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- Madero, Francisco I. - He was the rich idealist that dreamed of becoming president of Mexico because he felt he could do a good job. He wrote the Plan de San Luis Potosí while in hiding in Texas, within which he announced the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. After Porfirio Díaz was run out of Mexico in 1911, he became president after what is considered the first free and fair election in Mexico.
- Manchuria - Historic region in Northeast China. 413,000 sq. miles. It was the invasion of this country by the Japanese that marks the historical moment beginning the aggression that led up to WWII.
- Mandela, Nelson - Born 1918, Mandela became the symbol of the struggle against the racist South African apartheid government. He became the first Black president of South African in 1994.
- Manhattan Project - The Manhattan Project was the name given to the secret effort to design, build, and test the first atomic bomb the US. This was done on the New Mexico desert, in secrecy and isolation during WWII.
- Manifest Destiny - This was an official (government supported) 19th century belief within the U.S. that it was inevitable for the U.S. to expand and control everything between the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast (because god said so). This belief was fundamentally based on racism, and that everyone else from Latin America who was in the way of U.S. expansion were just inferior animals, and should be pushed out or crushed.
- Manufacturing - See industry.
- MAPA (Mexican American Political Association) - A political group who sometimes struggle independently for la raza, while at other time they want to "work" with the system.
- Marín, Gladys - July 16, 1941 - March 6, 2005. Compañera Gladys was a Chilean revolutionary who served as Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Chile from 1994 to 2002, and then president of the PCCh until her death in 2005. She was one of the strongest voices within Chile struggling against the Pinochet dictatorship.
- Marín, Patricia - 1952 to 1995. Compañera Pat was a leading member of UdB until her death in December of 1995. She had worked as a leading member of the CMPP, the NCMC, as well as other forms of community struggle. Today, the Comité de Mujeres Patricia Marín (CMPM) is named in her honor.
- Market - The world of commercial activity where goods and services are bought and sold.
- Marshall Plan - The billion dollar plan that the United States approved that would provide food, machines, and other materials to rebuild Western Europe after WWII. This was done in part with the goal of stopping the influence of communist ideals across Europe.
Martí, Farabundo - May 5, 1893 - February 1, 1932. He was a social activist and Communist leader in El Salvador who lived and struggled for the liberation of El Salvador and Nuestra América. The FMLM is named in his honor.
Martí, Jose - January 28, 1853 - May 19, 1895. A Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. In his short life he was a poet, an essayist, a journalist, a revolutionary philosopher, a professor, a publisher, and a political theorist. Through his writings and political activity, he became a symbol for Cuba's struggle for independence against Spain in the 19th century, and is referred to as the "Apostle of Cuban Independence".
- Marx, Karl - 1818-1883, A German political economist, philosopher, historian, and revolutionary, whose analysis of capitalist society laid the theoretical basis for the political movement bearing his name. He wrote countless books on politics and economics. His ideas emphasized class struggle, dialectical materialism, and communism. Together these ideas are now called “Marxism”.
Marxism - The theory/practice based on the ideas of Karl Marx - i.e. a materialist (scientific, real, concrete) world view of history and class struggle, and the inevitable victory of the working class over the capitalist class, which will ultimately lead to the establishment of a communist society.
- Mass Media - .
- Mass Production - To produce goods in large quantities, using machinery.
- Master - This is a person who employs a journeyman and an apprentice.
- Masses - The great majority of people. In struggle we refer to the masses as the poor, the workers, the unemployed, etc.
- Materialism - The philosophy based upon on the real provable world - a universal understanding that says that all being and phenomena in the universe can be explained as manifestations of physical matter. See metaphysical.
- Maturity - Also known as adulthood, it is the period of time in your life after your growth has stopped and you are fully developed. In political struggle a mature compa is a cuadro that can deal with pretty much any contradiction, and readily find the solution for it. Also a person that can be depended on when committed to a struggle.
- Maya - A member of a group of American Indian people of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize; builders of a major civilization that flourished 300 B.C. to A.D. 900.
- McCarthyism/Red Scare - A time period after WWII when in the United States there was a terrible fear of communist influence in the country, and the use of unsubstantiated accusations or unfair investigative techniques in an attempt to impose loyalty to the U.S. and to capitalism became a common tool of the government. This was done to wipe out any criticism of the government. It was led by a U.S. senator named Joseph McCarthy.
- Means of Production - Refers to physical, non-human, "things" used in production including factories, machines, and tools; along with both infrastructure capital and natural capital. People operate on the subjects of labor, using the instruments of labor, to create a product; or, stated another way, labor acting on the means of production creates a product.
- Medieval - A period of European history covering roughly the 5th century through to the 1500s. It is commonly dated from the fall of the Western Roman Empire. It is generally defined as a period of plague, violence, death, ignorance, the domination of the church over European society, filth, feudalism, and overall backwardness on Europe, while other civilizations in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East flourished.
- Medium Term (struggle) - .
- Medrano, Güero - A Mexicano revolutionary from the state of Oaxaca that was active during the 1960s and 1970s.
- Mensheviks - One side of the two Social Democratic - Marxist groups in pre-revolutionary Russia. Menshevik power ended with the victory of the Bolsheviks (the second group led by V.I. Lenin) in the October Revolution of 1917.
- Metaphysical - Includes "metaphysics". This refers to being part of what is “not measurable”, including perhaps existing in a paranormal "ghost realm". To be metaphysical is to be "beyond” the natural and comprehensible - i.e. it is not understandable. See materialism.
- Mexica - Also known as the Aztecs, they were members of the Náhuatl - speaking group that ruled much of Central and South Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest in 1521. One of the great indigenous civilizations of the Americas. Built a capital city Tenochtitlán in the middle of lake Texcoco, which is today Mexico City.
- Mexican American - An identifier that at one time (after WWII) was progressive and connected Chicanas/os to their Mexican heritage. Today it has more of an assimiliationist flavor, and is used by those that wish to emphasize their "American" (U.S.) side.
- Mexican Revolution - "La Revolución Mexicana" was a complex and decades long struggle in Mexico beginning in 1910.
- Mexico - A republic in North America. 82,700,000; 756,198 sq. miles. Mexico is the central land base upon which the history and struggle of UdB is built upon.
- Mexico City - The national capital of Mexico, it is also known as "el D.F." or "La Capital. Mexico City metropolitan area's population is 21.2 million people making it the largest metropolitan area in the Americas, and the third largest in the world. The city as it stands today, is constructed on Lake Texcoco, and over the the Mexica city of Tenochtitlán.
- Middle East - Also called Mideast. The area of Libya east to Afghanistan, including Egypt, Sudan, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other countries of the Arabian peninsula. Region dominated by Muslim Arabs. The region has been important in world politics and imperial wars because of its vast oil reserves. Wars and violence are common in the area since the Zionist violent imposition of Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
- Middle Class - Also known as the "petty bourgeoisie", a middle class person is a member of society occupying a position between the working class and the upper class. The middle class is a fictitous class (not a real class), because it is temporary and has no real power or privileges, other than that given to it by the upper class. In other words it is not a real social class. In times of economic crisis it disappears altogether and people who felt a part of it fall back down to the regular working class. It is a useful class because it makes people think that they can aspire to be in the upper class.
- Migra - Spanish slang for Border Patrol.
- Militarism - When everything in a country begins to revolve around the military and making war. Massive amount of money and time are invested into building up the military. This is one of the characteristics of fascism.
- Military Power - With the industrial development of countries comes a demand for more military power to force the industrial development on its own population, as well as on other countries, to dominate and control markets for the products made in the empire.
- Military Juntas - This is the name given to those groups of military generals when they conspire to take over a country and get rid of any democratic process.
- Mill, John Stuart - 20 May 1806 - 8 May 1873. English philosopher, political theorist, political economist, and Member of Parliament, he was an influential British classical liberal thinker of the 19th century whose works on liberty justified freedom of the individual in opposition to state control.
- Misogyny - .
- Moctezuma - 1466 - June 1520. Was the ninth tlatoani or ruler of Tenochtitlán, reigning from 1502 to 1520. It was during Moctezuma's reign that the episode known as the Spanish conquest of against the Mexica began. The portrayal of Moctezuma in history has mostly been as weak-willed and indecisive, having collaborated with the spanish conquistadores.
- Moderate - Not extreme, the middle ground. In political struggle people use this to defend their unwillingness to struggle against the oppression of our communities, and reject any talk about liberation struggle.
- Monarchy - Under feudalism, this was the system where government rule was by a king or a queen, and a small group of privileged people know as the nobility.
- Money - A symbolic representation of value and wealth that is backed up by a government to enforce that value. Money is used as a form of exchange for commodity items.
Monopoly - Exclusive control of a public service, or over the buying and selling of a certain commodity by one person or by one group. This leads to incredible power for the monopoly and also abuse, exploitation, and suffering of those affected by the monopoly.
- Monroe Doctrine - The doctrine imposed by U.S. president Monroe in 1823, essentially stated that the U.S. opposed European colonization of, or intervention in, any part of the Western Hemisphere.
- Montoya, Jose - Raza artist, poet, musician, and political activist, he made "calo" a popular form of expression.
Mora, Magdalena - Compañera Magdalena was a journalist, organizer, and member of CASA.
- Morales, Evo - The president of Bolivia since 2006. He is the country's first fully indigenous head of state in the 470 years since the Spanish Conquest. Evo is the leader of a political party called the Movement for Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS). MAS was involved in social protests such as the gas conflict and the Cochabamba protests of 2000, along with many other groups, that are collectively referred to as "social. Morales is also titular president of Bolivia's cocalero movement - a loose federation of coca growers' unions, made up of campesinos who are resisting the efforts of the United States government in Bolivia.
- Morelos, José María - One of the most important leaders of the war for independence in Mexico, he was the priest who led the revolution against Spanish colonial domination along with Miguel Hidalgo.
- Moreno, Luisa - August 30, 1907 - November 4, 1992. A leader in the labor movement and a social activist, she unionized workers, led strikes, wrote pamphlets in English and Spanish, and convened the 1939 Congreso de Pueblos de Habla Española, the "first national Latino civil rights assembly", before being deported to Guatemala in 1950.
- Movimiento - The struggle of many individuals and organizations, whose objectives are based on justice and self-determination for la raza.
- Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) - Political party of Bolivia.
- Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Mexicano (MLN-M) - Founded in 1977, this is a national anti-imperialist organization of Mexicanas and Mexicanos within the occupied Mexican territories. Born in the ranks of the resistance movement of the 1960's and 1970's, it is an organization of cadres, "nationalist in form, socialist in content, and internationalist in perspective/action."
- Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) - A student movement organization born from the Chicano Power movement of the 1960's. This group still exists in many schools today.
- La Mujer - Within UdB, the phrase and concept of "la Mujer" identifies the struggle of women both within the organization as well as in our communities in general, for leadership, respect, and fundamental political, economic, and cultural liberation as mujeres within our struggle for liberation as a la raza. This in itself is a revolutionary process within our struggles for national, continental, and class liberation. Through struggle, mujeres define what it means to be liberated.
- Multiculturalism - .
- Murals - Large wall paintings made popular by the revolutionary movements in Mexico and Aztlán. By showing what needs to be done to win our freedom, Murals are an excellent way of educating the community on important issues.
- Murrieta, Joaquín - A fighter against the white invaders of California during during 1870's.
- Mussolini, Benito - 1883-1945. The fascist dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943. He centralized all powers in himself as the leader of the fascist party and attempted to create an Italian empire, ultimately in alliance with Hitler's Germany.
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