Imperialism and Modern State Building Explode: The Mexican RevolutionHistory 111 – World History since 1500

Spring 2022

Jorge Minella ([email protected])

Early Twentieth Century

 Increased competition among nation-states and their empires.

 Tightened imperial grip.

 Challenges to imperial domination rising. Peaked after World War 1.

 World War 1. Industrial warfare, mass mobilization.

 Mass society and culture.

Today’s Class

 Conflicts not only between nations or nations and their colonial subjects, also class conflict.

 Class-based clashes interacted with imperialism and international warfare.

 Sweeping revolutions.

 Mexico, 1910-1920.

 Nation-building and colonial legacy, imperialism, class struggle, mobilization of society.

 Next class: WW1, Russian Revolution, Paris Peace Agreements.

The Mexican Revolution Begins

Mexico Between 1810 and 1876

 Caudillos.

 Turmoil, political instability.

 Imperial interventions.

 U.S. invasion of Mexico, 1845-1848.

 French occupation, 1864-1867.

 Porfirio Diaz takes power, 1876.

Porfirio Diaz’s cabinet, ~1900.

The Porfiriato, 1876-1911

 Dictatorship.

 Stability and economic growth.

 Modernization of the export economy.

 New technology.

 Association with U.S. business interests.

 But wealth was increasingly concentrated.

 Benefit of few families and U.S. investors.

 Peasants lost land.

 Stability through brutal repression and cooptation.

The Porfiriato’s Decline

 Concentrated wealth caused resentment.

 Economy growth increased social complexity.

 Labor demands met with violence.

 Sectors of the elite resented Diaz excessive political control.

Image of the 1906 Cananea Strike, at the American-owned Cananea copper mine, in Sonora, northern Mexico. Many workers killed for demanding better working conditions.

Francisco Madero

 Mine and landowner from northern Mexico.

 Educated in the U.S. and France.

 Modern businessmen, but resented privileges to U.S. investors.

 Ran for president in 1910.

 Arrested.

 Called for armed insurrection against Porfirio.

Broad coalition to oust Porfirio Diaz

 Conflicting additional goals would complicate the situation.

 Political reformers.

 Sectors of the landowning class, merchants, middle-class intellectuals.

 Social reformers.

 Fundamentally rural.

 Central and southern Mexico’s peasants. (Emiliano Zapata)

 Northern Mexico’s rural laborers and miners. (Pascal Orozco and Pancho Villa)

Pancho Villa

 Sharecropper family.

 Laborer in Durango, northern Mexico.

 Experienced and witnessed mistreatment and poor conditions.

 Became a “social bandit”.

 Joined Madero’s call to arms.

Emiliano Zapata

 Feared the expansion of export-oriented sugar plantation into his village’s land.

 Elected president of the village council in 1909.

 Sought to defend the village through legal means but failed due to the biased Porfirian judiciary system.

 Joined Madero’s call to end Porfirian rule.

Porfirio Ousted, Madero President

 Porfirio Diaz renounced after Pancho Villa defeated federal troops in Ciudad Juarez.

 Francisco Madero elected president, November 1911.

 But ousting Diaz was just the beginning.

Madero in the 1911 electoral campaign with Zapata’s troops.

The Mexican Revolution Unfolds

Madero in Power

 From November 1911 to February 1913.

 Short reign due to political mistakes and the coalition’s diverging goals.

 Madero dismissed social demands.

 Antagonized an important sector of the coalition, mainly Zapata’s peasants.

 Madero maintained part of the Porfirian state intact.

 The army officers.

 The judiciary system.

Zapata’s Plan of Ayala

 Call to oust Madero.

 Land reform.

 1/3 of the land should return to peasants.

 Peasants’ colonial heritage.

 Trying to compromise.

 In the north.

 Also called to oust Madero and address the working class's demands.

The Federal Army

 Madero called the Federal Army against his former allies.

 Army controlled by Porfirian officers.

 Led by Victoriano Huerta.

 Fought against Zapata and Orozco.

 But turned against Madero.

 Conspired with other Porfirian officers and the U.S. Ambassador.

Victoriano Huerta

The Tragic Ten Days (Feb. 1913)

 Battle in Mexico City.

 Thousands killed.

 Madero assassinated.

 Porfirian regime restored with Huerta.

Modern weaponry employed in the battle.

Madero’s Coalition Back Together

 Pancho Villa and northern elites. Constitutionalist Army

 Emiliano Zapata and central Mexico’s peasants.

 Call to oust Huerta and draft a new constitution.

 Huerta resigned, end of reestablished Porfirian rule.

Pancho Villa and his troops.

Late 1914, Conference of Aguascalientes

 Meeting of all factions of the coalition.

 Villa’s rural laborers army.

 Northern elites.

 Zapata’s peasants.

 What should be the course of the revolution?

 Political?

 Social?

 Coalition split again.

Constitutionalists vs. Conventionists

 Constitutionalist Army.

 Led by northern elites.

 Carranza and Obregón.

 Defended political reform, opposed Zapata’s land reform.

 Conventionist Army.

 Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.

 Social reform.

 Conventionist Army took Mexico City.

Zapata and Villa’s armies enter Mexico City, December 1914.

Constitutionalist Win

 Constitutionalist Army winning the civil war.

 Superior resources.

 U.S. support.

 Less weariness.

 Accepted part of the social reform agenda.

 Decreased battered Conventionists’ will to fight.

 Gained support of the urban middle and working class.

 Constitutional Assembly.

 New 1917 Mexican Constitution.

Mexico’s New Constitution

Social Reforms and the 1917 Constitution

 Article 27.

 Land reform.

 Nationalization of underground resources.

 Article 123.

 Workers’ rights.

Carranza’s Government, 1917-1920.

 Should follow the 1917 Constitution.

 Instead, undermined it.

 Brutal repression on labor.

 Increased persecution of peasants demanding land rights.

 Zapata kept fighting.

 Now with a weakened and weary peasant army.

 But symbolically relevant.

 Zapata executed in April 1919.

Obregón’s Response

 Carranza’s violent methods and disregard for the Constitution.

 Many enemies.

 Álvaro Obregón.

 Former ally, member of the northern middle-class.

 Had led divisions of the Constitutionalist Army against Zapata.

 But came to recognize the need for social reform.

 Ousted Carranza.

 Revolutionary process coming to an end.

 A million people died.

The Mexican Revolution and World History

 Contemporary revolutions.

 China’s nationalist revolution, 1911.

 Russia’s communist revolution, 1917.

 Rise of industry and changes in social classes.

 Nation-state formation.

 Complex; colonial heritage.

 Expansion of capitalism and resulting social tensions.