The Mexican Revolution, 1910-1940

INTRODUCTION

IN the 1880s the Noriega brothers, two Spaniards living in Michoacán, Mexico, purchased a marsh from the town leaders of the village of Naranja. For centuries, the marsh had nourished villagers with fish, waterfowl, mussels, and crustaceans and had provided them with reeds to weave into straw mats and braids to sell in local markets. The Noriegas drained the marsh, developed a highly productive maize hacienda, and exported the corn to eastern markets via newly constructed railroads. They became wealthy and politically influential members of the regional elite. Naranjeros, meanwhile, lost their economic self-sufficiency. They suffered malnutrition. They could not buy shoes or clothing for their children. They struggled to find the money to hold religious festivals central to their cultural identity and spiritual consciousness. To survive, they worked on the Noriega’s estates or migrated to labor on unhealthy sugarcane plantations.1

The plight of Naranja’s peasants was replicated elsewhere in Mexico in areas where geographic and ecological conditions favored cultivation of cash crops in demand at home and abroad. Widespread loss of land created an economic crisis for peasants, whose desperation led them to take up arms against the seemingly impregnable regime of General Porfirio Díaz, dictator of Mexico since 1876. Regional agrarian movements spearheaded the overthrow of the dictatorship in 1911, an improbable historical event known as the Mexican Revolution.

Unregulated capitalist development and political centralization contributed to Díaz’s downfall. The government facilitated hacendados’ acquisition of village land and ignored peasants’ plight. Moreover, the dictator, judging domestic sources of capital inadequate to generate development, offered foreign investors attractive incentives to start businesses in Mexico. Capital flowed into the country, particularly from the United States, without institutional safeguards to protect national sovereignty. The preeminence of foreign ownership over key industries became controversial and created discontent, especially among provincial elites and workers.

The Díaz government’s centralization of authority also ruptured traditional patronage networks and systems of social control. Loss of political autonomy outraged notables and villagers alike. British historian Alan Knight has called local-level revolutionary movements of primarily political origin, prominent in northern Mexico and isolated regions, serrano revolts.2

In 1910, Mexico’s ruling elite bungled the politics of presidential succession and created an opportunity for organized political opposition to form. Could the revolution have been avoided if elites had remained united against the masses? Given the breadth and depth of the agrarian crisis, this seems doubtful. Even after the fall of Díaz, agrarista movements persisted until the land had been redistributed or agrarians had been defeated.

The popular and agrarian character of the revolution makes it a social revolution. The conflict pitted landless peasants, elements of the working classes, and discontented provincial gentry against the dictator Díaz, his elite supporters, and the federal army. The revolution threw out the old guard, reinvented the state, and made possible historic social and economic reforms. The revolutionary state gave landless peasants hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, nationalized foreign-owned petroleum companies, and significantly expanded public education. If the final outcome failed to eradicate poverty, create democracy, or achieve economic independence, the event still remains revolutionary.

This study begins with a discussion of the dictatorship of General Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911), whose policies provoked the revolution, and ends with an analysis of the presidency of General Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940), who implemented the most far-reaching reforms. The importance of these leaders and the changes that occurred during their presidencies led me to write somewhat lengthy bookend chapters. Wedged in between is a historical narrative that discusses Mexico’s most important revolutionary (and counterrevolutionary) leaders, their programs, their successes and failures. I attempt to be sensitive to regional variations that distinguish revolutionaries and their programs without losing sight of the national and international perspectives. Space limitations prevented me from delving into social and economic issues as much as I would have preferred, and discussion of cultural change is limited to the most important changes. Chapters are organized chronologically and divided by major political benchmarks.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL PORFIRIO DÍAZ AND THE LIBERAL LEGACY

MEXICO CITY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1910. General Porfirio Díaz, dictator of Mexico since 1876, stood on the reviewing stand and watched as the parade commemorating the centennial of Mexico’s independence from Spain unfolded before him. Accompanied by foreign dignitaries and his closest advisors, the general listened as Theodore Roosevelt declared him the world’s greatest living statesman and Andrew Carnegie praised him for his wisdom and character.1 Beyond the parade grounds stretched further evidence of Díaz’s achievement: broad avenues lined with majestic trees and interspersed with lovely parks, palatial homes, modern buildings, and a bustling business district. Díaz could also see in the distance a forest of factory smokestacks, evidence of industrialization and future pollution problems, and a network of railroad tracks radiating from the capital and linking it with distant provinces and the United States.

Díaz’s presidency had reversed decades of political and economic chaos that had made Mexico vulnerable to foreign invasion and territorial loss. Skillful use of violence, centralization of authority at the expense of local autonomy, and electoral fraud allowed Díaz to achieve political supremacy and stability. Moreover, economic development resulted from government programs that facilitated massive infusions of foreign capital, improvements in internal transportation networks, and exploitation of extensive natural resources.

FIGURE 1: General Porfirio Díaz, President of Mexico, 1876–1880, 1884–1911.

Source: Anita Brenner, The Wind that Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1942, with 184 historical photographs assembled by George R. Leighton (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), photograph 1.

FIGURE 2: Chapultepec Castle, residence of President Díaz.

Source: Anita Brenner, The Wind that Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1942, with 184 historical photographs assembled by George R. Leighton (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), photograph 30.

General Díaz had also earned political capital through his role in the heroic struggle against the French imperialists from 1862 to 1867. Díaz had served in the army of the legendary liberal leader Benito Juárez, who drove the French from the motherland and executed their lackey, the Emperor Maximilian. The liberals’ victory assured them control over Mexican politics and vanquished the conservatives who had openly sided with the invaders.

Nineteenth-century liberalism, rooted in the principles of emergent capitalism and utilitarianism, advocated free trade, decentralized government, individual rights, and separation of church and state. These ideas linked Mexico with the United States and Western Europe—industrializing democracies with surplus capital—and undermined Mexico’s philosophical ties with Spanish conservative traditions. Liberalism did not, however, serve as a uniform blueprint for political and economic policies. In fact, Díaz’s methods of achieving political stability violated every imaginable principle of liberal democracy, and he subverted free-market concepts by offering government support to foreign-owned enterprises with extensive capital reserves and technical expertise.

FIGURE 3: By 1910, Mexico City had broad avenues and impressive buildings, evidence of the country’s rapid economic growth.

Source: Anita Brenner, The Wind that Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1942, with 184 historical photographs assembled by George R. Leighton (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), photograph 31.

As U.S. capital, technology, and personnel poured into Mexico, key sectors of the national economy came under American control. The most aggressive American investors recognized that Díaz’s policies granted them unprecedented opportunities in Mexico. As William Randolph Hearst wrote to his mother, I really don’t see what is to prevent us from owning all of Mexico and running it to suit ourselves.2

FIGURE 4: William Randolph Hearst, American newspaper tycoon, owned vast haciendas in northern Mexico and wrote to his mother that I really don’t see what is to prevent us from owning all of Mexico and running it to suit ourselves. Hearst is the tall man in the center of this photograph.

Source: Anita Brenner, The Wind that Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1942, with 184 historical photographs assembled by George R. Leighton (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), photograph 25.

Díaz believed that this could be avoided, however, by counterbalancing U.S. interests with concessions to major European investors. Britain’s Lord Cowdray, for example, helped develop Mexico’s oil fields; German and French interests owned important Mexico City banks; and the French ran the biggest textile mills. Díaz also recognized that promoting French and British investment in Mexico helped mend diplomatic relations with these recent adversaries, and improved Mexico’s chances of receiving future loans from European banks.3

Díaz also helped to trigger the expansion of commercial agriculture through authorizing confiscatory land survey schemes that facilitated the acquisition of village land by large landowners and by adopting high tariffs and restrictive labor policies that favored the interests of hacendados.4 Although prominent foreigners such as Hearst owned large estates in Mexico, most latifundists were Mexican elites, including prominent liberals who had acquired land at the expense of the church after midcentury.

Mexico’s rich natural resources and pro-business legislation would have meant little, however, without the political stability provided by the iron rule of Don Porfirio. From the 1820s to the late 1870s, domestic unrest consumed Mexico. Rival military leaders vied for power in the aftermath of liberation from Spain; liberals clashed with conservatives over separation of church and state; the United States annexed mineral-rich northern provinces following the Mexican-American War (1846–1848); and the French conquest created additional turmoil. Under these circumstances, businessmen and ordinary citizens alike feared for their lives as well as their money. Beginning in the late 1870s, General Díaz gradually restored political stability to Mexico through patronage, force, and skillful political manipulation, which included replacing unruly warlords with personal cronies who did not have ties with powerful local interests. But by 1910, generals, provincial political bosses (caudillos), and businessmen now stood beside the aging dictator and worried what would happen when he retired or died.

Sharing their concern were Mexico’s Roman Catholic bishops, who had developed a comfortable political relationship with Díaz. This alliance represented a significant political comeback for the Mexican church, which had been severely discredited during the 1850s and 1860s. The church had challenged the liberal assault (called La Reforma) on its rural property and privileged judicial status by bankrolling conservative revolts in the 1850s and then by embracing the Emperor Maximilian in 1862. As a result, the patriotism of the Mexican church and its conservative allies came under scrutiny, and their political legitimacy was tainted for decades to come.

Following Maximilian’s defeat and execution in 1867, Mexico’s liberal leaders exiled a few bishops and kept the anticlerical legislation on the books. However, widespread political retribution did not occur, and General Díaz later permitted the church to revitalize its wealth and educational mission and to restore its institutional credibility. His rapprochement with the church made a political ally of a traditional foe and avoided a renewed conflict between liberals and conservatives that would have sidetracked political consolidation and economic development.

POLITICAL CONSOLIDATION

General Porfirio Díaz had fought with distinction for Juárez’s liberal cause and used his military prestige as a springboard into national politics, just like his contemporary in the United States, General Ulysses S. Grant. President Juárez’s grip on the presidency, however, blocked General Díaz’s road to power. Juárez’s personal courage and perseverance in defense of Mexico had earned him immense popularity among the Mexican people. Moreover, Juárez was a master political manipulator. Liberal doctrine advocated federalism, democracy, and individual rights, but Juárez abandoned many of these principles in favor of consolidating his control over the presidency. Thus, Juárez increased the authority of the central government, guaranteed electoral victories by stuffing ballot boxes, and enriched liberal landowners through the enforced sale of church land.5

President Juárez’s decision to run for reelection in 1871 prompted an increasingly frustrated General Díaz to launch a rebellion, which came to be called the Revolution of La Noria. Díaz’s support came primarily from his home state of Oaxaca and from disgruntled or opportunistic liberal caudillos elsewhere in Mexico. The rebels were losing on the battlefield when Juárez’s sudden death from a heart attack brought the fighting to a halt. Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, chief justice of the Supreme Court, then became interim president and called for new elections.6

Imitating Juárez, Lerdo took advantage of his control of the executive to assure his election. He solidified his position by declaring an amnesty for the rebels of La Noria and by leaving Juaristas in power at the federal, state, and local levels. This later move gained him key political allies, allowed him to influence provincial politics, and sealed his victory.

Four years later, in 1876, General Díaz reemerged as President Lerdo’s principal opponent for the presidency. Díaz hoped that Lerdo would not seek another term and dusted off the old liberal rallying cry of no reelection, invoked in 1867 and 1871 against the unbeatable Juárez. When Lerdo remained in the contest, Díaz launched a successful revolutionary movement called the Rebellion of Tuxtepec. General Díaz benefited from experience as well as from an opponent who lacked the support and luster of the legendary Juárez.7

Porfirio Díaz won the presidency on the battlefield and soon laid the foundation for political stability and economic prosperity. In this ambitious undertaking, he clearly benefited from the political conjuncture. His most prominent liberal rivals, Juárez and Lerdo, lay dead or vanquished, the conservatives remained politically discredited, and the public yearned for peace after decades of warfare.

As a political pragmatist largely uninfluenced by ideology, President Díaz increased the power of the executive by continuing the centralizing policies of Juárez and Lerdo and by placing his political supporters in key state and municipal offices. For example, Díaz made good use of a constitutional amendment enacted during the Lerdo administration that allowed the federal government to appoint provisional governors and to organize new elections at the state level. The law, intended to bring order to chaotic conditions in the provinces, allowed Díaz to appoint political allies and to influence elections.8 The president also convinced the national congress to extend the principle of no reelection to state houses, allowing him to promote his supporters, including grateful members of the provincial middle class kept from power by Juárez and Lerdo.9

Sweeping political change in the provinces, however, did not take place overnight. Several governors were too powerful or too clever to be dislodged immediately. Díaz therefore negotiated political alliances with these regional strongmen, which provided him with time to erode their local power bases or promote the careers of their rivals. All the liberal kingpins in the countryside—Alvarez in Guerrero, Méndez in Puebla, the Craviotos in Hidalgo—eventually fell from power as a result of Díaz’s pressure. Only Luis Terrazas in Chihuahua, buttressed by his immense ranching and banking empire, withstood political co-optation for several years before finally reaching a rapprochement with Díaz.10

In selecting governors, President Díaz prized loyalty and administrative competence above other characteristics. Some 70 percent of his gubernatorial appointments went to residents of other states. This increased Díaz’s control over provincial politics because outsiders were largely unencumbered by local family, financial, and political entanglements that might compromise their allegiance to the dictator. In the early years of his presidency, a majority of these appointments went to army generals, thus creating closer political ties between the president and the military.11

As long as governors remained loyal, Díaz allowed them considerable discretion in the daily management of the states. Ambitious governors took advantage of the dictator’s support to create regional political networks (camarillas) through graft, patronage, and force and to form partnerships with businessmen (including foreigners) in a variety of lucrative ventures. Governors greased the process by providing tax breaks, insider information, and help with controlling workers. Prominent examples include the Molina-Montes camarilla in the Yucatán and the Terrazas-Creel clan in Chihuahua. Other provincial oligarchs formed less powerful camarillas and jockeyed for political power and wealth. If they failed to reap a fair share of the spoils, their frustration and anger sometimes created politically dangerous feuds among provincial elites.12

For most Mexicans, political life rarely went beyond the confines of their home village. Mexico had a long tradition of local political autonomy, in some areas predating the Spanish conquest, that permitted villagers to control certain basic judicial, administrative, and legislative aspects of their daily lives. Villagers prized this independence. Selection of village leaders had democratic trappings, although those selected invariably possessed greater wealth and status within the community. Effective local leadership helped villagers protect land and water rights, contest questionable taxes, and generally survive the uncertainties of a premodern agricultural economy.

Porfirio Díaz recognized better than his predecessors did that effective political control required usurping this traditional village autonomy. Whenever governors possessed sufficient power and administrative skill, the president urged them to seize control of local government by appointing municipal heads (jefes politícos) and police chiefs (comisarios de policía). Many of the new appointees were outsiders unknown to villagers, and they proved unfamiliar with and disinterested in local problems. As accusations of graft, extortion, rape, and neglect of office mounted against these petty tyrants, discontented villagers protested and sometimes resorted to violence.13 The venality of some officials was notorious. For example, the jefes of Azteca, in the state of Morelos, took advantage of poor girls. If they liked a girl, they got her—they always enjoyed fine women just because of the power they had. One of the caciques died at eighty in the arms of a fifteen-year-old girl.14

As Díaz’s tentacles of power reached into the countryside, he simultaneously succeeded in gaining control over the national congress and federal judiciary. These centralizing tendencies, already initiated by Juárez, matured under Don Porfirio and remained in place after the Mexican Revolution. Díaz viewed all branches of the federal government as his personal political domain, and his selection of congressional candidates guaranteed their election. In choosing a congressman, he prized loyalty above all other characteristics. Díaz did not insist that a candidate reside in his congressional district. In fact, the anointed candidate might even have difficulty finding his district on a map. For example, Luis Pombo, elected deputy for Colotlán, Jalisco, expressed the wish that some day I hope to make the acquaintance of the Colotlanenses. Such representatives typically showed little or no interest in the problems of their constituents and increasingly viewed political office as an opportunity to amass wealth through graft, extortion, and patronage. If congressmen proved loyal, then Díaz generally ignored the mounting discontent among the neglected constituents.15

The federal judiciary, another theoretically independent branch of government, also became a pawn in the hands of the chess-master president. Díaz appointed and dismissed federal judges based on their loyalty to him and personally nominated candidates for election to the Mexican Supreme Court. Only at the local level did judges retain some degree of independence, but individual levels of competence and honesty varied widely.16

The federal bureaucracy grew in size and agencies acquired the trappings of modernity and efficiency—large staffs, impressive buildings, and detailed regulations—but without the anticipated results. Poorly trained and underpaid personnel, with neither the incentive nor knowledge to perform their jobs satisfactorily, demanded bribes to perform minor tasks. They avoided complicated or difficult assignments altogether. Under the circumstances, it became more effective for executive cabinet officers, under the direct control of the president, to intervene and order compliance, or noncompliance, with laws and regulations.17

The process of political consolidation, which took several years to accomplish, was still incomplete when President Díaz temporarily fell victim to his own campaign slogan of no-reelection. As his first term drew to a close in 1880, he found it necessary to step aside. But by no means did he relinquish power. Instead, he handpicked a successor, trusted military and political ally General Manuel González, and made sure González won the election. Díaz remained in the presidential cabinet and played an active role in policymaking. He did not, however, tell González what to do. That was unnecessary because González simply emulated his predecessor’s policies. The principal difference between the two was that González failed to match his mentor in effectiveness and charisma. When González’s term ended in 1884, Porfirio Díaz was ready to reclaim the presidency and eliminate the politically inconvenient no reelection principle, a cornerstone of Mexican liberalism.18 When Díaz returned to the presidency, the pace of political consolidation accelerated. Díaz’s allies passed a constitutional amendment that allowed the president to succeed himself, thereby paving the way for twenty-six more years of dictatorship.

The president tightened his control over the countryside by enlarging the size of the rural police corps (the rurales), which had been created by Juárez to combat endemic banditry along Mexico’s country roads. The rurales cut dashing figures. Outfitted in fancy charro suits, mounted on fine steeds, and flashing modern weapons, they drew praise from foreign visitors and businessmen whose investments they protected. They were, however, a corrupt and inefficient bunch. Some were former bandits themselves. They proved effective in hunting down solitary criminals or helping to suppress striking workers but were less impressive when confronted with the daunting task of bringing physical security to the lives of rural Mexicans, whom they themselves frequently exploited.19

The Mexican Army presented President Díaz with another political dilemma. On the one hand, loyal generals such as Manuel González made important administrative contributions to the consolidation of the regime. On the other hand, the president recognized that the Mexican Army (like other Latin American militaries) had produced the vast majority of presidents, usually via coup d’etats. Díaz himself was a prime example. Therefore, the president limited the army’s political potential by reducing the number of men in uniform and by professionalizing the officer corps along European lines. Aiming to reduce federal expenditures, Díaz also saw distinct monetary benefits in reducing the size of the military. During the course of his dictatorship, he cut the size of the army from 30,000 to 14,000 men and the number of generals by 25 percent. In addition, the president gradually replaced most military governors. He retained only those who, like General Bernardo Reyes in Nuevo León, combined outstanding administrative skills with unquestioned loyalty to the regime. In a related decision, Díaz also succeeded in trimming the size of state militias, a traditional source of military support for politically ambitious provincial elites. As political maneuvers designed to protect the president’s power, all of these reforms worked magnificently. However, a weakened military, largely consisting of conscripted recruits, proved unable to meet its greatest challenge: the Madero rebellion in 1910.20

FIGURE 5: President Díaz utilized special security forces, the rurales, to patrol Mexico’s highways and to suppress peasants and workers. The rural pictured here cut a dashing figure in his fancy outfit.

Source: Rafael Tovar, ed. México: una nación persistente, Hugo Brehme fotografías (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1995), photograph 5, p. 34.

FIGURE 6: Rurales, such as those pictured here, broke up strikes, arrested political dissidents, and shot many accused of fleeing while under arrest (the so-called ley de fuga).

Source: Rafael Tovar, ed. México: una nación persistente, Hugo Brehme fotografías (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1995), photograph 6, p. 35.

The president proved equally successful in neutralizing another source of potential political conflict—the Catholic Church. Since independence from Spain, Mexican liberals had attacked the church’s wealth, special judicial rights, and conservative policies in an attempt to establish a modern, secular state. The ensuing civil war in the 1850s, provoked by liberal attacks on the church, tore the country apart. The victorious liberals, Porfirio Díaz among them, struggled to pick up the pieces. Under the circumstances, making peace with the church involved great political risk. Die-hard liberals wanted the church subservient to the state and out of the public arena. Díaz reasoned, however, that open hostility between church and state increased the likelihood of civil war. Further, such hostility damaged Mexico’s relations with Catholic nations—France, for instance—with surplus capital to invest. Besides, the president, a master political strategist, undoubtedly believed that he could make peace with church leaders on his own terms.

FIGURE 7: Federal troops positioned on the roof and bell tower of a church, Xochimilco, c. 1903.

Source: Rafael Tovar, ed. México: una nación persistente: Hugo Brehme fotografías (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1995), photograph 1, p. 31.

In effect, Díaz refused to compromise on issues of material and legal substance. Church lands confiscated during La Reforma remained the property of wealthy liberal supporters of the regime, and laws restricting the church’s activities and legal status stayed on the books. By contrast, Díaz allowed the clergy to stage public ceremonies, wear religious garb in public, teach catechism in public schools, and administer a variety of social welfare programs. Significantly, these activities had the unanticipated result of increasing the church’s credibility and popularity and creating preconditions for its reentry into national politics.21

Díaz’s second wife, Carmen Romero Rubio de Díaz, is traditionally given credit for reconciling her husband with the church.22 Unlike the dictator, who was a mestizo from Oaxaca, Carmen Romero came from a wealthy Mexico City family with close ties to the church hierarchy. Díaz was probably influenced by his young wife’s views, and he used her as an intermediary. Señora Díaz helped raise funds to purchase an ornate crown for the coronation of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s patron saint, an event that symbolized the rapprochement between church and state. Of greater importance, the president allowed the archbishop of Mexico, Antonio de Labastida, to return from exile and preside over the Díaz’s wedding. The occasion had great political significance because Labastida, as bishop of Puebla, had organized the first conservative rebellion against the liberals in 1855 and had welcomed the French invaders into Mexico City in 1862.23

Despite improved relations with the church, General Díaz approved other policies that clearly troubled the bishops. For example, he permitted Protestant missionaries in Mexico and allowed the Mormons to establish polygamous communities in the far north.24 These openings to other religions, unthinkable in the past, helped define the limits of Díaz’s political reconciliation with the Mexican church.

Mending fences with the church helped create political peace (pax porfiriana) unknown since colonial times and established necessary preconditions for the economic modernization of Mexico. Before new investment could occur, however, several foreign policy problems, stemming from recent conflicts with France and the United States, required resolution. France and Britain had lent Mexico’s governments, including rebel conservative regimes at midcentury, large sums of money, and merchants from both countries claimed damages incurred during Mexico’s numerous civil wars. Presidents Juárez and Lerdo had refused to honor loans made to their conservative usurpers, reasoning that lenders had gambled and lost. Remembering recent interventions, most Mexicans understandably held strong animosities toward Western Europe. Any diplomatic settlement would require a deft touch.

Mending relations with the United States, which had in