People love the idea of the “charismatic leader,” the individual who makes every difference in the spark or outcome of a revolution. We romanticize these characters, treat them as otherworldly figures or the sine qua non of their revolution. Che Guevara, Emiliano Zapata, Vladimir Lenin: Even when we revile the individual, we idealize them nonetheless. Almost as fashionable, however, is the view that revolutions have a purely structural basis. From a theoretical perspective, it is pleasing to imagine that revolutions happen naturally as an extension of certain intolerable conditions, because if we can predict revolution we can prevent it or encourage it as we see fit. However, this rigidly structural explanation is incomplete. While individual personalities cannot be individually responsible for an entire revolution, it is not only possible but necessary that individuals “make a difference” in a revolution. While structural factors make revolution necessary and feasible in the first place, it is at the individual level where any revolution actual plays out.
	This emphasis on the individual as a factor in revolutions is not incompatible with structural theories of evolution, however. Scott’s theory of the peasants’ moral economy and how the peasant will rebel when subsistence is threatened is one such theory that reduces revolution to broad sociological strokes. While it does discuss the peasant on an individual level, it neglects how revolution (or just a peasant rebellion) actually stems from an individual peasant. Obviously the peasantry is a key group in revolution—but any group is composed of individuals that make choices by themselves. Without a person to act as a unifying force behind the peasantry, individual dissatisfaction won’t be channeled into a full-scale revolution.  On a wider scale not specifically about peasants, Theda Skocpol’s intensely structural theory of revolution makes the same mistake. While Skocpol certainly delineates factors that exist at the time of a revolution in a given country, she gives short shrift to the factor of individual choice. Of course, it is true that the vast majority of revolutions take place with these structural factors in place. But a revolution does not occur because the ingredients of a revolution happen to coincide. Skocpol de-emphasizes individual initiative, when this initiative may be what sparks a revolution. While a revolution requires Skocpol’s factors in order to take place, the exact timing and the specifics of how the revolution plays out depends on individual choice.
	There is no reason to belabor the somewhat obvious point that individual choice creates a revolution, however. Specifically, it needs to be addressed whether or not one person can “make a difference” in starting a revolution from below.  In the case of the Mexican Revolution, in which numerous individuals emerged from the woodwork to participate in the unstable political scene, each individual, while “working from below,” shifted the tide of the revolution. Emiliano Zapata, the typical heroic face of the revolution, is, as Enrique Krauze demonstrated, one such figure, emerging from his small village to defend its rights and the rights of people like them. While the Mexican Revolution certainly did have structural issues that made revolution at some point inevitable, such as Mexico’s dependent relationship with the United States, the dissidence among Mexican elites, and exploitation of the peasants—not to mention Diaz’s dictatorship—the precise “when” and “how” of the revolution depended on people like Zapata, Madero, and the revolutionaries who followed them. While it could be argued that these individuals were merely filling roles that could be filled by another if, for example, Zapata had been too ill to participate, the influence of individual ability and commitment should not be overlooked. Perhaps there would have always been a Zapata sort of character in the Mexican Revolution—but it may not have been our Zapata but instead one with similar ambition and goals but different abilities, leading to a different course of the revolution. We do not know how the Mexican Revolution may have been different with different individuals, but we can trust that it would have been different.
