Mexico’s Agrarian Reform and the Construction of a Peasant Identity, 1915–45

Mexico’s peasantry was the catalyst for the first social revolution of the twentieth century (the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920) and for the first agrarian reform process in the Americas. This paper examines the entanglement and mutual evolution of the “peasant” as a collective identity and of Mexico’s agrarian reform during its first 30 years (1915 to 1945). Using historical documents from the state of Veracruz, at the time a pioneer in enacting revolutionary policies and the birthplace of “peasant leagues” that became political actors of national importance, it unearths a story of the agrarian reform told from the perspective of the peasantry, those who lived through the reform and interacted with state administrators and agrarian officials on a daily basis.

The result of this investigation is an image of the agrarian reform as an inherently contradictory policy. Contrary to post hoc views that depict its implementation as a slow, arduous, but ultimately linear process, it shows the reform as divided between two ultimately incompatible goals: on the one hand, the revitalization of forms of communal solidarity and local self-government; on the other hand, increased productivity to lower the cost of living. The paper argues that the construction of a peasant identity allowed Mexican officials to navigate these inherent contradictions by sidelining other forms of collective identification based on class, race, or gender. Moreover, it shows that central features of peasant identity in Mexico—including its conflicted relationship with urban and proletarian political movements—were not natural products of Mexico’s economic structure but the result of a process of subject formation shaped by the way in which the agrarian reform was enacted. The political projects derived from this value conflict, and their resolution, determined the political identity of the peasantry in Mexico and the legacy of the revolution.