User:OnBeyondZebrax/sandbox/Mexican revolution

José Doroteo Arango Arámbula, better known as Francisco "Pancho" Villa, came from the northern state of Durango. With his army, known as "Villistas", he joined the ranks of the Madero movement. He led his Villistas in many battles, including the attack on Ciudad Juárez in 1911, which led to the defeat of Mexican President Gen. Porfirio Díaz. In March 1912, in Chihuahua, Gen. Pascual Orozco revolted. In April, President Francisco Madero commanded Gen. Victoriano Huerta of the Federal Army, to put down the revolt. The governor of Chihuahua mobilized the state militia to supplement General Huerta. Pancho Villa was a colonel in the Chihuahua state militia, and he was called up at this time. In mid-April, Villa, at the head of 400 irregular troops, joined the forces commanded by General Huerta. In May, one of Villa's subordinates appropriated an expensive horse. When the owner complained to Huerta, Huerta ordered Villa’s subordinate to be executed. Villa objected, and Huerta relented, but Huerta nursed a grudge. In June, Villa notified Huerta that inasmuch as the Orozco revolt has been put down, he and his irregulars would consider themselves no longer under Huerta's command, and would depart. Huerta became furious, and ordered that Villa be executed. Raúl Madero, Madero's brother, intervened to save Villa's life. Jailed in Mexico City, Villa fled to the United States. Soon after the assassination of President Madero he returned to Mexico to fight Huerta, although he had only a handful of companions with him. However, by 1913 his forces had swelled into an army of thousands, called the División del Norte (Northern Division). Villa and his army, along with Carranza and Obregón, joined forces to fight against the Huerta dictatorship. Villa and Carranza had different goals. Because Villa wanted to continue the revolution, he became an enemy of Carranza. After Carranza took control in 1914, Villa and other revolutionaries who opposed him met at what was called the Convention of Aguascalientes. The convention deposed Carranza in favor of Eulalio Gutiérrez. In the winter of 1914 Villa's and Zapata's troops entered and occupied Mexico City. Villa's treatment of Gutiérrez, and the citizenry in general, outraged more moderate elements of the population, and Villa was forced from the city in early 1915. In 1915 Villa took part in two of the most important battles of the revolution, that together are known as Battle of Celaya, which occurred from April 6–7 and from April 13–15. He attacked the forces of Gen. Obregón but was badly defeated in what became one of the bloodiest battles of the revolution, with thousands dead. With his forces' defeat of Villa, Carranza seized power. A short time later the United States recognized Carranza as president of Mexico. On March 9, 1916, Villa crossed the U.S.–Mexico border and raided Columbus, New Mexico, in order to exact revenge on an American arms dealer who sold ammunition to Villa that he used in the Battle of Celaya and which turned out to be useless. During this attack, 18 Americans died but 90 of Villa's men were killed by U.S. troops and civilians who repelled the attack.

Under heavy pressure by public opinion (stoked mainly by the papers of ultra-conservative publisher William Randolph Hearst who owned a large estate in Mexico) to punish these Mexican attacks, U.S. President Wilson sent Gen. John J. Pershing and around 5,000 troops into Mexico in what turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt to capture Villa. It was known as the Punitive Expedition. After nearly a year of pursuing Villa, the hunt was called off, the forces returned to the U.S. and Pershing was given command of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI. The American intervention had been limited to the western sierras of Chihuahua. It was notable as the first time the U.S. Army used airplanes in military operations. With the Americans always in pursuit of him, Villa had the advantage of intimately knowing the inhospitable terrain of the Sonoran Desert and the almost impassable Sierra Madre mountains and always managed to stay one step ahead of his pursuers.

Even though Villa's forces were badly depleted by his loss at Celaya, he continued his fight against the Carranza government. Finally, in 1920, Obregón—who had defeated him at Celaya—finally reached an agreement with Villa, who "hung up his guns" and retired to his farm. In 1923 Villa was assassinated by a group of seven gunmen who ambushed him while he was sitting in the back seat of his car—he never learned to drive—in Parral (According to the Pancho Villa Museum in Chihuahua City, Pancho Villa was personally driving the car that day, accompanied by his body guards --- the car is on display there, complete with bullet holes and all). It is presumed the assassination was ordered by Obregón, who feared a bid for the presidency by Villa.

Venustiano Carranza
Venustiano Carranza became president in 1914, after the overthrow of the Huerta government. He was driven out of Mexico City by Villa and Zapata in December 1914, but later gained the support of the masses by the development of a program of social and agrarian reform. He was elected president in 1917. To try to restrain the revolutionary slaughter, Carranza formed the Constitutional Army to try to bring peace by the adoption—albeit reluctantly—of the majority of the rebels' social demands into the new constitution. The socialist constitution addressed foreign ownership of resources (Article 27), an organized labor code (Article 123), the role of the Roman Catholic Church in education (Article 3), and land reform.

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.

Although his intentions were good, Carranza was not able to stay in power long enough to enforce many of the reforms of the Constitution of 1917. There was greater decentralization of power because of his weakness. He had appointed Gen. Obregón as Minister of War and of the Navy. In 1920 Obregón, with Gens. Plutarco Elías Calles and Adolfo de la Huerta, led a revolt against Carranza under the Plan of Agua Prieta. Their agents assassinated Carranza on May 21, 1920.

Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution. He is considered one of the national heroes of Mexico: towns, streets and housing developments named "Emiliano Zapata" are common across the country. His image has been used on Mexican banknotes. People have long held polarized views of Zapata and his followers: some considered them bandits, but to others they were true revolutionaries who worked for the peasants. Presidents Porfirio Díaz and Venustiano Carranza called Zapata a womanizer, barbarian, terrorist and bandit. Conservative media nicknamed Zapata "The Attila of the South".

Many peasants and indigenous Mexicans admired Zapata as a practical revolutionary whose populist battle cry, "Tierra y Libertad" (Land and Liberty), was spelled out in the Plan de Ayala for land reform. He fought for political and economic emancipation of the peasants in southern Mexico. Zapata's trademark saying was, "It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." Zapata was killed in 1919 by Gen. Pablo González and his aide, Col. Jesús Guajardo, in an elaborate ambush. Guajardo set up the meeting under the pretext of wanting to defect to Zapata's side. At the meeting, González's men assassinated Zapata.

Zapatistas
"Zapatista" originally referred to a member of the revolutionary guerrilla movement founded about 1910 by Zapata. His Liberation Army of the South (Ejército Libertador del Sur) fought during the Mexican Revolution for the redistribution of agricultural land. Zapata and his army and allies, including Pancho Villa, fought for agrarian reform in Mexico. Specifically, they wanted to establish communal land rights for Mexico's indigenous population, which had mostly lost its land to the wealthy elite of European descent.

The majority of Zapata's supporters were indigenous peasants from Morelos and surrounding areas, but intellectuals from urban areas also joined the Zapatistas and played a significant part in their movement, specifically the structure and communication of the Zapatista ambitions. Zapata had received a limited education in Morelos, only going to school for a few years. Educated supporters helped express his political aims. The urban intellectuals were known as "city boys" and were predominantly young males. They joined the Zapatistas for many reasons, including curiosity, sympathy, and ambition. Zapata agreed that intellectuals could work on political strategy, but he had the chief role in proclaiming Zapatista ideology. The city boys also provided medical care, helped promote and instruct supporters in Zapatista ideology, created a plan for agrarian reform, aided in rebuilding villages destroyed by government forces, wrote manifestos and sent messages from Zapata to other revolutionary leaders. Zapata's compadre Otilio Montaño was one of the most prominent city boys. Before the Revolution Montaño was a professor. During the Revolution he taught Zapatismo, recruited citizens and wrote the Plan de Ayala for land reform. Other well-known city boys were Abraham Martínez, Manuel Palafox, Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama, Pablo Torres Burgos, Gildardo Magaña, Dolores Jiménez y Muro, Enrique Villa and Genaro Amezcua. Since Zapata's political ambitions and campaign were usually local, women were able to aid the Zapatista soldiers from their homes. There were also female Zapatista soldiers who served from the beginning of the revolution. When Zapata met with President Madero on July 12, 1911, he was accompanied by his troops. Among them were female soldiers, including officers. Some women also led bandit gangs before and during the Revolution. Women joined the Zapatistas as soldiers for various reasons, including revenge for dead family members or to perform raids. Perhaps the most popular Zapatista female soldier was Margarita Neri, who was a commander. Women fought bravely as Zapatista soldiers and some were killed in battle, and long after the revolution ended many continued to wear men's clothing and carry pistols. Col. María de la Luz Espinosa Barrera was one of the few whose service was formally recognized with a pension as a veteran of the Mexican Revolution.

Agrarian land reform
Under the Porfiriato, rural peasants suffered the most. The regime confiscated large sections of land, which caused a major loss by the agrarian work force. In 1883 a land law was passed that gave ownership of more than 27.5 million hectares of land to foreign companies. By 1894 one out of every five acres of Mexican land was owned by a foreign interest. Many wealthy families also owned huge estates, resulting in landless rural peasants working on the property as virtual slaves. In 1910 at the beginning of the revolution, about half of the rural population lived and worked on such plantations. This rapid and brutal uprooting of the peasantry contributed greatly to the fury unleashed in the Mexican Revolution and its subsequent course, giving it the character of a gigantic peasant war for land that attacked the structure of the Mexican state.

Salvador Alvarado, after taking control of Yucatán in 1915, organized a large Socialist Party and carried out extensive land reform. The large landed estates were confiscated, and the land was then redistributed to the liberated peasants.

Role of the United States
The first time the United States became involved in the revolution was in 1914, during the Ypiranga incident. When United States intelligence agents discovered that the German merchant ship Ypiranga was carrying illegal arms to Huerta, President Wilson ordered troops to the port of Veracruz to stop the ship from docking. He did not declare war on Mexico. The United States forces then skirmished with Huerta's troops in Veracruz. The Ypiranga managed to dock at another port, which infuriated Wilson. The ABC Powers arbitrated and U.S. troops left Mexican soil, but the incident added to already tense Mexican-American relations.

In 1916, in retaliation for Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico, and the death of 16 United States citizens who were killed when a group of Villistas attacked a train on the Mexico North Western Railway, near Santa Isabel, Chihuahua, President Wilson sent forces commanded by Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing into Mexico to capture Villa. Villa was deeply entrenched in the mountains of northern Mexico, and knew the terrain too well to be captured. Pershing was forced to abandon the mission and return to the United States. This event, however, further damaged the already strained United States–Mexico relationship and caused Mexico's anti-United States sentiment to grow stronger.

Role of the Catholic Church
From 1876-1911 relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Mexican government were stable. Porfirio Díaz had a keen interest in keeping good relations with the Church, since he was worried about the American expansionist threat. Díaz addressed the issue thus:


 * "Persecution of the Church, whether or not the clergy enter into the matter, means war, and such a war that the Government can win it only against its own people, through the humiliating, despotic, costly and dangerous support of the United States. Without its religion, Mexico is irretrievably lost."

However, Díaz was not completely supportive of the Church. Before his own presidency Díaz had supported the Juárez regime, which implemented anti-clerical policies, such as expropriation of large tracts of Church-owned property and the forced laicization of Mexican clergy. Indeed, many Roman Catholic clergy, including the Blessed Miguel Pro, were executed during the anti-clerical Cristero War of Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles during the latter part of the Revolution.

There was also an effort to set up a Mexican Apostolic National Church which in the 1970s became subsumed into the Orthodox Church of America.

Youth in the revolution
As the Revolution progressed, the status of the University in relation to it changed several times; each time its students took different positions as well. Under different university directors, different revolutionary ideals were forced upon the student body. In many cases the curriculum would change as well. With each change, however, the importance of youth groups became more crucial. The university's students made up the bulk of the youth movement, chiefly composed of educated youth. During the Revolution, some viewed students as anti-revolutionary because of the image of the university as a safe haven for the rich and privileged. People engaged in the Revolution urged the university and students to become more involved and to accept the ideals and beliefs of the revolution.

The youth movements of the revolution were mainly confined to higher schools and especially the National University of Mexico. Young men used art, music, and poetry to speak out on the Revolution and encourage support. The leaders in government often made efforts to suppress such outlets. After the Revolution, new governments in turn gradually tried to suppress the freedoms of the University. By the 1920s, student protests were against the government.

End of the revolution
In 1916, the revolution was drawing to a close. Carranza was gaining support from peasants with the promise of a new constitution. This caused Emiliano Zapata’s forces to lose some support, pushing their forces further south. Later that year, Carranza also sent General Gonzales after Zapata, causing further troubles for his Liberation Army of the South. In 1917, the situation was growing worse for Zapata.

Zapata was low on supplies and his lines were moving further south. However, a colonel named Jesús Guajardo from the Federal Army approached him, offering to join with Zapata’s forces. Zapata had misgivings, as previous defectors and former Federal Army generals had betrayed him before. To test Guajardo's loyalty, Zapata had him attack one of Carranza’s strongholds, which he carried out successfully. As the war went on in 1919, Zapata began to run out of essential supplies, such as ammunition, and decided to acquire them from Guajardo. Zapata went to Guajardo's camp to negotiate with the colonel, whom he had not met before. However, Zapata had walked into a trap. Guajardo’s soldiers attacked Zapata, killing him and routing his forces. Venustiano Carranza rewarded Guajardo with a promotion to general and a cash prize of 100,000 pesos for having "successfully completed the difficult commission that was conferred to him."

Later that year, Carranza assembled the constitutional convention drafting the new constitution. With this, Carranza also gained support of the communists and anarchists, who were formed into “Red Battalions” to confront the forces of Villa and those remaining of Zapata’s. This further turned the tide, causing Villa to surrender in 1920. He negotiated a peace deal with Carranza, ending all hostilities and granting him a small estate, thus ending the war.

Later that year, Carranza held elections for the presidency. Obregón, a reformist general who pushed for the new constitution, was to oppose him for the seat. Carranza orchestrated a sham election, allowing Ignacio Bonillas to win. Carranza then fled to Guerrero where he staged a short coup to bring him into the presidency but was killed on horseback while fleeing from Mexico City to Veracruz.

One of the major issues that faced 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.

Despite American pressures, 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. Despite the sympathy towards socialism, the government began to ferment nationalism amongst the peasantry. This was accomplished by memorialising 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.

Shortly after the failed coup, Obregón’s term ended and Plutarco 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.

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, Calles defeated the church ending the rebellion.

After the war ended in 1929, supporters of Calles and Obregón began to form a united political party called the National Revolutionary Party or 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, making him somewhat more centrist than purely socialist. Regardless, his rule was the most radical phase of the post revolution, social 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 Cardena’s 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.

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.

Legacy
The legacy of the Mexican Revolution is mixed between scholars. Marxists claim it was a worker’s revolution betrayed by the government bureaucratic class that never wanted reforms to begin with. They believe the regime was Bonapartist, meaning it was co-opted by other forces, not the workers who fought for it, ending up as a political rather than social revolution.

Functionalists argue it was essentially an inevitable occurrence, citing that it was a collapsing civil society and a government elite that was unable to reform itself. The old Porfiran system was bound to collapse and some force was going to improve upon the old system or replace it.

There is even debate on whether it was a civil war or a revolution, or some combination of the two. The old Porfirian system was removed and replaced with a new dynamic system that rotated leadership and appealed to multiple social groups yet still operated on similar foundations. The old Díaz regime was replaced with a younger and more dynamic leadership representing different national interests, one able to mobilize popular support but still maintain stability and control. It is commonly agreed the new government was largely populist only for political stability. This is evident in post revolution rule of the PNR, now PRI.

Rise of the PRI
The PRI, or Institutional Revolutionary Party is one of the major lasting legacies of the Mexican revolution. It was formed in 1929 under Calles as the PNR, or National Revolutionary party, then changed to PMR (Party of the Mexican Revolution) in the 1930s during Cárdenas’ reign, and to its modern name in the 1940s.

It was established to build stability in the post revolution period. The PRI was built up as a big tent corporatist party, to bring every political faction and interest group together. To funnel the populace into the party, Calles and his supporters built various delegations composed of popular, agrarian, labour, and military groupings. This was an attempt to control people from all walks of life to keep political order. However, the leadership merely wished to make it appear the public was in power. In reality, most power came from a Central Executive Committee, which budgeted all government projects. This effectively turned the Parliament into a rubber stamp body for the PRI’s leadership.

The Party's name expresses the Mexican state's incorporation of the idea of revolution, and especially a continuous, nationalist, anti-imperialist, Mexican revolution, into political discourse, and its legitimization as a popular, revolutionary party. The Revolution was a powerful memory and its slogans and promises were utilized to bolster the PRI's new power.

The Party was very authoritarian and hierarchical, leaving little room for opposition. However, it was not interested in oppression for its own sake. Its main goal was to keep order, preferring pragmatism over ideology. Throughout its rule in post-revolutionary Mexico, it avoided empowering one faction too much, preferring to build its own ruling caste rather than side with another. It tended to play off both sides of the political spectrum, both the populists and the emerging bourgeoisie.

Transformation of the political landscape
The other major immediate part of the revolution’s legacy is the 1917 constitution. It was pushed forward by populist generals within Carranza’s government to gain popular support. It was not written by liberal elites or the military itself, but rather young populist professionals, giving the document some authenticity for the peasantry. The document brought numerous reforms demanded by populist factions of the revolution, most importantly the banning of the semi-feudal Hacienda system. It also introduced major labour reforms, including an 8 hour work day, a right to strike, equal pay laws for women, and an end to exploitative practices such as child labour and company stores.

It also streamlined the federal government, empowering it, but adding term limits to prevent a personal dictatorship. One article, article 27, specifically allows the federal government to intervene in all matters it deemed essential to national security, such as labour strikes. The tradition of strong-man rule was not completely thrown away, presidentialism (presidencialismo), the political arrangement of a powerful executive branch centered in the presidency, became the favored style of post-revolutionary politics. In this the Mexican Revolution was not revolutionary, only making the mechanisms of power less autocratic and more efficient in the attainment of its interests. Octavio Paz wrote that the revolution strengthened the Mexican state more than ever, making Mexico a very state-centered and patriomonialist society. In such a development they betrayed their acknowledged liberal predecessors of the Restored Republic of 1867-1876 which saw the most significant break from authoritarian politics in Mexico's history.

A more modern legacy is that of another insurgency from the 1990s taking on the name Zapatista, in reference to the populist revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata. The revolt began in Chiapas, which was very reliant and supportive of the revolutionary reforms, especially the ejido system, which it had pioneered before Cárdenas took power. Most revolutionary gains were reversed in the early 1990s by President Salinas, who began moving away from the agrarian socialist policies of the late post revolution period in favour of modern finance capitalism. This culminated in the removal of the ejido system in Chiapas. The destruction of what little the poor starving peasants had caused them to revolt. Calling to Mexico’s revolutionary heritage, the movement draws heavily from early revolutionary rhetoric. It is inspired by many of Zapata’s policies, including a call towards decentralized local rule.