Mexican Revolution

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The Final Years of Reform

Lázaro Cárdenas served as president from 1934 to 1940. He was supposed to be Calles’s fourth puppet, but he soon asserted his independence from Calles and pressed for maximum development of the constitutional themes of the revolution. In the area of land reform, Cárdenas distributed almost twice as much land as all of the previous revolutionary presidents combined. He also reorganized the official government party to give greater voice to peasant farmers and labor demands. In March 1938, after bitter labor and legal disputes, Cárdenas nationalized foreign-owned oil companies. This was, however, one of the last reforms, as Cárdenas was forced to curtail his reform program due to an economic crisis that began in 1937.

In the years after 1940, the revolutionary goals set down in the constitution of 1917 were de-emphasized. Land reform and redistribution were cut back in favor of promoting industrialization. The government showed more interest in helping businesses and less interest in responding to the demands of labor. Government hostility toward the Catholic Church gave way to a working relationship, and antiforeign sentiment declined as foreign investment and tourism boomed. By 1946 the Mexican Revolution had essentially ceased being a political reality and had become a historical legacy.

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Legacy of the Revolution

The revolution produced major changes in Mexico. The old political elite had been largely swept away, to be replaced by a new revolutionary elite. The revolution set in motion a trend toward political centralization, concentrating power in the national government and particularly in the president. The role of the military in politics was substantially reduced by a series of revolutionary presidents, even though all the presidents who served between 1920 and 1946 had been revolutionary generals. The creation and evolution of an official party solved the recurring crisis over presidential succession that had marked the years from 1910 to 1928; this helped to promote the long-term political stability that Mexico later enjoyed.

The revolution also launched labor and social reforms that have had a lasting effect on Mexican society. Workers and peasant farmers were given a greater voice in public affairs, although they were forced to operate within the limits set by the official party and the government. A new constitution gave workers the right to organize and to strike, and established a minimum wage, an eight-hour workday, and limitations on child labor. Enforcement of these provisions was delayed for years, and once they were put into effect, the provisions only applied to the minority of workers formally organized in trade unions. Still they proved to be important to poor and working-class Mexicans throughout the country.

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The revolution also prompted the Mexican government to take on a more active role in maintaining basic minimum living standards for all Mexicans, a role that has continued throughout the 20th century. The constitution of 1917 paved the way for the development of a substantial social security system, which came to include government hospitals, state-subsidized health care, and public housing.

The land reforms begun during the revolution set into motion the largest land redistribution effort ever attempted in Latin America. The new constitution restricted land ownership by the Catholic Church and foreigners and launched a process that dismantled large estates and distributed thousands of hectares of land to indigenous people and other poor farmers. These reforms returned land to many who had lost it during the Díaz dictatorship, and gave land to many farmers who had never owned property.

The revolution also helped to define and to promote pride in Mexico’s national identity, especially its indigenous roots. It inspired artists such as Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, who celebrated the revolution’s political and social themes through their murals and other paintings.

Unlike later social revolutions in the 20th century, such as the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the Mexican Revolution was not portrayed by its leaders as a model for other countries. Mexicans thought of their revolution as a unique experience that could not necessarily be duplicated. Later opponents of the Mexican government and the PRI—such as the Zapatista movement in the southern state of Chiapas in the 1990s—have called upon the folk heroes and the slogans of the Mexican Revolution to justify their own armed opposition to the existing regime.

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