Mexican Revolution

The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1920, was the first major revolution in the 20th century. Only comparable in scale and significance to the Russian Revolution, this massive movement was in fact the result of a set of regional revolts focused in the states of Morelos, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Sonora. The struggle involved not only peasants but also industrial workers, members of the urban middle class, and progressive landholders, who hardly shared the same social and political agenda. Scholars have long debated the limitations of the movement, but there is no doubt that it brought about radical changes in Mexican society: the destruction of the Porfirian army and the old political elite, the creation of new peasant and worker mass organizations, the emergence of a new nationalist rhetoric, the massive, though insufficient, distribution of land to peasants, and the creation of a new centralized state.

Although the armed conflict began in 1910, the discontent over political abuses and economic exploitation of the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship had been mounting for years. Ruling as supreme dictator since 1876, Díaz had managed to stabilize the country through a combination of political manipulation, threats, and coercion. The dictator established alliances with the landed oligarchy and the military and administered the country successfully through a network of local political bosses and a rural police (the rurales). Díaz courted foreign investors (mostly from Great Britain and the United States) by implementing a generous policy of low taxes on railroads, mining, oil exploitation, and textiles; by 1885, Mexico's economy was growing at an impressive rate of 8% a year. The dictator's modernizing program came to a near halt, however, with the economic downturn from 1906 to 1908. A sharp decline in export commodity prices led to price fluctuations, budgetary shortfalls, currency devaluation, and lack of credit. From unskilled workers to wealthy merchants and entrepreneurs, the economic depression was widely felt.

While the mining, agriculture, and timber industries collapsed, the regime faced increasing unrest among industrial workers. Of special importance were the strikes at Cananea, Sonora, in 1906 and Río Blanco in 1907, both of which were fiercely suppressed by the government. In June 1906, the workers of the copper mines of Cananea called a strike to demand better pay and promotion policies. After a series of clashes with the protesters resulting in several deaths, mine owner William Greene hired a detachment of Arizona rangers. Joined by the rurales, the foreign troops crushed the demonstrators. At the textile factory of Río Blanco, Veracruz, laborers also struck, demanding better salaries and working conditions. Government forces moving against the strikers killed approximately 100 participants and imprisoned many others.

Both strikes were wrongly blamed on the activists of the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM), which had been founded in exile in 1906 by the brothers Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón. The party embraced anarchosyndicalism and gained some influence among industrial workers, intellectuals, and members of the urban middle class through its newspaper Regeneración. The PLM asked for a generalized armed uprising and land reform, which necessarily put its members on a collision course with the government. Although the party never had a strong influence among the peasantry, it made an impact on revolutionary leaders such as Emiliano Zapata, who later adopted Ricardo Flores Magón's slogan, “Land and Liberty,” as his own.

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