Capitalist Development from Independence to the Porfiriato

Adolfo Gilly, The Mexican Revolution, Notes Part 1

Gilly traces the early foundation of the Revolution of 1910 to the development of capitalism in Mexico following its war for independence in 1810. Led by Miguel Hidalgo and José María Morelos, “the Jacobin wing of the revolution”, this was a class war, an agrarian revolt in gestation, which saw the army, the Church and the large landowners ally with the Spanish crown.

Shortly after, Mexico bore the brunt of the expansive thrust of U.S. capitalism, a close up with what others have termed primitive accumulation, when in 1848 the U.S. invaded and took possession of half of Mexico’s territory – some two million square kilometers comprising what is now Arizona, California, Texas, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. This theft of land was legalized by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in February of 1848.

Ten years later, Mexican liberalism [1], and the foundations of modern Mexico, emerged in the likes of Benito Juárez and his circle constituted out of sections of the emergent bourgeoisie.[2] This social base sought entrance into world trade and a restructuring of production and class relations inside Mexico which would free up capital and increase the exploitation of labor.

In 1855, the Ayutla Revolution brought the Liberal Party to power on a program of opening Mexico for capitalist development. In particular this meant a change in land ownership and control, with the intent that by freeing up “archaic” or “traditional” forms of land ownership and monopoly, this valuable resource could be better exploited for production and, importantly, a new layer of landless workers would be created who had little if anything to sell on the market but their labor power. So in 1856 the Liberals passed an act that prohibited religious and civil bodies from owning more land than they needed to carry out their functions. This targeted both the Church monopoly of land as well as indigenous collective forms of ownership. Other reforms expanded upon this tendency and were enshrined in the 1857 Constitution which Gilly calls the “juridical base of bourgeois national organization.” (p. 2)

An opposing conservative tendency arose in the form of the Conservative Party, which had its based in the clergy and the big latifundistas. They denounced the reforms and, with the support of Pope Pius IX and the French government, the 1857 Constitution. The conservatives fought to protect the old forms of land distribution, receiving assistance from invading French troops (under Napoleon III) in 1862 and 1863 who named Maximilian of Habsburg as Emperor of Mexico. Meanwhile, the Liberal Party received the support of the U.S.

Gilly argues that the rising Mexican bourgeoisie depended upon popular support and “Jacobin methods” in order to dismantle the institutions and structures inherited from colonial times. Hence Juarez’s faction based itself upon a national war and passed such measures as the 1859 nationalization of Church property, the separation of church and state. Such measures only concentrated agrarian property in the hands of the latifundistas. Once the lands of the indigenous communities were parceled up they could be bought at low prices or even seized by the big latifundistas (with no recourse for the indigenous owner, of course).

Northern Mexico developed differently in that it was always marginal to the Spanish colonial project.[3] It was less populated, and nomadic indigenous tribes resisted fiercely against the enclosure and imposition of new land policies, to such an extent that almost only small to medium sized land claims were viable, large claims being less so because of the security required to patrol and retain the land against said tribes. Hence, the north witnessed the rise of a rural middle class on ranches and medium-sized haciendas. The government also compensated surveying companies that would enclose the land and attract [foreign] settlers to work on it.

The quest for land led to the Yaqui War of the late 1870s and early 1880s and also contributed to new generations of peasant revolts, some influenced by the doctrines of utopian socialism and anarchism. Benito Juárez and Porfirio Diaz both advanced the violent crushing of these revolts.

Notes
[1] Here there is a need for clarification of the term liberalism, which is forthcoming. The term “liberal” is sometimes confused in this context, particularly considering that in the early 20th century one of the most important anarchist organizations in Mexico would carry the name Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM -- Mexican Liberal Party).
[2] This emergence was surely not a one-way process, yet Gilly does not elaborate upon what popular forces were emerging from below with potentially antagonistic visions for a new Mexican nation.
[3] With the notable exception of mining (silver, among other resources) which Gilly doesn’t make note of here.