by Frank McLynn
Villareal and his fellow envoys were shocked by what they saw in Cuernavaca, where the federal garrison had surrendered to Zapata a month before. Such Rousseau-style direct and open democracy, with illiterate farmers speaking up at genuine decision-making meetings, and all men, whatever their rank or status, wearing white work clothes, appalled their northern sensibilities. Everywhere they found what they took to be a fanatical insistence on the implementation of the letter of the Plan of Ayala. They also unexpectedly encountered real hostility, for Palafox had emerged as a `no compromise' hardliner; his critics claim that he could see no future in a Mexico dominated by the apparatchiks of the Carranza political machine and acted accordingly.
Villareal and his colleagues got on much better with the rising star in the zapatista firmament, Diaz Soto y Gama, a lawyer in his early thirties from a middle-class background in San Luis. Soto y Gama began in student politics, developed a talent for oratory, and moved along the spectrum from liberalism to anarchism, where he took his inspiration from the Russians, especially Kropotkin and Tolstoy. In 1904 a severe decline in his family fortunes led him to withdraw from political activism, and in 1910 he took no part in Madero's revolt, regarding Maderismo as simply old wine in new bottles. He later recanted and wrote a 42-point maderista manifesto to the people of San Luis, talking grandiloquently of turning the city into the Chicago of Mexico. He supported Madero against Zapata until April 1912 when he converted to anarcho-syndicalism; he finally joined Zapata in spring 1914 and was one of the urban radicals who gave Zapatismo its ideology and theory.
The middle-of-the-roaders found Soto y Gama a valuable ally, for many of them shared his political sympathies. The anarcho-syndicalist movement, the House of the World Worker, split in 1914 when Huerta outlawed it. Some joined up with Carranza and later helped to form his `Red Battalions'; others, the real leftists, went south to join Zapata. However, there were always those, like Lucio Blanco, who thought that there was more in common between the left factions, that the real divide was between, on the one hand, the bourgeois and reactionary elements in both the Zapata and Carranza movements and, on the other, the real revolutionaries in both. On this view, the personal struggle between Zapata and Carranza was `false consciousness'; this was what Soto y Gama meant when he referred to Carranza as a bourgeois irrelevance, and it may well have been the reason Carranza forbade Lucio Blanco to travel to Cuernavaca.
The envoys also ran into a more immediate problem: Zapata himself was nowhere to be found. Acutely suspicious of doing any deals - for he had a morbid fear of betraying his supporters or selling them short - and particularly wary of anything from Mexico City, above all envoys from that quarter, Zapata solved his uncertainty about what to do by leaving town. When the envoys asked where the leader was, they were told that he had gone to a town that lay sixty-five miles south and would be back `soon'. However, Villareal soon convinced himself that the people of Morelos were sick of war and would turn on Zapata if he did not deliver a lasting peace. This insight slightly got lost in a pointless slanging match the envoys had with Palafox, who made it clear he had no interest in anything they had to say; Palafox simply reiterated ad nauseam that the Plan of Ayala must be accepted in its entirety, without so much as the change of a comma. At a second meeting Palafox asked the envoys for their credentials and harangued them when they claimed to be unofficial observers.
It became clear that Zapata would always be a disappointment to the leftist `popular front' ideologues. Subject always to the sacrosanct status of the Plan of Ayala, Zapata was a political pragmatist. It might be thought that his obvious berth was in alliance with Villa, but Zapata feared that Villa might become too powerful, so was treading carefully. If all the generals joined Villa, and Carranza was beaten, the new Army would be too powerful for Zapata to withstand. This consideration, plus the perennial shortage of ammunition, was what made him welcome into his ranks the ex-huertistas and colorados who fled south from the implacable Obregon, even though in terms of political ideology these new recruits could be considered men of the Right. Fear of Villa, too, initially made him pursue a twin-track approach to both Villa and Carranza. Yet another reason for pragmatism was that Zapata's alliances were always fragile affairs; even now, with the movement seemingly at its apogee, de la 0 announced that he was not necessarily bound by Palafox's centralised administration and its orders.
Finally Zapata returned and invited the visitors to dinner. During the meal some of Zapata's chieftains accused the carrancistas of having fired on their forces; for a moment Sarabia thought Zapata was going to order the envoys' execution. Next day there was a final meeting, at which Zapata lost his temper and screamed at his visitors that if Carranza wanted to talk to him, he had to come to Cuernavaca. The more Villareal tried to placate him, the more enraged Zapata became: how, he shrieked, could everything he had fought so hard for over three and a half years be parleyed away in all this nitpicking talk? The envoys offered formally to accept zapatista control of all the villages they occupied south of Mexico City and to hand over Xochimilco, controlling the capital's water supply. At first Zapata stormed that he wanted no charity, but Palafox and Serratos persuaded him to accept this gift. Having previously prevented the disgruntled envoys from leaving by not issuing the necessary passes, Zapata finally relented and let them go the next morning. They returned to Carranza with the disappointing news that Zapata insisted the Plan of Ayala be signed and that Carranza resign as chief executive; they expressed themselves baffled as to why Zapata was so intransigent and blamed Palafox.
It is tempting at first blush to agree with the emissaries and conclude that Zapata was either a stupid fanatic or was in thrall to irresponsible advisers, but there was method in his apparent madness. Zapata laid down impossible terms because he did not want an agreement with Carranza, but also did not want him to be able to say that the zapatistas would not negotiate. Part of this negative attitude was a particular distaste for Carranza, part was general paranoia about any overture that came from Mexico City, the seat of corruption in the eyes of all genuine Morelos isolationists. Additionally, all Zapata's advisers were pushing for a formal alliance with Villa, some like Soto y Gama so that they could make common cause with the `popular front' leftists in all three camps, others, like Palafox and Serratos, because they thought an entente with Villa would advance their careers.
In any case, Carranza rejected Zapata's terms on 5 September, declaring in exasperation: `The intransigence of Citizen-General Zapata and his people will not be overcome either by wisdom or threats.' Zapata had his own version: as he wrote to Lucio Blanco: `I tell you in all frankness that this Carranza does not inspire much confidence in me. I see in him much ambition and a disposition to fool people.' Some observers see the evident failure to communicate as simply another aspect of the mesalliance between the nineteenth-century liberalism of the north and the ancient values of the south, the viceregal and pre-Conquest area.
Since influential carrancistas and US agents kept lobbying for a ZapataCarranza pact, in defiance of all logic and probability, Zapata decided to slam the door shut decisively. On 8 September he ordered his followers to implement Article 8 of the Plan of Ayala, which called for the expropriation of all goods belonging to those who `directly or indirectly' opposed the Plan. This meant that all property in the countryside would be turned over to the villages and all urban property used to pay war pensions for orphans and widows or to make loans to farmers. Effectively, from September 1914 on, Zapata was set on the course of full-blooded social revolution. So far it had been a case of recovering lands taken by government or landlords which had formerly belonged to the pueblos; now it was a matter of expropriating new lands. A new form of communal land ownership, the ejido would give peasants joint grazing and cultivation rights and shared ownership. Zapata showed he meant business by setting up agrarian commissions to distribute the new land, leaving Mexico City in no doubt what would happen if the zapatistas occupied the capital.
While
Zapata and Carranza were locking horns, Obregon was again dicing with death, this time at the hands of Villa. The occasion of conflict was Sonora and the revival of fortunes there of ex-governor Juan Maytorena. The Torreon accords in July had put Sonora on the back burner but, with non-intervention by both Villa and Carranza seemingly guaranteed, Maytorena moved quickly to assert his hegemony. His first step was to expel the Obregon supporters Plutarco Elias Calles and Benjamin Hill; with Maytorena as the favourite of the Yaquis, he was in a position now to dominate the state. This posed a direct threat to Obregon, who determined to reassert his status in his native state. While ordering Hill and Calles to counterattack against Maytorena's Yaquis, he travelled north on 24 August to confer with Villa at Chihuahua City, taking with him an escort of just twenty men and thus, it seemed, walking into the lion's den.
Villa played a duplicitous hand. He welcomed Obregon with a guard of honour, invited him to stay at his home, and had Obregon witness a cable he dashed off to Maytorena, telling him to suspend hostilities against the obregonistas. He then secretly returned to the telegraph office to send another cable, telling Maytorena to disregard the previous message, which was for public consumption only; he told Maytorena to make an end of Hill and Calles while he stalled Obregon in Chihuahua. However, he changed his mind almost immediately when Obregon offered him a deal: he would abandon Carranza and make sure he did not become president if Villa in turn would restore his (Obregon's) position in Sonora.
Villa and Obregon then travelled to Sonora for a conference with Maytorena on 29 August. Obregon asked his rival to state his grievances against him and Maytorena asked for time to compose his reply; in reality he was now thoroughly confused as to what Villa's real intentions were. Eventually an accord was patched up whereby Obregon was recognised as overall commander-in-chief in the state, but Maytorena had day-to-day control of all military forces. The accord pleased nobody except Villa and Obregon. Second thoughts revealed to Maytorena that he had just agreed to a set-up where Obregon could legally dismiss him; Hill and Calles meanwhile complained bitterly that they were being sacrificed to Obregon's desire for a deal with Villa. The agreement lasted just twentyfour hours before being repudiated by both sides.
On the clear understanding that Obregon would sacrifice Carranza, Villa agreed to break with Maytorena. On 3 September Villa and Obregon announced that the new interim governor of Sonora would be Juan Cabral. Obregon in turn pledged himself to ensure that Carranza would never be president, to put Hill and Calles under Villa's control, and to agree that local and regional elections be held before national ones, so that an incoming national regime could not simply impose its placemen in the provinces. How serious Obregon was is questionable; for the time being he was prepared to promise anything to thwart Maytorena. In any case, the new agreement was stillborn. Maytorena, Hill and Calles all angrily refused to be bound by it. Carranza too got wind of it and announced that he did not accept the accord. He counterproposed an electoral forum in which all the delegates would be chosen by him.
Finding Maytorena intractable, and unable to deliver on his promises to Villa because of Carranza's intransigence, Obregon did something inexplicable in rational terms. Not only did he return to Chihuahua for more talks with Villa, thus putting himself in the Centaur's power when he was in uncertain mood, but he also tried his hand at backstairs intrigue, trying to discredit Villa with his own commanders. By this time Villa had heard that Benjamin Hill was on the march in Sonora and that Obregon had allowed Carranza to face him down over the latest accord. Obregon must have sensed that he was in dangerous waters when a suspicious and distant Villa insisted that he stand with him to review a military parade at Chihuahua City on i6 September. The march past was an impressive display of villista military might: forty-three cannon, tens of thousands of Mausers, over 5,000 elite troops. Obregon sensed that this was a hint, as he put it, that Villa wanted to `erase him from the book of the living'.
The private talks began. Almost immediately Villa lost his temper and began ranting at Obregon: `General Hill thinks I can be played with ... You're a traitor and I'm going to have you shot right now.' Villa was not usually a foul-mouthed man but this time his rage-driven speech was peppered with obscenities. Obregon replied in kind and both men seemed on the point of drawing their guns. Finally Villa halted his tongue-lashing to give Obregon a stark choice: recall Hill or face the firing squad. Obregon said he would never withdraw Hill under threat. In his autobiography he claimed to have countered the threat of execution as follows: `As far as I personally am concerned, you will do me a lot of good, since through such a death you will give me a personality I do not have, and the only one to suffer from this will be you.'
With anyone else one would suspect l'esprit de l'esccalier or a Thucydidean speech, but in Obregon's case it is likely that he did speak along those lines. With his death-driven personality, which on so many occasions bespoke an unconscious wish for extinction, Obregon was probably the one man in Mexico who could not have been browbeaten by the threat of instant execution. At any rate it seems likely that by his sang-froid he gradually established a psychological advantage over Villa, making him query his own motives. Obregon quietly plugged away at the motif that he was quite prepared to be a martyr for the Revolution, but that by killing him Villa would puncture his own legend; he hit Villa in his weak spot by arguing that great warriors never killed heralds, even their enemy's envoys.
Villa paced the room for an hour, then dismissed the firing squad which was waiting outside, but he warned Obregon that this was a reprieve only. Then he conferred with his advisers. Angeles and Raul Madero were vehemently opposed to the execution, and Angeles thought of a sure way to prevent it. He went to see Luz Corral and told her that if Villa executed a guest in her home, he would be breaching the most sacred laws of hospitality. Luz then put this point to Villa, expecting to be told to mind her own business. He said nothing, looked thoughtful, then suddenly lifted the execution sentence. Back with Obregon, he underwent one of his rapid personality changes, breaking down in tears. `Francisco Villa is no traitor,' he cried, `Francisco Villa does not kill defenceless men, and certainly not you, my dear good friend, who are now my guest.' As he left the room he noticed his secretary, Soledad Armendariz de Orduno, trembling with the tension of the recent emotional scenes. He ordered two glasses of orange juice, offered her one and apologised for the stress caused.
Obregon went on to dine with Villa, joked with the company and then danced alongside Villa until 4 a.m. at a Division del Norte regimental ball. One of Obregon's aides, thinking he was living in a madhouse, asked his chief what exactly was going on. Obregon replied: `I really don't know. I was thinking how to obtain a safe conduct from don Venustiano in heaven' - a typically laboured Obregon witticism, referring to the general Mexican belief that St Peter had a long white beard just like don Venustiano Carranza. Yet behind the scenes the storm had still not abated. Revolving second, third and fourth thoughts, Villa agonised about Obregon's fate. Predictably the thugs among his confidantes, especially Fierro and Urbina, were all for the firing squad, but all the thoughtful and cerebral ones, especially Angeles and Raul Madero strongly opposed it. In the end, Villa came down on the side of his intellectuals: Fierro, Urbina and their ilk, he reasoned, would have to follow him whatever he did, but there was a risk of a mass flight of the middle-class advisers if he proceeded with the execution.
Obregon boarded the train for Mexico City on 21 September, well satisfied with his achievements. He had scored a psychological victory over Villa, had intrigued with his generals behind his back and could now hope to become president, using the excuse of Villa's intractable opposition to Carranza. By this time Carranza too was beginning to suspect Obregon of vaulting ambition. He ordered all communications suspended between the villista-occupied Zacatecas and his own HQ at Aguascalientes - an overt statement that he regarded the talks in Chihuahua City as an irrelevance - and ordered the railway tracks between the two towns torn up. Th
ese were actions aimed as much at Obregon as Villa. As soon as he heard of these developments, Villa announced that he no longer recognised Carranza as First Chief and issued a manifesto, bitterly critical of Carranza, outlining step by step the stages by which don Venustiano had sabotaged the negotiations between him and Villa. The manifesto was not intended to win over carrancistas and obregonistas so much as to aim above their heads at Zapata and opinion in the USA. It embraced the Plan of Ayala on the one hand and denounced Carranza's anticlericalism on the other, with the latter point appealing at once to Woodrow Wilson and the zapatistas.
Villa also recalled Obregon's train, on which he was travelling with a number of villista generals, and which had almost reached the junction of Torreon. Brought back to Chihuahua City, the mystified Obregon asked General Jose Isabel Robles, whom he had been converting from Villismo to an obregonista view of the world, to support him: he realised Robles could not save him if Villa had ordered him executed, but at least he could stop him being brutalised and humiliated before dying, as Gustavo Madero had been by Huerta's thugs. When Robles interceded for Obregon, a contemptuous Villa ordered him south on an errand. There was no talk of executions; it turned out that he merely wanted to harangue Obregon on Carranza's perfidy. Another fraught dinner took place, and Obregon was again allowed to depart, early on the evening of 23 September.