3. The Madero revolt and regime (1910–1913)

Francisco Madero, scion of one of northern Mexico’s richest families, had led the unsuccessful opposition of early 1910 in the liberal-democratic tradition. ‘The Madero revolt and regime’ explains how the Díaz victory in the 1910 election provided the impetus for armed revolt in rural areas. The Treaty of Ciudad Juárez in early 1911 ended the Maderista revolution as well as the Porfirian regime, but the deal was not well received by rebel leaders: Orozco in the north and Zapata in the centre. Madero’s presidency saw opposition both from the Right and Left, but it was the rebellious insurgency of Zapatismo and Orozquismo looking for social reform that led to Madero’s downfall.

5. The Revolution in power (1914–1920)

The rebel leaders of 1914 purged opponents and imposed their will by force. This new radicalism had three dimensions: personnel, policy, and practice. ‘The Revolution in power’ describes the two crucial and related issues that now occupied the political agenda: could the victorious rebels—Villa, Zapata, Carranza, and Obregón—agree, first, on a common programme and, second, on a common government which would enact it? The final big bout of civil war ran from 1914 to 1915 with the winner being Carranza due to the superior generalship of the supporting Obregón and the Carrancista. The challenges and responses of the Carranza government and the 1917 Constitution are also described.

1. Introduction

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.

2. The old regime and the causes of the Revolution (1876–1911)

‘The old regime and the causes of the Revolution’ outlines the historical backdrop to the Revolution. Porfirio Díaz’s rule (1876–1911) proved crucial in the Revolution’s gestation. The Porfirian regime was strikingly successful: railway mileage increased from virtually none to 15,000; foreign direct investment grew more than thirty-fold; exports quadrupled; and GNP nearly tripled. However, Porfirian development did have a decisive—and negative—effect on Mexican (especially rural) society. Two related trends were crucial: the strengthening of the state and the commercialization of agriculture. The rise of liberal opposition in the run-up to the 1910 presidential election took the regime by surprise and provided the opening act of the Revolution.

4. Counter-revolution and Constitutionalism (1913–1914)

The coup of February 1913, involving the overthrow and killing of Madero, had decisive effects. ‘Counter-revolution and Constitutionalism’ outlines how Huerta, the interim president, relied on the old Federal Army to support his leadership. In reaction, many of the components of the fragmented Maderista coalition began to reassemble and reorganize. The big northern frontier states—Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Sonora—played a key role under the leadership of Carranza, Obregón, and Villa, alongside the continued Zapatista revolt in Morelos. The rebels made the transition from guerrilla to conventional warfare, aided by the US lifting its arms embargo in early 1914. In August 1914, rebel forces approached Mexico City and Huerta resigned.

7. The Depression, Cardenismo, and after (1930–)

‘The Depression, Cardenismo, and after’ considers the early 1930s Depression that produced a lurch to the Left and the revolutionary period’s last great reformist administration of President Lázaro Cárdenas. The Depression, hitting an already becalmed Mexican economy, had a severe but short-lived effect. Structural features of the economy, coupled with ‘revolutionary’ policy, helped achieve a more rapid recovery than in the US. Land reform and rural education were central to Cárdenas, whose critics were the anti-revolutionary Right, the urban middle class, and political Catholics. Towards the end of the 1930s, the political pendulum swung back to the Right with the presidencies of Manuel Avila Camacho and Miguel Alemán.

6. The institutional Revolution

‘The institutional Revolution: The Sonoran dynasty’ concentrates on the evolution of the Revolution—the Revolution in power—during the 1920s under the leadership of Obregón and then his fellow-Sonoran Calles. After a decade of armed revolution, political stability was painfully achieved, but there were still serious military revolts, a bitter war between Church and State, and then the Great Depression of the early 1930s, which had a powerful impact on the course of the then institutionalized Revolution. The Sonoran dynasty faced serious challenges, as well as potential opportunities, in six areas of Mexican politics: the military; the peasantry; organized labour; the middle class; the Church; and the United States.