Farewell
We cannot break our chains with weak desire,
With whines and supplicating cries.
'Tis not by crawling meekly to the mire
The free-winged eagle learns to mount the skies.
The gladiator, victor in the fight,
On who the hard-contested laurels fall,
Goes not into the arena pale with fright
But steps forth fearless, defying all.
O victory, O victory, dear and fair,
Thou crownest him who does his best,
Who perishing, still unafraid to bear,
Goes down to dust, thy image in his breast.
Farewell, O comrades, I scorn life as a slave!
I begged no tyrant for my life, though sweet it was;
Though chained, I go unconquered to my grave,
Dying for my own birthright- - - -and the world's.
Written just before his death while incarcerated in the Federal prison, Leavenworth, Kansas. At the behest of the Mexican Government, the US Government seized him, its agents fiercely beat him and held him for years until his death.
In anarchism, we are very fortunate, we have a rich well of activists that we can be rightly proud of and can take inspiration from, individuals who filled our history with ideas and ideals. There is a valiant history we can delve into and come up richer in ideas and stronger in our principles. Thanks to those tireless people who dedicated their lives trying to create that better world for all, we have a path, and are not walking blind.
We should always remember them and record their lives. The following is taken
from Libcom, one of the many individuals, from whom we should take inspiration, Ricardo Flores Magon.
A short biography of Ricardo Flores Magon, the Mexican anarchist who took part in the Mexican revolution and was imprisoned several times throughout his life.
Written by Alan MacSimóin
Edited by libcom
Ricardo Flores Magon
Born 1879 - Mexico, died November 22nd 1922 - Kansas, USA
Inside modern Mexico the name of Ricardo Flores Magon is well known.
But outside Mexico few have heard of him. Born to a poor family in 1873,
he became a journalist on the opposition paper 'El Demócrata' after
finishing school. In 1900, along with his brother Jesús, he founded
"Regeneración', a radical paper opposed to the dictatorship of Porfirio
Diaz.
After release from a second prison sentence arising from
his campaigning journalism, he moved across the border to the USA.
Despite continual persecution and imprisonment by the U.S. authorities,
at the instigation of the Mexican dictatorship - who had put a price of
$20,000 on his head after he wouldn't be bought off with the offer of a
place in the government. He would not be silenced.
In 1905,
Magon founded the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM), a reformist organisation
opposed to the excesses of the regime, which organised two unsuccessful
uprisings against Diaz in 1906 and 1908. During his early years of exile
he became acquainted with the legendary anarchist Emma Goldman, and it was partly through her that he moved from reformism to become an anarchist.
With the outbreak of the revolution of 1910, the revolution that he and
the PLM more than any other group or person, had paved the way for,
Magon devoted the rest of his life to the anarchist cause. Through the
influence of his ideas, large areas of land were expropriated by the
peasants and worked in common by them under the banner of 'Land and
Liberty', the motto of the PLM. This motto was later adopted by Emiliano Zapata, whose legacy inspires the EZLN rebels of the 1994 Southern Mexican uprising whose struggle continues today.
As the revolution began on November 20th 1910, Magon summed up the aims of PLM:
"The Liberal Party works for the welfare of the poor classes of the
Mexican people. It does not impose a candidate (in the presidential
election), because it will be up to the will of the people to settle the
question. Do the people want a master? Well let them elect one. All the
Liberal Party desires is to effect a change in the mind of the toiling
people so that every man and woman should know that no one has the right
to exploit anybody."
A fortnight later he explained the difference between the PLM and other opposition movements:
"Governments have to protect the right of property above all other
rights. Do not expect then, that Madero will attack the right of
property in favour of the working class. Open your eyes. Remember a
phrase, simple and true and as truth indestructible, the emancipation of
the workers must be the work of the workers themselves".
By January, PLM forces were fighting in six of Mexico's states. Major
towns, as well as rural areas, were liberated by anarchists. In March a
peasant army led by Zapata, and influenced by the Magonistas of the PLM,
rose up in Morelos. By now the nationalist opposition of Madero had
turned some of its guns away from the troops of Diaz and begun to attack
the anarchists of the PLM.
In April, the PLM issued a
manifesto to "the members of the party, to the anarchists of the world
and the workers in general". Vast quantities were produced in Spanish
and English to explain their attitude to the revolution:
"The Mexican Liberal Party is not fighting to destroy the dictator
Porfirio Diaz in order to put in his place a new tyrant. The PLM is
taking part in the actual insurrection with the deliberate and firm
purpose of expropriating the land and the means of production and
handing them over to the people, that is, each and every one of the
inhabitants of Mexico without distinction of sex. This act we consider
essential to open the gates for the effective emancipation of the
Mexican people."
In massively illiterate Mexico,
where many villages had only a handful of people able to read, the
circulation of "Regeneración" had reached 27,000 a week. When Tijuana
was liberated in May, most of Baja California came under PLM influence.
They issued a manifesto "Take possession of the land...make a free and
happy life without masters or tyrants".
That month saw Madero
sign a peace treaty with Diaz and take over as President of Mexico.
Military attacks on the PLM increased, and towns were retaken by
government troops. Prisoners were murdered by the new regime, sometimes
after being made to dig their own graves. At a meeting in Los Angeles,
Magon was asked to accept the treaty but replied "...until the land was
distributed to the peasants and the instruments of production were in
the hands of the workers, the liberals would never lay down their arms".
Along with many leading PLM organisers, Magon was arrested
(again) by the US authorities. The rebels were slandered as "bandits"
and repression in both Mexico and the US reached new heights. Despite
the setbacks caused by their relatively small size in a gigantic
country, the attacks they suffered from the armies of two countries, and
the terrible revenge exacted by the rich and their agents, new
uprisings broke out in Senora, Durango and Coahuila.
Such was
the support for their ideas, that even the conservative British TUC felt
obliged to invite Honore Jaxon, Treasurer and European representative
of the PLM, to address their 1911 conference. One solidarity action
especially worth mentioning was the 24-hour strike by two army units in
Portugal protesting against the arrest of PLM militants by the US
government.
A new manifesto, emphasising their anarchism, was issued in September:
"The same effort and the same sacrifices that are required to raise
to power a governor - that is to say a tyrant - will achieve the
expropriation of the fortunes the rich keep from you. It is for you,
then, to choose. Either a new governor - that is to say a new yoke - or
life redeeming expropriation and the abolition of all imposition,
religious, political or any other kind".
PLM and
Zapatista rebellions continued until 1919, but their numbers and
inadequate arms were not sufficient to defeat the state forces. However
all was not in vain. In 1922 the anarchist CGT trade union was founded
in Mexico city, and today the rebellion in the state of Chiapas can be
seen as, partly at least, a continuation of Magon's struggle.
During the years of struggle Magon opposed and fought successive
so-called "revolutionary regimes," resisting both the old and new
dictatorships with equal vigour. Imprisoned by the U.S. authorities in
1905, 1907, and 1912 he was finally sentenced to 20 years under the
espionage laws in 1918. He died, apparently after suffering beatings, in
Leavenworth Prison, Kansas, on November 22, 1922.
When his
body was brought back across the border, every town where the cortege
stopped was decked out in the red and black flags of anarchism. In
Mexico City, 10,000 working people escorted his body to Panteon Frances
where it is buried. A flame had been lit that will not burn out until
liberty becomes a living reality.
Visit ann arky's home at
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