HISTORY OF MEXICO 7

From the Caudillo to the Maximato: 1920-1934

POST-REVOLUTIONARY BACKDROP

By the time the Sonoran dynasty came to the presidential chair, the wars of the revolution, epidemics and migration and eliminated 825,000 people from Mexico. In 1910 200,000 Mexicans lived in the US, by 1930 over 800,000 had immigrated north.

The economic costs of the Mexican revolution was staggering in that the GDP dropped 37%. During the decade of violence all sectors of the economy with the exception of oil was in significant decline.

Between 1910 and 1921 agricultural output dropped an average of 5.25% per year, until it became half of what it had been during the heady days of the Porfiriato. In 1910 agricultural exports made of 31.6% of all exports. But in 1921, agriculture made up only 3.3% of exports. Mining also declined 4 per cent per year over the same period of 1910 to 1921.

Manufacturing also stagnated for ten years and did not recover to 1910 levels until 1922. In addition the violence destroyed a great amount of the infrastructure that had been built during the Porfiriato.

Of all the economy only the oil industry maintained its growth rate. In fact oil production grew 43% during the revolution. A large part of the political negotiations during the decades to come would have to do with the prosperity of this modern enclave controlled by foreign corporations.

By 1921 the labor force had been reduced by 400,000. In the immediate post-revolutionary society only 324 out of 1000 Mexicans worked.

The society that the Sonorenses inherited after the civil war was still fundamentally rural, but very depressed. The infrastructure was seriously damaged as was its monetary system. The countryside was all but destroyed and epidemics broke out on a regular basis. With only one prosperous enclave and that was oil.

The fact that oil not only remained unscathed but actually boomed during the revolution and the violence of the civil war spoke of the decisive connections they had with the force of the world markets.

The Agua Prieta Rebellion led the Sonorenses would be the last victorious rebellion in the history of modern Mexico. All future victories would belong to the constituted powers, stability and institutions.

Adolfo de la Huerta, the civilian head of Aguaprietismo was the interim president of Mexico from June to December 1920. He did a good job pacifying the diverse rebel groups. He also called for civilian elections for September 5 of that year.

Alvaro Obregón won the election and ruled as constitutional president between 1921-1924. Plutarco Elías Calles then became president from 1925 to 1928. Obregon then gave into the Porfirian temptation of reelection for the next term of 1928-1932 until a cristero, catholic assassin killed him. This gave Calles pause he decided not to run for reelection.

In a presidential speech to the nation Calles announced that the era of the caudillo was over and the beginning of an era of institutions had begun.

Congress named Emilio Portes Gil provisional president for two years until elections could be held for the period of 1930-34. Pascual Ortiz Rubio won, but because he was opposed by the strongman Calles and wounded in an assassination attempt he resigned in 1932.

Literature through the writings of Martín Luis Guzmán memorialized this period in his classic En la sombra del caudillo which was a metaphor for the tragic and fratricidal years of Obregonista domination (1921-1928). The next caudillo would be Calles who was known as Jefe Maximo

THE CATASTROPHIC EQUILIBRIUM

Two trends led to restoring stability in the 1920's. The first was the settling of accounts between revolutionary factions, the pacification of war lords, and the institutionalization of the armed forces.

The second combined issues of the construction of the state, the conflict with the US for control of Mexican resources, the Cristero War of 1926-29. The first attempts at developing the state as an instrument of economic, educational and cultural action.

Also the regulation and the incorporation of social movements into the state system through an organized representation. The incorporating body for the mass incorporation that would occur would be the apparatus of the elite, the National Revolutionary Party PNR that was created in 1929.

After the regional caciques were either bought out or vanquished, the election of 1921 put Obregon into the presidency. Obregon steered his government toward a difficult but effective equilibrium.

There would be party politics in Congress, moderate economic growth, a great educational administration, and an extended dispute with the US. Also the first visible signs of state incorporation of the agrarian and worker demands that had been foreseen in the 1917 constitution.

IN THE SHADOW OF WASHINGTON

The Mexican Revolution had a decisive impact on the internal situation and also later the external relations of Mexico. Mexico during the revolution had been invaded by US forces and the 1917 constitution troubled the US.

In May of 1921 the US government proposed to Obregon a Treaty of Friendship and Trade that was tantamount to formally accepting US recommendations. The US proposed guarantees against nationalization, a ban on the retroactive application of the measures established in the 1917 constitution, a recognition of the mining and oil rights acquired by US citizens and the payment for all US properties taken over after 1910.

Obregon could not accept such proposals for signing such an unrealistic treaty would place national sovereignty and the very essence of the Revolution in question. On the other hand disregarding the US was a dangerous proposition.

Obregon decided to accept the US demands if the US would grant his regime unconditional recognition and the US refused this.

The impasse between the two countries continued until 1923 and neither of the parties would budge. To prevent a major international crisis Obregon was able to get the supreme court to determine that the legislation that nationalized the oil industry could not be applied to the properties acquired by the big foreign oil companies before 1917.

Mexico was also forced to sign an agreement where it recognized that it owed a debt of over $500 million with most of it owned to the banks controlled by JP Morgan.

In 1923 the US and Mexico signed the Bucareli Agreement that held that Mexico would pay for all rural US properties expropriated by Mexico. Mexico could sell bonds on the US bond market. Mexico would recognize the rights of US oil companies to Mexican crude if they had come on line before 1917.

With this pact Obregon was able to establish formal relations with the US just in time before a rebellion of part of the Mexican army had broken out. He needed US support to purchase arms and to prevent his opponent from gaining arms from the US.

The leader of the rebellion was De la Huerta who crusaded under the banner of anti-imperialism and accused Obergon of selling out Mexico to the US.

THE CRISTERO WAR

Once the De la Huerta opposition was eliminated and the army was disciplined, General Plutarco Elias Calles began his campaign for the presidency. He was declared the winner and assumed the office in December of 1924

On July 31, 1926 the practice of Catholicism was suspended in Mexico. Neither mass nor the holy sacraments could be ministered. The 1917 constitution was an anti-church doctrine and it was denounced by the catholic hierarchy. Catholic youth movements agitated.

In 1926 the number of priests was reduced in certain states and some were even arrested for seditious acts. The response of the church hierarchy as to create the National League of Religious Defense.

Calles response to this effrontery was to introduce new religious crimes that 5 years in jail for priests who criticize the government Also priests were prohibited from wearing religious clothes outside of the church.

The league responded with a boycott against the government, lottery tickets, newspapers, theatres and lay schools.

The priests then presented congress with a petition asking that the anti-clerical ordinances be ended, it was summarily rejected and a group of radical priests then took up arms against the government of Calles.

The war turned into a rural guerrilla war that cost 90,000 lives, the majority being soldiers. The rebellion could not be put down by repression, but by reaching an agreement with the government of Portes Gil in 1929.

The Cristeros revolted because they believed that the government was making life of their church impossible. In the midst of the conflict was the catholic church directing it and for the first time since the conquest the church had entered the arena of social action.

A bloody stalemate ensued and the US mediated the conflict. In the end it was agreed that the church would rule in the spiritual realm and the state would rule the temporal world and the state would not interfere with church politics.

THE SHADOW OF WASHINGTON: THE SEQUEL

The Treaty of Bucareli in 1923 led to the creation for the first time in many years of a friendly relationship between Mexico and the US. And Calles assumed the presidency without having to worry about international problems. Obergon had solved them for him.

But the first problem arose when the Mexican government served the US notice that it was drafting oil laws in accordance with the 1917 constitution.

The 1925 legislation was unacceptable to the US because it imposed 50 year limits on the time of foreign exploitation of Mexican oil.

Also foreigners were forbidden to own properties along a 31 mile stretch of coastline and 62 miles from the border. Many US ranches, mines and oil fields found themselves within the prohibited zone.

The oil problem was compounded by other problems. In Nicaragua a revolution had broken out and the US supported its puppet Adolfo Diaz who was a VP of a US mining company in Nicaragua, while Mexico openly supported and aided Juan B. Sacasa who was a nationalist.

This inflamed the US which accused Mexico of harboring a Bolshevik set of objective in the western hemisphere. In order to keep things from literally exploding Calles insisted on keeping good relations with US banks. In 1926 Mexico began paying millions a year on its debt owed to US banks. This prevented open conflict from taking place.

The internal order seemed to be just on the verge of breaking down in 1927 due to disputes within the ruling elite. In 1927 the initial stages of seeking Calles successor was creating a division in the Sonorense crowd.

When the political landscape was surveyed there was no one left except the caudillo from Huatabampo and his successor Calles. Obregon left Huatabampo and threw his hat into the presidential race.

But Obregon's new road to the presidency also created an anti-reelection fever among their chief rivals Arnulfo Gomez and Francisco Serrano. But they and other members of the anti-reelection party were liquidated.

However, Calles and Obregon by executing Gomez and Serran had killed off their last lieutenants who for years had worked for Called and Obregon and were even related by blood ties.

Obergon's goals was to announce his candidacy for president the second time. He was able to get Calles to ask congress for a constitutional amendment to allow reelection after a term. This in essence would revoke one of the core reasons that the revolution was fought in the first place.

Although Obregon had retired from politics during the Calles presidency he had remained as the true center of power. And when the elections were held in 1928 he easily won. The only problem was that Obregón was assassinated by a fanatical catholic who thought that he was advancing the cause of the cristeros.

INSTITUTIONALIZATION:

The killing of Obregon allowed the system to take a historical step forward toward a long term institutionalization. The Obergonistas accused Calles of master minding the killing. Quickly Calles engineered Portes Gil to be the provisional president and then in a famous speech Calles in 1928 presented to the country a proposal to create the National Revolutionary Party (PNR).

This was to be an organization that should became form then on the disciplined place in which the revolutionary family wouls settle its difference and select its candidates.

In March of 1929, the first national convention of the new party was held in Querétaro and its goals was to establish democracy and improve the social environment. But before the convention was over a group of Obregonistas generals and civilians started a rebellion in the north known as the train and bank rebellion since these were the political targets of the rebels.

The rebellion was quickly put down at a tremendous expense for the government. The rebellion was used by the government to introduce new policies toward the institutionalization of the army within a civilian control structure and subject to civilian authority.

In the end there were generals and officers and a more disciplined army.

THE MATERIAL RECONSTRUCTION

When the revolution broke out in 1910, Mexico was going through an economic boom without equal since the beginning of the 19th century. The destructive power of the revolution was highly visible, but it was less extensive than might have been imagined. The large oil, manufacturing and mining companies were relatively untouched by the violence and not all the haciendas had been burned.

When the Sonora clique took over they were anxious to set the economic machine in motion and to benefit themselves and the country.

They wanted to eliminate some of the obstacles to growth that had arisen during the Porfiriato in order to lead Mexico to a path of extensive capitalist and nationalist development.

They wised to eliminate the latifundios, but only those that were not productive and they supported the idea of developing the ejido as a transitional form of property ownership.

The Sonorans wanted to modernize Mexico and they only model that they knew and could follow was that of the US.

During Obregon's administration the economy grew at a slow rate. Neither the state nor private enterprise could come up with initiatives that had positive effects on economic activity.

The great effort of Obergon was concentrated on trying to establish an agreement with foreign powers, the oil companies, and the bankers through renewed payments on Mexico's foreign debt. Payments had been suspended since 1914.

He wanted to stimulated investment capital from abroad.

The Callista government established the first central bank of the country, the Banco de Mexico. The Banco de Mexico operated as a national central bank. The government also create the National Banking Commission to reinforce its control of the banking system.

The highway project was also another important program of Calles and 6200 miles of highways were built in 7 years.

Calles also implemented the development of massive irrigation projects and by 1927 seven dams had been built that could irrigate almost 500,000 acres.

THE IMPOSSIBLE DEBT

To these innovations one must added a great problem and that was the external debt. In 1922 the Obregonista minister of finance, Adolfo De la Huerta, had reached an agreement with the creditor banks and Mexico recognized its debt at an enormous $700 million.

The agreement was known as the Lamont-De la Huerta Treaty and placed an enormous burden on the national budget.

By 1928 the Mexican government could not afford to meet its scheduled payments. By the end of 1927 Calles was unable to meet its third payment. To get out of the difficulty they asked the bankers to send a commission to study the finances of the country and make realistic recommendations on how they could pay the debt.

The recommendation of the commission was very simple: Mexico would have to reduce public expenditures enough to be able to pay $30 million that and $70 million three years later.

To do this Calles would have to abandon the highway construction project and the irrigation programs and repeatedly Calles refused this and refused to make payments. Eventually Mexico negotiated to cancel a significant portion of the debt to $267 million with a $50 million debt.

Another international problem that the revolution had to face from its beginning was the constant claims by the great powers regarding the damages that the civil war had caused to foreign persons and property.

Despite all these problems it was Calles who could finally start the process of economic reconstruction of the country, although it was an erratic process. The 1929 crash had a relatively minor effect on the Mexican economy. Oil, mineral and manufacturing suffered a decline.

But given the enclave character of these activities, mainly linked with the foreign market, the negative effects of their decline on the rest of the economy were relatively small.

The real problem that Mexico would face was the evaporation of their export markets in the US and Europe. The worst years of the Depression for Mexico were between 1929 to 1932 and in this the GDP only declined 10% which was more like a recession than a depression in Mexico. Also only a small number of the Mexican working class were tied to these export industries.

THE PARTIES FROM THE REVOLUTION

The 1917 constitution defined the political parties as the basic organizations to carry out democratic struggle for power.

Until the 1920's Mexico had been unable to channel through parties the demand making and political participation of its citizens.

Most Mexicans were outside the electoral process and no political group had attained power through the vote. And as of 1920 this situation had not changed, power would still be acquitted and maintained basically by force.

Part of the problem of political parties was the patron/clientelism that defined Mexican political culture. This tied the fate of the organizations to the very changing fate of their leaders.

Until 1928 the only real party was the PCM or the Mexican Communist Party which was organized in 1919. In 1920 the National Agrarista Party PNA was formed in 1920 out of many leaders who had been old Zapatistas.

The PNA did not have the support of the majority of peasants, but it did have the support of Obregon who allowed it to have representation in the congress. When Obregon was assassinated this left the PNA in a vulnerable position.

The number of political parties that grew out of the revolution were fundamentally modified by the creation of National Revolutionary Party (PNR)--"the party of the government" in March 1929.

By November of 1929 Calles had been able to reach an agreement with the multitude of existing parties to join forces in a single party.

The 1929 program of the PNR did not differ at all from what the official Callista policy was at the time. First, in light of the Cristero revolt, it committed the party to fulfilling article 3 in education despite the opposition of the church. Second, it would promote industrialization.

In terms of agrarian policy it supported the created of ejidos, the colonization of new lands, and the efforts of agri-business investors.

The PNR fiscal policy was conservative and its goal was to balance the budget and to reestablish external credit. The main objective of the PNR was the modernization of the country through vigorous capitalist development without losing touch with the working and peasant classes.

But regional caciques and patron/clientelism made governing and disciplining the various factions of the PNR difficult.

Where there was a regional strongman there was no problem for the PNR, the local PNR's was supported by the cacique's strength. But in states with no clear dominant figure there fierce struggles between two or more parties. All of them affiliated with the PNR and loyal to Calles.

When there were disputes it was up to the National Executive Committee (CEN) of the PNR, together with the secretary of the interior and the secretary of war to decide who among the competing factions should obtain the position, and to enforce that decision,

BACK TO THE LAND

The PNR was, without doubt, one of the greatest political innovations of the Revolution, but not the only one. The organization of workers had come first in both the countryside and the city. And for the vast majority of these workers the issue was land.

The Agua Prieta group after the death of Zapata was a strong force in the Obregon and Calles administrations. The political value of land reform was obvious to Obregon. When the De la Huerta rebellion broke out the state of Morelos was calm in 1923.

When Calles began his administration he accelerated the process of ejido distributions. Almost 7.5 million acres were distributed. The peasants who received the land were agraristas and they military supported the Calles presidency even during the Cristero revolt.

For the Sonoran leadership the individual ejido parcel was preferable to communal property. The ejido would help its owners to understand private property and modern capitalist agriculture.

In 1923 Obregon had set the tone for agricultural development. He argued that the distribution of lands should not disrupt production and for him to divide the land was to make it more productive and to create bases of grass-roots political support.

In 1928, his last year in office Calles distributed less land than before and this earned him the opposition of the agraristas. From then on land was exchanged for personal influence while at the same time he advocated the end of land distribution.

The moderate agraristas did not seek direct confrontations with Calles. Among its leaders was Lázaro Cárdenas who was always cautious not to adopt extreme attitudes. He and his followers would remain under the discipline of the central government and the jefe máximo. At the the same time he would distance himself from seeming to conservative and too much of a Callista.

As proof of Cárdenas' independence when the government was limiting land distributions or governors had halted it in their states, Cárdenas actually accelerated it in Michoacán. It was a way to eliminate large landowners who were outside Cardenas' influence.

He also based part of his state power in a worker and peasant organization, but he did not develop a paramilitary force. That would occur later when he became president.

On the other side of the agraristas was the General Saturnino Cedillo the cacique of San Luis Potosí. Cedillo did not pretend to be organizing the agraristas in order to eliminate the large landholdings, but only to develop a power base through the selective distribution of lands.

Unlike Cardenas, Cedillo was not in favor of a total agrarian reform, but rather a very limited and selective one that would enable him to maintain an adequate recruitment of followers.

The rural Mexico that Cárdenas found in his electoral tour was still a society dominated by large private properties. Of the 324,805,000 acres registered by the census of 1930, 93% were private properties and 7% were ejidos.

Ejidos had simply been government propaganda that politically pacified the countryside in the post-revolutionary era.

THE MEXICAN PROLETARIAT

Workers had greater possibilities than peasants to create organizations to represent their class interests. Toward the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, several significant strikes had occurred such as those of Cananea and Río Blanco. With the revolution the militancy of labor accelerated.

An attempt was made to unify the various labor movements under the House of Labor (COM). Carranza drove the COM underground and the leadership of labor fell to the CROM Regional Confederation of Mexican Labor.

Initially the CROM was a socialist organization that opposed direct collaboration with the state, despite the fact that the Carranza government supported its emergence.

When Carranza fell the CROM would run Mexican labor until 1929 when it wold modify its relationship with the government and the regime.

The rise and fall of the CROM was directed by Luis N. Morones and his action group within the organization. They would achieve their finest moment between 1925 and 1928.

The CROM had been actively supported by Obregon, but with his assassination its fortunes declines slowly. Calles supported the CROM but distanced himself from its leaders.

The dispute within the CROM as well as the army and in other sectors was between the die-hard Obergonistas and the up and coming Callistas. Factional infighting would impede the effectiveness of the CROM in political demand making and led to its demise.

In 1928 at the apogee of CROM power the organization had over 2 million members, 2000 unions and 75 labor federations.

To the right of the CROM were the catholic labor unions that had little linkage to the state and little power. But when the crisis of the CROM grew worse at the beginning of the 1930's none of the rival unions were able to or knew how to replace it.

This situation changed when a faction broke off from the CROM and its leader was the brilliant socialist leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano. By 1933 this faction had been organized as the General Confederation of Workers and Peasants of Mexico (CGOCM).

Like the CROM, the CGOCM declared itself to be anti-capitalist though its program was not radical. It simply proposed to struggle in favor of the implementation of article 123 of the constitution.

We can conclude that by 1933 the organization of the Mexican proletariat was defined by the dispersion and the continuing efforts to forge solidarity among all workers. And Union labor was constantly measuring its class power with regard to making political and economic demands on the state.

There were also anarcho-syndicalist movements that led to the formation of the CGT in 1921 the General Federation of Labor. Just when the CROM began declining the CGT presented itself as the alternative to Morone's union. The CGT had a lot of support in the textile industry.

By the end of 1933 the CGOCM was formed and the two unions the CROM and the CGT had different reactions to it. The CROM fought against it while the CGT considered an alliance that never occurred. In the end the CGT and the communists decided to remain outside of the issue.

By the end of 1934, the CGOCM claimed 890,000 members and its general and long term position was radical--to eliminate the capitalist system. But its immediate goals were nothing more than to improve the living conditions of the proletariat.

By 1934 once the candidacy of Cárdenas was well-established Lombardo was promoting strikes to demonstrate the mobilization capacity of his confederation.

But there were also many unions that were not linked to the great labor confederations of Mexico. The railroad workers and the companies had a very conflictive relationship starting in1929 when the companies began reorganizing and downsizing laid off 11,000 workers.

The miners were even more divided than the railroad workers when the economic crisis affected them. After the worst was over the CROM tried to bring in the miners and it created the Federation of Mining Industry in 1934.

The oil workers also became involved in a series of strikes in 1933 and 1934 that affected El Aguila and La Huasteca companies. When Cardenas took over the presidency the strikes were in full swing.

Class conflict broke out in the textile industry. With the economic crisis owners proposed to close several factories and the workers threatened to take them over. In 1933 the possibility of a general strike loomed.

In order to prevent a catastrophe to this important industry the government "federalized" the industry and imposed a settlement on the workers and industry.