University of Southampton

Why did the first revolutionary governments in Mexico fail to survive?

by

Lucia Schuster

Francisco Leon de la Barra (interim) 1911
Francisco I. Madero 1911-1913
Pedro Lascurain (interim) 1913
Victoriano Huerta (interim) 1913-1914
Francisco S. Carbajal (interim) 1914
Venustiano Carranza 1914 & 1915-1920
Eulalio Gutierrez (interim) 1914
Roque Gonzalez Garza 1914
Francisco Lagos Chazaro 1915
Adolfo de la Huerta (interim) 1920
Alvaro Obregon 1920-1924
Plutarco Elias Calles 1924-1928
Emilio Portes Gil (interim) 1928-1930
Pascual Ortiz Rubio 1930-1932
Abelardo L. Rodriguez (interim) 1932-1934
Lazaro Cardenas 1934-1940

In the years from 1911 to 1934 Mexico witnessed fifteen presidents¹ appearing and vanishing after short periods of rule. The political, economic and social reasons for such a rapid change in governmental affairs will be discussed in this essay. Governments can be defined as “institutions responsible for making collective decisions for society. More narrowly, government refers to the top political level within such institutions” (Hague R., p. 5). It is suitable to evaluate the question of governmental survival on the background of an official period of four years till 1926 and from then on of six years. This makes it possible to recognise that the rulers in Mexico during the first 33 years following the revolution were not capable of remaining in power for a whole term and/or did not survive their removal from office in a literal sense. All those governments never reached the political stability in order to consequently produce a lasting regime. This essay will firstly deal with factors which can be applied as reasons for all regimes to some degree such as competition for power, opposition, failure to reform and a discontent population. Secondly some remarkable impediments weigh more heavily on specific regimes such as personal incompetence or foreign and clerical pressure, which made it even more difficult for them to persist. To answer the addressed question of this work, I will focus on President Madero, Huerta, Carranza, Obregón and Calles in order to represent convincing explanations for their failure to survive, exemplifying arguments for all regimes till Lazaro Cardenas.

The reasons, which should be considered of great albeit varying significance for the failure of all the disappointing and short lived rulers succeeding the dictator Díaz, will be discussed in the first part of this paper. Power struggles within the ruling elite, severe opposition, economical difficulties and the failure to reform, a discontent population and its resulting political obstacles caused the problem of unsolved political instability which was those governments undoing.

Regimes were doomed to fail because power struggles emerging inside the ruling elite made unobstructed rule impossible. Many revolutionaries betrayed their loyalty to a specific leader or a revolutionary ideal in order to achieve executive power. Such opportunistic allies made it difficult for a president to secure his authority and political stability, leaving the government vulnerable to further attacks and without the necessary support to act efficiently. The unfortunate choice of political partners made the regimes susceptible towards unforeseeable fast power changes. President Franciso Madero, who came to power in 1911, relied on the wrong people to be his associates. Calero, for instance, being an intimate friend of the dictator Díaz, had changed sides to become Madero´s ally. “Rebels and conservatives alike agreed that with Calero, Madero had picked for his cabinet one of the most opportunistic politicians in the history of the country” (Ruíz R., p. 151). Other ambitious man like Reyes, an ex-Porfirian general, however unsuccessfully, left the government vulnerable to further attacks. Reyes “plotted and schemed to make himself president, preferably by election but by force if necessary” (Cumberland C., p. 190) but his dreams were shattered when his supporters abandoned and Madero jailed him. It surely weakened the Madero administration to a certain extent because Reye´s “...overweening desire to occupy the presidential post stimulated reaction, encouraged disloyalty, and led to dissension and revolt” (Cumberland C., p. 190). Furthermore the blind trust of the president in the wrong man facilitated his own destruction. Madero confidently asked General Huerta to defend his regime. Being an opportunistic general, he betrayed Madero and his trust in the leader of his loyalist forces through the ´Ten horrible days`² and took the chance to gain the most influential position in Mexico. Noticing the political change and trying to save their own position, most of Madero´s early supporters abandoned him, withdrawing the necessary basis to reign the country and to uphold the president´s own standing. “Only two of his governors, José María Maytorena in Sonora and Venustiano Carranza in Coahuila, rejected Huerta´s tutelage” (Ruíz R., p. 152)³. 

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1 15 presidents from Francisco Leon de la Barra (interim) 1911 to Abelardo L. Rodriguez (interim) 1932-1934; http://www.northcoast.com/~spdtom/rev3.html

2 In February 1913 Madero ordered General Huerta to defeat the opposition movement under Reyes and Félix Díaz. After destructive fights the battle came to a sudden close by the betrayal of Madero by Huerta.

3 Maytorena took up residence across the border and only Carranza still supported Madero