Carranza’s Doom

Carranza’s present position could not be more untenable. At Vera Cruz he succeeded in fooling into his ranks thousands of workers by his promises of social, political and economic emancipation. With his regime, the Social Revolution was to begin. The toilers went gladly to lay down their lives in the battlefield to place this Messiah into power, but once in power the rank politician forgot all his promises.

As soon as he found himself securely in the presidential chair as the de facto government, backed by Wall Street, Carranza thought himself strong enough to subdue and drown in blood the aspirations of the Mexican people to emancipate themselves, and began to persecute the very men that had helped him climb into power. His persecutions reached their climax with the decree of August 1, 1916, by which the workers were given the death penalty for daring to strike. Over forty workers have already been shot down.

Such brutalities, aggravated by decrees of the death penalty for slight offenses and petty larceny, have taken the bandage from the eyes of the workers. They are no longer blinded by the farcical radicalism of Carranza, They realize now the real Carranza, and such knowledge has created a strong reaction against this tyrant. Hence, the perilous position of the so-called First Chief, who now finds himself surrounded by a wall of bayonets.

On the north, Francisco Villa has succeeded in getting the upper hand, mainly in the State of Chihuahua, and parts of Durango, Coahuila and Zacatecas, and as Villa has now taken the policy of expropriation and giving to the poor, the latter flock to his banner in large numbers.

In the southern State of Oaxaca and the central one of Mexico, Felix Diaz, the nephew of the old tyrant, Porfirio Diaz, is growing stronger. Young Diaz represents the old Diaz’ nefarious “Cientifico” party, and is backed by the millions of the exiled bourgeoisie and clergy, who provide the means to give arms to the thousands of workers who are deceived by his false promises of delivering the land to the people of Mexico.

In eleven southern and central States, covering an area equal to about one-fifth of the Republic, and inhabited by some three million people, Zapata, with his Agrarians and the Anarchist members of the Mexican Liberal Party, both working in conjunction, have succeeded in repulsing the Carranza soldiers and in obtaining a strong foothold. Their strength is due to the fact that in these regions the land, houses, tools, machinery, and all means of production and transportation are now the property of the people, and they are fighting to retain what they have forced from the hands of the masters. This movement of combined Agrarians and Anarchist Communists is spreading to other States of the center, east and west of Mexico.

Added to these already formidable antagonists of the Carranza regime – Villa, Diaz, Agrarians and Liberals – there is another not less important factor in this struggle: the independent “guerrillas.” These “guerrillas,” called by the capitalist press “bands of bandits,” are mainly real revolutionists, and are effective in keeping aflame the fire of the revolution, and holding in constant nervous strain all the new tyrants that try to in climb into power. Thousands of these guerrillas, divided into small armies of two to three hundred men, roam over the country, constantly harassing the Carranza soldiers, Even his own men are deserting this tyrant to enlist in the different other factions or to become independent “guerrillas.” Thus we find that Carranza’s doom is unavoidable, and a matter of short duration, despite the staunch support of the moneyed interests in the United States.

The Mexican people are learning through long and cruel experience that freedom is never handed down from those on the higher steps of the social ladder. They have already learned that government is not instituted to protect the weak against the rapacity and tyranny of the strong. They have learned, too, that through peaceful means the emancipation of the proletariat shall never be accomplished. Through long centuries of brutal oppression and rank exploitation, they have learned the valuable lesson that the only way open to the workers to free themselves from the chattel slavery to which Authority, Capital and Church have subjected them, is to meet the violence of those above with the violence of those below, and that the guns of the master class must be answered by the guns of the slaves.

That is why Carranza’s doom is at hand: that is why the Mexican people, determined to free the Land, have kept up for six long years the wonderful struggle known as the Mexican Revolution, despite the efforts of Wall Street: and that is why they shall finally reach their goal of implanting in the so-called Mexican Republic a New Social Order wherein all human beings, regardless of sex, race or color, shall be free, equal and brothers.