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IBEROAMERICANA, Vol. 5, Núm. 17 (2005)

Peasants is a blanket term for all those who, one way or another are involved in agrarian activities, be it as a labourer, a herdsman, a sharecropper, a tenant, an independent cultivator or in a combination of two or more of these activities. Besides this, one will have to account for part-time income from migratory labour or economic activities as home industries, petty trade, transport or mining. Many peasant societies are internally stratified into richer peasants, sometimes village élites, middle peasants and their poor brethren. In Western Europe and in Mexico most peasants belonged to the latter category. For them Darnton's conclusion, ‘to eat or not to eat, that was die question peasants confronted in their folklore as well as in their daily lives’ was certainly valid, and, out of necessity, these peasants were often looking for additional land or income. They were, for that matter, mobile.

Until quite recently the majority of Mexican archives were not easily accessible and working conditions were sometimes appalling. Many collections were only poorly catalogued, or not at all. Documents were brought together n i annual legajos or following the particularist norms of a local archivist, often without proper training or schooling. Nineteenth-century revolutions, and the Mexican Revolution (1910-1940) provoked considerable havoc. In several state capitals or municipal seats archives were destroyed or documents were used as wrapping paper in drugstores. In other cases documents were sold to foreign collectors.

In a previous communication which was given in Cambridge in April 1977 within the context of the seminar called at the time Peasants and Caudillos in Modem Mexico, I tried to analyze a farming mobilization phenomen being controlled at the regional level, by studying, from the Central Mexican Tlaxcala State case during the 1930th years, how some men who were having a regional power (they often were governors, or powerful men hiding under those ones' names), in mobilizing the farmers, endeavoured to prevail the federal power. This time was caracterized by the strengthening and differentiating of the interests, often until conflicts, regarding farmers' mobilization. Indeed, this mobilization process was greatly influenced, bothly by the processing establishment of a presidential regime through the National Revolutionary Party (N.R.P.), and by the struggle for power engaged between the President Cardenas (1934- 1940) and the one who had been the powerful man for the previous decade, the General Calles (1924-1934). In these conditions there was, more precisely, a Cardenist attempt to lead an effective agrarian reform and set up a popular basis to the government, by securing the control of the working and farming organization. In this present communication, I want to set out in a summary my analysing, made at the same regional level, from the same case, in the Tlaxcala State, of the way how a local politicians' group succeeded in having a control on the without land farmers' bothly electoral potential and becoming organized capacity. These on account of their recent benefitting from the agrarian reform, constituted a rural social category when appearing on the political scene in the 1939th years., Dans une communication précédente, présentée dans le cadre du séminaire Peasants and Caudillos in Modem Mexico à Cambridge en avril 1977, j'ai essayé d'analyser le phénomène d'une mobilisation paysanne contrôlée au niveau régional, en étudiant le cas de l'État de Tlaxcala, dans le Mexique central, pendant les années trente de notre siècle, quand les hommes puissants de la région (souvent des gouverneurs ou des hommes forts qui se cachaient derrière leur nom) s'efforçaient de concurrencer les intérêts fédéraux dans le domaine de la mobilisation paysanne. Cette époque était marquée par un développement fort et différencié quant aux intérêts, souvent en conflit, pour la mobilisation des paysans. L'instauration croissante du régime présidentiel à travers le Parti National Révolutionnaire (P.N.R.) et la lutte contre le pouvoir entre le président Cardenas (1934-1940) et l'homme fort de la décennie précédente, le général Calles (1924-1934) ont eu une grande influence dans ce processus de mobilisation. Il faut ajouter la tentative cardeniste de combiner une réforme agraire effective avec son essai de créer une base populaire à son gouvernement, en s'assurant du contrôle de l'organisation ouvrière et paysanne. Dans cette communication, je veux présenter le résumé d'une étude de cas, en analysant, au niveau local, et dans le même État de Tlaxcala, la façon dont un groupe de politiciens locaux arriva à contrôler le potentiel électoral et la capacité d'organisation des paysans sans terre. Ces paysans représentent une catégorie sociale du monde rural qui apparaît sur la scène politique, durant les années trente, à cause de leur récent accès aux bénéfices de la réforme agraire., En una ponencia anterior, presentada durante el seminario sobre Peasants and Caudillos in Modem Mexico, Cambridge, abril 1977, traté de analizar el fenomeno de movilizaciôn campesina controlada al nivel régional, tomando como estudio de caso el Estado de Tlaxcala, Mexico Central, durante los aîios treinta de esta siglo, cuando los poderosos regionales (a menudo goberna dores o ho mbres fuertes detrâs de ellos) se esforzaban en competir con intereses fédérales en el âmbito de la movilizaciôn campesina. Esta época estaba marcada por un desarrollo fuerte y diferenciado de intereses, a menudo conflictivos, en la movilizacidn campesina. La imposicion creciente del régimen presidencial a través del Partido Nacional Revolucionario (P.N.R.) y la lucha por el poder entre el présidente Cârdenas (1934-1940) y el hombre fuerte de la década anterior (1924-1934), el gênerai Calles influyeron mucho en la génération de este proceso de movilizaciôn, junto con la tentativa Cardenista de combinar una reforma agraria efectîva con el intento de crear una base popular para su gobierno, asegurando el control sobre la organizaciôn campesina y obrera. En esta ponencia quiero presentar un resumen de un estudio de caso analizando a nivel local, dentro del mismo Estado de Tlaxcala, c6mo un grupo de polfticos locales logrô controlar el potencial electoral y organizacional de campesinos sin tierras, una categoria social rural que se movi6 por primera vez dentro de la luz del projector polftico a causa de su recien acceso a los beneficios de la reforma agraria durante los anos treinta., Buve Raymond. Políticas locales : el caso de Tlaxcalá. In: Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer, tome 66, n°244-245, 3e et 4e trimestres 1979. Histoire et politologie en Amérique Latine. pp. 357-375.

Rita Bolland, Alfred Bühler, The patola of Gujarat. Double ikat in India. Krebs AG Basel, 1979. Vol. 1, 360 p. tekst, ill. Vol. 2, afb. in kleur en zwart/wit, krt. tab. noten, verkl. woorden. litl., Eberhard Fischer (eds.) - Raymond Buve, Hugo G. Nutini, Ritual kinship. The structure and historical development of the Compadrazgo system in rural Tlaxcala, Vol. I. Princeton University Press, N.J., 1980, XVI plus 494 pp., maps, tables, glossary and index., Betty Bell (eds.) - Benno Galjart, G.A. Banck, Jagen met een kat... Schaarse middelen en sociale relaties in de Braziliaanse staat Espirito Santo, CEDLA Incidentele publicaties no. 8, CEDLA, Amsterdam 1977. - R.A.L.H. Gunawardana, J. van Goor, Jan Kompanie as schoolmaster: Dutch education in Ceylon, 1690-1795, Historische Studies, Instituut voor Geschiedenis der Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht, XXIV, Wolters-Noordhoff Groningen, 1978, 205 pp., 3 maps. - Ria Kloppenborg, R.A.L.H. Gunawardana, Robe and plough. Monasticism and economic interest in early medieval Sri Lanka. Association for Asian Studies, Monographs and Papers No. XXXV, University of Arixona Press, Tucson, Arizona, 1979; 377 pages, including bibliography and index. - Els Postel-Coster, Jan van Bremen, Romantropologie - Essays over antropologie en literatuur, Antropologisch-Sociologisch Centrum Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1979., Sjaak van der Geest, Jojada Verrips (eds.) - Arie de Ruijter, T. Lemaire, Over de waarde van kulturen. Een inleiding in de kultuurfilosofie. Ambo, Baarn 1976, herdruk 1980. 509 blz. - P. van de Velde, W. Arens, The man-eating myth. Oxford University Press, New York, 1979. XIV + 206 pp., 12 illustrations. - E.Ch.L. van der Vliet, Klaus E. Müller, Geschichte der antiken ethnographie und ethnologischen theoriebildung von den anfängen bis auf die byzantinischen historiographen, Teil II (Studien zur Kulturkunde 52), Wiesbaden: Franza Steiner Verlag, 1980. 563 pp. 11 figs. - J.J. de Wolf, P.T.W. Baxter, Age, generation and time: Some features of East African age organisations. C. Hurst and Co., London 1978., Uri Almagor (eds.) - J.J. de Wolf, Myrtle S. Langley, The Nandi of Kenya: Life crisis rituals in a period of change. C. Hurst and Co., London 1979.

The Mexican collection of the International Institute of Social History is substantially smaller than that of Argentina or Brazil. Of this, the collection of periodicals constitutes the principal part. This latter collection (Sections A and B) covers the period ±1880-1940. Although many items represent only a single or limited number of issues of a given publication, the total amount of information is considerable. The pre-revolution period is represented by only a restricted number of literary and positivist magazines, besides a few copies of workers' magazines from Mexico City, Orizaba, and Monterrey. The more important part of the collection, however, is formed by the periodicals of local chapters of the Casa del Obrero Mundial from the years 1912-18, such as Ariete, Redención Obrera, Revolución Social, El Sindicalista, and Tribuna Roja. In addition, there is some material relating to the I.W. W., the C.R.O.M., and the later C.T.M.

Rita Bolland, Alfred Bühler, The patola of Gujarat. Double ikat in India. Krebs AG Basel, 1979. Vol. 1, 360 p. tekst, ill. Vol. 2, afb. in kleur en zwart/wit, krt. tab. noten, verkl. woorden. litl., Eberhard Fischer (eds.) - Raymond Buve, Hugo G. Nutini, Ritual kinship. The structure and historical development of the Compadrazgo system in rural Tlaxcala, Vol. I. Princeton University Press, N.J., 1980, XVI plus 494 pp., maps, tables, glossary and index., Betty Bell (eds.) - Benno Galjart, G.A. Banck, Jagen met een kat... Schaarse middelen en sociale relaties in de Braziliaanse staat Espirito Santo, CEDLA Incidentele publicaties no. 8, CEDLA, Amsterdam 1977. - R.A.L.H. Gunawardana, J. van Goor, Jan Kompanie as schoolmaster: Dutch education in Ceylon, 1690-1795, Historische Studies, Instituut voor Geschiedenis der Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht, XXIV, Wolters-Noordhoff Groningen, 1978, 205 pp., 3 maps. - Ria Kloppenborg, R.A.L.H. Gunawardana, Robe and plough. Monasticism and economic interest in early medieval Sri Lanka. Association for Asian Studies, Monographs and Papers No. XXXV, University of Arixona Press, Tucson, Arizona, 1979; 377 pages, including bibliography and index. - Els Postel-Coster, Jan van Bremen, Romantropologie - Essays over antropologie en literatuur, Antropologisch-Sociologisch Centrum Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1979., Sjaak van der Geest, Jojada Verrips (eds.) - Arie de Ruijter, T. Lemaire, Over de waarde van kulturen. Een inleiding in de kultuurfilosofie. Ambo, Baarn 1976, herdruk 1980. 509 blz. - P. van de Velde, W. Arens, The man-eating myth. Oxford University Press, New York, 1979. XIV + 206 pp., 12 illustrations. - E.Ch.L. van der Vliet, Klaus E. Müller, Geschichte der antiken ethnographie und ethnologischen theoriebildung von den anfängen bis auf die byzantinischen historiographen, Teil II (Studien zur Kulturkunde 52), Wiesbaden: Franza Steiner Verlag, 1980. 563 pp. 11 figs. - J.J. de Wolf, P.T.W. Baxter, Age, generation and time: Some features of East African age organisations. C. Hurst and Co., London 1978., Uri Almagor (eds.) - J.J. de Wolf, Myrtle S. Langley, The Nandi of Kenya: Life crisis rituals in a period of change. C. Hurst and Co., London 1979.