Mexico Under Seige is a readable and well-informed political history covering the period from the ruling PRI's lurch to the right in 1940 through to its eventual expulsion from office in the elections of 2000. Based on two decades of interview material and new documentary sources, this book is the first to consider the full panorama of popular resistance to the alliance between the Mexican state bureaucracy, the president and the business class. This resistance embraced emerging urban labour protest, new peasant movements, revolutionary strikes on the railways and in schools, student opposition, and the re-emergence of guerrilla struggle culminating in the celebrated indigenous peoples' resistance in Chiapas. Mexico Under Siege analyses the core parties of the resistance, including the suprisingly central role of the Mexican Communist Party, and explains why resistance achieved no more than ending the PRI's system of presidential despotism. Hodge and Gandy conclude with some provocative ideas about who now constitutes the common people's primary opponent and examine the prospects for genuine struggle in an electoral arena where neo-liberal economic ideology and the Mexican economy's closer integration with the United States dominate the political scene.

This study reveals how the social pact, formalized during the armed stage of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20) and implemented during the second stage (1920-40), was upset during the third or arrested stage (1940-70) when the bureaucrat-professionals at the helm opted for intensive economic development by taking the capitalist road. Although momentarily revived during yet a fourth stage of revolution (1970-82), this social pact was subsequently betrayed from within by the official party of the Revolution and undermined from without by the operation of economic forces behind the scenes. In this first book on the complete history of the Mexican Revolution, Hodges and Gandy reveal that, along with the end of its social pact, Mexico passed out of its former nationalist and capitalist orbit to enter the new professional societies and global order fathered by the transnationals. From 1920 to 1970, Mexico's bureaucrat-professionals hung onto political power while native capitalists continued to flourish. In response, Mexico's workers and peasants staged strikes against the nationalized sector and fomented guerrilla wars. Concessions were then made to this group until, beginning in 1982, the social pact was again eroded at the expense, not only of the popular sectors, but also of the capitalists. The economic surplus was redistributed away from owners and into the pockets of professionals. That was the Revolution's last gasp before it was officially put to rest in 2000 with the official party's defeat at the polls. Hodges and Gandy challenge the current belief that Mexico's economic system is still capitalist by presenting statistical evidence that shows how the chief beneficiaries of theeconomy are no longer the providers of capital, but instead the providers of professional services.

This study reveals how the social pact, formalized during the armed stage of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20) and implemented during the second stage (1920-40), was upset during the third or arrested stage (1940-70) when the bureaucrat-professionals at the helm opted for intensive economic development by taking the capitalist road. Although momentarily revived during yet a fourth stage of revolution (1970-82), this social pact was subsequently betrayed from within by the official party of the Revolution and undermined from without by the operation of economic forces behind the scenes. In this first book on the complete history of the Mexican Revolution, Hodges and Gandy reveal that, along with the end of its social pact, Mexico passed out of its former nationalist and capitalist orbit to enter the new professional societies and global order fathered by the transnationals. From 1920 to 1970, Mexico's bureaucrat-professionals hung onto political power while native capitalists continued to flourish. In response, Mexico's workers and peasants staged strikes against the nationalized sector and fomented guerrilla wars. Concessions were then made to this group until, beginning in 1982, the social pact was again eroded at the expense, not only of the popular sectors, but also of the capitalists. The economic surplus was redistributed away from owners and into the pockets of professionals. That was the Revolution's last gasp before it was officially put to rest in 2000 with the official party's defeat at the polls. Hodges and Gandy challenge the current belief that Mexico's economic system is still capitalist by presenting statistical evidence that shows how the chief beneficiaries of theeconomy are no longer the providers of capital, but instead the providers of professional services.

In this book Marx's observations on history, which are found scattered throughout his voluminous writings, are brought together and subjected to searching analysis. D. Ross Gandy writes in refreshingly direct language, without resorting to jargon. For the first time we have a thoughtful assessment of Marx's views on all the epochs that cross his historical vision. Gandy treats Marx's ideas on primitive societies, on ancient Roman and Asiatic civilization, on the structure of feudalism, on strategies for overthrowing capitalism, and on the hypothetical communist future. Among the author's departures from traditional readings of Marx are his interpretations of class struggle, his conception of social strata, and his cogent analysis of the "new Marxism." Since many aspects of Marxist historical theory have been neglected or distorted, Gandy's remarkably clear commentary, based on extensive research-including an exhaustive study of the forty-volume Marx-Engels Werke-will doubtless stimulate debate among sociologists and other students of social change, political scientists, and historians.