Species-being, Communism, and the Origins of Neo-Zapatismo

• In Event: 075 - Section on Marxist Sociology Paper Session. Co-Revolution: Bringing Anti-Systemic Movements Together

Abstract

To what degree can we characterize the distinctive politics of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) as “communist” and what does this tell us about the place of “communism” as an analytical category within the study of contentious politics? This paper examines the influence of revolutionary socialist and communist currents on the political development of the indigenous Mayan communities of Chiapas, Mexico. The paper locates the development of the thinking of indigenous communities within that of globally circulating counter-systemic thought informed significantly by the Chinese, Cuban, and Nicaraguan Revolutions as well as by the experiences of socialists and communists in student, campesino and working class movements in Mexico. The paper begins with a discussion of the idea of communism and its place, or lack thereof, in social movement theory and research. It then traces the development of the political outlook(s) of the indigenous communities of Chiapas from the Spanish conquest in the 16th century to the eve of the 1994 Zapatista uprising, at each step considering it in relation to Marx and Engels’ notion of communism as “the real movement that abolishes the present state of things” (1998) and argues that by the time of the EZLN’s founding the idea of communism had already deeply informed the politics of the indigenous-campesino movement in Chiapas. It concludes by arguing that the idea of communism must be at the center of any critical or movement-relevant theory of social movements and related forms of contentious politics.

Author

• Christopher Gunderson, Howard University