MEXICO
"I believe in
the next generation"
ONE OF the few surviving veterans of the peasant armies of the Mexican revolution, Don Felipe Ramos remains politically active at the age of 87 in the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT), the Mexican section of the Fourth International. He was interviewed by Lars Kjellander, in an article published in the August 20 issue of Internationalen, the paper of the Swedish section of the Fourth International.
UESTION. Could you tell us how you became a revolutionraped by a general, whose name was to be. To escape the shame, my mother set out on the roads and ended up in Chontajuatlan, near Taxco, in the state of Morelos. There, she married a man named Ignacio Ramos de Estrada, she was already pregnant with me. He became my father. I was raised by him and took his name.
When I was six years old, I went to work with my father. He worked on a hacienda called Los Dolores. There, I saw the overseers knock down peasants when they faltered from fatigue, just leave them lying there. When I saw my father beaten because he could not carry his load any more I cried.
The peasants had to carry everything on the hacienda on their backs stones, sugarcane, everything that was grown there. "Why are you crying, you little good-for-nothing?"
"If you don't stop blubbering, you'll get a thumping." Then I
But I started thinking "Someday, there has to be a way show these bosses what is
And I kept on thinking on that until 28 one day in March 1914, when I said to International Viewpoint • September 14, 1987 my father, "Father, I am going to find this revolutionary named Zapata, who is fighting for the land that has been taken from the poor
He did not want to come with me. Then I asked an older brother, who was 19 years old, but he did not want to come either. He did not want to make
"Why did you have so many sons, if they only grow up to be cowards? I'm getting out of here."
I took my bag, my since I was still a believing Catholic, I also took my holy picture of Santiago.
I went down the street and joined up with three other local people who were going up into the "What are you going to do there, kid?" one of them asked. I said that I was would join him and make the revolu-
"Do you think that bullets are pieces of bread, you snot-nosed kid?" he went on. But we started on our way, past Puente de Islas to Punto de los Hornos. There we found Emiliano Zapata.
The other three got guns and ammunition and everything from Zapata. At first they did not want to give me anything. Three times they asked me what I wanted to do. I answered that I wanted to to get rid of the government that was beating the backs of the Mexican
Then, I got my .44 and my cartridge belt.
We fought several battles in the lands around Quiramula and Tlapala. I spent two months with Zapata, four with Carranza and the rest of the time, up until April 1919, I fought under generals in Morelos.
Zapata was murdered, the revolution ended, and we had to work.
I got three scars in the revolution. I
La bullet in the leg, one in the stomach and one in the forehead. (Don Felipe took his hat off and showed me a deep dent in his forehead.) The bullet that hit my forehead bounced off a tree. That is what I have left from Zapata's revolution, three marks on my body.
O. Why did the revolution fail?
A. I blame the leaders. They relied on the petty-bourgeois forces. Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa marched into Mexico City and took the presidential
But after that Zapata did not try to take governmental power himself, nor did Pancho Villa. They wanted to go back and fight in the countryside so that the land would belong to the peasants. And, since they thought that the revolution had won, they turned over the power to the petty bourgeoisie.
Carranza had also travelled around in the countryside and promised the land to the peasants. They planned Zapata's fall skilfully. Carranza told Zapata and Villa that he had taken the side of the revolution and that he would help them win. But he lied and arranged to have Zapata murdered in an ambush on April
The government came into the hands of the bourgeoisie, and the same sort of government is in power today.
Q. Does Zapata's memory live on among the new generations of peas-
A. Yes, I am convinced of that. All the parties say that they are revolutionary, all the parties swear by Zapata to-
But I do not see any political force in Mexico besides the PRT that really stands for what Zapata fought for.
There are a lot of people who talk a great deal about Zapata and the revolution. Do you ever see a government office where there is not a picture of Villa or Zapata or some other revolutionary leader? But in actual fact, they don't care a damn about us poor peo-
I do not want to see the next revolution lost, to see millions of people risk their lives and their health only so the bosses can laugh at us and at the
I have confidence in the new generations. I have written a song that ends with the following verse:
"I am old, and will soon lie in my but I believe in the next generation.
On the other hand, if I am wrong,
I will rise up out of my grave, and scare the life out of all of you."*
Emiliano Zapata