After years under the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, civil unrest at all levels of Mexican society culminated into a revolution in the beginning decades of the twentieth century. The Mexican Revolution broke out due to dissatisfaction at both the upper and lower classes with Diaz’s rule. A sham election in 1910 only exasperated this unrest. When it became apparent that Francisco Madero was poised to win the 1910 election, Diaz fixed the results and arrested Madero. Revolutionary groups that made up the competing factions of the Mexican Revolution answered Madero’s call for an armed reaction to Diaz. The nature of the Mexican economy, an export driven, and rapidly industrialized nation dislocated Mexico’s poor and cause dissension amongst the wealthy. The war ultimately marched on for years due to the failure of any central power to emerge amongst competing factions and foreign meddling that threw disproportionate aid and support behind different factions.
In Mexico, rapid industrialization began to take its toll on society. Workers were increasingly enmeshed in a wage-based economy and forced to languish away in poor working conditions and long hours for meager pay. These grievous workers joined farmers displaced by industrialization to support various political initiatives aimed at improving their conditions. Under Diaz, large scale land reforms confiscated the land of farmers and peasants and allocated it to large estate holders; causing an increasing agrarian unrest in Mexico. The earning wages of workers stagnated while the cost of living increased; leaving large tracts of land in the hands of a few political elite. Those who were able to own land were burdened by high government taxes and became a vocal opponent of the marginalization of the middle and lower classes. The revolution was made possible by civil unrest, but also rapid social changes of the period that eroded traditional power structures. Mexico’s increasingly industrial, export driven economy undercut the traditional ways leaders had controlled populations, which according to Martin and Wasserman was the crux of conflict; leaders seeking control populations and the populations resisting. In the case of Mexico, political elite’s attempts to rework village and agrarian center into an increasingly centralized government bureaucracy came to a head when civil discontent centralized into a widespread revolution in 1910.
A main reason that the conflict lasted so long was the inability of any one faction to gain complete control over politics and society. In 1913, a group of Diaz supporters briefly regained control, but they vied with other smatterings of revolutionary groups and were not able to gain central control again. Also, as the documentary points out, foreign forces, such as the American diplomat Henry Lane Wilson, caused stabilizations from the outside. Behind the scenes, Wilson helped orchestrate the Mexican political Victoriano Huerta’s coup of Francisco Madero. In a sign of his arrogance, Wilson told the wife of Madero that his greatest political mistake was not consulting him. In an even more convoluted series of events, when Woodrow Wilson took office in 1914, he recalled Henry Wilson and dismissed him. President Wilson withdrew support from the murderous Huerta’s leadership and supported Pancho Villa. What this shows is that the Mexican Revolution was not only plagued by domestic strife but was not even in total control of its own future as countries like America and Germany were throwing their weight behind various revolutionaries in a very mercurial way.
As a result of the war, many classes of people were greatly affected. As noted in the documentary, the period following the war was one of mass government participation and political pride amongst Mexicans. Out of the war emerged a new unified Mexican identity. Therefore, not only did the educated elite become a voice for various platforms in Mexican politics but also the lower classes that were able to participate in a larger civic sphere. There emerged in Mexico a new notion of political participation, as seen in the 1917 constitution that did not exist under Diaz. The revolution also gave local popular leaders, such as “guerrilleros” to form power bases and popular movements. In response to the attempts of Diaz and others to centralize their power, local popular leaders etched out their own power bases. However, perhaps the greatest bearers of the effects of war were the common people in Mexico who had their economies and lives wrought with the carnage of war for a decade. Hundreds of thousands of people died during the Revolution and local economies were disrupted by the fighting. Bandit groups consolidated and ravaged the countryside. However, its effects were not all bad. In 1915, Salvador Alvarado took all the land that had been confiscated over the years by Diaz’s regime and reallocated it to peasants.
The Mexican Revolution was a microcosm of changes that were undergoing throughout much of Latin America at this time. It was a product of industrialization that even America dealt with during the Progressive Era, happening at a similar time as the revolution in Mexico. However, the main reason that it lasted longer than it should have was because of America’s imperialist involvement in the region. The diplomat Wilson, and well as later President Woodrow Wilson puppeteered Mexican politicians in a way that made a self-made Mexican solution impossible. Ultimately, it was the common Mexican that paid the price of war, but also that benefitted in the emergence of a new civil society following the Revolution.
Works Cited
Martin, Cheryl and Mark Wasserman. Latin America and Its People. Vol. 2. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008
“The Storm that Swept Mexico.” (2010), Found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVWcgOcvgV0
