Marcos: Since the internal life of the communities was totally separated from national and local political forces, the important thing was the work done by the communities and because of this a collective government came about. No, it was always there: a way of making decisions in common about problems that affect the entire community. These decisions included decisions about work that had to be done in common, judicial problems at an internal level - because it isn't possible to appeal to judicial power of the State. What I mean to say is that the isolation of the indigenous communities provoked the development of another type of State, a State to deal with the survival of the collective, of a democratic collective with these two characteristics: The leadership is collective and it is removable.

In any moment, if you hold a position in the community (first, the community has to have appointed you independent of your political affiliation), the community can remove you. There isn't a fixed term that you have to complete. The moment that the community begins to see that you are failing in your duties, that you are having problems, they sit you down in front of the community and they begin to tell you what you have done wrong. You defend yourself and finally the community, the collective, the majority decides what they are going to do with you. Eventually, you will have to leave your position and another will take up your responsibilities.

So, on one hand there is this form of organization. I'm going to make a reference so that you understand better - student assemblies. Student assemblies are better as forms of protest or for analyzing problems. In the case of the indigenous communities, it is a way of life. On the other hand we have the authoritarian form of the army, of a political-military organization, but a military organization after all. One began to see a confrontation between these modes of decision-making until people from the communities began to join the EZLN and the indigenous form of decision-making began to take precedence.

I want you to understand me; we didn't arrive and say, It is necessary that the collective and democracy guide us. That isn't true, of course. This wasn't our conception. Our conception was vertical: What is necessary is a group of strong men and women, with ideological and physical strength, with the resistance to carry out this task.

Our conception was that we were few but of high quality. Well, I'm not saying that we were of that high quality, but we sure were few.

Finally, I can't say exactly when - it's not something that's planned - the moment arrived in which the EZLN had to consult the communities in order to make a decision. At first, we only asked if what we were doing was going to cause problems for the companeros. And later, when we left the jungle and entered the mountains, we also entered the assemblies and discussions of the communities. A moment arrives in which you can't do anything without the approval of the people with whom you work.

It was something understood by both parties: they understood that we wouldn't do anything without consulting them, and we understood that if we did anything without consulting them, we would lose them. And this flow, this increase of men and women who left the communities in order to enter the mountains, made us realize that we couldn't draw a solid line between combatant forces and civilian forces. Even geographically this line had broken down. There were military units that didn't live in the mountains but that instead lived in the communities and participated in communal labors. They gave military instruction, but they also participated in the work of the communities.

When we reflect on this now it isn't a question of us and them - now we are the entire community. It was necessary to organize, to establish this collective authority along side the absurdity of a vertical, authoritarian structure. Then, it was possible to divide the process of making decisions. I mean by this that strategic decisions, important decisions have to be made democratically, from below, not from above. If there is going to be an action or series of actions that are going to implicate the entire organization, the authority has to come from below. In this sense, even the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee isn't able to make every decision. You could say that the EZLN is different because in most political-military organizations there is only one commander, and in the EZLN the Clandestine Committees are composed of 80 people, 100 people, 120 people or however many. But this is not the difference. The difference is that even the Clandestine Committees cannot make certain decisions, the most important decisions. They are limited to such a degree that the Clandestine Committees cannot decide which path the organization is going to follow until every companero is consulted. In the EZLN a decision cannot be made until everyone is consulted, even if it appears that the majority of the companneros have already decided for one of the options. Only after consulting everyone can the Committee say, We have asked everyone and this is the result. The Committee cannot say, We consulted the majority and . . . This could cost you your life. You can't play games here.

In this way, we were not a guerilla group, but an army, an army with territory, with troops, with a general strategic plan. Our initial plan was a defensive plan, a plan in which the companeros could participate in one of three different ways: as part of the regular combat force that lives in the mountains, as part of the irregular combat force that lives and works in the communities, or as part of a reserve force composed of the elderly and children. These last also receive military training. At last, we were arrived to the point where we were able to mobilize five thousand people and concentrate them in a village as part of a military exercise.

What was it that made this possible? A centralized command? No! Rather, it was that decisions of this kind were made by consensus or consultation. It is more than consultation; it is not a consultation in order to see what you think but more to ask, What do you want to happen? The purpose of this is to give power those who should have power.

Then, in this interweaving, in this exchange between two different forms of decision-making, the most orthodox proposals of Marxism or Leninism, theoretical concepts or historical references - for example, that the vanguard of the revolution is the proletariat, that the taking of state power and the installation of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the aim of the revolution - were confronted by an ideological tradition that is, how can I say this, somewhat magical.

It is magical in one sense, but very real in another.

What I mean by this is that it is an ideological tradition born of war - in this case, the war of the Conquest that began, well, not exactly five hundred years ago, and that continues through different historical periods. It continues . . . it continues, and it grows. If we had been orthodox leftists, we would never have worked with indigenous peoples. Now, today, I believe there are many theories in crisis. Who would have thought that it would be the indigenous peoples who would provoke all of this? Not even in the Leninist conception of the weakest link was it thought that it might be the indigenous people, right? I told you that there was a learning process at the beginning of our work here, albeit a forced one. It's not like we said, Well, we are going to learn and see what happens. No! We were close-minded, like any other orthodox leftist, like any other theoretician who believes that he knows the truth.

Interviewers: Even in pure Marxism there is discrimination against indigenous people.

Marcos: Yes! Definitely. The events of this last January will bring changes at the theoretical level as well. We arrived here and we were confronted by this reality, the indigenous reality, and it continues to control us. Ultimately the theoretical confronted the practical, and something happened - the result was the EZLN. Therefore our combatants are right when they say, We are not Marxist- Leninists, we are Zapatistas. They are referring to this synthesis, this coming together, this compatibility that incorporates - I'm going to be very schematic - the historical traditions of struggle and resistance of indigenous people and the necessity of a national revolution.