EZLN, the favorite example of Anarchists and revisionists of an alternative to Marxism-Leninism, has now collapsed due to lack of solid theoretical fundamentals.
Marxism-Leninism is the consistent science of the liberation of the working masses, and no viable alternatives have been seen to date.
article in English https://apnews.com/article/mexico-indigenous-zapatista-rebels-violence-04006895dc4bd430b4b957d459551a12
Got in an argument with an anarchist who was pro-Zapatista and called me a redfash tankie. I doubt this will sway him in the slightest.
Not to gloat, but ML’s are right once again…
Although yeah, it always sucks to see any indigenous project crumble, anarcho-communist or no.
You’re jumping the gun and honestly being a bit smug about it. It says in the article “new structure of Zapatista autonomy”, which makes this sound less like a collapse and more like a cryptic announcement that they’re just restructuring…
…Noooow it could well be that the restructuring ends up bringing the movement closer to Marxism-Leninism, but y’know we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. For now it’s like, don’t diss them, OK? The Zapatistas are our friends.
It sounds a bit more than just restructuring though, these bits in particular talk about dissolution
it was decided to dissolve the Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Municipalities (MAREZ) and the Good Government Boards. The Caracoles remain, but they will remain closed to the outside
after a long and profound critical and self-critical analysis,… it was decided to dissolve the … Autonomous Municipalities and the Good Government Boards. We will discuss the reasons and process by which this decision was made little by little
I’m not trying to be glib about this, and obviously it would be a net positive if Zapatistas managed to succeed. However, what happened highlights the problem with the approach of building autonomous communities with the larger context of a capitalist state. And this is precisely the approach I see Anarchists advocate for.
Long term success is only possible when the end goal is for the workers to build their own state and to be able to defend it from both internal and external threats. The same problems that Zapatistas encountered will also be encountered by other movements based on similar principles.
If im reading the context as to why they have disvolved as well it seems like they are worried about the cartel mostly; it must be hard having an autonomous zone when you have state sanctioned death cults armed with the latest in american military equipment riding around doing what they want; they specifically said that they advise people not travel to attend there latest conference as the territory is too destabilized, but they havent actually said what the next form of organizing will look like.
Its likely best to wait till post-meeting when they have laid out what the future looks like for them before making any definitive statements on there collapse.
Yeah. Considering how many Marxist parties have failed to even get off the ground, there’s no high horse to even sit on here.
we aren’t on a high horse about this, I don’t think any marxist here is happy about the Zapatistas being gone
They aren’t gone, they’re reorganizing in a more centralized way fit to fight the cartels, as far as I can tell.
Terminally online dipshits actually read the Article challenge, status: impossible
Their official statement:
it was decided to dissolve the Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Municipalities (MAREZ) and the Good Government Boards. The Caracoles remain, but they will remain closed to the outside
after a long and profound critical and self-critical analysis,… it was decided to dissolve the … Autonomous Municipalities and the Good Government Boards. We will discuss the reasons and process by which this decision was made little by little
The region will remain in the hands of the Mexican state. Dissolution of the structures must be interrogated for conceding to the current conditions of power in Chiapas. Increases in federal troops and deepening of the existing capitalist economic dependency.
You’ve hacked up the quote to show only the parts you want to show. The rest of the paragraph you quoted reads as follows:
We will tell you the reasons and process by which this decision was made little by little in the following texts. I can only tell you that this evaluation, in its final phase, began about 3 years ago. We will also explain to you what the new structure of Zapatista autonomy is like and how it has been developing.
As others in this thread have been saying… They’re restructuring to address the situation with the cartels. We’ll have to see what that looks like, and if it will work. But it’s dishonest to characterize this as a collapse, as though they’re dissolving these political organs, and nothing else. Which they’re clearly saying isn’t the case.
Seems they do complain about increased pressure from the government and cartels on them, accuse USA of being the cause of that, and the need to reorganise themselves to resist it.
So, even at the best possible interpretation it still means they are going in the opposite direction to anarchism, so the comment is correct. And they ARE dissolving their current organs so the headline is not incorrect too.
That’s sad to hear. I hope they can restructure themselves to keep their state going without falling back to the capitalist regime.
