“It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”
So reads the most famous quote attributed to Emiliano Zapata, a peasant farmer-turned-guerrilla who fought in the Mexican Revolution. His words are indicative of the drama and complexity of the destructive conflict, which lasted from 1910 to 1920. Although it killed more than a million civilians and soldiers, replaced one authoritarian government with another, and spilled over into the neighboring United States, the Revolution nevertheless remains a compelling symbol in Mexican politics. Revolutionary figures like Zapata and Pancho Villa are often portrayed as dashing folk heroes tragically cut down in their prime, and future president Claudia Sheinbaum urged supporters to “recover the essence of the Mexican Revolution” while campaigning in the 2024 presidential election.
While institutionalized actors in Mexican politics attempt to recover the revolution’s essence through policy, other groups have taken a radically different path. In the 1980s, Indigenous peasants in the southern state of Chiapas founded the leftist Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) to advocate for Indigenous rights and autonomy in Mexico. After a brief revolt in 1994, Zapatistas began experimenting with alternative governance structures by organizing so-called “autonomous municipalities” (Municipios Autónomos y Rebeldes Zapatistas, or MAREZ).
Three decades later, in 2023, the EZLN dissolved the autonomous municipalities at a time of extreme uncertainty in Mexican politics. Chiapas has been paralyzed by cartel violence. A looming trade war with the United States threatens to test the country’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum. Migration surges have brought millions of people from Central America through southern Mexico. These crises are likely to have a significant effect on the EZLN and the Indigenous people it claims to represent. This piece assesses the future of the Zapatista movement in the context of crises that threaten to alter the fabric of Mexican politics—thirty years after the EZLN uprising and over a century after the revolution that inspired it.
People of the Sun: The 1994 Uprising
There are nearly 26 million Indigenous Mexicans, over one million of whom currently live in Chiapas. The colonization of Mexico by Spain was characterized by intense violence against the Indigenous population, and, although explicit repression abated after independence, Indigenous Mexicans were still economically disadvantaged in the years leading up to the 1910 Revolution.
Political restructuring after the war continued to present challenges for Indigenous agricultural workers, though opportunities emerged as well. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for over 70 uninterrupted years, organized unions for peasants and incorporated them into Mexican politics. Despite these efforts, Indigenous poverty remained high well into the 1990s.
The PRI began to lose its grip on Mexican politics after the 1982 Latin American debt crisis, which slashed the country’s GDP and caused spiraling inflation. Economic meltdown forced the PRI to implement neoliberal reforms such as the privatization of state-owned enterprises and the negotiation of free trade agreements. Political liberalization, which led the PRI to lose the presidency in 2000, accompanied these economic policies.
While the PRI’s reforms may have been necessary to stabilize the Mexican economy, they had significant negative effects on the livelihoods of Indigenous people. The post-crisis administration ended farm subsidies, dismantled peasant unions, and privatized Indigenous lands that had previously been owned collectively. From 1992 to 1996, rural incomes fell by about 25 percent. Mexican neoliberalization culminated in the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which removed most trade barriers between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. While NAFTA has had some positive effects on the Mexican economy, the agreement has simultaneously increased agricultural unemployment and worsened inequality.
In response to these developments, some Indigenous groups began experimenting with pro-Indigenous and anti-globalist ideas. Zapatismo is a decidedly left-wing, communitarian ideology: it emphasizes land redistribution, class struggle, and communal goods production. Moreover, the EZLN explicitly organized around Indigenous rights and cultural identity, pushing these discussions onto the national stage. These principles were inspired by those of the 1910 Revolution, which shattered the oligarchic power that had persisted in Mexico since the days of Spanish colonization and led to the ratification of a progressive constitution that included such policies as land reform and secularization.
Zapatismo influenced the decision of the EZLN to declare war on the Mexican state one day before the official implementation of NAFTA. Starting on New Year’s Day, 1994, the EZLN and the Mexican government fought for twelve days. After the uprising, the Zapatistas sought to restructure their communities, creating a system of autonomous municipalities, officially known as Municipios Autómos y Rebeldes Zapatistas (MAREZ), that acted independently of the Mexican government and provided alternative legal and political forums for EZLN supporters. Before the 2023 MAREZ dissolution, Zapatistas claimed control over 55 autonomous municipalities whose total population was about 300,000. Though not all members of a given community participated in MAREZ institutions or subscribed to zapatismo, the EZLN had considerable influence in Chiapas.
Fistful of Steel: The EZLN, Cartels, and Migration
The EZLN has largely been able to maintain its autonomous municipalities due to Mexico’s low state capacity, or difficulty performing basic governmental functions. Low state capacity also contributes to the proliferation of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) throughout the country. One-third of Mexican territory is under the de facto control of DTOs, as they exert significant political influence at the local level. Chiapas lies at the confluence of Central American drug trafficking routes and is home to several major DTOs. Cartel turf wars have proven disastrous for Chiapas residents and have greatly challenged the EZLN’s political influence. The state’s murder and disappearance rates have risen, and DTOs often forcibly remove civilians who live near strategic territory. One battle between warring cartel factions in summer 2024 displaced over 4,000 refugees. The cartels have also begun to sponsor right-wing militias opposed to the far-left Zapatistas. The violence and instability caused by DTOs were major factors in the EZLN’s decision to dissolve the MAREZ system.
Mexican law enforcement and military units have been working to combat the DTOs present in Chiapas. However, the crisis is unlikely to be resolved by sending more Federales and soldiers into southern Mexico. After President Felipe Calderón declared war on the cartels in 2006, violence skyrocketed as anti-drug operations fractured the biggest cartels, causing smaller groups to fight amongst themselves. Similarly, new initiatives by the government have done little to abate drug violence. In 2019, then-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador introduced the National Guard, a militarized police force, but critics say the new units abuse local populations rather than protecting them. The deployment of federal troops in Chiapas could therefore multiply the number of warring DTO factions in the state and violate the rights of civilians. The EZLN has accused government forces of criminal misconduct, though these claims are unverified.
The drug trafficking routes that run through Chiapas also transport another illicit cargo: human beings. DTOs have recently expanded into the lucrative human trafficking business, and Chiapas is often a key checkpoint on the journey from Central and South America to the United States. The Mexican government has started anti-migration campaigns under pressure from the United States—pressure that has only increased since the second inauguration of Donald Trump.
While there is some evidence that Trump’s policies will reduce migration to the United States, the migrant presence in Chiapas might not decrease. People detained in northern Mexico as part of heightened crackdowns on migration are transferred to the south, where they will join the 40,000 people currently awaiting the opportunity to cross into the US.
A greater number of migrants in Chiapas means more revenue for DTOs, more strain on the state’s resources, and more scrutiny from the federal government, all of which threaten Zapatista autonomy. The EZLN itself has assessed that “the main cities of… Chiapas are in complete chaos.”
Settle For Nothing: Zapatista Economics
Though the crises of drug trafficking and migration have accelerated the decline of the MAREZ, their long-term sustainability would still have been doubtful. Mexican Indigenous poverty remains staggeringly high at nearly 80 percent, and Chiapas is by far the poorest state in the country. Research from the Harvard Kennedy School suggests that Chiapas suffers from low “economic complexity,” meaning its exported commodities require little specialized knowledge or equipment to produce. Other Mexican states can produce the same—typically agricultural—commodities, harming Chiapas’ ability to compete in the export market. The EZLN’s economic policy does allow for trade and export, but it generally prefers “collective production” and price controls. Let us assume, for example, that an autarkic production model can help insulate a community from trade shocks. A community subsisting on its own production is nevertheless unlikely to develop a higher level of economic complexity. While people might not descend into extreme poverty, they have a low potential for economic advancement.
The EZLN, meanwhile, has resisted economic and political exchange. Zapatista sympathizers reject assistance from government anti-poverty programs and pride themselves on their independence from mainstream health and education systems. After the MAREZ dissolution, the group excluded non-locals from its community centers, even though these were “the main point of contact between the Zapatistas and the outside world.” Some have argued that a lack of economic opportunity will drain the autonomous communities of young people.
Mexico’s economic situation is especially precarious following political developments to the north. So far, the tariffs of US President Donald Trump have not significantly affected the Mexican economy, but the long-run impacts of American policy are uncertain. Rural poverty is likely to worsen if the Mexican economy declines, which may cause more people to emigrate from Zapatista-controlled towns, straining these already-impoverished communities.
Renegades: The Future of Zapatista Autonomy
The economic, political, and security challenges faced by the EZLN have led Zapatista leaders to acknowledge that a change is necessary to sustain their movement. In November 2023, the group replaced the existing MAREZ system with a network of Local Autonomous Governments (GALs). GALs exert authority on a far more granular and localized level than the MAREZ, potentially consisting of a single neighborhood, farm, or family unit. The GALs in a given region make up a Zapatista Autonomous Government Collective (CGAZ), which takes on administrative duties based on the consensus of the GALs and reports to an Assembly of Collectives of Zapatista Autonomous Governments (ACGAZ). This new structure was motivated by a notion among Zapatista leadership that the EZLN had begun to impose its authority on the communities of Chiapas. The reorganization was thus an attempt to vest power at the local level and create a bottom-up structure of authority in Zapatista territory.
It is uncertain how the new community structure will impact the Zapatistas’ ability to maintain their autonomy. However, the movement’s problems are perhaps too great to be addressed with abstract reflections on anarchist political theory. First, a decentralized political structure may worsen the problem of economic and political isolation, especially in a rural state like Chiapas, where people may live miles away from their closest neighbors. Second, increasing the number of political units could make achieving consensus more difficult and encourage splits in the movement. The EZLN has predicted that there will be “thousands of Zapatista GALs.” Though EZLN militants are active in local self-defense organizations, coordinating policy across so many units may be especially problematic for locals attempting to defend themselves against drug cartels.
Zapatismo is far from a relic of the Mexican Revolution or the era of Mexican democratization. However, the movement faces several internal and external challenges. Within Zapatista communities, poverty and isolation continue to negatively impact the lives of Indigenous peasants. These economic problems may only be worsened by external developments such as migration, drug trafficking, and geopolitical uncertainty. Compared to such pressing crises, the dissolution and reorganization of the MAREZ into GALs appear almost trivial. While the Zapatista movement is likely to endure, its third decade will be one of hardship and existential change as it seeks to maintain the independence for which it has struggled.
