Dispersed Communist Networks and Grassroots Leadership of Peasant Revolts in Mexico

Abstract

Mexico's land revolts of the early 1970s were neither spontaneous nor simply called out by state-created political opportunities. Rather, militants and sympathizers of the Mexican Communist Party (PCM) were systematically among the initiators of many peasant movements, despite earlier state repression that had nearly destroyed the Party and despite ongoing repression. The PCM's history of rural organizing mattered for the peasants' subsequent protests both because it created some of the rural structures that could later be reconstituted and because it cultivated among its militants two crucial cultural resources: the ideological commitment to peasants and radical activist identities. The PCM's prior organizing in the countryside even enhanced the mobilization potential of their noncommunist supporters. Thus when state repression smashed the Party, it disconnected their membership. Rank-and-file members retained their radical commitments and activist identities and, as such, functioned as dispersed conflict networks with broad peasant support.