Letter from Ricardo Flores Magón to Emma Goldman
Los Angeles, California, March 13, 1911.
Letter from Ricardo Flores Magón to Emma Goldman
Los Angeles, California, March 13, 1911.
Dear friend and comrade in the struggle for the cause of human freedom:
I am writing to exhort you to apply, on behalf of the people of Mexico, the influence you exercise over a vast sector of the American people. Is it necessary for me to elaborate in expressing to you that we are participating in the world struggle for human emancipation? That our cause is your cause? That we are fighting for what every wise individual knows to be absolutely indispensable for human happiness and development?
I don’t think so.
It is common knowledge - it has been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt - that before the imperative of the power of money, hundreds of thousands of my compatriots have been expelled from the lands on which, and thanks to which, ancestors of theirs have lived since the beginning of our history. In this way, they have been driven to such hells as the plantations of tobacco in Valle Nacional and henequen1 in Yucatan2, or forced into exile across the border in the United States, where they struggle desperately to make starvation wages. One way or another, poor men and women have to live, or at least try to survive.
What will become of these millions of men and children if the power of money gets its way? What will be the result if it succeeds in throwing them under the thumb of militarism? And what will be the consequences for the character and way of life of the American nation if it accepts to become the docile instrument of the money-power, and remains indifferent to the fomenters of the most atrocious bondage? Certainly, all these questions must be answered.
The American people do not understand and cannot see the panorama of this frightful reality because they are deceived by the willful distortion made by those who have gigantic economic interests at stake, and who spare no effort to deceive them. As long as the power of money considered that the rebellion in Mexico was merely aimed at replacing one dictator with another, it regarded it with indifference, because such uprisings have been frequent in the history of the Latin American peoples, and such struggles have not succeeded in changing anything.
However, today they clearly understand that their own selfish interests are at risk; that we are fighting for the reclamation of millions and millions of acres of land handed over to foreign consortiums, with the complicity of the fraudulent government of [Porfirio] Díaz, and with the total disagreement of the legitimate protectors: the people; and that we are determined that the poor should reclaim once again what justly corresponds to them. That is why today the money-power of the United States, backed by the money-powers of the world, is calling the American nation to arms.
In the face of such a crisis, will you remain silent? I don't think so. In fact, I know you will not.
From you, for human emancipation
Ricardo Flores Magón
Adolfo Gilly, adapting Marx’s views on the impact of the railway in Europe, contends that Mexican railroads weakened subsistence and non-export agricultural production while contributing to a price rise in commodities “de primera necesidad,” such as corn and beans.
Gilly, La revolución interrumpida. México, 1910-1920: una guerra campesina por la tierra y el poder (Mexico City: Ediciones “El Caballito,” 1971), 17-18.
Thousands of Yaqui men, women, and children who had been forcibly taken from their homes and sold into slavery arrived at San Blas throughout the 1900s.
At Guaymas, members of the Yaqui tribe were loaded onto boats and transported to San Blas, Nayarit, from where they had to trek more than 300 kilometers to San Marcos. Those who survived the march were sold into slavery in San Marcos, from which point they were sent to the henequen farms in the Yucatán, the tobacco plantations in the Valle Nacional, and the sugar cane plantations in Oaxaca to work as slaves. Within the first years of their captivity, the majority of the slaves perished.
Large detention camps with scattered families existed nearby. After being sold at the station, they were crammed into railway cars bound for Veracruz. They took another boat to Progreso, Yucatán, where they were carried to the property that would serve as their final resting place.
The common knowledge, absolute certainty, Magón talks about when addressing Goldman is remarkably relevant and present nowadays in two different ways.
First, we can consider such common knowledge as an immovable certainty until today: exploitation has never seen an end in our history. And second, even though Magón suggests a foreign power as one enemy, the exploitation he describes is from within — the foe is here. As Magón says, "The rebellion in Mexico was merely aimed at replacing one dictator with another". In other words, the government, the sovereign nation, "us", Mexican politicians, obeying foreign ideology, directly exploit their oppressed people.
Phenomena such as Amlo's train — inaccurately called Tren Maya, make this point stronger. The current government directly alienated many communities from their property, land, and resources. Exploiting this land in such a capitalist manner would never, by definition, benefit the oppressed and alienated but those in power.
As Benjamin points out, "the 'state of emergency' in which we live is in fact the rule". In his direct action, Magón agrees with Benjamin that our task is to "foster the true state of emergency", which will help fight the always fascistic and always anti-democratic rule of our political class.
Thank you for sharing this.
Cheers,
Arturo