Mexican Revolution

The Mexican Civil war also called Mexican Révolution (in Spanish Revolución Mexicana ) is an armed, social and cultural insurrection by bands anarchistic S, nationalist S and socialist S which started with the Mexico in 1910 in reaction to the long presidency of the general Porfirio Díaz and who culminated officially with the promulgation of a new constitution seven years later, although the eruptions of violences continued until the end of the Années 1920. The movement whose middle-class provides the majority of the executives, had a great impact in the working, agricultural and anarchistic circles since the Mexican Constitution of 1917 was the first in the world to recognize the social guarantees and the rights of the collective agreements, in addition to producing important symbols recovered by world left; in particular the USSR of Stalin who financed Eisenstein for his film " Thunder on Mexique" , the rebel Emiliano Zapata or the anarchistic journalist Ricardo Flora Magón, and later famous and the splendid mural ones of the communist painter Diego Will rivet.

The armed struggle had like release the problems of succession of Porfirio Díaz in 1910, which had been maintained in a quasi uninterrupted way to the presidency of Mexico since 1876. He had been the promoter of the industrialization and the pacification of the country, the creation of modern infrastructures and richnesses which only benefitted very little the classes country-woman and worker. Prosperity, the political power and the access to education were reserved only for one handle of families having of great farms and been dependant on the foreign investors, especially American. ThePlain ones reproached Diaz the entry European capital in Mexico.

At the time of the elections of 1910 Díaz had like adversary Francisco I. Madero, a contractor richissime and freemason like, educated to him abroad who sympathized with the social reforms and which applied them in its fields, suggested by intellectuals like Antonio Horcasitas or the brothers Flores Magón. Díaz gave the order to stop Madero but this last left with companions to the United States and proclaimed the Plan San Luis.

Various rebels and cacic regional answered the call but they did not form a homogeneous movement nor did not have the same ambitions. For example of peasants of Morelos carried out by Emiliano Zapata, which claimed the restitution of the communal grounds that the industrialists of the cane with sugar had confiscated to them or bought under the constraint at very low price or the troops of Francisco Villa known as Pancho , one out the law which acted in the americanized north of the country. The fight against the central government lasted little since Díaz resigned to avoid a civil war after five months, but that Ci started nevertheless between the factious ones and the ideologists and cost the life more than one million Mexicans, which accounted for 10% of the population of the time.

To the resignation of Díaz a provisional government was directed by Francisco León of Barra which transmitted the presidency to Madero in 1911; nevertheless two annés later Madero will be victim of a coup d'etat fomented by the general Victoriano Huerta. The transitory government maderist had been unable to pacify the country and local potentates maintained the fight against the new federal capacity. To decrease the bloody confrontations Venustiano Carranza, the governor of the septentrional state of Coahuila formed the constitutional executive Ejército Constitucionalista . In order to pacify the country, it adopted most of the social requests required by the rebels in a new constitution of nature progressite . Carranza succeeded in formatting the texts, but its desire of being able was stronger than its skill to solve the problems at the origin of violence. It overcame with the assistance of Obregon Villa in north. Venustiano Carranza succeeds has to get rid of Zapata by making it assassinate in 1919. The government of Carranza lasted little. The general Álvaro Obregón, who was Minister for the war and the marine, raised himself to present his official candidature in the federal elections following. After the plan of Agua Prieta of the April 23rd 1920, Carranza was killed the May 21st 1920 whereas it took the way for Veracruz or it thought of establishing there a secode time its capital. Obregón assumed the capacity and showed not only that he was a skilful soldier, but that he could finish to pacify the major part of the country, if not a skilful politician who was the agent of the multiple trade unions and power stations working. Obregón undoubtedly wanted to be made re-elect, contrary to the Constitution of 1917 and he was assassinated by a catholic extremist. He had as a successor the general Plutarco Elías Calles, who promulga some laws anticlericals which caused the Guerra Cristera and founded the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which would be maintained with the presidency of the republic for more than seventy years.

Inversion of the order porfirien (1910-1920)

Causes of the Revolution

Modernization (1876-1910)

One cannot qualify, even with the passing, the order porfirien of “old mode” or “dictatorship”. The mode porfirien was a modern mode and modernisator, placed under the currency “order and progress”. Porfirio Diaz, liberal, arrives at the capacity after a pronunciamiento in 1876 and quickly restores civil peace, the credit and public finances in order to attract the overseas investments which will make it possible to emphasize the territory and the natural resources. During more than 30 years, the modernization of the country was remarkable in the field of the equipment in infrastructures: the network of Railroad, which adds up less than 500 km in 1876, passes to approximately 19.000 km in 1910; ports are also arranged. Mining rise is important, in particular in the States of North (Sonora, Chihuaha, Durango) and the export of the ores is done primarily towards the United States. The agriculture of export is then also in full rise, just like the oil exploitation. This modernization is also done thanks to the overseas investments: English, French, and more and more North-Americans. On the cultural level, illiteracy is still on average of 70% in 1910, the elementary school progressed in the cities, the network of institutes of secondary education is remarkable as well as the university education, with Mexico City. This progress benefits primarily with the middle-class and the urban middle-classes.

We saw it, the mode porfirien is not a “dictatorship”, but a constitutional, personal, and authoritative mode. The Constitution of 1857, very liberal, is in force but is not applied. The elections (parliamentary and presidential) take place regularly but are carried out in the absence of any political competition, since there is no political parties. Porfirio Diaz designates the candidates Député S and Senator S as well as the candidates Gouverneur S of the States and it car-indicates candidate with the presidency. The elections thus have the appearance of a simple formality, the voter turnout is unimportant because of the mobilization of the Peon are by the great landowners. However, the mode is not authoritative and does not rest on the force but on the “men of the president”, i.e. on personal honesties with regard to Porfirio Diaz. One can speak about an oligarchical mode insofar as it is powerful Clan S family which, in the States, holds the economic and social capacity. These oligarchies do not have clean political power, the faithful ones of Diaz are placed by his care in the stations to be able, and excluded them can devote itself to their private affairs. The mode functions thus until the beginning of the 20th century with general satisfaction and without meeting opposition. In the decade 1900, the tensions however increased.

The aggravation of the social strains

In the campaigns, until the end of the 19th century, peace rests on a “tacit pact” between the mode and the rural ones: the villages preserve their communal goods, the legislation which envisages the privatization of the grounds very mollement is only mollement applied. On the turning of the century, the mode supports an offensive generalized against the collective ownerships of the village communities. The encroachments of the great landowners on the communal grounds multiply, in particular in the State of the Morelos; in the States of North the mode grants very advantageous concessions on the public grounds land companies (generally North-American) which privatisent them and deprive the villages of the grazing ground and wood resources. The rise of dissatisfaction appears by the increase in the number of lawsuits and complaints, which are not heard any more by the mode.

In 1907, Mexico is touched by the brutal fall in the prices of the raw materials in the United States: many mining companies close their doors, in particular in north, throwing in the unemployment of the thousands of workmen. They are years of “expensive life” and serious social difficulties, since no system of insurance or assistance had been set up.

A labor movement also makes its appearance, with the first trade-union organizations in the mine fields of north and the textile industrial area of the States de Puebla and of Veracruz. Two strikes, with Cananea in June 1906 and Rio Blanco in January 1907, mark the public opinion particularly: in spite of the fact that the workmen present only economic claims, repression by the army is severe and causes tens of death. The mode was however not accustomed with such practices, but the public opinion has the proof consequently that this one is not any more able to arbitrate the conflicts and to ensure a minimum of social justice.

The political situation seems thus completely blocked.

The problem of the presidential succession

Since 1904, at the time of the presidential election, the problem of the succession arose: the president is old and can disappear from one day to another, but it appears unable to arbitrate between the Faction S which dispute around him. The opposition takes place between the “Científico S”, technocrats craftsmen of the Modernization and the hardening of the mode after 1900 and the reyists, in favor of the General Bernardo Reyes, faithful of Porfirio Díaz, that this one will make exile in 1908. A makeshift solution is found in 1904: to name a vice-president (a científico) and to lengthen at 6 years duration of the presidential Mandate. In 1908, Díaz causes the surprise while announcing, in a discussion with a North-American journalist (Creelman maintenance) whom it is favorable to the creation of political parties in order to appoint candidates for the election of 1910. It is in fact a means for him of knowing its adversaries. It is however taken with the word, and its partisans create political groupings to support its candidature; as for the reyists, they make countryside, create political clubs, which all are prohibited in 1909.

A land great landowner of north, Francisco I. Madero, seizes the banner of the “not-re-election”; its work published in 1908, the presidential succession , is a great success. It preaches there elections truly free, democratic, allowing a true participation of the “new social layers” (middle-classes and workmen), and the not-re-election of Porfirio Díaz: “effective vote, not-re-election”. Madero makes countryside in all Mexico; everywhere are founded “clubs maderists”, it receives the adhesion of many reyists whose candidate does not want to present himself against Díaz. The mode puts an end to the movement maderist by prohibiting the clubs and by imprisoning the Madero candidate at the time of the elections. To the autumn 1910, from the United States where it took refuge, Madero launches the “Plan of San Luis Potosi”, which calls all the antiones with the insurrection for on November 10th, 1910.

Civil war and revolution

Insurrection, the mode of Francisco Madero and its fall (1910-1913)

The mode porfirien falls in May 1911 with the resignation and the departure in exile from Porfirio Díaz. In November 1910 the Insurrection starts very slowly, and the failure is bloody with Puebla where the principal conspirators (whose Aquiles Serdan) are discovered and massacred. The first risings take place in the mine fields of north in the State de Chihuahua with Pascual Orozco and the middle-classes rural, but also in Low-California, in Oaxaca, Sonora and Coahuila under the impulse of guerillas related to the Mexican Liberal party, organization of libertarian tendency founded by Ricardo Flores Magón. In spring 1911, the insurrection extends to other areas, in the States of north and, tardily, in the Morelos, where an army of village peasants is formed, under the control of Emiliano Zapata, a small holder, mayor of its village: it supports the cause maderist in exchange of the promise of a Land reform. In May 1911, the victory of the “revolutionists” is especially due to the will of the government of Díaz to avoid a blood bath: the federal army is not overcome, although composed of approximately 15.000 men for a country which counts 15 million inhabitants on a surface of 2 million km ². This first stage of the revolution leads to the inversion of the government, but does not involve the upheaval of the structures of the mode. The insurrection related to only some areas of the country, the majority of the States did not take part in it.

The mode of Madero can be regarded as a “democratic revolution”. Indeed, he is elected without difficulties in October 1911 as well as the vice-president Pino Suarez: the elections are regular, and the participation is rather high. The liberal and democratic provisions of the Constitution of 1857 apply for the first time fully: it allows the freedom of press and consequently the appearance of many new newspapers, in particular a press of very combative opposition. The right of association allows the creation of political parties, in particular a catholic party (hitherto prohibited because of the official Anticléricalisme of the mode of Díaz), but also of the political groups bringing together the partisans of “the old mode”, and finally a party of obedience maderist. One then witnesses an expansion of trade-union organizations in the working world, whereas they were limited before by the authoritative policy, and in that of the urban craftsmen. In particular, the Put del Obrero Mundial anarchist-trade unionist (COM: “House of the world workman”), is created with Mexico City: it launches economic claims, does not carry out political alliances, and carries out an direct action. For the first time since 1876 (and makes some in the history of the independent country), of effective” and competitive elections the “- i.e. not controlled entirely by the government - take place to appoint the governors and to elect new a Congrès in 1912. This one sees arriving a small majority of Député S maderists, and a majority of Senator S catholic and conservatives.

Very quickly however, Madero must deal with many oppositions, claims and problems political. The partisans of the old mode (namely old local oligarchies, the federal army and the mediums of businesses) are numerous and still occupy of the positions to be able (as governors of the States, in particular). They fear for the political stability of the country and organize an opposition, which is translated in particular in the press by wild attacks against Madero. On the social plan, the inversion of the mode gave birth to from many hopes: with the organized labor, the Grève S multiply, causing the concern of the Patron Mexican and foreign At. In the North-American companies, the strikes are not of Anti-américanisme and Nationalisme: the Ouvrier S require the equality of Salaire and the equal conditions of life with the American employees. Anti-American riot S take place with Guadalajara in 1911. The United States, which had given the Political asylum to Madero in 1910, recognizes its government.

In the rural world, and more precisely in the Morelos, Zapata and the peasants guerillas vainly wait that Madero holds its promise of Land reform, i.e. to return to the villages the communal grounds usurped by the sugar great landowners. But Madero is a liberal democrat , a partisan of the Propriété and deprived Entreprise, and is not a social reforming : it counts on the democratization of the political life to reduce the inequalities, and intends to take its time to make vote social laws. Zapata then makes know the Plan of Ayala (November 1911), in which it ignores the government of Madero and claims the land reform: it is the beginning of the Zapatist Insurrection, which extends quickly in Morelos and on the circumference from the State. However, in addition, Madero hardly knew to reward those which fought in the name of the Plan San Luis Potosi. In north, a maderist of the first hour, Pascual Orozco, includes the weapons against the government and is combined with the local oligarchs, the Terrazas , which are porfirists since the years 1870. They have million hectares of grounds and control the essence of the economy of the State de Chihuahua. To fight the insurrections Zapatist in the south, and orozquist in north, Madero must call upon the army. However, this one is porfirist of heart, and the generals are combined in Bernardo Reyes, returned of exile, and conspire against Madero. Several coup attempts of State take place, on behalf of the general Felix Díaz (nephew of Díaz), and of Fernando Reyes, but Madero does not react.

Madero is reversed in February 1913 at the time of the “tragic decade”). The rise of the oppositions leads to an open crisis: in February 1913, the Huerta general (who put Morelos at fire and blood with the tactics of the “burned ground”) led a coup d'etat strapping to Mexico City: the national palate, sits of the government, is bombarded. Huerta then has the support open of the ambassador of the the United States to Mexico City, but not that of the government of Washington, which will never recognize its mode, contrary to that of Madero. Thereafter, Francisco Madero and Pino Suarez are stopped and assassinated, and Huerta takes the provisional title of president and founds a dictatorial mode. It however preserves the congress in place, whose majority supports the coup d'etat).

Revolutionary forces in war against Huerta (February 1913 - July 1914)

The mode of Huerta is not deprived of supports: porfirists, the catholic party and the Church (which will leave there discredited for a long time), the federal army, the Congrès, mediums of businesses. It intends to return to “the old mode” porfirien but it is immediately confronted with oppositions armed with great width: it is the second stage of the revolution.

Consequently the Zapatist Insurrection starts. Already engaged in the War against the federal army, the peasants of the Morelos continue the combat against the mode of Huerta. The Zapatist armies are those of peasant-soldiers, organized in groups of guerillas resulting from the same village and led by one as of theirs. They know the ground and count on the support of the population. The forever centralized Zapatist army, and the units act in an autonomous way. Zapata has the command as a chief of the army: it is surrounded teachers, priests, and later of anarchistic intellectuals who support the principal claim: “ Tierra there libertad ” (“Ground and freedom”). If the Mexican revolution is an agrarian revolution, it is especially in the south of Mexico: the Zapatist ones gain victories and activate the insurrection in the surrounding, rural States like Morelos. What the peasants call “land reform”, it is the restitution of the communal grounds usurped by the sugar Hacienda S . They do not claim the suppression of the great private property, but a coexistence with it according to the traditional methods.

The revolution “constitutionnalist” occurs in north, more modern and more dynamics on the economic plan and social, that the old rural and Indian south. The chief of the “constitutionnalists” is Venustiano Carranza, great landowner land of the Coahuila (former senator porfirien, maderist in 1911). In the name of the respect of the constitution of 1857, it ignores the government of Huerta by proposing the Plan of Guadalupe, March 1913) and proclaims “ Primer Jefe ” (“commander-in-chief”) army constitutionnalist; it acts as the temporary president legitimates republic and will constitute, little by little, a government. The army constitutionnalist is, actually, to build. Carranza makes alliance with the governor of the State of the Sonora, state in which the essence of the army constitutionnalist is constituted: it acts disciplined and professional militia, whose soldiers are remunerated, equipped with weapons bought in the United States. Recruitment is carried out among the rural ones and urban environments. The soldiers are more mercenaries that revolutionists, and do not have a well defined ideology. An easy tradesman and maderist of the first hour, Alvaro Obregón, will be the military engineering of the army constitutionnalist. Plutarco Elías Holds, former teacher, savagely anticlerical, will be one of its political leaders.

Pancho Villa, Madériste of the first hour, will remain always faithful to Madero. It is besides its assassination which causes the return to the weapons of Villa: in a few years, it constitutes an army, the “Division of the North”, which will reach 40.000 men in 1914 and becomes the greatest military force of the revolution. The army is well organized and ordered by a former officer of the federal army and the soldiers are well paid. Indeed, Pancho Villa confiscates the haciendas of Terrazas to the Chihuahua, not to make the “land reform”, but to finance its army and to buy weapons in the United States and to distribute the ground, thereafter, with the war veterans. The army uses the Railroad to move, and has frightening a Cavalerie. Pancho Villa was a very popular chief, having a great authority on the men, and very often made carry out the prisoners. The villism does not have either a well defined Idéologie, nor of program: it is anti-porfiriste, and asserts “social justice”.

One can also note other local risings, namely in rural environments around cacic, such as for example in the State of San Luis Potosí, and this rather by preoccupation with a self-defense vis-a-vis the exactions of the federal troops or revolutionists.

The conjunction of these three forces (Zapatist, constitutionnalist, villist), which act independently from/to each other (indeed, neither Villa nor Zapata recognized the capacity of Carranza as “Chief” of the revolution) comes to end from the federal army, which leaves destroyed civil war. In July 1914, Huerta leaves the capacity and is exiled with the the United States. Anxious of the civil war in Mexico, the US government sent a fleet of war in front of the port of Veracruz, in spring 1914, to intimidate Huerta. The intervention caused a push of nationalism and anti-Americanism, which produces the reverse of the sought effect, i.e. a renewal of support for Huerta but which will not last.

The civil war between revolutionists (1914-1917)

Once achieved the common goal, i.e. the inversion of Huerta, the revolutionists divide. It follows a Civil war of a rare violence, which opposes the constitutionnalists to the armies villists and Zapatist. The constitutionnalists in 1914 not being strongest militarily, the troops villists and Zapatist enter Mexico City in December 1914. Villa and Zapata pose in front of the photographers, in turn sitted on the presidential seat. Villists and Zapatist convene the Convention of Aguascalientes (1914-1915), to which the carrancists (or constitutionnalists) refuse to send deputies. The assembly is made up only of military chiefs and some Zapatist civilians who preach a radical land reform. It appears very quickly that Convention is unable to formulate a political project able to bring back peace in the country. Neither the villists nor the Zapatist ones have a national vision: it is the fate of the Morelos or the Chihuahua which interests them. The constitutionnalists have, them, clearly, a national project: to restore the constitutional order, but they must widen their alliances. This is why Carranza promulgates a first law of land reform, in 1915 (which will not be applied), answering more or less at the requests of the Zapatist ones. Obregón passes also an alliance with the Casa LED obrero Mundial, against promise of a social legislation favorable to the Ouvrier S. Put It form the “Battalions red”, of the working militia which leave in particular to fight the Zapatist ones. Local alliances are also created between other constitutionnalists chiefs, with organized labor or country. In parallel the “military engineering” of Obregón makes wonder: it gains a series of victories over the villists, and the División del Norte must be folded up towards the north and in the State of Chihuahua; these defeats involve many desertions. In 1916, the Zapatist ones in Morelos and the villists in the Chihuahua continue bloody Guerilla S, but they will not leave any more theirs initial zone of influence. The constitutionnalists gained, Carranza convenes a constituting congress which meets in December 1916 in the town of Querétaro.

New model of company and political problems

The Constitution known as “of Querétaro” (February 5th, 1917)

To stabilize the revolutionary mode

Mexico is in ruins east adds up approximately 1 million dead for a population of 15 million inhabitants, of which those of the Spanish Grippe. The railroads and the Hacienda S are destroyed, the Finance S and the Monnaie is in the most complete disorder. The pacification of the Morelos intervenes only in 1919 after the assassination, by treachery, of Zapata. Mexico militarized itself: the various revolutionary factions are out of weapons, the revolutionary chiefs constitute “strongholds” in the various States. The capacity belongs in fact to the Faction S best armed, but also to those which tied alliances with social actors, like the farming community or working world. Carranza is largely a heir to the mode porfirien: it is liberal in the economic domain and social, not very in favor of the land reform and the nationalizations, and authoritative in policy. It wishes above all “to civilize” the mode, to bring back peace, and chooses for successor with the presidency a civilian, engineer of his state, Bonilla. This choice is unacceptable for those which contributed militarily to its political victory, i.e. the men of the Sonora (or “sonoriens”) and their Milice S “revolutionists”. It is them which start the Plan of Agua Prieta and the pronunciamiento which brings the sonoriens to the capacity in 1921. The armed revolution and the civil war broke completely with the liberal and democratic ideals of the revolution maderist wanted in 1910.

Nationalism and reforms (1920-1940)

“To institutionalize” the revolution

Caudillism, exceeded political solution

The foundation of the Revolutionary National Party (1928-1929)

See also: institutional revolutionary Party

The “democracy” according to the PNR

Revolutionary nationalism

“To forge the fatherland”, “to widen the nation”

Cultural nationalism

Socio-economic nationalism and reforms

Characters who illustrated themselves in this conflict

the soldiers Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, Abelardo L. Rodríguez and Manual Ávila Camacho, which later will be elected presidents.
the intellectuals Aquiles Serdan Jose Vasconcelos, Manual Gómez Morín and Antonio Caso.
the writers Mariano Azuela and Martín Shine Guzmán.
the trade union leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano.
the political caricaturist Jose Guadalupe Posada.
Francisco Madero
Francisco Villa
Emiliano Zapata
Victoriano Huerta
Pascual Orozco
Felipe Angeles
Venustiano Carranza

See too

History of Mexico
Lists of articles on Mexico
Armed Mexican (expression)

External bonds

Museo Nacional of Revolución
'' Influencias anarquistas in Revolución Mexicana '', by Jason Wehling

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