Jim Tuck, an award-winning journalist who specializes in Mexico, has written a compelling biography of two revolutionary contemporaries, Pancho Villa and John Reed is a comparative study of individuals who came from entirely different backgrounds, who crossed paths, and who then went their separate ways. Throughout the text, Tuck utilized different resource material to describe what motivated each of these twentieth-century romantic revolutionaries.
The author presents both revolutionaries from their early upbringing, through their formative years and revolutionary period, to finally their demise. For example, Pancho Villa’s early revolutionary ardor was fanned by Abraham González, and John Reed was heavily influenced by Lincoln Steffens. These two men—Villa and Reed—“were polar opposites. One sprang from Mexico’s rural proletariat, lived a childhood of brutish poverty, and was driven to banditry by the inequities of a social system in which his opportunities for advancement were nonexistent. The other was born into an influential family, attended private schools, and graduated from Harvard” (p. vii).
Tuck portrays Reed and Villa as romantic revolutionaries. Both individuals “approached revolution with passion, idealism, and a high sense of adventure” (p. 207). What were the goals of each? According to the author, Villa wanted “ . . . an illiteracy free Mexico based on a network of military-industrial colonies and Reed . . . an apple pie American Communism founded on the power of his beloved IWW” (p. 208).
Throughout the text, one is struck with the revolutionary fervor of each man and also by their ample naiveté to fully comprehend a fast changing world. Their vision of the future was certainly idealistic, but unfortunately for both men they were overwhelmed by hard-driving realists. Tuck concludes that Villa was a good activist, a surprisingly good revolutionary theoretician, but a poor organizational infighter. Reed was also a good activist, a surprisingly good organizational infighter, but a poor theoretician. How successful were they? Pancho Villa and John Reed both failed in their goals, but “their enduring achievement was the extent to which they made revolution a metaphor for romance” (p. 220).
Tuck has written a highly readable account of Villa and Reed. His approach is certainly an interesting one. He lists an extensive annotated bibliography and includes some photographs. I would encourage my students to read this account of Pancho Villa and John Reed. The author makes them both come alive in a way that would capture the imagination of the undergraduate student. Pancho Villa and John Reed would probably encourage the students not only to delve deeper into the revolutionary traditions of Mexico but also to look closer at the early twentieth century as an age of profound revolutionary change.
