Riding with the Revolution tells the story of Americans who from 1900 to 1925 became involved with the Mexican Revolution. John Reed actually saddled up and rode with Pancho Villa. Later, American war resisters crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico, where they helped found the Communist Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, and a Feminist Council. Protestant ministers, Socialist Eugene Debs, Samuel Gompers head of the AFL, the anarchist Emma Goldman, and Communists John Reed, Louis Fraina, Bertram Wolfe, as well as foreign politicos M.N. Roy, Sen Katayama, and Alexander Borodin all took a hand in the Mexican labor movement.
Dan La Botz, Ph.D (1998), is a retired historian who last taught at the School of Labor and Urban Studies of the City University of New Yok. He is the author of several books on Mexico and Nicaragua, including The Nicaraguan Revolution: What Went Wrong? (Brill, 2016).
“This is a splendidly written and researched study of the left-wing actors who expressed their solidarity with the Mexican Revolution during its first decade and a half. Entertainingly written, this book is both a history of the Revolution itself and an exploration of what attracted the attention of US activists who crossed the US-Mexican border to engage with the goals of Latin America’s first social revolution. An entertaining read for scholars interested in cross-border-solidarity and US-Mexican relations.”
——Barry Carr, Emeritus Professor Latin American Studies and History, La Trobe University and Fellow, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
“In a detailed, rich and scholarly but always interesting fashion, Dan La Botz looks at a wide range of U.S. political forces ranging from the conservative labor AFL leadership to antiwar activists opposed to World War I, Communists, the IWW and anarchists who supported major Mexican revolutionary leaders such as Francisco Madero, Francisco ‘Pancho’ Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Ricardo Flores Magón and their followers. A must read for those interested in Mexican and U.S. labor and left history.”
——Samuel Farber is a Cuban-born and -raised social scientist who has written numerous books and articles about that country. His most recent book is The Politics of Che Guevara. Theory and Practice published by Haymarket Books.
“When the transnational and international history of labour movements have vanished from the bookshops´ shelves, Dan La Botz provides us with a vivacious narrative of the Mexican Revolution to learn about and to enjoy.”
——Daniela Spenser, is a researcher at at CIESAS (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social) and author of Stumbling its Way through Mexico: The Early Years of the Communist International.
“Riding with the Revolution is an unmatched panoramic study of the revolutionary process in Mexico in the first decades of the twentieth century. La Botz leads us through a multidimensional analysis of the politics, movements, participants, and debates that shaped the trajectory and outcomes of one of the great social revolutions of the last century. Approaching history through a transnational and international lens, we learn how US radicals and revolutionaries observed, participated in, and contributed to the events unfolding south of the border; as well as how they opposed the counter-revolutionary machinations and interventionism of their own government. La Botz meticulously documents and describes the proceedings in such precise language and illuminating insight that the reader can almost feel the pounding heartbeat of the period—one fired by the hopes of people trying to create a new world. Riding with the Revolution is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the class character, political complexities, and international significance of the Mexican Revolution. It is also essential reading for those who want to learn from the revolutions and revolutionaries of the past, as we continue to grapple with the question of how to change a world in crisis.”
——Justin Akers Chacón is a Professor of Chicana/o Studies in San Diego, CA, and author of Radicals in the Barrio: Magonistas, Socialists, Wobblies, and Communists in the Mexican-American Working Class (Haymarket Books: 2018).
Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations Pseudonyms
Introduction: The American Left and the Mexican Revolution – A Testing of Political Theories and Strategies
Part 1 The American Left Supports the Mexican Revolution
1 American Protestantism, Progressivism, and the Mexican Revolution
2 The Mexican Anarchists of the PLM and the American Left
3 Eugene Debs, the Socialist Party, and the Mexican Revolution
4 American Anarchists and the Mexican Revolution
5 Riding with Pancho Villa: The Radical Socialism of John Reed
6 Lincoln Steffens: An American Progressive in Mexico
7 American Labour Imperialism: Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor
Part 2 Americans Organise on the Ground in Mexico
Introduction to Part 2
8 Conscription, Repression and Flight: America’s First Revolutionaries in Exile
9 ‘Socialist and Internationalist’: Four American War Resisters Who Chose Mexico
10 Political Refugees in Revolutionary Mexico: Socialists and Spies
11 American Slackers and the Organisation of the Mexican Communist Party
12 American Slackers and the Industrial Workers of the World
13 The Slackers, the Feminist Council, and the Revolutionary Peasant Leagues
14 The Expulsion of the ‘Pernicious Foreigners’
15 American Communists as International Agents in Mexico: Louis Fraina and Sen Katayama
16 Bertram Wolfe, the Communists, and a Right Turn in Mexico
17 Joseph ‘José’ W. Kelley: The Farmer Labor Party in Mexico
18 Failed Movements and Varied Fates: Slackers and Communists after the World War
Epilogue
Bibliography and Works Cited Index
Riding with the Revolution will be of immediate interest to academic libraries, historians of the United States and Latin America, political scientists, and graduate students in Latin American history.