shadows and in their ranks the bitter cry from the countryside will be heard once more. If the revolutionaries know how to act correctly, that cry will herald a new revolutionary storm, and the peasants, in firm unity with their proletarian brothers in the city, will finally find their own voice in the melody of people's war."

The armed rebellion in Chiapas has confirmed these conclusions, as well as emphasizing the revolutionary potential of the land struggle. The growth of bureaucrat capitalism has not lessened the importance of the struggle for land: on the contrary, it has sharpened that struggle by taking away the best lands from the peasants and accelerating their impoverishment and ruin. Here it is worth mentioning the best contribution of the EZLN's agrarian law: "The big agricultural enterprises will be expropriated..." This shows how the growth of bureaucrat capitalism in the countryside has not eliminated the revolutionary struggle for land and has been creating a firmer material basis for consciousness on the part of the peasants of the need to struggle, not only against the landlords and caciques, but also against the big bourgeoisie and imperialism. Although the EZLN's program doesn't reach the point of calling for confiscating the property of the imperialists, big capitalists and landlords, which is necessary for the New Democratic Revolution, their demand against the big agricultural enterprises is the fruit of repeated experiences on the part of the peasants, who have found that even when they are able to take back part of the land, it doesn't help them much without the means to make it produce, which are concentrated more and more in the hands of the big capitalists and landlords.

THE REBELLION OF THE INDIANS AND OF THE WOMEN

The third lesson is the revolutionary potential of the indigenous peoples and of women. Among those who call themselves revolutionaries here, as in other countries, there is no lack of those who consider women and Indians to be a great mass of backward elements, without understanding, as Mao shows us, that oppression breeds resistance, and that the great oppression suffered by Indians and women leads to a great rebellion on their part.

The rebellion in Chiapas has awakened the consciousness and rebellion of people all over Mexico. As one Indian woman in another state commented: "I feel as if I were asleep and then I woke up." It has also helped many mestizos raise their consciousness regarding the oppressive situation faced by the Indians.

There are about 56 indigenous groups in Mexico, distinguished by their languages. Some of the Indians also speak Spanish, while others, especially among the women, don't. Although they are only about 10% of the population, they are concentrated in the mountains and in Mexico's southern states, so that they are the majority in various regions. The zone controlled by the EZLN is almost completely Indian, including Tzeltals, Tzotsils, Tojolobals, Chols and others. The Indian struggle is principally a peasant question. They face ruthless semifeudal oppression exercised by the caciques and landlords, as well as general discrimination and racist ideas that have a lot of influence among the mestizo population.

The EZLN poses the demand for regional autonomy. A Zapatista explains that "We think that we have to have our Indian people. There are many ways. But it could be in a very simple way. As Indians we believe and feel that we have the capacity to determine our own destiny. There's really no need for them to take us by the hand. As mature people, as conscious people, we can determine our own destiny, we can govern our own people. We believe that our people are capable of governing themselves because our people know how, and they think... As Indians we need our own autonomy, we need that identity, that dignity." It is correct and necessary to establish regional autonomy, with regional governments for the various Indian groups, in the context of overthrowing the reactionary State and establishing the People's Republic in Mexico as a whole.

Women have won an important role for themselves in the Zapatista rebellion. With the growing ruin of the traditional peasant economy, peasant women, out of necessity, have begun to participate more in production and commerce outside of the home, as day workers, in the sale of handicrafts and in other activities. The sale of handicrafts produced by women has also become an important source of cash for many peasant households in Chiapas and elsewhere. These economic changes have been the basis for an advance in the participation and rebellion of women in political life, among other changes.

Commander Ramona comments, in Tzotzil translated by a friend, "Women are also living in a difficult situation, because women are even more exploited and oppressed. Why? Because for so many years, for 500 years, the women haven't had the right to speak, to participate in an assembly. They don't have the right to an education nor to speak in public nor to have any position in their village. No. The women are completely oppressed and exploited. We get up at three in the morning to prepare the corn and from then on we don't have any rest until everybody else has gone to sleep. And if there isn't enough food, we give our tortilla to the children, to the husband." Another woman combatant says that in the EZLN men and women take equal part in the fighting, "we're mixed together and we don't have problems with the men. They treat us as friends and there's equal respect for everybody and we share all the work." She got married in the mountains. She doesn't have children in order to be in the struggle and she uses contraceptives. Couples get together without any ceremony at all and they only have to report it to the leadership "so that everybody knows." "I began because of my consciousness, in order to fight for the poor, because it isn't right that the children keep dying. I participated in the battles of Ocosingo and when the enemy came I felt a lot of anger, a desire to kill, to scream with rage and give it to them so that they would be humiliated like they have humiliated us for so long."

THE REVOLUTIONARY SITUATION

The fourth lesson is that a revolutionary situation with uneven development exists all over Mexico. The Chiapas rebellion isn't the product of "regional backwardness", as the ruling classes' media try to convince us is the case. Rather, it is a particularly sharp expression of the revolutionary situation that already existed in Mexico before January 1st. The great care with which the government has dealt with the situation in Chiapas is due to their understanding of the possibility of the rebellion spreading to other places. In fact, the Chiapas rebellion has contributed a great deal to the intensification of the revolutionary situation on a national level (although it has still not reached the point of a revolutionary crisis in which the objective conditions would exist to be able to take power in the country as a whole.)

In spite of the ceasefire, the mass movements in Chiapas and throughout the country have continued to develop, with various land seizures, incidents in which the masses have beaten up landlords and caciques, an increase in the number of marches and demonstrations in many places as well as in the number of participants, street fights with the cops on various occasions in the national capital and greater awakening, struggle and debate among the masses in general. There are also persistent rumours of efforts to organize armed groups in other states.

The basis for the revolutionary situation is the crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system, the crisis of the system of imperialism, bureaucrat capitalism and semifeudalism in Mexico. Imperialist modernization is part of the cause, and in no sense the solution, to this crisis. The rebellion in Chiapas began the same day that the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect, and this was not just a coincidence. As has already been mentioned, the great influx of imperialist capital into Mexico in recent years, in spite of achieving some limited economic growth after a decade of stagnation, has only increased polarization between a small strata of the well-to-do and the great mass of poor people. Competition with this imperialist capital and their Mexican big bourgeois associates is driving millions of peasants as well as broad sectors of the urban petty and middle bourgeoisie into ruin.

In addition to this economic and social crisis, there is a crisis in the form of the State: the corporativist system is falling apart. In this system the PRI uses electoral fraud to monopolize the principal government posts and controls the masses with crumbs distributed through PRI organizations of workers, peasants, and other sectors. It has served the imperialists, big capitalists and landlords well for more than 60 years, but it is now in crisis. A large part of the masses doesn't believe in the "PRI-government" anymore, and a certain spirit of rejecting bribes has arisen. As one Zapatista peasant says: "we're not picking up our guns now to ask for a piece of candy like before, or that they give us money or a hat to cover our eyes... We're not asking the government for a piece of candy or a piece of bread or a T-shirt, like it has always been in the past."

There are sharp splits in the ruling classes, especially over what to do in the face of this crisis of their corporativist regime. One section continues to insist on keeping the PRI in power, with a bit of "democratic" cosmetics. Another section of the big bourgeoisie advocates electoral democracy and the parties taking turns in power, since they are convinced that the present corporativist governmental system doesn't work well anymore to control the masses. Then too, quite a few members of the ruling classes have been cut out of the action by government policies that have benefitted a very narrow circle in recent years.

These internal disputes among the ruling classes reached the point of assassination of the PRI presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, in March. There is quite a bit of evidence, including videotapes, that indicate that various individuals participated in the assassination and that it was very possibly perpetrated by people from the PRI itself. However, there has been a coverup orchestrated from the highest levels of the government. Several jokes are going the rounds on the street that finger Salinas de Gortari as the mastermind of the assassination. Whatever the case, this assassination is an expression of very sharp struggle in the ranks of the ruling classes.

More recently, the PRI and Yankee imperialism have made a lot of noise about the supposed "triumph of democracy" in the August elections, in which the PRI presidential candidate, Ernesto Zedillo, was declared the winner. In reality, in spite of the broad use of pressure and bribes to get the people to vote for the PRI, according to the crooked official figures Zedillo only received votes from about a third of the voting age population. Another third voted for the bourgeois opposition parties, mainly the PAN and the PRD, and the remaining third didn't participate in the reactionary system's elections. The elections haven't solved anything. The fights among the ruling classes continue: for example, the Secretary General of the PRI, Jose Ruiz Massieu, was assassinated in September, apparently by other members of the PRI. On the other hand, there are new land seizures, conflicts and declarations of autonomy in different parts of Chiapas and the peoples' protests are increasing all over the country.

POLITICAL POWER GROWS OUT OF THE BARREL OF A GUN

The fifth lesson is that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. The peasants of Chiapas weren't able to achieve anything through nonviolent struggle. As they themselves explain: "the basis of our struggle is the situation that has arisen among our people who have struggled nonviolently for a response from the government. This is how many villages have struggled, for land, for housing, for everything that each village needs. But instead of solving our problems the response from the government has been repression, beatings, assassinations, evictions, the jailing of our leaders. So we decided that there was no other way except to get organized and rise up in armed struggles as we have done."

Why is this? Because the Mexican State is a dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie and landlords at the service of imperialism. The army's armed repression of the rebellion also demonstrates this.

The political power of the imperialists, big capitalists and landlords arises and is maintained by the guns of their reactionary armed forces (and police). That's why nothing can be done without going up against their guns. The Zapatista Army also has guns and for that reason it has some political power. In fact, a situation of dual power presently exists. Although they are surrounded by the federal army, the Zapatistas maintain control of part of several counties in the mountainous region of Los Altos and the Lacandon Jungle. The political power of the reactionary Mexican government does not reach into this territory, because their army and police aren't there. In the Indian villages of the zone the Clandestine Indian Revolutionary Committees provide a certain form of political leadership. Some of the most important questions are decided in assemblies of all the people in each village. For example, this is how the decision was taken to rise up in arms, as well as the decision to reject the government's proposal in the negotiations. It is possible for the masses to have this kind of democratic participation because the masses are armed, because the reactionary armed forces don't come in and because the representatives of the reactionary classes have fled from the area. The lesson is that you can only have democracy for the people if you get rid of the reactionary classes and defeat the armed forces that serve them.

THE CARROT AND THE STICK

The imperialists, big capitalists and landlords have two tactics they use to deal with the peasant rebellion and the growing popular protest in the country: the carrot and the stick. Smash them or subordinate them to their system: "go through the institutions", as the government says.

In the midst of the ceasefire and the negotiations, the enemy continues using the stick, and getting ready to use it more. The reactionary army has reinforced its encirclement of the EZLN and has increased the number of troops in the zone, at the same time it has carried out "combing" operations and repression against peasants in the mountainous areas of other states, supposedly to "combat the drug traffic", but really to try to keep guerrillas from getting started in other places. The government has already acquired armoured anti-riot vehicles and Blackhawk helicopters (for troop transport) from the yankee imperialists and are in the process of getting Super Cobra helicopters for jungle warfare (supposedly without their armament). U.S. troops are on maneuvres in Guatemala, on the other side of the border with Chiapas. The political police have intensified their surveillance of many leftist groups and the government has deported various foreigners for political reasons. There continues to be repression of the masses in Chiapas as well. One of the most notorious cases was the rape of three Tzeltal women by 30 soldiers in the reactionary army at a roadblock in Altamirano. The women were also tortured and threatened to make them confess to their supposed participation in the EZLN. There continues to be a real danger that the reactionary government will unleash more generalized repression against the EZLN and the people's movement in general.

As for carrots, the government has offered money and reforms without accomplishing their goal of "pacification". The biggest carrot and main trap that the enemy is preparing for the people is the promise of electoral democracy. There is a certain basis to confuse people with electoral democracy, since it hasn't existed here. What has existed for more than 60 years is a sophisticated system of electoral fraud in which the PRI always wins. Nevertheless, the basic masses have a healthy suspicion of electoral democracy. People say that "The people don't vote much and they have to belong to the PRI. We don't vote because all the candidates are the same. My brothers and sisters voted for the PRI and nothing happened, for the PAN and nothing happened, for the PRD and still nothing. It doesn't accomplish anything. You can't trust any of them. My brothers and sisters don't trust any of them anymore". A Zapatista peasant: "The politicians and the candidates know that it's easy to use the Indians as a ladder so that they can climb up and get in power, and once they're in power, once they're in their cabinet, well they just forget you. When we go to ask for some solution to a problem, the only response they have given us is repression, torture, disappearances, and the murder of our leaders. That's the solution we've gotten and that's why we're not going to forget. We're not going to forget anything. We have to continue with our struggle until things change."

The political representative of the big bourgeoisie that makes the most use of electoral democracy is Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the presidential candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática- PRD), one of the three main electoral parties (together with the PRI and the PAN, the National Action Party- Partido de Acción Nacional).

Cárdenas makes use of progressive, nationalist and democratic rhetoric and has been able to confuse a certain section of honest people, although the Program of the PRD clearly promises to "Promote foreign investment and its contribution to technological development," "Develop productive forms of association between peasants and businessmen," and promote a supposed trade union "struggle" for the "competitiveness" and "productivity" of capitalist enterprises, among other points that demonstrate the true class character of these political representatives of the proimperialist big bourgeoisie. The day after the rebellion in Chiapas, Cárdenas clearly spelled out that "You can't solve the people's problems by taking up arms." Shortly thereafter he advocated a government ceasefire, which is the policy the government did adopt. He also explained his reasons: "there are forces inside and outside the government that would like to see our Army weakened, when what we need is to strengthen our armed forces, not only in their military capabilities but also in terms of their moral authority." Cárdenas wants to strengthen the reactionary armed forces and the system they defend.

And that's why not only Cárdenas but also U.S. imperialism wants to see a transition to electoral democracy: in order to strengthen their oppressive system and lead the people's struggles into the dead end path of elections and "going through the institutions."

In this context the leadership of the EZLN called a Democratic National Convention and indicated that "those who do not agree with trying out the electoral road are not invited". This Convention called on the people to vote against the PRI and the PAN. After the elections, the EZLN has supported mobilizations that demand that the PRD candidate be declared the winner of the Chiapas gubernatorial elections.

Experience all over the world demonstrates that, under this system, electoral democracy never changes anything for the people. Since the imperialists, big capitalists and landlords own most of the economy and the media, the State and its armed forces exist to serve their interests and all of the main electoral parties also represent their interests, elections under this system, however clean they may be, are never more than a matter of choosing every few years which representatives of the ruling class are going to oppress and repress the people in the government, as Marx and Lenin pointed out.

For 65 years the "official party" has been the main representative of the reactionary classes, but the problem isn't only the "PRI-government," as some people think. The problem is the entire system of imperialism, bureaucrat capitalism and semifeudalism which exploits, oppresses and suppresses the people. The solution isn't electoral democracy, with different bourgeois parties taking turns heading up the reactionary State. The solution is the New Democratic Revolution that destroys the old State and establishes a new people's State, that confiscates the landlord's land and divides it up among the peasants, that confiscates the property of the imperialists, big capitalists and landlords and clears the way for the socialist revolution. The problem, in short, is the system, and changing parties under this system won't accomplish anything; the solution is to get rid of this system of imperialism, bureaucrat capitalism and semifeudalism and build a new one.

The rebellion in Chiapas is an expression of a profound crisis of the semicolonial, semifeudal system in Mexico which has no peaceful solution, nor is it going to be resolved in the near future. The immediate perspective is for more rebellion and "ungovernability", as the government says, as well as the threat of more repression against the people.

Great struggles are coming. In order for the people to be victorious, it is necessary to clearly and resolutely condemn the three main parties of the big capitalists and landlords and their "electoral democracy" trap. It is also very necessary to learn from the just and heroic uprising of the Indian peasants of Chiapas, who, by their example, have opened a new stage in the revolutionary struggle in Mexico.