Property as a Social function: 1917 Mexican Constitution

Distancing ourselves from those who see petroleum as their own interest of egotistical privilege, and sustaining that petroleum should be considered “a human patrimony” – including precisely all the energy sources - without this being a contradiction taking the decision to utilize them, in the development of one’s own country.231 Fidel Castro, 1979.

230 _{Skocpol, Social Revolutions in the Modern World, 228.}

231 _{Fidel Castro, "Discurso pronunciado en el acto de amistad Cubano-Bulgara, celebrando en el combinando de}

implementos agricolas en construcción Martires del 26 de Julio, el 8 de abril de 1979, “Año 20 de la Victoria,”" s. f., http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1979/esp/f080479e.html.

In 1927, Cárdenas, a distinguished general of the Mexican Revolution, was assigned to protect the largest oil producing areas of the state of Veracruz.232 _{A sort of petroleum MNCs} zone of exclusivity, the threat of U.S. military intervention kept it under revolutionary control. As a real threat to Latin American countries in the age of U.S. intervention during the 1920s and 1930s, it was said that, “the only reason there has not been a coup in the United States is because there is no U.S. Embassy in the United States,”233 _{bespeaking the immense power of the United} States, especially in promoting U.S. interests ahead of Mexican and Cuban national sovereignty. The 1927 dispatch of General Cárdenas to the oil zone was a precautionary measure so that in the event of U.S. intervention, the Mexican Army could set fire to the oil fields as a way to counter invasion. Cárdenas did not set fire to the oil fields because President Plutarcho Elías Calles did not implement Article 27 of the 1917 Mexican Constitution, thereby failing to

expropriate petroleum as was legislated.234 _{Nonetheless, through Cárdenas’ experience during the} revolution and afterwards as a key figure in the Calles government, he gained an understanding of the importance of Mexican and U.S. relations.

The oil rich areas remained a thorn in the side of Mexican revolutionaries because until those resources were nationalized, the Mexican Revolution would not be fully implemented and Mexican sovereignty remained in the hands of the MNCs. Cárdenas’s experience in Veracruz served as a constant reminder of the weakness of Mexican national sovereignty, because as long as the MNCs dictated petroleum policy Mexico was at their mercy. In later years and under similar pressure Castro describing the threats by the MIC to the Cuban Revolution in 1985,

232 _{Meyer, Mexico and the United States in the Oil Controversy, 1917-1942, 128.}

233 _{Mark Weisbrot, "Venezuelan Democracy Survives, In Spite of Washington," Houston Chronicle, 16 de abril de}

They also wanted to exterminate the Mexican Revolution because it made the bourgeois revolution in the first part of the century effectively

nationalizing the large landholdings bringing about a series of measures with social benefits. The country was not ready at that time for a socialist revolution, but Mexico was constantly harassed. Remember the measures taken by the government of Lázaro Cárdenas in nationalizing the foreign- owned petroleum companies who initiated a boycott and all types of measures against Mexico…Imperialism does not want any type of revolution and much less a socialist revolution.235

Castro addresses the historical role of the Mexican Revolution and the United States reaction to revolution in Latin America. Castro also presents Mexico as an example of the

various incursions made by the United States to stop at all cost any social change. The anchor for such change was the 1917 Mexican Constitution, which worked to ensure the sovereignty of Mexico in the face of major international challenges. The twenty-eight year struggle to implement national sovereignty through petroleum nationalization in Mexico led to a hemispheric mobilization against invasion, coups, and other efforts (interferences and responsibilities) to challenge burgeoning revolutionary movements. Skocpol describes the importance of nationalism and whether it is leftist in nature or not,

Whether “communist” or not, I argue, revolutionary elites have been able to build the strongest states in those countries whose geopolitical circumstances allowed or required the emerging regimes to become engaged in protracted and labor-intensive international warfare.236

As neighboring countries with a history of international warfare, neither country was a stranger to strained relations. According to the makers of U.S. foreign policy, the mobilization of the Mexican people around agrarian and labor reform gave reason for criminalizing efforts at implementing national sovereignty through natural resource nationalization as socialism. Be it

235 _{Castro, “Discurso pronunciado por el comandante en jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, Primer Secretario del Comite Central}

Del Partido Comunista de Cuba y Presidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros, en el Acto Centro Por el XXV Aniversario de la Creación de los Comites de Defensa de la Revolución, en el Teatro "Carlos Marx," el 28 de Septiembre del 1985, "Año del Tercer Congreso." http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1985/esp/f280985e.html  

nationalist agrarian reform or labor rights for basic improvements in health and well-being, it was nonetheless a challenge to U.S. hegemony.237 _{As a precursor to Castro, Cárdenas used} socialist education as a means of engaging the Mexican people in supporting Mexican national sovereignty. This, for all intents and purposes, was their right under international law; it was fundamentally nationalist, and not the concern of the United States.

In the presence of MNCs resistance against the implementation of Mexican national sovereignty through nationalization, the Cárdenas government used socialist education as an effort to counter the measures of powerful British and U.S. interests from undermining gains won by the Mexican Revolution. A variety of efforts were implemented by Cárdenas to support the 1917 Mexican Constitution by organizing a cross-class coalition through education, party formation, and, most importantly, through the collection of public funds to pay for the 1938 Petroleum Nationalization. By involving the Mexican people in the social revolution of natural resource sovereignty, Cárdenas provided an example for the Cuban Revolution. Below, Castro describes the importance of education and national sovereignty:

A revolution is a process and socialism is not enacted by decree. Socialism is an economic and social regimen that is reached by process; it is not won by decree. By decree nationalization of the banks, by decree the large industries can be nationalized, by decree the adoption of a series of measures can be taken, but by decree a social-economic regimen is not completed. Amongst other things, the revolution is a process of educating a nation it is a process of developing a revolutionary consciousness.238

The Mexican revolutionary experience during the rise of U.S. dominance is a study of a

revolution establishing a social consciousness about the history of inequality and a holistic need to affect change, not just political but also economic and social programs that require mass

237 _{Córdova, La politica de masas del cardenismo, 16.}

238 _{Fidel Castro, “Discurso Pronunciado por el Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz, Primer Ministro del Gobierno}

education to strengthen the character of social revolution.239 _{Furthermore, socialist-nationalist} movements worldwide have used agrarian and labor reform to enhance the greater historical mobilization of broad coalitions of people against counterrevolution. Cárdenas explicitly describes the importance of land as a social function when he states,

The concept of universal rights that actually addresses property considers it to be a social function and not with the prerogative of abusing or

abandoning those necessary elements that are susceptible for satisfying the needs of the people in a society and based on their needs. Law number 75 promulgated on January 28th, 1932, which regulates the modalities of the right to property based on its serving a social function for the good of the collective life establishes the statutes for which property is determined must satisfy social needs, based on a lack of public utility guaranteeing its

indemnity. The vigilance and application of this law cannot qualify by analyzing the conditions of legality in Mexico, as a radical government creating the legal modality of universal rights.240

The agrarian issue began with the Spanish colonial encomienda system that removed indigenous people as residents of land they had lived on for centuries. It placed them under the control of the Spanish crown, the sole owner of the land. This created an imbalance, destroying the historical social function of land and causing rebellions that forced establishment of the Repartamiento system, changing land use throughout the Americas. Through the Repartamiento, the Spanish crown allowed campesinos to borrow the land through mercedes de tierra (gifts of land) while still claiming ownership. After years of colonial rule, successful indigenous rebellions challenged the Spanish system of labor and land tenure.

The indigenous rebellions were successful because they were coalitions of social movements that combined to expel the Spanish from indigenous territory, leading to the development of the ejido. The ejido, or communally owned lands, remained a part of Mexican life until encroachment of policies through the Díaz dictatorship allowed for legalized land theft

239 _{Córdova, La politica de masas del cardenismo, 102–103.}

and confiscation of lands deeded to indigenous and peasant communities by colonial Spain. Based on the historical lack of humane treatment of workers and changing land rights, these two issues were codified into Articles 27 and 123 of the 1917 Mexican Constitution. In the modern world the social function of land has ensured the existence of communities that were historically a threat to colonial Spain and have survived to stand in the way of the capitalist world-system. James C. Scott describes the age old land issue as it confronts the world-system that in the twentieth century was labeled communist,

We are often likely to find the strongest resistance to capitalism and to an intrusive state among more isolated peasantries with entrenched

precapitalist values. While the values that motivate such peasantries are thus hardly socialist in value in the strict, modern use of the word, their tenacity and the social organization from which they arise may provide a dynamic for radical change.241

After the Revolution established Mexican ownership of subsurface minerals, petroleum, a natural resource, was now owned by the people, historically deemed the revolutionary

campesinos. It was now set up to serve a social function for Mexico. As a result of the historical land struggle, labor rights were also an important part of the fight that came together during the 1938 Petroleum Nationalization. Through the 1917 Constitution, workers earned the right to organize and demand labor rights. This and the land issue led petroleum workers in the 1930s to push for the rights they had won through revolution.

After 1917, agrarian reform and labor rights became the collective sovereignty of the Mexican people through natural resource revolution. The rise of the MNCs created a threat to the gains of the revolution and Mexico’s sovereignty. Moreover, in 1937, the Mexican Supreme Court supported the Mexican workers’ right for better wages and work conditions, legally supporting the 1917 Constitution in a decision against the MNCs that challenged their

arrangements with the Díaz regime. As a result of their intransigence, they challenged the ruling of the Supreme Court, placing immense pressure on President Cárdenas who decided to

expropriate Mexico’s petroleum, returning properties the Mexican Constitution had deemed as state-owned in 1917.242

In solidarity with the Mexican people and the Revolution, Cárdenas and his administration took a calculated risk, nationalizing what the U.S. government and the MNCs considered

impossible. Friedrich Schuler, in Mexico Between Hitler and Roosevelt, explains that after many years of revolution, Mexico, in the face of major challenges, developed a revolutionary cadre honed into a seasoned political and diplomatic corps.243 _{By organizing the mass mobilization of} the Mexican people through popular nationalism, the Cárdenas administration seized upon the collective indignation of the Mexican people. Mexico’s Revolution, since the end of hostilities in 1920, set forth a radical constitution that influenced future revolutionary movements in Latin America.244 _{The Cuban Revolution later was but one of many benefactors of the Mexican} struggle and subsequent rebellions for national sovereignty.

IV. 1917 – 1940 Mexican and Cuban Constitutions: Revolutionary Evolution of Natural