At
first glance, the
PDPR-EPR are very much your average guerrilla
outfit: the store brand version of the ‘alphabet soup’ of obscure
guerrilla movements in
the forests of
Latin
America.
In the academic and political literature they are consigned to a
secondary role
besides the EZLN to the point that even scholarship focusing on the
group calls them “the other guerrillas”12.
Indeed, both
groups
emerged together
in
the crucible of
Mexico’s explosive mid-90s out of
the reconfiguration of numerous guerrilla
groups3.
While they have pursued decisively different courses both remain a
counterpoint to the assertion that history has no more need for the
guerrillas
or
their
cause. As such, US-aligned state sources conclude the PDPR-EPR is a
mere nuisance4.
With EZLN capturing public attention, the indifference
of mainstream
as well as dissident
society with the group is illustrated by an anecdote an
alleged
guerrillero
had
of Amnesty International visiting him in prison (only to never
return): “They told us they were going to support us but they
lied”5.
All
this considered, why should one study the PDPR-EPR? Their
organization durability, for one this, is exceptional, and the
history of the Mexican guerrilla
during the Dirty War show organizations of this type with the
capacity to survive likewise possess the capacity to take on new
forms67.
More importantly, it could serve to
upset
conventional
narratives around the concepts of “neoliberalism” and
“transitions to democracy”. The group is especially fascinating
because it provides
an
analysis of its own which
both compliments and contradicts these. In some ways these
idiosyncratic positions can serve as a mirror by which theorists can
see the reception of the conceptual vocabulary in the minds of those
who might be considered most affected. Shifting the focus away from
Latin America’s more exceptional case studies such as the EZLN (or
PCP-SL) towards more broadly
representative
ones opens up the potential for a study of the guerrilla
subculture as a whole, one which is grounded in its social context
instead of highly speculative projects of ‘political imagination’
which are prone to exaggerate and idealize. We can see this in the case of the
EZLN, who have been greatly mythologized. It must be remembered that
the EZLN, for almost every reason imaginable, are the exception to
the guerrilla experience. What the PDPR-EPR can offer is, perhaps
a view of the standard guerilla group, one which reaches deeper into the
history of the Mexican Marxist guerilla organizations which the EZLN
has veered
away from. More intriguingly, its obscurity is the result of an
isolation on the international level. While guerrilla groups
typically have relations with others, usually on shared ideological
lines, it seems that the PDPR-EPR can boast of no such ties. Its
durability in the face of this points towards some combination of
public support and organizational ability. For this, if nothing else,
the PDPR-EPR deserve an introduction in English better than a
barebones wiki page. This effort would attempt to compile all
the available information about the group as well as situate it
within the wider historical context.
The
basis for this research originated out of the work carried out on the
PDPR-EPR from both mexico scholars of guerrilla
movements and American intelligence following their main period of
activity. Early
studies on the group was content to categorize the group as Maoist8
and predicted that it would be short-lived9.
A cursory review of the group’s ideological and polemical output,
along with their remarkable longevity calls
into question
these initial assumptions and demands
a serious reconsideration for
the group. The primary line of inquiry is therefore what factors
serve to explain the group’s uncharacteristic
duration despite
its long periods of military inactivity with secondary considerations
being the finer points of its ideological development over the same
time-frame. In other words, why has the PDPR-EPR eludes predictions
of its demise? Should it be understood as a conventional Maoist
group? The research points towards a compelling interrelation of the
two which could be summarized in an
even more succinct
form: How has the PDPR-EPR evolved ideologically?
The
internet has in some measures made the group clearer and in others
complicated it. What it does is present a stark contrast between the
group’s military hibernation and its unflagging self-image
as a potent guerrilla
army and revolutionary vanguard10.
Its activity corresponds to periods of state-involved outrages, such
as the Aguas Blancas Massacre, the repression of the Oaxaca commune,
and the Ayotzinapa killings and disappearances, a pattern of
guerrilla
mobilization predating the group back to the Tlatelolco and Corpus
Christi massacres. Consequential guerrilla
groups in Mexico such as the FLN are noted for the few known armed
actions which they carried out and their long periods of military
dormancy or ‘accumulation of forces’ during which they continued
to publish polemics11.
The
research is carried out on the basis of the group’s own
publications as a thematic discourse analysis through literary review
which is contextualized
within a wider examination of the historical and social background of
the organization. The group publishes the periodical
El Insurgente
as well as several book length efforts which concern its own history
as well as that of the Mexican state it opposes. These are the main
primary sources, which are readily available from the website
cedema.org.
The others include scholarly research on the group itself, which is
largely restricted to the early 00s, as well as research into other
international guerrilla
organizations.
El
Insurgente
is a mix of the
agitational and theoretical with the latter gaining increasing
prominence over the years. Besides this, there is the noteworthy
cultural section, which includes fairly standard poetry and
photography, digital collage, and drawings. The images are worthy of
mention because they may serve to confirm some limited capacity on
the group’s party in that they show uniformed members of the group
drilling and bearing arms as a show of force. The drawings are of
amateur quality and in recent issues might seem to stand in for
photos of the group, pointing towards difficulties. The production
values seem almost identical to the Communist Party of
India(Maoist)'s People’s
March and Columbian groups. It is the only known periodical produced by the
group or its numerous splinter organizations.
In
broaching this topic, some editorial and ideological slant is
inevitable as there is no neutral information available.
The point, however, is to ascertain the group’s own account of
itself as
a detailed case study in ethnography, which typically focuses on
individuals. Indeed, as far as texts by individual members of the
organization are available in the group’s publication, more often
than not they deal with the transformation of the individual into
part of the collective and ideological remoulding along these lines.
Analysis of these theme is crucial to understanding the development
of the group’s ideology and history, which is the topic at hand.
In
early modernity, the
pre-political ancestor of the guerrilla
was the bandit, highwayman, or pirate most evocatively illustrated by Eric Hobsbawm or Eugen Weber. The enduring image of these
figures in the popular imagination has been of a righteous criminal
who enforces their own moral economy and vigilante justice upon an
unjust, exploitative social order12.
While this figure was not initially concern with advancing any social
program, this would change following the French revolution13.18th
century Ireland was particularly emblematic of this phenomenon marked
by a preponderance of such agrarian societies among the peasantry,
who fought back against abusive landlords and would later go on to
play an important role in the Rising of 179814.
The tradition of secret societies as wedded to revolutionary
socialism was an innovation of August Blanqui, a central figure in
the Paris Commune of 187115.
Lenin was accused of Blanquism by German Social Democrats
for promoting the role of a clandestine party as a vehicle for
revolution, but the victory of the Bolsheviks and their followers
across the world resulted in the widespread adoption of
Marxism-Leninism in the socialist movement. The
end of Comintern (and the Popular Front era) along with the beginning
of the Cold War gave birth to the guerrilla
as a thorn in the side of the imperialists - grafting a venerable tradition of agrarian resistance to an organized, forward-looking vanguard.
In the same year as the October Revolution, 1917, Mexico introduced
its current constitution. The promise of the Mexican constitution
would be in stark contrast the reality of the proceeding century. In
spite of Mexican’s constitutional right to change their government,
the proceeding decades were marked by political stagnation and
repression punctuated by significant state led massacres16.
This prompted the creation of guerrilla
groups which invoked the spirit of both Mexican revolutionary era
heros such as Zapata and Villa as well as international communist
legends such as Che and others. As this familiar pattern has not
stopped following the end of the Cold War and ‘transition to
democracy’, the has process created a new generation of martyrs and
myths wherein the PDPR-EPR locates its origins.
It
would be impossible to do justice to the
tragic at times quixotic history of Communist guerrilla
movements in Mexico from the 1960s to the 1990s in
so short a space, there are several important considerations from the
period which are significant to the subject of this text. During the
period, it was not unusual for groups to be militarily dormant for
long periods of time while continuing to issue declarations and
‘accumulate forces’, a condition which describes the PDPR-EPR
today. Contrary to some allegations that the group attempted to
conceal their origins with the PROCUP and PDLP organization17,
the group has claimed their origins within them throughout their
existence18.
The PDLP’s figure of Lucio Cabanas perhaps exemplifies the romantic
figure of the guerrilla
as an emblem of the schism between Mexico’s domestic guerrilla
tradition and the international revolutionary movement, which has
played a noted role in the support and development of guerrilla
formations in Mexico19.
During the 70s and 80s, the guerrilla
movements had been silently gathering strength in the counryside,
carrying out a struggle against local caciques
with alleged aide from foreigners20.
The
EPR was formed in May of 1994 out of no less than 14 minor groups,
heir of the history of earlier PROCUP, the largest of these, replete
with splits and regroupments and a cthonic history of underground
maneuvers during the 80s similar to the EZLN’s precursor the FLN21.
Following the EZLN uprising, the PROCUP carried out its final
bombing campaign in solidarity before dissolving itself into the
EPR22.
In spite of this origin from the same context, the EPR and the EZLN
have no relations beyond recognition of one another. One of PROCUP’s
suspected final acts was the kidnapping and ransom of banker Alfredo
Harp Helú for 30 million dollars23.
This kingly sum may do much to explain the new group’s initial
military capacity.
The
Aguas Blancas massacre on June 1995, in which 17 members of a peasant
organization were shot dead en route to a protest spurred the newly
formed group into action, perhaps prematurely24.
On the anniversary of the killings a year later, the group entered
the town of Aguas Blancas in Guerrero where they had taken place,
read a manifesto and fired 17 shots into the air25.
This began an ongoing armed campaign which quickly reached its bloody
peak a mere two months later with the launch of several simultaneous
armed actions against the state26
which were met with brutal and indiscriminate reprisals against the
indigenous populations from which the fighters were allegedly drawn
centering around the village of San Augustin Loxica27.
The state’s counterinsurgency measures managed to suppress the
group’s armed campaign but could not destroy it and in 2000, the
group reorganized itself into its current form, the PDPR-EPR, which
merged the remaining guerrilla
army and an underground party structure into one organization28.
While
the topic at hand is the PDPR-EPR it would certainly be amiss not to
briefly the address the EPRI and other offshoots on account of their
crucial role of the parent organization’s ideological and strategic
development during this time. The PDPR-EPR’s sustained presence in
this regard has effectively marginalized the efforts of those who
were in many cases their former comrades. What is left unsaid,
however, often has much bearing on what is said: In their brief blaze
of glory it is estimated that the ERPI made off with over half of the
PDPR-EPR’s personnel and materiel29.
While this may have figured heavily in the PDPR-EPR’s palpably
reduced operational capacity in the 21st century, there is a case to
be made that it contributed to the group’s ideological development.
Evidently, for all that they took from the ERPI, they could not
capture the group’s central organ. Following this and other splits,
the group fell into a prolonged period of organizational decline as
its military activity swiftly tapered off very early in the 20th
century30.
Mexican authorities succeeded in ‘decapitating’ the ERPI in
October 2006, kidnapping their two main leaders31
at the same time they were also cracking down on the Oaxaca commune
with lethal force. This bloody state repression would reliably goad
the vigilantes
to act.
Less
than a year later, the state attempted a similar maneuver
against the ERPI’s parent organization, but this had the opposite
effect. Following the ‘disappearance’ (extrajudicial kidnapping)
of militants Edmundo Reyes and Gabriel Cruz in 2007 the PDPR-EPR soon
became active again, changing their tactics and bombing Pemex
pipelines, Sears stores and banks32.
This choice of targets corresponded to the group’s contempt for
both foreign and domestic capital. After this the group went into
another extended period of demobilization that ended with the 2014
abduction of 43 students from Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College
(alma
mater
of Lucio
Cabañas),
some of whom were later found dead. As a reprisal, the PDPR-EPR
claimed responsibility for an explosion of a gas station in Ecatepec
less than 2 months later, though authorities alleged the explosion
was simply the result of poor maintenance33.
Since then, the group’s activity has been restricted to the realm
of words and during all the reversals of the armed campaign, they
have been consistently publishing their journal El
Insurgente,
since 1996 in which dormancy has translated into ideological ferment
which some have attempted to characterize as Maoist.
Maoism as a tendancy within the Communist movement has attracted attention
from both admirers and detractors alike (and seemingly exclusively)
with the former chiefly advocating for a narrow definition and the
former for a broad definition. As such it represents both an
indiscriminate
pejorative
and sought after affiliation. In relation
to Mexico, scholar
of guerrilla
movements (one solidly within the first camp) Joshua
Moufawad-Paul
writes thus:
“The
lingering fascination with EZLN is telling: there is a reason that
the Zapatistas have received sainthood while the Sendero Luminoso has
not. The latter’s aborted people’s war placed it firmly in the
realm of failure; the former in refusing to attempt a seizure of
state power, were to escape any resemblance of a catastrophic
communism. But when a movement actually tries to take power, and goes
so far as to almost succeed, in its collapse the meaning of its
actions will be written by the ruling class intelligensia and
everyone beholden to the common sense of this class. Organizations
such as the EZLN have avoided the fate of the PCP because they did
not walk the same path of revolutionary necessity that is often
tragic and brutal – where there will always be mistakes, where the
problem of differing class morality produces ethical confusion, where
the failure is more spectacular with each heightened level of
struggle.”34
Conversely
the status of the PDPR-EPR within the wider guerrilla
movement looks a lot like JMP’s story of PCP-SL
within the left subculture writ small. On closer examination, it is
not so simple. The PCP-SL is associated
with violence
and ideological rigidity, and the EZLN, with reformist restraint and
eclecticism. The PDPR-EPR occupies a very awkward position between
Moufawad-Paul’s two poles of the
guerrilla
experience. On one hand they come from the same time and place as the
ELZN and on the other they share almost none of its eclectic,
postmodern politics, with a more conventional Marxist orientation
closer to PCP-SL, but by comparison, still startlingly eclectic
within the perimeters of Marxism itself. While the EZLN has its
origins within the early Mexican Maoist movement, following the
uprising, it subsequently distanced itself from Marxism (along with
all other qualifications)35,
oftentimes quite forcefully36.
While Marcos and the EZLN masterfully courted the attention of the
world, the PDPR-EPR on the other hand, have taken a
vastly different
approach and largely restricted their audience to Mexico. Since their
inception, the organization has grown increasingly and ever more
explicitly Marxist, devoting increasing space in their publications
to the discussion of the ideology. Taken at its own word, the group
at some times offers a challenge to the official narratives of
comparative politics and at others meshes with it.
In
listing the Maoist People’s Wars which are either being prepared
for or taking place within the world, led by various parties,
Moufawad-Paul does not include
the PDPR-EPR37.
While
seemingly odd
for a document which is intended to highlight
the signifigance
of the Maoist movement it makes more sense when one considers the
high demand for ideological rigour within the movement itself. It is
nonetheless bold to pass over Mexico’s history of guerrilla
movements in complete silence. As stated above, Washington affiliated
intelligence and security analysts are quick to file them as such and
be done with it. It
would stand to reason that the Maoist categorization is built up
entirely from the group’s advocacy of Protracted People’s War, a
term all but synonymous
with Mao Tse Tung, because bizarrely enough, there
is very little else to suggest this in the group’s publications. Mao,
and all forms of Maoism are conspicuously absent from the groups
discourse. Indeed, there is more mention of Che and guerrilla
movements in Latin America (with the baffling exception of Peru’s
PCP-SL). References to domestic and international Maoist groupings
such CPI(Maoist), Communist Party of the Philippines, and Communist
Party of Peru, the RIM, etc are nowhere to be found. The internecine
polemics and international solidarity declarations characteristic of
Maoist guerrilla
movements are conspicuously absent. Ironically, the group’s polemics are veiled
in a manner which bear a passing resemblance to the period of high
Maoism during the early Cultural Revolution, in which political
struggle was carried out indirectly through a literary and artistic
allusions. All this suggests that in spite of its marginalization,
the group does have allies or sympathizers within the wider Mexican
left which it intends to correct, but not confront while having few
if any international links to Maoism. While the group may incorporate
Maoist elements into its ideology, calling it Maoist would require
broadening the definition to apply to include almost any guerrilla
group.
The
group’s commissions are more startling than their omissions The
rare international outlook the group does give do more to dispel the
Maoist characterization than anything. A recent issue of El
Insurgente went so far as to congratulate the Communist Party of
China on its 100th anniversary38
at a time when Maoist movements were contemporaneously and
unanimously issuing spirited denunciations of them as traitors to the
revolutionary struggle39.
Counter to the assertion that the group went to great lengths to hide
its origins in PROCUP and the PDLP. the group actually proudly
mentions PROCUP in numerous publications throughout its existence40
as part of its own attempt to synthesize their own half century
historiography of the guerrilla
movement in Mexico. This a document which, while no doubt not
altogether impartial, merits serious consideration alongside academic
studies of the period as a key primary source document. It places
their origins within a very obscure groupuscle known as the UP which
later joined up with PROCUP and PDLP41.
While the story of the group represent a temporary convergence of
20th
century guerrilla
groups, it is significant that during the group’s disintegration,
none of these left to resume their activities under the old name. The
group’s longevity and ideological uniformity may be the result of
the organizational experience of its members.
Whether
or not that is a result of the ERPI’s departure, It may be said
with some certainty that the ERP only truly became identifiably
Marxist soon after the departure of ERPI42.
With ERPI gone, so
too was a need
to maintain unity through imprecise ideological affiliation. It seems
likely that the splinter groups hamstrung the original outfit’s
ability to wage armed conflict without affecting the core nucleus of
the group’s political leadership. Writing in 2006, Jorge Lofredo
characterized the PDPR-EPR as falling into the traditional pattern of
Mexican guerrilla
groups toward dissolution43.
This has, not, however, did not prove to be true, as the group exists
in some form to this day whereas its offshoots have overwhelmingly
vanished into complete obscurity.
The
group, notably, lacks a prominent leading figure (“cult of
personality” or jefatura).
Even though the EZLN could be considered to have this to some degree
around Subcommandante Marcos, this is nowhere to be found in the
PDPR-EPR. Their campaign for the freedom of alleged leaders does not
speak of them in terms of their great leadership or theoretical
contributions but simply in terms of their rights being violated44.
Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Che all figure quite prominently as
figures of admiration and emulation, but the group itself has not
made any apparent sustained effort to elevate one of their own to
this level as is the case with certain guerrilla
groups: most notably the Communist Party of Peru. The brief
identification of the group’s mysterious leader and foil to the
flamboyant Marcos: Commandante Jose Arturo45,
as conspicuously Marxist in outlook make for intriguing speculation
about the internal dynamics of the group, intimating that in spite of
turmoil, the core leadership has remained stable. While the EZLN has
explicitly disavowed not only vanguardism but seemingly all outside
attempts at ideological classification, the PDPR-EPR’s output is
peppered with references to Marx, Lenin, and even Stalin46.
Though ostensibly doctrinaire, the PDPR-EPR possess a striking
eclecticism of its own which colours the group’s analysis and
inhibits its inclusion within any broader international movement. The
idiosyncrasies of the group’s political line show that they are not
tethered to any
global
affiliation.
Interestingly,
the discourse of “neoliberalism” figures very heavily in the
discourse of PDPR-EPR from the very beginning47.
It is not a typically hardline Marxist-Leninist concept, but more
typical of the liberal progressive left who would seek to establish a
break between themselves and postwar liberalism and represent
mid-century capitalism as a short-lived postwar consensus in the
imperial world, such as David Harvey48.
No doubt this is not specific to the PDPR-EPR, as this figures very
heavily in the EZLN communiques as well49.
On a broader scale, this underscores a certain saturation point of
the ideas of the Western academic left as it filters down to even
rural guerrilla
movements in Southern Mexico that troubles conventional
understandings of the respective role of the political left in both
the imperialist world and the periphery as how their discourse are
adapted for agitation.
Economic outlook aside, politically the group, though not initially
anti-electoral, presents an overarching narrative of unending
repression
diametrically opposed to the “transition to democracy”
interpretation found within conventional comparative politics. For
the PDPR-EPR, the withdrawal of the PRI has failed to significantly
change the character of the Mexican state.
While
there is no semblance of a consensus towards elections within the
Maoist movement,
the group displays a hardening anti-electoral stance which was not
initially apparent50.
Current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who was once within
the ambit of the wing of PRD, and to some extend sympathetic to the
guerrilla
cause (if not their means)51,
is the recipient of as much scorn as the PAN and PRI presidents
before him, with
his “Fourth Transformation” program being characterized
as a reaffirmation of the country’s age old status quo52.
These are is not the only political development of the Mexican state
which the group opposes. In the region where the group operates,
state-led
decolonization measures such as the usos
have
been lauded53.
While
there is considerable evidence to suggest their guerrilla
activity expedited the introduction of these, these are viewed
with suspicion as counterinsurgency measures54.
The groups’ own conception of “indigenismo” in their polemic
considers the indigenous people as peasants and affirms that
capitalism does not distinguish between races and peoples55.
While the indigenous dimension is central to the EZLN’s
resistance56,
the relationship between the EPR and indigeniety is less clear. In
the context of the state repression of the organization, it is
important to note that the indigenous community was subject to heavy
and violent state repression immediately following the group’s
initial period of activity. This gestures towards a multifaceted
relationship with indigenous identity within wider Mexican society
and a lack of consensus within this sector of the population. The
shift in identification from peasant to indigenous might not be as
unanimous as scholarship would suggest57.
The
group’s line on indigeneity shows that within
the indigenous population itself there is a lingering identification
with peasantry as a class category instead of an ethnic one. This
serves as another line of demarcation with the EZLN. To further
illustrates the marginality
of the group’s stance, breaking with narratives of the COVID-19
pandemic as a singular catastrophe to which authorities have not
responded adequately or form of class warfare, the group alleged
that the danger of the virus itself is exaggerated ‘to cause
panic’58,
as they had done over a decade before during the H1N1 pandemic59.
Within the left, a
sustained skeptic
position
of this sort is almost unheard of outside of fringe circles, particularly anarchist ones.
The
exceptional conflagration during the 1990s appears to have breathed
new life into the movement when the EZLN, PDPR-EPR, and the latter’s
offshoots entered the scene. This momentum has clearly not entirely
run out, but how long it can last is another matter entirely.
Understanding the proliferation and decline of guerrilla
movements in Mexico, eperrista
and otherwise, requires an understanding of the presence of the
military and militarization within Mexican society, a phenomenon
which has continued through the period of the PRI’s political
dominance and one which cartel groups have been able to capitalize on
by positing themselves as an alternative, with even army leaders
themselves breaking ranks with the state’s military to join the
cartels60.
Where the military has long been conceived of as a vector of
violence, indiscipline, and disorder within Mexico61,
the cartels themselves have begun extending a demand of
demilitarization of Mexican society, and in spite of their publicized
deeds, might even present a plausible social alternative62.
As
is seen most evocatively with the Corrido Vermelha in Brazil, much of
the activity former carried out by guerrilla
armies is carried out by cartels and criminal organizations who
appear to have their own code and restrictions which can be
inscrutable to outsiders63.
The development of police technology, clearly unhindered by any
concern for human rights, has effectively made it impossible for any
organization to carry out struggle against the state without a means
of supporting themselves. It is within the scope of possibility that
the guerrilla
may present an escape from the life of drugs and violence presented
by the cartels and perhaps even defend the people from them in some
limited capacity in the vacuum left by the state, as the groups
claim. The role of freemasonry within Mexican politics and its
alleged relation to socialism and agrarianism might also serve to
articulate the role of clandestine structures in the country’s
political development64.
Various traditions of clandestine organizations are interwoven
through the country’s history. Secret societies, historically, have
served as both their own demimonde
as well as a vehicle with which to transform the world as they find
it.
The
guerrilla
organization,
absent the ability to carry out a sustained armed campaign, has begun
a process of introspection, ideologically remoulding themselves in
the image of Communist ideology as part of the process of preparation
for ‘protracted people’s war’ or at least armed ‘self-defence’
or revindication. This turn towards ideology can be properly
contextualized as the result of the creation of the ERPI, which
absconded with their arms and membership while leaving the ideology.
Despite taking the lion’s share of the capacity to wage war, their
elimination served as a dire warning of the consequence of rashness
and ideological inconsistency. In their
process of ideological development,
the PDPR-EPR has made it abundantly clear that they have absolutely
no need for outside approval, viewing their (in)activity as “57
years of intense revolutionary combat”65.
As such, it would be tenuous to characterize them as Maoist, which as
an international movement jealously guards the name. Even from
military terms, in spite of what it says, the group’s military
efforts have more in common with armed propaganda or ‘propaganda of
the deed’ in spite of a
declared commitment to ‘protracted people’s war’. Rather than
serving to be dismissive of the organization, this instead merits
further study as a highly unique isolated development worthy of
further study as the persistent of a historically specific type of
group. As the EZLN departs significantly from what is expected from
the traditional guerrilla
organization practically and ideologically, the PDPR-EPR represents
the ultimate
trajectory of
all 20th
century guerrilla
groups with its longevity being the result of adherents of the cause
having simply nowhere else to go. It could similarly be conceived of
as the post-Cold War afterlife of the movement, simply going through
the motions and taking very sporadic symbolic actions. While the
short lived offshoots of the group have attempted to situate
themselves within Mexico’s own revolutionary tradition, they have
left the PDPR-EPR occupying the place of Marxist convention as a
small party which makes much of its history as an armed movement.
Study of the group’s publications, however, reveals that this has
not always been the case. Rather than beginning as an explicitly
Marxist movement, the group initially grounded itself in a fairly
general opposition towards 'neoliberal' policies not altogether unlike
the EZLN. The flight of splinter groups from the organization shows
that this outward political line is the development of internal
processes which were in motion since the beginning. The departure of
these has also solidified the grasp of Marxist ideology on the group which the group does not receive as part
of any international tendency - allowing them to give it their own
idiosyncratic interpretation.
Footnotes
1. Jorge
Lofredo, “La otra guerrilla mexicana: Aproximaciones al estudio
del Ejército Popular Revolucionario.” Desacatos 24 (2007)
Retrieved November
15, 2021, from
http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1607-050X2007000200012.
2. Graham
Hall Turbiville, “Mexico's Other Insurgents.” Military Review
77 (1997): 81.
3. Lofredo,
“La otra guerrilla mexicana”
4. Mark
R Wrighte, “The Real Mexican Terrorists: A Group Profile of the
Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR)” Studies in Conflict &
Terrorism, 25:4,(2002): 216.
5. Antonio
Mundaca, “Los Guerrilleros de Loxicha, la permanente sombra del
destierro.” Pie de Página (2020)
Retrieved November
15, 2021, from
https://piedepagina.mx/los-guerrilleros-de-loxicha-la-permanente-sombra-del-destierro/.
6. Adele
Cedillo,“Armed Struggle without Revolution: The Organizing Process
of the National Liberation Forces(FLN) and the Genesis of
Neo-Zapatism (1969-1983)” in Challenging Authoritarianism in
Mexico: Revolutionary Struggles and the Dirty War, 1964-1982 edited
by Adela Cedillo and Fernando Calderón (New York:
Routledge. 2012) 148-160.
7. Donald
C. Hedges and Ross Gandy, Mexico Under Siege: Popular Resistance
to Presidential Despotism. (London: Zed Books. 2002) 107-155.
8. Wrighte,“The
Real Mexican Terrorists”, 207-225.
9. Lofredo,
“La otra guerrilla mexicana”
10. Comité
de Prensa y Propaganda del PDPR-EPR, 50 Años de Lucha Armada
Revolucionaria: Breve historia del PDPR-EPR. (Editorial Del
Pueblo, 2016) 141.
11. Adele
Cedillo, “Armed Struggle without Revolution”, 148-160.
12.John
P. Sullivan and Nathan P. Jones, “Bandits, Urban Guerrillas, and
Criminal Insurgents Crime and Resistance in Latin America” in
Problems and Alternatives in the Modern Americas (1st ed.)
edited by Pablo A. Baisotti (New York: Routledge. 2021). 169.
13. ibid.
168.
14. Gale
E. Christianson, “Secret Societies and Agrarian Violence in
Ireland, 1790-1840.” Agricultural History 46, no. 3 (1972):
369–84.
15. Edward
S. Mason,“Blanqui and Communism.” Political Science Quarterly
44, no. 4 (1929): 515–523.
16. Romain
Robinet, “A
Revolutionary Group Fighting Against a Revolutionary State: The
September 23rd
Communist League Against the PRI-State (1973-1975)”
in Challenging Authoritarianism in Mexico: Revolutionary
Struggles and the Dirty War, 1964-1982 edited by Adela Cedillo
and Fernando Calderón (New York: Routledge. 2012) 144.
17. Gustavo
Hirales Morán, “Radical Groups in Mexico Today” Policy
Papers on the Americas Volume XIV, Study 9 (2003): 11.
18. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular
Revolutionario,“RESPUESTA A LA CARTA DE RODOLFO ECHEVERRIA
PUBLICADA EN EL DIARIO "LA JORNADA" EL DIA 9 DE SEPTIEMBRE
DE 1997.” El Insurgente 13 (1997): 29.
19. Hodges
and Gandy,“Mexico Under Siege”, 116-118.
20. Miguel
Ángel Maya, “Loxicha, la historia no contada de la guerrilla.”
Pie de Página (2020)
Retrieved November
15, 2021, from
https://piedepagina.mx/loxicha-la-historia-no-contada-de-la-guerrilla/.
21. Bill
Weinberg, Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in
Mexico. (United Kingdom: Verso Books, 2002) 261.
22. John
Ross, "Strong Contrasts Between Zapatistas, New Guerrilla
Movement in Guerrero." (1996) 3. Retrieved November
15, 2021, from https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/sourcemex/3633
23. Sam
Dillon “Mexico Builds a Picture of Fanatic Rebel Group” The
New York Times September 5th
1996
24. Lofredo,
“La otra guerrilla mexicana”
25. David
Lipshultz, “Mexican Town Skeptical About New Rebels” United
Press International July
3rd, 1996
26. Wrighte.
“Real Mexican Terrorists”, 222.
27. Maya.
“Loxicha”
28. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario
“COMUNICADOS DEL PDPR-EPR” El Insurgente 176 (2017) 56-59
29. Morán,
“Radical Groups”, 12.
30.Wrighte,
“Real Mexican Terrorists”, 223.
31. Joshua
Paulson, “Rural Rebellion in Southern Mexico: The Guerrillas of
Guerrero” North American Congress on Latin America September
25, 2007 Retrieved November 15, 2021 from
https://nacla.org/article/rural-rebellion-southern-mexico-guerrillas-guerrero
32. “Leftist
rebels say they bombed Mexico pipelines” Reuters
September
11, 2007 Retrieved November 15, 2021 from
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-pipelines/leftist-rebels-say-they-bombed-mexico-pipelines-idUSN1139242220070911
33. “Edomex
desmiente al EPR sobre explosión en Ecatepec” El Universal
November 14, 2014 Retrieved November 15, 2021 from
https://archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion-mexico/2014/soriana-ecatepec-1054244.html
34. Joshua
Moufawad-Paul, The Communist Necessity: Prolegomena to Any Future
Radical Theory. (Montreal, Quebec: Kersplebedeb Publishing,
2014.) 46-47.
35. Subcommandante
Marcos, Our Word Is Our Weapon: Selected Writings. (New York:
Seven Stories, 2000) Print. 41.
36. Subcommandante
Marcos,
“‘I
Shit On All the Revolutionary Vanguards of this Planet’ A Letter
to the Basque Liberation Movement ETA”
The
Anarchist Library Retrieved
November
15, 2021 from
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/subcomandante-marcos-i-shit-on-all-the-revolutionary-vanguards-of-this-planet
37. Moufawad
Communist Necessity, 21-21.
38. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario
“A CIEN AÑOS DE LA FUNDACIÓN DEL PARTIDO COMUNISTA DE CHINA ”
El Insurgente 210 (2021): 44.
39. Communist
Party of the Philipines “On the Centennial of the Once Great
Communist Party of China” Philippine Revolution Web Central
Retrieved November 14th
2021 from
https://cpp.ph/statements/on-the-centennial-of-the-once-great-communist-party-of-china/
40. Comité
de Prensa y Propaganda del PDPR-EPR, “50 Años” 141.
41. ibid.
42. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario,
“Editorial” El Insurgente 13 (1997): 4.
43. Lofredo.
“La otra guerrilla mexicana”
44. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario,
“13 Años de Impunidad ” El Insurgente 200 (2020): 4.
45. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario
,“Entrevista en la
Sierra Madre Oriental Publicada en la revista
“Proceso” num. 1032.”El Insurgente 1 (1996): 64.
46. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario,
“Revolución a debate: El camarada Stalin en el siglo XXI” El
Insurgente 200 (2020): 21.
47. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario
“MANIFESTO DE EL SIERRA MDRE ORIENTAL” El Insurgente 1
(1996) 8.
48. David
Harvey. A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford
University Press. 2005) 9.
49. Subcomandante
Marcos and Nathalie de Broglio, "The Fourth World War Has
Begun." Nepantla: Views from South 2, no. 3 (2001):
559-572.
50. Betzabé
Mendoza
Paz, “Participación
Social Armada en Oaxaca. Ejército Popular Revolucionario”
Estudios
Políticos
9(17) (2002): 69.
51. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario,
“Entrevista en el
Valle de Mexico Publicada en la revista
“Proceso” num. 1034.” El Insurgente 1 (1996): 71.
52. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario,
“A Tres Años De Gobierno De La 4T” El Insurgente 212 (2021):
17.
53. Alberto
Díaz-Cayeros, Beatriz Magaloni, and Alexander Ruiz-Euler,
"Traditional governance, citizen engagement, and local public
goods: evidence from Mexico." World Development 53 (2014):
80-93.
54. Paz.
“Participación Social Armada” 72-76.
55. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario,
“Marxismo e indigenismo” El Insurgente 91 (2006): 9.
56. Melissa
M. Forbis, “After Autonomy: the Zapatistas, Insurgent Indigeneity,
and Decolonization.” Settler Colonial Studies, 6:4 (2016)
365-384.
57. Jose
Anthony Lucero, “Indigenous
Political Voice and the Struggle for Recognition in Ecuador and
Bolivia” Equity
& Development
World Development Report 2006 Background Papers (2004),
14.
58. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario,
“Editorial” El Insurgente 201 (2020): 3.
59. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario,
“COMUNICADOS DEL PDPR-EPR” El Insurgente 117 (2009): 34.
60. George
W Grayson, Mexico: Narco-Violence and a Failed State? (New
Bruinwick and New Jersey:Transaction) Publishers, 2010. 158.
61. Thomas
Rath, Myths of Demilitarization in Postrevolutionary Mexico,
1920-1960. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press,
2013. 23.
62. Grayson,
Mexico, 156-213.
63. Sullivan
and Jones, “Bandits” 168-169.
64. Benjamin
Smith, “Anticlericalism, Politics, and Freemasonary in Mexico,
1920-1940.” The Americas 65, no. 4 (2009): 559.
65. Partido
Democratico Popular Revolucionario- Ejercito Popular Revolutionario,
“Cartas de la militancia: sobre un año más de lucha
revolucionaria” El Insurgente 209
(2021) 30
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