Mexican Revolution

General Porfirio Díaz, President of Mexico

A graphical timeline is available at Timeline of the Mexican Revolution

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The Porfiriato is the period in late 19th-century Mexican history dominated by General Porfirio Díaz, who became president of Mexico in 1876 and ruled almost continuously until his forced resignation in 1911.[20] During that period, his presidency was only interrupted by that of his close ally, General Manuel González (1880–84), after which Díaz ran for the presidency again and legally served in office until 1911. Under his administration, the constitution had been amended to allow unlimited presidential re-election. Díaz had originally challenged Benito Juárez on the platform of "no re-election."[21] During the Porfiriato there were regular elections, marked by contentious irregularities.[22] Although Díaz had publicly announced in an interview with journalist James Creelman for Pearson's Magazine that he would not run in the 1910 election, setting off a flurry of political activity, he changed his mind and decided to run again at age 80.

The contested 1910 election was a key political event that contributed to the Mexican Revolution. As Díaz aged, the question of presidential succession became increasingly important. In 1906 the office of vice president was revived, with Díaz choosing his close ally Ramón Corral from among his Científico advisers to serve in the post.[23] By the 1910 election, the Díaz regime had become highly authoritarian, and opposition to it had increased in many sectors of Mexican society.

In the 19th century he had been a national hero, opposing the French Intervention (Spanish: Intervención francesa) in the 1860s and distinguishing himself in the Battle of Puebla (Spanish: Batalla de Puebla) on 5 May 1862 ("Cinco de Mayo").[24] Díaz entered politics following the expulsion of the French in 1867. When Benito Juárez was elected in 1871, Díaz alleged fraud. Juárez died in office in 1872, and Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada succeeded him. Díaz unsuccessfully rebelled against Lerdo under the Plan de La Noria[25] but later accepted the amnesty offered to him. However, when Lerdo ran for the presidency in 1876, Díaz successfully rebelled under the Plan de Tuxtepec.[26][27]

In his early years in the presidency, Díaz was a master politician, playing factions off one another while retaining and consolidating his own power. Whenever politics were unsuccessful Diaz utilized rurales, an armed police militia directly under his control to expand influence by seizing land from rural peasants. Peasants were forced to make futile attempts to win back their land through courts and petitions. By 1900, over ninety percent of communal lands were sold with an estimate of 9.5 million peasants forced off their lands and into the service of land owning barons.[28] Diaz rigged elections, arguing that only he knew what was best for his country, and he enforced his belief with a strong hand. "Order and Progress" were the watchwords of his rule.[29] Although Díaz came to power in 1876 under the banner of "no re-election," with the exception of the presidency of Manuel González from 1880–84, Díaz remained in power continuously from 1884 until 1911, with rigged elections held at regular intervals to give the appearance of democracy.

Díaz's presidency was characterized by the promotion of industry and development of infrastructure by opening the country to foreign investment. He believed opposition needed to be suppressed and order maintained to reassure foreign entrepreneurs that their investments were safe. The modernization and progress in cities came at the expense of the rising working class and the peasantry.

Farmers and peasants both complained of oppression and exploitation. The economy took a great leap during the Porfiriato, as he encouraged the construction of factories and industries and infrastructure such as roads and dams, as well as improving agriculture. The cultivation of exportable goods such as coffee, tobacco, henequen, and sugar replaced the production of wheat, corn and livestock, that peasants had lived on.[30] Industrialization resulted in the rise of an urban proletariat and attracted an influx of foreign capital from the United States and Great Britain. The concentrated wealth in elites coincided with widespread hunger in the countryside.

Wealth, political power and access to education were concentrated among a handful of elite landholding families, overwhelmingly of European and mixed descent. Known as hacendados, they controlled vast swaths of the country by virtue of their huge estates (for example, the Terrazas had one estate in Sonora that alone comprised more than a million acres). Most people in Mexico became landless peasants laboring on these vast estates or industrial workers toiling for little more than slave wages. Peasants that resisted seizing of their lands were often killed or sold as slaves. Foreign companies—mostly from the United Kingdom, France and the U.S.--also exercised influence in Mexico.

Political system

Anti-Diaz newspaper, Regeneración, the official publication of the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM)

Díaz created a formidable political machine, first working with regional strongmen and bringing them into his regime, then replacing them with jefes políticos (political bosses) who were loyal to him. He skillfully managed political conflict and reined in tendencies toward autonomy. He appointed a number of military officers to state governorships, including General Bernardo Reyes, who became governor of the northern state of Nuevo León, but over the years military men were largely replaced by civilians loyal to Díaz.

As a military man himself, and one who had intervened directly in politics to seize the presidency in 1876, Díaz was acutely aware that the Federal Army could oppose him. He augmented the rurales, a police force created by Juárez, making them his personal armed force. The rurales were only 2,500 in number, as opposed to the 30,000 in the army and another 30,000 in the federal auxiliaries, irregulars and National Guard.[31] Despite their small numbers, the rurales were highly effective in bringing control to the countryside, especially along the 12,000 miles of railway lines. They were a mobile force, often sent on trains with their horses to put down rebellions in relatively remote areas of Mexico.[32]

A banner (1903) at the office of opposition magazine El hijo de Ahuizote reads: "The Constitution has died..." (La Constitución ha muerto...)

The construction of railways had been transformative in Mexico (as well as elsewhere in Latin America), accelerating economic activity and increasing the power of the Mexican state. The isolation from the central government that many remote areas had enjoyed or suffered was ending. Telegraph lines constructed next to railroad tracks meant instant communication between distant states and the capital.[33]

The political acumen and flexibility Díaz exhibited in the early years of the Porfiriato began to decline. He brought the state governors under his control, replacing them at will. The Federal Army, while large, was increasingly an ineffective force with aging leadership and troops dragooned into service. Díaz attempted the same kind of manipulation he executed with the Mexican political system with business interests, showing favoritism to European interests against those of the U.S.[34]

Rival interests, particularly those of the foreign powers with presence in Mexico, further complicated an already complex system of favoritism.[35] As economic activity increased and industries thrived, industrial workers began organizing for better conditions. With the expansion of Mexican agriculture, landless peasants were forced to work for low wages or move to the cities. Peasant agriculture was under pressure as haciendas expanded, such as in the state of Morelos, just south of Mexico City, with its burgeoning sugar plantations. There was what one scholar has called "agrarian compression", in which "population growth intersected with land loss, declining wages and insecure tenancies to produce widespread economic deterioration", but the regions under the greatest stress weren't the ones that rebelled.[36]

Opposition to Díaz

Ricardo Flores Magón (left) and Enrique Flores Magón (right), leaders of the Mexican Liberal Party in jail in the Los Angeles (CA) County Jail, 1917

"Land and Liberty", the slogan of the Mexican Liberal Party

A number of Mexicans began to organize in opposition to Díaz policies that had welcomed foreign capital and capitalists, suppressed nascent labor unions and consistently moved against peasants as agriculture flourished.[37] In 1905 the group of Mexican intellectuals and agitators who had created the Mexican Liberal Party (Partido Liberal de México) drew up a radical program of reform, specifically addressing what they considered to be the worst aspects of the Díaz regime. Most prominent in the PLM were Ricardo Flores Magón and his two brothers, Enrique and Jesús. They, along with Luis Cabrera Lobato and Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama, were connected to the anti-Díaz publication El Hijo del Ahuizote. Political cartoons by José Guadalupe Posada lampooned politicians and cultural elites with mordant humor, portraying them as skeletons. The Liberal Party of Mexico founded the anti-Díaz anarchist newspaper Regeneración, which appeared in both Spanish and English. In exile in the United States, Práxedis Guerrero began publishing an anti-Díaz newspaper, Alba Roja (Red Dawn), in San Francisco. Although leftist groups were small in numbers, they became highly influential through their publications, which helped articulate opposition to the Díaz regime. Francisco Bulnes described these men as the "true authors" of the Mexican Revolution for agitating the masses.[38] As the 1910 election approached, Francisco I. Madero, an idealistic political novice and member of one of Mexico's richest families, funded the newspaper Anti-Reelectionista, in opposition to the continual re-election of Díaz.

Organized labor conducted strikes for better wages and just treatment. Demands for better labor conditions were central to the Liberal Party program, drawn up in 1905. Mexican copper miners in the northern state of Sonora took action in the 1906 Cananea strike. Starting on June 1, 1906, 5,400 miners began to organize labor strikes.[39] Among other grievances, they were paid less than U.S. nationals working in the mines.[40] In the state of Veracruz, textile workers rioted in January 1907 at the huge Río Blanco factory, the world's largest, protesting against unfair labor practices. They were paid in credit that could be used only at the company store, binding them to the company.[41]

These strikes were ruthlessly suppressed, with factory owners receiving support from government forces. In the Cananea strike, mine owner William Cornell Greene received support from Díaz's rurales in Sonora as well as Arizona Rangers called in from across the U.S. border.[42] This private military force was ordered to use violence in order to combat the labor uprisings, marking the U.S.'s involvement in suppressing the Mexican working class.[43] In the state of Veracruz, the Mexican army gunned down Rio Blanco textile workers and put the bodies on train cars that transported them to Veracruz, "where the bodies were dumped in the harbor as food for sharks".[44] Government suppression of strikes was not unique to Mexico, with parallel occurrences both in the United States and Western Europe.

Since the press was suppressed in Mexico under Díaz, little was published that was critical of the regime. Newspapers barely reported on the Rio Blanco textile strike, the Cananea strike or harsh labor practices on plantations in Oaxaca and Yucatán. Leftist Mexican opponents of the Díaz regime, such as Ricardo Flores Magón and Práxedis Guerrero, went into exile in the relative safety of the United States, but cooperation between the U.S. government and Díaz's agents resulted in the arrest of some.

Presidential succession in 1910

General Bernardo Reyes, who later rebelled against President Madero

Francisco I. Madero campaigns from the back of a railway car in 1910.

Díaz had ruled continuously since 1884. The question of presidential succession was an issue as early as 1900, when he turned 70.[45] It was his "undeclared intention to step down from the presidency in 1904."[46] Díaz seems to have considered Finance Minister José Yves Limantour as his successor. Limantour was a key member of the Científicos, the circle of technocratic advisers steeped in positivist political science. Another potential successor was General Bernardo Reyes, Diaz's Minister of War, who also served as governor of Nuevo León. Reyes, an opponent of the Científicos, was a moderate reformer with a considerable base of support.[46] Díaz became concerned about him as a rival, and forced him to resign from his cabinet. He attempted to marginalize Reyes by sending him on a "military mission" to Europe,[47] distancing him from Mexico and potential political supporters.

Díaz re-established the office of vice president in 1906, choosing Ramón Corral. Rather than managing political succession, Díaz marginalized Corral, keeping him away from any decision-making.[48]

In a 1908 interview with U.S. journalist James Creelman, Díaz said that Mexico was ready for democracy and that he would step down to allow other candidates to compete for the presidency.[49][50][51] If Díaz had kept to this, the presidency and vice presidency would have been open in 1910. His later reversal on retiring from the presidency set off tremendous activity among opposition groups.

"The potential challenge from Reyes would remain one of Díaz's political obsessions through the rest of the decade, which ultimately blinded him to the danger of the challenge of Francisco Madero's anti-re-electionist campaign."[52]

In 1910 Francisco I. Madero, a young man from a wealthy landowning family in the northern state of Coahuila, announced his intent to challenge Díaz for the presidency in the next election, under the banner of the Anti-Reelectionist Party. Madero chose as his running mate Francisco Vázquez Gómez, a physician who had opposed Díaz.[53] Although similar overall to Díaz in his ideology, Madero hoped for other elites to rule alongside the president. Díaz thought he could control this election, as he had the previous seven;[54] however, Madero campaigned vigorously and effectively. To ensure Madero did not win, Díaz had him jailed before the election. He escaped and fled for a short period to San Antonio, Texas.[54] Díaz was announced the winner of the election by a "landslide". When it became obvious that the election had been fixed, Madero supporter Toribio Ortega took up arms with a group of followers at Cuchillo Parado, Chihuahua on 10 November 1910.

End of the Porfiriato

See also: Francisco I. Madero and Treaty of Ciudad Juárez

Principal battles during the fight to oust Díaz, November 1910-May 1911. Most action was in the northern border area, with the Battle of Ciudad Juárez being a decisive blow, but the struggle in Morelos by the Zapatistas was also extremely important, since the state was just south of the Mexican capital

On 5 October 1910, Madero issued a "letter from jail," known as the Plan de San Luis Potosí, with its main slogan Sufragio Efectivo, No Re-elección ("free suffrage and no re-election"). It declared the Díaz presidency illegal and called for revolt against him, starting on 20 November 1910. Madero's political plan did not outline major socioeconomic revolution, but offered the hope of change for many disadvantaged Mexicans.[54]

Northern leaders of the revolt against Díaz pose for a photo after the First Battle of Juárez. Present are José María Pino Suárez, Venustiano Carranza, Francisco I. Madero (and his father), Pascual Orozco, Pancho Villa, Gustavo A. Madero, Raul Madero, Abraham González and Giuseppe Garibaldi Jr.

Madero's plan was aimed at fomenting a popular uprising against Díaz, but he also understood that the support of the United States and U.S. financiers would be of crucial importance in undermining the regime. The rich and powerful Madero family drew on its resources to make regime change possible, with Madero's brother Gustavo A. Madero hiring, in October 1910, the firm of Washington lawyer Sherburne Hopkins, the "world's best rigger of Latin-American revolutions", to encourage support in the U.S.[55] A strategy to discredit Díaz with U.S. business and the U.S. government achieved some success, with Standard Oil representatives engaging in talks with Gustavo Madero. More importantly, the U.S. government "bent neutrality laws for the revolutionaries."[56]

In late 1910 revolutionary movements broke out in response to Madero's Plan de San Luis Potosí. His vague promises of land reform attracted many peasants throughout the country. Spontaneous rebellions arose in which ordinary farm laborers, miners and other working-class Mexicans, along with much of the country's population of indigenous natives, fought Díaz's forces, with some success. Madero attracted the forces of rebel leaders such as Pascual Orozco, Pancho Villa, Ricardo Flores Magón, Emiliano Zapata and Venustiano Carranza. A young and able revolutionary, Orozco—along with Gov. Abraham González—formed a powerful military union in the north and, although they were not especially committed to Madero, took Mexicali and Chihuahua City. These victories encouraged alliances with other revolutionary leaders, including Villa. Against Madero's wishes, Orozco and Villa fought for and won Ciudad Juárez, bordering El Paso, Texas, on the south side of the Rio Grande. Madero's call to action had some unanticipated results, such as the Magonista rebellion of 1911 in Baja California.[57] During the Maderista campaign in northern Mexico, there was anti-Chinese violence, particularly the May 1911 massacre at Torreón, a major railway hub.[58]

Francisco León de la Barra, interim president of Mexico, May–November 1911.

With the Federal Army defeated in a string of battles, Diaz's government began negotiations with the revolutionaries. One of Madero's representatives in the negotiations was his running mate in the 1910 elections, Francisco Vázquez Gómez.[59] The talks culminated in the 21 May 1911 Treaty of Ciudad Juárez. The signed treaty stated that Díaz would abdicate the presidency along with his vice president, Ramón Corral, by the end of May 1911, to be replaced by an interim president, Francisco León de la Barra, until elections were held. Díaz and his family and a number of top supporters were allowed to go into exile.[60] When Díaz left for exile in Paris, he was reported as saying, "Madero has unleashed a tiger; let us see if he can control it."[61]

With Díaz in exile and new elections to be called in October, the power structure of the old regime remained in place. Francisco León de la Barra became interim president, pending an election to be held in October 1911. León de la Barra was considered an acceptable person for the interim presidency, since he was not a Científico, not a politician, but rather a Catholic lawyer and diplomat.[62] He appeared to be a moderate, but the German ambassador to Mexico, Paul von Hintze, who associated with the Interim President, said of him that "De la Barra wants to accommodate himself with dignity to the inevitable advance of the ex-revolutionary influence, while accelerating the widespread collapse of the Madero party...."[63] The Federal Army, despite its defeats by the revolutionaries, remained intact as the government's force, while Madero called on revolutionary fighters to lay down their arms and demobilize. The cabinet of De la Barra and the Mexican congress was filled with supporters of the Díaz regime. Madero campaigned vigorously for the presidency during this interim period, but revolutionaries who had supported him and brought about Díaz's resignation were dismayed that the sweeping reforms they sought were not immediately instituted. He did introduce some progressive reforms, including improved funding for rural schools; promoting some aspects of agrarian reform to increase the amount of productive land; labor reforms including workman's compensation and the eight-hour day; but also the right of the government to intervene in strikes. According to historian Peter V.N. Henderson, León de la Barra's and congress's actions "suggests that few Porfirians wished to return to the status quo of the dictatorship. Rather, the thoughtful, progressive members of the Porfirian meritocracy recognized the need for change."[64]

De la Barra's government sent General Victoriano Huerta to fight in Morelos against the Zapatistas, burning villages and wreaking havoc. His actions drove a wedge between Zapata and Madero, which widened when Madero was inaugurated president.[65] Madero had won the election decisively and was inaugurated as president in November 1911, but his movement had lost crucial momentum and supporters in the months of the Interim Presidency.

Francisco I. Madero, as President of Mexico.

Madero and northern revolutionary Pascual Orozco, who rebelled against him in 1912.

Pancho Villa and followers from the Division of the North

Madero was an inexperienced politician who had never held office before, but his election as president in October 1911, following the exile of Porfirio Díaz in May 1911 and the interim presidency of Francisco León de la Barra, raised high expectations for positive change. However, the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez guaranteed that the essential structure of the Díaz regime, including the Federal Army, was kept in place.[66] Madero fervently held to his position that Mexico needed real democracy, which included regime change by valid election, a free press and the right of labor to organize and strike.

Francisco I. Madero, Emiliano Zapata, in Cuernavaca. Zapata rebelled against Madero in 1911 because of Madero's slowness in implementing land reform

The rebels who brought him to power were demobilized and Madero called on these men of action to return to civilian life. According to a story told by Pancho Villa (one of those who had defeated Díaz's army and forced his resignation and exile), he told Madero at a banquet in Ciudad Juárez in 1911, "You [Madero], sir, have destroyed the revolution . . . It's simple: this bunch of dandies have made a fool of you, and this will eventually cost us our necks, yours included."[67] Ignoring the warning, Madero increasingly relied on the Federal Army as armed rebellions broke out in Mexico in 1911–12, with particularly threatening insurrections led by Emiliano Zapata in Morelos and Pascual Orozco in the north. Both Zapata and Orozco had led revolts that had put pressure on Díaz to resign, and both felt betrayed by Madero once he became president.

The press embraced its newfound freedom and Madero became a target of its criticism. Organized labor, which had been suppressed under Díaz, could and did stage strikes, which foreign entrepreneurs saw as threatening their interests. Although there had been labor unrest under Díaz, labor's new freedom to organize also came with anti-American currents.[68] The anarcho-syndicalist Casa del Obrero Mundial (House of the World Worker) was founded in September 1912 by Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama, Manuel Sarabia and Lázaro Gutiérrez de Lara and served as a center of agitation and propaganda, but it was not a formal labor union.[69][70]

Political parties proliferated, one of the most important being the National Catholic Party, which in a number of regions of the country was particularly strong.[71] Several Catholic newspapers were in circulation during the Madero era, including El País and La Nación, only to be later suppressed under the Victoriano Huerta regime (1913–14).[72] From 1876–1911, relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Mexican government were stable, with the anticlerical laws of the Mexican Constitution of 1857 remaining in place, but not enforced, so conflict was muted.[73]

During Madero's presidency, Church-state conflict was channeled peacefully.[74] The National Catholic Party became an important political opposition force during the Madero presidency.[75] In June 1912 congressional elections, "militarily quiescent states...the Catholic Party (PCN) did conspicuously well."[76] During that period, the Catholic Association of Mexican Youth (ACJM) was founded. Although the National Catholic Party was an opposition party to the Madero regime, "Madero clearly welcomed the emergence of a kind of two party system (Catholic and liberal); he encouraged Catholic political involvement, echoing the exhortations of the episcopate."[77] What was emerging during the Madero regime was "Díaz's old policy of Church-state detente was being continued, perhaps more rapidly and on surer foundations."[78] The Catholic Church was working within the new democratic system promoted by Madero, but it had its own interests to promote, some of which were the forces of the old conservative Church, while the new, progressive Church supporting social Catholicism of the 1891 papal encyclical Rerum Novarum was also a current. When Madero was overthrown in February 1913 by counter-revolutionaries, the conservative wing of the Church supported the coup.[79]

Madero did not have the experience or the ideological inclination to reward men who had helped bring him to power. Some revolutionary leaders expected personal rewards, such as the young and militarily gifted Pascual Orozco of Chihuahua. Others wanted major reforms, most especially Emiliano Zapata and Andrés Molina Enríquez, who had long worked for land reform.[80] Madero met personally with Zapata, telling the guerrilla leader that the agrarian question needed careful study. His meaning was clear: Madero, a member of a rich northern hacendado family, was not about to implement comprehensive agrarian reform for aggrieved peasants.

Madero and his military staff officers, Mexico National Palace, 1911. Rather than keeping the revolutionary force that had helped bring him to power, Madero in a fatal decision kept the Federal Army intact

In response to this lack of action, Zapata promulgated the Plan de Ayala in November 1911, declaring himself in rebellion against Madero. He renewed guerrilla warfare in the state of Morelos. Madero sent the Federal Army to deal with Zapata, albeit unsuccessfully. Zapata remained true to the demands of the Plan de Ayala and in rebellion against every central government up until his assassination by an agent of President Venustiano Carranza in 1919.

Zapatistas outside Cuernavaca 1911. Photo by Hugo Brehme[81]

The brilliant northern revolutionary General Pascual Orozco, who had helped take Ciudad Juárez, had expected to become governor of Chihuahua, a powerful position. In 1911, although Orozco was "the man of the hour," Madero gave the governorship instead to Abraham González, a respectable revolutionary, with the explanation that Orozco had not reached the legal age to serve as governor, a tactic that was "a useful constitutional alibi for thwarting the ambitions of young, popular, revolutionary leaders."[82]

Madero had put Orozco in charge of the large force of rurales in Chihuahua, but to a gifted revolutionary fighter who had helped bring about Díaz's fall, Madero's reward was insulting. After Madero refused to agree to social reforms calling for better working hours, pay and conditions, Orozco organized his own army, the "Orozquistas", also called the "Colorados" ("Red Flaggers") and issued his Plan Orozquista on 25 March 1912, enumerating why he was rising in revolt against Madero.[83] This caused considerable dismay among U.S. businessmen and other foreign investors in the northern region. It was a signal to many that Madero's government could not maintain the order that was the underpinning of modernization in the era of Porfirio Díaz.

In April 1912 Madero dispatched General Victoriano Huerta of the Federal Army to put down Orozco's revolt. As president, Madero had kept the army intact as an institution, using it to put down domestic rebellions against his regime. Huerta was a professional soldier and continued to serve in the army under the new commander-in-chief, but his loyalty lay with General Bernardo Reyes rather than with the civilian Madero. In 1912, under pressure from his cabinet, Madero had called on Huerta to suppress Orozco's rebellion. With Huerta's success against Orozco, he emerged as a powerful figure for conservative forces opposing the Madero regime.[84]

During the Orozco revolt, the governor of Chihuahua mobilized the state militia to support the Federal Army and Pancho Villa, a colonel in the militia, was called up at this time. In mid-April, at the head of 400 irregular troops, he joined the forces commanded by Huerta. Huerta, however, viewed Villa as an ambitious competitor. During a visit to Huerta's headquarters in June 1912, after an incident in which he refused to return a number of stolen horses, Villa was imprisoned on charges of insubordination and robbery and sentenced to death.[85] Raúl Madero, the President's brother, intervened to save Villa's life. Jailed in Mexico City, Villa escaped and fled to the United States, later to return and play a major role in the civil wars of 1913-15.

There were other rebellions, one led by Bernardo Reyes and the other by Félix Díaz, nephew of the former president, that were quickly put down and the generals jailed. They were both in Mexico City prisons and, despite their geographical separation, they were able to foment yet another rebellion in February 1913. This period came to be known as the Ten Tragic Days (la decena trágica), which ended with Madero's resignation and assassination and Huerta assuming the presidency. Although Madero had reason to distrust Victoriano Huerta, Madero placed him in charge of suppressing the Mexico City revolt as interim commander. He did not know that Huerta had been invited to join the conspiracy but had initially held back.[86] During the fighting that took place in the capital, the civilian population was subjected to artillery exchanges, street fighting and economic disruption, perhaps deliberately visited on them in order for the rebels to demonstrate that Madero was unable to keep order.[87]

Corpses in front of the National Palace during the Ten Tragic Days. Photographer, Manuel Ramos.[88]

The Madero presidency was unraveling, to no one's surprise except perhaps Madero's, whose support continued to deteriorate, even among his political allies. Madero's supporters in congress before the coup, the so-called "Renovadores" ("the renewers"), criticized him, saying, "The revolution is heading toward collapse and is pulling the government to which it gave rise down with it, for the simple reason that it is not governing with revolutionaries. Compromises and concessions to the supporters of the old [Díaz] regime are the main causes of the unsettling situation in which the government that emerged from the revolution finds itself . . . The regime appears relentlessly bent on suicide."[89]

Huerta, formally in charge of the defense of Madero's regime, allowed the rebels to hold the armory in Mexico City—the Ciudadela—while he consolidated his political power. He changed allegiance from Madero to the rebels under Félix Díaz (Bernardo Reyes having been killed on the first day of the open armed conflict). U.S. Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, who had done all he could to undermine U.S. confidence in Madero's presidency, brokered the Pact of the Embassy, which formalized the alliance between Félix Díaz and Huerta, with the backing of the United States.[9] Huerta was to become provisional president following the resignations of Madero and his vice president, José María Pino Suárez. Rather than being sent into exile with their families, the two were murdered while being transported to prison—a shocking event, but one that did not prevent the Huerta regime's recognition by most world governments.

Historian Friedrich Katz considers Madero's retention of the Federal Army, which was defeated by the revolutionary forces and resulted in Díaz's resignation, "was the basic cause of his fall." His failure is also attributable to "the failure of the social class to which he belonged and whose interests he considered to be identical to those of Mexico: the liberal hacendados [owners of large estates].[90] Madero had created no political organization that could survive his death and had alienated and demobilized the revolutionary fighters who had helped bring him to power. In the aftermath of his assassination and Huerta's seizure of power via military coup, former revolutionaries had no formal organization through which to raise opposition to Huerta.[91]

General Victoriano Huerta was a Federal Army commander who served President Francisco I. Madero (1911–13) but joined with anti-Madero conspirators in ousting him.

Victoriano Huerta (left) and Pascual Orozco (right).

Huerta's presidency is usually characterized as a dictatorship. From the point of view of revolutionaries at the time and the construction of historical memory of the Revolution, it is without any positive aspects. "Despite recent attempts to portray Victoriano Huerta as a reformer, there is little question that he was a self-serving dictator."[92] There are few biographies of Huerta, but one strongly asserts that Huerta should not be labeled simply as a counter-revolutionary,[93] arguing that his regime consisted of two distinct periods: from the coup in February 1913 up to October 1913. During that time he attempted to legitimize his regime and demonstrate its legality by pursuing reformist policies; and after October 1913, when he dropped all attempts to rule within a legal framework and began murdering political opponents while battling revolutionary forces that had united in opposition to his regime.[94]

Supporting the Huerta regime initially were business interests in Mexico, both foreign and domestic; landed elites; the Roman Catholic Church; as well as the German and British governments. The United States President Woodrow Wilson, did not recognize the Huerta regime.[95] Huerta and Venustiano Carranza were in contact for two weeks immediately after the coup, but they did not come to an agreement. Carranza then declared himself opposed to Huerta and became the leader of the anti-Huerta forces in the north.[96] Huerta gained the support of revolutionary general Pascual Orozco, who had helped topple the Diaz regime, then became disillusioned with Madero. Huerta's first cabinet was composed of men who had supported the February 1913 Pact of the [U.S.] Embassy, among them some who had supported Madero, such as Jesús Flores Magón; supporters of General Bernardo Reyes; supporters of Félix Díaz; and former Interim President Francisco León de la Barra.[97]

During the counter-revolutionary regime of Huerta (1913–1914), the Catholic Church initially supported him. "The Church represented a force for reaction, especially in the countryside."[74] However, when Huerta cracked down on political parties and conservative opposition, he had "Gabriel Somellera, president of the [National] Catholic Party arrested; La Nación, which, like other Catholic papers, had protested Congress's dissolution and the rigged elections [of October 1913], locked horns with the official press and was finally closed down. El País, the main Catholic newspaper, survived for a time."[98]

Initially, Huerta was even able to muster the support of Andrés Molina Enríquez, author of The Great National Problems (Los grandes problemas nacionales), a key work urging land reform in Mexico.[99] Huerta was deeply concerned with the issue of land reform, since it was a persistent spur of peasant unrest. Specifically, he moved to restore "ejido lands to the Yaquis and Mayos of Sonora and [advanced] proposals for distribution of government lands to small-scale farmers."[100][101] When Huerta refused to move faster on land reform, Molina Enríquez disavowed the regime in June 1913,[102] later going on to advise the 1917 constitutional convention on land reform.

Venustiano Carranza, Governor of Coahuila, united northern forces of the Constitutionalist Army, with brilliant generals Obregón and Villa

Within a month of the coup, rebellion began to spread throughout Mexico, most prominently led by the governor of the state of Coahuila, Venustiano Carranza, along with Pablo González and old revolutionaries demobilized by Madero, such as Pancho Villa. Carranza issued a narrowly political statement, the Plan of Guadalupe. Upon taking power, Huerta had moved swiftly to consolidate his hold in the North. Carranza might have counted on Chihuahua Gov. Abraham González, but Huerta had him arrested and murdered for fear he would foment rebellion.[91] The Northern revolutionaries fought under the name of the Constitutionalist Army, with Carranza as the "First Chief" (primer jefe). When northern General Pancho Villa became governor of Chihuahua in 1914, following the ousting of Huerta, he located González's bones and had them reburied with full honors.

In Morelos, Emiliano Zapata continued his rebellion under the Plan of Ayala (while expunging the name of counter-revolutionary Pascual Orozco from it), calling for the expropriation of land and redistribution to peasants. Huerta offered peace to Zapata, who rejected it.[103] The Huerta government was thus challenged by revolutionary forces in the north of Mexico and in the strategic state of Morelos, just south of the capital.

Constitutionalist Generals Obregón (left) and Pancho Villa (center) with U.S. Army General Pershing, posing after a 1914 meeting at Fort Bliss, Texas. After the ouster of Huerta, Villa split with Carranza, and was defeated by Obregón in 1915. In 1916, Villa attacked the United States and Pershing was dispatched in a failed attempt to capture him.

Lame duck U.S. President William Howard Taft, whose term ended 4 March 1913, left the decision of whether to recognize the new government up to the incoming president, Woodrow Wilson. Despite the urging of U.S. ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, who had played a key role in the coup d'état, President Wilson not only declined to recognize Huerta's government but first supplanted the ambassador by sending his "personal representative" John Lind, a Swedish-American progressive who sympathized with the Mexican revolutionaries, and then, in the summer of 1913, the president recalled Ambasssador Wilson. Further, under President Wilson, the United States lifted the arms embargo imposed by Taft in order to supply weapons to the landlocked rebels; while under the complete embargo Huerta had still been able to receive shipments from the British.[104] While urging other European powers to likewise not recognize Huerta's government, Wilson also attempted to persuade Huerta to call prompt elections "and not present himself as a candidate."[105] The United States offered Mexico a loan on the condition that Huerta accept the proposal. He refused. Lind "clearly threatened a military intervention in case the demands were not met."[106]

In the summer of 1913 Mexican conservatives who had supported Huerta sought a constitutionally elected civilian alternative to Huerta, brought together in a body called the National Unifying Junta.[107] Political parties proliferated in this period, so that by the time of the October congressional elections there were 26. From Huerta's point of view, the fragmentation of the conservative political landscape strengthened his own position. For the country's conservative elite, "there was a growing disillusionment with Huerta, and disgust at his strong-arm methods."[108] Huerta dispensed with the legislature on 26 October 1913, having the army surround its building and arresting congressmen perceived to be hostile to his regime. Congressional elections went ahead, but given that congress was dissolved and some members were in jail, the fervor of opposition candidates disappeared. The sham election "brought home to [Woodrow] Wilson's administration the fatuity of relying on elections to demonstrate genuine democracy."[109] The October 1913 elections were the end of any pretension to constitutional rule in Mexico, with civilian political activity banned.[110] Prominent Catholics were arrested and Catholic newspapers were suppressed.[111]

Huerta militarized Mexico to a greater extent than it already was. In 1913 when Huerta seized power, the army had approximately 50,000 men, but Huerta mandated the number rise to 150,000, then 200,000 and, finally in spring 1914, 250,000.[112] Raising that number of men in so short a time would not occur with volunteers, and the army resorted to the leva, forced conscription. The revolutionary forces had no problem with voluntary recruitment.[113] Most Mexican men avoided government conscription at all costs and the ones dragooned into the forces were sent to areas far away from home and were reluctant to fight. Conscripts deserted, mutinied and attacked and murdered their officers.[114]

U.S. troops enter Veracruz in April 1914

In April 1914 U.S. opposition to Huerta culminated in the seizure and occupation of the port of Veracruz by U.S. marines and sailors. Initially intended, in part, to prevent a German merchant vessel from delivering a shipment of arms to the Huerta regime, the muddled operation evolved into a seven-month stalemate resulting in the death of 193 Mexican soldiers, 19 U.S. servicemen and an unknown number of civilians. The German ship landed its cargo—largely U.S.-made rifles—in a deal brokered by U.S. businessmen (at a different port). U.S. forces eventually left Veracruz in the hands of the Carrancistas, but with lasting damage to U.S.-Mexican relations.[115][116][117]

Zapata took Chilpancingo in mid-March; he followed this soon afterward with the capture of Acapulco, Iguala, Taxco, and Buenavista de Cuellar. Next he confronted the federal garrisons in Morelos, the majority of which defected to him with their weapons. Finally he moved against the capital, by sending his subordinates into Mexico state.[118]

Meanwhile, in early 1914 Pancho Villa had moved against a huertista army holed up in Ojinaga, sending the federal soldiers fleeing to Fort Bliss, in the U.S. In mid-March he moved against Torreón, a well defended railway-hub city. After bitter fighting for the hills surrounding Torreón, and later point blank bombardment, on April 3 Villa's troops entered the devastated city. The huertista forces made a last stand at San Pedro de las Colonias, only to be undone by squabbling between the two commanding officers, General Velasco and General Maas, over who had the higher rank. As of mid-April, Mexico City sat undefended before the Villista forces.[118]

Contemporaneously with Villa's actions, Obregon moved south from Sonora along the Pacific Coast. When his way was blocked by federal gunboats, Obregon attacked these boats with an airplane, an early use of an airplane for military purposes. In early July he defeated federal troops at Orendain, Jalisco, leaving 8,000 federals dead and capturing a large trove of armaments. He was now in a position to arrive at Mexico city ahead of Villa, who was diverted by orders from Carranza to take Saltillo.[118]

These defeats caused Huerta's position to continue to deteriorate and in mid-July 1914, he stepped down and fled to Puerto México. Seeking to get himself and his family out of Mexico, he turned to the German government, which had generally supported his presidency. The Germans were not eager to allow him to be transported into exile on one of their ships, but relented. Huerta carried "roughly half a million marks in gold with him" as well as paper currency and checks.[119] In exile, Huerta sought to return to Mexico via the United States; U.S. authorities arrested him and he was imprisoned in Fort Bliss, Texas. He died in January 1916, six months after going into exile.[120]

Huerta's resignation marked the end of an era, for the Federal Army, a spectacularly ineffective fighting force against the revolutionaries, ceased to exist.[121] The revolutionary factions that had united in opposition to Huerta's regime now faced a new political landscape with the counter-revolutionaries decisively defeated. The revolutionary armies now contended for power and a new era of civil war began after an attempt at an agreement among the winners at a Convention of Aguascalientes.

Soldiers moving by rail during the Mexican Revolution

With the departure of Huerta in July 1914, the revolutionary factions agreed to meet and make "a last-ditch effort to avert more intense warfare than that which unseated Huerta."[122] Called to meet in Mexico City in October 1914, revolutionaries opposed to Carranza's influence successfully moved the venue to Aguascalientes. The Convention of Aguascalientes did not, in fact, reconcile the various victorious factions in the Mexican Revolution. The break between Carranza and Villa became definitive during the Convention. "Carranza spurned it, and Villa effectively hijacked it. Mexico's lesser caudillos were forced to choose" between those two forces.[123] It was a brief pause in revolutionary violence before another all-out period of civil war ensued.

Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata

Carranza had expected to be confirmed in his position as First Chief of revolutionary forces, but his supporters "lost control of the proceedings".[124] Opposition to Carranza was strongest in areas where there were popular and fierce demands for reform, particularly in Chihuahua where Villa was powerful, and Morelos where Zapata held sway.[125] The Convention of Aguascalientes brought that opposition out in an open forum.

The revolutionary generals of the Convention called on Carranza to resign executive power. Although he agreed to do so, he laid out conditions for it. He would resign if both Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, his main rivals for power, would resign and go into exile, and that there should be a pre-constitutionalist government "that would take charge of carrying out the social and political reforms the country needs before a fully constitutional government is re-established."[126]

Pancho Villa (left), Commander of the División del Norte (Division of the North), and Emiliano Zapata, Commander of the Ejército Libertador del Sur (Liberation Army of the South), joined forces in the Army of the Convention, which fought the Constitutionalist Army of Venustiano Carranza. In practice over the long term, Villa and Zapata fought in different areas, and the Constitutionalists under Álvaro Obregón defeated Villa in 1915

General Álvaro Obregón, who defeated Villa in a series of battles.

Rather than First Chief Carranza being named president of Mexico at the convention, General Eulalio Gutiérrez was chosen for a term of 20 days. The convention declared Carranza in rebellion against it. Civil war resumed, this time between revolutionary armies that had fought in a united cause to oust Huerta in 1913–14. Although during the Convention Constitutionalist General Álvaro Obregón had attempted to be a moderating force and had been the one to convey the Convention's call for Carranza to resign, when the convention forces declared Carranza in rebellion against it, Obregón supported Carranza rather than Villa and Zapata.

Villa went into a loose alliance with southern leader Zapata to form the Army of the Convention. Their forces moved separately on the capital, Mexico City, and took it—which Carranza's forces had abandoned—in December 1914. The famous picture of Zapata and Villa, with Villa sitting in the presidential chair in the National Palace, is a classic image of the Revolution. Villa is reported to have said to Zapata that the presidential chair "is too big for us."[127]

In practice, the alliance between Villa and Zapata as the Army of the Convention did not function beyond this initial victory against the Constitutionalists. Villa and Zapata left the capital, with Zapata returning to his southern stronghold in Morelos, where he continued to engage in warfare under the Plan of Ayala.[128] Lacking a firm center of power and leadership, the Convention government was plagued by instability. Villa was the real power emerging from the Convention, and he prepared to strengthen his position by winning a decisive victory against the Constitutionalist Army.

Villa had a well-earned reputation as a fierce and successful general, and the combination of forces arrayed against Carranza by Villa, other northern generals and Zapata was larger than the Constitutionalist Army, so it was not at all clear that Carranza would prevail. He had the advantage of the loyalty of General Álvaro Obregón. Despite Obregón's moderating actions at the Convention of Aguascalientes, even trying to persuade Carranza to resign his position, he ultimately sided with Carranza.[129]

Another advantage of Carranza's position was the Constitutionalists' control of Veracruz, even though the United States still occupied it. The United States had concluded that both Villa and Zapata were too radical and hostile to its interests and sided with the moderate Carranza in the factional fighting.[130] The U.S. timed its exit from Veracruz, brokered at the Niagara Falls peace conference, to benefit Carranza and allowed munitions to flow to the Constitutionalists. The U.S. granted Carranza's government diplomatic recognition in October 1915.

The rival armies of Villa and Obregón clashed in April 1915 in the Battle of Celaya, which lasted from the sixth to the 15th. The frontal cavalry charges of Villa's forces were met by the shrewd, modern military tactics of Obregón. The victory of the Constitutionalists was complete, and Carranza emerged as the political leader of Mexico with a victorious army to keep him in that position. Villa retreated north. Carranza and the Constitutionalists consolidated their position as the winning faction, with Zapata remaining a threat until his assassination in 1919. Villa also remained a threat to the Constitutionalists, complicating their relationship with the United States when elements of Villa's forces raided Columbus, New Mexico, in March 1916, prompting the U.S. to launch a punitive expedition into Mexico in an unsuccessful attempt to capture him.

Mexico at the end of 1915, with the Constitutionalists holding the most territory

Governor of Coahuila Venustiano Carranza--center--the tall and distinguished-looking "First Chief" of the Constitutionalist forces in northern Mexico opposing Huerta's regime. General Álvaro Obregón (left) shown with a cigar in his left hand and his right arm missing, lost in the Battle of León in 1915

Soldaderas were participants in the Revolution, as combatants and support of combatants

Venustiano Carranza had proclaimed the Plan of Guadalupe a month after Victoriano Huerta seized power in February 1913, uniting northern factions into a movement to oust Huerta, especially under generals Álvaro Obregón and Pancho Villa. Huerta went into exile in July 1914 and the revolutionary factions sought to decide Mexico's political future in the Convention of Aguascalientes. Villa broke with Carranza and went into alliance with Emiliano Zapata. General Obregón remained loyal to Carranza and led the Constitutionalist Army to victory over Villa in the Battle of Celaya in April 1915.

The decisive defeat by Obregón of the Constitutionalists' main rival Pancho Villa in a series of battles in 1915 ended the most serious threat from the north. The U.S. recognized Carranza's government as the de facto ruling power in October 1915, following those military victories. This gave Carranza's Constitutionalists legitimacy internationally and access to arms from the U.S. The Carranza government still had active opponents, including Villa, who retreated north,[131] and Zapata, who remained active in the south. Even though he was losing support, Zapata remained a threat to the Carranza regime until his assassination by order of Carranza on 10 April 1919.[132]

The Constitutionalist Army was renamed the "Mexican National Army" and Carranza sent some of its most able generals to eliminate threats. In Morelos he sent General Pablo González Garza to fight Zapata's Liberating Army of the South.[133] Although the peasants of Morelos under Zapata had not expanded beyond their local region and parts of the state of Puebla, Carranza sought to eliminate Zapata. Morelos was very close to Mexico City, and not having it under Carranza's control constituted a vulnerability for his government. Agents of the Carranza regime assassinated Zapata in 1919. Carranza sent General Francisco Murguía and General Manuel M. Diéguez to track down and eliminate Villa. They were unsuccessful, but did capture and execute one of Villa's top men, Felipe Angeles.[134]

General Salvador Alvarado

Carranza pushed for the rights of women, and gained women's support. During his presidency he relied on his personal secretary and close aide, Hermila Galindo de Topete, to rally and secure support for him. Through her efforts he was able to gain the support of women, workers and peasants. Carranza rewarded her efforts by lobbying for women's equality. He helped change and reform the legal status of women in Mexico.[135]

Venustiano Carranza did not move on land reform, despite the provisions in the new constitution providing for it. Rather, he returned confiscated estates to their owners.[136] Not only did he oppose large-scale land reform, he vetoed laws that would have increased agricultural production by giving peasants temporary access to lands not under cultivation.[137] In places where peasants had fought for land reform, Carranza's policy was to repress them and deny their demands. In the southeast, where hacienda owners held strong, Carranza sent the most radical of his supporters, Francisco Múgica in Tabasco and Salvador Alvarado in Yucatan, to mobilize peasants and be a counterweight to the hacienda owners.[138] Salvador Alvarado after taking control of Yucatán in 1915, organized a large Socialist Party and carried out extensive land reform. He confiscated the large landed estates and redistributed the land in smaller plots to the liberated peasants.[139] Maximo Castillo, a revolutionary brigadier general from Chihuahua was annoyed by the slow pace of land reform under the Madero presidency. He ordered the subdivision of six haciendas belonging to Luis Terrazas, which were given to sharecroppers and tenants.[140]

Uncle Sam entering Mexico in 1916 to punish Pancho Villa.

Carranza's relationship with the United States had initially benefited from its recognition of his government, with the Constitutionalist Army being able to buy arms. In 1915 and early 1916, there is evidence that Carranza was seeking a loan from the U.S. with the backing of U.S. bankers and a formal alliance with the U.S. Mexican nationalists in Mexico were seeking a stronger stance against the colossus of the north, taxing foreign holdings and limiting their influence. With Villa's raid against Columbus, New Mexico in March 1916, ended the possibility of a closer relationship with the U.S.[141] Under heavy pressure from American public opinion to punish the attackers (stoked mainly by the papers of ultra-conservative publisher William Randolph Hearst, who owned a large estate in Mexico), U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sent General John J. Pershing and around 5,000 troops into Mexico in an attempt to capture Villa.[142] The American intervention, known as the Punitive Expedition, was limited to the western Sierras of Chihuahua and was notable as the U.S. Army's first use of airplanes in military operations. Villa knew the inhospitable terrain intimately and had little trouble evading his pursuers. Villa was deeply entrenched in the mountains of northern Mexico, and knew the terrain too well to be captured. Pershing could not continue with his mission and was forced to turn back. This event not only damaged the fragile United States-Mexico relationship, but also gave way to a rise in anti-American sentiment among the Mexicans.[143] After nearly a year the hunt was called off, and Pershing's force returned to the U.S. Carranza asserted Mexican sovereignty and forced the U.S. to withdraw in 1917.

With the outbreak of World War I in Europe in 1914, foreign powers with significant economic and strategic interests in Mexico—particularly the U.S., Great Britain and Germany—made efforts to sway Mexico to their side, but Mexico maintained a policy of neutrality. In the Zimmermann Telegram—a coded cable from the German government to Carranza's government—Germany attempted to draw Mexico into war with the United States, which was itself neutral at the time. Carranza did not pursue this policy, but the leaking of the telegram pushed the U.S. into war against Germany in 1917.

The new constitution was approved on 5 February 1917. This picture shows the Constituent Congress of 1917 swearing fealty to the new Constitution

Carranza's 1913 Plan of Guadalupe was narrowly political, but he sought to consolidate his position with support of the masses by policies of social and agrarian reform. As revolutionary violence subsided in 1916, leaders met to draw up a new constitution, thus making principles for which many of the revolutionaries had fought into law. The Mexican Constitution of 1917 was strongly nationalist, giving the government the power to expropriate foreign ownership of resources and enabling land reform (Article 27). It also had a strong code protecting organized labor (Article 123) and extended state power over the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico in its role in education (Article 3).

Although villistas and zapatistas were excluded from the Constituent Congress, their political challenge pushed the delegates to radicalize the Constitution, which in turn was far more radical than Carranza himself.[19] While he was elected constitutional president in 1917, he did not implement its most radical elements. He was not in a position to do so in any case, since there were still threats to his regime regionally, despite the relative subsiding of violence nationally.

Mexican diplomat Ignacio Bonillas

Carranza had consolidated enough power to go forward with the drafting of a new constitution in 1917. Carranza was acting president and called for a constituent congress to draft a new document based on liberal and revolutionary principles. Labor had supported the Constitutionalists and Red Battalions had fought against the Zapatistas. Radical reforms were embedded in the constitution, in particular labor rights, agrarian reform, anticlericalism, and economic nationalism. The Mexican state asserted dominion over the nation's territory and resources (Article 27), which enabled land reform and expropriation of Labor was rewarded with a strong article in the 1917 constitution protecting labor rights (Article 123). Following the ratification of the constitution, Carranza was elected to the presidency of Mexico.[144]

After all the bloodshed of the revolution concerning the principle of "no re-election", it was politically impossible for Carranza to run again in the election due to be held in 1920. He chose to back Ignacio Bonillas, a civilian and political unknown. For Northern generals Álvaro Obregón, Plutarco Elías Calles and Adolfo de la Huerta, who had fought successfully for the revolution, the candidacy of a civilian and potential Carranza puppet was untenable. They led a revolt against Carranza under the Plan of Agua Prieta. Carranza attempted to flee the country and died on the way to the Gulf Coast.

Prior to the elections, General Obregón had returned to Sonora and became a political threat to the civilian Carranza. The Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM) supported Obregón. Carranza was increasingly unpopular, with his minimal implementation of land reform and his return of confiscated haciendas in the north to their owners alienated peasants seeking land. He crushed a strike of workers in Mexico City, alienating labor. Even as his political authority was waning, Carranza attempted to impose a political nobody, Mexico's ambassador to the U.S., Ignacio Bonillas, as his successor. Under the Plan of Agua Prieta, a triumvirate of Sonoran generals, Álvaro Obregón, Plutarco Elías Calles, and Adolfo de la Huerta, with elements from the military and labor supporters in the CROM, rose in successful rebellion against Carranza, the last successful coup of the revolution.[145] Carranza fled to Guerrero but was killed or committed suicide fleeing from Mexico City to Veracruz.[146] Carranza's attempt to impose his choice was considered a betrayal of the Revolution and his remains were not placed in the Monument to the Revolution until 1942.[147]

"Obregón and the Sonorans, the architects of Carranza's rise and fall, shared his hard headed opportunism, but they displayed a better grasp of the mechanisms of popular mobilization, allied to social reform, that would form the bases of a durable revolutionary regime after 1920."[148] The interim government of Adolfo de la Huerta negotiated Pancho Villa's surrender in 1920, rewarding him with an hacienda where he lived in peace until he floated political interest in 1924 election. Villa was assassinated in July 1923.[149] Álvaro Obregón was elected president in October 1920, the first of a string of revolutionary generals -- Calles, Rodríguez, Cárdenas, and Avila Camacho—to hold the presidency until 1946, when Miguel Alemán, the son of a revolutionary general, was elected.

Emiliano Zapata

Photo of Zapata's corpse, Cuautla, 10 April 1919[150]

From the late Porfiriato until his assassination by an agent of President Carranza in 1919, Emiliano Zapata played an important role in the Mexican Revolution, since his home territory in Morelos was of strategic importance. Of the revolutionary factions, it was the most homogeneous, with most being free peasants and only few peons on haciendas. With no industry to speak of in Morelos, there were no industrial workers in the movement and no middle class participants. Some intellectuals supported the Zapatistas. The Zapatistas' armed opposition movement just south of the capital needed to be heeded. Unlike northern Mexico, close to the U.S. border, the Zapatista territory in Morelos did not have access to arms, nor did it play into international politics. The Zapatistas were divided into guerrilla fighting forces that joined together for major battles before returning to their home villages. Zapata was not a peasant himself, but led peasants in his home state of Morelos in regionally concentrated warfare regain village lands and return to subsistence agriculture. Morelos was the only region where land reform was enacted during the years of fighting.[151] He initially supported Madero, but during the Interim Presidency of De la Barra, attacks by government forces drove a wedge between the Madero and Zapata. Madero's failure to move on land reform during 1911-13 was a key reason the Zapata rebelled against him under the Plan of Ayala (1911).[152][153] With the overthrow of Madero in the Ten Tragic Days, Zapata disavowed his previous admiration of revolutionary general Pascual Orozco and directed warfare against the Huerta government. With the defeat of Huerta in July 1914, Zapata loosely allied with Pancho Villa, previously allied with Venustiano Carranza and the Constitutionalist Army, particularly General Álvaro Obregón. The Zapata-Villa alliance lasted until Obregón decisively defeated Villa in a series of battles, including the Battle of Celaya. Zapata continued to oppose the Constitutionalists, but lost support in his own area and attempted to entice defectors to his movement. That was a fatal error. He was ambushed and killed on 10 April 1919 by agents of Venustiano Carranza, General Pablo González and his aide, Col. Jesús Guajardo, in an elaborate trap at Chinameca, Morelos. Guajardo set up the meeting under the pretext of wanting to defect to Zapata's side from Carranza's. At the meeting, González's men assassinated Zapata.[154] Photos were taken of his corpse, demonstrating that he had been killed.

Although Zapata was assassinated, the agrarian reforms that were enacted in Morelos were impossible to reverse. The central government came to terms with that state of affairs. Zapata had fought for land for the tillers in Morelos, and succeeded. His credentials as a steadfast revolutionary made him an enduring hero of the Revolution. His name and image were invoked in the 1994 uprising in Chiapas, with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

Revolutionary General and President of Mexico Álvaro Obregón served his entire elected term 1920–1924; he ran for re-election in 1928, but was assassinated before he could take office, causing a crisis in managing presidential succession

One of the major issues that faced Álvaro Obregón's early post-revolution government was stabilizing Mexico. Regional caciques (chiefs) were still fighting each other in small skirmishes. The populace was demanding reforms, promised by the 1917 constitution. Many issues faced the working poor, such as debt peonage and company stores that kept the populace poor. The military had generals who wanted to overthrow the regime and take power for themselves. There were also foreign governments, primarily the United States, who feared Mexico would take a communist turn such as Russia was to do in 1918. Obregón was in a difficult position; he had to appeal to both the left and the right to ensure Mexico would not fall back into civil war. With regard to the masses, Obregón, who was conservative but still a reformer, started listening to demands to appease the populace. Obregón's first focus, in 1920, was land reform. He had governors in various states push forward the reforms promised in the 1917 constitution. These were, however, quite limited. Former Zapatistas still had strong influence in the post-revolutionary government, so most of the reforms began in Morelos, the birthplace of the Zapatista movement.[155]

Despite pressures from the U.S., Obregón flirted with the newly formed USSR. To appeal to intellectuals and left-leaning peasants, official Mexican propaganda began having a very Marxist spin. Murals with Lenin and Trotsky began to appear in government buildings. The government also began to foment nationalism amongst the peasantry. This was accomplished by memorializing revolutionary figures and creating anti-Western murals. Among the artists employed was Diego Rivera, who had a Mexican nationalist and Marxist tinge to his government murals. Despite these moves towards an anti-Western and pro-socialist regime, Obregón did not separate the Mexican economy from foreign capitalists, allowing free trade with some restrictions.

Regarding the military, one of his first moves was to incorporate the irregulars who fought in the revolution. He tried to weaken the powers of the ultra-conservative officer corps, who were not friendly to his regime. Some of his reforms began to anger the officer corps, leading to an attempted coup in 1924 that Obregón was able to crush with relative ease.

Revolutionary General and President of Mexico Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–1928), who founded the Partido Nacional Revolucionario and became the power behind the presidency as jefe máximo (1928–1934)

Shortly after the failed coup, Obregón's term ended and Sonoran revolutionary Plutarco Elías Calles took power. In an attempt to buffer his regime against further coups, Calles began arming peasants and factory workers with surplus weapons. He continued other reforms pushed by his predecessor, such as land reform and anti-clerical laws to prevent the Catholic Church from influencing the state. One such move, in regard to land reform, was to nationalize most farmland and give it to the peasants across Mexico. He also put into effect a national school system that was largely secular to combat church influence in late 1924. After two years the church protested the movement by refusing to give the blessed sacrament to the populace. Some peasants also joined in the protests, adding greater land reforms to the list of demands by the rebelling priests. The rebellion was openly supported by the Catholic Church and received funding, beginning the Cristero War.[156]

Meanwhile, in 1927, another military coup was attempted, this time receiving support from land owners. Calles quickly crushed the rebellion with help from the newly mobilized peasant battalions, who later on were used to fight against the Church. In the midst of the mobilized worker's militias, land reform, and anti-church actions, the American government began to openly declare Mexico a Bolshevik regime. To recover from the backlash, Calles began to tone down the radical rhetoric and slowed land reform policies in 1928. A year later, a brokered ceasefire was issued to end hostilities.

After the war ended in 1929, supporters of Calles and Obregón began to form a united political party called the National Revolutionary Party (PNR). This was to unite the various revolutionary factions of the civil war to prevent further Cristero revolts and build stability.

After a series of interim presidents controlled by the party, Lázaro Cárdenas took power in 1934. Cárdenas was a socialist and began to base government policy on class struggle and empowering the masses. However, not all of his reforms were completely socialist. Regardless, his rule was the most radical phase of social reform following the revolution.

Revolutionary General and President of Mexico Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940), who revitalized the Revolution

His first acts of reform in 1935, were aimed towards peasants. Former strongmen within the land owning community were losing political power, so he began to side with the peasants more and more. He also tried to further centralize the government's power by removing regional caciques, allowing him to push reforms easier. To fill the political vacuum, Cárdenas helped the formation of PNR sponsored peasant leagues, empowering both peasants and the government. Other reforms included nationalization of key industries such as petroleum, land, and the railroads. To appease workers, Cárdenas furthered provisions to end debt peonage and company stores, which were largely eliminated under his rule, except in the most backwater areas of Mexico. To prevent conservative factions in the military from plotting and to put idle soldiers to work, Cárdenas mobilized the military to build public works projects. That same year another Cristero revolt occurred. This was partially caused by Cárdenas' mandate for secular education early in his presidency in 1934. The revolt was quickly put down due to lack of official support from the Catholic Church, who told rebels to surrender themselves to the government.[157]

In the next year, 1936, to further stabilize his rule, Cárdenas further armed the peasants and workers and begins to organize them into formal militias. This proved to be useful later in his presidency as the militias came to his aid in the final military coup in revolutionary Mexico in 1938. Seeing no opposition from the bourgeoisie, generals, or conservative landlords, in 1936 Cárdenas began building collective farms called ejidos to help the peasantry, mostly in southern Mexico. These appeased the peasants, creating long-lasting stability; however, they were not very good at feeding large populations, causing an urban food crisis. To alleviate this, Cárdenas co-opted the support of capitalists to build large commercial farms to feed the urban population. This put the final nail in the coffin of the feudal hacienda system, making Mexico a mixed economy, combining agrarian socialism and industrial capitalism by 1940. Cárdenas left office in 1940, marking the end of the social revolution and ushering in half a century of relative stability.[158]

There was considerable cultural production during the Revolution itself, including printmaking, music and photography, while in the postrevolutionary era, revolutionary themes in painting and literature shaped historical memory and understanding of the Revolution.

Painting

José Clemente Orozco, The Trench, mural in the San Ildefonso College, Mexico City

The government of Álvaro Obregón (1920–24) and his Minister of Education, José Vasconcelos commissioned artists to decorate government buildings of the colonial era with murals depicting Mexico's history. Many of these focused on aspects of the Revolution. The "Big Three" of Mexican muralism, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros produced narratives of the Revolution, shaping historical memory and interpretation.[159][160]

Prints and cartoons

José Guadalupe Posada. The Calavera Maderista

During the late Porfiriato, political cartooning and print making developed as popular forms of art. The most well known print maker of that period is José Guadalupe Posada, whose satirical prints, particularly featuring skeletons, circulated widely.[161] Posada died in early 1913, so his caricatures are only of the early revolution. One published in El Vale Panchito entitled "oratory and music" shows Madero atop a pile of papers and the Plan of San Luis Potosí, haranguing a dark-skinned Mexican whose large sombrero has the label pueblo (people). Madero is in a dapper suit. The caption reads "offerings to the people to rise to the presidency."[162] Political cartoons by Mexicans as well as Americans caricatured the situation in Mexico for a mass readership.[163] Political broadsides including songs of the revolutionary period were also a popular form of visual art. After 1920, Mexican muralism and printmaking were two major forms of revolutionary art. Prints were easily reproducible and circulated widely, while murals commissioned by the Mexican government necessitated a journey to view them. Printmaking "emerged as a favored medium, alongside government sponsored mural painting among artists ready to do battle for a new aesthetic as well as a new political order."[164] Diego Rivera, better known for his painting than printmaking, reproduced his depiction of Zapata in the murals in the Cortés Palace in Cuernavaca in a 1932 print.[165]

Photography and motion pictures

Child soldier[166]

Iconic image of Villa in Ojinaga, a publicity still taken by Mutual Film Corporation photographer John Davidson Wheelan in January 1914[167]

The Mexican Revolution was extensively photographed as well as filmed, so that there is a large, contemporaneous visual record. "The Mexican Revolution and photography were intertwined."[168] There was a large foreign viewership for still and moving images of the Revolution. The photographic record is by no means complete since much of the violence took place in relatively remote places, but it was a media event covered by photographers, photojournalists, and professional cinematographers. Those behind the lens were hampered by the large, heavy cameras that impeded capturing action images, but no longer was written text enough, with photographs illustrating and verifying the written word.

The Revolution "depended heavily, from its inception, on visual representations and, in particular, on photographs."[169] The large number of Mexican and foreign photographers followed the action and stoked public interest in it. Among the foreign photographers were Jimmy Hare, Otis A. Aultman, Homer Scott, and Walter Horne. Images appeared in newspapers and magazines, as well as postcards.[170] Horne was associated with the Mexican War Postcard Company.[171]

Most prominent of the documentary film makers were Salvador Toscano and Jesús H. Abitía, and some 80 cameramen from the U.S. filmed as freelancers or employed by film companies. The footage has been edited and reconstructed into documentary films, Memories of a Mexican (Carmen Toscano de Moreno 1950) and Epics of the Mexican Revolution (Gustavo Carrera).[172] Principal leaders of the Revolution were well aware of the propaganda element of documentary film making, and Pancho Villa contracted with an American film company to record for viewers in the U.S. his leadership on the battlefield. The film has been lost, but the story of the film making was interpreted in the HBO scripted film And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself.[173] The largest collection of still photographs of the Revolution is the Casasola Archive, named for photographer Agustín Casasola (1874-1938), with nearly 500,000 images held by the Fototeca Nacional in Pachuca.

Music

Corrido sheet music celebrating the entry of Francisco I. Madero into Mexico City in 1911.

A number of traditional Mexican songs or corridos were written at the time and memorialize aspects of the Mexican Revolution.[174][175] The term Adelitas an alternative word for soldaderas, is from a corrido titled "La Adelita". The song "La Cucaracha", with numerous verses, was popular at the time of the Revolution, and subsequently, and is too in the present day. Published corridos often had images of particular revolutionary heroes along with the verses.

Centennial and Bicentennial celebrations, Official logo.

The Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City. It was to be the new legislative palace of the Díaz regime, but construction was interrupted by the Revolution

The centennial of the Mexican Revolution was another occasion to construct of historical of the events and leaders. In 2010, the Centennial of the Revolution and the Bicentennial of Independence was an occasion to take account of Mexico's history. The centennial of independence in 1910 had been the swan song of the Porfiriato. With President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) of the conservative National Action Party, there was considerable emphasis on the bicentennial of independence rather than on the Mexican Revolution.

Metro Zapata in Mexico City, the icon shows a stylized, eyeless Zapata

Equestrian bronze of Villa in Chihuahua, Chihuahua

The most permanent manifestations of historical are in the built landscape, especially the Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City and statues and monuments to particular leaders. The Monument to the Revolution was created from the partially built Palacio Legislativo, a major project of Díaz's government. The construction was abandoned with the outbreak of the Revolution in 1910. In 1933 during the Maximato of Plutarco Elías Calles the shell was re-purposed to commemorate the Revolution. Buried in the four pillars are the remains of Francisco I. Madero, Venustiano Carranza, Plutarco Elías Calles, Lázaro Cárdenas, and Francisco [Pancho] Villa.[180] In life, Villa fought Carranza and Calles, but his remains were transferred to the monument in 1979 during the administration of President José López Portillo.[181] Prior to the construction of that monument, one was built in 1935 to the amputated arm of General Álvaro Obregón, lost in victorious battle against Villa in the 1915 Battle of Celaya. The monument is on the site of the restaurant La Bombilla, where he was assassinated in 1928. The arm was cremated in 1989, but the monument remains.[182][183]

Emiliano Zapata is buried in Cuautla, Morelos, near where he was assassinated in 1919. Since 1920 yearly ceremonies commemorate his assassination at his grave. In 1923, as president of Mexico, Álvaro Obregón sent an envoy to the ceremony in Cuautla and paid the expenses of other officials from the capital to attend.[184]

Names of towns and neighborhoods of major cities. Mexican banknotes also commemorate Mexican revolutionaries, most prominently Plutarco Elías Calles, revolutionary general, president of Mexico, and founder of the political party that has dominated Mexico almost continuously from 1919. Lázaro Cárdenas, revolutionary general and president of Mexico, who is often credited with revitalizing the Revolution, is commemorated on a banknote. In 1996, Mexican peso notes of low denomination were printed with the image of peasant revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. The banknotes were withdrawn in 1997.[185] The obverse of the withdrawn banknote depicted the Zapata statue erected in Cuautla in 1932 by Oliverio Martínez, showing Zapata in full charro attire seated on a fine horse, placing his hand on the shoulder of a peasant with a machete.[186]

The Mexico City Metro has stations commemorating aspects of the Revolution and the revolutionary era. When it opened in 1969, with line 1 (the "Pink Line"), two stations alluded to the Revolution. Most directly referencing the Revolution was Metro Pino Suárez, named after Francisco I. Madero's vice president, who was murdered with him in February 1913. The other was Metro Balderas, whose icon is a cannon, alluding to the Ciudadela armory where the coup against Madero was launched. In 1970, Metro Revolución opened, with the station at the Monument to the Revolution. As the Metro expanded, further stations with names from the revolutionary era opened. In 1980, two popular heroes of the Revolution were honored, with Metro Zapata explicitly commemorating the peasant revolutionary from Morelos. A sideways commemoration was Metro División del Norte, named after the Army that Pancho Villa commanded until its demise in the Battle of Celaya in 1915. The year 1997 saw the opening of the Metro Lázaro Cárdenas station. In 1988, Metro Aquiles Serdán honors the first martyr of the Revolution Aquiles Serdán. In 1994, Metro Constitución de 1917 opened, as did Metro Garibaldi, named after the grandson of Italian fighter for independence, Giuseppi Garibaldi. The grandson had been a participant in the Mexican Revolution. In 1999, the radical anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón was honored with the Metro Ricardo Flores Magón station. Also opening in 1999 was Metro Romero Rubio, named after the leader of Porfirio Díaz's Científicos, whose daughter Carmen Romero Rubio became Díaz's second wife.[187] In 2012, a new Metro line opened with a Metro Hospital 20 de Noviembre stop, a hospital named after the date that Francisco I. Madero in his 1910 Plan de San Luis Potosí, called for rebellion against Díaz. There is no Metro stop named for Madero, or for Carranza, Obregón, or Calles, and only an oblique reference to Villa in Metro División del Norte.

In Mexico City, there are delegaciones (boroughs) named for Álvaro Obregón, Venustiano Carranza, and Gustavo A. Madero, brother of murdered president Francisco I. Madero. There is a portion of the old colonial street Calle de los Plateros leading to the main square zócalo of the capital named Francisco I. Madero.

Adelita in the Historical Museum of the Mexican Revolution

The popular heroes of the Mexican Revolution are the two radicals who lost: Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa.[19] Dynamic equestrian statues of popular revolutionaries Zapata and Villa were erected in their respective strongholds. Zapata's name was appropriated by the rebels of Chiapas, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) while those who took and held power have a far more muted historical remembrance. Venustiano Carranza led the victorious Constitutionalist faction, but his attempt to impose a civilian presidential successor unacceptable to northern revolutionary generals prompted Carranza's flight from Mexico City in 1920 and then murder. Carranza is now buried in the Monument to the Revolution and there is a museum in his honor. In that museum, "are the bullets taken from the body of Francisco I. Madero after his murder. Carranza had kept them in his home, perhaps because they were a symbol of a fate and a passive denouement he had always hoped to avoid."[188]

The role of women in the Mexican Revolution has been an important aspect of historical memory. In the Historical Museum of the Mexican Revolution, there is a recreation of Adelita, the idealized female revolutionary combatant or soldadera. The typical image of a soldadera is of a woman with braids, wearing female attire, with ammunition belts across her chest. There were a few revolutionary women, known as coronelas, who commanded troops, some of whom dressed and identified as male; they do not fit the stereotypical image of soldadera and are not celebrated in historical memory at present.[189]

• Mexican Border War (1910–1919)
• Porfirio Díaz
• Porfiriato
• Economic history of Mexico
• Factions in the Mexican Revolution
• Index of Mexico-related articles
• La Adelita
• List of wars involving Mexico
• Partido Revolucionario Institucional
• Soldaderas
• United States involvement in the Mexican Revolution

Many portions of this article are translations of excerpts from the article Revolución Mexicana in the Spanish Wikipedia.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mexican Revolution.

• Mexican Revolution from the Library of Congress at Flickr Commons
• Library of Congress—Hispanic Reading Room portal, Distant Neighbors: The U.S. and the Mexican Revolution
• Encyclopædia Britannica's article on The Mexican Revolution
• EDSITEment's Spotlight: The Centennial of the Mexican Revolution, 1910–2010 from EDSITEment, "The Best of the Humanities on the Web"
• U.S. Library of Congress Country Study: Mexico
• Mexican Revolution of 1910 and Its Legacy, latinoartcommunity.org
• Stephanie Creed, Kelcie McLaughlin, Christina Miller, Vince Struble, Mexican Revolution 1910–1920, Latin American Revolutions, course material for History 328, Truman State University (Missouri)
• Mexico: From Empire to Revolution, photographs and commentary on the site of the J. Paul Getty Trust
• Mexican Revolution, ca. 1910–1917 Photos and postcards in color and in black and white, some with manuscript letters, postmarks, and stamps from the collection at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University
• Papers of E. K. Warren & Sons, 1884–1973, ranchers in Mexico, Texas and New Mexico, held at Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University
• Mexican Revolution, in the "Children in History" website. This is an overview of the Revolution with a treatment of the impact on children.
• Mexico: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints from the DeGolyer Library contains photographs related to the Mexican Revolution.
• Time line of the Mexican Revolution
• Elmer and Diane Powell Collection on Mexico and the Mexican Revolution from the DeGolyer Library, SMU.
• Collection: "Era of the Mexican Revolution and the Mexican Muralist Movement" from the University of Michigan Museum of Art