Mexico

From AnarWiki

Mexico, (officially the United Mexican States) is a liberal colonial capitalist state in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. It is the 13th largest state on Earth by land claimed, and the 10th largest by population claimed. It also claims the fourth largest amount of biodiversity, being a megadiverse country.

History

Porfiriato

The dictator Porfirio Diaz ruled Mexico from 1876 to 1910. It strongly supported landlords and oversaw a slow industrial revolution in a few cities, but much of the country worked on farms, producing cash crops (like sugar, coffee, cotton and rubber) for export. The remaining communal land holdings (mainly held by indigenous Mexicans) were forcefully enclosed to make sure private property began to dominate the country, indigenous peasants who refused to leave or were willing to fight were killed by landlord-funded paramilitaries known as the White Guards. Peasants were paid in crops and forced to purchase items from company shops which had inflated prices, forcing them into debt which was passed onto children, and anyone who tried to escape were hunted down by the White Guards. Conditions on these farms were extremely harsh, killing between 173,000 and 2,015,000 people in a country with a population of less than 16,000,000.[1][2][3]

Revolution

The Mexican Revolution (1910 - 1920) broke out after nearly 50 years of this tyranny, with peasant militias seizing land and in some towns taking over factories. Anarchist communes were established in Morelos and Baja to present a working alternative of indigenous anarchism. But these were defeated by the military, led by a new socially democratic government.

Libertarian Socialist Communities

References