Mexico

The growth of the political and economic power of drug gangs in Mexico has led the US bourgeoisie to express concern about the possibility of “contagion”, leading it to put pressure on the Mexican government. James Mattis of the US Navy stated in February 2009 that Mexico is a “failed state.” According to the US military there are similarities between Mexico and Pakistan, these states are losing control of their political and economic apparatus: in Mexico because of drugs, in Pakistan because of the tensions with India and the continued attacks by the Taliban.

Ricardo Flores Magon is a well known figure in Mexican history. Although an anarchist until his death, the Mexican authorities were able to recuperate his martyrdom and integrate his image to the social order by baptizing him as one of the spiritual authors of the modern Mexican constitution.

There are many factors that confer on Mexico a particular importance within imperialist relations: its role as a reserve of raw material (minerals and oil), and especially its geographic position

We are publishing here four texts in response to the massive job-cuts facing power and electricity workers in Mexico.

We are publishing here an article from the Grupo Proletario Internacianalista of Mexico.

We have already, in IR 50, briefly presented the Grupo Proletario Internacionalista of Mexico, on the publication of the first issue of its review, Revolucion Mundial. We are reprinting here a text from Revolucion Mundial no 2: a critique of the "Theses of the Alptraum Communist Collective" (CCA), also from Mexico[1], which were published in IR no 40 in January 1985.

We will let the GPI present themselves to our readers:

"We came together as a political group, only a few months ago under the name GPI, and united around principles set out[2] in the first issue of our publication Revolucion Mundial. Just beforehand, we were essentially a "discussion group": a largely informal grouping from the organizational standpoint, (without a name, or rules of functioning etc.), and polit­ically concentrated and orientated in an effort of political discussion and clarification, mainly towards giving more precision to the "class frontiers", ie the principles we should defend.

Most people in the U.S. are at least tangentially aware of the so called "drug-wars" that are being waged within the borders of their southern neighbor.  Some months ago, in March, New York Times journalists wrote about violence "spilling" over the border. They cited some vague facts about homicide figures rising in certain American cities and then proceeded to hook the reader with some detective-like stories about a kidnapping and a pistol-whipping incident - incidents implied to be connected to the drug-violence in Mexico.

We are publishing here a statement by Revolución Mundial, the ICC's section in Mexico, about the outbreak of swine flu which began in that country. After the first weeks of panic and doom-mongering, the new strain of flu almost disappeared from the headlines.

Despite official denials that they could be the original source of the disease, over 400 residents of La Gloria have suffered from flu since early February, which they blame on a large industrial pig farm partly owned by American conglomerate Smithfield Foods. Even if another source is found, this highlights the horrendous polluted conditions such agribusiness causes, with the foul stench, swarms of flies and respiratory infections.

The repression that the state has unleashed against the population of Oaxaca has shown the real bloody and furious face of democracy. The city of Oaxaca has been a powder keg for the last five months where the presence of the police and paramilitary forces has been the main means for spreading state terror...

The conflicts following the elections in Mexico - promoted and financed by fractions of the bourgeoisie - have given rise to a flurry of speculation. Here we will deal with the one peddled with gusto by radical leftism (the many Trotskyist groups), which wants to convince us that there is a revolutionary situation in Mexico, with soviets, a state of dual-power characteristic of a proletarian revolution, on the brink of the workers taking power. It is lamentable that this is NOT the case, but by affirming these illusions they are making the situation even more confusing and pushing the workers to have hope in actions that are beyond their control: actions which are really controlled by the bourgeoisie.

The deepening of the crisis makes the workers’ conditions of life worse by the day and engenders expressions of real discontent.  In the ICC press, we have written about the important mobilizations of the French workers and students against the CPE.  The strikes of the metal workers in Spain have expressed a similar decisiveness, combativeness, and clarity, even though they have not had the same magnitude.

In the context of the lead-up to the 2006 elections, the Ejercito Zapatista Liberacion Nacional (the Zapatista National Liberation Army) has issued a communique with a tone that is apparently critical of the developing electoral circus, and for the first time it says that exploitation is at the centre of the capitalist system...

The blind violence committed by mobs is often fueled by the economic crisis, but the ruling class knows how to use it to its own benefit.  What happened in Tlahuac was a desperate act by an interclassist mass...

The guerrilla myth continues to be a strong attraction for leftist and petty bourgeois elements in the US. We are publishing here the first installment in a series written by our Mexican comrades exposing the bourgeois role of the Zapatista guerrillas in Mexico.

Since 1994, with the public appearance of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), the editorials of the bourgeois press left and right have used every opportunity to launch their attack against Marxism. The book by B. de la Grange and M. Rico, "Marcos, The Genial Impostor", is structured as if it was the synthesis of police archives. It shows the origins and actions of the EZLN and, even though it seeks to be an offensive against Marcos, it also subtly spreads calumnies and attacks against Marxism, pointing out that all of the authoritarian attitudes of the EZLN are a legacy of its supposed 'marxist' past, which the book says is rooted in the guerrilla group called National Liberation Forces, which were never Marxist, but rather expressions of radical Stalinism with a special cult for Fidel Castro. Marcos himself, while at the beginning of his 'career' cautious, has not missed an opportunity to launch ironic and critical attacks against what he, from his vision of ex-Stalinist, regards as Marxism.