CZM Book Club: The Revolutionary Fables of Ricardo Flores Magón

it rules. I love my job, but specifically what I usually want to bring you is fiction, because I also bring you history on a different podcast, but you already knew that, and I want to bring you fiction, and this time it's fiction about history, because well, we just ran reruns of the episodes about the Maganistas and about the precursors to the Mexican Revolution, and I thought to myself, well, that guy Ricardo Flores Macgone, he wrote some fiction, and

I thought to myself, I should read you that fiction. That's what we're gonna do this week and possibly next week. There's a lot of this stuff, and it's it's pretty interesting. It's interesting both as like this is an old timey style of radical fiction and it's worth understanding how people conveyed their ideas through fiction, and they're also really entertaining stories, although very different from how I would write radical fiction today.

But I guess I'll get into some of those differences afterwards when we talk about the whole thing that we just read. I'm using the royal wei. I didn't mean to I'm using the proletarian we. That's probably what mcgoughon would have said. And if you're thinking to yourself, but Margaret, I don't want to listen to your two part long episode about the Maganistas before I enjoy Cuols and Media book Club, I have to say to you that's reasonable.

The really short version of it is that around the turn of the century, the previous turn of the century, early nineteen hundreds, there was this group in Mexico called the Liberal Party of Mexico, And because political labels are kind of meaningless, they're the anarchist group, and specifically they advocate for a non hierarchical, anti capitalist society, and a lot of them will come from indigenous backgrounds and are fighting for sort of more traditional ways of doing things,

and I like them. They often get called the Maganestas after the Macgon brothers, but especially after Ricardo Floris Macgon, and the kind of biggest thing that they did is that they led an uprising where they tried to make the social revolution across Mexico, mostly in nineteen eleven. It's

why it's called the maganesea rebellion of nineteen eleven. So that failed partly because the actual liberal centrist groups that they were working with in order to have a revolution turned on them and killed them, which is a thing that happens a lot in history, is that radicals start getting shit done and centrists come in late and are like, I'm in charge now and then start shooting the people

who got them there. It's fun. History's fun. So after that, Ricarda Florismagon kind of he moved around a bunch And I don't have his biography in front of me, but I should, but I don't. He moved around a bunch and he kind of just started writing fiction. Well he did a lot of things too, in theater and all these other things, but he continued to publish in the newspaper called Regeneracy on Regeneration, which was the anarchist paper for the Liberal Party of Mexico, and so in that

he wrote a bunch of different fiction pieces. And that's what I'm going to read to you. This first one is from nineteen fifteen, and it is called The Frock coat and the blouse. A lot of these are a little pair arables about objects, and they're all really heavy handed class metaphors, and I love them so much, and I maybe shouldn't because they're so heavy handed, but I find them entertaining. The frock coat and the blouse, the aristocratic frock coat and the plebeian blouse, were in the

same trash heap. What an abomination, what humiliation? Said the frock coat, gazing obliquely at its neighbor. I am next to a blouse. A gust of wind blew one of the humble blouse's arms atop the arrogant frock coat, as if it intended to reconcile those who were seated equally, to harmonize by means of a fraternal embrace. The two garments that were situated equally, yet which are normally found so distant from each other in the social life of humans.

Horror shrieked the frock coat. Your contact assassinates me, filthy rag, true, your audacity is outrageous. How dare you touch me? We are not equal. I am the frock coat, the noble garment that shelters and gives distinction to gentlemen, I am the stylish garment that only comes into contact with decent people. I am the vestiment of the banker and the professional, the legislator, the judge, the industrialist, and the merchant. I live in the world of business and talent. I am

the garment of the rich. Do you understand? Another gust of wind removed the blouse's arm from the frock coat as if it were indignant, regretting that it had sheltered that pretentious rag for a few sentimental, fraternal instants, and attempting to contain its rage, the blouse said, you fill me with pity, you haughty rag sheath of vain and wicked beings. You should be ashamed for having covered white

gloved scoundrels. I would have died of horror if I had felt under me the dreadful palpitation of a judge's heart. I would feel defiled covering the paunch of the merchant or the banker. I am the garment of the poor. Under me pulsates the generous heart of the worker, of the herdsman who shaved from the sheep, the primary material of which you are composed, of the weaver who converted it into cloth of the tailor who made it a frock coat. I am the covering of useful beings, hard

working and noble. I do not visit palaces. Rather, I live in the workshop. I frequent the mine. I am present in the factory. I go to the fields. I am always found in the places where riches are produced. You do not find me in gilded salons, nor in luxurious boudoirs, where the gold made by the sweat of the poor is squandered, or where the slavery of the

disinherited is agreed upon. Rather, I will be discovered in the meetings of freedom fighters, where the prophetic word of the people's orator announces the advent of a new society. I will be seen in the bosom of the anarchist group, inside which good people prepare to transform society. And while you conceited coate wallow and baccanials and orgies, I clothe myself with glory in the trench or in the barricade, dueling the military officer, or in the riot, during the

struggle for liberty and justice. The moment has come when you and I must fight a duel to the death. You represent tyranny, I am protest. Face to face. We are the oppressor and the rebel, the torturer and the victim. In the balance of civilization and progress. I weigh more than you because I am the force behind everything. I move the machines, I dig the tunnels, I lay the tracks,

I make the revolution. I drive the world. Ragman put an end to the conflict, putting the garments in different sacks, which he carried uphill to his hovel. That's the end of the first one. All of them are gonna be like super earnest, right. But I feel like there's a little bit of self awareness of exactly what's going on when you've got like and then someone came and threw them both into the trash. The next story is called the Rifle. I serve two factions, the faction that oppresses

in the faction that liberates. I do not have preferences with the same fury, with the same crack. I fire the bullet that snatches life away from the soldier of liberty or the henchmen of tyranny. Workers made me to kill workers. I am the rifle, the killer of freedom. When I serve those on top the weapon of emancipation. When I serve those below. Without me, there would not be men who say I am more than you, and without me there would be not slaves who cry down

with tyranny. The tyrant calls me buttress of institutions. The free man caresses me tenderly and calls me instrument of redemption. I am the same thing, and yet nevertheless I serve to oppress as well as to liberate. I am at the same time assassin and vindicator. Depending on the hands that wield me, I can also tell in whose hands I am. Do these hands tremble? There can be no doubt they are the hands of a military officer. Is it a firm pulse? I say, without vacillating these are

the hands of a liberator. I do not need to hear cries to know which faction is using me. It is enough for me to hear the chattering of teeth to know that I am in the hands of oppressors. Evil is cowardly, good is valorous. When the officer supports my chamber in his bosom to make me vomit out the death nestled in my cart, I feel his heart leap with violence. It is because he is conscious of his crime. He does not need to know who he

will kill. He has been ordered fire, and there goes the shot that will perhaps venture through the heart of his father, his brother, or his child, through someone who has been summoned by the honorable cry revolution. I will exist on this earth as long as there is a stupid humanity that insists on dividing itself into two classes, the rich and the poor, those who consume and those

who suffer. When the last capitalist disappears and the shadow of authority dissipates, I will disappear in my turn, consecrating my materials to the construction of plows, and the thousand instruments which men transformed into brothers will wield with enthusiasm. That's the end of that story. But do you know what else will exist on this earth as long as there is a stupid humanity that insists on dividing itself and the two classes, the rich and poor, those who

consume in those who suffer. That's right, it's advertisements. They're here and you can listen to them if you want. And we're back. Okay. The next story is called the two pens behind the window of a display case, the gold pen and the steel pen. Waited for someone to buy them. The gold pen rested indolently in a rich jewel case that increased its glamour. The steel pen confirmed

its modesty at the base of a cardboard casket. Pedestrians, poor and rich, old and young, passed again and again by the display case, casting greedy glances towards the gold pen. Nobody looked at the steel one. The sun crashed its rays upon the gold pen, which gleamed with sparkles like glowing embers in its chanil cushion, but it was unable to impress even a dim tone of beauty upon the

dark proletarian pen. Regarding its poor brother with pity, the rich pen said, poor mangy thing, learn to be admired, accustomed to great struggles for the highest ideals. The proletarian pen deemed it unworthy to answer that foolishness. Emboldened by the silence of the humble pen, the bourgeois pen said, why don't you try, you squalid thing, to look like me to be a gold pen, And it shone in its chanel like a star in the satin of the sky.

The proletarian pen could not repress a smile, which angered the bourgeois pen, making it break out in nonsense like this. Your smile is the smile of impotence. It fills me with pity. Could you be used like I am? To sign banknotes for millions and millions of dollars? I occupy a place of honor in mahogany and cedar writing desks in palaces. The elegant writer signs his articles with me using me. The Minister authorizes important documents for the entire nation.

The President endorses his decrees with a signature which only I shall delineate. War is not declared unlessen august hand takes me in its fingers and has me fix its sovereign signature on paper. Peace cannot be agreed upon with mangy steel pens. They must be golden. With a gold pen. The young aristocrat composes his verses of love to the genteel lady. Now patience has its limits for a steel pen. Thus the modest pen, from the base of its cardboard casket,

raised its clear, sincere voice. And as it was sincere, it was also handsome and grand to say. Above all things, the pen is grand because it makes it possible for a great mind to free itself from the prison of its skull to go out and shake other minds that sleep caged in other skulls. It makes them welcome the great mind, with hospitality granting its entrance. Doors should be opened, and accommodation should be furnished for all who bring light, hope, valor.

But you, vain pen, you are the disgrace of our species. I would rather break my tips than lend myself to sketching the signature that endorses a bank order for thousands of millions of dollars. An order like this is the result of a pact made between bandits. My place is not on a mahogany writing desk. I prefer a pine table upon which the people scribe outlines the robust phrases that announce to the world an era of liberty and justice. I am the pen of the people, and like them,

I am strong and sincere. The Minister does not touch me to underwrite documents that sanction exploitation and tyranny. Neither does the President grasp me to authorize laws that command slavery and the torments of the humble, nor to humiliating peace treaties. But when the thinker takes me between his

creative fingers. When the poet and the sage touches me with his fecunded anarchist hands, making me engrave and blank notebooks as bright meditations, like the idea of class struggle, I feel my molecules tremble with emotion, an emotion that is pure, strong sound. This is my pleasure, because as I am humble, I move in the world of talent, sincerity, and honor. My power is immense, My influence is gigantic.

When the proletarian writer takes me in his hands, the tyrant trembles, the priest is terrified, the capitalist turns pale, but liberty smiles with the smile of the dawn, the downtrodden dream of a better world, and the valiant hand nervously caresses the firearm of vengeance and redemption in my cardboard casket. I feel grand and noble, as humble as I may seem to you. I stir people, I knock down thrones, I upset cathedrals, I humble gods. I am

light for the darkness of the mind. I am the bugle that calls the humble to arms and converts them to magnificence. I resound for the revolutionary militia, gathering the brave and the trench and summoning the men to the barricades. You serve to endorse the decrees of the tyrant, I to endorse the proclamations of the rebel you oppress, I liberate. The crash of a car motor, which broke through the front of the shop prevented the rest of the proletarian

pens engaging discourse from being heard. But you know what, even the crash of a car motor can't cut through because now cars have radios inside that allow you to listen to its advertisements like these.

it were conscious of its defeat. By the evening, it reddened with anger, and cast upon the earth and the sky its most handsome lights. The two revolutionaries regarded each other face to face, the old one ashen, disheveled, his unpolished visage like a rag tossed into a wash basket, crossed here and there by ugly scars, his bones, insinuating the edges of his body underneath his shabby garb. The modern one erect, filled with life, his face luminous with

the presentiment of glory. He was clothed in rags as well, but he carried them with pride, as if they were the flag of the disinherited, the symbol of a common meditation, the password of a humble people elevated by the zeal for a great idea. Where are you going, asked the old man. I am going to fight for my ideals, said the modern one. And you, where are you going? He asked? In his turn. The old man coughed and

spat angrily upon the earth. He cast a glance at the sun, who his anger he also felt in this moment, and said, I am not going. I am now coming back home. What happened? I am disillusioned, said the old man. You are not going to a revolution. I also went to the war, and you see how I now return sad old, damaged in body and spirit. The modern revolutionary cast a glance that encompassed space. His brow was splendent. A great hope rose up from the depths of his

being and gazed out through his face. He asked the old man, did you know what you were fighting for? Yes, a wicked man was dominating the country. We poor people were suffering from the tyranny of the government, from the tyranny of people with money. Our oldest children were locked up in jail, the families abandoned, prostituted themselves, or panhandled. To be able to live. No one could look the lowest policeman in the face. The least compliment was considered

as an act of rebellion. One day a noble man said to us, poor people, fellow citizens, in order to put an end to the present state of things, we must have a change in the government. The men who are in power are thieves, assassins, and oppressors. Let us eliminate those in power. Elect me president, and everything will change. This is what the noble man said. After this, he gave us firearms and sent us off to fight. We triumphed. The wicked oppressors were dead. We elected the man who

gave us the weapons, making him president. While we went to work. After our triumph, we continued working exactly like before, like mules and not like men. Our families continued suffering from need. Our oldest sons kept on being taken to jail. The taxes kept on being collected with precision by the new government, and rather than decreasing, they grew larger. We had to obey and in the products of our labor

to the hands of our masters. Anytime we wanted to declare a strike, they killed us in the most cowardly fashion. Now you see, I knew what we were fighting for. The rulers were bad, and we were precisely exchanging them for good ones. And now you see how those who said that they were going to be good turned out to be just as bad as the ones we dethroned. Do not go to the war. Do not go. You are going to risk your life merely to exalt a

new master, So spoke the old revolutionary. The sun sank down without recourse, as if a gigantic claw had dragged it behind the mountain. The modern revolutionary smiled. He retorted, Comrade, I am going to war, but not like you and those of your era. I am going to war not to elevate any man to power, but to emancipate my class. With the aid of this rifle, I will force our masters to loosen their claws and to release what they

have robbed from the poor for thousands of years. You entrusted a man to create your happiness, my comrades, and I are going to create happiness for all by our own efforts. You entrusted notable lawyers and men of science with the task of making laws. Naturally, they made them in such a way as to benefit themselves. Instead of being the instrument of liberty, they were the instrument of

tyranny and infamy. Your entire error, and the error of those who like you, have fought, has been this to give powers to an individual or to a group of individuals, surrendering to them the task of making everybody happy. No, my friend, we the modern revolutionaries, do not search for helpers, nor protectors, nor manufacturers of good fortune. We are going to conquer liberty and well being for ourselves. We are beginning by attacking the root of political tyranny, and that

root is called the right of property. We are going to seize the lands from the hands of our bosses to hand it over to the people. Oppression is a tree, and the root of this tree is called the right of property. The trunk, the branches, and the leaves are the policemen, the soldiers, and the officials of all ranks large and small. Look here, the old revolutionaries have surrendered the task of chopping down this tree. Every time they

chopped it down, it sprouted, It grew up, and it strengthened. Again. They chopped it down. Again, it sprouted, and again it grew up, and again its strengthened. This keeps on happening because they have not attacked the root of the wicked tree. All have been too frightened to extract the core and pitch it into the fire. You see, my old friend, you have given your blood for no good reason. I am disposed to give mine so that it will benefit all my brothers and chains. I will burn down the

tree from its root. Behind the blue mountains, something still blazed. It was the sun which had finally sunk, perhaps wounded by the gigantic claw which beckoned it to the abyss, while the sun became red, as if it had been tinted by the blood of the star. The old revolutionary sighed and said, like the sun, I also am setting, and I will disappear into the shadows. The modern revolutionary continued to the place where his brothers were fighting for

the new ideals. The end this story breaks my focking heart, like the modern revolutionary is right instead of continuing this you know, old style of revolution where they replace one master with another, people need to set out to get rid of all masters. They need to, as that great parable says, take the ring of power back to the fires of Mount Doom, from whence it was forged, and cast it into those fires. And this is so fascinating to me because this was written before the uprising where

this kind of happened. Anyway, even though people went out and tried to be this modern revolutionary, they tried to go out and say, no, the problem is property and the problem it's not explicitly said in this particular piece, but it's like, you know, the problem is having someone in power like that. And they went out and they did that, but still not only was their revolutionary action recuperated into a new government that was kind of in

many ways same as the old government. I guess there was you know, some things that got better or whatever, but then they were killed by the people who came and stole that revolution. And then this is also written, you know, before the Russian revolutions and before the Bolsheviks betrayed the democratic nature of that revolution. And the reason it's heartbreaking is that these are the same revolutionary you know. And I don't know what to do with that, because

I want us to be this modern revolutionary. I want us to say we are fighting power, not for someone new to be in power. And maybe the answer is we just need more of us doing that, or well, I don't know what the answer is. If I had the answer, i'd be making podcasts about that instead of trying to think it all through alongside of you. And yeah, that's some fiction by Ricardo Floris mcgon, written one hundreds some years ago before and after his heart was broken

by the revolution that he helped participate in. And that's book club. I hope you enjoy it. I'll talk to y'all soon.