Some few historians are beginning to re-examine the personalities and results of the Mexican Revolution, after accepting for years the conclusions formulated during the 1920’s. Hechos reales de la Revolución (the first two volumes of which are the only ones so far received in the United States) is a re-evaluation, in biographical form, of General Francisco Villa and his role in the Mexican Revolution. In the two volumes received, the author traces Villa’s life and career from his birth to his decisive defeats by Obregón in May and June of 1915.
The author’s childhood coincided with the stormiest years of the Revolution, and as a child he acquired a deep admiration for the man who was a hero for a large part of the people of northern Mexico. One of his earliest memories is of Pancho Villa ruffling his hair and asking, “No te vas conmigo? La próxima vez que venga, te alistas.” Hence, it is not surprising that the author’s point of view is admittedly and openly pro-Villa, although he freely acknowledges the sincerity and patriotism of Villa’s two great enemies, Carranza and Obregón.
The author has drawn his information from such well-known sources as Guzmán’s Memorias de Pancho Villa, and has, in addition, tapped a fountain of information previously ignored—the numerous veterans and survivors of the Revolution, men who followed or fought against Pancho Villa. Over several years he has interviewed and questioned these men, and from their memories has obtained a mass of facts and details that otherwise would have been lost. The result is an account of the movements and operations of the Division of the North that goes into detail far beyond any previously published history of the Mexican Revolution.
The historian should be aware, of course, of the danger in accepting uncritically the memories of elderly people. Calzadíaz has exercised judgment in his use of such material, but the objective reader must regard with reserve the exactness with which many incidents and conversations of nearly half a century ago are recorded. This broad reservation does not detract in the least from the credit due the author for preserving and recording important historical information.
The author makes no attempt to provide a new interpretation of the Mexican Revolution as a whole, nor does he present a picture of events differing materially from that which is generally accepted as true. He does, however, depict a Pancho Villa who is entirely different from the Villa of popular myth and legend. Calzadíaz shows a man who, although uneducated, was of high intellectual and moral caliber—a man who, far from being a “professional bandit,” was a conscious revolutionary from his early days. As for the usually accepted stories of Villa’s lurid bandit career and his bestial cruelty and ruthlessness, the author dismisses them as propaganda originating among his enemies. And he adduces a certain amount of evidence to support his belief.
The author sheds some new light upon the breach between Villa and Carranza that led to several additional years of war and turmoil in Mexico. According to Calzadíaz’s findings, the responsibility must rest upon Carranza and his advisers, who saw in Villa a potential threat to the First Chief’s position and authority.
There are a few particulars in which the American reader must question or disagree with the author’s conclusions, such as, for example, his belief that Washington had decided upon the recognition of Carranza months before recognition was accorded. And the American reader must look forward to the receipt of the third volume, in the hope that it will solve some of the mystery of the Columbus Raid, and the Mexican side of the situation during the Punitive Expedition.
Hechos reales de la Revolución is a valuable addition to the literature of the Mexican Revolution. Whether or not one agrees with the author’s overt belief that Villa, more than any other person, was responsible for the initial successes of the revolutionary movement and for the overthrow of Huerta, he must admit that the book demonstrates Villa’s stature as a major figure in the Revolution.
