Page 55 - STRATEGY Magazine

SPECIAL INSIGHT: MEXICAN REVOLUTION
Mexico: Restoration through Revolution
Mexico’s working and agrarian classes, along with elites who were tired of dictatorship, threw off their elected government beginning in 1910. Yet that was only the first step in a long, violent struggle leading to today’s thriv- ing—but sometimes tumultuous—democracy.
In 1876, Mexican war hero Porfirio Díaz assumed Mexico’s presidency for a four-year term—and would rule for what was essentially a 35-year dictatorship. While his administration modernized Mexico, the country’s wealth remained concen- trated among monied landowners.
A CALL TO ARMS
By the early 1900s, much of the population was frustrated by Díaz’s refusal to step down, and radical factions arose under revolutionaries such as Francisco “Pancho” Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Díaz imprisoned his 1910 opponent, Francisco Made- ro, but Madero escaped and dramatically called for an armed revolution. In May of 1911, his forces defeated federal troops in the Battle of Juárez. Díaz fled the country, and Madero was installed as president.
Although initially popular, Madero was assassinated after only 15 months. In the wake of his death, there ensued a bloody, decade-long free-for-all. Rebel factions continued fight- ing under corrupt and ineffective administrations. One positive achievement of this era was the adoption of the Constitution of 1917, a progressive document that still governs Mexico.
REFORM COMES AND GOES
Despite bitter fighting, a central theme characterized the Mex- ican Revolution: ending Mexico’s 400-year-old feudal system,
returning land to the peasants, and elevating the condition of the workers. It was not until 1935 that reformist President Lázaro Cárdenas was able to achieve the aims of the rebellion. He divided the haciendas, or huge landholdings, into ejidos, or farming communes. By 1940, nearly half of all cultivated acreage was held by previously landless farmers. Cárdenas also nationalized foreign-owned essential industries, including, im- portantly, Mexico’s oil industry.
After Cárdenas, business and industrial interests prospered— at the expense of civil and social advances. Political power be- came concentrated in one party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), and capitalist interests undid much of the land reform. By the 1950s, each president simply handpicked his own successor.
Attempts in the 1980s and 1990s to create a multiparty sys- tem catalyzed political violence and fraud. But new political parties committed to democratization emerged, and in 1997, PRI lost its stranglehold on government. Today Mexico proudly holds legitimate elections within a framework of eight official parties.
Unfortunately, the principles of economic equality champi- oned by the revolution remain elusive. Mexican society is still one of the most unequal in the world, with top wage earners garnering incomes more than 130 times larger than those of the poor. The revolution, it seems, is not over yet.
Mexican Revolution. General Pablo Gonzalez and Jésus Carranza with their artillery, April 1914, Mexico, Washington, D.C. Library of Congress.
strategybg.com 53
Credit: Photo 12/Alamy Stock Photo