A-Infos (en) Britain, ORGANISE! #68 - Flores Magón and the Anarchist Vision of Freedom - By Brian Morris

More than a decade ago, drawing on the important writings of David Poole on the 
anarchist tendencies within the Mexican Revolution (1), I wrote an article on 
the life and anarchist philosophy of Ricardo Flores Magón (2). It was an attempt 
to keep alive the memory of an important revolutionary anarchist, at a time when 
eco-primitivism and so-called poststructuralist anarchism (aka Nietzschean 
Marxism) were beginning to take centre stage in anarchist circles. For Flores 
Magón, along with his brother Enrique and Librado Rivera, was an important 
figure within the Mexican Liberal Party, and his writings and activities had a 
crucial impact on the course of the Mexican Revolution. ---- In the bookshops 
now is a splendid collection of Ricardo Flores Magón’s writings (3), mostly 
compiled from the periodical Regeneración. This periodical first appeared in 
1900 as a law journal but later became a radical newspaper, openly espousing 
anarcho-communism, that is, revolutionary class struggle anarchism. Edited by 
Chaz Bufe and Mitchell Verter, “Dreams of Freedom” is offered as a “Ricardo 
Flores Magón Reader”, and provides for English-speaking radicals, not only a 
comprehensive collection of Flores Magón’s articles, which appeared in 
Regeneración between 1900 and 1918, but also documents the various proclamations 
and manifestoes of the Mexican Liberal Party. But unlike many Readers this 
anthology is blessed by an excellent and informative introduction to the 
historical background in Mexico, and to the life and struggles of Flores Magón. 
This introduction, written by Verter, takes up some eighty pages; it is thus 
substantive. It is also well-researched, engaging, and at times illuminating. 
The Reader also has a useful chronology of events relating to Mexican history 
and Flores Magón’s own biography, as well as an excellent and comprehensive 
bibliography.

A century later we may perhaps debate the validity and appropriateness of armed 
struggles against political tyranny and economic oppression. Even so, no one 
reading Flores Magón’s forceful and often poetic writings can be other than 
inspired and moved by his passion for social justice, his revolutionary 
struggles for a better world, free of tyranny and exploitation, and by his lucid 
vision of anarchy. How different from the obscurantist musings of the 
poststructuralists, those academic mandarins who have appropriated many of the 
ideas of an earlier generation of anarchists, with little or no acknowledgement, 
whilst dismissing them in elitist fashion as naïve romantics. Unlike these 
poststructuralists, Flores Magón was concerned with the progress of humanity, 
with the importance of truth, and with the transformation of those “three 
beautiful words” (as Flores Magón describes them) – namely, liberty, equality 
and fraternity – into social institutions wherein the free association of human 
beings and human solidarity would be possible and sustainable.

Influenced by Bakunin, Kropotkin and Malatesta, Flores Magón was an “apostle of 
anarchism” who taught that economic misery and degradation was not something 
“natural” but produced by “the thievery of the rich, the manipulation of 
religion, and government repression” – as Verter succinctly puts it. Indeed, 
Flores Magón spent his life fighting against all forms of oppression, 
challenging what he describes as that “dark trinity” – capital, authority 
(government) and the clergy. Harassed all his life, Flores Magón died in 
Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas in November, 1922. It was alleged that he 
died of a heart attack, but according to Librado Rivera, he had been murdered by 
the prison authorities. He was but forty eight years old. It was a life 
dedicated to the anarchist cause. The writings of Flores Magón are not only a 
source of inspiration for the two editors of this commendable “Reader” but for 
all libertarian socialists and anarchists. The publishers, AK Press, are to be 
congratulated for supporting this project.

“Land and Liberty” is still a rallying cry for many people in Mexico.

   1. DAVID POOLE Land and Liberty: Anarchist Influences in the Mexican 
Revolution Sandy: Cienfuegos Press 1977.
   2. BRIAN MORRIS Flores Magón and the Mexical Liberal Party. Anarchy 1994 in 
“Ecology and Anarchism” Malvern: Images 1996 pp162-170.
   3. CHAZ BUFE and MITCHELL VERTER (Eds) Dreams of Freedom: A Ricardo Flores 
Magón Reader Edinburgh: AK Press 2005. £12.00.
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