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dissertation entitled

LOOKING BACK TO THE END OF TIME:
MILLENNIAL IMAGERY IN SELECTED NOVELS AND CORRIDOS
OF THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION, 1890-1947

presented by

Daniel John Nappo
has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
of the requirements for

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LOOKING BACK TO THE END OF TIME:
MILLENNIAL IMAGERY IN SELECTED NOVELS AND CORRIDOS
OF THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION, 1890-1947

By

Daniel John Nappo

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Romance and Classical Languages

2003

ABSTRACT

LOOKING BACK TO THE END OF TIME:
MILLENNIAL IMAGERY IN SELECTED NOVELS AND CORRIDOS
OF THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION, 1890-1947

By

Daniel John Nappo

This dissertation analyzes millennial imagery in a series of novels of the
Mexican Revolution and corridos written during the period 1890 to 1947. The
importance of this study is that it reexamines these two genres of Mexican
literature in light of the relationship between millennial belief and the political or
historical interpretation of revolution. This dissertation also provides an important
reinterpretation of the production and function of these two forms of literature
within the context of Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary Mexico. This study is
unique from others that have focused on the novel of the Mexican Revolution
because it employs an interdisciplinary approach, utilizing literary theory and
some methods of history and the social sciences.

The novels of the Mexican Revolution under investigation—some
canonical and others less known—demonstrate the fundamental position that
millennial imagery occupies within this cycle, offering a compelling example of
how nationalist ideology can be diffused through art. The corrido is a lyrical-
narrative folk ballad that dates from at least the middle of the nineteenth century.
After establishing some criteria to more productively interpret this genre of oral
literature, the corrido will serve as a popular counterpoint to the standard, more

ofﬁcial interpretation of the national upheaval provided by the novels. The novel

of the Mexican Revolution helped to promulgate a modern mythology that
upheld the mandate of the post-Revolutionary regime, generally represented by a
single political party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). Given this
political purpose, the manner in which a “Revolutionary” novelist employs
millennial imagery can be key toward understanding his or her attitude toward the
Revolution: those writers who presented the Revolution as violent cataclysm that
succeeded in restructuring society helped to affirm the legitimacy of the post-
Revolutionary State (even if it was not carrying through on fundamental
promises). On the other hand, authors who do not underscore the millennial
aspects of the Revolution, and instead minimize millennial imagery or present it
with irony, tend to be the novelists who were outside—or even opposed to—the
program of cultural nationalism and the post-Revolutionary regime.

This dissertation ﬁrst deﬁnes millennial belief and establishes the socio-
historical context from which the novel of the Mexican Revolution arose in the
mid-19205. Following the chapter examining the corrido, the study focuses on the
precursor of the Revolutionary novel, Heriberto F rias’ TomOchic (1893). From
there the Revolutionary production of Mariano Azuela will be analyzed, followed
by examples of the caudillo (political or military boss) novel, the indigenist novel
and Agustin Yaﬁez’s AI ﬁlo del agua (1947), a text judged by many to be the

concluding work of the novelistic cycle.

COpyright © by
DANIEL JOHN NAPPO
2003

DEDICATION

For my mother, who told me “Keep your eyes on the prize.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are numerous people who I would like to thank for their assistance
with this dissertation. First I would like to thank the members of my committee:
Professors Javier Duran, Maria Eugenia Mudrovcic and Peter Beattie. I would
particularly like to thank Professor Duran for his guidance and insight, and
Professor Beattie for his careful (and often humorous) readings of my chapters.
Among the faculty of Michigan State University’s Department of Romance and
Classical Languages, special appreciation goes to Dr. Rocio Quispe—Agnoli for
her observations on the Introduction, and to Dr. Deidre Dawson who served as
Chairperson while I was researching my project.

Other people I would like to thank include Lic. Valentin LOpez Gonzalez,
the ofﬁcial cronista of Cuernavaca and a marvelous storyteller; Dr. James C.
Scott, who shared his insights about oral literature and the “weapons of the
weak” with me; and Lic. Ricardo Pérez Escamilla, who permitted me to see his
impressive collection of books and corrido broadsheets in Mexico City. I would
also like to thank Dr. Patrick Frank of the University of Colorado and Professor
Susannah Joel Glusker. I also deeply appreciate the effort made by the staff of
the Archivo reservado of the Biblioteca and Hemeroteca Nacional in Mexico
City; they helped me tremendously by tracking down numerous pre-
Revolutionary and Revolutionary books and newspapers.

Any errors or inconsistencies in this dissertation are entirely my own.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I: PRE-1929 PRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION
Millennial Origins and Historical Context
of the Revolutionary Novel ....................................................................... 1
I. The Millennial Tradition ............................................................... 1
II. The Character of the Mexican Revolution
and the Production of a National Literature .................................... 8
III. The Novel of the Mexican Revolution
and its Function within the Project of Cultural Nationalism ............... 14
IV. Criteria, Method and Sources of the Present Study ....................... 20
V. Notes .................................................................................. 26
CHAPTER 1
The Mexican Corrido: Between the Pueblo and Propaganda ......................... 30
I. A Literature of the Pueblo .......................................................... 30
ll. Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, el Editor popular ................................... 36
Ill. The City and the Provincia ........................................................ 46
IV. Notes ................................................................................... 50
CHAPTER 2
“En vlsperas de una catastrofe”:
Toméchic, Prototype of the Revolutionary Cycle ......................................... 56
l. Reception and Historical Context ................................................ 56
II. The Conﬂict. Beyond Civilization and Fanaticism ........................... 59
Ill. La voz popular satirica: Castorena as Corridista ........................... 69
IV. Notes .................................................................................. 72
CHAPTER 3
A Pessimism Drawn from Experience:
The Revolutionary Novels of Man'ano Azuela ............................................. 76
l. The Making of a Revolutionary Novelist ........................................ 76
ll. Andrés Pérez and Las moscas ................................................... 78
Ill. Los de abajo ......................................................................... 82
IV. Las tribulaciones de una familia decente .................................... 89
V. Los caciques ......................................................................... 92
VI. Notes .................................................................................. 96

vii

PART II: POST-1929 PRODUCTION

CHAPTER 4

Constructing a National Mythology:

The Caudillo Novels of Rafael F. Munoz and Gregorio LOpez y Fuentes .......... 98
I. The Zenith of the Revolutionary Novel, 1930-1934 ................................ 98
II. A Novel of the Caudillo: iVémonos con Pancho Villa! ...................... 99
II. Tierra and the Institution of a Mexican Revolutionary ......................... 108
IV. Notes ................................................................................. 120

CHAPTER 5

Still Waiting for the Messiah:

Millennial Imagery in the Indigenist Novel of the 19303 ............................... 123
l. Political Expedience and the Indigenist Novel ............................... 123
ll. Into A New Era of Suffering: LOpez y Fuentes’ El indio ................... 126
III. A Millennial Hunger for Justice: Magdaleno’s El resplendor ............ 132
IV. Notes ................................................................................. 144

CHAPTER 6

AI ﬁlo del Apocalipsis:

Revelation and Revolution in Al ﬁlo del agua by Agustin Yéﬁez .................... 148
I. An Exemplary Novel and Novelist .............................................. 148
ll. Visions of the Apocalypse ....................................................... 151
III. El cometa Halley .................................................................. 159
IV. Ya‘r'Iez, the Novel and Nationalism ............................................ 164
V. Notes ................................................................................. 168

CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................. 172

APPENDIX: A History of Revolutionary Mexico, 1890-1950 ......................... 186

WORKS CITED ................................................................................. 203

WORKS CONSULTED ........................................................................ 215

viii

INTRODUCTION: MILLENNIAL ORIGINS AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF
THE REVOLUTIONARY NOVEL

“RevoluciOn: palabra de los justos y de los justicieros.”
—Octavio Paz, “Revuelta, RevoluciOn, RebellOn.”

“La historia es un profeta con la mirada hacia atras;
por lo que fue, y contra lo que fue, anuncia lo que sera.”
—Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de Amén’ca Latina.

I. The Millennial Tradition.

In “El Cometa Halley”, the concluding chapter of Agustin Yéﬁez’s Al ﬁlo
del agua (1947), growing tensions between characters combine with the
widespread anxiety over the celestial event of the spring of 1910; the historical
background of the novel—the political confrontation between Porfirio Diaz and
Francisco Madero that would plunge the nation into chaos—ampliﬁes this tension
and anxiety, further underscoring the signiﬁcance of the novel’s title. Lucas
Macias, the venerable cronista of Yanez’s unnamed village of black-robed
women, is asked if he will also give in to popular fears and join “la revolucién.”
Macias explains that he will not, but the anxiety “que tienen por todas partes” is
understandable: the comet will bring war, disease and famine, “ya lo veran qué
pronto” (Yanez, Al ﬁlo del agua 205). With this dialogue, Yanez achieves a
dynamic synthesis of popular perspectives, characterization and—with the
Mexican Revolution of 1910 looming beyond the conclusion of the novel—
millennial imagery. From the vantage of Yanez, who wrote his novel in the early
1940s in the period of the post-Revolutionary government’s political
consolidation, this synthesis must have suggested not only the last days of the

Diaz dictatorship but the beginning of the modern Mexico to which he not only

belonged but helped to construct. It is this historical context—the end of the
ancien régime and the birth of the new—that gives Yaﬁez’s remarkable novel the
most thoroughly millennial poetics of any novel of the Mexican Revolution.

Millennial belief has held a powerful fascination for Western artists and
writers Since antiquity.1 At the heart of this fascination are the compelling images,
obscure signs and meanings of millenarianism, and its “pride of place” as “God’s
last word on his creation” (Parkinson Zamora 1). The social circumstances which
often produce millennial conceptions must also be considered, since the dream
of terminating the existing world of injustice and poverty and replacing it with a
new one, where the chosen will live happily in peace, has been embraced
wherever there has been great inequalities of wealth, status and power. The
Revelation of St. John, the fundamental text of the Western millennial tradition,
promised Christians suffering under Roman domination that God would wipe the
tears from their eyes and that ”there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed
away” (21: 4-5). In a social milieu built on inequality, millenarianism offers the
“potential antithesis to the undeniable abuses of human history” and deﬁnes
“suffering in terms of transcendence” (Parkinson Zamora 10).2

Millenarianism can be both a palliative and a potentially subversive
ideology capable of sowing the seeds of insurrection. Franco alludes to the
contradictory character of millennial belief in its dual capacity for “espera” and
“acciOn” (Lecture sociocritica 18). These possibilities depend on whether or not

the source of the millennial belief is “popular” (originating from the people) or

“ofﬁcial” (produced by cultural or political elites). Popular millennial belief tends to
be subversive in character because it posits an alternative to the existing social
structure. When millennial belief is promulgated or inscribed from above, it
demonstrates an apocalyptic character in which no such alternative is offered;
this form attempts to render the marginalized sectors of a society more passive
by suggesting that their immoral or insubordinate behavior will bring catastrophe
upon them. All millennial belief is contingent upon the reading of signs, normally
historical events or natural phenomena that are highly signiﬁcant to the masses.
Popular fervor for a charismatic leader (messianism) is often the occasion for
such a movement to take shape and begin to challenge structures of authority
(Pereira de Queiroz 21-24). These messianic leaders often serve an intermediary
function between worldly and othenivorldly visions through their prophecies and
interpretations of the signs that captivate the masses.

Numerous historians have analyzed the relationship between
millenarianism and revolution, usually characterizing the societies that either wait
for or work to induce the Millennium as “primitive”, “archaic” or “pre-political”.3
However, rather than privileging one term over the other, a revolution may simply
be seen as the political manifestation of millennial belief.4 Indeed, from the pre-
Hispanic to the contemporary period of Mexican history, major revolutions and
innumerable social movements of a smaller scale have coalesced around
millennial visions and the hope for the establishment of a new and better world.5
The voyages of Christopher Columbus were inspired by millennial dreams. The

Conquest of the Aztec empire in 1521 by Hernan Cortés was, according to some

chroniclers, greatly facilitated by the apocalyptic apprehensions of the indigenous
people; their anxiety about the return of the messianic ﬁgure Quetzacéatl was as
much a factor toward their defeat as Spanish military superiority and the spread
of contagious diseases (Brading 3-4).6 Referring to the COdice ﬂorentino, LeOn-
Portillo has compiled eight “presagios” that the Aztecs had of the Spanish arrival,
which include events such as celestial phenomenon, strange animals and the
appearance of people with strange deformities (1-5). According to Lafaye, the
cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the emergence of Mexican national identity
may be attributed in part to the millennial tradition imported from Spain and
promulgated by the Franciscans (75-79). Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the priest
from central Mexico who began the struggle for independence in 1810,
encouraged Indians, mestizos and slaves to join his insurgents by promising
them emancipation and social equality as soon as Nueva Espana gained
independence (Brading 38-39).

Millennial belief was widespread in nineteenth-century Mexico, as
evidenced by popular literature7 and several rebellions inspired by obscure
religious doctrines. The most famous example of such a rebellion occurred in the
isolated village of TomOchic, Chihuahua State, in 1892. This insurrection became
the basis of the Heriberto Frias novel of the same name (ﬁrst published in El
DemOcrata, 1893), a work the novelist Mariano Azuela praised for its authenticity,
simplicity and humanity (Azuela, Obras completes 3: 663). If not the prototype,

Tomdchic was certainly the most important precursor of the novel of the Mexican

Revolution,8 the famous cycle of narratives initiated by Azuela that aspired to the
status of national literature between the years 1925 and 1947.

Millennial imagery plays an important role in the novel of the Mexican
Revolution not only because the coming of the Revolution (viewed
retrospectively) can be presented dramatically, but because the transcendence
of suffering and utopian visions of a modern society rising from the ashes of the
Diaz dictatorship reﬂect the ofﬁcial ideology of the post-Revolutionary State.
Beginning with the presidency of General Alvaro Obregbn (1920-1924), the
victors of the Revolution sought to convince the people that they were ushering a
new era of prosperity, justice and modernity to the war-ravaged nation. For those
who could not read, some 72% of the population in 1921 (Meyer 208), the
government became the patron of the artists that would pioneer Mexican
muralism: Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and Gerardo Murillo (Dr. Atl). A
Revolutionary literature would help to inscribe the same nationalistic ideals to the
portion of the public that could read, and for those who were learning to read in
the ambitious literacy programs instituted by José Vasconcelos, the Secretary of
Public Education (1921-1924) under Obregén.9 In this dynamic period of Mexican
history, Vasconcelos and his successors acted as enlightened Maecenas for
artists and writers who shared their vision for a renovated, modern Mexico.
Beginning in the early 19305, many novels of the Mexican Revolution were
incorporated into the public school curriculum (Jimenez Tejeda 8-22).

The novel of the Mexican Revolution was, with few exceptions, the

product of Mexico’s leading scholars, intellectuals and journalists. A signiﬁcant

portion of these Revolutionary writers actually served positions within the post-
Revolutionary regime. Rutherford has noted that the government “provided many
of the novelists of the Revolution with employment to ensure their ﬁnancial
security and to provide them with enough spare time to continue writing”
(Mexican Society 66-67). Some of the most prominent Revolutionary novelists
who held posts in the government included: Martin Luis Guzman (President of
the ComisiOn Nacional del Libro de Texto Gratuito [1959], Senator of Chihuahua
State [1970—1976]); Mauricio Magdalena (Jefe del Departamento de Bibliotecas
in the Secretaria de Educacién PI'Iblica, Senator of Zacatecas State [1958-
1964]); Agustin Yaflez (Director de la Oﬁcina de Radio in the Secretaria de
Educacién Publica, Governor of Jallsco [1953-1959], Secretaria de EducaciOn
Publica [1 964-1969]). Revolutionary novelists with backgrounds in journalism, for
example Gregorio LOpez y Fuentes and Rafael F. Munoz, often became directors
of national newspapers such as El Universal and El Nacional.

The vocation of prominent writers strongly suggests that the novel of the
Mexican Revolution was linked to the nationalistic program initiated in the 19205.
The origin of the cycle itself points to a calculated effort by elites to produce a
national literature based on the conﬂicts and consequences of the years 1910—
1920. As early as 1915, the canancista intellectual Félix Palavicini called for the
production of a Revolutionary literature to promote the ideals behind the national
struggle (Menton 171). Although Mariano Azuela had already written the ﬁrst
Revolutionary novel, Andres Perez, maden'sta, in 1911, the cycle would not be

nationally recognized until December 1924. In this year a number of prominent

critics and writers engaged in a public debate in several successive issues of El
Universal llustrado, a weekly cultural journal for Mexico’s middle and upper
classes. The point of contention was the apparently regrettable state of Mexican
letters and the question if a truly national literature—“una literatura mexicana
viril”—for the post-Revolutionary era was possible.10 Among these critics and
writers were Julio Jiménez Rueda, Francisco Monterde, Victoriano Salado
Alvarez, Gregorio Ortega and eventually Azuela himself. Monterde, a close friend
of Azuela, nominated the author’s Los de abajo. Cuadros y escenas de la
Revolucién mexicana as the quintessential novel for a new national literature,
even though it had already appeared in an El Paso newspaper serial and in two
virtually forgotten editions between the years 1916 and 1920.

As a result of strong public response to the debate, El Universal llustrado
re-published Los de abajo in a ﬁve-part serialization in January and February
1925. The novel was universally acclaimed and soon all of Azuela’s earlier
novels were in demand. Within two years, the ﬁrst of many translations of Los de
abajo would begin to appear, and by 1934 the novel would be translated in
languages as diverse as Japanese, Yugoslavian and Yiddish. Of special
signiﬁcance is the Spanish Espasa-Calpe edition of 1930 with the provocative
new subtitle, Novela de la Revolucidn Mejicana (Robe 231 ). Subsequent novels
by Martin Luis Guzman, Gregorio LOpez y Fuentes and Rafael F. Munoz would
appear within the next few years, thus initiating the cycle of the Revolutionary
novel which would dominate Mexican letters for the next twenty years. In the

19305, the novel of the Mexican Revolution was commonly referred to as an

authentic expression of national values, as well as a uniquely Mexican literary
product. Along these lines, one of the ﬁrst Mexican scholars to investigate this
literature wrote that it was “algo genuino, muy nuestro, [y] esta dentro de la
llamada novela criollista porque es una creaciOn ligada a la realidad mexicana y
a su momento histOrico” (Melendez de Espinoza 7). This decade saw the apogee
of the Revolutionary novel and the appearance of new genres such as the
caudillo (political or military boss) and indigenist novels; counterrevolutionary
literature, in the form of the Cristero novel, also appeared in the same decade. In
general, there were also more deliberate attempts by writers to provide social

commentary (Portal 299).

II. The Character of the Mexican Revolution and the Production of a National
Literature.

The political function of the novel of the Mexican Revolution may been
observed most clearly when one considers that for many the Revolution really
wasn’t a revolution at all.11 The course of the Revolution shows little or no
unifying ideology; the Constitutional Convention of 1917 became the setting for
numerous disputes and rivalries and, in the words of Octavio Paz, resulted in
little more than a liberal compromise that invoked the less offensive political
innovations of the Constitution of 1857 (Laben'nto 131). Rather than classic
revolution, then, a careful examination of the events shows innumerable personal
rivalries that prolonged a civil war largely limited to the central and northern
states. On the balance sheet, the real accomplishments of the Mexican

Revolution seem to be compromised or altogether lacking, leaving the critical

assessments of historians such as Adolfo Gilly and Daniel Cosio Villegas too
compelling to dismiss.12

While the debate over whether or not the Mexican Revolution was in fact a
revolution is highly stimulating (for example, see Benjamin 158-61), as is the
question of its real achievements, for the immediate purposes of this study it will
be more productive to ask if it had an ideology or political program before or
during its nascent stages. A more appropriate way to pose this question would be
to ask if a revolution was envisioned prior to 1910 as the means of tearing down
Porﬁrian Mexico and establishing a more modern, egalitarian and economically
independent nation in its place. The Mexican cultural elite, perhaps best
represented in the waning years of the Porﬁriato by the Ateneo de la Juventud,
tended to dismiss the Revolution as nothing more than a descent into barbarism
from which only the caudillos would beneﬁt (Brading 63). Although some political
theories of importance were indeed advanced before Madero’s 1910 presidential
bid, or were formulated ad hoc as the battles raged, we must conclude that the
Mexican Revolution began with conventional demands for reforming the electoral
system but spiraled out of control as other long ignored sources of disaffection
and social unrest emerged as points of conﬂict. Rutherford writes that the
“various conditions which modern sociologists and historians consider necessary
for the outbreak of revolution do not seem to have existed in Mexico until 1913;
Madero’s revolt caused a situation of ‘multiple disfunction’ rather than being
caused by one” (Mexican Society 23). A more conservative assessment could

posit that in the wake of the Revolution new programs were established to

address these disfunctions, rather than completely overhauling the social and
political structure of Mexico. As late as 1947, however, the historian Daniel Cosio
Villegas stated that the Revolution never had a clear program, nor did it seem to
be formulating one (113-14).

The anarchism of Ricardo Flores MagOn (1873-1922) has frequently been
cited as a precursor of revolutionary ideology, but aside from the inﬂuence on
Zapatista thinkers and the formation of their Plan de Ayala (1911), this argument
cannot be sustained (Knight, Mexican Revolution 1: 46-47). Diaz’s parting
remark as he ﬂed the country in 1911, “Ha soltado un tigre,” is perhaps the most
accurate assessment of the character of the Mexican Revolution. The ambiguity
of the struggle, in terms of its ideology and achievements, is alluded to by the
narrator of José Revueltas’ novel, El Iuto humano: “...curiosa esta revolucién que
parecia no saberse a 5i misma” (145). As suggested by this passage, the
political program did not precede the Revolution’s inception, but was largely
formulated aftenivard with clear purposes of political control and reconciliation
between warring factions. In other words, it was necessary to invent the
Revolution, when the military phase momentarily concluded in 1920, so the
victorious Sonoran faction (led by Obregén, Adolfo de la Huerta and Plutarco
Elias Calles) could consolidate their authority. Consequently, the cultural
nationalism of the 19205 and 305 became the true—albeit belated—ideological
program of the Mexican Revolution.

The cultural nationalism of this period may be deﬁned as a general

consciousness that encouraged Mexicans to discover and assert their own

10

identity, while at the same time cultivating an awareness of their indigenous
heritage in such mediums as the plastic arts and literature. Cultural nationalism
was largely the product of young intellectuals who collaborated with the political
leadership that had served in the Revolution (Paz, Laben'nto 140-41). The
sweeping cultural program was initiated by the ambitious Secretary of Public
Education, José Vasconcelos, and continued with less fanfare and support by
subsequent secretaries such as José Manuel Puig Casauranc (1924—1928, 1930-
1931) and Narciso Bassols (1931-1934). Unlike its counterpart in the United
States, the Secretaria de Educacién PI'Iblica (or SEP) was given the immense
task of (re)educating the public at large rather than simply administrating public
schools. Among the goals of the SEP was building and stocking libraries,
translating the great books of the Western tradition into Spanish (selling these
editions for a mere peso), publishing thousands of books in the government-
owned presses, increasing literacy and creating programs which would bring
schools and capable instructors to the most remote regions of the country.13
This national education program, perhaps the most ambitious ever seen
in the Americas, employed a vocabulary rich in messianic and millennial terms.
Franco has described this period as one of “superhuman redeemers” (Las
conspiradoras 143); Coslo Villegas refers to Vasconcelos as the “apéstol de la
educacién” (142). As early as the summer of 1920, Vasconselos was already
speaking of increased literacy and improved public education as the means for
achieving the salvation of the entire nation: “La salvaciOn depende de cada uno

de nosotros. Es menester que hagamos todos el milagro” (Cérdenas Noriega 38-

11

39). In the speech given at the opening of the new SEP headquarters, in the
former Antiguo Convento de Santa Teresa, Vasconcelos promised that the light
reﬂecting from the newly refurbished walls and statues would herald “la aurora de
un Mexico nuevo, de un Mexico espléndido” (Vasconcelos, Discursos 42). In
terms of its redemptive and renovating characer, Vasconcelos’ educational
program recalls the work of Franciscan monks in the colonial era. Aguilar Camin
notes that the redemptive mission of Vasconselos was both attractive and
complementary to ObregOn’s presidency, which was attempting the material,
political and cultural reconstruction of the country while looking to the ephemeral
Revolutionary past as a closed epoch, and to his own government as the
beginning of a new era of Mexican history (Saldos 80-81).

In spite of Vasconcelos’ remarkable freedom to invent and implement new
programs, and the unabashedly top-down structure of the Mexican government
in the 19205, cultural nationalism did not begin as an ofﬁcial ideology that needed
to be obeyed, but rather as a collaborative enterprise. Indeed, its ideals were
shared and its implementation was largely voluntary. “For perhaps the ﬁrst time
in Latin America since independence, the government, peoples and artists of a
nation...were all inspired by the same fundamental desire to create a new
society” (Franco, Modem Culture 82). Benjamin observes that even the muralist
painters, who produced the most internationally recognized expression of
Mexican cultural nationalism, “had no ideological guidance from the Ministry of
Education or any other part of the government” (75). It would seem, then, that

following the decade of armed conﬂict, conciliation and a shared sense of the

12

ideological signiﬁcance of the Revolution were the inspiration and guiding
principles of cultural nationalism.

Among the key ideals of cultural nationalism were the image of a modern
nation modeled on pre-Columbian mythology and the increased importance
given to the Indian, who came to represent the essential component of Mexican
mestizo identity. Another signiﬁcant ideal was the starkly millennial belief that 20
November 1910, the day Francisco Madero called for national uprisings to drive
Porﬁrio Diaz from power, signaled the end of a senescent, unjust social order.“
Positioning itself after the dictatorship of Porﬁrio Diaz and the decade of armed
conﬂict, the post-Revolutionary State could consolidate its claim as the self-
appointed provider of prosperity, justice and modernity because of the emphasis
on the millennial elements of cultural nationalism. It hardly mattered that in many
respects Mexico's new regime resembled an even shrewder version of the Diaz
dictatorship, because any order was preferable to the chaos and destruction the
nation experienced during ten years of war (Bruce-Novoa 43).15 As Cosio
Villegas has suggested, the only difference worth mentioning between
Revolutionary congresses and those of the Porﬁriato is that the previous regime
was a tyranny and the Revolution symbolized rebellion and independence (127).

Gradually, the collaborative effort of cultural nationalism gave way to an
increased patronization by the new regime and, in some instances, subtle
coercion or co-optation of artistic production. While perhaps not a full-ﬂedged

n16

cadre of “organic intellectuals, many artists and most Revolutionary novelists

became voceros of the Revolution: diverse individuals sympathetic to the

13

promise of revolutionary transformation who elaborated the “memory, myth and
history” of the Revolution for the beneﬁt of the regime (Benjamin 32). These
voceros of the Revolution had diverse backgrounds and included advisors of
national policy, local leaders, journalists, academics and writers. With the
increased activity and visibility of these professionals (especially in the 19305),
Mexican literature—and especially the novel—assumed the political character

that would prevail in the decades to come.

"I. The Novel of the Mexican Revolution and its Function within the Project of
Cultural Nationalism.

In her cogent analysis of millennial imagery in Yéilez’s Le tiene prédige
(1960), Jean Franco asks what were the deﬁnitive socioeconomic factors in
Mexico that could explain the appearance of so many millennial movements
(Lecture sociocritica 372). We can modify this question slightly, to ﬁt the context
of the national literature of the post-Revolutionary era, and ask what were the
sociopolitical factors that led to the frequent employment of millennial images and
themes in the novel of the Mexican Revolution.17 It is curious to note that
although innumerable popular insurgencies of this nature have occurred in
Mexico (and have been portrayed in its literature), millenarianism has rarely been

I.18 The term itself—

discussed as an important element of the Revolutionary nove
novel of the Mexican Revolution—suggests millenarian conceptions to the extent
that the new regime which rose from the ashes would be proclaimed a5 a vastly

superior permutation of what had existed before. In theoretical terms this vision

14

invokes the formation of a “national consciousness” vis-a-vis a revolution, a
distinctively modern phenomenon of social construction that has emerged in a
multitude of nations during the past century (Vienna 33-37).

Like the post-Revolutionary government itself, the Revolutionary novel has
been viewed as a dramatic departure and improvement over the novels of the
Porﬁriato, most of which looked to Europe rather than to Mexico for their artistic
inspiration.19 The judgment of Sommers that these texts represent the ﬁrst
attempt at a “genuine Mexican novel”, at the same time that Mexico was
asserting its nationhood, has been echoed by numerous critics (After the Storm
33). Because of the diversity of narrative techniques, the extent of social critique
and its sporadic production, the Revolutionary novel is best approached as a
cycle instead of as a genre, ﬁrst initiated by Azuela during the Revolution’s
military phase and eventually terminated by the so-called Modern Mexican Novel
(see Lengford 71-73 and Sommers, “Novela de la Revolucién” 744-46). In 1941,
Ernest Moore had already calculated 280 Revolutionary novels (8). According to
Emmanuel Carballo, approximately 300 Revolutionary novels appeared between
1911 (the year that the ﬁrst, Azuela’s Andres Pérez, meden'sta, was published)
and 1947 (the year of AI ﬁlo del agua) (18).

It is hardly a coincidence that these years not only saw Revolutionary
programs being initiated, but also the consolidation of the Partido Revolucionario
Institucional (or PRI), the political party that would rule Mexico for 71 years. If not
an oxymoron, an “institutionalized revolution” is an incongruous combination of

political concepts. However, its utility as a myth of the nation is enormous: “...the

15

most important and inﬂuential myth of modern Mexico is the one that states that
the Revolution still continues as radically as ever, in its ‘institutionalized’ phase”
(Rutherford, Mexican Society 45). An even more fundamental myth was that the
Revolution was indeed a revolution, and that its character was popular. As
Brennan points out, any literature that lends itself to the construction of national
identity must appeal to the “folk”, the “plebians”, the “people” and the “working
class” (13). In precisely the same period that this myth was being promulgated,
the Revolutionary novel was helping to provide a collective memory and a
national signiﬁcance for the events of 1910-1920. Azuela himself recalled that in
1927 the government requested the distribution of a revised edition of Los de
abajo among veterans of Revolutionary battles:

Manuel Maples Arce, Secretario del Gobierno de Veracruz, solicito mi

autorizacién para reeditar Los de abajo...Fue publicada y distribuida entre

la clase proletaria, por Ordenes expresas de ese gobernador...Sin

excepcién, Ios revolucionarios de ese tiempo acogieron mi novela con

elogios y no hubo uno que hubiera objetado la verdad de mi obra.

(OC 3: 1077)

Although the Revolutionary novel was often produced by writers more closely
associated with alte culture and directed at “a more SOphisticated public”
(Rutherford, Mexican Society 55), as the previous citation of Azuela indicates, its
popular appeal was essential for providing national signiﬁcance to the
Revolution. Such appeal was generated by the cycle’s recurring themes: tragedy,
the incomprehension of ideals, and mankind’s baser instincts determining the

most important political and military decisions of the day (Monsivais, “De las

relaciones litererias” 47-48).

16

At this point it should be noted that the novel of the Mexican Revolution
rarely depicts the national struggle in laudatory or even positive terms. Indeed,
Monsivéis (and countless others) have correctly noted that the cycle provides a
“rechazo monolitico de cualquier visiOn alborozada y celebratoria de la
Revolucibn” (“Notas” 1446), which is manifested through the increased social
criticism of the novels that appeared the 19305. Martinez goes so far as to
remark that would be erroneous to call these novels “Revolutionary” in the sense
that they uphold or defend the ideals of the national struggle (3). However, this
assessment overlooks the fact that the central theme of the entire cycle—the
Revolution itself and its depiction as a millennial event of the most profound
consequences—is left unchallenged. Social criticism in the Revolutionary novels
that does not subvert or question millennial conceptions results in little more than
a catalog of whatever social ills were pronounced in a given moment, providing
only the semblance of a literature that truly critiqued Mexican society in the wake
of the Revolution. In other words, the typical Revolutionary novelist would have
no problem positing that little or no change has been produced by the national
upheaval, but would under no circumstances take the next logical step and
conclude that the Revolution was no revolution at all. By not challenging this
fundamental myth of the Mexican Revolution, any social problem that a
Revolutionary novel depicted amounted to a work in progress that the political
leadership—this “revolucién institucional”—would one day complete.

Furthermore, as Bruce-Novoa points out, much of the most incisive criticism of

17

the post-Revolutionary regime appeared only after the subject of the criticism
was no longer in power:

...a pesar del tono pesimista de las novelas que aparecieron entre 1926 y

1940, por lo general no criticaban franca o directamente a los triunfadores

de la RevoluciOn. Y aun cuando se podrian leer las novelas como ataques

a ciertos jefes de la fase militar, hay que tomar en cuenta que la mayoria

de ellas 5e publico durante la transiciOn entre la década de Ios grandes

caudillos (19205) y la primera década del dominio del partido nacional

(19305); 0 sea, cualquier critica negative podia interpretarse, aun

entonces, como una justa evaluaciOn de los jefes corruptos del pasado

reciente—muchos de ellos ya fallecidos—y no del grupo especiﬁco en

poder durante los aflos en que aparecian las novelas...al ﬁn de cuentas y

a pesar de cualquier critica de la RevoluciOn que pretendieron ofrecer,

fundamentalmente apoyaba Ia posicién centriste y aun totalitaria del

gobierno nacional. (37)

This idea that the Revolutionary novel lent support to the new regime (which, with
the exception of the ﬁrst years of the Cardenas administration, was anything but
Revolutionary) has been seconded by Paul Arranz, who also notes the increased
state patronage of Revolutionary authors beginning in 1930 (“La Novela de la
Revolucibn Mexicana” 55).

As early as December 1924, upon becoming the new Secretary of Public
Education, J. M. Puig Casauranc proclaimed that his administration would
“publicara y divulgera toda obra mexicana que cambie la decoraciOn amanerada
creadora de falsos conceptos de la existencia por otro tipo de decoracién, tosca
y severe, y a veces II'Igubre...saceda de la Vida misma” (cited in Rutherford,
Mexican Society 57-58). As Jean Franco noted in her examination of cultural

nationalism, the year 1929 signaled “a new era in Mexican life, for thenceforward

the intellectual was faced with the choice of aligning himself with the government

18

or working in isolation” (72). New modes of patronizing the Revolutionary novel
were introduced in this period. For example, in 1930 the newspaper El Nacional
organized a contest for the outstanding “novela revolucionaria”. Monsiveis notes
that this competition fostered an atmosphere of literary production similar to that
which followed the Russian Revolution, where self-appointed proletarien
novelists sought to create a literature for the people (“Nota5” 1458). The 1930s
also saw the beginning of the annual Premio Nacional de Literature; among the
Revolutionary novels which were awarded this prize are El indio (1935) by
Gregorio LOpez y Fuentes, El luto humeno by José Revueltas and Le negre
Angusties (1944) by Francisco Rojas Gonzalez. Ironically, this patronage was not
unlike that which existed between Porﬁrio Diaz and several novelists toward the
end of the nineteenth century.20

Given this political context, the manner in which a “Revolutionary” novelist
employs millennial imagery is fundamental toward understanding his or her
attitude toward the Revolution: those writers who presented the Revolution as
violent cataclysm that restructured society helped (perhaps unwittingly) to afﬁrm
the legitimacy of the post-Revolutionary State (even if it was not carrying through
on fundamental promises). On the other hand, authors who do not underscore
the millennial aspects of the Revolution, and instead minimize millennial imagery
or present it with irony or as utterly misguided, tend to be the Revolutionary
novelists who were outside—or even opposed to—the program of cultural

nationalism and the post—Revolutionary regime.

19

IV. Criteria, Method, and Sources of the Present Study.

This study proposes to demonstrate the following: The novel of the
Mexican Revolution was the product of sociopolitical factors existing in Mexico in
the decades following the Revolution; in this context, it served to afﬁrm the
cultural and political legitimacy of the post-Revolutionary State just as the epic
murals, painted onto the walls of government buildings, celebrated the birth of a
modern nation from the ashes of Porﬁrio Diaz’s dictatorship. Because of the
previously discussed relationships between millenarianism and revolution, the
employment of millennial imagery helped to insure the mandate of the post-
Revolutionary regime. Millennial imagery will be the focus of analysis not only for
its appearance in all the novels to be considered, presenting itself from the
moment federal battalions arrive to subjugate the Tomochitecos to the grim
prophecies of the dying Lucas Macias, but because it is the most distinctive
Characteristic of the Revolutionary novel.

Joseph Sommers concluded that the relationship of novelists to the
cultural nationalism promulgated by the government is key toward understanding
the congruities of the Revolutionary novel (After the Storm 33). Millennial imagery
is an important, though often overlooked, congruity of the novelistic cycle. By
analyzing the extent and function of such imagery, we will see how the
Revolutionary novel helped to consolidate the political and cultural hegemony of
the post-Revolutionary government. A complex preferential relationship of
patronage existed between the government and novelists of the 19305 and 405,

who gradually came to distance themselves from what actually occurred between

20

1910 and 1920. The ﬁrst Revolutionary novelists actually served in the national
struggle (for example, Azuela, Guzman, Munoz and Francisco L. Urquizo). On
the other hand, the professional writer or Ietredo, who became the recipients of
national literary prizes and were more professionally involved with the Priista
governments of the 19305, 405 and 50s, tended to be younger men who had not
fought in the Revolution. The majority of writers now identiﬁed as Revolutionary
novelists helped to institutionalize and promulgate the myth of the Mexican
Revolution to the beneﬁt of the regime that, with its self-interested political
agenda, fulﬁlled only a fraction of the Revolutionary ideals that were introduced
by the Plan de San Luis Potosi (Madero, 1911), the Plan de Ayala (Zapata, 1911,
rev. 1913) and the Constitution of 1917 (especially Articles 27 and 123).

To better understand the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary culture of
Mexico, this study will require not only a close reading of selected novels but
close attention to the perspectives and expectations of Mexicans in general.
Consequently, this study will also analyze (and contrast with the novels) the
millenarian content of selected Revolutionary-era corridos. These popular ballads
can offer a popular perspective of the battles and heroes that one does not
encounter in the vast majority of Revolutionary novels. The Mexican corrido has
existed in sundry forms as early as the middle of the nineteenth century and, as
various specialists have explained, this lyrical-narrative genre can often provide a
valid means of investigating the historical and political history of the nation.21 As
we will see, corridos often served as raw material for Revolutionary novelists who

wished to feature popular perspectives in their work. A chapter will be devoted to

21

the corrido, focusing especially on those that were written during the decade of
armed conﬂict; this chapter will also revisit the question of the authenticity of the
corrido as a medium of popular expression and address some of the widely-held
assumptions that have existed in the study of this oral literature. The
interpretation of the corrido as popular literature will be established in reference
to the work of the most important Mexican folklorist, Vicente T. Mendoza (1894-
1964). The investigation of the corrido in this chapter will be crucial in the
assessment of the perspectives and use of millennial imagery in the chapters
that follow. Throughout this study, selected corridos will be introduced in the
discussion of the Revolutionary novels in order to corroborate information or to
offer a popular counterpoint to the more monolithic perspectives of the
Revolution provided by the prominent novelists.

As a body of literature, the Revolutionary novel is much too diverse to be
easily deﬁned or categorized. While many texts are episodic and virtually
autobiographical in their treatment of historical events (for example, El eguile y la
serpiente [1929] by Guzman; iVémonos con Pancho Villa! [1931] and Se Ilevaron
el ceflén pare Bachimba [1941] by Munoz; Con Carranza [1933-34] by Manuel
W. Gonzalez; Recuerdo que... [1934] and Tropa vieje [1966] by Francisco L.
Urquizo), others employ sophisticated narrative techniques that include stream of
consciousness, analepsis and interior monologue (for example, Cartucho [1931]
by Nellie Cempobello, El resplendor [1937] by Mauricio Magdaleno; El Iuto
humeno by José Revueltas; and AI ﬁlo del agua by Yanez). There are also

important subcategories within the Revolutionary cycle: for example, the

22

previously mentioned novels of the caudillo, the indigenist novel, and the ﬁrst
examples of the so-called Modern Mexican novel of the 19405 and 50s Given
this diversity and the evolving political circumstances from which the
Revolutionary novel arose, I will focus on groups of novels rather than on
individual works. Beginning with TomOchic, the most important precursor of the
Revolutionary novel, the analysis will turn to the Revolutionary production of
Azuela, the caudillo and indigenist novels, and conclude with the most artistically
accomplished work of the entire cycle, Yanez’s AI ﬁlo del agua. It is hoped that
with such a wider focus the trends of this novelistic cycle will be highlighted and
better understood—an objective more rewarding than simply linking together a
series of novels that would othenlvise have few aspects in common.

As stated earlier, the analysis of the Revolutionary novel will begin not
with Los de abajo but with Toméchic. Novela mexicana (1895) by Heriberto
Frias. Although Azuela praised the realism, unadorned prose and subversive
character of this text, its true legacy to the literature which Azuela would pioneer
is the depiction of a popular millennial movement struggling against the creaky
dictatorship that sought to annihilate it. Nearly all the recurring elements of the
Revolutionary cycle—the millennial imagery, the cult of the caudillo, the
disillusionment and pessimistic tone (see Monsivais “Notes” 1447-48; Morton
247; Valbuena-Briones)——are to be found in this underrated novel. The Mazatlan
edition of TomOchic (1906), revised and made more controversial by F rias even
as government authorities harassed him, will be examined rather than the earlier

serialized and less complete editions. The treatment of Frlas’ novel will lead to a

23

reconsideration of the Revolutionary production of Mariano Azuela: Andres
Pérez, maden'ste (191 1), Los de abajo (1915), Les moscas (1917), Los ceciques
(1918) and Tn'buleciones de une femilie decente (1918). Although these short
novels became the inspiration for dozens of Revolutionary novels to follow, their
sustained pessimism and particular employment of millennial imagery would be
neglected by future novelists who had a more clearly deﬁned political agenda to
follow. Through the comparison of these novels with Revolutionary corridos
depicting the same events, we will see that Azuela provided a literature that was
much closer to reproducing popular perspectives and memory than that of his
literary successors.

From these fundamental texts my analysis will lead to the extremely
popular novels of the caudillo, ivemonos con Pancho Villa! (1931) by Munoz and
Tierre (1933) by LOpez y Fuentes,22 texts that appeared at the height of the
Revolutionary novel’s national and international celebrity and provided
memorable portraits of the legendary Revolutionaries Pancho Villa (1878 -1923)
and Emiliano Zapata (c.1879-1919). By contrasting these portraits with those
provided by selected corridos, we can gauge the extent of cultural nationalism
and mythmaking in the novels, as well as the extent to which the ﬁgure of Zapata
was reinvented by LOpez y Fuentes as a messianic ﬁgure at the head of a
millennial movement. Munoz’s portrait of Villa is much less ﬂattering. This
northern military leader, who organized and led the largest Revolutionary army
ever mobilized in Latin America (Katz, Life and Times xiii), is depicted as little

more than an elusive, unpredictable and cruel guerrilla leader. By depicting these

24

men and their participation in the Revolution in this fashion, Munoz and LOpez y
Fuentes reafﬁrmed the legitimacy of the post-Revolutionary regime.

Political expedience, rather than intellectual curiosity, compelled the new
leadership to stimulate national interest in the indigenous population in the years
following the Revolution. As stated earlier, the rediscovery of the lndio was a
prominent feature of the post-Revolutionary State’s promulgation of cultural
nationalism and of the indigenist novel that emerged in the mid-19305. While
cultural nationalism and the indigenist novel are closely related in terms of their
origins, their political messages are often opposed to one another. By analyzing
the use of millennial imagery in two indigenist novels, El indio (1935) by LOpez y
Fuentes and El resplendor (1937) by Magdaleno, this chapter will posit that these
texts provide some of the most incisive and comprehensive social criticism of the
post-Revolutionary government to be found among the novels of the Mexican
Revolution. However, although millennial imagery is both extensive and
fundamental to the appreciation of these texts, the social criticism of the
indigenist novel does not deconstruct the myth of the Revolution itself.
Consequently, El indio and El resplendor do not challenge the mandate of the
new national leadership but instead focus their attention on social issues that still
needed to be addressed.

The culmination of this study will be the analysis of Yanez’s novel Al ﬁlo
del agua which, like Los de abajo, only enjoyed critical acclaim several years
after it appeared.23 Although Yanez’s novel takes place in an isolated pueblo of

Jalisco during a twenty-month period before the outbreak of the Revolution, the

25

novel’s political implications and the author’s biography make the 19405 a more
appropriate context for not only appreciating but explaining the extensive
millennial imagery of the novel. Indeed, this novel has been categorized not as
the concluding Revolutionary novel, but as the ﬁrst novel of the “Institutional
Revolution” (Harris 29). This chapter will also refer to pre-Revolutionary corridos
and to the popular press to ascertain to what extent Yanez exaggerated the
millennial aspects of the coming Revolution and thus lent ideological support to
the Priista regime in which he held several important posts. In this chapter,
essays written by Yanez, dating from the 19305 and having a direct relationship
to his landmark novel, will provide a deeper understanding of the novelistic
theory of the author, as well as his belief in the role of literature within the

program of cultural nationalism.

V. Notes.

1 Millennial belief, or millenarianism, may be deﬁned as popular expectations for the end of the
existing social system or world and its replacement with a better one. The better world is usually
one in which antithesis becomes synthesis: the reestablishment of a golden age in the future, the
marriage of the sacred and the profane, of the earthly and the celestial (Pereira de Queiroz 20).
The term millenarianism is derived from the Latin millennium, meaning a period of a thousand
years, and the Greek chilies, a historical phenomenon that represents “the total, imminent,
ultimate, this-worldly collective salvation” (Levine 1). This period of a thousand years refers to the
earthly reign of Jesus Christ alluded to in several books of the Bible (Daniel, Ezekiel, and
Matthew) and directly depicted in Revelations (20: 4-6). According to the Bible, the earthly reign
of Christ will be characterized by peace and herrnony and follow a series of cataclysms, plagues,
battles and (super)natural disasters. Speciﬁc Biblical sources of millennial and apocalyptic
imagery are Ezekiel (37-39), Daniel (2, 7, 9: 2, 11 and 12) and Mark (13). Non-Biblical sources

26

include the writings of Joachim de F lore (c. 1135-1202), Thomas Ml‘mtzer (c. 1475—1525) and
Cotton Mather (1663-1728).

2 Lois Parkinson Zamora explains that “Apocalypse is not merely a synonym for disaster or
cataclysm or chaos” but that it means “revelation", an envisioning of a divine plan and the
establishment of a “millennial order‘ (10). For the purposes of this study, I have chosen the terms
millennial, millenarian and millenarianism rather than apocalyptic (Parkinson Zamora’s preferred
term) because I believe that this choice better emphasizes the establishment of a new order, thus
underscoring the political implications of my analysis. I do not dispute Parkinson Zamora’s
deﬁnitions, but believe millennial to be the more inclusive term; the Apocalypse is only an initial
phase of the Millennium. Furthermore, millennial is employed by historians, anthropologists and
sociologists more frequently than apocalyptic, which has a much stronger religious connotation.

3 The classic synthesis is Hobsbawm (1-12). More recently, political scientists and historians such
as Scott, Vanderwood and Ranajit Guha have challenged such hierarchical distinctions. See
especially Guha’s Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (Delhi: Oxford UP,
1983).

‘ This comparison between the political phenomenon of a revolution and millenarianism is not
random. As James C. Scott explains, “[W]hile the serf, the slave, and the untouchable may have
difficulty imagining other arrangements than serfdom, slavery and the caste system, they will
certainly have no trouble imagining a total reversal of the existing distribution of status and
rewards. The millennial theme of a world turned upside down...can be found in nearly every
major cultural tradition in which inequities of power, wealth and status have been pronounced”
(80). Paz has written that modern society, like the ﬁrst Christians awaiting the Apocalypse, “has
been waiting for the arrival of the Revolution since 1840" (“Twilight of Revolution” 56). See also
Pereira de Queiroz (19-36).

5 For an overview of Mexican millenarianism beginning with the Conquest, see Franco, Lecture
sociocrltica (348-64).

5 The return of QuetzacOatl, in the Aztec mythological tradition, would signal the end of the
present age, that of humanity and historical time, which is known as the Fifth Sun (Quinto Sol).
Each of the previous four suns were ruled by a unique deity and were ended by a universal
cataclysm in which the people of each age were either completely annihilated or transformed into
different forms of life (Markman 73).

7 See for example, “Noticia de las profeclas sobre las ruinas de Mexico” (Mexico City: Imprenta
de la Calle Trapana, Ietra C, 1843. Archivo Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca Nacional, R 1134).

8 Although this novelistic cycle is commonly known as «the novel of the Mexican Revolution», to
avoid redundancies «Revolutionary novel» will be used interchangeably with the previous term.

9 Within the context of post-Revolutionary Mexico, the term nationalism does not refer to
excessive xenophobia and militarization. Instead, Benedict Anderson’s initial approximations of

27

the term as “nation-ness”, or as a “cultural artifact” that produces an “imagined political
community" (4-6) are closer to the sense of the term that will be employed throughout this study.
1° See Rufﬁnelli, “La recepcidn critica de Los de abajo.” Los de abajo. Ed. Jorge Rufﬁnelli.
(Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto de Argentina, 1988): 185-219. The
ﬁrst article treating Los de abejo’s sudden and unprecedented celebrity is by John E. Englekirk,
“The Discovery of Los de abajo by Mariano Azuela" Hispanie 18 (1935): 53-62.

" For a more detailed discussion of this question, see the Appendix (181-97).

‘2 Gilly has characterized the Mexican Revolution as a true revolution at its inception; however, it
became “interrupted” and eventually hijacked by the national elite and bourgeois classes until it
no longer resembled one. The basic argument of Casio Villegas is that the major goals of the
Revolution—political freedom, agrarian reform and labor organization—have been gradually
abandoned by the new leadership despite their claims to the contrary.

'3 See the ﬁrst issue of El Libro y el Pueblo, the literary and cultural journal of the Secretary of
Public Education, where the journal’s purpose is set forth: “Haste antes de ehora no se ha hecho
un periOdico exclusivamente destinado a orientar al pI'Iblico en la elecciOn y lecture de los
Iibros...Por esta cause El Libro y el Pueblo tome para 51 la tarea de cultiver el amor a la lecture y,
sobre toda, la misiOn de enseflar la manera de ahorrar el tiempo, indicando qué debe Ieerse y en
dénde puede Ieerse” 1.1 (1 Mar. 1922): 1.

“ On 20 November 1920 the interim government of Adolfo de la Huerta staged the ﬁrst national
commemoration of Madero’s rebellion, thus institutionalizing the Revolucién (now capitalized)
and, for the ﬁrst time, drawing their own credibility from it.

‘5 In his discussion of Jean Meyer’s The Cristero Rebellion (1976), David Bradlng describes the
Mexican Revolution not as a revolution but “as the climax of the process of modernization
initiated at the close of the nineteenth century, the perfecting rather than the destruction of the
work of Porﬁrio Dlaz...For the men who enrolled in this Mexican Vendée...[the Revolution] was
an apocalypse in which Anti-Christ, in the person of countless generals and bandits, burnt, raped,
plundered and murdered his way across the country” (59-60).

'6 Gramsci deﬁnes this class as the “deputies” of the dominant classes, “exercising the the
subaltem functions of social hegemony and political government” in the wider context of civil
society (“The Formation of Intellectuals”, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 12-13).

'7 For a useful summary of the relationship between literature and the revolutionary governments
of other countries, see Menton (170-77).

‘8 Because of the strident anti-clericalism of the revolutionary era, Marta Portal has even posited
that among the most salient characteristics of the Revolutionary novel is its lack of religious
content (344-47).

28

‘9 As early as 1902, critics such as Leonardo S. Viremontes were complaining of Mexico’s lack of
achievement in the novel. See, Causes de nuestra escase produccicn literaria y medics de
combetirles (Mexico City: Eduardo Dublau, 1902): 24.

2° See Brushwood, Mexico en su novela, Chapter V “El compromiso desesperado” (220-51 ).

2‘ For example, see Mendoza, El corrido de la Revolucién ('19-21); Paredes, “Introduction” (xvii);
Macazaga Orduflo (5); Simmons (31-38) and Vélez (8). More recently, the historian Ariel de la
Fuente has examined popular songs and stories about gaucho caudillos Facundo Qulroga and
Chacho Pel'laoza in order to better understand their role during the process of nation-building in
nineteenth century Argentine. Their important function—due in no small part to their charisma and
leadership—is similar to that of Emiliano Zapata and (to a lesser extent) Pancho Villa in the
19205 and 305, when these once feared men were mythologized in the national literature.
“Facundo and Chacho in Songs and Stories: Oral Culture and the Representations of Caudillos in
the Nineteenth-Century Argentine lnteriof’, Hispanic American Historical Review 80.3 (Aug.
2000): 503-535.

22 This study will not examine the classic novels of Martin Luis Guzman, El eguila y la serpiente
(1928) and Le sombre del caudillo (1929) because, in my opinion, they may be only marginally
considered Revolutionary novels, in spite of their popularity shortly after Azuela’s “discovery”.
Furthermore, the assessment of Marta Portal that these texts are best described as novels of “Ios
de arriba” (112) is corroborated by the fact that a comparison between these novels and selected
corridos would be difﬁcult.

23 See Dlaz Ruiz, Ignacio, “Recepcién critica de Al ﬁlo del agua” in Yaflez, Agustin, Al ﬁlo del
agua, Critical edition coordinated by Arturo Azuela (Madrid: CEP de la Biblioteca Nacional,

1992): 293-304.

29

CHAPTER 1

THE MEXICAN CORRIDO: BETWEEN THE PUEBLO AND PROPAGANDA

“Este corrido quiza
ésto sOlo bueno tiene:
del alma del pueblo viene
y al alma del pueblo va.”
—El Corrido de Ortiz Rubio.1

I. A Literature of the Pueblo.

The Mexican corrido has been famously deﬁned es “un género épico-
lirico-narretivo” that relates events which “hieren poderosamente Ia sensibilidad
de las multitudes” (Mendoza, El corrido mexicana ix). Having existed as a
chronology of life and times in Mexico since at least the middle of the nineteenth
century,2 the importance of the corrido as a vehicle for popular expression cannot
be easily disputed. Because many corridos were written in situ—for example,
immediately after a battle—they often provide a unique (counter) discourse more
ﬁrmly rooted in the historical event then even the Revolutionary novels that read
like chronicles.3 Furthermore, the corrido often provides a pragmatic perspective,
critical of the Revolution, not encountered in Revolutionary literature or in the
celebrated murals that were completed in the 1920s, at the height of Mexico’s
period of cultural nationalism. In general, we do not see the same nationalistic
gloriﬁcation of the series of insurrections that traumatized Mexico between 1910
and 1920, just the Onlvellian pessimism that could only come from those who
actually participated in the fighting.4

Although these folk ballads have been extensively researched and

collected in anthologies, their scholarship has seen much generalization. The

30

most familiar standard assumption is that the corrido represents a reliable
medium for determining popular sentiment, seemingly free of the corrupting
inﬂuences of patronage and political expediency which often call into question
the authenticity of other genres of artistic expression, such as the novel, that
claim to represent the vox populi. Scholars of the Mexican corrido have been
virtually unanimous in identifying the corrido as an authentic source of popular
memory and expression.5 However, in order to approach this genre and to utilize
its content (and especially its millennial imagery) as a counterpoint to the
Revolutionary novel, It is necessary to investigate incongruities and challenge
widely-held assumptions.

An important incongruity is that in spite of the fact that many corridos do
indeed have popular origins, and therefore can be viable as a means of
assessing such perspectives and memory, the genre has also been utilized as a
means of inscribing ofﬁcial ideologies among the masses. This function has
rarely been acknowledged, especially in regard to the Revolutionary corrido, a
category that refers to the thousands of ballads that appeared between 1900
(when the ﬁrst ﬁssures were beginning to appear in Diaz’s dictatorship) and
about 1924 (when the De la Huerta revolt, the last major military challenge to the
post-Revolutionary government, was subdued). Undoubtedly, the corrido saw its
most proliﬁc period of development in the years leading up to and during the
Mexican Revolution. Due to the many changes of political leadership during the
Revolution, the corrido often served as an organ of whatever regime was

temporarily in control. This political function is more clearly observed in the post-

31

Revolutionary era, when the previous system of one-man rule (Diaz, ObregOn,
Calles) was replaced by the one-party rule of the Partido Revolucionario
Institucional, beginning in the late-19305. These post-Revolutionary ballads often
echo the nationalistic positions of the PRI: for example, when the anointed
presidential candidate was in danger of not winning election,6 or when the
alleged improvements brought about by the regime needed to be restated.7
However, the argument that the corrido often served the same purpose before or
during the Revolution is rarely put fonIvard, in spite of the fact that Diaz pioneered
many of the same strategies for inscribing nationalism later employed in the
19205 and 305.8

A fundamental assumption of many corrido scholars is that this literature
should be approached as epic poetry or popular history, where its value as a
document of the popular expression is much more conspicuous and sustainable;
this approach subsequently neglects its more appropriate context in the penny
press of the pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary periods. Although antithetical to
notions of popular discourse and folklore, the Mexico City penny press is where
the corrido was most widely disseminated and where the most famous examples
appeared in print for the ﬁrst time. Mendoza categorized the corrido and other
popular ballads under the rubric of “Folklore espiritual”, which also included
popular conceptions of history, language, philosophy, morality and superstitions.9
But the typical Mexico City small press, owned and operated by relatively well-
educated, middle class entrepreneurs, is not the logical site for the production of

such literature. Nevertheless, the majority of the most famous corridos were

32

collected and introduced into anthologies only after their initial appearance in
print and their subsequent sale on the streets of the capital.

Primordially, the corrido is an oral literature. For this reason, the vast
majority of all the ballads ever composed have been lost; this is especially true
since the typical trovodor or corridista—the musician who performed the corridos,
usually with a guitar or harp—was illiterate. Investigators can rarely determine
with precision when a particular corrido made the transition from being an oral
performance (evolving as it was performed) to being preserved on the printed
page (Figueroa Torres 15-16). The majority of corrido studies have therefore, out
of necessity, relied on the thousands of broadsheets (hojas sue/tas or hOjes
impresas) that still exist today. Because of this reliance on printed corridos—the
vast majority of which were produced by the small presses located in the
neighborhood surrounding the Metropolitan Cathedral, especially on Moneda and
Correo Mayor streets—any analysis of the genre should direct some attention to
the numerous cancioneros, Day of the Dead broadsheets, Lives of the Saints
booklets, penny newspapers and other daily and weekly periodicals produced in
the decades before and during the Revolution of 1910. It is no coincidence that
the period from about 1890 to 1920, when the Mexico City’s popular press was a
burgeoning industry, is also regarded as the apogee of the Mexican corrido
(Figueroa Torres 15; Henestrosa 58; Mendoza, El corrido mexicana xxxv-xlii;
Moreno Rivas 17; etc.). Considering the genre as a social phenomenon not
limited to literature or folklore, Gutierrez Avila argues that the corrido should be

examined among other cultural expression of the period, as part of a greater

33

“concatenation” of the diverse facets of daily life (14). Undoubtedly the popular
press was an important element of daily life in the capital, especially as the
positivist technocrats of the Diaz regime used whatever means necessary to
remain in power. After 1910, when Revolutionary caudillos vied for military and
political supremacy, the corridos circulated on broadsheets often attempted to
win popular support for the faction in control. Although this attests to the
importance of the corrido as popular discourse, it also demonstrates that it could
be used as a means of inscribing political views originating from sources beyond
(or above) the pueblo.

The argument for viewing the corrido in the context of the popular press
should be obvious for another reason: its most important function was relating
the latest news to the largely illiterate public. In 1895, only 14% of Mexicans
could read and write; by 1910, the year of the Revolution, the ﬁgure rose to about
20% (Knight, The Mexican Revolution 1: 41). By 1921, 72 percent of the
population remained illiterate (Meyer 208). The latest news was often circulated
on broadsheets with three principle parts: an eye-catching illustration (the work of
engraver José Guadalupe Posada [1852-1913], who worked for Vanegas Arroyo
from 1892 to his death, ﬁgures prominently here), a standard block text
description of the event, and a series of rhymed verses, usually arranged in
quatrains (four-line stanzas) and only occasionally referred to as a “corrido”
proper.10 The purpose of such a layout was to make the news more appealing to
more people, literate and illiterate, and thus sell more copies.11 With such a

convergence of publishing technology and ﬁnancial interests, the corrido

34

broadsheet becomes a more compelling example of print capitalism than popular
expression (Anderson, Imagined Communities 46). Many other broadsheets,
often less related to current events, were composed solely of an illustration and
rhymed quatrains.12 What was indeed a corrido, then, is not always immediately
recognizable as such. Instead they often began as nothing more than a series of
rhymed verses of varying meter, a form ready-made for oral performance. The
simple, almost monotonous music of the corrido was well suited for such a
transmission.13 Corrido broadsheets were circulated on street comers, in front of
churches, at train stations and in similar locations where large numbers of people
passed; the broadsheet hawker would often be accompanied by a musician who
would attract attention as he or she put the stanzas to music (Braun 24;
Mendoza, El corrido mexicano xxx; Moreno Rivas 16-17).

Corridos, then, were either performed by musicians prior to appearing in
print or, as was more often the case, afterward.14 This dubious transition between
the oral rendition of the corrido and its preservation in print leads to the important
yet often overlooked distinction between corridistas and letristes, professional
lyricists who would put an account of current events into verse and then circulate
the lyrics as an alternative source of news.15 Many of the most famous printers
working in the capital before and during the Revolution, men such as Antonio
Vanegas Arroyo, Eduardo A. Guerrero and Francisco Montes de Oca,
occasionally printed the lyrics of popular corridos they learned from corridistas
from rural areas; these corridos often chronicled the deeds of outlaws such as

Heraclio Bemal, Valentin Mancera and Ignacio Parra, or reported accidents such

35

as train derailments and natural disasters such as ﬂoods and droughts. More
often, however, someone among the printing staff would improvise rhymed
stanzas after reading a provocative story in the latest newspaper.

This chapter has two aims. First, through the analysis of corridos
produced and circulated as broadsheets between 1890 and 1920, all published
by the print shops of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, it will be demonstrated that rather
than expressing popular dissidence, corridos were often intended to make the
pueblo more compliant, serving as propaganda within the context of popular
journalism. The growth of the popular press in Mexico City was more clearly
driven by capitalistic motives and the need to survive in a highly competitive
market than by any idealized goal of expressing popular perspectives (or even of
faithfully reporting the news). Second, referring to a wider selection of texts, I will
suggest some guidelines for determining whether a particular corrido may be
deemed more reliable as a document expressing popular sentiments and
memory. On the basis of these guidelines, we will be able to make more reliable
and productive comparisons with the Revolutionary novel in the chapters to

come.

ll. Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, el Editor popular.

A humorous broadsheet titled “La calavera del editor popular Antonio
Vanegas Arroyo”, published about 1907, depicts the printer Antonio Vanegas
Arroyo (1852-1917) as a bearded, well-dressed calavera in a busy workshop

cluttered with so many printed ﬂyers it appears that a tsunami had just blown

36

t.16 Vanegas Arroyo, whose Mexico City publishing career spanned

through i
nearly four decades and more than five print shops, is identiﬁed by the author of
this Day of the Dead broadsheet as a sawy businessman and “el Editor
Popular”. A conservative estimate of the number of corridos and assorted broad
sheets produced by Vanegas Arroyo would exceed twenty thousand, a ﬁgure that
undoubtedly helped to lead Mendoza to the conclusion that the printer was the
most reputable promoter of the corrido in Mexico (El romance espah'ol y el
corrido mexicana 6). Among the employees of Vanegas Arroyo were several
reporters and professional writers: Francisco Ozacar, Raimundo Diaz Guerrero,
Arturo Espinoza (ChOforo Vico), Agustin Balandro and Constanclo S. Suarez,
who was an author of children’s stories (Cedefio 6) and a well known poet
(Gamboa).

The proliﬁc publishing activity of Vanegas Arroyo (as well as that of his
contemporaries) occurred during a period when Mexico, after nearly thirty years
of stability provided by the Diaz regime, was beginning to discover and assert its
own national identity. Benedict Anderson has posited that newspapers and daily '
periodicals have a signiﬁcant role in the formation of this national consciousness,
providing an imaginary sense of shared experience or simultaneity as they report
the news (24). Furthermore, Vanegas Arroyo served the function of the “printer-
joumalist” in turn of the century Mexico, a ﬁgure that facilitated the initial,
widespread nationalist sentiments of the North American colonies (Anderson,
Imagined Communities 61-62). Consequently, the question in regard to Vanegas

Arroyo and his texts is to what extent was he a disseminator of nationalism which

37

would have favored the Diaz regime (being largely responsible for ﬁrst stability
Mexico enjoyed since Independence), or of the viewpoints of the Mexican people
who frequently found themselves overworked, underpaid and far removed from
political participation under the dictator? A careful examination of corrido
broadsheets will reveal that Vanegas Arroyo did more to uphold Diaz’s rule than
to undermine it.

If Vanegas Arroyo had been permitted to publish politically subversive
materials freely, his nickname “the People’s Printer” would have been more
deserved. However, like most other printers of his era, he usually included his
name and the address of his print shops on the bottom of his broadsheets.
Bearing this in mind, his corrido broadsheets tended to be much less
controversial to Diaz, and to the Revolutionary factions that took their turns at
mling the nation, than the ballads which never made the transition to print.17 As
Scott explains, anonymity is a fundamental characteristic of subversive discourse
in a public sphere: “Oral traditions, due simply to their means of transmission,
offer a kind of seclusion, control, and even anonymity that make them ideal
vehicles for cultural dissidence” (140, 160). Nevertheless, Vanegas Arroyo
broadsheets, and especially the work of Posada, are often credited with
articulating nascent Revolutionary conceptions,18 in spite of the fact that any anti-
Diaz material they might have published would have carried the name of their
print shop on Segunda Calle Santa Maria 43, only a five-minute walk for troops
from the National Palace. Freedom of the press was the exception, rather than

the rule, in tum-of-the-century Mexico. The aged dictator would not hesitate to

38

conﬁscate presses and jail publishers who produced material unacceptable to his
authority (such as lreneo Paz, editor of La Patria, in 1911). According to Blas
Vanegas Arroyo, the son of the famous printer, both his father and Posada were
imprisoned on occasion; it also appears that Diaz, exemplifying the softer option
in his “pan 0 palo” (bread or the club) style of governance, attempted to buy off
the printer to keep criticisms of his dictatorship at a minimum (Mendivil 28). But
that may not have been necessary. According to Alvarez Everoix, the ﬁrst
Vanegas Arroyo print shop (established in 1880) was ﬁnanced with money
earned by binding the favorite books of President Diaz; the printer and the
president used to meet every weekday morning, between six and seven, to
discuss the progress of the book binding (1 ).19

Regardless of these relationships, the fact remains that printed materials
tended to be less critical of the regime in control than what was merely being
performed in public. Vanegas Arroyo publishing illustrates this quite clearly in a
number of subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Vanegas Arroyo rarely—if ever—
produced a corrido or news broadsheet that directly criticized President Diaz. On
the other hand, the 1893 funeral of the dictator’s close friend, General Manuel
Gonzalez (Diaz’s presidential puppet from 1881-1884), served as an occasion for
hagiography.20 For his part, Posada occasionally produced illustrations that
playfully satirized Diaz, his institutions (such as the rural police and forced
military conscription) and the ostentatious behavior of what has been called
Mexico’s gilded age. Posada certainly had no reservations about employing his

keen satirical wit at the expense of Madero.21 However, the engraver’s work was

39

usually more subversive in the numerous penny newspapers of the era: for
example, El Diablito Rojo, La Arafia, La Guacamaya and El Jicote.

During the Revolution, Vanegas Arroyo often tried to curry favor with the
regime in control (the printer died on 17 March 1917, leaving the business to his
son).22 In September 1911, he published a broadsheet praising Pascual Orozco,
the northern caudillo who fought against Diaz but later rebelled against Madero,
calling him the “true hero of the revolution!” By September 1911 the animosity
between Madero and the northern rebel leader was already well known. In
November of the same year the Zapatistas would recognize Orozco as the “Gate
de la RevoluciOn Iibertadora” in their Plan de Ayala (Knight, The Mexican
Revolution 1: 290). In June 1913, after General Victoriano Huerta usurped the
presidency and ordered the assassination of Madero, Vanegas Arroyo adopted
the same virulent posture against agrarian leader Emiliano Zapata that Diaz’s El
lmparcial had started in 1911.2” Re-using an earlier etching of Zapata by Posada,
Vanegas Arroyo produced a satirical anti-Zapatista (and consequently pro-
Huerta) corrido broadsheet describing the “Fandango del Bautizmo del Hijo de
Emiliano Zapata”, in which the “Gran ATILA SURIANO” drinks liquor from a skull
and makes grotesque toasts which are sarcastically called “belles frases.” Even
more revealing evidence of Vanegas Arroyo’s support for Huerta is his
admiration for General Juvencio Robles’ scorched-earth policy, which destroyed
the homes of Morelos campesinos and forced them into internment camps. In
exuberant, colloquial language the corrido reads, “Ahora se le tupen dura IAI

terrible zepatismol” 25 On the reverse side of this broadsheet is a report of the

40

capture of several members of Zapata’s family (women and children) by Robles’
forces. In a ﬂourish of editorializing, the reporter notes that “el senor General Don
Victoriano Huerta” is the rightful “Presidente de la Republica” and is working
productively to establish peace throughout the country.26 Simmons provides only
one pro-Huerta corrido from the spring of 1913 (published by Vanegas Arroyo, at
his second print shop at Segunda Calle de Penitenciaria 29), concluding that the
“corridista in question must have belonged to a small minority...because among
more than forty other ballads we know in which Huerta is mentioned by name,
there is not one which contains anything but vituperation for Madero’s
successor...” (106). On the contrary, the corridista in question was almost
certainly a Ietrista in Vanegas Arroyo’s staff who, on other occasions, wrote
articles and quatrains in support of the military dictator who ordered the
execution of the elected president and vice president, numerous legislators and
journalists, and was disparaged by the pueblo as a marijuana-smoking “Zapotec
Celigula”.

In 1914, after Huerta was overthrown by the coalition led by Venustiano
Carranza, Vanegas Arroyo corridos suddenly began celebrating the deeds of
Emiliano Zapata and his guerrillas: “Valiente entre los valientes, I de genio franco
y rasgado, I era de todos querido / y de todos respetado.” In yet another corrido
circulated in March 1915, people are told to respect the principles of the
Zapatista Plan de Ayala, which called for a return to the communal land
ownership of the colonial era; the agrarian leader is also favorably compared to

former president and national hero Benito Juarez.27 The famous meeting of

41

Zapata and Pancho Villa in Mexico City, when the two leaders entered the
deserted National Palace and posed with the presidential chair, had just occurred
in December 1914, so this ﬂattering portrayal of Zapata by Vanegas Arroyo may
have been due to concerns that he might return. After Zapata was assassinated
in April 1919, the Vanegas Arroyo print shop had no reservations about
publishing some of corridos from Morelos State that idolized the agrarian leader
and provided him the complementary features of the social bandit. The staff also
produced their own corridos, no doubt cashing in on the growing legend of
Zapata. In a fascinating example from the summer of 1919 (falsely advertised as
a “Corrido suriano”), the staff writer Arturo Espinoza describes Zapata's ghost
roaming the hills of Morelos followed by legions of fallen comrades in arms.28
The standard assumption that the corrido represents the pueblo’s
authentic expression becomes even more problematic when one considers that
most were dedicated to only the most salacious and scandalous local news
stories in the years leading up to the Revolution. Stories of gristly murders,
suicides, bandits, executions, romantic scandals, deformities and natural
disasters—all spun in the most sensational manner imaginable—are typical of
Vanegas Arroyo publishing, especially from 1890 to about 1910 (Frank 6).
Indicative of this tone is the title of a Vanegas Arroyo broadsheet from the 18905:
“El horrorisimo crimen del horrorisimo hijo que mate a su horrorisima madre”
(Bello 9). Such widespread dissemination of sensational, horriﬁc or spectacular
entertainment can cultivate a general taste for such material, eventually molding

a public with much less inclination for political debate and more willing to take

42

orders than make waves (McChesney 113). In Vanegas Arroyo corridos and
broadsheets, the paucity of information about the latest concession to foreign
investors by the Diaz administration, or of the brutal suppression of the religious
uprising at Tomochic, Chihuahua State in 1892, is noteworthy. The versiﬁed
account of the capture of a notorious criminal, or of the execution of a once
deﬁant bandit, must have served to demonstrate the infallibility and monolithic
character of law and order under Diaz. In some quatrains detailing the ﬁnal hours
of Jesus Bruno Martinez, a once-arrogant Mexico City criminal, the doomed man

laments as he awaits execution:

Adids de mis ilusiones,
adiOs todo lo que amaba
jamas hubiera creido
que esta ﬁnal me espera.

Mis esperanzas huyeron;
me resigno con mi suerte
que ha arrojado sobre mi
esta sentencia de muerte.

(cited in Tyler 219)

Beyond law and order, the efﬁciency and seeming infallibility of the Diaz
regime inscribed a traditional morality on its citizens that also attempted to render
them more passive. Demonstrating his acute sense of popular taste, in the late
18805 Vanegas Arroyo reintroduced the ancient genre of exemplum
(ejemplanes), in which the most sensational news stories were related semi-

objectively and concluded with an appropriate moral (Gamboa).29 In the fall of

1901, a Vanegas Arroyo broadsheet with quatrains relates the apprehension of

43

41 transvestites and homosexuals by the police with much colloquial humor and
moral opprobrium.30

The extent of such moralizing is revealed most clearly in the many pre-
Revolutionary corridos and broadsheets featuring apocalyptic themes. These
texts, usually predicting the end of the world, had appeared on the streets of the
capital as early as the 18405.31 There were many apocalyptic apprehensions in
Mexico in the last years of the Diaz dictatorship, especially in regard to celestial
phenomenon such as comets and aurora borealis (Séenz 206). Vanegas Arroyo
published corridos and block text broadsheets about the latest signs for the
coming Apocalypse as early as the 1880s; so frequent (and lucrative) was the
publication of this material, he apparently saw no irony in giving the title “Préximo
ﬁn del mundo” to a 1907 broadsheet.32 However, there are two important
observations to be made in regard to these broadsheets: in the ﬁrst place, the
events are depicted apocalyptically rather than in millennial terms (where a new
and better world will be established after the destruction of the old one); second,
these apocalyptic predictions are almost never linked to contemporary politics.33
Clearly there was to be no confusion between the end of the world and the end of
the Diaz dictatorship. With these corridos and broadsheets, Vanegas Arroyo
attempts the near impossible: to balance melodramatic reports of the coming
cataclysm, (in which everyone will perish) without suggesting the slightest
instability within the Diaz regime.

The recurring message of apocalyptic broadsheets of this period is that if

Mexicans by and large would be more pious and obedient, God would not be

44

disgusted and such catastrophes would not befall them. Naturally, the subtext of
these broadsheets is that President Diaz is as invulnerable and omnipotent as
God himself. Although mankind’s immorality is indeed the reason for the Biblical
Apocalypse (Rev. 11, 16), the tone in which the Vanegas Arroyo broadsheets

impart the threat of punishment is quite strident and personalized:

Es que la gente es muy mala,
Piensan sOlo en picardias
Y por eso es el castigo.
Pues acabara la vida.

Asi es qiielsi no prospera

En México Ia moral,

En poco tiempo veremos

La destrucciOn general.34
In yet another Vanegas Arroyo verse broadsheet, a letrista explains the arrival of
a comet in 1899: “Pero esto sOlo es castigo /A las muchas picardias, / Que a
cede momento hacemos IA todas las horas del dia.”‘"5 Vanegas Arroyo also
linked sensational murders (which served to demonstrate the immorality of
Mexicans) to earthquakes, “un castigo del cielo por aquellos...horrorosos
crimenes.”3’6

It would seem that nearly any celestial event, earthquake, unexplainable

incident or gristly murder could serve as a sign for the end of the world in the
material circulated by Vanegas Arroyo in the decades before the Revolution.
Although it would be overly speculative to conclude that Vanegas Arroyo was a

paid mouthpiece of Porﬁrio Diaz, there is little (if any) evidence in the corridos

published prior to the Revolution to suggest that he was articulating the nascent

45

Revolutionary conceptions of the pueblo. Indeed, in this era the prevalence of
risque subject matter in Vanegas Arroyo broadsheets of this era is striking. Of
even greater signiﬁcance is the manner in which apocalyptic imagery is
employed to encourage the obedience of the public at large. Millennial imagery,
which would posit an alternative society after the destruction of Porﬁrian Mexico,
was much too politically dangerous to disseminate: “What is beyond doubt is that
millennial beliefs and expectations have often provided, before the modern era, a
most important set of mobilizing ideas behind large-scale rebellions when they
did occur” (Scott 81). Because of the subtle methods of control that the
government exercised over printers in the capital, corridos with popular millennial

themes could not originate or be circulated there.

Ill. The City and the Provincia.

In contrast with the paternalistic and alarming tone of the Vanegas Arroyo
corridos, the “Corrido del Juicio Final” is an unadorned, popular account of the
Book of Revelation discovered by Mendoza in Milpa Alta, Federal District.
Instead of being upbraided for what is perceived to be immoral behavior, the
people of this corrido dialogue with God, who tells them that those who are good
will come to him and enjoy a glorious rest while the bed will be forever punished.
The corridista repeatedly asks his audience “gqué haremos?” and “z,qué hemos
de hacer?”, leaving them the choice of following the word of the Bible or
continuing along their self-destructive path (Mendoza, El corrido mexicana 395-

98). When the corridista is still in the process of introducing himself to his

46

listeners, he expresses his futility in ﬁnding someone to protest to: “(A quién mis
quejas dare? I Pues no hallo a quién reclamar, / Porque dicen que esta mundo
/ con lumbre se ha de acabar” (Mendoza, El conido mexicana 395). With these
verses a certain deﬁance in the face of the coming cataclysm is revealed; to the
extent that the corridista reveals that others speak of the world ending in ﬁre, he
takes the Apocalypse out of the mouth of authority (whose knowledge is not to be
challenged) and puts it on the level of rumor, chisme, of things that were simply
overheard. On a more general level, this corrido is not nearly as prescriptive or
melodramatic as the material produced by Vanegas Arroyo on the occasion of a
natural disaster, celestial phenomenon or disturbing crime. With the suggestion
that some people (the chosen ones) will one day commune with God, his corrido
also introduces the millennial theme (rather than the apocalyptic), thus positing
the alternative of a prosperous future; looking deeper, it may also suggest a
political outlook that is less satisﬁed with the status quo and more inclined to
rebellion.

The “Corrido del Juicio F inal” suggests some guidelines for determining
whether a particular corrido may be determined more reliable as a document
expressing popular sentiments and memory. Undoubtedly, the corridos compiled
in Mendoza’s El con'ido mexicana are the most trustworthy reproductions of
corridos that were originally performed. There are two major reasons for this:
ﬁrst, the corridos were published (many for the ﬁrst time) long after the political
ﬁgure or regime had left power, thus freeing the author and publisher from the

possibility of recriminations; two, folklorists such as Mendoza and (to a lesser

47

extent) Vézquez Santa Ana were meticulous researchers who spent years
investigating and recording corridos in the ﬁeld.37 In this regard, Mendoza recalls
North American musicologists Alan and John Lomax (see Leal, “Vicente T.
Mendoza Homenaje” 1-8).

Another consideration for judging the authenticity of a particular corrido as
an expression of popular perspectives is to note how it begins and ends. If it
begins with personal or self-conscious information about the corridista, or the
about event which it describes (such as the place or date), there is a better
chance that the poet is the corridista who witnessed the event. This is the aspect
described by Mendoza as the corrido’s tendency to be a ﬁrst or third person
narrative from the lips of a witness or well-informed person who recounts the
event (El corrido mexicana xviii). In Mendoza’s “Corrido del Juicio Final”, for
example, the corridista begins by saying that he’s recently learned of the coming
Final Judgement and that he’s confused and worried to think of it (El corrido
mexicano 395). At the beginning of the famous “Corrido de la Muerte de
Madero”, the corridista begins by saying that he has come to report the details of
the president’s assassination “con lagrimas en Ios ojos.”38 The manner in which a
corridista takes leave of his audience, usually with a self-effacing despedida, is
also a good indication of its authenticity. At the conclusion of the “Corrido del
Reparto de Tierras” (Nuevo LeOn State), the corridista reveals, “El que compuso
estos versos I no es poeta o trovador, les un pobre campesino / de Mexico, un
Iabrador" (Mendoza, El conido mexicano 94). Castaneda categorized these

tendencies as six primary and eight secondary formulas, suggesting that their

48

appearance was fundamental in an authentic corrido (El corrido mexicano 18-
19). Vanegas Arroyo corridos feature these tendencies less frequently,
diminishing the possibility that they may have actually been performed. In the
absence of such clues, it may very well be that the corrido is a quick versiﬁcation
gleaned from the newspaper. Another means of determining the authenticity of
the corrido should already be apparent: the corrido has predominantly rural
origins, in la provincia, while Mexico City tends to be their destination and site of
publication rather than where they were composed and originally performed.
Following the years 1890-1920, this most proliﬁc and important period of
corrido production, the genre was gradually co-opted by the post-Revolutionary
political establishment. In the 19205, the Secretaria de Educacién Publica
lavishly began to fund research into Mexican folklore. One of the initial scholarly
products was Ruben M. Campo’s comprehensive El folklore literaria y musical de
Mexico, where he contends that the corrido is the popular expression “most
Clearly Mexican” and most “representative of Mexican folklore” (32). The corrido
demonstrates a marked change (some would say a decadence) beginning in
1930, exactly as in the case of the Revolutionary novel; this date has been
described by Américo Paredes as the advent of “Mexico’s Tin Pan Alley” over the
production of the genre (“The Mexican Conido” 132-138). Henestrosa described
the corrido of the late 19405 as “estupido, insipido y falso” with no appeal except
for certain elite sectors of the capital (56). In the late 19305, the corrido culto
emerged, a subgenre that aspired to be a national epic literature. Outstanding

examples of the corrido culto are Francisco Castillo Najera’s El Gavilan (conido

49

grende) (1939), Daniel Castaneda’s Gran conido a la Virgen de Guadalupe
(1941) and El coyote. Corrido de Mexico (1951), written by the corrido scholar
Celedonio Serrano Martinez. Although corridos continue to be composed and
circulated today,39 the development of the corrido culto suggests a thorough
institutionalization of the genre in the 19405, a direction ﬁrst taken by the Mexico
City penny presses that put this oral literature into print and sold it for a proﬁt in
the years preceding the Revolution.

For making comparisons to the Revolutionary novel, this study will refer to
only to those corridos that Mendoza (or other investigators) has encountered in
rural areas and that have a reliable pre-history prior to being published in Mexico
City. Although the strict adherence to such criteria will not completely insure the
authenticity of a particular corrido as popular discourse, it will increase the

probability and provide more stimulating examples of this oral literature.

IV. Notes.

1 Composed by EC. Sandoval and cited in the collection, The Mexican Revolution: Corridos
about the Heroes and Events 1910-1920 and Beyond! A Four CD Set. (El Cerrito, CA: Arhoolie
Productions, Inc., 1996) [139-45] 141.

2 Mendoza explains that the corrido is a relatively new development, originating from the copla
form in the second half of the nineteenth century (El conido mexicana xiv). Castal‘leda argues
that there is evidence of conidos as early as the seventeenth century (El corrido mexicana. Su
técnica literaria y musical 12).

3 For example, [vamonos con Pancho Villa! (1931) and Se Ilevaron el cafldn para Bachimba
(1941) by Rafael F. Munoz; Con Carranza (1933-1934) by Manuel W. Gonzalez; Recuerdo que. ..
(1934) and Tropa vieje (1966) by Francisco Urquizo.

‘ For example, see the “Conido de la Nueva RebeliOn" (1924), written during the Dela Huerta
revolt against President Obregén. The corridista calls for the attention of his countrymen and
depicts the Revolution not as the political and social renovation of Mexico, but as a series of

50

bloody battles that occurred for “suerte fatal”. In the second stanza he continues describing the
great Revolution dismally, and without the slightest gloriﬁcation, “Ya la Patria se encuentra en la
ruina / por la guerre fatal que la agobia, / con trece aflos de guerre intestine / que les sirve de Iuto
a la historia.” Cited in César Macazaga Orduho, Ed. Corridos de la Revolucidn mexicana: desde
1910 a 1930, y otros notables de otras épocas (Mexico City: Editorial lnnovacibn, SA, 1985) 80.

5 For example, in El conido de la Revolucidn mexicana, Mendoza writes that under normal
circumstances, where the corridistas can freely perform, the corrido constitutes “la expresibn mas
genuine del sentimiento de las gentes" (9). Romero Flores, another primary corrido scholar,
writes that the genre forms “el alma musical de todo un pueblo” (10). Robert Redﬁeld, the
inﬂuential American anthropologist, concluded that the corrido is a “collective diary of the Mexican
masses” (9). Perez Martinez notes that the corrido “no tiene otra aristocracia que la de dirigirse al
pueblo y salir de él: su pureza” (28). Diaz de Ovando concludes that the corrido is a form of
poetry that represents “una de las auténticas expresiones populares” (67). Merle E. Simmons, the
investigator who has provided the most comprehensive study of the corrido written in English,
argues that the corrido, more than just a “signiﬁcant historical document”, reﬂects with a “high
degree of ﬁdelity what the pueblo” is thinking at a given historical moment (36-7). Others who
have made similar assertions include Salvador Novo and Anita Brenner (see Simmons 496).

6 See the “Corrido al General Manuel Avila Camacho” (Mexico City: Departamento de Prensa y
Propaganda del Partido Revolucionario Mexicano, 1939. Archivo Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca
Nacional, R 846).

7 See Miguel Castaheda’s “Corrido de la dictadura porﬁrista" (Mexico City: El Nacional, ca. 1940.
Archivo lmpreso Suelto, Biblioteca Nacional, R 955).

8 An interesting but seldom discussed example of Diaz’s political acumen was his early ﬁnancial
support of the Mexican painters who would later pioneer the muralist movement in the 19205 and
19305. By November 1910, Diaz and his Secretary of Public Education, Justo Sierra, had already
funded the young Diego Rivera’s education in Paris as well as provided a public exibition of the
work of Dr. Atl (Gerardo Murillo) and José Clemente Orozco. Orozco was already contracted to
paint murals with nationalistic themes on the walls of the Preparatoria, but the Revolution
postponed these plans for more than a decade. Ruiz speculated that “Had Dlaz continued in
ofﬁce, Mexico would have enjoyed its now-famous mural renaissance a decade earlier” (22).

9 Mendoza, Vicente T., “Le amplitud extraordinaria” (Selected notes on folklore). (Archivo Vicente
T. Mendoza, Biblioteca Nacional, MS.vtm.OG [Ensayos] 892) [2-7] 3.

1° See for example: “Los autores del crimen de la Profesa en Veracruz...” (Mexico City: Vanegas
Arroyo, 1891) and “La Iibertad caucional del famoso diestro Rodolfo Gaona,” (Mexico City:
Vanegas Arroyo, 1909. Both included in Frank, 110, 160). Also see “El ﬁn del mundo para el
Lunes 13 de Noviembre del aflo de 1899,” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1899. Collection of
Ricardo Perez Escamilla); and “Jesus Bruno Martlnez en las bartolinas de Belen,” (Mexico City:

51

Vanegas Arroyo, 1891) and “Muerte de Aurelio Caballero por el vbmito, en Veracruz” (Mexico
City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1892. Tyler 219-20). Simmons notes this three-part format but does not
speculate on its function (310-32).

‘1 Henestrosa comes closest to identifying this function of the corrido, writing that “El corrido es el
vehiculo de que el pueblo 5e vale no sOlo para expresarse, sino que es tambien su Organo
perodlstico... Un corrido hace de un dla para otro, igual que una gacetilla de peribdico,pues como
esta dicho tiene, frecuentemente, un ﬁn informativo, es medio de propegar noticias” (55-56).

‘2 See for example: “El corrido de Heraclio Bemal,” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1892. Tyler
146); “La perra brave. Que demonio de animal por todas partes da guerre...” (Mexico City:
Vanegas Arroyo, 1910), “El nuevo corrido, Vida y muerte de la cucharacha,’ (Mexico City:
Vanegas Arroyo, 1915. Collection of Ricardo Perez Escamilla).

‘3 The musical features of the corrido, although interesting, are of secondary importance to the
lyrical. As Castaneda explains, “En el corrido mexicano se ha logrado reducir a un minimo el
esfuerzo de creacibn musical, llegandose a una fOrrnula de sencillez y simplicidad realmente
admirables” (El corrido mexicana, 92).The same melody recurs in the majority of examples,
although the most famous corridos—such as “La Valentina”, “La Adelita", “La Cucaracha”—have
distinctive melodies. On guitar, the most common instrument for the corrido, most of the chords
are majors and minors and usually performed in the key of G or A. The simple rhythm is usually a
base note produced by a downward stroke of the thumb (on the sixth string E, A or D chords),
and an upward plucking performed by ﬁngers on the remaining chords. The upward plucking is
often doubled, giving the corrido a rhythm not unlike polka. See Vélez (247-300).

“ Many corrido scholars work from a somewhat idealistic assumption that the corrido came ﬁrst
and was later published. However, taking into consideration the ﬁerce competition between the
penny presses and the widespread illiteracy in turn of the century Mexico, there is little reason to
believe that orally transmitted ballads were published for the signiﬁcantly smaller percentage of
people who could read. After all, anyone could enjoy a performed corrido without paying the 1 to
2 centavos to own the broadsheet. Instead, within the context of the corrido as it was sold on the
streets of the capital, it is my assertion that the written word usually came ﬁrst and the musical
rendition was performed for commercial purposes. Castaneda suggests that the oral performance
was used to sell the printed version, pointing out that one of the eight secondary formulas of the
corrido was in fact an invitation to listeners to purchase the broadsheet (El conido mexicana 18-
19). Frank writes that broadsheet sales were directed largely at the “urban lower classes” (88), a
class of consumers that was less likely to be literate. People who bought the broadsheets
probably did so in order to remember the event, admire the illustration, or transmit the news to
someone else that missed the performance (and could read).

'5 Lic. Valentin LOpez Gonzalez distinguished between corridistas, who composed and performed
ballads, and letristes, who merely wrote lyrics (personal interview, 25 Sept. 2001 ).

52

‘6 “La calavera del editor popular Antonio Vanegas Arroyo” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, ca.
1907). See also Tyler (118).

‘7 Lic. LOpez Gonzalez knew of no corridistas were ever put in jail or punished for the material
that they performed. He said that when a corrido was circulated that offended authority, so-called
anticonidos began circulating refuting the information of the other corridos and/or criticizing
political or military opponents. The Huerta regime saw its fair number corridos attacking Emiliano
Zapata (personal interview, 25 Sept. 2001). Lic. Ricardo Perez Escamilla, an investigator for the
Biblioteca de Arte Mexicano, explained that there was much less political content of a
controversial nature in the published corridos and those that were merely performed (personal
interview, 3 Oct. 2001).

1" The assessment of Alberto Hijar is exemplary: Vanega Arroyo’s discourse “was opposed to
codes of domination” and was “repulsive to tyrants” (11). On the contrary, Vanegas Arroyo was
quite reticent about the Revolution in the years before it erupted. The corrido of “La perra brave.
Que demonic de animal por todas partes da guerre...” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1910.
Collection of Ricardo Perez Escamilla) was perhaps a metaphor for the Revolution as regional
insurrections spread across the north of Mexico in the spring of 1910. (The illustration for this
broadsheet is by Manuel Manilla.) Simmons notes the lack of pre-Revolutionary corridos with an
eye to the impending national upheaval, but concludes that “the pueblo was not greatly
concerned with the government” and that Mexicans “simply appeared to be disinterested in
national affairs and disinclined to concern [themselves] with [anything but] local events and
personalities... ” (62).

‘9 Writing in 1980, Williulfo Bello reasserts this relationship between the dictator and the printer
but denies that there was any agreement between them that would alter or compromise the
material that Vanegas Arroyo circulated (9). According to another source, the original Vanegas
Arroyo printshop (at Calle de Encarnacibn 9-10) was demolished in 1924 on the orders of an
offended politician (Gamboa).

2° “Muerte del General Manuel Gonzalez en la Hacienda de Chapingo el die 8 de Mayo de 1893,
a las 12 y 38 minutos del dia,” Gaceta callejere (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1893. Tyler 156).
2‘ See the etching, “La metamdrfosis de Madero” from the La Guacamaya (30 Apr. 1911), where
the diminutive presidential candidate is depicted in 1910 as a runt overlooked by everyone, but
who transforms himself into a giant “Apostol of Democracy” worshiped by all by 1911 (Tyler 119).
22 See Mendivil (29).

23 “El herbico General don Pascual Orozco en Mexico” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1911.
Archivo Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca Nacional, R 819).

2‘ “Zapata es el Atila modemo”, El lmparcial (20 Jun. 1911): 1.

25 “El fandango del bautismo del hijo de Emiliano Zapata" (Mexico: Vanegas Arroyo, July 1913.
Monsivais 223; Collection of Ricardo Perez Escamilla). See also, “El entierro de Zapata” (Mexico

53

City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1914. Tyler 254), which reuses the same Zapata etching that Posada
copied from the famous Casasola photograph and reports that the agrarian leader was killed.

26 “Aprehensibn de la familia DEL ATILA SURIANO Emiliano Zapata” (Mexico City: Vanegas
Arroyo, 1913. Collection of Ricardo Perez Escamilla).

’7 “Nuevo Corrido Suriano dedicado al Gral. Emiliano Zapata” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo,
1914. Archivo Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca Nacional, R 822). “Triunfo del Sr. Gral. Emiliano
Zapata” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, March 1915. Archivo Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca
Nacional, R 823).

28 “El espectro de Zapata. Corrido suriano" (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1919. Archivo
Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca Nacional, R 984).

29 See “Muy interesting noticia’ (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1911. Frank 27-28) and “nHorrible
y espantosisimo acontecimientoll” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, N.d. Frank 33-34).

3° “Los 41 maricones encontrados en un baile en la Calle de la Paz el 20 de Noviembre de 1901"
(Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1901. Tyler 132).

3‘ “Noticia de las profeclas sobre las ruinas de Mexico” (Mexico City: Imprenta de la Calle
Trapana, Ietra C, 1843. Archivo Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca Nacional, R 1134).

32 “PrOximo ﬁn del mundo. La honible Catastrofe del Domingo 14 de abril de 1907 en
Chilpancingo...” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1907. Collection of Ricardo Perez Escamilla).
While this particular verse broadsheet does not report a celestial phenomenon, it does relate
several minor disasters and accidents in different regions of the country; nevertheless, the
coincidence of these events is enough for the letrista to predict the approaching end of the world.
33 Some exceptions would be the 1894 article from El hijo del alhuizote where the instability of the
world is compared with the instability of institutions. Séenz, however, suggests that this
comparison was purely coincidental (214). El lmparcial provides accounts of the authorities re-
establishing order when some quarters of the public became apprehensive about the predicted
and of the world in November 1899 (Séenz 219). El lmparcial, concerned about popular unrest
inspired by the arrival of Halley’s comet in May 1910, published daily updates of the comet’s
progress, reassuring the public that Dlaz cientlficos and astronomers had determined that it
would not strike the earth. There is also Posada’s humorous depiction of Halley’s comet with the
face of Madero in the nucleus and vice-presidential candidate Francisco Vazquez GOmez in the
tail (Seenz 220, Tyler 26). This illustration comes from El diablito rojo 3 .114 (30 May 1910): 1.
See also, “El Cometa del Centenario de la lndependencia 1810—México—1910" (Mexico City:
Vanegas Arroyo, 1910), compares the arrival of Halley’s comet more optimistically with the
centennial of Mexico's declaration of independence (Tyler 235).

3‘ “PrOximo Fin del Mundo. La horrible Catastrofe del Domingo 14 de abril de 1907 en
Chilpancingo...” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1907. Collection of Ricardo Perez Escamilla).

54

35 “El mundo ya va a acabar—el dia 13 de Noviembre—que muy breve Ilegara" (Mexico City:
Vanegas Arroyo, 1899. Collection of Ricardo Perez Escamilla). See also, “El gran juicio universal!
”Fin de todo el Mundo para el 14 de Noviembre de 1899 a las 12 y 45 minutos de la nochell”
(Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1899. Rothenstein 80).

36 See “Gran temblor de tierra en casi toda la republica...acaecido por tantos y horribles
crimenes...” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, June 1887. Archivo Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca
Nacional, R 1053).

37 Perez Escamilla explained that the majority of the corridos compiled by Mendoza in the 19305
and 19405 were straight from the mouths of corridistas who performed in villages throughout the
country, but especially in Michoacan State (personal interview, 3 Oct. 2001).

38 “La muerte de Madero, Primera parte” (Mexico City: Imprenta Guerrero, 1911. Included in
Figueroa Torres Broadsheet 10, page 147).

39 See “Mexico’s Troubadors turn from Amor to Drugs” New York Times (19 Feb. 1999): A4.

55

CHAPTER 2

“EN VISPERAS DE UNA CATASTROFE”: TOMOCHIC, PROTOTYPE OF THE
REVOLUTIONARY CYCLE

“—iQué viva el poder de Dios!
y que mueran los del Once BatallOn.”
—“El Corrido de los Tomochis”.1

l. Reception and Historical Context.

In Cien er’ios de novela mexicana (1947), Mariano Azuela wrote that
Carleton Beals, an American journalist living in Mexico, suggested that his
classic novel Los de abajo (1915) had been plagiarized. According to Beals, the
source of Azuela’s classic novel was Heriberto Frias’ Toméchic. Novela histOn'ce
mexicana (1895) (Azuela, OC 3: 659). Although Azuela dismissed this claim, it is
easy to see why Beals viewed Toméchic as a source for Azuela’s famous novel.
In the ﬁrst place, striking similarities exist between Azuela and the author of
Toméchic, Heriberto Frias (1870-1925): both novelists were of the same
generation, were heavily inﬂuenced by French naturalism, were loyal to
Francisco Madero during the ﬁrst phase of the Revolution, and were later given
political appointments by the president. In the same essay, Azuela praised Frias
for relating “franca y Ilenamente” everything that he had witnessed as a junior
ofﬁcer during the military campaign against a rebellious village of nearly 400
inhabitants in the sienas of Chihuahua State, the incident that serves as the
basis of the novel (00 3: 662).

While TomOchic has often been mentioned as a precursor of the

Revolutionary novel, it has usually received this distinction for its unadorned

56

prose, graphic depiction of violence and the fact that its author, as Azuela
pointed out, actually witnessed the incidents depicted on its pages.2 However,
the novel of the Mexican Revolution demonstrates a spectrum of literary
techniques too diverse to be deﬁned or categorized according to the most
obvious tendencies of style or subject matter. A more signiﬁcant aspect of Frias’
text that would become an integral part of the Revolutionary novel is its
employment of millennial themes and imagery; this is especially evident in the
characterization of Cruz Chavez, the caudillo of Tombchic who, assuming the
status of a messianic ﬁgure, led his followers into open rebellion against the
local, state and national governments in 1892.3

Frias, who led a shiftless, bohemian existence in Mexico City when his
health permitted, enlisted in the army out of ﬁnancial desperation (Brown ix-x).
After becoming a junior ofﬁcer and being assigned to the Ninth Infantry Battalion,
he was sent on the third and ﬁnal military campaign against TomOChic in October
1892. F rias’ recollections of the conﬂict became the material for Tomdchic, his
ﬁrst novel, which was serialized in the national newspaper El Demo’crata in
March-April 1893. Although this version of the novel subtitled Episodios de la
camper‘ia en Chihuahua. . .Relacién escrita por un testigo presencial, appeared
anonymously, many suspected the lackadaisical junior ofﬁcer as the author.
Frias” account of the Tombchic massacre was a sensation. The incompetence
and brutality of the military angered many Mexicans and the negative publicity
incensed the Diaz regime. Shortly thereafter the novelist was imprisoned on the

orders of General José Maria Rangel, the commander of the Tombchic

57

campaign. If not for the quick thinking of his friends—who hid and later destroyed
the original manuscript, which Frias had inexplicably written on Ninth Battalion
letterhead—the writer would have been sentenced to death for “revealing military
secrets” (Brown xi-xii).4 Frias viewed his controversial novel as the most
important and spontaneous of his career, calling it in the dedication of the fourth
edition “fruto amargo y terrible” and a “reﬂejo de una inmensa tragedia épica” in
which he was a witness and an actor.

Throughout Toméchic, Frias depicts the fervor of millennial belief and its
considerable power to arouse multitudes into rebellion. However, in the end he
rejects such conceptions and generally portrays the Tomochitecos as valiant but
misguided warriors. While Frias admires the heroics of the rebels, he also
elaborates certain aspects of their character to make them more representative
of Mexicans in general. In the revised fourth edition of the novel, Frias looks
deeper into the political implications of the rebellion and combines his portrait of
popular millenarianism with a more critical attitude toward the national
government.5 F rias’ general ambivalence toward the conﬂict—that is, his
reluctance to take sides—suggests a nascent understanding of the opportunity
(or necessity) to revolt against the Diaz dictatorship, but not the full commitment
that later Revolutionary novelists such as Azuela, Guzman and Munoz would
demonstrate. While Frias dismisses the syncretistic religion that led to the revolt
as fanaticism, he nevertheless respects the Tomochitecos’ indomitable will to

resist and their longing for justice and change. Popular perspectives, whether

58

transmitted through dialogue or the irreverent corridos of the character

Castorena, are also prominently featured in Toméchic.6

II. The Conﬂict: Beyond Civilization vs. Fanaticism.

F rias’ observations on the religious sect that took up arms against the
government are not informed by sociological studies or a profound understanding
of the Bible. However, important aspects of the millenarianism that precipitated
the conﬂict, as well as the extenuating circumstances that led to the political
estrangement of the Tomochitecos, are discernable in the novel. Rural Mexico
has been the setting for countless messiahs, folk saints and popular
manifestations of spiritualism.7 Vandenrvood writes that “weeping holy images,
heralds of the Apocalypse, dancing crosses, bleeding Christs, apperitions, ‘signs’
in the skies, spiritual mediums, wandering santos, and the like appear in a variety
of cultural conﬁgurations” in nineteenth century Mexico (The Power 45). The long
and bloody Caste Wars of the Yucatan Peninsula, waged between Maya Indians
and settlers, were incited by religious cults formed around “talking crosses”.8 In
the late 18005, one of the most circulated books in northern Mexico was a
prophetic dream book called El Oraculo (Vanderwood, The Power 56).9

Coupling these beliefs and sectarian practices, rural Mexicans were often
extremely hostile to the federal government and especially to the military. During
his presidency, Porﬁrio Diaz maintained peacekeeping forces known as rurales,
who often administered justice at gunpoint and abused their authority in the

regions farthest from the capital. Locals also resented federal authority for other

59

perceived infringements of their autonomy, such as government land grabs,
taxation and forced military service. At the beginning of TomOchic Miguel
Mercado, a melancholic second lieutenant who serves as protagonist,” is treated
coolly by locals in Ciudad Guerrero as he orders something to eat in a cantina
(F rias 4-5). This animosity between the senenos of Chihuahua and federal
soldiers is corroborated by corridos from the era of the TomOChic insurrection.
For example, in “El corrido de las Indios Mayas con el Ventiocho BatalliOn” and
“El corrido de Cajeme” (Mendoza, El corrido mexicana 21-23), the intransigence
between provincial Mexicans (predominantly Indians) and federal troops is a
recurring theme. This theme alludes to a difﬁcult problem for the late-nineteenth
century nation builders of the Diaz regime: Mexican national cohesion was an
illusion, especially in the northern expanses of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Sonora,
where inhabitants had a strong sense of their own communities as patria chicas.
These states, along with Morelos to the south of the capital, would be the initial
areas of Revolutionary insurrection. One of the programs of the Porﬁriato was the
subjugation and relocation of rebellious native groups. The proximity of
Chihuahua, Coahuila and Sonora to the US. border—where ﬁrearms and other
supplies could be obtained—increased the belligerency of the isolated
communities. The mestizos of the region, such as the Cruz clan and the majority
of their followers, had honed their ﬁghting skills through decades of conﬂict with
local indigenous groups such as the Apache.

One of the incidents that certainly helped to provoke the rebellion was the

attempt by an associate of Lauro Carillo, the state governor, to steal colonial era

60

paintings of religious icons from the Tomochitecos’ church. (The governor had
originally asked to purchase them, but the offer was rejected by Cruz Chavez.)
This, of course, is precisely the kind of blatant disrespect that would enrage
devout members of an ultra-religious village: “It is a commonplace that Mexican
communities have often deﬁned themselves in terms of their saints, cults and
churches” (Knight, “Rethinking” 381). When this important component of
community self-identity was violated and Cruz Chavez deﬁed the governor by
refusing to sell the paintings, he emerged as a champion of the community and a
defender of the faith. A corrido from the Cristero Revolts of the Reform Period
(1857-1861) articulates the outrage that the Tomochitecos must have felt when
their venerated religious icons were stolen by the goverment. The poet describes
the sacking of the village church by government troops, “Ya hubo saqueo en
Catedral I [...] las reliquias acabaron.” This violation provoked the nineteenth
century Cristeros to arm themselves and cry: “iMadre mia de Guadalupe, lque
gene Ia religién!” (Mendoza, El conido mexicano 6-7).11 By substituting “Santa de
Cabora” for the Virgen of Guadalupe, the Tomochitecos essentially repeated the
anti-govemment battle cry three decades later.

The Tomochitecos’ faith was a mixture of Judeo—Christian themes,
spiritualism and the performance of miracles (Vandenlvood, The Power 5659).
Like many living in turn of the century Mexico, the villagers venerated Teresa
Urrea (1873-1906), a young woman from Sinaloa whose miracles were
celebrated throughout Mexico and in many parts of the United States. Urrea

suffered from seizures and, upon regaining consciousness from a lengthy come,

61

was believed to have returned from the dead. More popularly known as the
Santa de Cabora, Urrea was exiled by the Mexican government to Tucson,
Arizona for her anticlericalism and her tendency to incite religious revolts among
the Mayo and Tarahumara Indians (Vandewood, The Power 166-78).

The third-person narrator of Fries’ novel describes the popular reverence
for Urrea es “una rafaga de fanatismo religioso”, and that “el nombre de la Santa
de Cabora es pronunciedo con veneracibn” (48). Letters discovered in the ruins
of TomOChic indicate that Urrea corresponded with the Chavez brothers, Cruz,
David and Jesus Jose, and their father, who were the ringleaders of the rebellion
(Vanderwood, The Power 221). The Cruz clan also made religious pilgrimages
(mmerias) to visit a trio of mystics known as the “viejos” who often traveled the
Papigochic Valley of Chihuahua State performing miracles. The eldest of the
three viejos was known popularly as the Santo de Chopeque (Vandenrvood, The
Power 46-47). Rural saints, such as Teresa Urrea and the Santa of Chopeque,
were seen as divine intermediaries between God and the forces of the secular
world that deprived the true believers of power, wealth and status. Through such
intermediaries, it was believed that illnesses could be cured, scarcity could
become abundance and wrongs could be made right.

Although these rural saints have a veriﬁable historical basis, they do not
play a major role in the novel; instead, the messianic element of the sect is much
more conspicuous. Obedience to e messianic ﬁgure that will arrive and help to
induce the Millennium, where the normal social structures will be inverted and the

poor and marginalized will ﬁnally enjoy prosperity, is a fundamental feature of

62

popular millennial movements. Taking this tendency to the extreme, Pereira de
Queiroz writes that millenarianism may be narrowly deﬁned as an array of beliefs
related to the return of a Christ-like ﬁgure (19). Cruz Chavez is introduced es “el
Cabecilla”, who preaches to his followers “una extrana religiOn, especie de
catolocismo cismatico que desconocia al Clero, mezclado con extravagantes
ideas de santidad” (Frias 19). Cruz must have appeared as a man who provided
certainty in dubious times, precisely when this particular region of Chihuahua
State witnessed the familiar roster of preconditions that provoke popular
millenarianism: sudden economic change and the introduction of modern labor
systems (created by Porﬁrian industrialization), material deprivation (accelerated
by the drought of 1887-1891), imposition of new laws and political factionalism
(Knight, “Rethinking” 377).

While Cruz Chavez was the actual leader of the uprising, F rias’ novel
features another rebel ﬁgure named José Carranza. Carranza was believed to be
the beneﬁciary of one or more of the Santa de Cabora’s miracles. The novel
relates that she cured him of a tumor (F rias 49). Monsivais explains that on a
religious pilgrimage to Cabora, Teresa singled out Carranza and told him “Eres
igual a San Jose” (“Los milenarisimos” 165). For these reasons, Carranza served
as something of an emissary of her cult in besieged TomOChic. In the novel, Cruz
maintains a public respect for Carranza—who is known in the community as
Santo Jose—not only because Cabora was several hundred miles across the
Sierra Madras from TomOchic, but because another person with divine attributes

would undoubtedly attract more followers. Cruz looks the other way when Santo

63

José engages in incest with his submissive niece, Julia, and when he identiﬁes
himself, Bernardo Chavez (a ﬁctional brother of Cruz and the father of Julia) and
the women in his family as a “Santisima Trinidad” modeled on the Holy Trinity
(Frias 55). Since one of the objectives of Frias was to present Cruz as a
charismatic (even admirable) villain, Santo Jose serves as a focal point for the
more fanatical aspects of the Tombchic cult. In other words, by providing a wholly
despicable ﬁctional character, those with a historical basis are left in a more
complementary light.

Although in the novel the spiritual leadership of Tombchic is shared by
Carranza and Cruz, the latter is the true caudillo of the community and the
military leader during the engagements with federal troops. In this regard, Cruz is
both an astute tactician and something of a rural Mexican Hector. He instructs his
soldiers to shoot only at the ofﬁcers, knowing full well that in the absence of
leadership the federal troops—many of whom had been pressed into service—
would retreat in the most ignominious manner (Frias 60-61). This strategy is
largely responsible for the first two victories over the armies sent to subjugate the
pueblo. At several points in the novel, Mercado and the narrator both observe the
effective manner in which Cruz directs the defenders, as well as their disciplined
use of ammunition (Frias 11, 119, etc.). Frias’ narrator describes Cruz as a tall
“gladiador herdico” who possessed “esa mirada irresistible, acercada y dura, que
caracteriza las grandes ﬁgures militares de la Historia” (Frias 268, 142). This
positive characterization is also extended to the Tomochitecos, who are

described as “semidioses; invencibles, denodados, audaces; unos tigres de la

64

Sierra” (Frias 19). The often unrestrained admiration for these religious rebels
who fought the federal government stands as one of the most daring features of
Frias’ novel. Apart from infuriating the Diaz government, this admiration may
have demonstrated to other Mexicans that their dissatisfaction with the regime
was not uncommon.

For their part, the Tomochitecos envision the federal army as “las fuerzas
de Sétanas” and shout, “iMuera el mal gobierno!” and “]Viva el poder de la
Santisima Virgen y la Santa de Caboral” during military engagements (Frias 119,
123, etc.) Their millennial aspirations become more pronounced as the well-
arrned, government forces gradually encircle them. Cruz delivers a sermon
replete with millennial imagery to the remaining Tomochitecos, reduced to a
defensive position in their compound, on the day before their ﬁnal defeat:

...los impios hijos de Lucifer que quieren gobernarnos con sus leyes y

quitarnos nuestra libertad...Nos tratan como a bestias; nos quitan

nuestros santos: nos quitan el dinero, y su Gobierno nos manda soldados
que nos maten... iPero nosotros peleamos por el Reino de Dios!...Maria

Santisima nos ayudara... Nosotros no moriremos, porque los que llevan

la cruz no pueden morir; si caemos heridos y, al parecer, muertos,

resucitaremos como Nuestro Senor, aI tercer dia, para poder acabar con

los enemigos de Jesucristo. .. (Frias 141)

In this passage, Cruz explains to his followers that even if they are shot by
federal troops, they will be resurrected to ﬁght again after three days. Similar to
other sects who elaborate their own millennial visions and the divine glory that
they alone are chosen to receive, the Tomochitecos become more eager for their

own doom as the secular forces of the government close in on them. Earlier in

the novel, the Tomochitecos release prisoners with detailed information about

65

their defenses (Frias 28), pass up opportunities to ambush the federal troops
(Frias 92, 94) and reject favorable terms of surrender (Frias 242, 257-58). These
actions suggest that the ﬁnal destruction may have been as desirable to the
rebels as it was to the federal authorities.”

It is clear from the narrator’s comments, and from the dialogue of various
soldiers, that for Frias the nature of the Tomochitecos’ millennial belief was less
important than the ideological challenge they provided the monolithic regime of
Porﬁrio Diaz. This challenge resulted from the ambiguity of the military campaign
and the factors that brought the men and women on both sides into conﬂict. For
F rias, the similarities between the Tomochitecos and the federal troops were too
striking to ignore. From his point of view the power of ideology—be it secular or
religious—was driving Mexicans of similar backgrounds and interests headlong
into civil war.

Frias does not favor one side over the other, but regrets the savagery and
pointlessness of the ﬁghting. In the frequently anthologized chapter “Los perros
de TomOchic”, he decries the brutality of war. Here, during a lull in the ﬁghting,
the village is depicted as an immense cemetery, where only dogs remain to
protect the corpses of their masters from the hogs rummaging through the
smoldering ruins.” Regarding such loyalty, the narrator exclaims, “Estos perros
son mejores que nosotros Ios cn'stianos “ (Frias 227; italics in original). Yet Frias
does not blame either side for the carnage. Of the federal soldiers the narrator
asks, “(LQLlé culpa tenian aquellos seres que sufrian y luchaban andnimamente

por cosas tan vagas, tan altas, tan incomprensibles para ellos, como la

66

tranquilidad del pals, el Orden, la Paz, la Patria, el Progreso, el Deber...?” (Frias
22). This sentiment that lofty patriotic ideals are ultimately incomprehensible to
the masses that throw down their lives for them is a recurring theme of
Revolutionary-era corridos.“ In much the same way, the narrator describes the
Tomochitecos as suffering under “una obsesiOn imbécil” (Frias 11), made all the
more shocking because the rebels “No eran indigenas, sino criollos” (Frias 53).15
The implication of this observation is that the Tomochitecos were of the same
stock as the troops who fought them. At the end of the novel, F rlas writes that if
the Tomochitecos had performed heroically, the federal troops and their ofﬁcers
had done no less (289).

TomOchic is clearly a transitional novel, still demonstrating some
adherence to nineteenth century perspectives of race, barbarism and civilization,
but with a heightened political awareness. Unlike other war novels of the second
half of the nineteenth century (such as War and Peace and The Red Badge of
Courage), questions of heroism, morality or righteousness are not featured as
prominently in Toméchic. The concluding sense of waste, of immense human
tragedy, is due to the author’s ambivalence in regard to the factors that propelled
the Tomochitecos and the federal forces into battle. The portrait of the religious
rebels as epic heroes who momentarily suffer from a “frenética demencia” (Frias
52), and that of the federal troops as pathetic puppets of a regime that
marginalizes them, must have been the most troubling aspect of the novel for the
authorities, for it suggests that the entire ideological foundation of the Porﬁriato—

Progress, Order, Catholicism, la Patria—were simply abstract notions that could

67

lead nonnel citizens into insanity and barbarism just as easily as rural messiahs
and the “estupido fanatismo” (Frias 56) they inspired.

Speculating further on this ambivalence, TomOchic may be viewed as an
attempt by F rias to resolve the inner struggle between his personal dissention
and the hypocrisy of commanding men to ﬁght well-armed Mexicans not unlike
himself. Near the end of the novel, Mercado listens to ofﬁcers explaining how
Cruz Chavez made alliances with bandits such as Pedro Chaparro. Undoubtedly
referring to Porﬁrio Diaz, who began his political career as a caudillo from
Oaxaca State, F rias’ protagonist reﬂects that “no era éste el primer noble caudillo
mexicano que creyendo defender una santa cause utilizaba a Ios traidores y a
Ios bandidos, pagandoles regiamente...” (292). With this passage Frias suggests
that the origins of a national leader and hero such as Diaz are really no different
from the religious rebel who fought federal troops, Cruz Chavez. Like no other
Revolutionary novelist, Frias draws the connection between millennial faith and
nationalism, underscoring their propensities to create imagined communities that
their members would be willing to defend with their lives. “If the nationalist
imagining is so concerned [with death and immortality], this suggests a strong
afﬁnity with religious imaginings” (Anderson, Imagined Communities 10). For
Frias, the only difference between President Diaz and Cruz Chavez—or, by
extension, enlisted Mexican troops and religious fanatics—was one of
perspective.

For the ambiguity that Frias casts on the ideals of the regime, the

hypocrisy that he detects among the national leaders and his willingness to see

68

true valor among the people he was sent to exterminate, TomOchic rejects the
shopworn nineteenth century dichotomy between civilization and barbarism—in
spite of the fact that these terms appear in the text.” Instead, Toméchic
questions the legitimacy of the Porﬁrian nation building project, and thus
anticipates the fully developed conﬂicts that would be resolved on the battleﬁeld
and recorded in hundreds of Revolutionary novels and corridos in the decades to
come. In this regard, Frias’ novel was approximately twenty years ahead of Los
de abajo, the text Brushwood credits with providing an innovative presentation of
rebellion against a “static condition” (316). Toméchic also anticipates the ﬁnal

or

assessment of Azuela in regard to the Revolution’s failures: ...nuestro gran
error no consistio en haber sido revolucionarios, sino en creer con el cambio de
instituciones y no calidad de los hombres Ilegariamos a conquistar un mejor
estado social” (OC 3: 666). F rias understood that institutions, and the ideologies
that sustain them, were largely to blame for conﬂicts such as that of Tombchic. It
would only be through the sound character and integrity of new leaders that a

better, more peaceful society would be achieved by Tomochitecos and Mexicans

in general.

Ill. La voz popular satirica: Castorena as Corridista.

Near the end of Tomdchic, Frias describes the character of both the
rebels and the federal troops as being heroic and immortal, like that of the
protagonists depicted in “la poesia épica” (248). For many corrido scholars, the

Mexican corrido emerged from forms of epic poetry, such as the Spanish copla

69

and romance.17 To provide an example of how such poetry was inspired and
performed, Frias features a corridista among the characters of Tomdchic. This
character, a junior ofﬁcer named Castorena, is a skillful improviser of verse and
musician.

During the Revolution, corridos were often written immediately before or
after a battle.” We see Castorena doing just this on three different occasions:
during the battalion’s mobilization (Frias 32-33), prior to the ﬁrst engagement
(Frias 77) and after the ﬁnal defeat of the Tomochitecos (Frias 274-75). The
narrator describes Castorena as a man who “bebia botellas de tequila con la
misma facilidad que improvisaba malas cuartetas”, and who was “cinico,
desbarajustado, satirico and pendenciero...un trasnochador jovial, guitarrista
famoso, cantante atroz y poetastro abominable” (F rias 12). When the ofﬁcers
(with the exception of the moody protagonist Mercado) have a moment of rest,
they provide Castorena sotol, Northern Mexico’s harsh variant of tequila, and
encourage him to sing and play guitar.” Beyond the rich colloquial language and
albur (Mexican double entendre), listeners discern prophetic elements in
Castorena’s performances. Before the ﬁrst battle with the Tomochitecos, they
encourage the corridista to perform: “jQue hable en verso Castorenal... —
[Silenciol Va a hablar el vate...” (Frias 77). With much arrogance, his verses
anticipate the ﬁnal victory of the federal troops:

Aunque ahora as ye de noche,
Le palabra humilde pido
Para brindar sin reproche,

iPor que pronto sea destruido
El vil pueblo de Tomoche!

70

(Frias 77)

At the end of the ﬁnal battle, when Cruz Chavez and the remaining TomOchic
males are taken from their compound and shot by a ﬁring squad, Castorena
improvises some verses ridiculing the dead caudillo (Frias 274). Mercado,
showing more energy than perhaps at any other moment in the novel, spits in
Castorena’s face and says “—iEs una cobardia burlarse aside un valiente
muerto!” (F rias 275).

This exchange underscores the distinction between Castorena, a satirical,
popular character for whom any incident was fair game, and Mercado, the
idealistic intellectual from the capital (and the novelistic representation of the
author himself). Early in the novel Mercado admits his distaste for the corrido: “yo
desprecio el verso, y la poesia también” (Frias 79). As the novel of the Mexican
Revolution evolved into the 19305 and 405, the perspective of Revolutionary
events would gradually be provided more frequently by characters such as
Mercado and less frequently by men such as Castorena. Indeed, after 1935, it is
difﬁcult to encounter another character like Castorena, or even encounter scenes
with corrido performances similar to those in TomOchic and the Revolutionary
novels of Azuela.20 Bearing in mind the importance of millennial imagery and
popular perspectives in Frias’ novel—as well as the anti-Diaz posture that he
ampliﬁed in subsequent editions—it would be more appropriate to View Toméchic
not merely as the precursor of the Revolutionary novel, but as the initial novel of
the cycle that would dominate Mexican narrative for the ﬁrst half of the twentieth

century.21 Nevertheless, not all of the characteristics introduced by Frias would

71

be adopted by his successors. Only Azuela, the novelist examined in the
following chapter, emulated Frias’ millennial and popular themes, corroborating
the Revolutionary novelist’s admission that he read Tomdchic when no one else

knew about it (OC 3: 659).

IV. Notes.

1 Cited in Mendoza, El conido mexicano (24).

2 For example, Aub writes that Frias provided the Revolutionary novel its testimonial and
autobiographical characteristics (30-31). Brushwood views the depiction of soldaderas (the
women who would accompany the troops and occasionally ﬁght on their side) in Toméchic as an
important characteristic later employed by Azuela (Mexico y su novela 316). See also,
Magdaleno, “Alrededor de la novela mexicana modema” (2-4).

3 The conﬂict between the government and the remote pueblo had its roots in the late 18805
when Cruz Chavez, a local leader with an authoritarian streak, had some minor confrontations
with local judges and law enforcement. In November 1890, Lauro Carillo, the state governor,
visited Tombchic and tried to purchase some colonial are religious paintings that he had admired
in the church. When Chavez, assuming his role of town caudillo, replied that they would not sell
the paintings, an ofﬁcer accompanying the governor went into the church and stole the artwork
(Vanderwood, The Power 36-38). In the novel TomOchic, the narrator remarks that another
government ofﬁcial had taken liberties with a local girl, leaving her pregnant (F rlas 49). With the
religious and moral integrity of the community violated, the Chavez brothers began to act above
the law and associate themselves with Teresa de Urrea, a teenage girl from Sonora who was
believed to have supernatural abilities, and some traveling mystics known throughout the region
as the “viejos”. A drought beginning in 1887 and lasting for four years impoverished farmers and
produced famine; local and state authorities were slow to offer relief (Vandenlvood, The Power
32-34). The Cruz brothers stole livestock and sold them across the border, using the money to
build a cache of weapons, including the latest Winchester riﬂe models that were to be the bane of
federal troops. Cruz Chavez soon drove the local priest, Manuel Castelo, and government
authorities from TomOchic and established a religious sect that acknowledged no authority but
God (Vandenlvood, The Power 50-51). Tombchic soon became a safe haven for rural outlaws,
such as Pedro Chaparro and his gang. After repelling the ﬁrst two incursions by federal forces in
September 1892, the Tomochitecos held raucous religious revivals and began preparing for their

72

impending Apocalypse. They went down ﬁghting against the third campaign led by General
Rangel, who encircled the pueblo and bombarded the Tomochitecos with a Hotchkiss cannon.
The Cruz clan, as well as most of the residents, died in the ﬁghting. Heriberto Frias was a junior
ofﬁcer during the campaign.

‘ The charge that F rlas’ novel gave away important military secrets that could jeopardize national
security is not as far-fetched as some critics make it out to be. Brushwood, for example, writes
that only a “imaginaciOn desenfrenada” would be able to discern such military secrets in
TomOchic (279). However, the truth is that TomOchic reveals the most guarded secret of Porﬁrio
Diaz’s military: it was utterly incompetent, a paper tiger that, if challenged, would quickly
disintegrate. This information was no doubt in the minds of the maden'ste and orozquista forces
that drove Porﬁrio Diaz from power in 1911. Knight explains that Diaz, fearing the familiar Latin
American military coup, systematically dismantled his forces until there was nothing but a shell of
a ﬁghting force, composed of impressed troops and septuagenarian generals who were paid
lavishly with the military budget (The Mexican Revolution 1: 17-19). Ruiz writes that here were
only 3,000 rurales to apprehend bandits and defend the regime by 1909 (40-41).

5 Frias, Heriberto. Tomochic. Novela histén'ca mexicana. Mazatlan, Sin.: Impresa

y Case Editorial de Valades y Cia Sucs, 1906. This edition features the following note on its title
page: “Unica ediciOn de la obra integra; corregida y aumentada, con notes y capltulos inéditos
escritos expresamente por su autor. The changes between the ﬁrst editions and the fourth are
highly signiﬁcant (see Brown, xviii-xxi), and the present analysis will refer to this edition.

6 Frlas’s ability to create characters that seemed authentically Mexican was applauded by Azuela,
who ranked Toméchic with Astucia (1865), by Luis G. Inclan, as the two most authentically
“national” novels. In the same essay, Azuela compares Frias to the engraver .1055 Guadalupe
Posada, another master of assessing popular tastes and artistically reproducing them (OC 3:
659).

7 See Monsivais, “Los milenarismos” (164-69).

8 The classic study of this conﬂict is Nelson Reed's The Caste War of Yucatan, (Stanford: U of
Stanford P, 1964).

9 Several editions of El Oraculo and similar books were published by the Antonio Vanegas Arroyo
printshops in Mexico City; a number of these books feature cover illustrations by Jose Guadalupe
Posada. See LOpez Casillas (172-75).

” Mercado is a recurring character in F rlas’ novels and, undoubtedly, the ﬁctional re-creation or
alter ego of the novelist himself (see Brown xvi; Brushwood 280; Monsivais, “Los milenarismos"
166).

1‘ This ﬁrst Cristero Revolt, also known as the Wars of “Religidn y Fueros”, lasted several years
until the Dlaz regime deliberately neglected to enforce Reform laws, thus placating Church

73

authorities. The Cristeros would again wage a guerrilla war against the government with even
bloodier consequences following the Revolution (see the Appendix of the current study).

'2 Making self-destructive choices is the ultimate expression of adherence to the millennial belief.
In April 1993, the Branch Davidians and their leader, David Koresh, believed themselves to be
martyrs in accordance with their vision of the approaching Apocalypse. The actions of the federal
authorities ﬁtted easily into their scheme in which they were the righteous people being
persecuted by the godless inﬁdels. With the destruction of the Mount Carmel compound in Waco,
Texas and the death of seventy-four residents (including Koresh), the federal agents became the
unwitting collaborators in the Branch Davidians’ millennial scenario. See Gallagher, Eugene, “‘AII
lam is Religion': David Koresh’s Christian Millenarianism”, Christian Millenarianism: From the
Early Church to Waco (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2001): [196-2081207.

‘3 This chapter, with its graphic depiction of the aftermath of violence, recalls similar chapters
from famous Revolutionary novels; for example the concluding chapter of the ﬁrst third of Los de
abajo, “El atronar de la fusilerla” (XXI), where Solis and Cervantes survey the destruction
following the Battle of Zacatecas, and the chapter “La ﬁesta de las bales” from Guzman’s El
aguila y la serpiente where Pancho Villa’s favorite henchmen, Rodolfo Fierro, spends an
afternoon shooting several hundred prisoners and later complains about the few who were left
alive moaning in the corral.

1‘ For example, see the “Corrido de la Revolucibn" (Mendoza, El corrido mexicana 143-44); and
the “Corrido de la Nueva Rebellbn” (Macazaga Orduno 80). See also the article by Randolph D.
Pope, “El deseo de la paz, un tOpico del corrido de la Revolucién mexicana”, Cuademos
amen'canos 3.176 (May-Aug. 1971): 154-171.

‘5 As Knight as cogently explains, terms such as mestizo, indio and criollo were often arbitrarily
assigned in Mexico, having as much to do with the sociopolitical assumptions of the observer as
the actual ethnicity of the subject (73-74). Monsivais, for example, has described TomOchic as a
“pueblo tarahumara" (“Los milenarismos” 165). The “Corrido de los Tomochis” depicts the rebels
as Indians: “A esos indios de TomOChic, yo los quiero/ porque saben morir en la raya, / [...]l
combatiendo el Once BatallOn” (Mendoza, El conido mexiceno 24).

‘6 Early in the novel, the narrator describes the community’s religion as a “vertigo confuso de
Iibertad, un anhelo de poderio en aquellas almas ignorantes, sopla barbaro impulso sobre la tribu
aislada extrallamente de la vida nacional...” Perhaps sarcastically, or with intent to parody the
positivistic mentality of the age, the narrator then suggests that the insurrect pueblo was a “tumor’
that needed to be removed for the health of the nation (F rlas 52-53).

‘7 See Mendoza (El corrido mexicano ix; El corrido de la Revolucidn mexicana 9); Flores Romero

(11); and Simmons (8-10), to mention only a few.
” American journalist John Reed provides an example of corrido improvisation in Insurgent
Mexico (1914), his collection of memoirs of his travels with Pancho Villa's army. There we see

74

dorados sitting around a campﬁre at night performing a corrido dedicated to their leader, Pancho
Villa (88-89).

‘9 Considering these Characteristics, it is difﬁcult not to view Castorena as the prototype of
Valderrama, the “loco poeta” that earns the conﬁdence of the Demetrio Macias in the ﬁnal third of
Los de abajo.

2° Millan Chivite makes the distinction between novelists who do include corridos (Mancisidor,
Urquizo. Munoz, Cempobello, Azuela, Vera) and those who do not (Arellano, Fuentes, Quiroz,
Romero, Rulfo and Vasconcelos) (212). However, the conclusion that Millan Chivite fails to draw
is that the ﬁrst group of authors all had their major Revolutionary novels published prior to 1935,
while most of those of the second group were published later, even into the 19505.

2‘ Few critics have gone beyond the assessment of Tomdchic as a mere precursor of the more
famous cycle of novels. Two notable examples of critics who do are German List Arzubide who,
at the height of the Revolutionary novel's popularity, suggested that Revolutionary novelists were
“usurpers’ of the anti-establishment literature introduced by the largely forgotten Frlas (613-14).
Alberto Quirozz, writing in 1954, most clearly identiﬁed F rlas as a “novelista revolucionario” (16).

75

CHAPTER 3

A PESSIMISM DRAWN FROM EXPERIENCE: THE REVOLUTIONARY
NOVELS OF MARIANO AZUELA

“Se me acusa de no haber entendido la revolucién;
vi Ios arboles, pero no vi el bosque...Yo envidio y
admiro a Ios que si vieron el bosque y no Ios arboles,
porque esta visibn es muy ventajosa econOmicamente.”
—Mariano Azuela, Obras completes 3: 1099.

I. The Making of a Revolutionary Novelist.

The Revolutionary novels of Mariano Azuela (1873-1952) are distinct from
his later work, and from the Revolutionary novels that followed, for at least two
reasons. First, Azuela’s texts, especially Los de abajo, established the Novel of
the Mexican Revolution as an internationally recognized literature; second,
Azuela wrote these novels during the course of the Revolution of 1910, before
the advent of cultural nationalism and the institutionalization of the novelistic
cycle in the late 19205.1 Taking into consideration Azuela’s production during the
Revolution, as well as the enormous popularity of this literature from the mid-
19205 until the late 19405, the position of this modest doctor from Jallsco
appears somewhat paradoxical: Azuela was a novelist who wrote outside of a
literary mainstream that he essentially created. That Azuela was conscious of
this paradoxical situation is revealed in his ﬁrst important interview, given
immediately after his discovery by critics in 1925. Here, referring to the state of
Mexican letters in the mid-19205, Azuela argues that a novelist should not be
inﬂuenced by literary trends but by “la evolucién misma del espiritu que precise a

uno la aceptacién de lo nuevo” (“Azuela dijo” 45).

76

More than any other Mexican novelist, Mariano Azuela has been
associated with the novel of the Mexican Revolution. In the words of José
Mancisidor, while Azuela is not revolutionary in the normal sense of the word he
is, by antonomasia, the essential Revolutionary novelist.2 In the novels of his
Revolutionary phase—Andres Perez, madarista (1911), Los caciques (written
1914, published 1917), Los de abajo (1915), Las moscas (1918) and Las
tribulaciones da una familia decente (1918)—recurring millennial and apocalyptic
images such as widespread devastation, the destruction of institutions, the
inversion of the haves and have nets, and the use of characters who serve as
prophets, are highly conspicuous. Future Revolutionary novelists, all of whom
wished to emulate the critical and commercial success of Azuela (Rutherford,
Mexican Society 67), would utilize these images. However, the manner in which
Azuela evoked millennial images, composing his novels as the Revolution
unfolded, is distinct from the novelistic production of his successors, most of
whom had a retrospective and politically motivated view of the national struggle.

The assessments of the Revolution encountered in these ﬁrst novels
reveal that Azuela was generally pessimistic in regard to the devastating, ten-
year conﬂict in which 825,000 Mexicans perished or emigrated (Aguilar Camin
and Meyer 71). Analysis of Azuela’s use of millennial imagery provides a
heightened appreciation of the novelist’s perspective. In the ﬁrst place, Azuela’s
millennial imagery is always forward-looking: in other words, Azuela’s characters
(and to a lesser extent his narrators) anticipate the coming of the Revolution and

its cataclysmic effect on the static society of Porﬁrian Mexico. Secondly, Azuela

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reveals his disillusionment with the Revolution by consistently presenting such
anticipations as utopian or foolish. In spite of his pessimism for the regional
insurrections that became “la Revolucidn” in the national mythology of modern
Mexico, Azuela never completely rejects the concept of revolution as an effective
means of changing society.3 Of the novels examined here, only in Los caciques
does Azuela suggest that the Mexican Revolution was indeed a revolution. In the
other novels he depicts a social upheaval doomed to failure because of its lack of
a unifying ideology. The great Revolution will leave Mexico substantially
unchanged: the same political bosses will continue to exploit the masses, the
cumos (slickers) will deceive the ingenuous, members of the lower classes will kill
one another, and the indifferent will ﬁnd themselves swept up and annihilated like

the “miserable hoja seca arrebatada por el vendaval” (Azuela, OC 1: 362).

ll. Andres Perez and Las moscas.

Azuela’s ﬁrst Revolutionary novel, Andras Perez, madarista, uses
Francisco Madero’s 1910 rebellion against President Porﬁrio Diaz as historical
context. Given that Madero's challenge is commonly regarded as the beginning
of the Revolution, we might assume that this text would feature an abundance of
millennial imagery. However, Azuela diminishes this potential by structuring the
narrative as a ﬁrst-person account of an opportunistic young man, making the
political implications of the national crisis less important than the narrator’s desire
for self-preservation and proﬁt. The novel begins as Andrés Pérez, a journalist for

El Globo, listens to the pandemonium in the streets of the capital and begins

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writing the headline for a breaking story. After his initial description of police
brutality against students, Andrés vacillates and shifts the blame to the
demonstrators, concluding that the authorities were obliged to take extraordinary
measures to maintain the peace (OC 2: 766). Andres is the forerunner of many
characters in Azuela’s novels who put their own convenience and security above
all other considerations. Having no idea if the maderistas or porﬁnstas will
prevail, Andrés decides to avoid any potential difﬁculties by writing favorably of
the regime that still maintains a precarious control. His supervisor, however, has
a personal vendetta against the young joumalist and denounces him as a
Maderista to the authorities. Andres is compelled to abandon the capital for
Villalobos, the hacienda of a college friend named Toiio Reyes.

Tor‘io, an idealistic Maderista, understands that his friend is on the run
from Porﬁrista agents; however, he mistakenly believes him to be a supporter of
Madero. While describing the commotion in the capital, the closest that Andres
comes to invoking the millennial aspects of the political crisis is when he explains
that life was getting unbearable and that “Se tiene la presuncién de que algo
grave va a ocurrir" (OC 2: 769). Nevertheless, we do not know if Andres is
referring to the political upheaval or to his personal safety, being a journalist
unable to determine to which side he should spin his articles. In the novels of
Azuela’s Revolutionary phase, the most idealistic characters are the ones who
demonstrate the most millennial belief. Thus, when Toﬁo assures his friend that
“Ia mecha esta prendida” (OC 2: 771), the implication is both political and

millennial. Only during a conversation with an afﬂuent landowner does Andres

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reveal his political ambivalence: “El mundo marcha... Hoy ...nadie se mate ya
por ideas religiosas. Un dia nos convenceremos de que la Justicia es sélo una
palabrota; ese die la guena por la Justicia dejara también de existir" (OC 2: 792).
In this passage Andres describes—in starkly millennial terms—an idealized
future in which the concept of justice is revealed to be a sham. He also
juxtaposes religious and political fervor and dismisses them both, envisioning a
corrupt society where Revolutionary ideals are rejected. By the end of Andres
Perez, madarista, nothing has changed except that Tofio has been killed (shot in
the ﬁrst confrontation with federal troops) and Andrés is left to pursue the widow
Maria (OC 2: 800). Implicit in this conclusion is the idea that Madero’s rebellion
was in vain and that its only accomplishment was to rid Mexico of its idealists;
those that survive are only the people who sought to proﬁt by the Revolution. A
similar loss of idealism is found in the novelist’s biography when Salvador
Azuela, his son, admitted that in 1910 his father was an “adepto fervoroso de
Madero” (“De la vida y pensamiento” 3). After Madero's landslide victory in the
presidential election of October 1911, the novelist saw himself discharged from
ofﬁce in his hometown of Lagos de Moreno, Jallsco and replaced by a career
Porﬁrista. In his own words this event provided him “Ia medida cabal del gran
fracaso de la revolucién” (OC 3: 1070).

Las moscas depicts the chaos following Villa’s defeat by ObregOn at
Celaya in April 1915. This battle effectively removed Villa from any participation
in the project to rebuild and transform Mexico after the Revolution, and shifted

power to Venustiano Carranza and the Sonoran faction: Obregén, Adolfo De la

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Huerta and Plutarco Elias Calles. The “ﬁles” of this short novel are career
politicians and the middle class of the Bajio region, all of whom are desperate to
board a train which will whisk them away from what they believe are marauding
hoards of carrancistas. This desperate exodus is depicted in several corridos of
the era.” The novel focuses on the plight of one family, the Reyes Téllez, and
their attempt to maintain their dignity in the suddenly difﬁcult circumstances
brought about by the social upheaval. To an even greater extent than Andres
Perez, madarista, Las moscas is a humorous portrayal of self-preservation and
opportunism in the midst of catastrophe.

In this text, which Leal Identiﬁes as a satiric series of vignettes (Mariano
Azuela 50), the only compelling example of millennial imagery is a fantastic
prophecy issued by an old woman on the train heading toward lrapuato. In a
solemn and croaking voice, this character—the grandmother of one of the

characters—refuses to believe that Villa has been defeated:

Escrito esta. “Mexico ardera en revoluciones horrorosas y vendra el
hambre, Ia peste y la guena ...Reinaran cuatro Franciscos.” Las profeclas
hen de cumplirse: Francisco Leén de la Berra, Francisco I. Madam,
Francisco Carbajal... Falta no mas un Francisco: Francisco Villa. Escrito
esta. (OC 2: 892).

The prophecy becomes even more ridiculous after the old woman—dubbed a
“pitonisa” by the sardonic narrator—is encouraged to continue:
Después vendran tres correos, el primero dire “todo se ha perdido”, el
segundo Ilegara por al noche y seguira su camino; el tercero que sera de

fuego y agua, dire: “Todo se ha salvado”. Y el triunfo de la ReligiOn sera
tel como jamas se haya visto. .. Los americanos iran a traer aI Rey de

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Espafia. . .Y vendra y reinara y todos se confonnaran con la voluntad de

Dios. (OC 2: 893)

The prophecy produces Iaugher in some, and apprehension in only the
most foolish. Soon it is forgotten as the characters return to more immediate
concerns, underscoring the relative insigniﬁcance of millennial and apocalyptic
imagery in Las moscas. However, with this example Azuela exaggerates the
millennial aspects of the Revolution to the point of absurdity; the ﬁnal effect is
similar to that of an inappropriate joke where only the shameless laugh out loud
and the rest maintain an uncomfortable silence. At this juncture, the Revolution
must have seemed an unfortunate joke to Azuela. Having just driven Victoriano
Huerta—the assassin of Madero—from Mexico, Azuela saw the coalition that
accomplished this noble deed splinter apart and its factions engage in the
bloodiest ﬁghting of the Revolution. While Azuela was both a Maderista and a
Villista, he was a bitter opponent of Carranza, the leader who would emerge
victorious from the conﬂicts of 1914-1915. Under Carranza’s regime, Azuela was
compelled to live in a poor neighborhood in the capital, Santa Maria la Ribera, in
virtual anonymity. His literary production in this period suffered (Rufﬁnelli,

Literature 9 ideologia 7).

III. Los de abajo.

Azuela’s masterpiece, Los de abajo, features an abundance of millennial
imagery. However, as in the previously discussed texts, Azuela undermines the

credibility of each example of this imagery, thereby revealing his pessimism in

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regard to the Revolution. The novel begins when federal horsemen arrive at
Demetrio Macias’ modest ranch, shoot his dog Palomo, threaten to rape his wife
and ﬁnally set ﬁre to his house (OC 1: 320-23). Throughout the novel Macias is
pragmatic and wishes for nothing more than to return to his farm and till the land
(OC 1: 346-47). Nostalgia for a lost paradise is related to the millennial longing
for an idealized future. Similarly, Paz has written that every revolution casts a
backward glance to a golden age that both justiﬁes it and makes it viable
(Laben’nto 123). However, the longing for a lost paradise is based on the undoing
of historical experience, while an idealized future depends on the completion of it
(Parkinson Zamora 17-18). Macias, then, looks to an irrecoverable past rather
than to a utopian future; in other words, he seeks to return to what he had before
the conﬂict drove him from his home. Thus, the trajectory and personal
philosophy of the novel’s protagonist are antithetical to classic revolutionary and
millennial conceptions, which seek to complete or accelerate the course of
history. This is an important distinction because it suggests that the protagonist
of this most celebrated Revolutionary novel has no real Revolutionary purpose or
vision.

Luis Cervantes, the opportunistic curro, is quick to explain the “alta y
nobilisima misién” of the Revolution to Macias (OC 1: 347-48). Nevertheless, his
jafe remains a beer-swilling nostalgist without a political consciousness. By the
third and ﬁnal section of the novel, Cervantes has ﬂed to El Paso with all the
booty he acquired posing as a Revolutionary and plans to open a restaurant

“netamente mexicano” (OC 1: 406-7). If there is any millennial hope implicit in the

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career of Cervantes it is, as in the exemplary case of Andres Perez, strictly
personal. In the end Cervantes abandons his comrades in arms, the Revolution
and his nation to embark on a strictly commercial enterprise. His letter
underscores his intent to proﬁt from the social upheaval by inviting Venancio to
come to El Paso where, working together, they can improve their “posicibn
social” (OC 1: 406).

Alberto Solis, a disillusioned Maderista, is the man that Toﬁo Reyes might
have become had he lived another two years. His vision of the Revolution, in
many ways the most memorable of the novel, is one of disunity, barbarity and
plunder that will only replace one murderous tyrant with thousands more.5 This is
precisely the same pessimistic attitude expressed by a number of Revolutionary
corridos. 5 As Solis and Cervantes reﬂect on the carnage of the Battle of
Zacatecas, Azuela develops one of his most apocalyptic scenarios: a smoldering
landscape “cubierta de muertos. .. cadaveres calientes” where “mujeres
haraposas iban y venian como famélicos coyotes esculcando y despojando” (OC
1: 368). This scenario is also evoked in the “Corrido de la Toma de Zacatecas”, a
ballad whose origin has been traced to a rural musician from the region (El
conido mexicana 50-52). In this corrido, the poet’s description of the war-ravaged
City recalls that of Azuela:

iAy, hennoso Zacatecasl,

Mira cOmo te han dejado,
[. . .]

Esteban todas las calles

de muertos entapizadas

y las cuadras por el fuego

todititas destrozadas.

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(Mendoza, El corrido mexicana 52)

At precisely the moment when Solis, studying the devastation, watches the
smoke rise and disperse into nothing, the truth of the Revolution’s false promises
is revealed to him and he is killed by stray bullet (OC 1: 369). With this random
violent act, Azuela abmptly ends the scene when the full disclosure of the
Revolution's inconsequence and failure is about to occur. Rather then provide a
conclusive, negative assessment of the Revolution at this eariy stage of the
novel, Azuela decides to continue developing more examples of millennial hopes
being dashed by violent realities.

In the second part of the novel, where Macias and his troops are gradually
impoverished and killed, there are two provocative examples of the popular
millennial belief that would incubate and ﬁnally erupt in the Cristero Revolt of
1926-1929. Leaving a town, Macias and his men pass “un pobre diablo de cura"
hanging from a mesquite tree. The dead priest has nearly a hundred followers—
people that the narrator refers to as “ilusos”—although it is not clear how many of
them are living or dead (OC 1: 390). The narrator then describes an abandoned
banner reading “ReligiOn y Fueros” (Religion and Laws), a conservative party
Slogan dating from the Wars of Reform. Some of the fallen followers have
patches in the shape of a shield sown onto their shirts that read, “iDétente! iEl
Sagrado Corazén de Jesus esta conmigo!” as if they were intended to stop a
bullet (OC 1: 390).7 In the dialogue following this grim scene, it becomes
apparent that at least two of Macias' men, la Codomiz and el Manteca, have

looted the church and committed the atrocity. With this brief passage, Azuela

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provides an example of the direct confrontation between millennial visions of the
Revolution and the barbarism described by Solis, underscoring the futility of
millennial conceptions with the fate of the priest and his followers. In what might
be termed a metaphoric struggle between the Revolution as a passage to a
better world or as an occasion to rob and murder, Azuela reveals that the later
has supremacy.

The second example of millennial fervor is found in the last chapter of the
second part when Macias and his men visit Aguascalientes to receive further
orders. The historical background of this particular chapter is the Aguascalientes
Convention of October 1914, where the coalition that drove Victoriano Huerta
from power tried unsuccessfully to resolve differences (largely personal) between
the military leaders. In the street Macias and his men encounter a man dressed
in white who is selling prayers and miscellaneous trinkets for ﬁfty centavos. The
man addresses the crowd surrounding him, “Todos los buenos catOIicos que
recen con devocién esta oracién a Cristo Cruciﬁcado se varan Iibres de
tempestades, da pastes, de guerras y de hambras...” (OC 1: 404). Macias scoffs
at the curandero but several of his men buy his charms, which include snake
teeth, a starﬁsh and ﬁsh bones.8 All the men who purchase these trinkets are
killed by the end of the novel; the sadistic Giiero Margarito commits suicide (OC
1: 406). During the interview between Macias and General Natera, his Villista
commander, Azuela once again juxtaposes religious and Revolutionary faith and

suggests the immanent failure of both. Although the battle lines become

86

confused, Natera assures the newly promoted general that “iCierto como hay
Dios, compaﬁero; sigue la bola!” (OC 1: 404).

Valderrama, a hard-drinking poet and guitarist, comes to replace
Cervantes as Macias’ conﬁdent in the ﬁnal third of Los da abajo. This irreverent
character is a corridista, similar to Castorena of TomOchic. Valderrama utters one
of the most unforgettable millennial descriptions of the Revolution when he tells
his disappointed jafa that he could not care less which side is currently
ascendant: “aVilla?. .. g0bregén?...g,Carranza?...;X...Y...Z...! gQué sa ma da a
mi?...iAmo la RavoluciOn como amo al volcan qua irrumpal [AI volcan porque es
volcan; a la Revolucién porque as RevoluciOn!...Pero las piedras que quadan
arriba o abajo, después del cataclismo, Lqué me importan a mi?” (OC 1: 410).

In spite of the volcanic imagery, Valderrama’s vision of the Revolution is only
marginally millennial because it does not posit an idealized future. This
“vagabundo de Ios caminos raales” only delights in the chaos created by the
political upheaval, the leveling of the powerful. A settling of scores is implied by
his words but nothing is reestablished in its wake. Valderrama’s “volcan que
irrumpe” more closely resembles schadenfreude, or joy at the misfortune of
others, than it does millenarianism. Even though schadenfreude is a “vital
element in any millennial religion” (Scott 42), it still represents a more primitive
conception or hope for social transformation.

Before what will be Macias’ last battle, Valderrama mysteriously
disappears and the narrator concludes that “no hay loco que coma Iubre” (OC 1:

413). But Valderrama, this “loco”, proves to be more rational than Macias by

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desarting: the corridista will survive while the Revolutionary caudillo will return to
the Cafion de Juchipila to be gunned down by the reinforced Carrancistas. And
Macias knows he is going to die. Paz observes that although the word
“revolution” implied a cyclical time structure or “eternal return” in its original
meaning, the modern conception of the term implies an abrupt and deﬁnitive
change and rectilinear time stmcture (“Ravuelta’ 151). Given this
conceptualization, Azuela structures the trajectory of his protagonist in such a
way that the Revolution is revealed to be no more than a circle of violence in
which he cannot triumph and from which he cannot escape. There is no better
world to be achieved, no golden age to be recovered. Instead, Macias returns to
the site of his ﬁrst military victory, his forces depleted, and ﬁnds himself at the
bottom of the canyon instead of at the highest point looking down at his foes.
Consequently, the scene in which Macias compares himself to the stone thrown
into the canyon (OC 1: 416) is both a metaphor for his own career as a
Revolutionary (as previously alluded to by Valdenama’s description of the
Revolution and the stones it dislocates) and a foreshadowing of his own death.
Given that Azuela usually undenninas any millennial—or even moderately
idealistic—vision of the Revolution throughout Los de abajo, the argument that
the work is in fact nihilistic and anti-Revolutionary rather than the classic
Revolutionary novel (see Dessau 230-31; Rufﬁnalli, “Los de abajo y sus
contemporaneos” 41; Salado Alvarez 5) has much merit. Azuela’s own
disillusionment must have been intense when, serving as a medic in the Villista

army of Julian Medina, he suddenly found himself in a losing battle against the

88

 

Carrancistas who had been his allies against Huerta. It was precisely than, in the
late fall of 1915, that Azuela ﬁnished the last third of Los de abajo and ﬂed to El

Paso.

IV. Las tribulaciones de una familia decente.

This novel focuses on the plight of an upper-middle class family, the
Vésquaz Prados, as they try to survive and maintain their status following the
defeat of the huertiste forces at Zacatecas in June 1914. For generations, the
Vasquez Prados family enjoyed afﬂuence in the Bajio region, and as the sissiﬁed
César reveals in the ﬁrst pages of the novel, the family cast its support to every
faction that had taken turns ruling Mexico, from the Refonnists to the French
Emperor Maximilian (OC 1: 419-20). But this strategy—changing allegiances and
currying favor with the regime in control—will not serve the Vésquez Prados
during the Revolution. The changes of leadership are too unpredictable, with the
Huertistas suddenly replaced by Carrancistas, Villistas and Zapatistas.
Furthermore, these stages of the Revolution witnessed the rise to power of the
mestizo, coupled with indigenous people serving in the annies—Mexicans that
the Eurocentric and pretentious Vésquez Prados had traditionally shunned. The
family is ill-prepared to maintain their fortune and inﬂated self-estimation among
the noveau riche of the Mexico City, where they are compelled to migrate. The
parents of César, Agustinita and Procopio, are not dislikable; the idealistic
Procopio is in fact a landowner who exhibits real concam for the welfare of his

peons. However, as is the case with neariy all idealistic characters in Azuela’s

89

work, such a perspective signiﬁes an inevitable failure. By the and of
Tribulaciones, Procopio has lost nearly all of the family fortune (a signiﬁcant
portion in an ill-advised loan to the Huerta regime, OC 1: 524) and, after
becoming increasingly weak and “atOnito”, dies (OC 1: 566).

Millennial imagery in the novel assumes one of two forms: pessimistic
observations about what the Revolution has achieved (and especially in regard to
the govemmant of Venustiano Carranza, the leader who emerged victorious in
the summer of 1915); and hopes linked to recovering the lost wealth and status
of the Vésquez Prados family. In the ﬁrst category, Procopio, becoming
increasingly nihilistic before his death, observes that thanks to the Revolution the
future belongs to conﬁdence men such as Pascual, his son-in-law, who betrays
the family and enriches himself. Sardonically Procopio quips, “Parace que al ﬁn
se ha hecho una poca de justicia: el numero de picaros enriquecidos por la
revolucién exceda ya aI da Ios picaros empobrecidos por ella...” (OC 1: 508).
This assessment, while not entirely rejecting the idea that the Revolution has
brought about change, minimizes the results of the social upheaval and reduces
it to no more than money changing hands between curros like Cervantes of Los
de abajo. Azuela reserves his most acerbic commentary for Carranza, the leader
of a political program of “impudica abyeccién”. The novelist concludes that now
the nation is not being robbed by devaluated currency or by the sudden closing
of banks, but by smaller fees and concessions, “como roban Ios rateros” (OC 1:

546).9

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In this second category, the obsession of the family—particularly of the
matriarch Agustinita—to regain their land in Zacatecas ironically evokes the
language of agrarian reform, but from the perspective of landed gentry who lost
their holdings to the Revolutionaries. The family’s hope of recovering their status
takes the form of metaphoric descriptions and dialogue replete with religious
imagery. For example, when Procopio momentarily recovers from his declining
health, he resorts to illegal methods of obtaining money for his impoverished
family. Evoking the Temple of Jerusalem, he begins repeating that “vamos a
Ievantar otro adiﬁcio” from the ﬁnancial ruins in which they ﬁnd themselves (OC
1: 537). Agustinita ﬁnally stops asking where the money is coming from and tells
her daughter that they are "saved” (OC 1: 538). On his deathbed, with much
clarity and eloquence, Procopio ﬁnally rejects materialism and his utopian visions
of happiness. He suddenly believes that happiness it to be found in the “paqueﬁa
alegrias diaries” that he used to ignore, and tells his wife that, “Todo depende de
poner en arrnonia nuestro mundo interior con el de afuera... Los qua buscan la
dicha [true happiness] fuera de si mismos van al fracaso indefectible” (OC 1:
564-65). This hope of ﬁnding happiness outside of oneself recalls millennial faith
because of the importance that it places on the interpretations of (external) signs.
In the end, Procopio decides that material wealth and the ephemeral signs
associated with recovering it are void of meaning; it would be better to live a
simpler life and enjoy an inner harmony.

Between Los de abajo and Tribulaciones de una familia decente, Azuela

provides contrasting perspectives of the Revolution and the millennial hopes that

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it inspired. However, rich or poor, landowner or peon, Azuela demonstrates the
misguided nature and ultimate failure of such conceptions through the detailed
characterization of Demetrio Macias and his afﬂuent counterpart, Procopio
Vésquez Prados. While Macias dies a nihilist, Procopio enjoys a moment of

Iucidity free of millennial illusions.

V. Los caciques.

Like Andres Pe’rez, madarista, Los caciques revisits Madero’s 1910
rebellion to depict how this political conﬂict affected the exploitation of the lower-
middle class (represented by Juan Vifias and his family) by the upper class (“Ios
caciques”, represented by the powerful Del Llano family). After Madero’s election
as president, the lower and lower-middle classes are largely convinced of the
Revolution’s triumph. Several from their ranks form the “Club 20 da Noviembre
de 1910” to vanerate Madero and to inﬂuence local politics. Not surprisingly, a
shopkeeper named don Timoteo is the character who expresses the most
blatantly millennial perspective of the Revolution, referring to Madero as the
“redentor de Ios pobres” just as Jesus Christ was the “Redentor del mundo” (OC
2: 807). Juan Vifias, the proprietor of a modest general store called La Sultana,
aspires to be as wealthy as the Del Llanos. A decent and hardworking man (not
unlike Procopio of Tribulaciones), Viﬁas gets himself hopelessly in debt to the
Del Llano family by trying to ﬁnance the construction of a new subdivision of tiny
houses, “simétricas, todas igualas, parejitas. . .monas como de nacimiento” (OC

2: 845). This “Vecindad Modelo” (that he never sees completed) symbolizes

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Vifias’ petty bourgeoisie vision for a new society; there he will be an equal with
the Del Llano clan, whom he idolizes, and collect rent from the people that live in
the neat, little white houses. The Del Llanos, in fact, suggest the venture to him
and loan him just enough capital to begin its construction (but not to complete it).
Things go awry. In the ﬁrst place, Madero never dislodged the caciques
because, as Rutherford explains, “Madero’s victory was one of public opinion
rather than force of arms” (Mexican Society 27).” Azuela carefully prepares the
reader for the impending disaster by beginning chapter XV of the second part
with, “For ﬁn cayo el gobierno de Madero” (OC 2: 849); then, at the beginning of
the ﬁnal third of the novel, “OSCURECIA” (OC 2: 854). After Madero’s
assassination in February 1913, the Del Llanos are aided and abetted by
Porﬁrista agents sent from the capital. Together the agents and the Dal Llanos
ruthlessly eliminate the members of the “Club 20 de Noviembre.” (This is the
same counterrevolutionary movement that drove Demetrio Macias from his
farm.) All the members of the Club except Crispln (a newspaper vendor) are
arrested and summarily shot (OC 2: 854). Following Huarta’s coup d’état, the Dal
Llanos decide to foreclose on Viﬁas’ loan although Juan had always been
deferential to them. After losing the Vecindad Modelo and La Sultana, Juan dies
a slow death and his once pampered wife and children are forced into the street.
The caciques take their new capital and build a new ﬁnca (headquarters) for
themselves: a luxurious building with Guanajuato stone, Italian sculptures and

the ﬁnest wood (OC 2: 861 ).

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When the Revolutionary factions unite against Huerta in the winter of
1914, the Del Llano family decides to ﬂee from the town they control. In the ﬁnal
paragraphs of Los caciques, Azuela offers his most optimistic millennial vision of
the Revolution. In his vivid and concise prose, Azuela describes the sound of
approaching gunﬁre and an avalanche of people running through the streets.
Suddenly, “Torciendo una calla, aparecio al galope un grueso grupo de
montados, con los fusiles de la care” (OC 2: 865). General looting begins, but the
nearly completed ﬁnca of the Del Llano family stands untouched. Instead of
hiding, Juan Viﬁas’ two children, Juanito (Juan Jr.) and Esperanza (Hope), ﬁnd a

can of oil and set ﬁre to the sumptuous new building of the caciques. The

 

narrator notes that the Del Llano ﬁnca burns very well. The novel ends as the two
children, holding hands, watch the black smoke rise into the purplish sky: “...no
oian el restallar da Ios maussars ni el ronco estampido de Ios 30-30, ni al galopar
de las caballerias. Alelados, veian levantarse las llamas hasta el cielo cardano, y
estaban cogidos da la mano, cogidos estrechamente, y sus corazones latian
aprisa, aprisa. . .” (OC 2: 866). Their rapidly beating hearts underscore the youth
and vitality of these survivors. In this, yet another chapter of the Revolution, it
seems that justice has ﬁnally been served.

The conclusion of Los caciques suggests that indeed there is something
to look forward to, something to build on, after the looting ends and the horsemen
ride away. Again, the biographical record of Azuela’s own participation in the
Revolution sheds light on this unusually optimistic example of millennial imagery.

When he was writing the ﬁnal section of Los caciques in 1914, Villa had just

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routed the forces of Huerta at Zacatecas, prompting Azuela to exclaim in his
memoirs, “iLa revoluciOn habia triunfado!” (OC 3: 1075). This moment coincides
not only with the burning of the Del Llanos’ ﬁnca, but with the zenith of Demetrio
Macias’ Revolutionary career, when he is promoted to general after his heroics at
the Battle of Zacatecas. From that point onward, he loses his troops to desertion,
has less direction and gradually realizes that his destiny is to be defeated by the
resurgent Carrancistas (many of whom had been his allies). In this regard, Los
de abajo takes readers beyond the momentary optimism which concludes Los
caciques, the less famous novel.

Mariano Azuela employs millennial imagery to show that the initial
rebellion of Francisco Madero was, from his point of view, an abject failure.
Second, while the counterrevolutionary takeover by Victoriano Huerta
represented the most disillusive moment of Azuela’s revolutionary experience,
the coalition that formed to oust the “Usurpador” was the most noble endeavor of
the entire Revolution, serving to renew the novelist’s faith until Villa’s decisive
defeats by Obragén at Celaya and Trinidad. In these inﬂuential Revolutionary
novels, we see a compelling correlation between Azuela’s use of millennial
imagery and the ﬂuctuation of his own conviction as a Revolutionary. In his ﬁrst
major interview following his discovery by critics in 1925, Azuela argued that a
novelist should not be inﬂuenced by literary trends, only by “Ia evolucién misma
del espiritu que precise a uno la aceptacién de lo nuevo” (“Azuela dijo” 45). In
these novels—texts that would inspire a national literature in the 19205 and

19305—one sees that Azuela was true to his own philosophy of composition.

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Like Heriberto Frias’ TomOchic, the point of departure of Azuela’s
Revolutionary novels is his participation in critical national stnlggles. The
millennial imagery of these texts is more vital because it looks forward and
anticipates an inversion or restructure of society, whether it be brought about by
defeating the next wave of advancing Federal troops or by driving the aged
dictator from the presidential chair and installing the “Apostol of Democracy“.
However, in the novels of Fries and Azuela, the people who believe in these
millennial possibilities are truly foolish. In the chapters to follow, the employment
of millennial imagery will become retrospective, suggesting a self-evident

assessment of the social upheaval that supposedly changed the face of Mexico.

VI. Notes.

1 For a detailed discussion of Mexico’s cultural nationalism following the Revolution, see Franco,
Modern Culture (71-82).

2 Mancisidor, Jose, “Azuela, el novelista”, Mariano Azuela y la critica mexicana, Ed. Francisco
Montarde (Mexico City: SEP, 1973) [25-26] 25.

3 Ruiz deﬁnes Revolution as a “social catharsis” that dramatically alters the prevailing economic
and political systems, as well as the class structure (4). See also Hobsbawm (10-11).

4 See, for example, the “Conido de los combates de Celaya, partes A y B”, (Mendoza, El conido
mexicana 53-60), which even describes the train from Salamanca to Irapuato that the Reyes
Téllez family boards.

5 It has been noted that Solis serves as a mouthpiece for the novelist himself (for example, see
Brushwood 315 and Leal, Mariano Azuela 47). Azuela himself admits as much in his memoir of
the composition of the famous novel (OC 3: 1081 ). In this regard, the assessments of group
behavior given by Solis/Azuela appear to be based on the inﬂuential, pseudoscientiﬁc work of
Gustave Le Ben, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind ( 1895). Le Bon's general theory was
that the crowd permitted the “homogeneous” to swamp the “heterogeneous” elements of
individuals, which in turn unleashed the baser instincts of human beings (28—30). Solis. once a

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believer in the Revolution, explains to Cervantes: “Amigo mio: hay hechos y hay hombres que no
son sino pura hiel. .. Y ese hiel va cayendo gota a gota en el alma, y todo lo emerge, todo lo
envenena. Entusiasmo, esperanzas, ideales, alegrias... ineda! Luego no la queda mas: e se
convierte usted an un bandido igual a ellos...” (OC 1: 361 ).

6 A striking example of this pessimism and dismay is the “Corrido de la Revolucién”, from
Guanajuanto State, cited in Mendoza’s El conido mexicano (143-44). The poet extorts fallow
Mexicans to wake up and realize what they have been unable to during the decade of conﬂict:
that they are spilling each other’s blood merely so that one tyrant could “replace another in
power“ (143).

7 Conﬁdence in this kind of protection recalls the Tomochitecos of Frias’ novel. See Vanderwood
(The Power 229).

8 Vanderwood explains that such seemingly insigniﬁcant substances often served medicinal
purposes. Turn of the century communities in Chihuahua, for example, often practiced spiritual
medicine with items such as beef fat, soaps, bones and powers (The Power 58-59).

9 Azuela’s vituperation for Carranza may offer an example of a popular perspective that stood in
opposition to the perspectives provided by a corrido. In the “Corrido de Ios Verdaderos Ideales de
la Revolucién sostenida por el Sefior don Venustiano Carranza” (1914), el Primer Jefe is depicted
as the true champion of the initiatives begun by “el ApOstol Madero”. In opposition to ambitious,
greedy leaders such as Villa and Felipe Angeles, Carranza stands for democracy, the defeat of
the bourgeois classes and agrarian reform. The poet predicts that if Mexicans support Carranza's
ideals, “en breve tiempo saran Ia salvacién” (Romero Flores 129-31). Undoubtedly, this corrido
was produced in Mexico City and served the purpose of political propaganda.

” Madero, in fact, encouraged his own downfall by defending and putting his conﬁdence in
Victoriano Huerta, the general who would order his assassination in February 1913. The lyrics of
the “Corrido del Cuartelazo Felicista” point out that Madero “a Huerta le hizo favores” and that
“jun bien con un mal 5e page!” (Mendoza, El conido mexicana 33).

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CHAPTER 4

CONSTRUCTING A NATIONAL MYTHOLOGY: THE CAUDILLO NOVELS OF
RAFAEL F. MUNOZ AND GREGORIO LOPEZ Y FUENTES

“Y todo en Mexico as eso: hay que mater
a los hombres para poder creer en ellos.”
—Carlos Fuentes, Los dies enmascaredos.

l. The Zenith of the Revolutionary Novel, 1930-1934.

The 19305 saw the most proliﬁc and commercially successful period in the
cycle of the Revolutionary novel. Although social criticism became more
pronounced, most novels of this decade still demonstrated the autobiographical
paradigms established by F rias, Azuela and Martin Luis Guzman; these
tendencies led José Luis Martinez to conclude that these works were more
accurately characterized as memoirs than novels (“La novela de la RevoluciOn”
4). This period, however, also began to demonstrate the Initial, tentative
experimentation with narrative, as seen in Nellie Campobello’s Cartucho (1931)
and Gregorio LOpez y Fuentes’ Campamento (1931).1 The 19305 also witnessed
international interest in the novel of the Mexican Revolution. Given the
unprecedented success of Los de abajo and its translations, new Revolutionary
novels were aimed at the international reading public as much as to the Mexican
(Rutherford, Mexican Society 57). Although it would continue to be characterized
as a uniquely national product, in point of fact the most commercially successful
Revolutionary novels—for example, Rafael F. Muﬁoz’s iVémonos con Pancho
Villa! (1931) and LOpez y Fuentes’ Tiena (1932)—were published in Spain

(Ferretis 3).

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By analyzing examples of millennial imagery in [Vémonos con Pancho
Villa! and Tien'a, and by considering the cultural and political crosscurrents
circulating in Mexico in the early 19303, we will see that the caudillo (political or
military boss) novels of Munoz and Lepez y Fuentes did much to establish the
ofﬁcial mythology of the Mexican Revolution, especially with the charismatic
portraits they provide of the once controversial ﬁgures of Pancho Villa and
Emiliano Zapata. For the diminished character of its millennial imagery, Munoz’s
novel can be seen as an attempt to negate possible associations between the
Revolutionary program and Villa, who had been the most formidable opponent of
the Constitutional (later Sonoran) faction that assumed control of Mexico in the
early 1920s. L6pez y Fuentes’ novel, which follows the history of the zapatista
movement in Morelos, provides readers many more instances of millennial
imagery, thus offering greater possibilities for constructing a national mythology
around the dead Revolutionary and his ideals. What becomes clear from these
two novels is that the employment of millennial and messianic imagery could
serve to incorporate or exclude certain Revolutionary leaders, whose personal
charisma made them either beneﬁcial or detrimental to the political message that

the post-Revolutionary regime wished to convey.
II. A Novel of the Caudillo: iVémonos con Pancho Villa!

Rafael F. Munoz (1899-1972) began his Revolutionary career as teenage
reporter with the Constitutional forces of General Alvaro Obregbn. Munoz‘s

personal experiences during the Revolution provided much of the material for his

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novels. Before the pivotal battles of the Bajio in 1915, he had the opportunity to
interview Villa when he was still at the height of his power (Magaﬁa Esquivel
257). Later, Munoz maintained his loyalty to Obregon during the Agua Prieta
rebellion against President Venustiano Carranza (1920). Personal connections
with Obregén continued into the following decade, with Munoz serving as the
president’s secretary (Ocampo de deez 245). In the late 19203 and into the
19303 Munoz began his career in journalism, ﬁrst working as an editor for El
Graﬁco and later serving as director of El Nacional and El Universal. A
contemporary of Munoz noted that the young journalist had a knack for digging
up the "mejores y mas jugosas noticias” (Acevedo Escobedo 6). Munoz’s most
important political posts were press secretary in the Secretaria de Relaciones
Exteriores (Ocampo de Gomez 245) and Jefe de Relaciones Publicas y
Ediciones in the Secretaria de Educacién Pablica, both in the 19303 and under
the guidance of Secretary Jaime Torres Bodet (Magaﬁa Esquivel, La novela de la
Revolucion 258). Because of his considerable output of short stories and popular
novels, Munoz stands as one of the best known and most consistently
anthologized of Revolutionary novelists. The collection of short stories, El feroz
cabecilla ( 1928), stands as a model of early Revolutionary literature for its violent
content and episodic structure of vignettes. Another best-selling Revolutionary
novel by Munoz, Se Ilevaron el cafidn para Bachimba (1941 ), uses Pascual
Orozco’s 1912 rebellion against Madero as historical background. Much of

Mur‘ioz's celebrity can be attributed to the classic ﬁlm adaptation of [vamonos

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con Pancho Villa! ( 1935), a work directed by Fernando de Fuentes with an
original musical score by Silvestre Revueltas.

The analysis of the Revolutionary career of Francisco “Pancho” Villa
(Doroteo Arango, 1878-1923), with all its stunning accomplishments and failures,
is better left to careful historians such as Friedrich Katz. However, it does serve
the purposes of this study to observe that he was still viewed as a potential threat
to the post-Revolutionary regime, even after his crushing military defeats at
Celaya and Trinidad (1915), his surprise attack on Columbus, New Mexico (1916)
and his reconcilation with Interim President Adolfo de la Huerta (1920), where he
and his remaining dorados were provided retirement pay and the Canutillo
hacienda in Parral, Chihuahua.2 In 1923, when de la Huerta and a cadre of
generals who opposed Obregén planned a military coup, the mere possibility of
Villa’s support for the rebels was enough to call for his assassination. On 20 July
1923, as he drove back to Canutillo following a baptism, he was shot to death by
a group of assassins, thus ending the trajectory of the man who remains the most
internationally recognized Mexican.3

The Mexican public’s view of Villa during the Revolution varied between
idolatry and viliﬁcation. Corridos often express admiration for his audacity,
machismo and ability as a military leader; nevertheless, many other ballads raise
questions about his character and reckless inclinations.‘ Benjamin notes that
Revolutionary corridos had always portrayed Villa and Zapata as popular
caudillos, “leaders identiﬁed with the aspirations of the people in their struggle

against the rich and powerful” (56). However, as we have noted earlier, these folk

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ballads offer a much more complex (and often ambivalent) portrait of popular
leaders; the extent of support or denunciation depends entirely on the perspective
and origin of the particular corrido. In general, the Mexico City press expressed a
grudging admiration for Villa. A brief interlude of unanimous praise occurred when
Villa’s Division del Norte occupied the capital near the end of 1914, perhaps
because any journalist who wrote critically of him could have been apprehended.
After reporting his assassination, El Universal observed that Villa’s death
represented the end of a danger that had threatened the hard-won peace
provided by Obregén’s government (Katz 769). While Villa had generally been
viewed at best as an avenger of the poor, or at worst as a “gorilla” or “troglodita”
(Katz 769-70), public sentiment became more favorable to the Revolutionary in
the years following his death. When trophy seekers desecrated Villa’s grave in
1926—making off with his head—many Mexicans were outraged.5 The
govemment’s opinion of Villa was much slower to improve. As late as 1927,
Obregén had labeled Villa the leader of a “revolucién falsa” that attempted to
usurp the rights of Mexicans (Benjamin 71). The negative portrait of Villa may
help explain why Mexicans avidly read Rodrigo Alonso Cortés’ 1972 book,
Francisco Villa, el quinto jinete del apocalipsis, which depicts the caudillo as a
bloodthirsty killer. Not surprisingly, Villa’s remains would not be moved to the
Monument to the Revolution by the Priista government until 1976, several years
after Madero and Calles (Benjamin 134).

Munoz’s [vamonos con Pancho Villa! is an attempt to impart to Mexican

and international readers speciﬁc, favorable aspects of Villa’s character—

102

especially his resourcefulness and heroics during the attack on Columbus, New
Mexico—but underscore his dangerous tendencies, leaving a ﬁnal portrait of him
as a volatile, destructive force that was incapable of leading the nation. More than
being a credible purpose for a novelist who served as Obregon’s secretary, this
portrayal reﬂects a general trend of the novels of this period as described by
Rutherford:
It is one important difference between the early novels of the Revolution
and those of the 19303 that the latter. . .tend to dwell...on the those more
picturesque, sensational, spectacular or romantic—and also, of course,
more obvious and superﬁcial—aspects of the revolutionary struggle such

as the horriﬁc suffering it caused, the amazing feats of arms it provoked, or
the swashbuckling lives of its protagonists.

(Mexican Society 84)

Munoz certainly depicts Villa as a violent swashbuckler, admirable enough when
ﬁghting gn'ngos, but without the character or political program to be a true
Revolutionary that could rebuild Mexico. Because of this limited portrayal,
[vamonos con Pancho Villa! has much less millennial imagery than other
examples of the novelistic cycle. The novel also avoids messianic interpretations
of Villa’s considerable ability to attract supporters. Instead, [vamonos ! is
intended to depict an occasionally charismatic military leader rather than a
Revolutionary. Since no real political signiﬁcance is associated with Villa, the
Sonora faction that opposed him and later took control of the country appears to
be the legitimate heir of the Revolution.6

The novel begins by underscoring the authenticity of the events depicted

on its pages: “Los sucesos referidos aqui son ciertos, uno por uno. El autor

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atribuye todos a un mismo grupo de hombres, para hacer una novela de audacia,
heroismo, altivez, sacriﬁcio, crueldad y sangre, alrededor de la ﬁgura importante
de FRANCISCO VILLA” (Mur‘ioz 8). Thus, even before the narrative begins,
Munoz cleverly introduces the essential characteristics that he wished to be
attributed to Villa. For the audacity, cruelty and blood promised by the novel,
simply calling Villa “important” is a way to diminish even this modest assessment
in favor of the sensational. iVémonos! traces the Revolutionary career of Villa
from his important victory at Zacatecas to the depletion of his forces and
possibilities after Celaya, Columbus and the US. punitive expedition. Tiburcio
Maya, an old campesino who joins the Divisibn del Norte with four friends, is a
Revolutionary who remains loyal to Villa until the violent conclusion of the novel.
Tiburcio’s participation in the different struggles provides Munoz a functional,
ﬁctitious perspective within the strong historical context of the novel—a
perspective not unlike that provided by F rias’s Miguel Mercado or by Azuela’s
Demetrio Macias. When Tiburcio and his group—who call themselves the Leones
de San Pablo—join up with Villa, the narrator provides some insight into what
exactly motivates them:
Ante él [Villa] se presentaron expresandole su deseo de unirse a la
Revolucién. gPor que? Por la intuicién vaga de que iban a Iuchar por una
causa que les favorecia...cada cual tenia sus motivos de queja y sus
deseos de una situacién mejor. Sus odios, sus deseos de venganza, sus
anhelos de mejoramiento econémico, todo creian poderlo satisfacer. «gLa

Revolucién!» La sonoridad del grito arrastra a los espiritus rebeldes.
(Munoz 19-20)

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The recruits have no real understanding of the larger sociopolitical signiﬁcance of
the movement, only vague intuitions of something greater than the sum of their
personal desires for revenge and material gain. These motivations are more
inchoate than even the most primitive millennial conceptions, because the mere
sound of the word “Revolucibn” is such a powerful attraction for them. The lack of
organization and illiteracy of Villa’s army is reinforced when all ﬁve newcomers
are made lieutenants simply because they say that they can read (Munoz 20).

As time passes and Villa loses important battles, the lack of ﬁnancial
resources spells the beginning of the end for the once invincible Divisibn del
Norte. The Villistas, who had once been so fearless as to pass the time playing a
variation of Russian roulette in the dark (Munoz 54-62), are now demoralized and
begin to desert their leader. Soon Tiburcio is among only four hundred men left to
support the increasingly unstable Villa. The narrator observes, “El espiritu
locamente bélico de Pancho Villa debe de haberse sonreido a 3i mismo...Ante él
se habian desplomado fortalezas consideradas como eternas por los técnicos de
escuela militar...ante él habian huido, como humo, divisiones que alardeaban de
invencibles”. Munoz’s narrator then asks incredulously, “g,Este es el Coloso del
Norte?” (128). But Villa demonstrates resourcefulness by modifying his military
strategy and methods of recruiting troops. Munoz’s narrative closely reﬂects
history at this point because Villa was obliged to change his military tactics from
open, large-scale engagements to guerrilla warfare. Furthermore, Villa did indeed

threaten to kill the families of potential deserters (Katz 550-51).

105

Perhaps the most incredible incident in the novel occurs when Villa visits
the humble farm of Tiburcio in an attempt to convince him to rejoin his troops. In
an earlier chapter, Tiburcio deserted because he was sickened by the inhumane
treatment of a soldier named Perea who had contracted smallpox, an especially
contagious disease in troop barracks and boxcars. Tomas Urbina, one of Villa’s
favorite generals, ordered Tiburcio to burn the unconscious man alive—a horrible
solution, but one that the old soldier reluctantly carried out (Munoz 71). When
Villa arrives at Tiburcio’s farm, he is invited inside to eat. Tiburcio tells Villa that
he would like to return to battle with him, but that he has a wife and children (a girl
and a boy) that he must provide for. At this point Munoz notes that a “sonrisa
espantosa” appeared on the “boca bestial” of the “bandolero” (Munoz 91). In the
presence of the woman and the girl, Villa tells Tiburcio that he needs every
available man and offers a solution, “para que sepas que ellas no van a pasar
hambres, ni van a sufrir por tu ausencia, imira!”—and he shoots them both dead
(Munoz 92). Too stunned to be saddened, Tiburcio gets his riﬂe and horse and,
bringing his young son along, obediently rejoins Villa’s army.

The next day, Villa has the audacity to tell Tiburcio, “yo no quiero que te
vayas a poner de malas conmigo por lo de ayer”, explaining to him that he has
had women and fathered children allover Mexico (Munoz 105). Later Tiburcio
passes up an easy opportunity to kill Villa, reassuring the suspecting caudillo that
he will be a Villista until the day he dies (Munoz 160). This statement proves
prophetic because Tiburcio is later captured and brutally tortured by a group of

Apaches hired by the US. punitive expedition. In spite of the pain that they inﬂict

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on the old soldier, and the predictable bribes offered by the Americans, Tiburcio
does not reveal the whereabouts of his general (Munoz 195-98). When an
American ofﬁcer learns that Villa killed Tiburcio’s wife and little girl, he calls him
“loco” for continuing to follow and protect the sadistic caudillo. Finally, when they
are convinced that they will get no information from Tiburcio, the Americans hang
him from a willow tree (Munoz 206). Under different circumstances, this would be
a heroic end for a courageous soldier; however, readers are inclined to agree
with the American ofﬁcer and view Tiburcio as little more than a foolish follower of
a once-formidable cattle rustler. Messianic interpretations of the relationship
between Tiburcio and Villa are not sustainable, especially since Villa does not
offer a new vision for a Mexico and, throughout the novel, normally reacts to
exterior circumstances as they occur. Furthermore, most of the other troops
desert him without a second thought. Tiburcio is more like a deluded Sancho
Panza to Villa's homicidal Quijote.

While Villa’s cruelty and Tiburcio’s exaggerated loyalty suggest modern
observations on the effect of charisma—for example, that motivating people to
deeds that they would not normally do is as much an ability conferred onto the
leader by the people as something intrinsic to their personality (Scott 221-22)—it
is altogether too incredible. The ﬁrst review of the novel also expressed disbelief
at Villa’s behavior and Tiburcio’s unﬂagging loyalty (Acevedo Escobedo 6). The
murder of Tiburcio’s daughter is also incredible as Katz observes that Villa was
exceptionally sensitive about the treatment of children; for example, after seeing

homeless children on the streets of Mexico City in 1915, he paid to have

107

hundreds of them sent to Chihuahua City and educated at the state’s School of
Arts and Crafts (418). The murder of Tiburcio's wife and child, and the countless
descriptions of Villa’s bestial behavior and rage, demonstrate Muﬁoz’s controlling
purpose: to deny Villa any of the characteristics (astute military and political
leadership, thoughtfulness, moderation, beneﬁcence), that would have made him
appear as a viable alternative to the Revolutionary leadership that controlled
Mexico in the early 19303. [vamonosL therefore, rejects a signiﬁcant part of the
popular interpretation of Villa provided by the “Corrido de Pancho Villa”, where he
is described as a “bandolero” but potentially, “el héroe mas alto de la Historia
Nacional” (Avitia Hernandez 139). Furthermore, by making Tiburcio Maya a
model Villista and the central character of the novel, Munoz demonstrates that
only frustration and defeat can come from blind obedience to this particular
leader. For any Mexican with an understanding of the Revolutionary struggle, it
would seem that the nation was in the hands of the most capable and stable

leaders by the time the novel was published.

lll. Tierra and the Institutionalization of a Mexican Revolutionary.

In the plaza of Cuautla, Morelos, a monument is dedicated to the
Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata (c. 1879-1919). Unveiled in 1932 by the artist
Oliverio Martinez, the monument features a stature of Zapata on horseback,
leaning over to hear the complaint of a humble campesino wearing sandals (see
Benjamin 86). However, such reverence for Zapata—undoubtedly the most

famous Latin American Revolutionary prior to Ché Guevara—was not always the

108

case. For most of his career and well into the 19203, Zapata was generally seen
as a barbarian and a threat to national progress; this persistent condemnation
originated from the ﬁrst newspaper reports of Zapatista insurrections at the
beginning of the Revolution, when the nickname the “Atila del Sur” gained a
national currency (Womack, Zapata 100-101).7 Nor was Zapata viewed positively
by Mexicans in general. For example, his recruitment tactic of burning the crops
of campesinos who did not want to join his forces did not sit well with many in
Morelos.8 By the early 19303, however, Zapata’s image would be recuperated
and the agrarian leader would be included in the pantheon of great,
uncontroversial Revolutionaries, right alongside Madero, Obregén and Aquiles
Serdan.

Gregorio LOpez y Fuentes (1897-1966) is one of the most proliﬁc and
experimental of Revolutionary novelists. At the age of 17 he published his ﬁrst
literary work, La sin'nga de cn'stal (1914), a collection of poems inﬂuenced by the
work of Ruben Dario; later, he joined the Revolution and fought on the side of
Venustiano Carranza. Following the Revolution, L6pez y Fuentes worked as a
journalist for various Mexico City newspapers, including El Universal, El Nacional
and El Graﬁco. From 1945 to 1952, Lopez y Fuentes was the director of El
Universal, one of the most widely circulated newspapers in Mexico. By covering
stories and publishing the news, the novelist came to understand ofﬁcial and
popular interpretations of the Revolution. This sensibility permitted LOpez y
Fuentes a role in the creation of the enhanced, national image of Zapata. In the

Prologue of Tierra, the critic Emilio Abreu G6mez writes, "De entre los heroes,

109

Zapata se desprende. Es crecido de estatua...En la obra de Gregorio L6pez y
Fuentes—como en un ramaje de sueﬁos—madura el espiritu de México” (8).
The novel begins in 1910 at the hacienda of Bernardo Gonzalez, where
peons toil for a meager wage that most will never see because of their debts to
the tienda de raya (company store). Magar‘ia Esquivel writes that Gonzalez’s
hacienda is intended to symbolize latifundismo throughout Mexico during the
waning years of the Porﬁriato (La novela de la Revolucién 181), an observation
that is sustained for the similarities that it has with the colonial institution of the
encomienda. A colonial form of paternalism exists between Gonzalez and his
peons. He refers to them affectionately as his “hijos", but when visitors ask why
no schools are provided for the children the hacendado explains that it would only
lead to trouble: “iQuién Ios aguanta sabiendo leer y escribir! Lo primero que se
les ocurriria: pedir tierras y aumento de jornal” (L6pez y Fuentes, Tiena 56-7).
Gonzalez maintains his domination with the help of the local priest, who threatens
the workers with the standard liturgy of transgression and divine punishment.
The priest and the hacendado are clearly meant to symbolize the dual
power structure—juridical and religious—that dominated Mexico for four
centuries. After extorting more money from the campesinos, LOpez y Fuentes
depicts the priest and the hacendado laughing behind closed doors (Tierra 45-
46). Following an annual “ﬁesta”—during which the peons are plied with liquor—
the novelist provides one of the most bitter descriptions of ecclesiastical
corruption in the entire cycle of the Revolutionary novel. The priest “[hlabla en el

nombre de Cristo y recomienda humilidad, amor al préjimo y algo mas. Viéndolo,

110

se antoja pensar qué seria de Jesﬂs con una pistola de cilindro, calibre treinta y
ocho, en la cintura, y arreando por Ios caminos una acémila, que Ileva en los
lacrados lomos dos mil pesos” (L6pez y Fuentes, Tierra 52).

The workers on the hacienda and their struggles are prominently featured
in the first third of the novel. The ﬁrst chapter presents teams of peons working in
the jungle, cutting down trees to enlarge the Gonzalez hacienda. The scene is
replete with Biblical images, with the lush jungle reminiscent of an Eden
overlooked by Porﬁrian industrial projects. While the peons clear away brush, a
young worker is bitten by a snake and must have his ﬁnger removed with a
machete to stop the spread of venom. But the remedy does not save him. After
he dies, the remaining peons reluctantly return to work. There is the sense that if
only their energy and determination were directed against those who hold power,
a true social revolution would occur. This idea is reinforced when the workers
chop down the biggest tree on the property, reminding readers that in spite of the
apparently obedient nature of the workers, a revolution is building. “El ruido de
los machete” sounds at the base of the “viejo del monte. . .Tal parece que los
trabajadores se alegran al ver caer los que tanta ventaja... iQué estrépito en la
caida!” (Lopez y Fuentes, Tierra 14-15). This image, of dozens of peons felling
the oldest tree with machetes, invokes the interpretation of the Mexican
Revolution as a popular struggle.

Paz has noted that every revolution seeks to (re)establish a mythical age,
and that the “eternal return” is one of the implicit concepts of nearly all

revolutionary theory (Laben‘nto 129). True to this observation, the Zapatista

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agrarian program cast a backward glance to the colonial systems of communal
land ownership between pueblos. As early as the sixteenth century, when the
encomienda was the fundamental secular institution in Nueva Espana, the
Spanish crown had declared that each male Indian would have his own parcel of
land to farm and pass on to his heirs, even if the encomienda on which he worked
were to be sold (Konetzke 164). lnforrned by this history, Lopez y Fuentes’
description of what motivates the Zapatistas is more detailed and substantive
than that which motivates the Villistas in Munoz’s novel:
Revolucion agraria, la lucha por la tierra. El trabajo resulta menos duro.
La tierra toda es una promesa de bienstar. Zapata deja de ser un general
para convertirse en una bandera....Todos luchan por la recuperacién de
las tierras...Parece que la tierra, zarandeada en la disputa, va a dar a luz
hijos a millares. (Tierra 88)
The passage has a repetitive, mantric quality, as if it was being uttered in unison
by the poor masses. Like Demetrio Macias of Los de abajo, the peons of the
hacienda also look back to a lost time where they enjoyed greater freedom. This
in itself would not constitute millennial belief (which is forward-looking), but the
manner in which prez y Fuentes’ narrator infuses such descriptions with a
solemn, religious tenor creates the effect of popular millenarianism. Also
noteworthy is the manner in which Zapata ceases to be a caudillo (unlike Villa)
and becomes a symbol of the agrarian struggle. Rumors of the Revolution reach
the hacienda and some of the younger workers decide to join the “bola” on the
side of Madero, prompting don Bernardo to hire the local police to track them

down. When the peons are interrogated as to the whereabouts of Antonio

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Hernandez, one of the most rebellious peons, they employ one of the most
common weapons of the weak: feigning ignorance in front of the rural
commander, “iSabra Dios, senor!” (Lopez y Fuentes, Tien'a 64).

Zapata is ﬁrst mentioned at this point in the novel as “un general de mucha
importancia...quien amenaza Cuernavaca” (L6pez y Fuentes, Tierra 65). This
initial reference to Zapata is signiﬁcant because LOpez y Fuentes does not invoke
the pejorative, journalistic assessments of the agrarian leader which were popular
at the time. Recalling Azuela’s Los caciques, the reports of Porﬁrio Diaz’s defeat
provoke both surprise and jubilation among the peasants. Following the
celebration, however, some begin to wonder what exactly was accomplished,
especially since don Bernardo continues to maintain his hacienda: “aQué ha sido
la revolucién? Un tiroteo en que murieron unos cuantos rurales” (Lepez y
Fuentes, Tiena 66). Concerns arise about the company President Madero was
keeping in the capital. Don Bernardo, suddenly an enthusiastic supporter of the
new regime, lets a Maderista politician stay in his house during his campaign in
Morelos (Lepez y Fuentes, Tiena 70). The ultimate irony is when the peons have
to return to work and their hacendado is elected president of the Francisco I.
Madero Club (L6pez y Fuentes, Tierra 71 ). The campesinos and peons of
Morelos now feel betrayed in addition to being oppressed; popular discontent
builds. When the news arrives that Zapata has turned against Madero’s
government for failing to implement promised reforms, most realize that the
Revolution that was started to remove Diaz from power is far from being

concluded.

113

The ﬁgure of Zapata appears more frequently in the ﬁnal two thirds of
Tiena, and the earlier focus on the activities of the Gonzalez hacienda are
replaced by a selective, general chronology of the agrarian struggle in Morelos.
LOpez y Fuentes even reports that Antonio Hernandez—the character who had
been the closest thing to a protagonist in the ﬁrst third of the novel—has
apparently died in battle (Tierra 110). Zapata’s is depicted in positive terms: he is
stern, uncorruptible, and has an uncanny ability for remembering names and
physical characteristics. He is also depicted as belonging entirely to the “pueblo
puro y etemo” (LOpez y Fuentes, Tierra 84-5, 145). With throngs of mesmerized
campesinos surrounding him, Zapata starts reciting, from memory, part of the
Plan de Ayala (Lopez y Fuentes, Tierra 87). The Plan de Ayala (25 November
1911), as pointed out by Lepez y Fuentes, provided the Zapatistas with political
legitimacy and distinguished them from ruthless bandoleros, which was the
manner in which they were consistently portrayed in the Mexico City press.
However, the novelist does not attribute the plan for agrarian reform to Zapata
and his men; according to the narrator, their goal was merely the “cumplimiento
de las promesas hechas por don Francisco I. Madero: la restitucién de las tierras”
(L6pez y Fuentes, Tierra 91-92). This is a way of softening the image of Zapata
and his guerrillas, portraying them as people who still looked to the capital for
conﬁrmation and acceptance of their demands. With this obescience to Madero,
the political program of the Zapatistas was more easily associated with the

Sonoran (and later Priista) leadership of the 19203 and 303, which had always

revered the Revolutionary who ousted Diaz.

114

Millennial imagery abounds in the second half of Tierra. For example,
when the Zapatista general Montaﬁo reads a message from Zapata to the people
of Ayoxustla, explaining that the land they work now belongs to them, “le oyen
con una atencion que les agranda las pupilas. Jamas han oido hablar de
semejantes cosas. iLa tierral” The message is afﬁnned in the same manner as a
Biblical teaching, with the campesinos noting “Asi lo dice el escrito” (Lopez y
Fuentes, Tiena 92). But the campesinos know that Zapata’s message is as much
a proclamation of their rights as a call to arms to defend them, and Lopez y
Fuentes reserves one of the novel’s most powerful millennial images for the
aftermath of the reading:

Montano ha terminado de leer y hay dianas, musica, gritos, aplausos.

Parece que el volcan ha hecho erupcion y que se deja oir a través de las

vértebras de la misma serrania...Apenas se mira ya el misérrimo

poblacho. Sobre Ios volcanes coronados de nieve 3e esta forrnando una

tempestad. (Tierra 93)

The intensity of the ﬁghting increases, with the Zapatistas losing as many
engagements as they win. Captured Zapatistas receive the same punishment
reserved to Cristeros little more than a decade later: they are taken out and hung
from telegraph poles (Lopez y Fuentes, Tierra 97-98).9 And, like the Cristeros, the
Zapatistas wreak their own havoc by derailing passenger trains (Lopez y
Fuentes, Tierra 99-100). The destruction in Morelos is widespread but, as the
narrator observes, "La revolucion sigue su curso” (Lopez y Fuentes, Tierra 126).

Tierra becomes a chronicle at this point rather than a literary text, with

fewer evocative scenes (such as that of the felling of the giant tree) and more

115

enphasis on relating signiﬁcant events in Revolutionary history. Lopez y Fuentes
dutifully notes the “Acta de rectiﬁcacion del Plan de Ayala” (1913) and, more
signiﬁcantly, describes skirmishes between Zapatistas and Villistas during their
occupation of Mexico City (Tierra 118, 120-21). Chapter XIX, simply titled “1915”,
begins with a footnote explaining that “Don Felipe Sanitbaﬁez, quien fué
comisionado agrario en Yautepec, proporciono al autor muchos de los datos que
ﬁguran en este capitulo” (Lopez y Fuentes, Tierra 125). The Zapatista movement
experiences an unexpected set-back when Emiliano’s brother, Eufemio Zapata, is
shot dead after an argument in a cantina (Lopez y Fuentes, Tierra 139-41).
Rumors begin to circulate that General Zapata has been killed, thus
foreshadowing the climax of both the novel and the historical agrarian struggle.

The assassination of Zapata was one of the more problematic incidents for
Lopez y Fuentes to relate in Tierra. The plan was conceived by Constitutional
General Pablo Gonzalez after he learned that Zapata tried to swing one of his
young ofﬁcers, Colonel Jesus Guajardo, over to his side. During an interview, in
which Gonzalez had a hand-written letter from Zapata to Guajardo, the general
threatened the young ofﬁcer with conspiracy charges (and certain execution) if he
did not maintain correspondence with Zapata in order to lure the Revolutionary
into an ambush. However, according to the novel’s account, the Zapatista colonel
Jauregui roams the Constitutional camp until he overhears Guajardo talking
about switching sides (Lopez y Fuentes, Tierra 152-54). Tierra presents nothing
of the interview between Gonzalez and Guajardo, which would show the truly

Machiavellian character of the plot to assassinate Zapata. As it is depicted in the

116

novel, the plot would seem to be nothing more than an exercise in military
counter-intelligence with all the dirty-work accomplished by Guajardo. However, it
was necessary that Lopez y Fuentes depict the assassination plot in this manner
because Pablo Gonzalez and other Constitutional ofﬁcers involved in the plot
would eventually desert President Carranza in support of General Obregon
(Knight, The Mexican Revolution 2: 492), thus insuring their participation in the
post-Revolutionary governments of the 19203 and 303. Guajardo, rather than
Gonzalez, is the person who is most responsible for the death of Zapata
according to Lopez y Fuentes’ account. This is convenient since Guajardo (who
was promoted to General after the assassination) was later captured by Carranza
loyalists and executed in July 1920. The assassination plot works to perfection:
Zapata, in a moment of poor judgment, enters the hacienda of Chinameca with all
of Guajardo’s troops—now supposedly Zapatistas—surrounding him. Dozens of
soldiers open ﬁre at Zapata at the moment when they were going to give him a
military salute; the agrarian leader falls from his horse riddled with bullets (Lopez
y Fuentes, Tierra 167-68).

At the same time that the novel shields political leadership from criticism,
Tiena also attempts to reﬂect popular interpretations of the caudillo’s death in that
it was a betrayal rather than a carefully executed trap or poor judgment on the
part of Zapata. Lopez y Fuentes depicts the popular outrage at the news of
Zapata’s death: “--jFué una traicion. ..No llora: aulla, brama, ulula. Es el dolor
simbolico de todos los campesinos de Morelos” (Tierra 149). Guajardo is cast as

a Judas-like ﬁgure who betrays Zapata. For example, much is made of the fact

117

that the day before the assassination Zapata and Guajardo “Se dieron un abrazo’
(Lopez y Fuentes, Tierra 155), reminding readers of the kiss that betrayed Jesus
Christ to the Roman soldiers (Matt. 26: 48-49).10 Naturally, this portrayal of
Guajardo as Judas reinforces messianic interpretations of Zapata.

After his assassination, Zapata was quickly mythologized as a popular
social bandit who took from the rich and gave to the poor as he tried to regain
land rights for Morelos campesinos.11 Like many semi-legendary ﬁgures, there
were rumors that Zapata was not really killed at Chinameca on 10 April 1919, but
that a double was cleverly sent in his place. Other rumors alleged that the
Revolutionary was seen roaming the hills of Morelos on the sorrel that Guajardo
had given him as a token of his friendship (Knight, The Mexican Revolution 2:
370). Several corridos produced in Mexico City allude to these sightings.12 Lopez
y Fuentes also makes reference to these beliefs and sightings, ﬁrst by noting that
although everyone knew where Zapata is buried, “nadie, en el rumbo, cree que
ha muerto” (Tierra 182). Near the conclusion of the novel, the narrator relates a

possible sighting of Zapata on horseback:

En la montafla hay una luz. iSi se habra caido una estrella!
...Tienen la seguridad de haber oido el tropel de un caballo. Miran, tal vez,
perﬁlada en el fondo del horizonte claro, una ﬁgura ecuestre. Se tallan Ios
ojos con las manos, como hacen quienes salen de la oscuridad de la luz.
(Lopez y Fuentes, Tiena 186)
But just when it seems possible that Zapata is still alive, the narrator states, “No
hay nada. solo el silencio perfecto de los campos”, and the novel concludes

(Lopez y Fuentes, Tiena 186). On a sociological level, it is not uncommon that a

118

social bandit is rumored to be alive after his death; popular classes may even
attribute supernatural powers (such as resurrection) to him. Cruz Chavez, of the
Tomochic rebellion, was reported to have left “unos polvos de la Santa de
Cabora, polvos con Ios cuales 3e podia resucitar” (Frias 294). With such
immortality, the rebel leader assumes qualities that transcend his mere deeds; he
becomes a semi-millennial hope for future social movements that will bring down
those with power and make the powerless suddenly mighty.13 However, by
rejecting the possibility that Zapata lives, Lopez y Fuentes demonstrates that
although the agrarian leader was a man to be admired, it was no longer
necessary to continue ﬁghting for his vision of land redistribution.

With Tierra, Lopez y Fuentes’ second novel, the image of Zapata is
recuperated and made into myth. This reassessment is perfectly in line with other
examples of ofﬁcial respect that is suddenly bestowed on a previously
controversial historical ﬁgure and his program, normally years after he has been
safely put into the ground (Benjamin 148-50). While there are similarities between
Muﬁoz’s [vamonos con Pancho Villa! and Tierra—for example, the obsession
with historical accuracy—the novels provide two very distinct portraits of the
caudillos depicted on their pages. These portraits reﬂect a political program that
sought to consolidate popular support: while Villa was continually disparaged by
the post-Revolutionary regime, Zapata was mythologized to widen the base of the
Institutionalized Revolution's national appeal. These novels also enhanced the

government’s image in that they diverted attention away from the many

119

problematic issues of the 19303 and focused instead on the decade of
Revolutionary conﬂict (Rutherford, Mexican Society 70).

Historically, it is not difﬁcult to see the reason for the viliﬁcation of Villa and
the institutionalization of Zapata: while Villa’s Division del Norte was once the
most formidable army of Revolutionary Mexico, Zapata’s rebellion was limited to
Morelos and western Puebla State, and did not amount to much more than an
irritation for the Sonoran faction. Furthermore, Zapata’s hand-picked successor,
Gildardo Magana, and other former Zapatistas worked with Obregon’s
government on the question of agrarian reform in the early 19203. According to
Womack, with full support of the president, by 1927 only "four or ﬁve” haciendas
continued to exist; all the rest had been broken up and redistributed to
campesinos, making Morelos the most progressive state in terms of agrarian
reform (Zapata 374-75). Thus, by the time of Tierra’s publication, the controversy
over agrarian reform (at least in Morelos) as was nearly as dead as the caudillo

that had struggled to achieve it.

lV. Notes.

‘ Brushwood resolves this apparent contradiction between the autobiographical nature and
increased experimentation of these novels by writing: “La oleada de novelas...que se levanto en
1931 muestra varias formas distintas de contar la historia, con algunas caracterlsticas
comunes...son relatos Iineales episodicos y los personajes apenas estan esbozados. En general
todo—estructura, estilo, caracterizacion y aun ideologIa—queda subordinado a la necesidad que
siente cada autor de decirnos como paso lo que paso” (354).

2 A corrido, which was ﬁrst published in the cultural magazine Mexican Folkways (1927), speaks
optimistically of Villa's reconciliation with the Obregon regime: “Todo el mundo esta contento/

120

con la rendiciOn de Villa I y espera que no haya guerra I por la cuestion de la silla” (Mendoza, El
com’do mexicana 62-67). The “Corrido de las esperanzas de la Patria por la rendicion de Villa”,
however, does little more than relate that there was considerable popular support for Obregon.
Futhermore, lacking the standard deﬁning characteristics of the corrido (Castaneda 18-19), it may
well be an early example of this oral literature being co-opted by the post-Revolutionary regime for
political purposes.

3 Katz persuasively argues that Villa's assassination was ordered by the Obregon administration
under pressure from the United States government: “BI [British Intelligence] and important
Mexican ofﬁcials were convinced that the assassination of Villa was a precondition for US.
recognition of the Obregon administration" (781-82).

‘ For example, the “Corrido de las Esperanzas de la Patria por la Rendicion de Villa” would lead
one to believe that Mexicans were united against Villa and totally in support of Obregon
(Mendoza, El com'do mexicana 62-67). En Ezequiel Martlnez’s “Corrido de la muerte de
Francisco Villa”, it is said that since Villa opposed Carranza, he “prosigio la rebelion, I que causa
grandes tristezas, I a toda nuestra nacion" (Avitia Hernandez 146). Finally, in the epic “Corrido
Grande de Pancho Villa”, the most ambivalent portrait of the Centauro del Norte is offered: “Si
Villa fue bueno o malo / formenle su juicio ustedes, I porque Dios es soberano I puede darle sus
mercedes” (Avitia Hernandez 163).

5 See the “Corrido de la Decapitacion del Cadaver de Pancho Villa” (Avitia Hernandez 149).

6 As Katz has convincingly shown, Villa did indeed have a social program and was much more
than a destructive force or, as Salvador Novo described him, a “bandolhéroe”. During his
governship of Chihuahua (1913-1915), he implemented a number of progressive reforms such as
land distribution (with the poorest people receiving their parcels ﬁrst), fair municipal elections and
increased ﬁnances for education (Katz, Life and Times 397-432). In his famous interview with
Villa, American journalist John Reed noted that the Revolutionary was surprisingly articulate and
had a vision for a new Mexico where there would be no need to maintain standing armies. In
Villa’s Mexico, there would be three day work weeks and the citizens would own arms to protect
their interests, thus organizing the country into a society along the lines of the Swiss. Villa
concluded that these plans would work “to help make Mexico a happy place” (Reed 133-34).

7 The ofﬁcial chronicler of Cuernavaca, Lic. Valentin Lopez Gonzalez, said that El lmparcial began
the black legend of Zapata, labeling him the “Atila del Sur", and that this designation enjoyed
currency well into the 19203 (personal interview, 25 Oct. 2001). However, even more liberal
newspapers such as La Patna of Ireneo Paz referred to Zapata in this manner and called his
soldiers “chusmas alzadas” and “gruesas bandas de endemoniados” that should be eliminated
(Krause, “Y el mantel olla a polvora” 7).

8 Lic. Valentin Lopez Gonzalez (personal interview, 25 Sept. 2001).

9 See Aub (105-6).

121

1° In the “Corrido de la muerte de Emiliano Zapata”, written by Armando Liszt Arzubide and
Graciela Amador, the event is narrated: “Abraza Emiliano al felon Guajardo I En prueba de su
amistad, I Sin pensar el pobre que aquel pretoriano I lo iba a sacriﬁcar” (Mendoza, El corrido
mexicana 85). An archival corrido (possibly dating from the 19403) called “Muerte de Emiliano
Zapata”, is very celebratory of the the agrarian leader and his deeds; it also emphasizes the
Judas-like character of Guajardo, explaining that the two men hugged before Guajardo betrayed
him. “Muerte de Emiliano Zapata. Corrido." (n.p.: n.d. Archivo lmpreso Suelto, Biblioteca
Nacional, R 979).

'1 See the “Corrido de la muerte de Emiliano Zapata”, included in Mendoza (El corrido mexicano
81-85). The corridista states that Zapata was the “azote de los ricos” and died trying to provide
poor campesinos liberty and wealth, even though he wished for none of it himself (82-84).

12 “El espectro de Zapata. Corrido suriano” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1919. Archivo
Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca Nacional, R 984). See also the “Corrido de la muerte de Emiliano
Zapata" (Mendoza, El corrido mexicana 81 -85).

‘3 The persistence of millennial and messianic belief is not uncommon in the greater context of
Latin American history. In the Andean region, for example, the millennial tradition of the Inkarri
dates from the mid-sixteenth century. The tradition has its origins in the Taki Onkoy revolt which
began in the 15603. To suppress this indigenous rebellion, the Spanish captured rebel leaders
and had them quartered. Believers thought that the Inkarri (a mythic hero that more or less
corresponded to the last lncan emperors) would be resurrected to vanquish the Spanish
conquerors as soon as his scattered limbs were recovered and recomposed. In true millennial
fashion, Inca civilization would then be reestablished following the defeat of the Spanish. The
myth of the Inkarri was also invoked by Tupac Amaru II in his failed revolt of 1780-1781. More
recently, the Shining Path (Sendero Iuminoso) invoked the myth in the 19803 in order to generate
popular support for their movement to overthrow the Peruvian government; their leader and
founder, Dr. Abimael Guzman, was seen by some as the reincarnation of the Inkarri (Dr. Roclo

Quispe-Agnoli, personal correspondence, 20 Feb. 2003).

122

"KW—“T ‘“ m- _,
1.. 5 .mtuaﬁmuw , “"9911,

CHAPTER 5

STILL WAITING FOR THE MESSIAH: MILLENNIAL IMAGERY IN THE
INDIGENIST NOVEL OF THE 19308

“La dignidad actual que el indio ha logrado valio
la sangre y la destruccion de la Revolucion."
—Daniel Coslo Villegas.

l. Political Expedience and the Indigenist Novel.

After each major social or political revolution in Mexico, a backward glance
has been directed toward the indigenous population. In the wake of the Spanish

Conquest, Bernardino de Sahagi'Jn and other Franciscans tried to preserve

 

‘f‘l 1.1":0

aspects of the pre-Columbian culture and to learn native languages such as
nahuatl. Following Mexico’s independence in 1821, the attempt to reject Spanish
culture and yet accept certain ideals of the Enlightenment produced indianismo,
the literary tendency where the Native American was romanticized as a “noble
savage”. Indigenismo, a movement reﬂecting Mexican society’s rediscovery of
the Indian following the Revolution, was an important feature of the project of
cultural nationalism that began in the 19203 (Franco, Modem Culture 107-11).
This renewed interest in the Indian, and his designation as the
fundamental element of Mexican national identity, owed more to political
expedience than to intellectual curiosity or public service. By the early 19303,
when the government was proudly proclaiming the achievements of the
Revolution, novelists and other intellectuals could no longer ignore the
exploitation and hardship that the indigenous population continued to suffer

(Gonzalez, Trayecton'a de la novela 312-13). Furthermore, due to the critical

123

participation of the native population during the decade of armed conﬂict, there
was also a general understanding that something was owed the Indian by those
who had won the Revolution.‘ Paradoxically, while the political context from
which indigenismo arose was largely dictated by the post-Revolutionary regime,
the message of its literature is often critical of the government. Such criticism

developed in response to the realities of Mexico in the decades following the

Revolution, when various politicians and social programs failed to carry through I
with their promises. This literature responds to these broken promises, for if E
national agrarian reform and sustained programs of public education were not to S
be provided, social criticism had to sufﬁce. The indigenist novel of the 19303 E

 

typically examines the plight of the Indian during or in the wake of the Revolution;
for this reason, it has often been viewed as a sub-genre of the Revolutionary
novel.2

Through the analysis of two indigenist novels, El indio (1935) by Gregorio
Lopez y Fuentes and EI resplandor (1937) by Mauricio Magdaleno, I will argue
that these texts provide some of the most incisive and comprehensive criticism of
the post-Revolutionary regime to be found among the novels of the Mexican
Revolution.3 These novels achieve this criticism through an extensive use of
millennial imagery that, in the wider phenomenon of the Revolutionary novel, was
usually employed to reafﬁrm the myth of the Mexican Revolution.4 However, this
criticism still falls short of challenging the legitimacy of the post-Revolutionary

regime. Instead, it portrays its relationship to the indigenous population as a work

124

in progress: an often well intentioned but still ineffectual program designed to
assimilate the Indian into modern Mexican society.

In these novels, the Revolution is often shown to have brought few
beneﬁts to the indigenous population. This point is made painfully clear when the
indigenous communities depicted in the novels put their faith in and mobilize
around messianic ﬁgures that will supposedly deliver them from their
marginalized status. lnvariably, these ﬁgures betray the Indians and perpetuate
the exploitative practices and discrimination that they have suffered for centuries.

Some of these false messiahs are political ﬁgures who arrive in the wake of the ,

 

Revolution, while others are members of the Church—an institution that, as the
anti-clerical governments of the 19203 and 303 did not hesitate to point out, had
been exploiting the native population since the colonial era (Portal 344-45). Both
El indio and El resplandor challenge the ofﬁcial interpretation of the Revolution—
usually depicted by its voceros as a “singular historical phenomenon” that lead to
an era of modernity and social reform (Benjamin 37)—by showing that its effects
were minimal as far as the native populations were concerned. Moreover, both
indigenist novels reveal the Revolution to be nothing more than an unexpected
moment of optimism in an endless cycle of injustice and cruelty. Belief in this
cycle subverts the deterministic and conclusive nature of millennial conceptions
by replacing a rectilinear model of time with eternity (Parkinson Zamora 17). This
subversion may also apply to the concept of revolution, but Lopez y Fuentes and

Magdaleno leave this conclusion to be drawn by their readers.

125

ll. Into A New Era of Suffering: Lopez y Fuentes’ EI indio.

Before writing El indio, Gregorio Lopez y Fuentes was a journalist and
best selling writer whose previous Revolutionary novels included Campamento
(1931), the previously discussed Tierra, and Mi general (1934). Of these works,
Campamento enjoyed the most critical acclaim and remains one of the
outstanding examples of the narrative innovation that developed (but is rarely
discussed) in the cycle of the Revolutionary novel. In Campamento, Lopez y
Fuentes employs a detached, cinematographic narrative style—virtually the
same technique employed ﬁve years later by the American novelist John Dos
Passos in his trilogy U. SA. (1936) (Portal 127-28). Campamento depicts a single
night in the camp of some Revolutionary troops following a battle. Lopez y
Fuentes would return to the detached, cinematographic technique of this novel in
El indio, his best known work and the winner of the ﬁrst Premio Nacional de
Literatura awarded by the Mexican government. Rather than providing the
narrative a hyper-realistic quality, the use of this technique in El indio gives the
impression of being objective, even anthropological. EI indio is the ﬁrst post-
Revolutionary indigenist novel and an outstanding example of cultural
nationalism’s idealization of the Indian. The ﬁrst English translation of the novel,
They That Reap (1937), featured illustrations by Diego Rivera.5

While active, well-defined protagonists distinguish the earliest
Revolutionary novels, such as those by Frias, Azuela and Martin Luis Guzman,
EI indio introduces a more anonymous and generalized depiction of the masses

that participated in the struggle.6 This depiction is not unlike that of subaltem

126

classes where, according to Ranajit Guha, the participants of an insurrection are
compared to natural phenomenon, such as tidal waves or fires, and thereby
rendered nondescript.7 Coupled with this anonymity is an increased passivity and
resignation in the characterization of marginalized groups. This homogeneity of
characterization and passivity served to negate or deny the indigenous role in
provoking social change: while it was appropriate to commemorate the

Revolution and sympathize with the Indian, the new political leadership must not

. L30 & ‘Fii—U

be challenged.

' - -"’J"')- _ f

This homogeneity is evident when Lopez y Fuentes omits the names of all a

 

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his characters and identiﬁes them only by their physical traits or function. For

example, the novel’s characters include “el viejo, el cazador” and “el joven
lisiado,” a young man whom was left a cripple after being tortured by white
prospectors (“Ios blancos”). The title of the novel, EI indio, does not refer to any
particular character but to the broader social issue so often debated in the 19303.
Although the omission of names establishes a sense of timelessness and
complements the detached or anthropological style of narration, It can also be
distracting. Brushwood notes that it produces “a wise-old-chief-has-spoken”
effect that invokes the “noble savage” stereotype of the nineteenth century
(216).8 The Indians of Lopez y Fuentes’ novel do not incite orjoin the Revolution,
nor are they protagonists in the traditional sense of the term: individuals who

force the action on the novel. Instead, outsiders arrive at their unidentiﬁed,

remote community to act upon them.

127

These outsiders, who arrive unexpectedly and attempt to win the trust of
the Indians, include white prospectors, Catholic priests, Revolutionary caudillos
and a rural schoolteacher. The structure of the novel itself suggests the historical
cycle of betrayal and oppression with the chapters of the third part of the novel:
“Revolucion”, “Epidemia”,9 “La tradicion perdida”, “Los peregrinos”, “El lider”,
“Politica” and ﬁnally, “Desconﬁanza” (Lopez y Fuentes, El indio 295). These
chapters present a generalized process of inﬁltration of the indigenous
community by outsiders, the winning of their conﬁdence, the betrayal and
suffering of the Indians, and their resolution to not trust “Ios blancos” again.
Rectilinear conceptions of the Revolution are rejected in the novel when it is
repeatedly demonstrated that this cycle of exploitation will continue for the
Indians, even after the Revolution.

The third and ﬁnal section of the novel recalls the incidents of the ﬁrst part,
in which white prospectors and an interpreter appear in the waning years of the
Porﬁriato; these outsiders gain the Indians’ trust but eventually torture and rape
them as they search for gold. These men, who arrive on horseback, serve as
apocalyptic symbols that preﬁgure the loss of autonomy and the partial
destruction of the community.10 When the Indians throw rocks at them and
succeed in driving them off, they knock one of the prospectors from his horse
and into a ravine where he dies (Lopez y Fuentes, EI indio 59). This justiﬁed
attack on the cruel outsiders will signify the beginning of the end for the isolation
and cultural integrity of the community for, soon afterward, the surviving

prospectors return with the municipal president and armed troops who seek to

128

 

punish the “animales salvajes“ (Lopez y Fuentes, El indio 71 ). Although the
Indians abandon their village and hide in the jungle, they will never again be
isolated from “Ios blancos” and their designs. One of the village elders correctly
observes that following this encounter a new era of suffering has begun (Lopez y
Fuentes, EI indio 61).

Initially, Lopez y Fuentes presents the Revolution as being peripheral to
the indigenous way of life, a momentary interruption or intrusion of little
consequence. In the chapter “Revolucion”, the narrator reveals that Indians who
had worked in the city reported “algo muy grave sucediendo entre la gente de
razon” (Lopez y Fuentes, El indio 217, italics in original), underscoring the idea
that the national upheaval was irrelevant to the indigenous cultures. An elder of
the community, perhaps recalling the Wars of Reform or the French Intervention,
explains that such “luchas de los blancos” were exceptionally bloody affairs
because of the ﬁrearms they used (Lopez y Fuentes, El indio 217). Eventually
the conﬂict touches the village when the local landowners stop requiring the
Indians to work on their properties. This is no liberation, but a means of
preventing the Indians access to the meager livelihood they had been earning.
Later, some troops arrive and demand that they provide water and tortillas; a
Revolutionary caudillo then demands twenty youths to serve as guides. The
narrator explains that these guides “Nunca regresaron”, thus concluding the
novel’s two-and-a-half page treatment of the Mexican Revolution (Lopez y

Fuentes, EI indio 219).

129

.s'.-

 

‘r . 34.1; :5. L

After the Revolution, a mestizo schoolmaster arrives in the community to
teach the children; however, the schoolmaster eventually transcends the
classroom and becomes popularly known as “el lider” by winning some small
concessions from the local landholders. However, when the refonn-minded
mestizo embarks on a political career and becomes a diputado, he begins
distancing himself from the Indians and ﬁnally abandons their cause altogether.
The narrator of El indio attributes this to politics rather than to the schoolmaster,
concluding that “La politica [relego] a un segundo término la idea esencial de

dotar tierras a las mayorias como medio de lograr su mejoramiento economico”

E 3.21?! I'Ti 57mi- m.§» 71 1‘73. “n; 7.2 mal.
i r

(Lopez y Fuentes, EI indio 285). The point is clear: in post-Revolutionary Mexico,
just as in the Porﬁriato, the most effective way to neutralize a would-be reformer
is to absorb them into the corrupt political system. As soon as they began to
enjoy some of the privileges of their new position, they would inevitably abandon
their ideals and work to preserve the status quo.

In El indio the church is portrayed not merely as indifferent to the Indians’
suffering, but as one of the premier exploiters of native labor. An unmistakable
example of this exploitation is when a priest orders the natives to build a new
church at the same time they were being forced to construct a new highway for
the State, neglecting the cultivation of their own crops in the process (Lopez y
Fuentes, EI indio 243-44). The priest plays upon the Indians’ superstitions by
telling them that the recent epidemic of smallpox, in which many of them
perished, was caused by their impiety. The Indians come to believe that they

must build a new church to redeem themselves in the eyes of God (Lopez y

130

Fuentes, El indio 237). The priest further deceives them when he says that were
it not for his prayers and a vow to lead a pilgrimage, all of them would have died
in the epidemic (Lopez y Fuentes, EI indio 249-50). Predictably, money is
collected from the Indians to cover the expenses of the pilgrimage and for
purchasing religious candles and milagros (ex-votos). The Church was a
recurring object of criticism in the Revolutionary novel of the 19303. Article 130 of
the Constitution of 1917 was designed to restrain ecclesiastical abuses and limit
the power of the Church; strict (even draconian) observance of Article 130 by the
Calles presidency provoked the Cristero Revolt (1926-29, 1934). Given this
historical context, criticism of the Church was neither original nor particularly risky
for Lopez y Fuentes. In fact, it provides an example of a Revolutionary novelist
reproducing the position of the national government of the early 19303. While it is
true that Lopez y Fuentes is also critical of the national government (during the
highway construction, for example, he depicts the State paying the Indians with
liquor), EI indio demonstrates that the Church was not only an abusive force for
the indigenous population, but a retrograde institution that hindered the
advancement of modernizing projects.11 The critical posture of the post-
Revolutionary government toward the Church would be more fully developed in
the landmark novel of Agustin Yaﬁez, AI ﬁlo del agua (1947), where the
ecclesiastical authorities do not exploit their parishioners so much as stiﬂe their
desires and interest in the world beyond their village, thus rendering them

passive.

131

 

El indio implies that the traditional social structure, in which the Church
ﬁgures prominently, became more deceptive and oppressive for the indigenous
population after the Revolution rather than being replaced. This conclusion may
lead some readers to suspect that the Revolution accomplished little or nothing.
However, Lopez y Fuentes does not challenge the concept of the Revolution
itself; instead he leaves the readers to draw that conclusion on their own. Clearly,
not many readers did. In one of the ﬁrst reviews of the novel, the critic Salvador
Cordero praised Lopez y Fuentes for the simplicity of his prose and his great
sense of patriotism (2). Perhaps if the implications of Lopez y Fuentes’ novel had
been fully discussed, it would not have enjoyed the acclaim that it received from

the government and elite sectors of Mexican society.

I". A Millennial Hunger for Justice: Magdaleno’s El resplandor.

Prior to the publication of El resplandor, Mauricio Magdaleno (1906-1980)
had been respected but relatively unknown as a novelist. Although it would be an
exaggeration to say that Magdaleno was an intellectual writing on behalf of the
government, his high-level connections, the many appointments to government
posts, and the nationalistic tenor of Teatro revolucionano mexicana (1933), his
acclaimed trilogy of dramas, do suggest an author who showed little inclination to
ever produce a text that was critical of the post-Revolutionary regime. Yet
Magdaleno had also been an active supporter of Jose Vasconcelos’ failed
presidential campaign of 1929. Years later, he bitterly attributed capitalistic

motives to the intrigues and electoral rigging of which the Partido Nacional

132

Revolucionario (the forebear of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional) had
been accused during the election of 1929 (Magdaleno, Palabras perdidas 214).
Like other intellectuals of the era, Magdaleno was well versed in Marxism and
admired many of the achievements of the Soviet Union. In 1932, when many of
his colleagues who had supported Vasconcelos were chased into exile,

Magdaleno was awarded a grant to study in Madrid. There he met Miguel de

_ '-V!'

Unamuno and Ramon del Valle Inclan, the eccentric writer who had written
Tirano Banderas (1926), a novel of much imagination and structural intricacy

depicting a revolution against an archetypal Latin American dictator.

 

Upon his return to Mexico—and at the request of his friend and patron
Narciso Bassols, the Secretary of Public Education (1931-1934)—Magdaleno
served as a rural instructor in Mexe, Hidalgo State, a community with a large
population of Otomi Indians. In the course of his duties the writer interviewed
village elders, noting their manner of speech as well as their deep-seated distrust
of outsiders (Paul Arranz 24-25). In this arid region, Magdaleno discovered that
the indigenous population was still awaiting the beneﬁts of the Revolution,
although the Revolutionaries were already celebrating its purported
achievements. Keenly aware of the contradictions of the post-Revolutionary
government and its programs, Magdaleno looked to the Revolutionary novel as a
medium for exposing them. In this period, Magdaleno wrote that the genre ideally
presented the hour in which the Revolution took control of Mexico’s destiny, while
the pueblo still howled with its “hambre milenaria de justicia” (“Alrededor de la

novela moderna” 3). El resplandor depicts not only how the Revolution did little to

133

satisfy the pueblo and their millennial hunger for justice, but that Revolutionary
promises were often empty gestures or lies.

The trajectory of a charismatic, populist politician serves as the basis of
Magdaleno’s novel. Saturnino Herrera, the mestizo boy-turned-political boss, is
viewed by an indigenous community as their salvation. Panoramic in its historical
perspective, El resplandor portrays Otomi Indians living in a fictional pueblo
called San Andres de la Cal, located in central Hidalgo State. The collective
history of the Otomi community comprises the ﬁrst hundred pages, providing a
continuous period of tradition that merges into the period of the of the novel’s
action, the 19303.12 Unlike El indio, Magdaleno’s novel does not employ the
objective, anthropological perspective in its portrait of the indigenous people
(Rodriguez Chicharro 3). Instead, Magdaleno uses modernist narrative
techniques such as analepsis, prolepsis, stream of consciousness and interior
monologue. This makes El resplandor an important precursor of the novels that
featured increasingly sophisticated narrative techniques in the 19403 and 503: El
Iuto humano (1943), AI ﬁlo del agua and Pedro Paramo (1955).

According to some anthropologists, the Otomis are the oldest indigenous
group still living in Mexico (Granberg 57). The population of San Andres exists as
a labor pool for a hacienda called La Brisa, established by one of the original
conquistadors who arrived in Mexico with Hernan Cortes. For four centuries the
Otomis worked like slaves at La Brisa, invariably having their crops of corn and
pulque taken from them at harvest and sold. Over the past century, the land has

grown increasingly barren, with less and less rainfall and the ubiquitous lime (cal)

134

gradually consuming the cultivable parcels of land (Magdaleno, El resplandor
100). These problems only compound the difﬁculties of life in the Mezquital
Valley, where it may not rain for as long as eight years (Granberg 28). Diseases
such as measles, typhus and small pox claim the lives of countless Otomis who,
for their apparent passivity, are also known as tlacuaches (possums). In a
nightmarish passage, Magdaleno describes the Indian families sleeping together
almost incestuously on the dirt ﬂoors of their huts among their livestock (El
resplandor 106-7).

To alleviate their extreme deprivation, the Otomi people elaborate several
millennial beliefs, each with its own portents and signiﬁcance. Scott identiﬁes
such beliefs as “hidden transcripts” and posits that they are not merely “abstract
exercises” or fantasies for subordinate groups, but deeply embedded “ritual
practices” which have often “provided the ideological basis of many revolts”
(80).13 One of the recurring millennial beliefs in San Andres is the anticipated
ﬂowering of a barren precipice called the Piedra del Diablo. As one character
optimistically explains, “La piedra ﬂorecera cuando el indio deje de sufrir“
(Magdaleno, EI resplandor 100). Lugarda, the matriarch of the Otomi community,
solemnly remarks that if the Piedra del Diablo ever blooms, it will signal “el
advenimiento de la Edad de Oro para este mundo” (Magdaleno, El resplandor
117). The ﬂowering of the Piedra del Diablo eventually comes to signify a time
when everyone will have enough to eat and Saturnino will be governor

(Magdaleno, El resplandor 177).

135

The Otomi community also demonstrates millennial belief in regard to a
caudillo that, in the early 19203, visited the region and tried to encourage the
Indians to join his forces. This caudillo, Marcial Cavazos, encouraged the people
of San Andres by saying, “Yo les traigo de comer, indios amolados” (Magdaleno,
EI resplandor 85, 86). Always seen on horseback, Cavazos is viewed as the
“jinete redentor” by the Otomis (Magdaleno, EIresp/andor101). Although the
mestizos and whites of San Andrés inform the Indians that Cavazos, who was
part of the De la Huerta revolt against President Obregon, was killed by federal
troops in lxmiquilpan, they continue to believe that he will return to save them
(Magdaleno, El resplandor 86-87). The “Corrido de Marcial Cavazos” (from
Mexico State) corroborates much of the information provided by Magdaleno of
this semi-legendary ﬁgure. For example, the corrido reveals the particular
charisma of Cavazos when the poet sings, “Ya nos vamos con Cavazos, I ya nos
vamos a pelear, I no importa que con los balazos I nos vayan a fastidiar”
(Mendoza, El com'do mexicana 140). The corrido also alludes to the sadness of
the people when Cavazos died in a battle with federal forces (Mendoza, El
corrido mexicana 142). In general, Magdaleno inteniveaves many cuartetas of
popular music into his narrative; the author’s knowledge of such material may
have come from his research for El corn'do de la Revolucion (1932), a book co-
written with the playwright Juan Bustillo Oro before his residence in Spain.“
Magdaleno also portrays the Otomis chanting corridos with apocalyptic themes,
such as the “Corrido de la inudacion de Metztitlan” in periods of drought (EI

resplandor 173).

136

Another millennial belief of the Otomis is their dream of building a dam on
the Rio Pintado. Such a construction would irrigate the La Brisa and the
surrounding lands, permitting the regular cultivation of crops as well as resolving
the eternal conﬂict over water with the Indians of a neighboring village. The dam
constitutes a particularly tantalizing vision in this barren land because don
Alberto, an ambitious former hacendado of La Brisa, left one partially constructed
(Magdaleno, EIrespIandor114-15). Unlike the Piedra del Diablo or other sources
of millennial belief, the dam is both palpable and a shared source of excitement
because both the Indians and the Revolutionaries believe in it. But, as with nearly

everything else, the Indians and the Revolutionaries are not really of the same

 

mind: the Revolutionaries only want to complete the project for ﬁnancial gain; on
the other hand, the Otomis envision the dam as a deﬁnitive means of ending their
history of deprivation and suffering. The Indians seek to control the water, wash
away the lime and completely reverse their sad history with the construction of
the dam.15 Sadly, a disagreement between the American engineer and the
manager of the hacienda leaves the project unﬁnished (Magdaleno, EI
resplandor 365).16

It is into this rich millennial tradition that Saturnino Herrera—literally and
figuratively a product of the Revolution—will return, promising to deliver the
Indians from their centuries of oppression and injustice. Saturnino is a mestizo
born in 1910, at the very beginning of the Revolution (Magdaleno, EI resplandor
105). His father, Olegario, was an especially rebellious Otomi who left to ﬁght in

the Revolutionary forces supporting Madero. Saturnino is the child Olegario had

137

with Graciana, a mestiza who is murdered by marauding soldiers (Magdaleno, El
resplandor167-68). After Olegario returns to San Andres and dies, the Otomis
raise Saturnino and give him the nickname “Coyotito”. However, because of a
post-Revolutionary program designed to help the Indians, the boy is taken from
San Andres when he is eleven and educated in Pachuca, the state capital.17
Even as a child, Lugarda predicted that Saturnino would one day rule the land of
the tlacuaches (Magdaleno, El resplandor 1 19).18 Years later, after the
shopkeeper don Melquiades informs the Indians of Saturnino’s return and his
intention to campaign for governor, Magdaleno reveals the millennial fervor of the
Otomis in a lengthy passage depicting the rumors circulating throughout San
Andres: “Saturnino... el Coyotito... que vuelve... ya viene... padrecito de los
pobres... [...] que viene a remediar a los indios... [...] va a ser gobernador... se
cumplio lo que dijo Lugarda. .. el redentor de los tlacuaches. (El resplandor
113).

The whites and mestizos are also aware of the messianic power that the
candidate maintains over the Indians and poor campesinos. Don Anselmo, a
conservative businessman from Pachuca, remarks that all the Indians of San
Andres await Saturnino’s return “como si fuera el Mesias” (Magdaleno, EI
resplandor110-11). One character proclaims that this abandoned child, raised by
the Indians and later educated in the state capital, will be “j...el que remedie las
necesidades de Ios indiosl” (Magdaleno, Elresplandor112). Herrera himself
invokes millennial conceptions by promising the Otomis that, as their political

boss, “iDe aqui para adelante ya no habra explotacion ni injusticial” (Magdaleno,

138

Elresplandor191). Saturnino continually invokes the dam as an integral part of
his program to improve the quality of life in San Andres (Magdaleno, El
resplandor 232-33, 347, 359). When the opportunity presents itself, Saturnino
even claims to have supernatural powers. For example, at the end of his return
visit to San Andrés a mysterious “puntito blanco” suddenly appears in the sky,
quickly developing into black thunderclouds and a torrential rain that soaks the
parched earth. As Saturnino departs for the state capital in his Dodge, he tells
the rejoicing Indians “les traje agua” (Magdaleno, El resplandor 246).

Yet even if Saturnino were an honest man, the expectations that the
Indians have for him could never be fulﬁlled; rather than a political candidate,
Saturnino assumes the proportions of a messiah dispensing miracles. In this
regard, the absence of the Church—often a primary source of millennial belief
among subordinated people—is signiﬁcant in El resplandor. Like Lopez y
Fuentes, Magdaleno consistently portrays the clergy as indifferent to the Indians’
mistreatment and suffering. The departure of Padre Ramirez at the very
beginning of the novel produces much hopelessness and anguish among the
Indians (Magdaleno, El resplandor 62-67). In another ﬂashback, Magdaleno
shows Padre Chavez, the priest of San Andres during the Porﬁriato, explaining to
don Gonzalo that the Indians are Mexico’s disgrace and that the best way to deal
with them is with an iron ﬁst (El resplandor 150-51 ). This ﬂashback suggests that
indifference and cruelty on the part of the Church has been the standard practice

in San Andres—a recurring assessment in the Revolutionary novel of the 19303.

139

In sum, the absence of a sympathetic priest advocating on behalf of the Indians
may be a factor toward the messianic cult that forms around Saturnino Herrera.

Gradually, as the promised changes fail to materialize, the Otomis of San
Andres become suspicious of Saturnino and ﬁnally reject him. The evolution of
their manner of identifying Saturnino exempliﬁes both the syncretistic nature of
their faith and their waning conviction in him as their savior. For example, the
Indians often invoke “diosito” in times of crisis. At the height of Satumino’s
popularity, “diosito” is sometimes used interchangeably with “Coyotito”, the
candidate’s boyhood nickname and a ﬁgure known throughout Native American
folk and religious traditions as the trickster god (Scott 162-66). However, by the
end of the novel, the Indians refer to him contemptuously as “don Saturnino” or
“amo”, the usual title for the hacendado of La Brisa (Magdaleno, EI resplandor
397-98). Following the brutal massacre of several Indians at the end of the novel,
the shaman Nieves el Colorado calls Saturnino the “Coyote dahero” and
“demonic” (Magdaleno, EI resplandor 389-90).

Magdaleno demonstrates a reticence similar to that of Lopez y Fuentes in
his version of the Revolution’s effect on the Otomis of San Andres. While
Saturnino assumes messianic proportions, it is important to note that the
Revolution itself has no millennial signiﬁcance for the Indians. Following the great
civil war, they ﬁnd themselves toiling under the same hacienda system that
existed during the colonial era. Apart from a brief ﬂashback depicting the death of
don Gonzalo, the last hacendado of the Fuentes family to rule La Brisa

(Magdaleno, EIrespIandor147-49), the Revolution brings with it decidedly

140

underwhelming results. In the beginning, after the initial reports of Revolutionary
violence, the afﬂuent Porﬁristas of the region nervously predict “el
bolcheviquismo... las ideas del diablo...el castigo del cielo... el Apocalipsis... el
ﬁn de todo” (Magdaleno, EIrespIandor 110). By exaggerating the apocalyptic and
millennial aspects of the Revolution to this degree, Magdaleno increases the
anticlimactic effect when,von the day that the Revolution was suppose to arrive
and restructure the social milieu in San Andres, the narrator observes that
nothing had changed on the face of the planet (Magdaleno, EIresplandor145).
In an excerpt from a grandiose speech given by the poet Vate Pedroza, a “reptil
inmundo de las siete cabezas” becomes a metaphor for the Revolution and its
warring factions (Magdaleno, EIrlespIandor192).19 This is a direct reference to
the Beast of Revelation from the Bible: “And I stood upon the sand of the sea,
and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns...”
(Rev. 1321-3). Throughout El resplandor, the Indians (and some mestizos)
repeatedly use the more vernacular, pre-Revolutionary term for an insurrection,
“Ia bola” rather than “revolucion.” Thus Magdaleno exaggerates the tension
surrounding the Revolution’s arrival, but eventually shows that the palpable
results of the social upheaval were minimal as far as the pueblo was concerned.
In this manner the novel draws the somber conclusion that the traditional
social structure—rather than being replaced—simply becomes more deceptive
and oppressive for the Indian. As suggested earlier, this conclusion represents a
most incisive criticism of the post-Revolutionary State because it implies that the

Revolution—from which the new leadership derived their moral and political

141

authority—was never a revolution at all. Even after the concluding massacre
carried out by Saturnino’s men—an incident that concludes the novel and dispels
any conﬁdence the Indians ever had in the Revolutionaries—don Melquiades, the
owner of La Brisa’s tienda de raya, defends the idea of encouraging Indian
children to attend the school they have only recently constructed, explaining
sanctimoniously “No estamos bajo Ia dictadura... La Revolucion tiene contraidos
graves compromisos con el proletariado del campo” (Magdaleno, EI resplandor
415). After so much disillusionment and cruelty, it seems that only the
Revolutionaries are still deluded by the false promises of the social upheaval that
put them in power.

In El resplandor, Magdaleno challenges the ofﬁcial interpretation of the
Revolution by depicting an indigenous community living under a seemingly
endless cycle of injustice and exploitation. The depiction of this cycle subverts
the deterministic and conclusive nature of millennial conceptions by replacing a
linear model of time with eternity (Parkinson Zamora 17).20 Where there is no end
time, there can be no revolution. In El resplandor, Saturnino Herrera’s evolution
into a political boss will be repeated when, at the end of the novel, he orders a
child to be taken from what is now “Villa Herrera” to be educated in Pachuca, just
as he was (Magdaleno, 431 ). Readers have every reason to believe that Benito,
this new child, will grow up to exploit the people who raised him, just as “el
Coyotito” did a generation earlier. Saturnino’s actions and the prospect of this
cycle of exploitation has proved so disturbing to some, it has led at least one

critic to reason that “Saturnino es producto espurio de la Revolucion”, thereby

142

establishing a distinction between the caudillo and the social movement that
produced him (Rodriguez Chicarro 3).

In spite of the political conformity of the era in which these indigenist
novels appeared, and their generalized characterization of the native
populations, El indio and El resplandor still deliver a powerful indictment of post-
Revolutionary leadership. While appearing to do little more than revisit the theme
of the lndian’s “otredad”, on a much deeper level these novels employ millennial
imagery to underscore how the post-Revolutionary State has neglected promises
and continued to exploit the indigenous people of central Mexico in the 19303.
Native peoples (and slaves) are often portrayed in literature as among the most
credulous; hence, millennial imagery found a fortuitous vehicle for
characterization in the indigenist novel. Panoramic in their historical scope, these
novels portray the indigenous communities before, during, and after the
Revolution through the use of quasi-anthropological narration, anecdotal stories
(El indio), and sophisticated use of ﬂashback and stream-of-consciousness
techniques, as well as sections of popular literature texts (El resplandor).
Although the Church represents the standard object of criticism in these novels,
an emerging criticism of the mestizo—the prestigious new Mexican national
identity and the self-proclaimed redeemer of the Indian—appears for the ﬁrst
time. The mestizo, represented by new political leaders such as Saturnino
Herrera, is portrayed as overly ambitious, corrupt and finally no better than the
traditional oppressors of Mexican history: colonizers, hacendados and foreigners.

Perhaps even more depressing than this cycle of oppression is the Indians’ habit

143

of renewing their hopes for the future only to have them disappointed. On the
broadest level, both novels conclude with the somber message that idealized
conceptions of the future will continue to override the harsh realities of the past

and present in Mexican indigenous communities.

IV. Notes.

1 The most notable example of Native American participation in the Revolution would be that of
the Yaqui Indians of Sonora, many of whom proudly served in the armies of General Alvaro
ObregOn, the eventual victor of the Revolution's military phase and the ﬁrst elected president of
the 19203. According to Knight, while the Yaquis had “turned out to ﬁght in the white man’s wars
for decades”, following the Revolution they were rewarded with deportation, increased military
repression and conﬁscation of their traditional lands (Mexican Revolution 2: 278, 372-75).

2 Outstanding examples of the indigenist novel include: La rebeliOn de Ios colgados (1936) by B.
Traven, San Gabriel de Valdivias, comunidad indigena (1938) by Mariano Azuela, Nayar(1941)
by Miguel Angel Menéndez and BaIUn Canan (1957) by Rosario Castellanos.

3 Millennial conceptions have rarely been examined within the context of the indigenist novel of
the 19303. One example would be Antonio Comejo Polar’s examination of the work of Chilean
novelist Ciro Alegrla and of the Peruvian Jose Maria Arguedas, “La novela indigenista: una
desgarrada conciencia de la historia,” Lexus 4.1 (June 1980): [77-84178-79.

‘ Although there existed an indigenous tradition of millennial belief (see Franco, Lectura
sociocritica 361-64), the analysis featured in this chapter will be centered on the Western
millennial tradition outlined in the Introduction of the present study.

5 They That Reap, Trans. Anita Brenner (London: Harrap and Co., Ltd., 1937).

6 As noted in the previous chapter, in the novel Tierra there is hardly a single distinctive character
among the campesino masses led by Zapata, demonstrating that the “collective protagonism” of
El indio was the result of previous experimentation.

7 See Guha’s “On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India” in Selected Saba/tern
Studies, Eds. Ranajit Guya and Gayatri Spivak (NewYork: Oxford UP, 1988) 37-43.

a Magdaleno has also been accused of offering readers oversimpliﬁed Indian characters in El
resplandor (see Sommers, “Literatura e historia” 29).

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9 This chapter describes the decimation of the indigenous community by an epidemic of inﬂuenza,
perhaps the so-called Spanish Flu that ravaged Mexico in the fall of 1918 through the spring of
1919, leaving approximately 5 million victims (Womack, “The Mexican Revolution” 185).

‘° The prospectors recall the frightening image of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Rev. 6:
1-8).

" Knight agrees with the assessment of the Church provided by the novel, writing “The Church
and Catholicism obstructed progress...ln a speciﬁc sense, they placed rival claims on individuals,
which clashed with those of the revolutionary state” (The Mexican Revolution 2: 501 ).

'2 Magdaleno’s complex and often startling juxtaposition of different historical periods—often with
little or no mediation between them—has led one critic to conclude that time is the most important
thematic element of the novel, especially in the manner which the “cyclical” nature of time in “el
mundo blanco” conﬂicts with the “atemporalidad estancada” of the Indians (Parle, “Las funciones
del tiempo” 68).

‘3 Although millennial conceptions represent the clearest expression of dissidence in the novel,
the Indians employ other “weapons of the weak” to thwart the people who seek to subjugate
them. As a child, Saturnino feigns ignorance in order to avoid explaining to don Melquiades that
he dreams of one day ruling La Brisa. He tells the shop owner, “éQue si sabes esto o aquello?
Pues no, senor amo, Ios indios no sabemos nada..." (Magdaleno, EI resplandor 179). This variety
of performance not only spares the subject (in this case the boy Saturnino) from having to
disclose their thoughts, it reafﬁrms the social hierarchy and provides those in power a false sense
of security (Scott 32-36). Following the massacre at San Andres, the Indians refuse to work on
the hacienda, causing the proprietors to lose much money (Magdaleno, EI resplandor 404).
Those that do eventually return to La Brisa drag their feet and even sabotage several vats of
pulque (Magdaleno, EI resplandor 417), exemplifying Scott’s central argument that even when
there appears to be complete submission in a relationship of unequal power, the disadvantaged
still have ways in which they can express their dissent and even exercise some measure of
control in the relationship (188-89).

1‘ See Campos, Jorge, “Del corrido al cuento: Mauricio Magdaleno” lnsula 230 (Jan. 1966): 11.
‘5 The dams and elaborate irrigation systems constructed in the 19303 served a similar symbolic
purpose in the novel El Iuto humano (1943). However, the author of this novel, Jose Revueltas,
shows the new levees and dams to be the cause of the ﬂood that annihilates a pueblo, providing
an exceedingly critical vision of a post-Revolutionary program gone wrong. For the recurrence of
ﬂood imagery, see Negrin (150-51); for a discussion of its apocalyptic connotations see Franco,
Lectura sociocritica (292-96).

‘6 Apart from the three major sources of millennial belief in San Andres—the Piedra del Diablo,
Cavazos and the dam on the Rio Pintado—there are also random auguries with obscure
meanings, such as the birth of a deformed child with the ears of a pig (Magdaleno, EI resplandor

145

102). The appearance of peOple with physical deformities was a “presagio” of the Aztecs prior to
the Conquest (Leon-Portillo 1). In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Cien aflos de soledad (1967), the
appearance of a pig tail on some of the Buendia children preﬁgures the end of the family line and
serves as a more famous example of a physical deformity serving as augury (Parkinson Zamora
28). Magdaleno underscores the millennial expectations of the novel by describing natural
phenomenon—such as sunrises and ﬂames—as resplandores at regular intervals throughout the
text (61, 164, 367). The most common deﬁnition of resplandor is the sun’s light, which can signal
the end of darkness and the beginning of a new day.

‘7 This educational program has a historical basis. In the fall of 1925, the Secretary of Public '3
Education created a program called the Casa del Estudiante Indlgena in Mexico City. The Casa '
was a well-funded school where Indian children, selected at random from all regions of the nation,
were placed in order to be provided a modern, three-year education. The goal was that these
students would one day return to their people and educate them, thereby serving as a
“modernizing” inﬂuence themselves. Writing in 1933, Frank Tannenbaum praised the Casa,

 

writing that the superior achievement of the Indian students helped to strengthen the conviction +-
(held by Vasconcelos and like-minded reformers) that the “ancient imputation of inferiority is
unjustiﬁed” (Peace Through Revolution 296). Writing in 1950, Tannenbaum noted that the Casa
was closed in 1932. While reduced budgets for education made the Casa expensive to maintain,
Tannenbaum noted that its purpose had become the preparation of rural teachers, regardless of
their ethnicity. Consequently, the Casa eventually proved a failure because such teachers
needed to be trained in the country rather than in the cosmopolitan capital of Mexico (Mexico
165-67). Contemporary scholars view the Casa more critically. Ilene V. O’Malley writes that the
program only served to facilitate “the Indians’ or campesinos’ ability to function in Mexico’s
capitalistic Europeanized society” and that it was never suggested that the two cultures learn to
“coexist as equals” (121).

Magdaleno takes poetic license with the Casa del Estudiante lndlgena. In the ﬁrst place,
Saturnino would have been educated in Mexico City rather than Pachuca; secondly, as
mentioned in the previous endnote, at eleven years of age Saturnino’s period of education must
have started in 1921 or 1922, several years before the actual establishment of the Casa. In terms
of what Saturnino brought back to his pueblo, we must conclude that what he learned after the
three-year program was more signiﬁcant than what he learned as a student. With his
Machiavellian tactics, Saturnino is more a product of Obregon or Calles than Vasconcelos. Also,
at the conclusion of the novel, a new child is taken away to be educated even though the Casa
would have ceased to exist by that time.

‘8 The novel has ﬂaws, the most notable of which have to do with Magdaleno's chronology. If
Saturnino was born in 1910 or 1911, and was 11 years old when he was taken to Pachuca (El
resplandor 183), that would make the year of his departure about 1921 or 1922; consequently, he

146

would have to be in his mid-to—late 203 when he returns to San Andres de la Cal to begin his
campaign as governor. This is highly improbable. He would have to be in his late 303 or early 403
for his rise to political power to be credible. As historians have made clear, it was the generation
of his father, Olegario, which took control in the 19203 and 303. There is a historical reference to
a speech given by President Calles on 1 May 1929 during the time in which Saturnino had
returned to San Andres as a grown man (Magdaleno, EI resplandor 198). Consequently, we do
not know if Magdaleno was giving serious consideration to the age of this central character or
was attempting to de-emphasize that aspect of the novel’s chronology, perhaps to provide the
plot with a more eternal or timeless quality. Also problematic is the age of the cacique Bonifacio.
Early in the novel, don Melquiades calculates that the Indian is ninety-two. Since we have no
reference for the time of this calculation (or for the departure of Padre Ramirez, the incident
which opens the novel), we would have to assume that it was before the arrival of the child
Saturnino. If so, that would mean that Bonifacio was between 115 and 130 years old at the time
of his death.

‘9 Most of the names in El resplandor are symbolic. According to the Real academia diccionario
de la Iengua espaIIoIa, “Vate” may mean “poeta” or “adivino”, reafﬁrming the millennial imagery
and themes of the novel ( Vigésima primera edicién, Tomo ll, page 2064). For analysis of the
symbolism of names in El resplandor, see Dennis J. Parle, El tiempo y la historicidad como
factores estructurales en la obra de Mauricio Magdalena (Dissertation, U of Kansas, 1976).

In his role as prophet, Vate Pedroza recalls Castorena and Valderrama from the novels Toméchic
and Los de abajo. Rather than being a popular poet, however, Pedroza comes from the elite
classes and has a formal education. The change is highly significant: whereas the poet was once
seen alongside the Revolutionary, in the post-Revolutionary period he has been co-opted by the
establishment and now works for the politician.

2° Magdaleno’s use of a cyclically structured plot to demonstrate the futility of the Revolution
recalls Azuela's Los de abajo (1915). By returning his protagonist to the same place where his
Revolutionary struggle began, this time only to be killed, Azuela implied that the Revolution did
little more than impose a fatal destiny on all those who found themselves swept up in it—
regardless of their ability or Revolutionary integrity. Magdaleno’s novel reiterates this concept of a
fatal destiny and the impossibility of redemption, but attributes it to opportunistic leaders who
have invented and popularized the myth of the Revolution.

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CHAPTER 6

AL FILO DEL APOCALYPSIS: REVELATION AND REVOLUTION IN AGUSTIN
YANEZ’S AL FILO DEL AGUA

“...and there fell a great star from heaven,
burning as if it were a lamp...”
Rev. 8: 10.

I. An Exemplary Novel and Novelist.

In the ﬁrst edition of Agustin Yanez’s AI ﬁlo del agua (1947), the ﬁnal
illustration by artist Julio Prieto shows a group of Revolutionary soldiers, with
riﬂes and cananas, marching with grim resolution past a cemetery full of
unadorned crosses.1 An enormous comet, seemingly on a collision course with
the Earth, dominates the sky on the left side of the illustration. It would be difﬁcult
to imagine a more appropriate image to conclude Yaﬁez’s landmark novel, since
these elements—the Revolution, apocalyptic signs and death—forrn a trinary
combination that propels the action of the novel to its explosive conclusion.2
Death is both ubiquitous and ambivalent in this “pueblo de mujeres enlutadas”.
As Yanez’s omniscient narrator explains in the “Acto preparatorio”: “Llega la
muerte. 0 el amor. El amor, que es la mas extraﬁa, Ia mas extrema fonna de
morir; Ia mas peligrosa y temida fonna de vivir eI man)” (A! ﬁlo del agua 11).

Critics have often pointed to AI ﬁlo del agua as the work that concludes
the Revolutionary cycle and introduces the “modern Mexican novel”. The
transitional role of AI filo del agua in the eyes of critics suggests a millennial
vision itself, in that the increasingly formulaic Revolutionary literature introduced

by Azuela is replaced by the publication of a single landmark text, later to evolve

148

into the more technically sophisticated novelistic production of Juan Rulfo, Carlos
Fuentes and Fernando del Paso in the 19503 and 603.3 In AI ﬁlo del agua, the
arrival of the Revolution signals the end of the positivism, feudalism and
enlightened despotism of the Porﬁrio Diaz dictatorship; more importantly, it
represents the release of the long-repressed thoughts and sexual desires of an
entire pueblo, which, as posited by the explanatory note at the beginning of the
novel, could be virtually any pueblo of rural Jalisco in the pre-Revolutionary
period (Yar'iez, AI ﬁlo del agua 3).4

Like no other author of his generation, Agustin Yanez (1904-1980)
presents the Revolution as a cataclysm that irrevocably changes the hermetic
community featured in his novel. While producing the series of drafts of his novel
in the early 19403,5 Yar’iez was living during the presidency of Manuel Avila
Camacho (1940-1946), a period often viewed as that in which the post-
Revolutionary regime (newly reinvented as the Partido Revolucionario
Institucional, or PRI) consolidated its political authority. Yanez could also recall
the project of cultural nationalism in the 19203 and 303, during which time he
associated with members of the Contemporaneos literary group and became
editor of the literary journal Bandera de pmvincias. Although there is no overt
criticism of the ecclesiastic authorities of his unnamed village, or of the
conservatism and hypocrisy of its inhabitants, it is clear that the novel juxtaposes
an era of stagnating traditionalism with the period in which Yaﬁez wrote. Various
critics have also observed the extra-textual implications of the novel. Perus, for

example, has suggested that Yanez selected this particular setting because it

149

was the region of the country where the contradictions between the “proyecto
revolucionario” and the remnants (especially ecclesiastical) of the colonial era
would be most dramatic (365). Harris writes that Al ﬁlo del agua appeared in the
middle of a national debate concerning the achievements of the Revolution;
furthermore, the novel “was clearly designed to steer readers of the 19403
toward a critical but ultimately positive assessment of the uprising’s social
impact”, especially by emphasizing the “psychological distress that was being
caused by religious fanaticism” and “the extreme poverty that was being endured
on haciendas throughout the country” (9, 10). Yanez must have assumed that his
readers knew what came after the conclusion of his famous novel. It is only with
this implied juxtaposition between the repressed pueblo of the late Porﬁrato and
the post-Revolutionary era that Al ﬁlo del agua becomes a millennial text—
positing a better, reordered world to come—rather than a strictly apocalyptic one.
Yaﬁez himself was a highly successful writer, professor of aesthetics and
politician in the post-Revolutionary era.6 His writings on nationalism, education
and the role of literature reﬂect a philosophy that sought to invigorate
conservative communities, such as the one depicted in Al ﬁlo del agua, and
create a more dynamic Mexican society. Through the analysis of apocalyptic
imagery and millennial implications in Al ﬁlo del agua, and of selected writings by
Yanez, I will show that the novel fundamentally lends support for the post-
Revolutionary government by underscoring the coming of the Revolution and the
inertia and backwardness of the village depicted in its pages. In this regard,

Yanez was acting as an intellectual who reafﬁrmed the ideal of a modern, more

150

progressive Mexico produced by the 1910 Revolution. As one of the earliest
admirers of the novel wrote, "AI Filo del Agua es el preludio de la Revolucion y, a

la vez, Ia justiﬁcacion de la Revolucion” (Morton 228).

ll. Visions of the Apocalypse.7

Focusing on a twenty-month period, beginning at Lent 1909 and ending in
November 1910 (Brinton 13), the month that saw the beginning of the
Revolution’s military phase, AI ﬁlo del agua features recurring motifs such as the
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, auguries of doom, divine retribution for
perceived transgressions and the pervasive sense of the coming Judgement
Day. These motifs not only link Yaﬁez’s unnamed village with the Biblical
tradition, but also build suspense and provide thematic cohesion to the novel.
The phrase “al filo del agua” is a popular saying for the beginning of the rainy
season, or for the imminence of a great event (Yér’lez, AI ﬁlo del agua 3). This
title perfectly reﬂects the calamitous setting of the novel, a setting that Frank
Kermode has identiﬁed as kairos, “a point of time ﬁlled with signiﬁcance, charged
with meaning derived from its relation to the end” (47). Given the importance of
its historical background, AI ﬁlo del agua requires that its readers have a general
familiarity with the Revolutionary upheaval for its apocalyptic meanings to be fully
appreciated. Knowledgeable readers wish to know what will “happen” at the
conclusion of the novel, in regard to both the characters and the impact of history
on the ﬁctional pueblo; this anticipation, then, establishes the appropriate setting

for kairos.

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In the Book of Revelation, wars and a series of (super)natural disasters
are unleashed as the seven seals of a mysterious book are broken; this series of
destructive events represents the unfolding of the Apocalypse8 and the coming of
the Final Judgment (Boyer 36-37). Throughout the novel, Yahez builds tension
through the employment of the previously mentioned apocalyptic motifs and
images and by exaggerating the popular anxiety over the coming of the
Revolution. Apocalyptic narratives, such as Al ﬁlo del agua, tend to move toward
a preconceived, imaginary ideal, becoming the “narrative embodiment of [an]
ongoing historical yearning” (Parkinson Zamora 16). In the case of AI ﬁlo del
agua, “ideology” may be a more accurate term than “ideal” because Yanez looks
thirty-ﬁve years into the past to create a vision of pre-Revolutionary Mexico on
the verge of a radical renewal, offering a perspective distinct from apocalyptic or
millennial conceptions that are typically fonNard-Iooking. This is not a perspective
unlike that of other Revolutionary novelists who depict the coming of war in a
cataclysmic fashion; however, in Yanez there is little sarcasm (as there is in
Azuela) and no irony (as in Lopez y Fuentes and Magdaleno). Throughout his
novel Yafiez attempts to answer questions concerning what changes the
Revolution brought to Mexico, and what social institutions and ways of thinking
were obliterated by it. That the Revolution was a revolution is never in doubt.

Apocalyptic motifs and images are present from the very beginning of the
novel. In the “Acto preparatorio”, where the village is depicted in a heavy stasis of
repressed emotions and religious hegemony, Yanez describes the “cuatro

jinetes” of the Apocalypse galloping invisibly through the empty, sun-baked

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streets (AI ﬁlo del agua 9). Judgement Day, a recurring motif, is also introduced
in this prelude to the novel's action (Yanez, AI ﬁlo del agua 7). The liturgical
atmosphere of the village is also established through Yanez’s use of anaphora,
especially with such phrases such as “Pueblo de mujeres enlutadas. ..Pueblo de
perpetua cuaresma. ..PuebIo de animos. beginning paragraphs (AI ﬁlo del
agua 5-8). The “Acto” has very few verbs, especially in its first half, amplifying the
sense of stasis and monotony. A tour de force of experimental narrative, the
“Acto” not only introduces the apocalyptic themes of the novel but prepares the
reader for the innovative employment of other modernist narrative techniques
including dream sequences, ﬂashback and (most effectively) interior monologue.9
Before analyzing some instances of apocalyptic imagery in greater detail,
the unique setting of the novel demands some attention. Yanez's unnamed
village is a place of the most thorough suppression of human desire imaginable.
Routine governs the lives of nearly all the inhabitants. The three priests of the
novel—Father Dionosio Martinez and his assistants Fathers Reyes and lslas—
have molded a community where any new idea is condemned by as liberalism,
spiritualism, socialism or masonry. Any passion, or interest in the world beyond
the barren ﬁelds surrounding the hermetic village, is dismissed as the result of
“libertinaje de costumbres” or “impias lecturas” (Yaﬁez, AI ﬁlo del agua 46). The
novel’s central conﬂict develops from the fact that the characters do indeed have
desires and passions, but must struggle to keep them hidden and under control.

Important aspects of the pueblo’s suffocating atmosphere are detailed and

critiqued in an uncontextualized dialogue between a norteflo (a young man,

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possibly Damian Limon, who worked in the United States and has returned to
Mexico) and a parish priest (possibly Father Martinez). Doudoroff has described
this passage as “a small essay on the ills of Mexico at the time” (5). The young
man explains how people toil in the village for their entire lives and never enjoy a
modest reward for their work. Later, insinuating that the dominance of the Church
cannot (and should not) go on forever, the nortefio tells the priest, “...esto no
puede seguir asi; tarde o temprano Ios pobres se han de aburrir y a bien o a
fuerzas las cosas tienen que cambiar...y ustedes Ios padres, con perdon sea
dicho, no debian taparles Ios ojos a las gentes” (Yanez, AI ﬁlo del agua 96-97).
The perspective and latent antagonism of the nortefios—especially Damian
Limon—threatens to reveal the backwardness of the pueblo and disrupt its
isolation: “vaya mas al norte y vera que distinto” (Yanez, AI ﬁlo del agua 97).
lnforrnation about the north challenges the hegemony of the priests because it
introduces alternative possibilities beyond their Biblical morality of transgression
and punishment. In a sense, this information offers a more promising and
tangible millennial vision to those who are willing to leave than that which the
priests offer to their parishioners. This is made clear when the norteno pointedly
asks the priest, “g,Qué plan peleamos? gLa otra vida? Esta bien; pero yo creo
que también ésta podiamos pasarla mejor, siquiera como gentes” (Yanez, AI ﬁlo
del agua 96). The challenge to the isolation and ecclesiastical hegemony of the
village provided by the norteﬁos stands in contrast to the corresponding situation
provided by Lopez y Fuentes’ El indio. In this earlier novel, the incursion of the

outside world into the indigenous village following the Revolution is depicted

154

negatively, as little more than another example of mestizo or white exploitation
disguised as charity. Here, in Yafiez's novel of the pre-Revolutionary period, the
perspectives provided by the young nortehos are sensible, progressive and
attractive. This demonstrates that for Yaﬁez the Revolution was a singular and
positive event, while for Lopez y Fuentes it did little but continue the exploitation
of the indigenous communities.

In AI ﬁlo del agua’s first chapter, “Aquella noche”, Yaﬁez introduces
characters into the austere setting described in the “Acto preparatorio”. Don
Timoteo Limon, a wealthy landowner, cannot sleep because he is worried about
the return of his prodigal son, Damian, who left to ﬁnd work in the United States.
His dog Orion acerbates his anxiety by persistently barking in the middle of the
night (Yanez, AI ﬁlo del agua 15). Leonardo Tovar, a minor character heavily in
debt to don Timoteo, is passing another sleepless night recalling, in vivid detail,
the recent death of his wife. On Christmas Eve of the previous year she
miscarried, giving birth to “desechos como racimos de uvas” (Yaﬁez, AI ﬁlo del
agua 17). Beyond underscoring the barren and hopeless setting of the unnamed
pueblo, this disturbing image foreshadows the tragedy to come for Tovar and
others.10

The character in the novel with the most authority is Father Martinez, the
parish priest, who weaves apocalyptic allusions into his sermons as the
intrusions of the world beyond the pueblo are increasingly difﬁcult to ignore.
Although Father Martinez is the most moderate of the ecclesiastical authorities in

the village (especially in comparison with the fanatical Father Islas), Yénez’s

155

narrator still cites the “terrors del juicio universal pintados con lagubres palabras”
elaborated in his sermons. According to the narrator, Martinez's description of
eternal damnation and the Final Judgment are “irresistible” to his parishioners (AI
ﬁlo del agua 43). A particularly powerful image of Judgment Day is provided by
Father Reyes, when he identiﬁes the large, strangely colored moon as “Luna de
Juicio Final” and adds “Yo creo que ya Ilega el ﬁn del mundo” (Yahez, AI ﬁlo del
agua 69). The priests normally link their apocalyptic warnings to personal
behavior; if villagers, such as Maria, read “impious” literature, or if outsiders to
the community provoke sexual desires, the priests predict that they will incur the
most catastrophic of divine punishments. Father lslas warns Micaela, “No solo
labraras tu ruina, sino la de tu familia y la perdicion de muchas almas” (Yanez, Al
ﬁlo del agua 141). This warning proves to be prophetic by the conclusion of the
novel, when Damian shoots to death both his father and Micaela out of jealously
and rage.

The community internalizes these apocalyptic messages. When the
villagers form a procession for the Dia de Santa Cruz, they march along solemnly
and chant grim popular verses; when the New Year arrives they ask themselves,
“aQué calamidades traera este ano?... jA cuantos se nos Ilegara nuestro dial”
(Yaﬁez, AI ﬁlo del agua 128-30, 204). Luis Gonzaga, a young man studying to
become a priest, ls driven insane under the weight of his religious obsessions
and his repressed sexual desires (incited by the arrival of Victoria, an attractive
older woman). After being accused of attending a “spiritist” meeting, he is

prohibited from participating in the Easter procession by Father Martinez. This

156

provokes Gonzaga into an extended, hallucinogenic interior monologue where
his ideas quickly lose coherency. He ﬁnally predicts that brimstone and “todas las
plagas como en Egipto” are going to destroy the village (Yan'ez, AI ﬁlo del agua
65).

When reports of political conﬂict and the initial Revolutionary ﬁghting reach
the village, the information is interpreted as apocalyptic signs by the people of
the community. The villagers are aware of the massacre of strikers at Cananea
(1906) and Rio Blanco (1907), as well as the 1908 Creelman interview where
President Diaz told the American reporter that he was willing to relinquish the
presidency in 1910. In street corner conversations, the people speak fearfully of
“jBoIas! iBolas!” (Yanez, AI ﬁlo del agua 105).11 While the priests are the
predominant source of morality for the pueblo, at times Yanez's narrator
reiterates their Old Testament doctrine of transgression and punishment. For
example, after the sensational double murder near the conclusion of the novel,
the narrator states that the terrible droughts in the area around the pueblo were a
punishment sent from having produced such a terrible criminal (Yénez, AI ﬁlo del
agua 199). In much the same way that the parishioners look to their priests for
ﬁnal answers to their doubts, readers must rely on the narrator for information
concerning the how’s and why’s of the novel’s development. More than
reinforcing the doctrine of the priests, the subjectivity of the narrator in this
instance underscores the pre-political, conservative identity of the characters and
encourages a more favorable interpretation of the cataclysmic events that will

change their lives forever.

157

Lucas Macias, the venerable “cronista ﬁel” of the pueblo, is the source of

I.12 He is introduced as

much of the augury and apocalyptic vision in the nove
someone who “prognosticates” and, although illiterate, he invariably retains the
most minor details of newspaper stories that are read to him by others. Although
the present and the immediate future hold little significance for Macias, they
cause him to reﬂect on the past and prophesize about ominous future events
(Yanez, AI ﬁlo del agua 79, 80). His ﬁrst story is about a woman from a traveling
circus who pretends to become religious only to run off with the outstanding
young man of the community (who had been studying to become a priest); the
story is replete with references to the Day of Judgment (Yanez, AI ﬁlo del agua
80-81). Macias becomes even more like a Biblical prophet when he is asked
about the growing political turmoil in Mexico, prompting him to invoke the past
and prognosticate once again. When he is asked about the reports of the
Revolution, Macias predicts plagues, famine and war; he also foretells his own
demise by saying that no one, not even the elderly, will escape, “ya lo veran qué
pronto” (Yafiez, AI ﬁlo del agua 205). It is at this point that Macias seems to
abandon his previous manner of explanation—recalling exemplary histories from
the village—and turns to fully developed, Old Testament apocalyptic predictions
(Dourdoroff 10). On the “Visperas de noviembre”—the month in which Madero
would call for a armed rebellion to topple Diaz—Macias becomes increasingly
prophetic: “...yo ya soy mas del otro mundo que de éste...voy a morirme apenas

en el ﬁlo del agua” (Yanez, AI ﬁlo del agua 236). He dies in late November of a

heart attack just as the city of Moyahua, Zacatecas falls to the Maderistas. Near

158

the end of the novel, Macias utters his last words to Father Martinez: “jEstamos
en el ﬁlo del agua! Usted cuidese: pase lo que pase, no se aflija, senor cura,
sera una buena tormenta y a usted le daran Ios primeros granizazos: jhagase
fuertel... ihagase fuerte!” With no small measure of understatement the narrator
observes that a “capitulo de la historia local” has ended with the death of the old
folk chronicler (Yaﬁez, AI ﬁlo del agua 236).

By the end of the novel, Macias’ grim prophecies have been fulﬁlled:
Damian Limon, in a jealous rage, has killed his father and girlfriend Micaela,
Maria has run off with the Revolutionary forces, Father Reyes has died of an
epileptic seizure in the middle of one of his most recriminatory sermons, and
Father Martinez, having lost his ﬂock, is left to ponder his own competence as
parish priest. Before going forth to give mass once again, he contemplates
whether or not the Revolution should be “el instrumento de que se sirva la
Providencia para realizar el ideal de justicia y pureza” (Yafiez, AI ﬁlo del agua
241). Thus, at the very end of the novel, Yanez boldly links the Biblical millennial
tradition with the Mexican Revolution, suggesting that this movement could be

the ordained means of bringing about a new age of justice and purity to Mexico.

III. El cometa Halley.

The primary apocalyptic themes (with all their portentous force) of the
novel are synthesized by Yahez in the ﬁnal chapter, “El cometa Halley”, which
depicts the arrival of the celestial visitor and its effect on the hermetic, fearful

pueblo. Halley's comet becomes a metaphor for the Revolution, the Biblical

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Apocalypse and the end of the era dominated by colonial institutions.13 Yanez
masterfully builds the suspense surrounding the coming of the comet, an event
rich with apocalyptic connotations because a comet called Wormwood strikes the
Earth and poisons the water in Revelation (8:11). Within the context of Mexican
history, a comet passed through the heavens and provoked much apprehension
among the Aztecs shortly before the Hernan Cortes landed at Veracruz in 1519
(Leon-Portillo 1). Being at least as good a researcher and historian as he was a
novelist, Yaﬁez consulted newspapers (especially the Mexico City daily El Pais)
from the time period depicted in Al ﬁlo del agua. Although the appearance of
Halley's comet in the spring and early summer of 1910 certainly grabbed more
than a few headlines, its real impact as a source of popular, apocalyptic
apprehension is not as clear. As Luis Gonzalez explains, the comet did indeed
produce anxiety in Mexico:
Algo tenia que suceder aunque solo fuera por el cometa Halley que se
aparecio por abril y sembro el panico el Ios diferentes grupos sociales.
Los de arriba se asustaron por cientiﬁcos [the positivist technocrats of the
Diaz regime], pues dizque el cometa le iba a dar un coletazo al mundo, y
Ios de abajo por supersticiosos, por considerar necesariamente fatales a
los cometas. Algunos sabian que un astro coludo habia producido el
derrumbe del gran Moctezuma, el emperador de los antiguos mexicanos.
Esos mismos sabihondos de pueblo pronosticaron que Halley 3e llevaria
enredado en su cola al gran Porﬁrio, el emperador de los mexicanos de
ahora. (995)
Popularjournalism written prior to the Revolution had long prognosticated the
end of the world as a result of comets striking the earth (especially in 1899 and

1907), as well as for a variety of natural disasters such as earthquakes and

ﬂoods.14 However, Mendoza transcribed a single corrido from Guadalajara that

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associates Halley’s comet with the coming of the Revolution.15 This suggests that
its signiﬁcance among the general population—or at least in places were the
circulation of major newspapers was not available—may not have been as
profound. In general, Yanez exaggerates the popular fear concerning Halley's
comet, heightening this central tension of the work and making the eventual
outbreak of Revolutionary violence seem even more dramatic.

The initial news reports of the approach of Halley’s comet appeared as
early as the summer of 1909. As soon as the reports reach the village, a few
people nervously ask Lucas Macias to tell them what he remembers of previous
comets. He responds, “iHuyl Es historia larga. Los cometas...” and the section of
the chapter concludes. It seems that, for the ﬁrst time, the chronicler is at a loss
for words (Yahez, AI ﬁlo del agua 191). As the date draws nearer, the notices
arrive with more frequency; Yaﬁez cleverly juxtaposes this news with more
peripheral reports of the building political turmoil. The villagers grow increasingly
frightened and Macias acknowledges the “susto que tienen por todas partes”
produced by the comet (Yar'iez, AI ﬁlo del agua 205). An excess of popular fear is
depicted by the narrator: “...las gentes salian a las calles, subian a las azoteas;
la plaza se lleno, Ia torre se corono de curiosos; comenzaron a hincarse, la vista
en el cielo; comenzaron a rezar en voz alta; hubo quien quisiera gritar, planir,
desmayarse” (Yaﬁez, AI ﬁlo del agua 206). Trying to quell the panic that he
helped to create, Father Reyes calms the masses by telling them that the
glowing object they see in the sky is only the evening star (Yahez, AI ﬁlo del agua

206). The comet slowly becomes associated with mysterious visitors, rumors of

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earthquakes, calamities and revolutions, events that are consistently depicted
with apocalyptic tones in the popular literature of the period.16 In April, only a
month before the anticipated collision with the Earth, a French astronomer
named Camilo Flammarion theorizes that although the comet itself with not bring
the horrendous consequences that were originally predicted, it will knock the
planet out of its orbit and turn it into “un astro errante”.17 Macias remarks that the
comet seems intent on destroying everything one way or another, but no one
thinks that this is particularly insightful or humorous. Subsequent news reports
predict that although the comet will not strike the Earth, its tail will brush the
surface of the planet and cause widespread destruction (Yanez, AI ﬁlo del agua
213)

When 18 May arrives, and Halley's comet is at its closest proximity to
Earth, Yanez delivers an anticlimactic moment, rich with irony and similar to
moments that other Revolutionary novelists (such as Azuela, Lopez y Fuentes
and Magdaleno) depict in regard to the arrival of the Revolution, another event of
national signiﬁcance. It turns out that the anticipated collision with Earth at
midnight not only fails to occur, but the narrator reports that “ningun pez gordo
dejo a hacerlo” and that “Ia catastrofe no se presento, ni se vio, ni se sintio el
mas leve roce de la cauda, por muchos imaginadas como Iluvia de ﬁlosas
espadas 0 de minimas estrellas” (Yaﬁez, AI ﬁlo del agua 215).

But Yafiez does not permit the ending of his novel to be completely
anticlimactic. In the same section of the chapter “El cometa Halley”, the fear

generated by the comet is suddenly transferred to the nation political upheaval.

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Although in the summer of 1910 the comet is still visible to the naked eye, “ya Ios
hombres del pueblo estaban preocupados por otro asunto apasionante: don
Francisco I. Madero fue aprehendido en Monterrey y transladado a San Luis
Potosi” (Yaﬁez, AI ﬁlo del agua 216). Soon the building political confrontation
between Diaz and Madero, climaxed by the Plan de San Luis Potosi and the
arrival of Revolutionary forces, becomes the source of popular anxiety and
tension in the novel. While Yaﬁez continues to feature discussions about “el
asunto del cometa”, the event has been absorbed by the political crisis and now
only serves as a diminished metaphor for political events affecting the nation.
Given that “the village evokes the Paz Porﬁriana, the period of static, controlled
rule under Porﬁrio Diaz” (Anderson, “Reading” 58), it is clear that this peace has
been dramatically disrupted in terms of political, religious and familial structures.
The Revolution arrives, initially disguised as an astronomical event, and the
social milieu of Yaﬁez's pueblo de mujeres enlutadas is dramatically and
irrevocably changed. The concluding vision of Al ﬁlo del agua is one of confusion
and desperation on the part of those who once held power; a new optimism
(bordering on utopianism) exists due to the changes brought about by the
explosive nature of the Revolution. This optimism is especially evident in regard
to Maria, the young woman who joins the Revolutionaries and abandons the
village. Leal has identiﬁed her as “un simbolo de la esperanza en el futuro de
Mexico” (“Yanez y la novela mexicana” 125); Anderson has viewed her departure
as an embodiment of “the idea that the Revolution is liberation” from the “stiﬂing

religious monotony” (“Reading” 56). At the very least, the unmediated dialogue

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describing her departure makes it clear that the values of the pueblo have been
abandoned and that Maria has bravely ventured into a new world (Yanez, AI ﬁlo
del agua 238-40). Although Danny J. Anderson (58) and Sommer (After the
Storm 61) argue that the novel offers an ambivalent attitude toward the collective
impact of the Revolution, it cannot be denied that the community has undergone
signiﬁcant and painful changes: social structures have been dismantled, young
people (Maria, Gabriel, Damian, Micaela, Luis Gonzaga) have either gone away,
died or lost their sanity, the village chronicler and the most intransigent of the
ecclesiastical authorities have perished, and, like a great number of wealthy
landowners, don Timoteo Limon has been killed (in an act of passion rather than
in a political upheaval).18 Like microcosm of the nation itself, Yanez’s unnamed

village will never be the same after the Revolution.

Ill. Yanez, the Novel and Nationalism.

By reviewing a series of articles written by Yanez before and after the
publication of AI ﬁlo del agua, it is possible to see that the text functions within
the author’s larger vision for the novel, literature and the purpose of the novelist
in the process of forging a national consciousness. During a discussion of
Mexican literature, Yanez proposed ﬁve characteristics that distinguish the
Mexican novel from other national traditions: 1) the focus on the “grandes
problemas nacionales”; 2) the tendency toward realism; 3) the particular syntax
of the Mexican novelist; 4) the critical perspective; and 5) the tendency to

prophesize (cited in Carballo 303). While all these characteristics are evident in

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AI ﬁlo del agua, a strong case could be made that the ﬁfth, the tendency to
prophesize, is the one that manifests itself with the most intensity. AI ﬁlo del agua
is of course a richly prophetic work in terms of augury and the Biblical apocalyptic
tradition; however, as alluded to earlier, it is also a deceptively millennial work in
regard to its juxtaposition between its setting and the Mexico that emerged after
the Revolution. Yér‘tez’s ideas on a variety of national issues such as literature,
education and nationalism can help to shed some light on the novel’s millennial
aspects and what it attempts to prophesize.

Yanez had great expectations for literature and its role in post-
Revolutionary Mexico. AI ﬁlo del agua may be seen as Yaﬁez's attempt to
produce a novel that most accurately portrayed the national character on the eve
of the Revolution. The universality of literary discourse was an important
component of Yariez's novelistic theory: “La literatura es la disciplina mas apta
para educar Ia sensibilidad, porque utiliza el patrimonio comun de los
hombres...la palabra” (“g,Para que sirve Ia literatura?” 4). Here Yanez reveals his
pedigree as a post-Revolutionary intellectual, putting an almost Vasconcelian
emphasis on literacy and the appreciation of the written word. According to
Yanez, among the beneﬁts that literature imparts are “Ia inﬂuencia educativa
sobre la sensibilidad; la ampliacion y aﬁnamiento de la conciencia historica; Ia
exactitud, variedad y riqueza del idioma, como instrumento de expresion”
(Yanez, “(Para que sirve la literatura?” 4). Of particular importance here is the
reﬁnement of a historical consciousness for, by transmitting a particular historical

interpretation, contemporary viewpoints could be molded. Leal, for example, has

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observed Yaﬁez's interest in producing “una novela mexicana” in the manner of
Altamirano by focusing on “la vida nacional” (“Yaﬁez y la novela mexicana" 123).
In AI ﬁlo del agua, Yanez interprets and reproduces Mexican history in bold
strokes: a retrogressive era of ecclesiastical domination in the process of being
replaced by a new, progressive Mexican society.

Yaﬁez also describes the possiblities that literature offers for shaping
public opinion: “La obra literaria posee el secreto para conservar el clima de la
historia y proyectarlo, a iguales temperaturas, con pareja luz y animacion
idéntica, sobre el porvenir, sobre la conciencia y la emocion de los hombres
futuros” (“Temas de educacion: Literatura e historia” 5). In AI ﬁlo del agua, there
is an obvious attempt to preserve a precise moment of Mexican history: a twenty-
month period in a rural pueblo of the Porﬁriato on the verge of the Mexican
Revolution. This preserved historical moment is depicted with all its ugly details,
frozen in time like a stag beetle sealed in amber. To examine such a moment in
the 19403 (and after) is to sense the comprehensive nature of the change
introduced by the Revolution, and to appreciate it. Yéﬁez's landmark novel is
also foreshadowed when, focusing on the relationship between literature and
history, he argues:

Cuando un cataclismo arrase nuestra civilizacion y de él Iogren escapar

dos o tres obras representivas...los posteros com-padeceran las

aspiraciones y angustias de nuestro tiempo, reconstruiran, con ﬁel ritmo,
eI pulso de nuestra vida; con-sentiran, aI unisono, estas inquietudes que

nos exaltan y prestan sentido a nuestro devenir.
(“Temas de educacion: Literatura e historia” 5)

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Here, writing in 1939, Yaﬁez seems to be anticipating the great novel to be
published eight years later. He suggests that a national cataclysm can not only
demolish an existing social order, it can foment the appearance of representative
literary works that advance speciﬁc national conceptions: a cataclysmic
revolution, the end of a stagnant way of life, the establishment of a modern,
dynamic society. At the moment when his novel enjoyed its greatest popularity
and critical acclaim, Yanez outlined the prophetic capacity of the modern novelist
and concluded, “Por esto eI novelista es el constructor nacional por excelencia”
(“La novela” 45, italics in original).

AI ﬁlo del agua attempts to reconstruct the pulse of Mexican life
immediately before it would be forever changed. More than an important
consideration within the novelistic world of Yar‘Iez, prophecy is fundamental
element in the formation of his own critical theory. When asked directly by
Carballo whether or not an excess of prophetic elements could harm the artistic
value of a work of literature, Yar'iez mentions Diego Rivera (the artist most
associated with Mexican cultural nationalism) as an example of a great artist
whose work features an abundance of millennial elements: “El profetismo es una
constante en toda su obra: en toda ella disena una realidad futura mejor, y no
por eso deja de ser un gran artista” (304, my emphasis). Like Rivera, Yaﬁez
casts a studied, backward glance to a lost period of Mexican history and infuses
its representation with prophetic elements, thus afﬁrming the ideology of the
moment in which he created his art. But being much more involved with the

government that Rivera, Yafiez stands as a curious precursor of later writers

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judged to be inﬂuenced by his work—for example, Fuentes, Garcia Marquez and
Vargas Llosa—who assumed the Latin American novelist’s traditional role as an
outspoken social critic. Nevertheless, for his use of millennial imagery in Al ﬁlo
del agua, the opinion of José Joaquin Blanco that Yanez “utilizo Ia literatura
como forrna priista de curriculum” (cited in Franco, Lectura sociocritica 19) is

difﬁcult to dismiss.

V. Notes.

‘ Yar’lez, Agustin. AI ﬁlo del agua. Novela. (Mexico City: Porrﬂa, 1947): 393. All further citations of
the novel will be from the critical edition coordinated by Arturo Azuela (1992).

2 For more the importance of triangular structures among the characters in the novel, see
Doudoroff.

6 Numerous critics have emphasized the innovative character of the novel: for example, Anderson
(45), Aub (62), Brushwood (23), Langford (71-72), Portal (194) and Sommers (55). In contrast,
Morton (224-25) and Brinton (13) insist that Yahez’s text be more appropriately considered a late
example of the Revolutionary novel.

‘ Franco posits that the unnamed village is in fact Yahualica, the setting of Yanez's earlier, semi-
biographical work of the same name (1946) (Lectura sociocritica 38).

6 According to Yahez’s own date on the ﬁnal manuscript, the novel was completed on 24
February 1945 (AI ﬁIo del agua 242).

6 Yahez’s posts included Director de Educacion Primaria, Nayarit (1930-1931); Director de la
Oﬁcina de Radio (1932-1934); Governor of Jalisco (1953-1959); Consejero de la Presidencia de
la RepL'iblica (1959-1962); Secretario de Educacion Pablica (1964-1969). Yahez held
professorships at a variety of the most prestigious Mexican institutions of higher education,
including the Preparatorio Nacional and the Universidad Nacional AutOnoma de Mexico.
Following the student massacres at Tlatelolco in 1968, Yahez was the most prominent Mexican
intellectual who maintained silent. Unlike Carlos Fuentes and Octavio Paz, Yatlez did not resign
his government post (as Secretary of Public Education). In regard to this decision, Harris writes
that it was an “exceptional moral lapse” on the part of Yahez who, throughout the rest of his
career “manage[d] to serve the state and act as the conscience of the Mexican people” (137,

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italics in original). In the opinion of this writer, Harris’ argument is ﬂimsy: it was reprehensible that
Yanez, the Secretary of Public Education, remained silent after hundreds of student protesters
were murdered. By not resigning, Yanez seemed to condone such brutal methods as a means of
silencing dissention. Yahez, through his in-action and silence, appears today as more of a cog of
the Priista regime than a Secretary of Education who worked in the best interests of students and
their instructors.

7 Various critics have discussed the apocalyptic themes of AI ﬁlo del agua. See, for example, the
articles by Durand, Schade and Jean Franco’s Lectura sociocritica de la obra de Agustin Yahez.
6 Parkinson Zamora deﬁnes the word Apocalypse as a synonym for “revelation”. The word itself
derives from the Greek apokalypsis, “to uncover, reveal, disclose” (Parkinson Zamora 10).

9 For a discussion of Yanez's use of interior monologue and its inﬂuence on the structure of the
novel, see O'Neill, Samuel J., “Interior Monologue in Al ﬁlo del agua”, Hispania 51.3 (Sept.
1968): 447-456.

1° Miscarriage, or the birth of a deformed fetus, has been featured in other novels with millennial
and apocalyptic themes, such as Madgaleno’s EI resplandor ( 1937), in which a child is born with
the ears of a pig (102).

1‘ “Bola" was the popular, pre-Revolutionary term for any revolt or insurrection. Following the
Revolution, the use of “bola” to describe such incidents diminished. See Benjamin (41).

'2 Although the three priests of the novel are the most dominant characters, Yahez reserves the
role of prophet to this secular ﬁgure. This not only underscores the illegitimacy of the perspectives
offered by Fathers Martinez, lslas and Reyes, but alludes to Max Weber's postulation that the
personal call—or internal vision—is the decisive element distinguishing the prophet from the
priest: “The latter lays claim to authority by virtue of his service in a sacred tradition, while the
prophet’s claim is based on personal revelation and charisma. It is no accident that almost no
prophets have emerged from the priestly class” (Weber 46).

‘6 Franco has brieﬂy examined the employment of Halley's comet as an event signaling the
coming Millennium in her study of the Yahez novel, La tierra prédiga (1960) (Lectura sociocritica
368).

'4 See, for example, the following broadsheets: “Gran temblor de tierra en casi toda la republica...
acaecido por tantos y horribles crimenes...” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, June 1887. Archivo
Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca Nacional, R 1053); “Elﬁn del mundo para el Lunes 13 de Noviembre
del alto de 1899,” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1899. Collection of Ricardo Perez Escamilla);
“El mundo ya va a acabar—el dia 13 de Noviembre—que muy breve Ilegara” (Mexico City:
Vanegas Arroyo, 1899. Collection of Ricardo Perez Escamilla); “El gran juicio universal! “Fin de
todo el Mundo para el 14 de Noviembre de 1899 a las 12 y 45 minutos de la nochell” (Mexico
City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1899. Rothenstein 80); “Proximo ﬁn del mundo. La horrible Catastrofe del

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Domingo 14 de abril de 1907 en Chilpancingo..." (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1907. Collection
of Ricardo Perez Escamilla).
‘6 The reference is from the “Corrido de Madero":
Cometa, si hubieras sabido

lo que venias anunciando,

nunca hubieras salido

por el cielo relumbrando;

no tienes Ia culpa tu,

mi Dios, que te lo he mandado.

(Mendoza, EI corrido mexicano 25—27)

‘6 See for example, “Noticia de las profeclas sobre las ruinas de Mexico” (Mexico City: Imprenta
de la Calle Trapana, Ietra C, 1843. Archivo Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca Nacional, R 1134); “Gran
temblor de tierra en casi toda la republica...acaecido por tantos y horribles crimenes...” (Mexico
City: Vanegas Arroyo, June 1887. Archivo Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca Nacional, R 1053); and
“Grand cometa y quemazon, que muy pronto se va a ser: el mundo se va a volver toditito
chicarron” (Mexico City: N.p, Oct. 1899) (Rothenstein 69). See also the exemplum broadsheets
featured in Tyler (184-86).
‘7 F lammarion provided just the kind of sensational, pseudo-scientiﬁc material that many
newspapers liked to print. Although he originally predicted that the comet would strike the Earth
on 19 May, he often revised his theories. On 3 April El Pais has Flammarion predicting that, “Si
logramos salvarnos del peligro que nos amenaza para el dia 19 de Mayo...otro peligro mayor nos
amenaza todavia. Si la Tierra gravita alrededor del Sol, esto no esta ﬁjo y con todo su sistema se
dirige velozmente hacia un punto determinado de la constelacion de Hercules, arrastrando todo
su cortejo de satelites...EI planeta terra hara explosion como una granada de dinamitall!” (1).
This particular article, entitled “Controversias astronomicas”, necessitated subsequent articles
refuting the predictions of the French astronomer. On 17 May, two days before the anticipated
collision, El Pais reported that it would be impossible for Halley's comet to strike the Earth and
that any cataclysm “carece de probabilidad” (1 ). On 18 May, the newspaper once again refutes
Flammarion (1 ); on the following day, the writers (with no small amount of self-congradulation)
reported that the “mil parecidas divagaciones” that “brotaban de labios populares” have been
dispelled: “Tal como lo habiamos anunciado, de la misma suerte como acaecio centenares de
veces, ayer por la noche la Tierra atraveso Ia cabellera de Halley sin que se registrase ningun
trastorno terraqueo y desmlntiendo las peregrinas invenciones del “ﬁn del mundo” supuesto
erroneo, propaldo por el prensa esclava del sensacionalismo y de las fantasmagorias de
astronomos sohadores” (1). The Diaz-controlled paper, EI lmparcial, had refuted Flammarion's
apocalyptic theories as early as March. In general, this particular newspaper rarely conceded the
front page to his predictions or to stories related to Halley’s comet. See, for example, “El cometa
Halley. Nuevo artlculo de Flammarion” (3 March 1910): 8.

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'6 See Doris Sommer on the relationship between political upheaval and the romantic passions of
novelistic characters (30-36).

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CONCLUSIONS

“Mejor sera no regresar al pueblo,
al edén subvertido que se calla
en la mutilacion de la metralla.”
—Ramon LOpez Velarde, “El retorno maleﬁco” (1919).

As we have seen, the novel of the Mexican Revolution features recurring
millennial images and motifs: famines, plagues, the complete destruction of
institutions, the inversion of the “haves” and “have nots”, and the use of
characters who serve as prophets—both reliable and false. Such imagery is a
deﬁning characteristic of this literature because it signals the arrival of the 1910
Revolution and portrays the conﬂict as a necessary, long-overdue renovation of
Mexico. However, cultural elites with a politically inﬂuenced perspective of the
events of 1910-1920 produced the majority of Revolutionary novels after 1929.
The function of their millennial imagery was to help justify the post-Revolutionary
political regime, in which many of these intellectuals held important posts.

While historians and critics have observed the threat millennial belief can
hold for the established order (Lectura sociocritica 324), in the novel of the
Mexican Revolution millennial imagery was produced by intellectuals of the ruling
political regime, writers with a retrospective view of the national upheaval.
Consequently, this millennial imagery is not subversive, but in fact supported the
administrations of Calles, Cardenas and Avila Camacho by casting them as the
leaders of a new and modern State. In the previous chapters, we have seen that
novelists such as Frias and Azuela, who wrote before or during the Revolution,

employed millennial imagery in their depiction of religious fanaticism or in order

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to make the actual results of the Revolutionary struggle appear insufﬁcient or
anticlimactic. In Tiena, Lopez y Fuentes portrayed the Revolutionary Emiliano
Zapata as a messianic ﬁgure, thus corroborating the ofﬁcial interpretation of the
Revolution as a singular, cataclysmic event that changed Mexico. On the other
hand, Munoz portrayed Pancho Villa—the most formidable enemy of the
Sonoran regime that took control of the country in 1920—as an unpredictable
brute with no political ability; this portrayal helped to provide a more favorable
opinion of the Sonoran faction and their leadership. The indigenist novels of
Lopez y Fuentes and Magdaleno are structured on millennial imagery and the
actions of (false) messiahs; however, neither of these novels draws the
conclusion that the Revolution was never a revolution at all. The basic message
of El indio and El resplandor is that there is still much left to be done in Mexico,
but the new men in charge will continue working to fulﬁll Revolutionary promises.
Yéfiez’s AI ﬁlo del agua is the most millennial text in the entire cycle of the
Revolutionary novel. At the same time it is the work that most energetically touts
the Revolution as a great leap forward for Mexico. As explained in the
Introduction of this study, many of the previously mentioned Revolutionary
novelists held high-ranking posts in the post-Revolutionary regime. In
comparison with these Revolutionary novels, the pre-Revolutionary and
Revolutionary corrido—a popular form of oral literature—does not feature nearly
as much millennial imagery.

Such employment of millennial themes by a government is an innovation

in the wider context of Latin American history. Throughout the colonial period and

173

following the wars of independence in the early nineteenth century, those who
held political power normally dealt harshly with (often outright exterminating)
those who professed or mobilized around millenarian beliefs. In the years
following the Mexican Revolution, the new regime suddenly embraced the
concept and derived its legitimacy from the sociopolitical cataclysm that drove
Diaz from the country and provided the occasion for the Constitution of 1917.
Other Latin American nations, such as Brazil, soon followed Mexico’s example.
Revolutionary Mexico also demonstrates that a government will not concern itself
with a historical millennial movement; it is only when popular conceptions of a
new social system are in a nascent or full-blown stage that actions are taken to
suppress or eliminate them. While Tomochic is the illustrative case of a millennial
movement prior to the Revolution, the Cristero Revolt (1926-1929, 1934) is the
example for the post-Revolutionary era. The State’s provocation of and response
to these movements indicate that very little changed with the Revolution.

The attention to millennial imagery in selected Revolutionary novels and
corridos has helped to move this study beyond the generalizations that typically
arise in investigations that examine the topic of hegemony. Too many studies
(particularly in the ﬁeld of literature) have assumed that hegemony represents a
unilateral exercise of power: it would seem that, in any society where there exist
profound inequalities, the oppressors command obedience of the oppressed
until, one miraculous day, an act of insurgency unexpectedly erupts.
Occasionally, heads roll and the insurgency becomes a revolution that changes

the social or political system in a radical manner. More commonly, however, the

174

insurgency fails and the hegemony is strengthened with more sophisticated
methods of oppression. This admittedly simpliﬁed model serves to reafﬁrm the
hegemonic status quo because it suggests that revolutions come about randomly
(thus minimizing the participation of revolutionaries) and usually fail. By
considering these Revolutionary novels and corridos in light of the work of James
C. Scott—especially his concepts of “hidden” and “public transcripts” (2-5)—the
present study has underscored the considerable complexity of power inequalities
before and after an incident of popular dissidence, or full-blown rebellion,
manifests itself. Some examples of hidden transcripts—deﬁned as expressions of
popular dissidence that are not readily perceived in a public context—include
visions of a complete inversion of society, schadenfreunde (happiness as a result
of the misfortune of others), a ﬂourishing oral culture (for example, the corridos
that celebrate social banditry), the sabotage of property, vandalism and
sophisticated dissident subcultures. Clearly, the concept of hegemony does not
signify a simple duality of power and submission, but a sophisticated negotiation
(and in some instances an outright challenge) that persists under the placid
surface of relationships of the public sphere. The approximately sixty-year period
of this study saw its fair share of negotiations and challenges to the ideological
and political authorities, and the corrido and other forms of popular literature
have provided some of the most compelling examples. Millenarianism can be a
key indicator of such dissidence, although in the Revolutionary novel images of a

social system being eliminated and replaced with another have generally been

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co-opted to serve other political purposes: presenting the Revolution as a
singular event that profoundly changed Mexico.

The analysis of Revolutionary novels and corridos has also highlighted the
important differences between the social manifestations of millennial and
apocalyptic conceptions. Apocalyptic imagery tends to emphasize signs of the
coming Day of Judgment, speciﬁc images from Revelation (such as the Four
Horsemen and celestial phenomenon) and the impending sense of kairos, that
“point of time ﬁlled with signiﬁcance, charged with meaning derived from its
relation to the end” (Kermode 47). On the other hand, millennial imagery tends to
emphasize the post-Apocalypse: an age of justice, righteousness and reward for
those who have suffered. On the basis of these brief deﬁnitions alone it is clear
that millennial imagery offers the greatest possibilities for dissidence or
insurrection because it posits an alternative to the prevailing social system of
oppression. The examples of apocalyptic imagery discussed here have almost
always been produced by those who hold power; the hegemonic class invokes
the Apocalypse to coerce or to insure the passivity of subordinate groups. This
strategy is especially apparent in apocalyptic corrido broadsheets, exemplum,
and the way in which certain characters in the Revolutionary novels—mostly
priests—threaten their followers with Old Testament paradigms of transgression
and divine punishment. This employment of apocalyptic imagery is exempliﬁed
by the behavior of the unnamed priest in Lopez y Fuentes’ El indio (in the chapter
“Los peregrinos”) and the three priests of Yahez's AI ﬁlo del agua, Fathers

Martinez, Reyes and lslas. It also served the purposes of these novelists, aligned

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with or working for the post-Revolutionary government, to reserve their ﬁercest
criticism at the Church instead of at their political employers.

Although there is much diversity in the employment of millennial imagery,
we can narrow the range of possibilities down to three main types: ﬁrst, there are
the examples of millennial imagery and themes from texts appearing prior to or
during the Revolution, where the true believers are usually portrayed as fanatics
or fools; second, there are the examples from the post-Revolutionary period
(especially after 1929) that reafﬁrm the explosive, renovating character of the
Revolution; ﬁnally, there are examples from popular texts that appeared
throughout the Revolution and during the Cristero Revolt; these texts also include
corridos, such as “El corrido del Juicio Final” (Mendoza, EI com'do mexicana 395-
98). These three types closely reﬂect Gramsci’s categories of popular songs. The
pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary examples of millennial imagery correspond
to the category of material “written neither by the people or for the people, but
which the people adopt because they conform to their way of thinking” (as is the
case with the Revolutionary novels of Azuela); material “composed by the people
and for the people” (corridos produced outside the capital and anti-government
texts, especially those from the Cristero Revolt);1 and material “composed for the
people but not by the people” (the millennial imagery of the Revolutionary novels
of the 19303 and 403, written by cultural elites with the aim of consolidating a
particular nationalist program) (Gramsci, Selections from Cultural Writings 195).

Other signiﬁcant differences exist between the Revolutionary novels

written before and after 1929. For example, one prominent characteristic of the

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texts published prior to 1929 is their dynamic protagonism. With Cruz Chavez,
Andrés Perez, Demetrio Macias and the Viflas family, the reader is presented
with characters that negotiate their way through the chaos and, in many
instances, strike the match of social insurrection. In the case of Macias, his short-
Iived career actually parallels the trajectory of the Revolution itself, from the initial
insurrections against Huerta to Villa’s defeat by Obregon at Celaya and Trinidad
(approximately from the spring of 1913 to the summer of 1915). Even when
Azuela experimented with collective protagonism (as in Las moscas), certain
characters stand above the rest in terms of their activism and development.
(Although the important novels of Martin Luis Guzman—El aguila y la serpiente
[1928] and La sombra del caudillo [1929]-—have not been featured in this study,
their protagonists are also well-deﬁned and dynamic.) Carlos Fuentes noted that
with the novel of the Mexican Revolutionary the pueblo becomes protagonist and
the previously anonymous masses become personalized for the ﬁrst time in Latin
American literature (La nueva novela 14-15). This new protagonism is
exempliﬁed, for example, in the classic scene from Los de abajo when Demetrio
Macias’ Revolutionaries sack the house of his hacendado, destroying paintings,
ﬁne curtains, books and other cultural artifacts associated with the upper class,
all for the sheer pleasure of it (Negrin 140). While this active protagonism
distinguishes the early Revolutionary novels, a more anonymous and generalized
depiction of the men and women that participated in the Revolution begins to
appear in the works from the 19303. In Lopez y Fuentes’ Tierra, for example, the

only character of real importance is Zapata. However, the portrait of this

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Revolutionary leader is largely comprised of myth and anecdote. This novel also
differs from its predecessors in that Lopez y Fuentes attempts to reconstruct the
historical record with Tiena—to the point of organizing his chapters
chronologically by year—rather than leave it as a backdrop for the actions of
ﬁctional protagonists. In regard to AI ﬁlo del agua, several critics have noted that
no single character stands out because the novel features a “collective
protagonist” (Brinton 13; Brushwood 25-26; Morton 226; Sommer, After the
Storm 39). Coupled with this anonymity is an increased passivity in the
characterization of those that fought and struggled during the Revolution. In
general, one notes increased resignation and perseverance in the face of
oppression rather than activism.

It is relatively easy to interpret these changes between the protagonism
prior to 1929 and after. The implied message was that although there still may be
problems existing in post-Revolutionary Mexico, the new leadership would
address them in due time. The Revolution was over. In conjunction with the
increased ideological function of the Revolutionary novel, after 1929 there are
signiﬁcantly fewer examples of corridos that reﬂect the popular interpretation of
the events depicted in the novels. The corrido also disappears within the novel
itself: whereas early novels such as Tomochic and Los de abajo actually feature
performing corridistas, in the later novels social elites such as poets (Vate
Pedroza, EI resplandor) and priests serrnonizing in Latin (Father Martinez, AI ﬁlo

del agua), come to replace the popular perspectives provided by corridistas.

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Almost every Revolutionary novel discussed in this study has featured at
least one prophetic character: Castorena (Toméchic), Valderrama (Los de
abajo), the huehues (village elders, El indio), Vate Pedroza (EI resplandor), and
Lucas Macias (AI ﬁlo del agua). This prevalence again suggests the highly
prophetic, millennial character of Revolutionary literature, although by the 19303
the characters that fulﬁll these roles increasingly become literary creations rather
than novelistic representations of Mexicans who might have actually fought in the
Revolution. This change points to the increased literary and commercial
ambitions of Revolutionary novelists of the 19303 and 403. Writing in 1934,
Francisco Gonzalez Rojas—an admirer of the initial Revolutionary novels—
demanded that writers produce a “literatura ediﬁcante” that told the historical
truth about all that was “alto y noble” in “la guerra fratricida” that bloodied
Mexican soil (310). But Gonzalez Rojas’ demands would not be heeded. At the
height of AI ﬁlo del agua’s critical acclaim, Yanez wrote that in modern times (the
post-Revolutionary era):

...es el novelista quien cumple mas directamente la funcion de vate,

conferida de antiguo a Ios poetas, pues al captar la realidad en las mallas

de la ﬂccion, el novelista descubre Ios signos del futuro y adivina el
destino de las sociedades en la cifra de algunos personajes y situaciones,
con que la imaginacion creadora ﬁja el ser, el caracter, y el devenir de Ios

pueblos. (“La novela” 44-45)

The evolution of the Revolutionary novel from Los de abajo to AI ﬁlo del agua is

not so much an increase in technical sophistication as it is an abandonment of

historical experience and popular memory.

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There has always been much debate in Mexico over how the Revolution
should be presented and taught; the Revolutionary novel remains one of the
most conventional means to convey an understanding of the national upheaval. It
is noteworthy that for all its importance as the prototype for the Revolutionary
novel, Azuela (and others) would have to admit in the 19403 and 503 that
Tomdchic was almost completely ignored by critics (OC 3, 659). Azuela’s own
pessimistic view of the Revolution, and his satiric portrayal of millennial belief,
actually earned him censure among educators in the post-Revolutionary period.
Although educator Margalida Jimenez Tejeda would posit that the Revolutionary
novel “es esencialmente realista, ya que en ella el novelista no invento nada, es
podriamos decir un pedazo de vida, un trozo de tragedia mexicana” (64), she
recommends teaching more novels from the post-1929 phase of novelistic
production. In regard to Los de abajo, for most people the essential novel of the
Revolution, Jimenez Tejeda concludes that it is inappropriate for Mexican high
schools because it portrays the pueblo in a negative manner:

Como miembros del pueblo, Ios personajes actuan tal y como se Ios

piden sus primitivos instintos haciendo toda clase de atropellos y

crimenes brutales que nada tienen que ver con los ﬁnes que persegula la

Revolucion para dar al ﬁnal de la obra, la impresion de una humanidad

desencantada y triste... En mi opinion, creo que no seria muy constructivo

a pesar de lo que observa diariamente, el mostrarle al adolescente avido

de ideales, a personajes tan desagradables...como...Demetrio Macias el

personaje principal que entra “la bola” por venganza después que le han

destruido su hogar. (70)

The oft-cited social criticism of the Revolutionary novel, especially in the

novels from the 19303, is limited both in its scope and its contemporaneity. A3

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discussed earlier, the Church served as a recurring and relatively harmless
target; the Constitution of 1917, certainly the most important legislative document
to come from the Revolutionary struggle, was strongly anti-clerical. That
Revolutionary the novelist would reiterate this anti-clericalism only demonstrates
that he or she was closely aligned with the post-Revolutionary regime. In terms of
contemporaneity, Tiena champions agrarian reform when the new, ex-Zapatista
governor of Morelos State had already redistributed nearly all the available land
by 1925; El resplandor is structured on such a confusing chronology, it remains
unclear if the event are taking place in the late-19203 or during the Cérdenas
presidency. Rutherford comes closest to identifying the compromised nature of
the social criticism of this literature: “Even the novelists who show the greatest
disenchantment with the Revolution have contributed towards its establishment
as a ﬁrm, unforgettable milestone in the collective memory of Mexico” (Mexican
Society 68). It is this paradoxical representation of the Revolution that provides
the novelistic cycle its ample yet ineffectual social criticism.

Novels featuring the Mexican Revolution as a basic theme have continued
to appear after AI ﬁlo del agua: Pedro Paramo (1955) by Juan Rulfo; La muerte
de Artemio Cruz (1962) and Gn‘ngo viejo (1985) by Carlos Fuentes; Los
relampagos de agosto (1964) by Jorge lbargtiengoita; and Columbus (1996) by
Ignacio Solares. Millennial imagery has also continued to be an important feature
of the modern Mexican novel, appearing prominently in such texts as Tiena
nostra (1975) and Cn'stdbal Nonato (1991) by Fuentes. An especially compelling

example of a novel with millennial imagery and themes is provided by Los

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recuendos del porvenir (1962) by Elena Garro, in which a young stranger with
magical abilities arrives in the fearful, isolated pueblo of lxtepec during the
Cristero Revolt and challenges the authority of the military caudillo.

Finally, this study has explored what Brennan has called “myths of the
nation” (1-6), in this case how Mexico’s post-Revolutionary mythology was
expressed in a supremely national literature. The novel of Mexican Revolution
was linked inextricably to the nationalistic process that began in the 19203 and
continued into the 19303 and 403. Revolutionary novelists, in conjunction with
muralists, ﬁlm-makers, and composers of popular music, worked to foment the
strong nationalism which has been an important factor in the Mexico’s
subsequent political stability and economic growth. This topic invokes many
issues beyond the scope of literature; perhaps future studies in the humanities
and social sciences can further develop the lines of investigation set forth here.
For example, the school of Mexican muralism ﬂourished alongside the
Revolutionary novel, promulgating the ideals of cultural nationalism to the 72% of
the population (in 1921) and later the 62% (1934) that remained illiterate (Meyer
208). Epic murals were commissioned by the government and painted onto the
stone blocks of the National Palace, in the National University and in other
important buildings throughout the country. José Revueltas, perhaps the most
perceptive critic of Mexico’s revolucion hecha gobierno, called for “un
analisis...que. ..uniﬁca Ios dos fenomenos [muralism and the Revolutionary
novel] por cuanto ambos se encuentran objetivamente sujetos al denominador

comt'm de una misma supercheria ideologica” (Cuestionamientos e intenciones

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243). Although Revueltas called for this analysis in 1967, it still has not been
attempted. The present study, however, positions itself in the direction suggested
by Revueltas by substituting the corrido for the more celebrated muralism, and by
focusing on millenarianism. It is also hoped that studies of the Revolutionary
novel—especially in regard to its frequently overlooked narrative innovations—
will continue. Critics have often noted that by selecting representative texts of the
novelistic cycle, it would be possible to reconstruct the entire Revolutionary
process beginning in 1910 and ending in 1929 or 1930 (Millan Chivite 15).
However, this approach is myopic in the sense that it has invested the
Revolutionary novel with little value beyond the testimonial-historical. As this
study has demonstrated, if one resists this shopworn approach, we may learn
something of the cultural and political context from which the Revolutionary novel
arose. More than “mirroring” the trajectory of the Mexican Revolution, this

literature could be credited with partially inventing it.

Notes.

1 The best resource for popular Cristero literature is Alicia Olivera de Bonﬁl’s La literatura cn'stera
(1970). This study contains many Cristero corridos, Church hymns and circulars, poetry, and a
section discussing the Cristero novel—a cycle of novels that appeared in the early 19303. In the
introduction of her study, Olivera de Bonﬁl writes that the popular “esperanza de derrocar al
gobierno emanado de la Revolucion, asi como de obtener una solucion a Ios problemas que se
habian planteado, se maniﬁestan...principalmente en los corridos y canciones” (3). Although
there are many interesting Cristero novels—for example, Hector (1930) by Jorge Gram (a
pseudonym of the priest David G. Ramirez), La Virgen de Ios cristeros (1934) by Fernando
Robles, and Los Cristeros. La guerra santa en Ios Altos (1937) by Jose Guadalupe de Anda—this

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literature was not analyzed in the present study for, in the words of Agustin Cortes Gaviho, it is
best viewed not as Revolutionary literature, but as counter-Revolutionary literature (5).

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APPENDIX
A CHRONOLOGY OF REVOLUTIONARY MEXICO, 1890-1950

One of the fundamental premises of this study is that a unique
intertextuality exists between Mexican history and its literature. As Edith Negrin
explains, in Mexico “el texto entra en la historia y la historia en el texto” (134).
The following chronology does not intend to offer new interpretations of the
Mexican Revolution, or of the period that followed in which much of the literature
analyzed in this study was produced. Instead it seeks to lay out a broader
historical context to supplement the textual analysis of the preceding pages. This
ﬁfty-year period will provide the major events, movements and consequences of
the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). This Appendix will also trace the
occurrence and persistence of millennial belief in the same period.

During the long dictatorship of General Porﬁrio Diaz (1876-1911), the
regime deposed by the Mexican Revolution, popular discontent had been
fermenting beneath the placid, progressive veneer that the resourceful dictator
wished to project internationally. Popular millennial conceptions were inspired as
the increased modernization of the period imposed wage-based and commodity-
producing economic systems on marginalized sectors of the population: factories
hired and ﬁred, miners risked their lives for less than two pesos a day, military
billets were often ﬁlled by impressment (Ia Ieva) and the national railroad (a major
achievement of the regime) suddenly divided lands that had been communally
farmed for centuries (Gretton 33). The sudden incursion of a capitalistic system

of labor into a pre-modern society has often provoked millennial conceptions and

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rebellions.‘ lnsurrections by the Maya and Yaqui native peoples in the 18803 and
903 were suppressed by the Dlaz regime with much bloodshed. In the
ungovernable expanses of nineteenth-century Mexico, rurales (the federal
peace-keeping force) tracked and attempted to apprehend dozens of bandits
such as Heraclio Bernal, Macario Romero, Valentin Mancera and Ignacio Parral
(the mentor of Pancho Villa), men who would become popular heroes and
protagonists of innumerable corridos. During this Paz porﬁn'ana, the bandit hero
came to embody a “wish for a social inversion that [would] favor those less
fortunate” (Frank 87).

While some historians contend that social banditry did more to “rattle
regimes and excite change among subjects” than any other manifestation of civil
disobedience (Vanderwood, Disorder and Progress xxxi), the millennial rebellion
posed the most serious ideological challenge to the government that experienced
it. By offering an alternative model of community and a vision for the future in
which service to the patria was of little importance (if not totally irrelevant),
religious rebels became the source of a particularly virulent dissidence that liberal
statesmen of the late nineteenth century would not tolerate. The concept of
allegiance was often a point of conﬂict in nation-building project: if a citizen gave
his or her life for their country during a war, they were considered a hero;
however, if another citizen died defending their home and religious beliefs, they
were often deemed a fanatic. Military impressment thus became an important
mechanism for facilitating national cohesion, a forced inculcation of values that

beneﬁted the nation-building project. In opposition to this institution, religious

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settlements founded in the 18903—such as those at Tomochic and Canudos.
located in the interior of Brazil—became “viable alternative communities” for the
poor, outcasts, military deserters and criminals (Beattie 112). Such communities,
where living conditions were often primitive, harbored obscure doctrines that
occasionally developed into full-ﬂedged millennial movements or rebellions.

In Mexico, at the turn of the twentieth century, apocalyptic fears were even
more prevalent than millenarianism. As evidenced from popular literature of the
era, such fears were especially widespread in the decades leading up to the
Revolution of 1910.2 These fears were played upon by the popular press during
the Diaz dictatorship, to the extent that nearly every earthquake or anticipated
collision with a comet was depicted as a divine punishment for moral
transgressions. The popular literature of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo (1852-1917), a
proliﬁc printer in the capital, was especially prone to apocalyptic themes.
Apocalyptic fears were often used to insure the passivity of Mexicans in general,
and especially those that lived in the capital.3 These tactics changed as Halley’s
comet approached in the moment that Francisco Madero provided his
unexpected political challenge and began to shake the foundations of the
dictatorship in 1910. The Diaz subsidized newspapers, such as El lmparcial and
El Debate, were suddenly careful to avoid apocalyptic themes. But when the
issue could not be avoided, as was the case with the arrival of Halley’s comet in
the spring of 1910, the organs of the dictatorship tried to assuage fears and tout
the resilience of the regime. Throughout this period, EI lmparcial published daily

updates of the comet’s progress, reassuring the public that Diaz cientiﬁcos

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(technocrats) and had determined that it would not strike the earth.4 On the other
hand, opposition newspapers and small presses often juxtaposed the latest
political news with images of the comet.6

The numerous causes of the Mexican Revolution reﬂect social and
political injustices that had been growing more acute for decades. If these causes
could be reduced to three main ones, they would be the growing disaffection of
rural peasants, the political controversy of presidential succession and
democratic reform, and the emergence of a new generation of wealthy Mexicans
who sought to change the way that Diaz had run the country for more than thirty
years. The 1910 census reported that 96.9% of Mexican farmers did not own the
land that they worked; conversely, 1% of the population owned 96% of the land
(Beyhaut 258). Peasant disaffection was most pronounced in the states of
Morelos, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Sonora. The second and third causes are
embodied in the person of Francisco I. Madero (1873-1913), the scion of a
wealthy family from Coahuila. Madero, educated in the United States and
France, became the surprise presidential candidate of 1910. His persistence, the
diverse coalition of popular support for his presidency and key military victories
would ﬁnally force Diaz to relinquish his thirty-four year hold on the presidency.
The aging dictator had also showed signs of losing his control and political
acumen before Madero’s presidential bid, as evidenced by the brutal suppression
of strikes at Cananea (1906) and Rio Blanco (1907), as well as the 1908
Creelman interview where Diaz told the American reporter that he was willing to

relinquish the presidency in 1910.

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The Mexican Revolution began ofﬁcially on 20 November 1910, the date
on which Madero’s Plan de San Luis Potosi (issued 5 October 1910) called for
widespread uprisings intended to drive Diaz from power. The Plan de San Luis
Potosi was in many ways the last option for Madero, who had been imprisoned
during the spring of 1910 after the national election was rigged in favor of Diaz.
The synthesis and slogan of Madero, “Sufragio efectivo. No reeleccion” has
represented for many a substantive political program that initiated the ﬁrst social
revolution of the twentieth century. However, as is the case with nearly every
momentous event in world history, the reality is often more complex than (if not
remarkably dissimilar to) the ideal. The deﬁnition of “revolution” is highly
signiﬁcant in this discussion: the term should signify a thorough restructuring of a
given sociopolitical system, thus distinguishing itself from a palace coup, military
takeover, civil war or war of independence that, in the context of the Americas,
has traditionally represented little more than a shift of power within the same
sociopolitical system (see Ruiz 4-10). While Paz has noted that every revolution
seeks to reestablish a mythical age (just as in the case of the millennial
movement), Madero’s program was really little more than a democratic
reﬁnement (Laben'nto 123, 129). Furthermore, as will be discussed further along,
many of the fundamental ideals of the Revolution—effective suffrage, agrarian
reform, diminished concessions to foreign interests—were not fully realized after
the decade of armed conﬂict.

Madero himself did not consider his challenge to Diaz revolutionary. In

May 1910, in an open letter written to Diaz from his jail cell, Madero explained

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that if the peace of the nation should be upset, the senescent dictator who
refused to permit free and democratic elections would be solely to blame.6 This
letter demonstrates that while Madero was indeed aware of the possibility of a
violent upheaval, he did not envision himself as the leader of a sweeping
sociopolitical, quasi-millennial movement, in spite of the early observers who
referred to him as the “Apostle of Democracy”.7 When Madero crossed the
border into Mexico on 20 November 1910, to lead the insurrection he thought he
had started, he found no more than ten men, led by his uncle, waiting to follow
him (Knight, Mexican Revolution 1: 183-84). Fortunately, his movement quickly
gained both popular support and signiﬁcant participation from the middle and
upper-classes. After Madero gained the presidency, he left most of the career
Porﬁristas in their sinecures; it was this conciliation with the previous regime that
would lead to his downfall in February 1913.

The Madero presidency (1911-1913) can be characterized by a series of
well-intentioned, but ultimately fatal conciliations and broken promises. Madero's
former ally and key military leader, Pascual Orozco, rebelled against the
president in 1912. To quell this unexpected revolt, Madero had to rely on the
generals of the federal military, most of whom had served under Diaz. The
commander of the federal forces under Madero, General Victoriano Huerta
(1854-1916), was a treacherous career Porﬁrista who disliked the president.
Huerta succeeded in defeating Orozco, but had to be sent to Morelos to ﬁght the
Revolutionaries led by Emiliano Zapata (c. 1879-1919), who had issued the Plan

de Ayala (25 November 1911) denouncing Madero and demanding sweeping

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agrarian reforms. In Morelos, Huerta was again entrusted with the task of
defeating Revolutionaries who had fought to make Madero president. However,
unlike Orozco, Zapata and his troops would not be so easily vanquished, but
would continue ﬁghting until the interim government of Adolfo de la Huerta (1920)
began meeting their demands.

In early 1913, various counterrevolutionary factions threatened to wrest
the presidency from Madero. Among these were the supporters of Félix Diaz (the
nephew of the former dictator) and, unknown to Madero, Huerta himself. In
February, under the pretext of protecting Madero, Huerta had the president
imprisoned and began a mock battle against Felix Diaz and his supporters, in
which he sent troops loyal to Madero into the fray and ﬁred carelessly in the
direction of the Ciudadela (where the conspirators were supposedly trapped).
Many innocent Mexicans were killed. Once Huerta knew he had the support of
the US. government—represented by Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson—he
ordered Madero and Vice President Pino Suarez taken from their cells and shot.
The American ambassador could have intervened to save the men, but chose to
do nothing. The ten days of ﬁghting, conspiracy and the eventual assassination
of Madero and Pino Suarez on 22 February 1913 are known in Mexican history
as the “Décima tragica”.

When the nation realized that Madero had been assassinated by Huerta, a
number of leaders stepped fonrvard to condemn the act and voice their opposition
to the new military regime. The ﬁrst was the former Maderista and elected

governor of Coahuila, Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920). Carranza assembled

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an army to drive Huerta from power and issued the Plan of Guadalupe (1913)
declaring the illegitimacy of the Huerta presidency. Two key ﬁgures in the
Carrancista forces were Francisco “Pancho” Villa (Doroteo Arango, 1878-1923),
a former cattle rustler and bandit, and Alvaro Obregon (1880-1928), a former
garbanzo farmer and inventor from Sonora. These two generals would win
decisive battles against Huerta’s forces, which were already engaged against the
Zapatistas in Morelos. But the Huerta regime was not easily deposed since it
enjoyed the support of the Church and most of the military elite; those in the
capital who spoke out against Huerta—for example, opposition journalists and
politicians—were murdered. Following Villa’s victories at Torreon, Ciudad Victoria
and Zacatecas in 1913-1914, Huerta was left with few options and was forced to
leave Mexico for Europe, on the same vessel that had whisked Porﬁrio Diaz into
exile two years earlier.

After assuming executive powers in August 1914, Carranza attempted to
make necessary reforms but his efforts were thwarted by internal conﬂicts,
international concerns and his own obstinacy. Villa and Zapata refused to
recognize Carranza's authority and the civil war continued. In 1913, Zapata
enlisted the help of Mexico City intellectuals—most notably Antonio Diaz Soto y
Gama—and established an agrarian party. In this period, Carranza attempted to
reconcile differences between the factions that had formed the coalition to defeat
Huerta. A convention was called in Mexico City, but Villistas and Zapatistas
refused to attend because they viewed it as “a pliant instrument for the First Chief

[Carranza]” (Knight, The Mexican Revolution 2: 254). Given that military forces

193

(rather than politicians) were now running the country, another convention was
organized some distance from the capital at Aguascalientes in October 1914.
Some 150 delegates came, with 37 classiﬁed as Villistas and 26 as Zapatistas
(Knight, The Mexican Revolution 2: 256). Although the convention was the
setting of many bitter arguments, the Zapatista Plan de Ayala was endorsed by
the representative parties. Unfortunately, when the convention ended, there was
a general understanding that factional differences—especially between Carranza
and Villa (who was now formally allied with Zapata)—were too great, and that the
civil war that had raged for nearly four years would resume.

This phase of the Revolution is more commonly known as the ’War of the
Winners”, with Carranza and Obregon pitted against Villa in the Bajio region of
central Mexico. The Zapatistas continued to be located mostly in Morelos, but
also ventured into the states of Pueblo and Veracruz in order to intercept
ammunition shipments to the Carrancista forces. In the spring of 1915, Obregon
decisively defeated Villa in the battles of Celaya, Trinidad and Aguascalientes,
thus eliminating the northern caudillo as a key player in the national political
scene. Carranza, aided by Obregon’s superior military leadership, emerged
supreme by August 1915, although Villa and Zapata continued guerilla warfare
tactics in Chihuahua, Durango and Morelos.

Perhaps in revenge for a failed arms shipment, or in order to embroil the
Carranza administration with another U.S. intervention, Villa and a few hundred
followers crossed the border and attacked the garrison town of Columbus, New

Mexico on the morning of 9 March 1916. Although the Villistas knew the terrain

194

and succeeded in surprising the troops stationed there, they suffered more
casualties than they inﬂicted. Concerned about reelection, US. President
Woodrow Wilson reluctantly ordered a military expedition, led by General Jack
Pershing, into Mexico to apprehend Villa. The so-called “Punitive Expedition” was
sent with the consent of Carranza and with the understanding that his forces
would not intervene. To diminish negative publicity, Mexico City newspapers
reported Pershing in the area of Columbus and omitted news of the expedition’s
progress (Knight, The Mexican Revolution 2: 347-49). The American troops
ﬁnally withdrew on 5 February 1917, but without Villa. This same period also saw
hard times for the Zapatistas in Morelos; Carrancista General Juvencio Robles
pursued them ruthlessly, burning down the homes of innocent peasants and
moving them into internment camps.

With both Villa and Zapata momentarily neutralized, Carranza sought to
hammer out a new Constitution in order to placate the various warring factions—
a plan he had had since 1913. In December 1916 the Constitutional Convention
was convened in Querétaro, with the goal of reforming the Constitution of 1857 to
reﬂect contemporary issues and to impose a political program on what had been
to that point an out-of-control civil war. Amid much heated debate, a new,
surprisingly radical Mexican Constitution emerged from the Convention. Among
its highlights were Articles 27 and 123: the former asserted Mexico's original
right to property owned by foreign interests, thus justifying expropriation in the
public interest; the second was a series of progressive labor standards, including

the right to strike. An Article that would incense many ecclesiastical authorities (it

195

had not been forgotten that the Church had supported Huerta in 1913) was 130,
which stated that the Church was subordinate to the State in all legal issues. In
spite of the far-reaching ramiﬁcations of the new Constitution, the Convention
was a middle-class affair and excited neither “popular participation nor
enthusiasm” (Knight, The Mexican Revolution 2: 473). Carranza signed the new
Constitution on 31 January 1917; shortly thereafter, he was elected to the
presidency by a landslide.

In spite of the new legislation and the ﬁrst legitimately elected president
since Madero, strong men continued to determine national politics from behind
the scenes. Obregon’s presidential ambitions were no secret and he pressured
Carranza to implement the Constitution of 1917, which contained potentially
radical reform measures that he opposed and subsequently failed to enforce.
With the assassination of Zapata in April 1919, Carranza's administration
achieved an important victory. However, a signiﬁcant error was his closure of the
Casa del Obrero MundiaI—a labor organization that had provided troops and
helped Obregon win the crucial battles in the Bajio in 1915. When labor
reorganized into the CROM (Confederation Regional Obrera Mexicana), it threw
its support strongly behind Obregon. In 1920, Carranza attempted to prevent
Obregon from succeeding him as president by choosing his own malleable
candidate, Ignacio Bonillas. Obregon, riding an unprecedented wave of
popularity, rallied key military leaders such as Pablo Gonzalez, Benjamin Hill,
Plutarco Elias Calles and Adolfo de la Huerta to his side. In April 1920, Obregon

and his Sonoran faction released the Plan of Agua Prieta, which demonstrated

196

that they would oppose Carranza's power grab in 1920 as they had Huerta’s in
1913 (Knight, The Mexican Revolution 2: 492). Like Diaz and Huerta before him,
Carranza ﬂed Mexico City for Veracruz, but was ambushed and murdered by a
local chieftain in the pueblo of Tlaxcalantongo. De la Huerta was named interim
president until Obregon was ﬁnally elected by Congress in October 1920.

The new direction of the Obregon presidency (1920-1924)—especially the
utopian educational programs of José Vasconcelos—have been described in the
Introduction to this study. With the Bucareli Accords (May-June1923), the
Obregon administration made enough concessions to the United States to
assure its recognition and ﬁnancial assistance (which had been withheld
following assassination of Carranza). It was late in this same year when De la
Huerta and a cadre of generals who opposed Obregon’s presidency planned a
military coup. Although the rebels mobilized nearly twice as many troops as
Obregon, the president’s military leadership was superior and he defeated the
rebels and consolidated his authority by 1924. The Dela Huerta Revolt would be
the last major military insurgency of the kind witnessed in the decade of the
Revolution.

If the termination of military conﬂict and the establishment of a new order
signal that a revolutionary movement has run its course, these criteria are
dubious in the case of the Mexican Revolution. Among historians, there appears
to be no consensus as to when the Revolutionary struggle ended.8 When several
generals plotted to assassinate Obregon in 1927—after he declared his

presidential candidacy for a second terrn—a purge was necessary to prevent

197

another coup by Revolutionary leaders. The Cristero Revolt (1926-1929, 1934)
pitted Catholic fanaticism against the quasi-socialist government, claiming the
lives of another 80,000 Mexicans and demonstrating that the new regime had no
tolerance for popular millennial belief in its raw state.9 The revolt was provoked
by the Calles administration’s strict enforcement of the Constitution of 1917,
speciﬁcally Articles 3, 5, 27 and 130, and the intransigence of the Church, which
did not want to see their privileges diminished under post-Revolutionary
leadership. One event that certainly led to the especially bloody nature of the
Cristero Revolt was the assassination of Obregon by José de Leon Toral, a
religious fanatic, in July 1928.

The Cristero Revolt erupted most powerfully in central and western
Mexican states: Jalisco, Michoacén, Guanajuato and Puebla. In 1934, during the
so-called “Segundo levantamiento”, the states of Zacatecas, Durango and
Colima saw the most guerrilla ﬁghting (Cortes Gavir‘lo 29). This region of rural
central Mexico has traditionally been characterized by intense religious devotion.
Monsivais, for example, has written of the Niﬁo Fidencio, a young boy who was
believed to perform miracles and have redemptive powers in Guanajuato and
Nuevo Leon States in the 19303 and 403.10 Recalling the setting of Tomochic,
rural central Mexico was where “[Ejveryday life was pervaded by
religion. . .churches and crosses were to be seen everywhere...so that the
geography was indeed Biblical and celestial” (Meyer, The Cn'stero Rebellion
193). The Cristero Revolt ﬁnally ended when the government forced the rebels to

turn over their arms, at the same time promising the Cristero leaders protection

198

and indemnity from prosecution. The intervention of US Ambassador to Mexico,
Dwight Morrow, was instrumental in bringing about an end to the ﬁghting.
Nevertheless, Cristero ringleaders throughout Mexico were subsequently
assassinated in the years that followed the end of hostilities (Cortes Gavino 29).

During the presidency of Lazaro Cardenas (1934-1940), agrarian reform
saw its most spirited and successful implementation. On 18 March 1938,
Cardenas boldly expropriated the petroleum industry, infuriating countries such
as Great Britain and the United States who had operated with impunity in Mexico
for decades. With the presidency of Manuel Avila Camacho (1940-1946), the era
of domination by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)11 began and a
number of the hard-won achievements of Revolutionary leaders—for example,
Cérdenas’ redistribution of land and diminished concessions to international
interests—were reversed (Dessau 54-56). The 19403 saw Mexico’s most rapid
phase of industrial and economic development, fueled by its material support of
the Allied forces during the Second World War.

According to historian John Womack, the Revolution is best explained not
as “social revolution” but as “political management” (“The Mexican Revolution”
129). Considering the legacy of the Mexican Revolution, examples of political
management abound. For example, in reference to Madero’s modest program of
effective suffrage and no reelection, numerous presidential and state campaigns
have been rigged since 1929 (when the precursor of the PRI, the Partido
Nacional Revolucionario [PRN], was founded), while the dominant political party

has enjoyed a tradition of hand-picking the presidential successor for 71 years

199

(Brading 81, Krause, Biography of Power 560-62). Perhaps the most notorious
rigged presidential election occurred as recently as 1988, when the PRI
candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gotari was elected after a “computer glitch” delayed
vote totals which had awarded the presidency to Cuautemoc Cérdenas, the
candidate of the F rente Democratico Nacional and son of the reformist president
(Krause, Biography of Power 770-72).”2

The Mexican millennial tradition has continued in the twentieth century.
Undoubtedly the most serious insurrection provoked by religious rebels was the
previously mentioned Cristero Revolt. In the 19303, President Cérdenas’
educational and political programs in Michoacan demonstrated many missionary
practices, and the president himself was often viewed as the redeemer of
Mexico’s working classes.13 The Synarchist movement and encampment in
Southern Baja California (1942) is a lesser known incident of a millennial cult.
Monsivais has also discerned millennial and utopian elements in the speeches of
the Subcomadante Marcos, the leader of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberacion
Nacional (EZLN), which rebelled against the federal, state and local governments

in Chiapas on 1 January 1994 (“Los milenarismos” 177-81).

Notes.

‘ See Diacon (12940).

2 See for example, “Proximo ﬁn del mundo. La horrible Catastrofe del Domingo 14 de abril de
1907 en Chilpancingo...” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1907. Collection of Ricardo Perez
Escamilla); “Proximo Fin del Mundo. La horrible Catastrofe del Domingo 14 de abril de 1907 en
Chilpancingo..." (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1907. Collection of Ricardo Perez Escamilla); “El

200

mundo ya va a acabar—el dla 13 de Noviembre—que muy breve Ilegara” (Mexico City: Vanegas
Arroyo, 1899. Collection of Ricardo Perez Escamilla); “El gran juicio universal! ”Fin de todo el
Mundo para el 14 de Noviembre de 1899 a las 12 y 45 minutos de la nochell" (Mexico City:
Vanegas Arroyo, 1899. Rothenstein 80); “Gran temblor de tierra en casi toda la reptiblica [...]
acaecido por tantos y horribles crimenes...” (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, June 1887. Archivo
Impresos Sueltos, Biblioteca Nacional, R 1053).

6 Examples of this kind of propaganda provide an important distinction between apocalyptic and
millennial belief: the former represents the impending and conclusive end of the world; its political
implications are minimal and its chief effect is widespread fear. Millenarianism, however, implies a
ﬁnal justice, an evening of scores, and a better alternative to the existing system. Millennial
conceptions also “promise an end to doubt and suffering and. ..the destruction of the forces that
produced such suffering" (Diacon 147).

6 See for example, El lmparcial (3 March 1910): 8. “Con motivo del Cometa Halley. Los
supersticiosos son victimas de cuantioso fraude.” EI lmparcial (14 March 1910: 2; the editorial by
AR. Bonnat, “La ﬁn del mundo.” EI lmparcial (20 March 1910): 15. “Acontecimiento astronomico.”
El lmparcial (3 May 1910): 9. “El cometa de Halley es uno de Ios mas viejos amigos de la Tierra”
El lmparcial (10 May 1910): 9.

6 A famous example is Jose Guadalupe Posada’s humorous depiction of Halley 's comet with the
face of Madero in the nucleus and vazquez Gomez in the tail (Séenz 220, Tyler 26). The
illustration comes from El diablito rojo 3 .114 (30 May 1910): 1. See also, “El Cometa del
Centenario de la lndependencia 1810—Mexico—1910" (Mexico City: Vanegas Arroyo, 1910),
which treats the arrival of Halley’s comet more positively, coinciding with the centennial of
Mexico’s declaration of independence (Tyler 235).

6 Open letter “AI General Porﬁrio Diaz”, Documentos histén'cos de la Revolucion Mexicana:
Revolucién y Regimen Maderista, Tomo V, Ed. Isidro Fabela (Mexico City: FCE, 1964): [48-50],
50.

7 The identiﬁcation of Madero as the “apostol de democracia” was standard practice in some of
the major newspapers in the years 1910 and 1911. Naturally, pro-Madero papers, such as El
Demécrata, tended to view the presidential challenger in messianic terms more often than other
papers (El lmparcial refused to so much as mention Madero In the winter and spring of 1910).
Jorge Vera Estatlol, a porﬁrista intellectual who later served in Victoriano Huerta’s regime, wrote
sarcastically of Madero’s admirers and the circus atmosphere of his public appearances: “Las
muchedumbres de los puntos del trayecto y de leguas a la redonda acuden a presenciar el paso
del Apostol, anhelan conocer al milagroso Salvador, oir su verbo pletorico de redentoras
profeclas, tocar su cuerpo y vestidos como reliquia santa...” Historia de la Revolucion Mexicana:
Origenes y resultados. Mexico City: Porrr'Ja, 1976 [1957]: 222.

201

6 Among the years most commonly seen as the conclusion of the Revolution are: 1917
(Rutherford, Womack), 1920 (Knight), 1924 (Ruiz), 1940 (Dessau), 1946 (Brenner,
Tannenbaum).

6 Harris provides a death toll of “more than 250,000” during the Cristero Revolt (27), based

on George W. Grayson's The Church in Contemporary Mexico (Washington, DC: Center for
Strategic and International Studies, 1992: 15). However, many of these deaths can be attributed
to the political assassinations ordered after a compromise between the government and the
Cristero leadership was hammered out.

‘6 See Monsivais, Los rituaIes del caos (97-108).

1‘ The party was founded by Calles in 1929 as the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR); in
1938 the party reorganized as the “ofﬁcial party”, now known as the Partido Revolucionario
Mexicano (PRM). The PRI, as it is known today, came about in 1946 when the PRM once again
changed its name.

” For a more detailed analysis of the issue of Mexican presidential succession, see Jorge

G. Castaneda, Perpetuating Power: How Mexican Presidents Were Chosen, Trans.

Padraic Arthur Smithies (New York: The New Press, 2000).

'6 See Becker's fourth chapter, “Call Out a Posse, Gather Up Their Music, Teach Them to Sing”
in Setting the Virgin on Fire (61-76).

202

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