e country.

Mexico's 1910-1917 revolution was prolonged. It was also radical,
up-rooting many aspects of its old social pattern, speeding up the
bourgeois revolution, and preparing the way for a Mexican form of
populism and a Mexican foretaste of a proletarian revolution, initiated,
led and manned by Mexicans.

Mexico's revolution resulted in two important developments that have
played a major role in socialist construction. Both contributions
appeared in the Mexican Constitution of 1917, adopted eight months
before the Russian Bolsheviks seized power in November.

The first contribution was a chapter on the rights of labor. Bourgeois
constitutions had emphasized "civil" rights: the right to vote, trial by
jury; freedom of speech, press, assembly; the right to go and come; the
right to compensation when private property is taken for public
purposes; the right to modify or replace the existing constitution. The
Mexican Constitution of 1917 contained a detailed specification of the
rights of labor, including proper working conditions, adequate
compensation, education, health, social security. The Constitution also
contained a crucial property provision: the natural resources of Mexico
are the property of the Mexican people and cannot be alienated.

This second provision was inserted in the Mexican Constitution at a time
when extensive concessions to develop Mexican resources had been handed
out to North American and European capitalists. It was inserted in part
because the social ownership and sharing of land and other
natural resources has been one of the basic demands of the
Socialist--Communist--Anarchist movements from their inception.

Monopoly capitalism depends primarily on the private ownership of the
means of production, including natural resources. Capitalist opposition
to socialism is not only a matter of theory. In practice the private
ownership of natural resources enables the owner to charge rent to any
and all users. Natural resources are sharply limited and usually
localized. As population grows, demand for living space is intensified
and rents rise. It is not an accident that the stretches of "black
earth", of copper, iron, petroleum, the precious metals, and the land
occupied by Mexico City, London, New York and other population centers,
poured a stream of wealth into the treasuries and augmented the power of
their owners.

Effects of the insertion into the Mexican Constitution of the provision
ma