Revolutionary movements cannot develop equal forms of development, distinct and equal to that countries” masses, without first destroying counterrevolutionary forces which follow their road for independence. It must continue to pursue the road to independence based on the complete victory of the revolution. The Mexican revolution is a case in point, it did not do that. The struggle was at first a struggle to solve the problems of agrarian reform, breaking-up the large estate latifundios, haciendas, encomiendas, and rancherias, run by Caciques, Criollos and Caudillos. Its original aim was also to stop the violent suppression of the campesino and the Indio and prevent further deterioration and appropriation of people”s lands. The revolution was a process to eliminate political and economic corruption which in many times went hand-in-hand ie. graft, election fraud, United States intervention, …. . But the revolution failed in achieving its full end, it did not go far enough, it left intact ultrareactionary conservative forces more interested in gain and themselves, than the pain and misery of its people. Did Artemio Cruz, or better yet, Cruz Artemio, betray the revolution? That is the subject and focus of this paper, it is based on History 557 lecture notes and books, an in-class debate held Nov. 19, 1991, my own personal experiences, knowledge and readings on the matter, and the ongoing saga of papers, news and periodicals that elucidate Mexico”s current condition further. My own feelings and emotions on the revolution have been shaped as a Chicano in America, raised on the tradition of Mexican Corridos and Rancheras, called by many, Musica Nortena, for it represents Mexico”s rich northern popular folk music that eulogize the heroic actions of that period. It is difficult, especially in a post-structural sense, to come 100 years later and say that, “The Revolution meant something,” but it did, most especially to the many who died in it. The social-political antecedents, factors that clearly point to social unrest and upheaval, demonstrate that on October 5th, 1910, with the Plan de San Luis, proclaimed by Francisco Madero in San Antonio, Texas, after having been released from jail in San Luis, Potosi, that the complete overthrow of Porfirio Diaz and his regime, was imminent. It is the middle-class entrepreneurial segment that took a risk and joined Anti-reelectionist Clubs. It is these same businesses in this period of industrialization and commerce that gives an important boost and augments revolutionary fervor. It is the Flores Magon radicalism that sets the stage for Madero Liberalism. It appealed to the people, and one thing was for sure, and that was the Porfiriato had became the object of Mexico”s woes at the time. The authoritarian regime with its Rurales and Federal Armies were no match for the inevitable, change. And in the middle of this debate starts the side that Artemio Cruz, a fictitious character in Carlos Fuentes” book The Death Of Artemio Cruz, “Did Betray The Revolution” because the soical foundations for a revolution were present and was usurped by men like Carranza, Obregon, and people like Artemio Cruz. That people rising through the ranks of “…armies like Carranza”s…” took control and eventually landed in power in the “… new constitutionalists revolutionary regime…”. They further state, that it was the sacrifices of people like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa that embodies the true revolutionary spirit, and that the era of reforms was for the redistribution of wealth equally along class lines and amongst the less fortunate. Debaters say that it was the obstruction of reforms put into effect during the 1915-1920, for redistribution, was altered by established members of the bourgeoisie, a social group opposed to the proletariat in the class struggle in a pre-capitalist mode of production, whatever that may mean. The problematic here is that nothing is properly being placed in historical perspective to the 1915-1918 revolutionary era. There is a decline in the popular revolution during this time. The Plan de Ayala was put forth in November of 1911. By the 1914 the popular armies and agendas had already played key roles in transforming the Mexican government to change its course. Madero had already been in power and there had been no change, his ideal was for slow gradual reforms, betraying the popular armies that put him there. When Huerta assasinates Madero it is again the popular armies that intervene and say no to Huerta, but this happened in the 1st half of the decade not the latter half that is never mentioned in debate. During the second half of the decade, 1916-20, the Constitutionlists Conventions of 1916-17 was a see-saw, a back and forth type of thing between Carranza an ardent anti-progressive element to the revolution, for he turned against social reforms and the will of the people which ultimately brings Obregon to power. Government agreements were forged by Obregon to get labor to help fight Villa. They created the red brigades which broke Villa in the end, but support for labor given the promises of Carranza and Obregon were later recanted by Carranza, Artemio Cruz’s boss. The association of Artemio Cruz to Carranza, a major counter-revolutionary, is never made by the “Did Betray the Revolutionary” side of this debate. It also never made the connection that the Queretaro Constitutionalist Convention of 1917, was a bourgeois intent, and only people who accepted the Plan de Guadalupe were allowed to participate. The reason for this is that Carranza does not want a repeat of the October, 1914, Aguascalientes convention, where Zapata and Villa solidified their objectives, one of which was making Carranza the new pariah of the revolution. It was never stressed that only people, like Artemio Cruz, young middle-class and politically ambitious, were allowed to be representatives, officers from the Constitutionalist Army. Over half delegates had university educations and professional titles, and 30 percent were military men like Artemio Cruz who supported Carranza or Obregon. This was the new era of social elitism evaded by the, “Did Betray The Revolution” side of the debate. Further arugument centered around how Artemio Cruz had a choice in betraying the goals of the revolution by not adhering to social issues like agrarian reform and education, and maintaining questionalble corrupt labor alliances like the “Fat Man” who headed CROM. By this, they stated, he had been responsible for all the choices he made, from using his name as a Prestanombre for United States mineral companies to excavate under his name, a violation of economic nationalism which is a general recognition of the nations right to all mineral deposits afforded in the Mexican ”Revolutionary” consitution. The idea presented by the “did betray the revolution” group is that Artemio Cruz betrayed the revolution by chosing personal gain over revolutionay ideals. When in the Teens and 20”s, radical legislation was put forward towards marital rights, local democracy, public universal and secular education, agrarian reform, expropriation of the large estate, suffrage, redistribution of lands, nationalization of mineral rights, and the rights guaranteed to workers, and Artemio Cruz, thoughout the book, shows that he does not support these efforts. I note, the 1910-20′s was the violent period of the Mexican Revolution, but it was not the end, it follows a period of socio-poitical and economic reconcilitation and reconstruction. Not pointed out also in this discusion is that the older and richer Artemio Cruz is used as a protege, a successful and ”heroic” example of the revoution. Something completely ironic. Artemio becomes the byproduct of the new success story in the revolution, and he builds his wealth on the hacienda itself (again!). It is important to stress here that if Artemio is going to play that, especially since we know his history, then he does become the new counter-revolutionary figure instead. Arguments put forth by the ”did betray” side did not substantiate their position fully, stressing things like the novel being a dual description in a process of decay, that is, that the man as a model to the revolution decays in bed, reminiscing his life, and as his life rots so does the revolution. Similarly, to the man who wrote the novel, who accepted a post as ambassador to London. Does Artemio Cruz know what he is doing, is their a degree of consciousness in choosing to be part of the process that reverses the goals of the revolution. A closer examination of the text reveals that Fuentes” current avant garde mentality, a view that the Malinche is a wound that welcomes the conquest and breeds the “hijo de la chingada” is a very ridiculour picture picture of the revolution by Fuentes. La madre Mexicana es el amor y esta lleno de respecto, I have yet to see otherwise. Artemio”s life with his uncle Lunero is a very beutiful lifestyle on the beach, interrupted only by the agents of a fixed past and vivid future that Fuentes presents.. This is the only part of the story that disagrees with my interpretation of it completely, that in being a green-eyed Cruz, a bastard son, he had a choice to uphold the revolution rather than selling-out. Artemio had no choice because he is at the whim of the writers imagination, Fuentes can take him anywhere, and he did. The book is full of choices that Artemio makes in his life. He chooses to deceive Don Gamaliel and his dauther about Gonzalo, he abandons the wounded soldier alone to die, he has his paper print lies about the Mexican revolution being “orderly” versus the Cuban revolution being violent and bloody (talk about revisionist history), he plays games with his last will and rights document by hiding it from his wife and daughter, he sells himself to his son as some great leader of the revolution, he violently steals from the Indian peasants. Did Artemio Cruz betray the revolution by choosing to represent himself as the embodiment of that revolution? The second team, the “Did not betray the revolution,” argues through a three point plan. One, that the revolution was not betrayed by Artemio Cruz for the fact that the revolution was split into factions. Second. the character of Artemio Cruz as a motivator. Third, the argument that Fuentes” novel is a fictional critique of Mexican revolution as a whole, and not an indictment of Artemio Cruz as a person. The first team argued that Artemio Cruz was not fighting for peasant causes but for a different set of ideologies, stressing that factionalism fractionalized the revolution and thus no betrayal of the revolution when you side unconsciously and inevitalbly. A person is responsible for their actions no matter what side you take, there is always a reason for a difference in argument or opinion, Villa and Zapata did not side with Obregon and Carranza for two major reasons. One, that agrarian reform shoul d be a priority in the list of objectives, two, political autonomy, so laws like Ley Lerdo and Terrenos Baldios would stop taking peoples lands away from them. The character of Artemio, as a concept of himself as an individual, his will to survive, and his ambition, supposedly points to some obvious conclusion that he did not betray the revolution because he did not believe in it, is a very valid and just argument, but these traits are inherent in everyone, Zapata, Villa, Obregon, Carranza, everyone with a desire to live and beleve in something. The revolution is a desire for change and everyone has their set agenda to either help it or abuse it, Artemio Cruz chose the latter. In Page 177-178 when he is arguing for Col. Zagal to shoot the man not the soldier, it is his will to survive, trying every method possible to live, including coercing with the enemy. Thinking of the person as an individual not as an actor in the revolution shows Artemio being scared of death and cheating it in every way possible. His love for Regina is part of that lofty and the beutiful desire and ideal to survive, yet she dies, and he survies, leaving a legacy of spite that incites him to the anger in shooting his through the enemy camp, he should have demonstrated this valiance before this fatalistic experience, maybe then, fictitiously, she might have lived. His rejection of death as an ideal for freedom, for me, is an expression in which he shares more the feeling of pain for the revoltion than its promise. Was Artemio Cruz guided by revolutionay ideals? Now we see the true issue of this debate arising. Artemio Cruz was guided by the spoils of change as many benfited from it, as Ramon Ruiz has stated. Artemio Cruz is only a particulate of the many who chose to diffuse the actual agenda of the peasant poor who joined ranks with Zapata and Villa. CONCLUSION: We see then, that the Artemio Cruz of this book, is one of many, that is, those who reversed the process of revolution for personal gain. By now, coming close to the end of the semester, I have come to realize that the status of Mexican Revolution was and is a truly dynamic one full of players. What Artemio Cruz represents to me is an imaginary counterrevolutionary player that may very well exist in the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (P.R.I.) in Mexico, today. It is thus my opinion and my conclusion; and I changed my mind after writing this paper; that Artemio Cruz DID betray the revolution, and the Did Not Betray side won (this decision remains the same as my vote). For how can you betray something that you do not beleve in, was the point that hit home, yet still be in it and sell yourself off as its supposed hero, that, to me, is a conscious betrayal.
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