The subcommander and the sardinian: Marcos and Gramsci

Numerous scholars have adopted a Gramscian framework when analyzing the Zapatistas and Subcommander Marcos. Some, however, have gone beyond the evidence, claiming that Marcos was influenced by Gramsci. Inspection of the Subcommander's discourse provides no proof that he has been directly influenced by the Sardinian; instead, indigenous thought and practice appear more influential in having shaped Marcos's political philosophy. Marcos's independence from Gramsci distances him from other contemporary Central American guerrillas and has wider implications concerning the timing and extent of Gramsci's diffusion in Mexico. Gramsci did, however, contribute to an atmosphere of "antiauthoritarian eclecticism" among the Latin American new left from which Marcos emerged.