Mexican Revolution Questions of the Day 2

Mexican Revolution Questions of the Day # 2 Daniel W. Blackmon IB HL History Coral Gables Sr. High

Question of the Day # 2 • “The Mexican Revolution of the early twentieth century was not one but two revolutions, one led by reformers and the other led by revolutionaries. ” To what extent do you agree with this view? (HL) (2000)

Key Terms • • • [Conservatives] Reformers Revolutionaries. [Reactionaries]. “To what extent”

Definitions: Conservative • Conservative: “If the Camaro ain’t broke, don’t fix it. ”

Definitions: Reformers • Reformer: “Let’s overhaul this Camaro so it runs better!”

Definitions: Revolutionary • Revolutionary: “This piece of junk isn’t worth fixing; let’s buy us a Jaguar!”

Definitions: [Reactionary] • Reactionary: “I don’t like the Jag; the steering wheel’s on the wrong side! Let’s go back to the tried and true Camaro!”

Thesis • “The proposition that the Mexican Revolution of the early twentieth century was not one but two revolutions, one led by reformers and the other led by revolutionaries “ is very true, and helps to explain both the longevity of the Revolution and its ultimate results.

Thesis • “At times however, the revolution was not a two way struggle but a three way struggle,

Thesis • “with Reactionaries such as Félix Díaz and Victoriano Huerta attempting to subvert the aims of both Reformers such as Francisco Madero and Venustiano Carranza and Revolutionaries such as Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. ”

Reformers • • • Flores Magon Brothers Francisco Madero Venustiano Carranza Alvaro Obregón Plutarco Calles

The Liberal Program • The Flores Magon brothers (Jésus and Enrique) became outspoken opponents, publishing Regeneración

The Liberal Program • Published from St. Louis

The Liberal Program • • • freedom of speech freedom of the press suppression of the jefes politicos secularization of education nationalization of church property

The Liberal Program • abolition of the death penalty (except for treason) • educational reform in favor of the poor • prison reform • 8 hour work day and a 6 day work week • abolition of the tienda de raya

The Liberal Program • payment to all workers in legal tender • prohibition of child labor • Redistribution of all uncultivated lands to peasants • an agricultural credit bank • restoration of ejidal lands

Francisco Madero and the Anti -Re-electionist Campaign • Madero wrote The Presidential Succession of 1910 to express his opposition

Francisco Madero and the Anti -Re-electionist Campaign • Díaz once again manipulated the election, and was amazingly re-elected again

Francisco Madero and the Anti -Re-electionist Campaign The Plan de San Luis Potosí“ ‘I declare the last election illegal and accordingly the republic, being without rulers, I assume the provisional presidency of the republic until designate their rulers pursuant in the law. ’” (499)

Madero as President • A political, not a social reformer • A Department of Labor was established but put in the hands of a conservative. • Juan Francisco Moncaleano, a Spanish anarchist, organized a union, but strikes were dispersed by troops.

Madero as President • Madero did nothing to increase funding for education • Ordered Zapata to disband his men even though the army in Morelos was led by Porfiristas (Huerta)

The Constitution of 1917: Article 3 • Free, obligatory, secular education

The Constitution of 1917: Article 3 • Other anti-clerical provisions: • Marriage is a civil ceremony; religious organizations have no special legal status; priests are considered ordinary citizens; worship outside the church is banned

The Constitution of 1917: Article 3 • State legislatures could determine the maximum number of priests in the state; all priests must be native-born; clergy are prohibited from forming political parties; • Clergy must register with the government; all new church buildings must be approved by the state.

The Constitution of 1917: Article 27 • Restoration of lands seized illegally. • Private ownership of land no longer seen as a right but as a privilege.

The Constitution of 1917: Article 27 • If land did not serve a socially useful function, it may be expropriated by the state. • Subsoil rights are reserved – Remember the new Mining Code

The Constitution of 1917: Article 123 • an 8 hour work day, a 6 day workweek, a minimum wage, and equal pay for equal work, regardless of sex or nationality. • labor and capital have the right to organize. • Labor has the right to bargain collectively and to strike.

Implementation: Carranza • CROM 1917 • Luis Morones founded the first national union, the Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana

Implementation: Carranza • Carranza confused a change in government with a change in society (545) • Despite Article 27, he distributed only 450, 000 acres of land. (545)

Implementation: Carranza • In 1915 and again in 1916, Carranza used troops to suppress strikes. • With respect to the Constitution, Carranza’s philosophy was Obedezco pero no cumplo. (550)

Implementation: Carranza • The Zapatistas are crushed after long and bitter fighting, with Zapata being lured into a trap and assasinated

Implementation: Obregón • Positive achievements supporting the Revolution • José Vasconcelos institutes a vigorous program of rural education. His purpose (at this time) was to integrate the Indians into mainstream mestizo society, to incorporate them into a raza cósmica. (Meyer 572 -3)

Implementation: Obregón • Vasconcelos employed the Muralists– Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros– to decorate buildings with works that would also educate.

Implementation: Obregón • Obregón favored CROM over any other union organization. Morones chose to moderate his positions rather than risk being crushed. Membership rose from 50, 000 in 1920 to 1, 200, 000 in 1924. (Meyer 575)

Implementation: Obregón • Limitations on his achievements • The Church – Obregón could not enforce the complete secularization of education because he lacked the resources to dispense with the Church.

Implementation: Obregón • Land Reform • Obregón is cautious. He did not wish to disrupt the hacienda system. Redistribution of the land would result in reduced productivity, and he also wished to avoid that.

Implementation: Obregón • Land Reform • Land redistribution is very modest: 3, 000 acres.

Implementation: Obregón • Bought off Villa with a hacienda. • Villa later assassinated

Implementation: Obregón • Summary: Obregón “had been slow to implement the reforms promised by the Constitution. . [T]hrough shrewd pragmatism he had co-opted the radical thrust of the Revolution, and, while occasionally yielding to the rhetoric of reform, he had not done much to alter the sustaining structure of society. ” (580)

Implementation: Obregón • Summary: Obregón “had been slow to implement the reforms promised by the Constitution. . [T]hrough shrewd pragmatism he had co-opted the radical thrust of the Revolution, and, while occasionally yielding to the rhetoric of reform, he had not done much to alter the sustaining structure of society. ” (580)

Implementation: Calles • Positive achievements supporting the Revolution • Agrarian Reform: Calles redistributed 8, 000 acres. Most of this land goes to the ejido rather than to individuals.

Implementation: Calles • Agricultural productivity declined as a result of this, so Calles began irrigation projects, established agricultural schools, and began to extend agricultural credit to small farmers. (583)

Implementation: Calles • Labor • Like Obregón, Calles favored CROM over all other unions. CROM’s membership continued to rise, and members were elected to Congress.

Implementation: Calles • Labor • By 1928, Luis Morones was a wealthy man, and it seems evident that the “system” had co-opted him. (584)

Implementation: Calles • Education • Vasconcelos’ program is continued, with heavy emphasis on the teaching of Spanish to Indians.

Implementation: Calles • Health: Sanitation and health is improved. Vaccination programs are begun, and food vendors (bakeries, butcher shops, dairies, cantinas, etc) begin to be inspected. (585)

Implementation: Calles • The Church • Calles decided to enforce the anti-clerical articles of the Constitution of 1917.

Implementation: Calles • When the archbishop of Mexico told an interviewer that, in all conscience, a Catholic could not accept the Constitution, Calles replied by deporting foreign priests and nuns, closing church schools, and ordering all priests to register with civil authorities.

Implementation: Calles • The archbishop ordered a strike. • For 3 years, the sacraments could not be obtained in Mexico. (587)

Implementation: Calles • The Cristero Rebellion 1926 -1929 • The war that erupted became vicious. The Cristeros rallied to the call of Viva Cristo Rey!

Implementation: Calles • In 1928, with his term coming to an end, Calles supported the election of Alvaro Obregón, thinking Obregón would repay the favor in 1934. • Obregón, however, was assassinated by a Cristero.

Implementation: Calles • Limitations on his achievements: • The Maximato 1929 -1934 • Calles, following Obregón’s death, continued as the power in Mexico, but he chose to be a puppet master–the Jefe Máximo

Implementation: Calles • Calles reorganizes the revolutionary party as the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR) PNR would change its name but control the government for the rest of the century. • Calles shifts the Revolution strongly to the right.

Implementation: Calles • Land Reform • Land redistribution slows. • The Terrazas-Creel Clan was able to repurchase land previously lost

Implementation: Calles • Education • Rural education is de-emphasized

Implementation: Calles • Labor • The government withdrew support for CROM. • Morones was exposed as corrupt.

Implementation: Calles • “The anti-Communist hysteria reached its apex in 1930 and 1931, years that witnessed the aberrance of the Gold Shirts, a fascist inspired organization of thugs whose selfappointed task was to terrorize all Communists and Jews. ” (592)

The Revolutionaries • Emiliano Zapata • Pancho Villa • Lázaro Cárdenas

Zapata: The Local Situation • Morelos was dominated by sugar planters who, in an effort to modernize their holdings, which required expensive machinery, decided to do so by squeezing the peasants extremely hard.

Zapata: The Local Situation • The Porfirista governor, Pablo “Escandón openly, blatantly and bigotedly favored the planters against the villagers. . The owners of the sugar plantations were now free to declare open season on the villages. .

Zapata: The Local Situation • In 1909 more and more villages were deprived of water, their cattle stolen, their lands fenced off, and all appeals to political or judicial authorities were ignored. It was now clear that Escandón aimed to break the pueblos as institutions,

Zapata: The Local Situation • leaving an almost Marxian division between the plantocracy and a vast body of dispossessed ex-villagers who had only their labor to sell. ” (Mc. Lynn 46 -47)

Zapata: Reasons for Becoming a Revolutionary • Zapata is all about land reform. When the people of Anenecuilco protested the illegal seizure of fields and water belonging to them by the local hacendado, the reply was,

Zapata: Reasons for Becoming a Revolutionary • “If the people of Anenecuilco want to sow their seed, let them sow it in a flowerpot, because they will get no land even on the barren slope of a hill. ”

Zapata: Reasons for Becoming a Revolutionary • The village reply to the governor was “We are willing to recognize whoever the owner of said lands may turn out to be. . but we wish to sow on said lands so as not to suffer, because the sowing is what gives us life, from which we draw our livelihood and that of our families. ” (Krauze 277)

Zapata: Political Policies • Plan de Ayala: (1) “restitution to the ‘pueblos or citizens who hold the proper deeds” of “lands, mountains and waters usurped by the hacendados, cientificos, or caciques. ’

Zapata: Political Policies • Plan de Ayala: • (2) “Furthermore, a third of the ‘lands, mountains and waters’ monopolized by these owners would be expropriated–but with compensation–

Zapata: Political Policies • Plan de Ayala: • (2) “–so that the pueblos and citizens could make use of them and ‘improve in every way. . . the lack of prosperity and wellbeing among Mexicans. ’

Zapata: Political Policies • Plan de Ayala: (3) “Those who directly or indirectly ‘resisted this program’ would have their holdings nationalized and twothirds of their former wealth. . . would then be applied

Zapata: Political Policies • Plan de Ayala: . . . would then be applied to ‘paying war indemnities–pensions for widows and orphans of the victims who fall in the struggle for this Program. ” (Krauze 288)

Zapata: Tierra y Liberdad! • “The land will be our own possession, it will belong to all the people–the land our ancestors held and that the fingers on paws that crushed us snatched away from us. ” Manifesto issued in Náhuatl by Zapata in 1918

Zapata: Economic Policies • “The dream of Zapatista redemption was to create a mosaic of small autonomous holdings whose owners would be united by a strong sense of community” (Krauze 288)

Zapata: Economic Policies • In 1914, Zapata issued an agrarian decree which was more radical than the Plan de Ayala.

Zapata: Economic Policies • “The nationalization of enemy possessions would for the first time extend to urban property and–also for the first time–forms of ownership were to be established that recalled the Aztec calpulli (shared communal ownership of land).

Zapata: Economic Policies • In embryo, this was a call for the ejido, an institution that would later develop out of the Mexican Revolution and involve the collective ownership and cultivation of fields. . “ (Krauze 291)

Zapata: Economic Policies • Zapata’s land distribution would lead to more subsistence agriculture. • Mc. Lynn argues that under Zapata, the state in Morelos was “withering away” • His program resembles anarchism rather strongly

Zapata: Economic Policies • Zapata is not a communist! • Conversation between Zapata and Enrique Villa:

Zapata: Economic Policies • “Emiliano, what do you think of communism? • “Explain to me what that is. ” • “For example, all of the people of a village farm. . . their lands together and then they distribute the harvest equally. ”

Zapata: Economic Policies • “Who makes the distribution? ” • “A representative, or a council elected by the community. ”

Zapata: Economic Policies • “”Well, look, as far as I am concerned, if any ‘somebody’. . . would try to dispose of the fruits of my own labor in that way. . . I would fill him full of bullets. ” (Krauze 298)

Zapata: Religious Policies • “Religious devotion was another vital aspect of Zapatismo. ” (Krauze 297) • The Virgin of Guadalupe was displayed on their banners. Priests were not persecuted, and many supported the revolutionaries.

Zapata: Social Policies • “Another notable feature of that war of wandering villages was its bias toward indigenous values and consequent respect for the Indians. ” (Krauze 296) • Zapata frequently addressed village in Náhuatl

Zapata: Land Reform • From a conversation between Villa and Zapata in 1914: “They feel so much love for the land. ” (Krauze 294 -5)

Zapata: Power • Conversation on the occasion of the famous photograph in Mexico City, when Villa sat in the President’s chair.

Zapata: Power • Villa: “Now it’s your turn. ” • Zapata: “I didn’t fight for that. I fought to get the lands back. I don’t care about politics. ” (Krauze 295)

Villa: The Local Situation • Northern Mexico has a dramatically different economy. Sonora and Chihuahua (where much of the fighting would take place) have traditions of federalism, opposition to national authority, and of military self-reliance

Villa: The Local Situation • Water was the crucial factor in the economy; most of the land is desert. The economy included ranching and mining. Both Sonora and Chihuahua have common borders with the US, which provided a source of supplies, weapons, and ammunition, as well as a refuge in need.

Villa: The Local Situation • Sonora had been wracked by war to the knife against the Yaquis, who were fighting for their cultural existence. • The Yaquis were formidable fighters, and rebellion still simmered in 1900. (Mc. Lynn 53 -54)

Villa: The Local Situation • Chihuahua had been terrorized since the 1830's by the Apache: Cochise and Mangas Colorado of the Chiricahuas, Victorio, Delgadito and Nana of the Mimbres, as well as Geronimo.

Villa: The Local Situation • Luis Terrazas had cemented his leadership role in Chihuahua by trapping and destroying Victorio. The culture of Chihuahua was martial. (Mc. Lynn 55 -58)

Villa: The Local Situation • Economically, the Terrazas-Creel clan controlled almost all jobs via their great estates and the Banco Minero de Chihuahua

Villa: The Local Situation • The Terrazas-Creel clan was either “broker or partner in all foreign investment schemes in the state. ” (Mc. Lynn 64) Diaz coopted them by appointing Enrique Creel as governor. “Creel turned on [the villagers and colonists] ruthlessly.

Villa: The Local Situation • He and his family coveted new land so that they could make a killing from land speculation. The key was the new railways, for the Mexican Northwestern line, the Kansas Orient and the Pacific Railroad were all laying new track through Chihuahua.

Villa: The Local Situation • In 1904 -5 Creel passed two laws of special moment: the first replaced heads of municipalities with officials appointed by the governor;

Villa: The Local Situation • the second. . . so that the state, not the federal government, became the final arbiter in the case of expropriation of village lands. Creel’s hatred of the free villages was noteworthy. . In short, Creel was a genuine cientifico ideologue. ” (Mc. Lynn 66)

Villa: The Local Situation • First, his expropriations created “a new class of landless labourers, ” then he refused to acknowledge customary rights of the military colonies

Villa: The Local Situation • The US depression of 1908 hit Chihuahua very hard as mines closed as the price of silver and copper dropped; food prices shot up, and Creel responded by raising taxes on the peasants (but not the hacendados). (Mc. Lynn 67)

Villa: Reasons for Becoming a Revolutionary • There are three different versions: the Black, White, and Epic Legends. “The black legend makes Villa out as a double-dyed psychopath, motivated only by hatred and revenge; the white is that he was a simple man wanting a simple life who was catapulted reluctantly into a revolutionary milieu;

Villa: Reasons for Becoming a Revolutionary • and the epic that he was no bandit lusting only after loot but a genuine Robin Hood, desirous of righting wrongs, taking from the rich to give to the poor. ” (Mc. Lynn 61)

Villa: Reasons for Becoming a Revolutionary • The author of the epic legend is John Reed, the socialist American journalist who would later write Ten Days That Shook the World. Reed does concede that between 1901 -9, Villa certainly murdered 4 men and participated in at least 10 premeditated crimes.

Villa: Reasons for Becoming a Revolutionary • A more sophisticated explanation lies in Villa’s relationship with the Terrazas-Creel clan. The courageous journalist Silvestre Terrazas exposed the corruption in Chihuahua, and Villa met him in 1910. Later that year, he met Madero’s representative in Chihuahua, Abraham González, and fell under his spell

Villa: Reasons for Becoming a Revolutionary • The Terrazas-Creel clan identified Villa as an enemy due to his connection with Silvestre Terrazas and Abraham González. At the same time, Mc. Lynn notes, Villa had become politicized by these two. (69 -70)

Villa : Political Policies • Villa was an “effective” governor of Chihuahua from 1913 -14. (Mc. Lynn 190) This is the time period to judge what his policies were. • Villa told John Reed that he had three priorities: his troops, children, and the poor. (Mc. Lynn 190)

Villa : Economic Policies • While land reform was important, the nature of the land the economy gave it a different priority and approach. The pastoral economy and shortage of water meant that land units had to be very large.

Villa : Economic Policies • Villa expropriated the estates of rancheros who fled, selling the cattle to the US, Cuba, and Europe and using the money to fund his army and government.

Villa : Economic Policies • These confiscations were not compensated; but Mc. Lynn argues that, since the rancheros had always undervalued their lands to evade taxes, that seizure was more a “sequestration” than an “expropriation. ” (192)

Villa : Economic Policies • Rancheros who supported him kept their estates. • Some of the estates were given to his supporters, simply to keep them loyal and happy.

Villa : Economic Policies • Silvestre Terrazas was authorized to distribute land at his discretion, but seized Terrazas-Creel land was reserved as a military colony. (Mc. Lynn 193)

Villa : Economic Policies • Although he is best known in the US for his later attacks in New Mexico, in this period he was scrupulous to protect the persons and property of foreigners, especially US citizens.

Villa : Economic Policies • US support was important to him. And in fact, he did not definitively lose that support until the Battle of Celayo proved to Woodrow Wilson that Villa would be the loser in the civil war.

Villa : Economic Policies • So far as personal wealth was concerned, Villa’s regime was noted for little corruption, in contrast to Carranza’s.

Villa : Economic Policies • Villa’s land program “enjoying the proximity to the USA, both exported and redistributed the profits away from the peasantry. ” (Mc. Lynn 194)

Villa : Economic Policies • Mc. Lynn argues that in Chihuahua, the state was “stronger than ever, intervening at all points in economic and social life. ” (194)

Villa : Religious Policies • Villa was very anti-clerical. Priests were beaten up, arrested, and shot. Churches were desecrated.

Villa : Social Policies • “He provided pensions [for widows and orphans], free food and cheap mat for his followers and their families. He cut the cost of food and other basics, organized distribution and rationing, punished all abuses by death and set his army to work on infrastructure projects–

Villa : Social Policies • “–repairing railways, telephones and telegraph lines, running electrification projects, streetcars, the water supply and even slaughterhouses. He also sent his men south to harvest the cotton crop in Durango. ” (Mc. Lynn 190; cf also Krauze 315 -6)

Villa : Social Policies • Villa loved children and was intensely committed to education. He built 100 schools, decreed there should be a school for each hacienda, increased teacher salaries built a military college, and decreed that all homeless children should be found a home and a school. (Mc. Lynn 190)

Villa : Social Policies • Social groups which suffered severely under Villa included Spaniards and Chinese. • Villa’s men engaged in considerable looting, arson and rape.

Villa : Land Reform • From a conversation between Villa and Zapata in 1914: “Well, we should give the people these bits of land they want. ” • Villa to John Reed: “Socialism, is it a thing? ” (Krauze)

Implementation: Cárdenas • To Calles’ surprise (and dismay), Cárdenas returns to revolutionary principles

Implementation: Cárdenas • Agrarian Reform • “Agrarian reform more than anything else dominated the administration’s concern during the first few years. . Cárdenas early made up his to fulfill twenty years of promises. . .

Implementation: Cárdenas • [B]y the time his term expired, he had distributed 49 million acres, about twice as much as all his predecessors combined. By 1940 approximately one third of the Mexican population had received land under the agrarian reform program.

Implementation: Cárdenas • In fact, most of Mexico’s arable land had been redistributed. Only the large cattle haciendas on arid or semiarid land remained untouched.

Implementation: Cárdenas • “The vast majority of the land distributed did not go to individuals or even heads of households but rather to the communal ejidos. ” (598 -9)

Implementation: Cárdenas • The largest ejido was Laguna, with 8, 000 acres. • The complex grew cotton, maize, wheat and alfalfa, provided schools and had a hospital.

Implementation: Cárdenas • Cárdenas created the Banco de Crédito Ejidal to provide loans for the small farmers. • Its performance is weakened by a population which grew faster than its assets, and by favoritism in its loans.

Implementation: Cárdenas • Still, this is a very positive step–agrarian reform must go beyond merely redistributing the land.

Implementation: Cárdenas • Economically, the ejidos were not as efficient, and agricultural production declined.

Implementation: Cárdenas • However, “Cárdenas’ dedication to agrarian reform spelled the demise of the traditional hacienda complex in Mexico. Millions of peasants were given a new faith in the revolutionary concept. .

Implementation: Cárdenas • . . . the type of servitude that had bound hacendado and peón for centuries was broken by 1940. . If the ejido system was an economic failure, it was a political and social success. ” (600)

Implementation: Cárdenas • The Church • Cárdenas is clearly anti-clerical. He instituted a socialist curriculum into the schools, which angered the Church.

Implementation: Cárdenas • When he added sex education, the Church became still more incensed. • In response, he backed off the sex education, and softened the socialist education by emphasizing positive attitudes and avoiding anti-religious propaganda.

Implementation: Cárdenas • Labor • Cárdenas supported the creation of a new labor organization, the Confederación de Trabajadores de México, (CTM) under the leadership of Vicente Lombardo Toledano

Implementation: Cárdenas • CTM set to improve the wage structure in Mexico

Implementation: Cárdenas • Education • Twice as much money is appropriated for rural education than any previous president. • Rapid population growth and high inflation however meant that the literacy rate actually seems to have fallen. The government could not keep up.

Implementation: Cárdenas • Expropriation of US Oil Companies • In 1936, Mexican workers at US owned fields went on strike. The companies refused to negotiate with the strikers.

Implementation: Cárdenas • The strike began to damage the economy, so Cárdenas ordered arbitration. • The arbitration board ruled in favor of the strikers, ordering a 33% increase in pay and improvements in the pension and welfare system.

Implementation: Cárdenas • The companies appealed to the Mexican Supreme Court. • The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the arbitrator.

Implementation: Cárdenas • The companies continued to defy the ruling, whereupon Cárdenas ruled that they had defied Mexican sovereignty and nationalized the holdings.

Implementation: Cárdenas • A storm of protest erupted in the US, with the oil companies, led by Standard Oil, urging intervention to prevent this Communist conspiracy.

Implementation: Cárdenas • But the President is Franklin D. Roosevelt, who has proposed the Good Neighbor Policy. • FDR refused to intervene, and instead insisted that the oil companies seek compensation through negotiations. • They eventually settled for $24 million

Conclusion • Under Cárdenas, PNR is reorganized as PRM (Partido Revolucionario Mexicano) It consisted of representatives from the military, labor, agrarian and popular sectors. –. PRM is the official party, and Mexico remained a single party state. (606)

Length of the Revolution 19101940 • Reformers and Revolutionaries vs. Reactionaries • The defeat of Porfirio Díaz by Madero, Zapata, Orozco, Villa, Carranza, and Obregón

Length of the Revolution 19101940 • Reformers vs. Reactionaries • The Decena Trágica and the Pact of the Embassy, when Huerta and Felix Díaz overthrow and murder Madero, leading to the formation of the Constitutionalist party, led by Carranza, Villa, and Obregón, as well as resistance from Zapata

Length of the Revolution 19101940 • Reformers vs. Revolutionaries • . Carranza and Obregón defeat both Villa and Zapata

Ultimate Results • “While the Mexican Revolution is by no means devoid of positive results, the actual achievements fall well short of the dreams of men such as Villa and Zapata, particularly in the area of land reform.

Ultimate Results • “Carranza, Obregón, and Calles were not committed to implementing every clause of the Constitution of 1917, and although Cárdenas will strive vigorously to institutionalize many of the revolutionaries’ goals,

Ultimate Results • “the groundwork had been laid for the corruption of PRI and the cooptation of a new set of elites. ”

The End