Certainly he can be considered a revolutionary on the subject of land. Mexico had seen an enormous appropriation of land from peasant communities to wealthy elites for hundreds of years. By Villa's day, these included not only the wealthy haciendados but American investors as well, and these elites had control of the government- including Villa's home of Chihuahua. Redistribution of land back to the peasants was the motivating force for Villa's army, like it was for Zapata's.

However, just because he was a revolutionary does not mean Villa was an educated intellectual, or a paragon of virtue. He did in some ways resemble the Chinese warlords of the 1920's, in that for a time he was essentially a self-trained commander of an undisciplined army put in the position of being the only government in a large area and like the Chinese warlords in some ways wasn't very good at it. While he was not himself likely to loot, kill, and terrorize, some of his sub-commanders were ( with the very important exception of Felipe Angeles) and Villa did not do a very good job of controlling them. His justice was often rough and quick- people accused of crimes could be summarily shot . He took advantage of his power to aggressively "court" women he found attractive, and though he does not seem to have been a rapist, many mothers would hide their daughters from view and at his death several women thought themselves to be married to him.

But perhaps he can't be accused of trying to amass as much power as possible: he readily submitted when he thought he had a deal with Carranza, for example, and also went back to his own ranch when finally defeated. Villa did not try to take control of all of Mexico. But the main reason Obregon later had him killed, it seems, is the false impression Villa gave that he was possibly getting into politics.

Frederick Katz: Pancho Villa

John Mason Hart : Revolutionary Mexico