This superb little monograph is everything that the author says it is, “the first detailed and systematic ethnological history of the origins, development, eruption, and conclusion of an agrarian revolt in one village” (p. 135) and its relationship to regional, state, and national politics. Friedrich has reconstructed the anthropological background, socioeconomic tensions, major characteristics, revolutionary leadership, and agrarian ideology of the revolt in Naranja, Michoacán, prior to the Mexican Revolution and up through its acquisition of an ejidal grant. Interviews, his own personal observations, internal analysis of the contemporary system, comparison with other Tarascan villages, and research in legal and agrarian archives are his major ethnological sources and methods.
The most significant chapter for students of peasant movements is his postscript on the seven causes of local agrarian revolt in Naranja. He asserts that certain oppressive material and political conditions, a political ideology, a local organizational structure, emergence of physical violence, and most important, gifted leadership, all converged to make agrarian revolt practically inevitable in Naranja. Primo Tapia’s ideology focused on re-acquisition of communal land-holdings, use of violence when necessary to uphold legal procedures of land acquisition, and anti-clericalism. Physical violence by both sides is considered a prerequisite for a revolt, but Friedrich argues that in the absence of ideology and organization it will not precipitate revolt. Does not this depend on the nature of the revolt? Quite rightly the inspirational leadership of Primo Tapia, who had been thoroughly exposed to U.S. labor union organization and anarcho-syndicalist ideas, is given paramount importance. However, were his goals completely altruistically inspired as the author states? The nature of his organization, built upon familial and compadrazgo ties, is Friedrich’s sixth cause for revolt and also the most revealing and significant part of his analysis. The inner core of Tapia’s supporters came from matrilineal and marital ties of the Cruz-De la Cruz family. The rank and file followers had in common with Tapia childhood companionship, economic impoverishment, illiteracy, and active participation in the Revolution if not kinship ties.
Finally, the national and regional political conditions affected agrarian revolt and the experiences of the Naranja residents. One of the most perplexing political relationships to unravel is between regional caudillo Tapia and such national figures as Lázaro Cárdenas and Plutarco E. Calles; Cárdenas is depicted as a Tapia supporter, particularly from his distant command post in the Huasteca when Calles was carrying out his repression in Michoacán. Calles’ regime is referred to as a “reign of assassination, one of the blackest pages in Mexican history” (p. 111). The President’s motives are somewhat unclear. Was he most incensed by Tapia’s support of the radical Múgica agrarians, or by his expedient collusion with the Delahuertistas during the revolt of 1923? If he was primarily disturbed by Tapia’s anti-Callista tirades after 1924, why was not the communist and agrarian leader Ursulo Galván singled out also?
These are not criticisms as much as questions which have still not been thoroughly explored by this excellent study. For myself as an historian working in the same area, I would desperately like to know exactly what archival sources were consulted and used, for this monograph is as much social as ethno-history.
