The Political Strategy of Military Reform: Álvaro Obregón and Revolutionary Mexico, 1920-1924

1979 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall Hansis
Keyword(s):  
Mexican Revolution ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Military Effectiveness ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
Military Reform ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Administrative Reforms ◽  
Revolutionary Violence ◽  
Presidential Succession ◽  
Significant Achievement

On December 1, 1920, General Álvaro Obregón of Sonora became President of Mexico. During the previous May, his supporters had staged a popular coup d'etat which paved the way for his constitutional election. Mexico was then in the throes of revolutionary ferment, and the instability which had accompanied Obregón's ascendancy to Executive Office also threatened to attend his demise. Obregón thus sought to achieve political and social reforms which would strengthen his regime and allow for a peaceful Presidential succession in 1924. As the major institution of coercion during a time of revolutionary violence, the Army had emerged as the most important political institution in Mexico. Although part of a broader political effort which included labor, agrarian and administrative reforms, Obregón's military reconstruction can be viewed as the important keystone in his attempt to consolidate control of Mexico. Obregón’s military reforms sought to insure, first, Army loyalty to the office of President, and, second, military effectiveness when the Army would be called upon to defend the Federal Government. His reforms grew out of the Agua Prieta movement of May 1920, and continued throughout his own administration. As President, Obregón gave intensive attention to military affairs and his military reforms were the most significant achievement of his broadly based effort to consolidate the Mexican Revolution.

Diverging Paths

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Luyten
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
National Level ◽  
Gain Control ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
State Development ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
Welfare State Development ◽  
The Impact

For the Netherlands and Belgium in the twentieth century, occupation is a key concept to understand the impact of the war on welfare state development. The occupation shifted the balance of power between domestic social forces: this was more decisive for welfare state development than the action of the occupier in itself. War and occupation did not result exclusively in more cooperation between social classes: some interest groups saw the war as a window of opportunity to develop strategies resulting in more social conflict. Class cooperation was often part of a political strategy to gain control over social groups or to legitimate social reforms. The world wars changed the scale of organization of social protection, from the local to the national level: after World War II social policy became a mission for the national state. For both countries, war endings had more lasting effects for welfare state development than the occupation itself.

The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1946

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Buchenau
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Mexican Revolution ◽  
Central State ◽  
Porfirio Diaz ◽  
Significant Achievement ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Political Realignment ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Revolution

The Mexican Revolution was the first major social revolution of the 20th century. Its causes included, among others, the authoritarian rule of dictator Porfirio Díaz, the seizure of millions of acres of indigenous village lands by wealthy hacendados and foreign investors, and the growing divide between the rich and the poor. As a result of these varied causes and Mexico’s strong social and regional divisions, the revolution against Díaz lacked ideological focus. The revolutionaries ousted Díaz within six months but could not agree on the new social and political order and—after a failed attempt at democracy—ended up fighting among themselves in a bitter civil war. In 1917, the victorious Constitutionalist faction crafted a landmark constitution, the first in the world to enshrine social rights and limit the rights of private, and particularly foreign capital. Although never fully implemented and partially repealed in the 1990s, the document remains the most significant achievement of the revolution. After 1920, a succession of revolutionary generals gradually centralized political power until the election of a civilian presidential candidate in 1946. This effort at state building confronted significant resistance from popular groups, regional warlords, and disaffected leaders who had lost out in the political realignment. In the end, the symbolic significance of the revolution exceeded its political and social outcomes. While fundamentally agrarian in nature, the revolution thus ultimately produced a new national elite that gradually restored a strong central state. One can easily divide the revolution into a military (1910–1917) and a reconstructive phase (1917–1946). However, the latter phase witnessed an important generational shift that transferred political power from the leaders of the military phase to their subordinates as well as civilian representatives, with the formation of a revolutionary ruling party in 1929 serving as the most important watershed moment in this process. Therefore, this essay distinguishes among three separate phases: insurrection and civil war (1910–1917); reconstruction (1917–1929); and institutionalization (1929–1946).

1. Introduction

2016 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Alan Knight
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Mexican Revolution ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
The Revolution ◽  
Popular Mobilization

The Mexican Revolution deserves to be included among the world’s ‘great’ or ‘social’ revolutions for the scale of the fighting, the intense popular mobilization it involved, and the changes it brought about. The outcome profoundly affected Mexico politically, socially, economically, and culturally. The Introduction explains that the Revolution is seen as the work of a generation (1910–40) who first destroyed the old regime, then built a new state apparatus, and, finally, carried through social reforms unprecedented in Latin America at the time. The opposing views of the Revolution are also explained: the old orthodoxy that sees the Revolution as popular, progressive, and patriotic, and the revisionist and post-revisionist interpretations.

Chinos and Paisanos: Chinese Mexican Relations in the Borderlands

2010 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Lim
Keyword(s):  
Mexican Revolution ◽  
Chinese Immigrants ◽  
Racial Identities ◽  
Northern Mexico ◽  
Labor Exploitation ◽  
Revolutionary Violence ◽  
Borderland Communities

Using the testimonio of Manuel Lee Mancilla, a Chinese Mexican man born in Mexicali in 1921, this article explores the experiences of the Chinese in northern Mexico in the early 1900s. It examines the conditions under which Chinese immigrants came to and helped build new borderland communities and simultaneously recovers the day-to-day relationships that were negotiated and nurtured there. Meaningful moments of Chinese Mexican cooperation emerged amid intense conflict and despite the anti-Chinese campaigns of the Mexican Revolution and the infamous Sonoran purges of the 1930s. Challenging static notions of ethnic and racial identities and relations, and analyzing the anti-Chinese movements in less monolithic terms, this article examines not only how Chinese and Mexicans weathered revolutionary violence and xenophobia but also the turbulent forces of U.S. capital and labor exploitation on both sides of the border.

The Buenos Aires Expedition and Spain's Secret Plan to Conquer Portugal, 1814-1820

1978 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-380
Author(s):  
Timothy E. Anna
Keyword(s):  
Buenos Aires ◽  
World History ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Absolute Power ◽  
Royal Power ◽  
La Plata ◽  
New Granada ◽  
Second Chance

One of the most provocative questions about the process of Spanish American independence is why Spain was not able during the period of the so-called “first absolutist restoration”— 1814 to 1820—to capitalize on its massive military victories in America and restore royal power to its fullest. In 1814 and 1815 royal armies in America destroyed the rebel governments and suppressed the rebel armies in Mexico, New Granada, Venezuela, Quito, Peru and Chile. Only in the Río de la Plata did an independent government continue to exist. It was clear that independence was not the inevitable destiny of the Spanish kingdoms in America. In Spain itself the king, Ferdinand VII, crossed the Spanish border after six years of captivity in France at the hands of Napoleon and on May 4, 1814, restored the absolute power of the throne by a coup d'etat, annulling the Constitution of 1812 and the liberal Cortes. Throughout the empire loyalists rejoiced. In both Spain and America the forces of conservatism had overcome the threat of radical political and social reforms. Few great imperial states in world history have been granted such a second chance, such an opportunity for rebuilding and reconciliation.

The Social Democratic Federation

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bevir
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Collective Ownership ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This chapter provides a detailed investigation of the background, thought, and politics of the members of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF). Several of the early members of the SDF were followers of James Bronterre O'Brien, based in the radical workingmen's clubs of London. Even after they came to accept the need for collective ownership of the means of production, their political strategy remained that of O'Brien. They believed in political action to create a properly democratic state through which the people might then promote social reforms. This account of the O'Brienites helps to explain various unsolved problems in the history of British Marxism, notably why most members remained with Hyndman rather than follow Morris into the Socialist League, and why the SDF adopted an ambiguous attitude to trade unions and palliatives.

Forged in Revolution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Lim
Keyword(s):  
Military Service ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
Mexican Revolution ◽  
Chinese Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Refugees ◽  
Revolutionary Violence ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
Diverse Groups ◽  
The U.S

This chapter analyzes the multiracial intersections of the Mexican Revolution, using the case of Pershing’s Expedition into Mexico in 1916 1917 to explore the escalating importance that both states attached to race, immigration, and citizenship in the borderlands. South of the border, military service clarified the citizenship status of African Americans while Mexicans and Chinese immigrants found themselves caught in a dangerous space between two states – one state (Mexico) that could not sufficiently protect them from revolutionary violence and another (the United States) that remained uncertain about whether to protect them at all. As U.S. immigration officials tightened the border against thousands of men, women, and children fleeing for their safety and security, the power of the U.S. state became more clearly visible in the borderlands. This chapter analyzes how people caught between revolution and exclusion renegotiated their relationship with the state. In desperate straits, Mexican immigrants reconstructed their identities from political refugees to desirable laborers, while Chinese immigrants re-branded themselves as deserving refugees rather than excludable laborers. The chapter thus elaborates the ways in which immigrants and officials refined the distinctions between the diverse groups in the borderlands.

Military Effectiveness

2009 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Military Effectiveness

Military Effectiveness

2009 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Military Effectiveness

A Significant Achievement

1985 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 261-263
Author(s):  
Matina S. Horner
Keyword(s):  
Significant Achievement
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