The Mexican Revolution

By Alejandro Quintana (adapted by Bennett Sherry)

The Mexican Revolution overthrew a dictator in just six
months, but for the next ten years, Mexican revolutionaries
fought each other to determine the outcome of the
revolution.

Two revolutions for the price of one

Revolutions are messy. Historians try to categorize them.
Politicians try to simplify their legacy for personal benefit. But
revolutions don’t fit into neat categories with obvious heroes
and villains, and revolutionary legacies are more complicated
than any politician would have you believe. One excellent
example of this is the legacy of the Mexican Revolution,
which began in 1910.
Mexico’s revolutionaries disagreed violently about their own
revolution. As with the revolutions of the long nineteenth
century, like the French, American, and Latin American
Revolutions, it was a liberal political revolution that
established a new constitution and democratic rule. But it
was also a social revolution, like the communist revolutions in
Russia, China, and Cuba that came later. The tension
between these two ideas divided Mexico and led to a decade
of violence.
What’s the difference between political and social
revolutions? Liberal political revolutions seek to establish
representative democracies based on personal liberty and
political sovereignty. These revolutions want to change the
political system. Social revolution, on the other hand, seeks
to reshape the social order. Social revolutions change
property rights and who controls a nation’s wealth, while
political revolutions change the political system but leave
economic systems in place. Consider the difference between
the American and Haitian revolutions. They both established
a new political order, but only the Haitian revolution
abolished slavery.
Liberal democracy and the spark of
revolution, 1910-1913
The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 with the eighth re-
election of President Porfirio Diaz, who had ruled since 1876.
Under Diaz, Mexico held elections for the president and
legislature, but in reality, it was almost impossible to
challenge Diaz. He used the military and police to repress
dissent. Wealthy landowners and the middle class benefited
from Diaz’s economic system but wanted more political
power.
Diaz opened the country to foreign investors and
entrepreneurs. They received incentives to purchase
Mexico’s mines, oil fields, land, and industries. Foreign
investors enjoyed benefits and wages unavailable to
Mexicans. By the start of the revolution, as much as a quarter
of all land in Mexico was owned by American companies. In
rural Mexico, wealthy landowners and foreign investors
bought indigenous communal lands and forced villagers—
who had no other options—to farm cash crops. The Diaz
regime recruited gangs to suppress resistance among
peasant and indigenous communities.
Diaz based his authority on Mexico’s economic prosperity.
And for decades, his policies created a strong economy, even
if they limited people’s freedoms. However, in the first
decade of the twentieth century, economic crises destabilized
the country while the vast majority of Mexicans that
remained poor were hit by droughts. Mexico was primed for
the spark of revolution.
President Porfirio Diaz, in 1910. He was a general in the Mexican army during the
Second Franco-Mexican War, which helps explain all the medals. Public domain.

A broadside celebrating the election of President Francisco Madero in 1911. On the

right side of the page, below an image of the president, rhyming text proclaims his
virtues and describes Mexico City’s streets decorated with flowers and banners. By
Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, from the Library of Congress. Public domain.

When Diaz ran for reelection in 1910, Francisco Madero, a

member of one of the wealthiest families in Mexico,
denounced the regime and launched the Anti-Re-electionist
Party.\[^1\] Diaz imprisoned Madero, but he escaped to the
United States. From Texas, Madero issued a call for revolution
in the name of land reform and political freedom. He set the
date for November 20, 1910. Supporters of all different
socioeconomic classes emerged all over Mexico, and Diaz
was unable to contain them. By May 25, 1911, Diaz was on a
boat, headed for exile in France. At the age of 38, Madero
was elected president in a landslide. His administration
promised a return to democracy and liberty. But political
liberty was only part of what sparked the revolution.

Ten tragic days, February 1913

Madero’s main concern was liberal democratic reform, not
social transformation. But he led a diverse coalition. In
addition to more conservative elites, he was also joined by
social revolutionaries like Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.
Villa and Zapata championed peasant and indigenous
communities and believed in radically transforming Mexican
society by redistributing land from wealthy landowners to
peasants and indigenous groups. In the southern state of
Morelos, Zapata waged a guerrilla war, and in the north, Villa
led the División del Norte, the largest revolutionary army, on
a series of successful—and often very brutal—military
campaigns.
Madero’s presidency was brief. His policies were too radical
for conservatives and too moderate for social revolutionaries.
For example, he was too slow to follow through on land
reform, and he maintained some elements of Diaz’s rule.
When he was challenged by regional rebellions, Madero used
the federal army, which had supported Diaz, against his
former allies. After fifteen months in office, Madero was
overthrown. He was executed in February 1913 during the
“Ten Tragic Days,” the name historians give to the ten days
from the beginning of the coup to Madero’s death. Madero
had been betrayed by general Victoriano Huerta, who seized
power and declared himself military dictator with support
from the United States.

So close to the United States

Speaking of the United States, you really can’t tell the story
of the Mexican Revolution without American interference,
which was both governmental and commercial. Even Diaz
once said: “Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the
United States.” American investors owned so much property
in Mexico, the U.S. government took great interest in what
was happening there. They were especially concerned when
revolutionaries started talking about reclaiming that property.
The U.S. government intervened again and again during the
revolution, often at the request of American investors. The
U.S. government supported different factions and even
invaded Mexico and occupied the city of Veracruz.
While a revolution was playing out south of its border, the
United States watched as World War I broke out across the
Atlantic. Mexico remained neutral, providing oil to the British
navy, but also maintaining a friendly relationship with
Germany. In 1917, a telegram from the German government
—known as the Zimmerman Telegram—proposed that Mexico
join Germany if the United States declared war. The Mexican
government had no interest, believing a war with its northern
neighbor would be disastrous. But the British informed the
U.S. government of the telegram, which helped push the U.S.
into the war in Europe.
American soldiers raising the U.S. flag over the Mexican city of Veracruz during the
American occupation in 1914. From the Library of Congress. Public domain.

The fight to define the revolution,

1913-1920
Madero’s policies had certainly displeased revolutionaries,
but they were far more united against Huerta. Pancho Villa
and Zapata allied with liberals and defeated Huerta in July
1914. But soon after their victory, the revolutionaries again
split into opposed camps.
The Conventionistas—including Pancho Villa and Zapata—
sought big economic and social reforms. The
Constitutionalistas—led by Venustiano Carranza and Álvaro
Obregón—wanted to establish a liberal democracy, but were
less willing to return land to peasant and indigenous villages.
The two sides were unable to resolve their differences, and
the civil war that followed was the most violent period of the
revolution. From 1915 to 1917, one million civilians and
soldiers died in the fighting.
The Constiutionalistas emerged victorious. They passed a
constitution and elected Carranza president. The Mexican
Constitution of 1917 enshrined legal and political rights, but it
also called for economic rights and social justice. The
document called for land reform, nationalization of resources,
and workers’ rights. In practice, however, the post-
revolutionary government ignored many of these promises.
Pancho Villa (center) and Emiliano Zapata (with the large sombrero) in 1914. Public
domain.

Consolidating the revolution, 1920-

1940
Many historians mark the election of President Álvaro
Obregón in 1920 as the end of the Mexican Revolution.
Zapata was assassinated in 1919 on the orders of Carranza.
Carranza was killed soon after. Pancho Villa retired in 1920
and was assassinated three years later. Whether it ended in
1917 or 1920, violence continued after the revolution. Every
presidential election in the 1920s produced some sort of
uprising. President Plutarco Calles succeeded Obregón and
founded the National Revolutionary Party, which won every
presidential election from 1928 to 2000.
It was Lázaro Cárdenas, who became Mexico’s forty-fourth
president in 1934, who finally instituted some of the
socioeconomic promises of the 1917 constitution. He enacted
a broad set of social and economic reforms that transformed
Mexican society. He strengthened labor unions, nationalized
Mexico’s oil industry, and redistributed over 70,000 square
miles of land. That’s roughly the size of Syria.

Revolutionary legacy
Over one million people were killed in the revolution, and
hundreds of thousands fled to the United States. All this
violence and upheaval transformed Mexico, but a lot
remained the same. The revolution ended the dictatorship of
Porfirio Diaz, and since 1928, Mexican presidents have not
been allowed to run for a second term. The 1917 constitution
enshrined political and socioeconomic rights and limited the
power of the Catholic church. Eventually, the revolution
brought universal education, labor rights, land reform, and
the nationalization of some industries.
But change was limited, and not everyone benefited equally.
Thousands of women joined or were forced to join
revolutionary armies. Women gained some new rights after
1917, but their important role in the revolution was mostly
ignored. Women did not win the right to vote until 1953.
Wealthy landowners continued to control the economy. The
countryside, which had suffered the most in the fighting,
benefited the least. Despite the excitement for land reform,
most peasants continued to experience poverty.

The Monumento a la Revolución in Mexico City. By Haakon S. Krohn, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Just look at the Monumento a la Revolución, a perfect symbol

for the complex legacy of the Mexican Revolution. Intended
as a federal legislative building, its foundations were laid by
Porfirio Diaz before the 1910 revolution. President Madero
continued its construction, but now as a monument to
democracy. The chaos of the revolution delayed its
completion until the 1930s. The heroes of the revolution—
Madero, Carranza, Villa, Calles, and Cárdenas—are all buried
there. In life, these men disagreed, often violently, about the
meaning of the Mexican Revolution. In death, the bitter rivals
symbolize that perhaps the legacy of the Mexican Revolution
is more than the sum of its parts.
Notes
1.
Author bios
Alejandro Quintana is an associate professor of History at St.
John’s University in New York City. His research and teaching
focus on state formation, nation-building, nationalism,
revolutions, and social movements, during the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries.
Bennett Sherry holds a PhD in History from the University of
Pittsburgh and has undergraduate teaching experience in
world history, human rights, and the Middle East at the
University of Pittsburgh and the University of Maine at
Augusta. Additionally, he is a Research Associate at Pitt’s
World History Center. Bennett writes about refugees and
international organizations in the twentieth century.
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