Mexican Revolution, Pancho Villa and Zapata occupy Mexico City and go home
anecdote · historical ·
retold in 3 talks
Pancho Villa and Zapata seized power in Mexico City, debated for a week or two without knowing what to do, and then went home, a historical example of a blank revolution without a master signifier.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“They occupied Mexico City. They had power. And you know what happened then? They were debating and talking for a week or two, they didn't know what to do and then they said, 'Let's go home.'”
“They met, they talked for two months and then they left.”
“for two months they were there in Mexico City debating what to do, and then they left home... they simply didn't know what to do”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Emiliano Zapata2Pancho Villa2Helmut Reichelt1John Kenneth Galbraith1Karl Löwith1Néstor Kirchner1Eric Hobsbawm2Bruce Fink1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
Pancho Villa and Zapata seized power in Mexico City, debated for a week or two without knowing what to do, and then went home, a historical example of a blank revolution without a master signifier., illustrating blank revolution,absence of master signifier,failure of political nomination
In the Mexican Revolution, Villa's northern forces and Zapata's southern forces both entered Mexico City at a decisive moment, then talked for two months and left. Used to illustrate the failure to pass from spontaneous revolt to organized political power., illustrating in-itself / for-itself,revolutionary organization
After the Mexican Revolution, Pancho Villa (from the north) and Zapata (from the south) occupied Mexico City for two months, debated what to do, and simply withdrew home, not defeated by counter-revolution but by their own lack of a positive programme., illustrating Left's political failure,the question of what to do after revolution