Reassessing Cardenismo: The Mexican Right and the Failure of a Revolutionary Regime,

1934-1940
Author(s): John W. Sherman
Source: The Americas , Jan., 1998, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Jan., 1998), pp. 357-378
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1008414

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The Americas
54:3 January 1998, 357-378
Copyright by the Academy of American
Franciscan History

REASSESSING CARDENISMO: THE MEXICAN

RIGHT AND THE FAILURE OF A

REVOLUTIONARY REGIME, 1934-1940

n spring 1939 Sonoran ranchers shared with one another the lates
mockery of Mexico's president, whom they ridiculed as tromp
chula-a reference to his fat lips. It came in the form of a poem
Siervo de los rusos, patr6n de extranjeros,
que a los mexicanos has dejado en cueros
como una consecuencia de tu obstinaci6n
que es madre y sefiora de tu entendimiento.
Por que es muy dificil que pueda un jumento
aceptar alguna rectificaci6n.
Conf6rmate, hermano, con volver a Uruapin,
piensa que a los brutos de cierto los matan,
y si has de hacer algo en nuestro favor,
una cosa puedes de qu6 estar ufano,
c6rtale las uiias a tu ilustre hermano,
Lombardo Toledano.1

The president who aroused their scorn was Laizaro Cirdenas, th

mous reformer who governed Mexico from 1934 to 1940. Many
rians regard Cirdenas as Mexico's most popular president ever.
and films highlight images of cheering throngs in the z6calo aft

1 Loosely translated: "Serf of the Russians, patron of foreigners, you have left Mexic
their hides because of your obstinacy-which is the mother of your understanding; for it
difficult to get a fool to accept correction. Be content to return to Uruapin [Cirdena
town], since fools are certainly killed. And if you care to do something in our favor, som
you can be proud of, then stop the work of your illustrious brother, Lombardo Toledano."
of the poem, which appears to have been well-circulated, is attached to a memorandu
Lewis Boyle, Counsel in Agua Prieta, to the Secretary of State [hereafter SS], April 22
Records Relating to the Internal Affairs of Mexico, U.S. State Department, National A
[USDS] 812.00/30727.

357

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358 REASSESSING CARDENISMO

1938 oil expropriation, or photos of Cirdenas s

to grateful peasants in his office at the Nati
doubt that Cardenas was loved and admired b
And with his sweeping attempts at reform h
prominent place in history books, for his sign
ist-president is beyond question. But was Cir
lar? Was Cardenismo the political success tha
claimed it to be?

This article challenges the traditional belief that Cirdenas was a

widely popular president who enjoyed the sympathy of a majority of
Mexicans. In doing so, it chronicles the importance of a non-
institutional political "right" that battled Cardenismo, with consider-
able success, in Mexico's conservative political culture. Employing a
spirited discourse on family values and evoking fears of communism,
the right exploited certain social values in order to undermine Carde-
nas' progressive agenda, and in so doing stirred widespread suspicion
and distrust of the Revolutionary government. Successful in this, it
weakened the position of the regime on the eve of the critical presi
dential elections and, in turn, laid the foundation for Mexico's long-
acknowledged shift away from reform after 1940. The inability of th
Cardenas government to answer the concerns aroused by the right
doomed it to long-term failure-its political legacy quickly evaporated
in the 1940s. In turn, its significance as a hallmark of Mexico's twen-
tieth-century political history warrants reevaluation.

Analysis of the opposition as the "right" is useful because the term

by definition, sets certain ideological parameters. The political mean
ings of "right" and "left" emerged, of course, during the French Revo
lution, when the Third Estate convened the National Assembly in Jun
1789 and positioned its radical components (the Jacobins) to the left o
the speaker's podium. Nobles, prelates, and monarchists assembled to
the right, united in a "determination to halt the progress of the revo
lution." Their cause, however, did not preclude reform. As outlined in
the subsequent writings of Edmund Burke, those on the right philo
sophically viewed society as organic, resting on pillars of order, tradi-
tion, and hierarchy. In like fashion the Mexican right-though simply
dismissed as "the reaction" by the Revolutionary regime-claimed
certain prerogatives for reform, and even identified itself with some
images and ideas cultivated in the Revolutionary hagiology.

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 JOHN W. SHERMAN 359

FROM INSTITUTIONAL TO GRASSROOTS MOBILIZATION

In Mexican history the two institutional bulwarks of the right have

been the Roman Catholic Church and the army, both of which gradu-
ally retreated from the political arena in the wake of the 1910 Revo-
lution.2 The traditional view of Cardenas' success at building a popular
consensus is based, in part, on the concomitant assumption that the
Mexican right was in decline by the mid-1930s. The church hierarchy,
acknowledging de facto defeat with the Arreglos that had ended the
Cristero War (1926-1929), pursued a conciliatory policy towards the
government. The taming of the army, a process begun in the 1920s with
budget cuts and troop reductions, took longer. The threat of army
discontent lasted well into the 1930s, in part because Cirdenas' leftist
policies "disturbed the army." Cardenas and his Secretary of War,
Manuel Avila Camacho countered the danger of military insurrection
in three ways. First, they wooed and coddled junior officers and en-
listed men, offered better housing, generous pensions, and free school-
ing, and thereby potentially divided the lower ranks from senior offic-
ers. Second, the government armed peasant militia that offset the po-
sition of the army as a whole. Last and most important, in 1938 the
president reorganized the official party into the Partido de la Revolu-
ci6n Mexicana [PRM], incorporating the military into it as one of four
divisions. "We did not put the army in politics," Cardenas would later
explain, "it was already there." But in the PRM it was out-voted, and
its ambitious generals brought to heel.3 The decline of the high profile
institutional right, long-documented by historians, creates the illusion
that the Mexican right faltered in the face of Cardenismo. On the
contrary, even before Cardenas came to office, a web of grassroots
organizations began to form among different conservative segments of
society. These groups coalesced during his tenure, leaving the right
even stronger by the end of the decade than before.

The leadership of the Catholic Church may have sought a peaceful

2 This process is well documented by institutional historians. On the military, see Edwin Lieu-
wen, Mexican Militarism: The Political Rise and Fall of the Revolutionary Army (Albuquerque
University of New Mexico Press, 1968), on the church see, among others, Robert Quirk, The
Mexican Revolution and the Catholic Church, 1910-1929 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1973).
3 Lieuwen, Mexican Militarism, pp. 115, 122-26; Alicia Hernandez Chavez, La mecdnica
cardenista, pp. 106-09. In the PRM the army was only organized on a national level, and Secretary
Avila Camacho selected its delegates. Junior officers were encouraged to join other party sectors,
further diluting the influence of the officers' corps.

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360 REASSESSING CARDENISMO

coexistence with the state, but informal po

long after the Arreglos. In an attempt to re
groups the bishops sanctioned the establish
Mexicana [ACM] in 1929. Divided into four
gender, the ACM absorbed more radical gro
Damas Cat61licas under what initially amoun
ous goals. Over time it became overtly polit
roomed in size, with as many as 300,000 mem
auxiliary boasting 60,000 alone. In addition to
of the bishops the belligerent Liga Nacional
Religiosa persisted, dropping "religiosa" fr
evade ecclesiastic discipline. Even more alarm
the Cristeros began to revive. By fall 1932
became the norm, especially in west central
for example, Catholic terrorists bombed th
jara; within days other bands derailed a t
seventeenth Guadalajara police raided a h
Cristeros in a gun battle, and captured a prin
religious literature. One week later, soldiers
at Romita, Michoac in. The pace of the insu
over the next two years. By 1934 a second fu
way, with some 8,000 Cristeros under arms
may have made peace with the government,
flourished.

Popular discontent among devout Catholics multiplied after 1932 as

the government pressed ahead with education reforms. The anticleri-
cal excesses of the regime had already alienated large segments of
Mexico's rural peasantry. In the early 1930s new initiatives under Sec-
retary of Public Education Narciso Bassols annoyed much of the urban
populace. Legislation in 1931 restricted clerical teaching and prohib-
ited religious symbols in schools affiliated with the federal govern-
ment. Spontaneous opposition festered as authorities attempted to
enforce the law. Riots erupted in Puebla, for example, when the city
closed the Colegio Teresiano for violations. Though city officials had

4 Acci6n Cat61ica Mexicana, Estatutos Generales de la ACM (Mexico City: Grificos Michoa-
can, 1930), p. 9; David Bailey, Viva Cristo Rey: The Cristero Rebellion and the Church-State
Conflict in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974), p. 290; J. Reuben Clark, Ambas-
sador, to SS, October 20, 1932, USDS, 812.00/ 29799; Richard Cummings, Military Attache, to
War Department, "Quarterly Stability of Government Report," January 17, 1933, USDS, 812.00/
29823.

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 JOHN W. SHERMAN 361

turned away a committee of women se

sand persons gathered in protest near
warning shots into the air, then into
killing one. Outraged Catholics joined
students staged a noteworthy sympat
discontent was not limited to the lower classes. Bassols' new measures
included a provision making diplomas from non-affiliated (church-run)
schools invalid for admission into state universities, a blow to the
urban middle class, which used Catholic secondary education as pre-
paratory for their college-bound youth. The Uni6n Nacional de Padres
de Familia [UNPF] came to life over this and other education-related
issues. Once in college, devout middle class youth contested the Marx-
ist agenda for higher education, participating in grassroots organiza-
tions, staging rallies, and joining strikes. In October 1933 unrest spread
from the University of Mexico to campuses throughout the country.
When the rector of the University of Guadalajara declared the school
"Marxist," hundreds of students occupied buildings and battled police.
Two groups, the Federaci6n Estudiantil Universitaria and the Confed-
eraci6n Nacional de Estudiantes, emerged to coordinate nationwide
actions, aided by the UNPF and innumerable regional groups, such as
the Jesuit-led Uni6n Nacional de Estudiantes Cat61licos in Durango.6
The grassroots Catholic right prospered during the six-year period of
the Maximato (1928-1934, when puppet presidents did the bidding of
Plutarco Calles, the "Maximum Chief"). It was aided by countless
political acts of resistance in informal settings, such as the various
campaigns of the Catholic newsmagazine La Palabra, which raised
funds for priests expelled by anti-clerical governors, or frequent spur-
of-the-moment disruptions, such as a February 1933 stoning of Guad-
alajara police and firemen by a crowd as they attempted to arrest a
dissident priest. But even after Cardenas came to power the religious
right continued to enjoy "massive growth," which "exceeded in quan-

5 "Tumultos estudiantiles habidos en Puebla," Excelsior, October 5, 1934; "Se lanzaron a la

huelga de los alumnos en Tampico," Excelsior, October 6, 1934; "Se forma el frente tinico para
luchar en contra de la 'educaci6n socialista'," Excelsior, October 14, 1934.
6 John A. Britton, Educaci6n y radicalismo en Mexico: Los afios de Bassols, 1931-1934 (Mexico:
Secretaria de Educaci6n P6blica, 1976), pp. 23, 27-33; Lorenzo Meyer, Los inicios de la institu-
cionalizaci6n: La politica del Maximato (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico, 1968), pp. 172-74;
"El gremio Estudiantil formula declaraciones," Excelsior, November 23, 1933; "Manifiesto de la
Confederaci6n Nacional de Estudiantes," Excelsior, November 3, 1933; Donald Mabry, The
Mexican University and the State: Student Conflicts, 1910-1971 (College Station: Texas A & M
University Press, 1982), pp. 104-06.

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362 REASSESSING CARDENISMO

tity that of the Cristero era of the previous

ing "new" right was not limited to Catholics.
complex. During the Maximato conservative f
and pressed for favorable policies under the
ary" rule of the Maximum Chief. Large landho
the 1910-1920 Revolution, created the Cam
tura in 1930, which urged an end to land exp
considerable influence at the state and local le
already linked together in the Confederaci6n
cio, formed the powerful Confederaci6n P
Mexicana [COPARMEX] during the Maximato
bor Law (1931) as a catalyst for recruiting sm
The crisis and economic panic are not permanent
is ... and you will find a shackle in the form of t
labor that will impede your march toward prog
nomical to pay a small [membership] fee now
permit the development of a pathological minds
business, the spreading of the cancer of commun
that 'property is theft'?8

By the end of the Maximato, the Monterr

hired members of the newly created Acci6n R
better known as the Dorados, or Gold Shir
from Francisco "Pancho" Villa's Dorado cavalr
the shibboleth "Mexico for Mexicans," thes
pestered Jews and Communists, and intimida
strikers. The Calles regime did almost noth
business-oriented right grew and increased its
wrestled power away from Calles in late 1935
sanctioned labor unrest erupted in 1936, pro
nessmen to create a second organization, the
[ACN]. Though business-inspired, the ACN r

7 "La colecta en favor de los sacerdotes Veracruzanos," La P

Cummings, "Quarterly Report," April 7, 1933, USDS 812.00 /
The Reconquest of Mexico: The Years of Ldzaro Cdrdenas (New
1939), p. 168.
8 Confederaci6n Patronal de la Repuiblica Mexicana, "Porque debe usted asociarse a la Con-
federaci6n Patronal," pamphlet, Mexico City, 1934, Archivo Plutarco Elias Calles, Fondo Con-
federaci6n Patronal, 48/10.0.0. In truth, businessmen had little to fear, since the progressive Labor
Law was not enforced, see Marjorie Clark, Organized Labor in Mexico (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1934), p. 259.
9 For the best overview of the activities of the Gold Shirts see Hugh Campbell, La derecha
radical en Mexico, 1929-1949 (Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1976).

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 JOHN W. SHERMAN 363

in nationalism and family, as reflecte

objectives:

1. To extol the concept of Motherland, foster allegiance to the flag,

promote the love of our National Hymn, the veneration of our
Heroes, and respect for the legally established authorities and the
National Army as prime sustainer of the institutions of the Republic.
2. To dignity the concept of the home and preserve the family as the
fundamental base of the Mexican social structure.
3. To combat the dark communist doctrines that we consider threat to
the home, country, and to liberty.10

In both its goals and its motto, "home, Motherland, liberty," the ACN
neglected the political role of the formal church, recognizing its ap-
parent decline. But religious concepts of motherhood and morality
permeated its discourse. It had a small women's auxiliary, Acci6n
Civica Femenina, which called on every woman to intervene in society
to restore order, and educate herself "to appropriately prepare for
civic duties and preserve her place in the home, thereby perfecting her
femininity." Unlike COPARMEX, the ACN gave business interests an
avenue into middle class and even working class homes. Women vis-
ited with the wives of union members, noted "the dangers of the
communist menace to their husbands," and distributed anticommunist
tracts and pamphlets." Like the business-oriented right, other conser-
vative factions expanded their bases of support just as Cardenista re-
forms took hold. Large landholders in the CNA found new allies
among alarmed northern rancheros, who feared extensive agrarian
reform and flocked into the upstart Uni6n de Propiedades Pequefios.
Segments of the urban middle class, perturbed by labor disruptions
such as transit strikes in Mexico City, joined the anti-CQrdenas Con-
federaci6n de la Clase Media [CCM] after its formation in June 1936.
In the heavily populated Bajio, Cardenista reformers watched the omi-
nous rise of Sinarquismo after its creation in 1937. Born out of a
secretive society known as La Base, the UniOn Sinarquista Nacional

10 "Propositos de la Acci6n Civica Nacionalista," El Pueblo (Hermosillo), March 29, 1936.

1 Esperanza F. G. de Santibafiez to Cardenas, April 24, 1936, and "Manifiesto a la Mujer
Mexicana," no date, both in Archivo General de la Naci6n [hereafter AGN], Fondo Lizaro
Cardenas [FLC], expediente 111/1568.0. The ACF worked for the enfranchisement of women,
helping create the irony that the right (which enjoyed widespread female support) pushed for
women's suffrage against a reluctant "revolutionary" government; Alex Saragoza, The Monterrey
Elite and the Mexican State, 1880-1940 (Austin: University of Texas Press), p. 183.

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364 REASSESSING CARDENISMO

[UNS] prospered under the charismatic leade

cal, a devout Catholic lawyer alienated early in
ism of the Revolutionary government. By mi
adherents-probably an inflated figure, thoug
markable strength could not be denied.
The only segment of the right that faltered
of the extreme proto-fascists who resorted
government banned the Dorados and exiled
riguez, to the United States. Many Dorados s
operations from major urban areas into sec
establishing a new headquarters in Torre6n
agrarians and officials. The Vanguardia Mexi
a cover organization for banned Dorados as w
also filtered into the rising Uni6n Nacional d
oluci6n [UNVR], founded in 1935 and especia
1940-its members charged to "guard against e
and to combat it in every legal way." The Mad
famous for leading the 1910 revolution again
Dorado-UNVR thugs to protect its vast hac
agrarians.12 The right of the mid-1930s was w
and burgeoning from below. Emphasis on th
tional right of church and army prompted s
mistakenly believe that Cirdenas enjoyed a co
but this was not the case. As historian Alan
served, Cardenismo "faced severe resistance,"
tion, such as from the grassroots right, but "
tious, covert and successful kind, which sever
of manoeuvre and led it to fudge, compromis
issues."13

THE LITERARY RIGHT AND 'FAMILY VALUES' DISCOURSE

A critical aspect of this more "covert" opposition was the right

assault on Cardenismo in the political culture, through literature,

12 Jean Meyer, El sinarquismo: jun fascismo mexicano? (Mexico City: Cuadernos de Joa
Mortiz, 1979), pp. 46-47; Vicente Vila, "Abascal: Cabeza sinarquista," Asi 33 (June 28, 1
22-24; Daniel Rios Zortuche, Vice President of UNVR, to Cirdenas, May 16, 1936, AGN, F
606.3/20.1.1. Cardenas was an honorary member of the UNVR at first, but the organization s
expelled him. Juan Guardiola, Agrarian Committee of San Carlos, Coahuila, to Cardenas,
vember 30, 1938, AGN, FLC, 542.1/2415.1.17.
13 Alan Knight, "Cardenismo: Juggernaut or Jalopy?" Journal of Latin American Studies 26
(February 1994): 79.

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 JOHN W. SHERMAN 365

cluding tracts, small books directe

print media. Rightist literature poun
munistic' and subversive to popular
and family. Diego Arenas Guzmin
newspaper El Hombre Libre, warned
Mexico was being turned into a "pro
the Revolutionary government's plan
called on all sectors of society to org
cially through publications and pamp
groups and political parties.

El Hombre Libre itself formed a ne

Social Dem6crata Mexicano [PSDM]
held that society must accentuate "t
among the rural population, and cons
society." It explained,

The family can not coexist with a com

must destroy the home, because as long
dure, it is not able to completely take o
And the Communist State needs absolute slaves!14

Among those joining El Hombre Libre in its call to disseminate an

communist literature was the ACN, which published a series of sev
enteen tracts in 1937 about socialism and communism. Directed at the
general audience, these booklets usually ran about fifteen pages, ex-
plained concepts in simple terms, and sold for a maximum ten centavos
out of the ACN's offices in Mexico City. The first tract in the series was
simply entitled "What is Socialism and What is Communism?" Sub-
sequent works chronicled the dangers of these ideologies. One book-
let, for example, charged that socialism sought to destroy the family,
and that Cirdenas-promoted socialist education undermined the au-
thority of parents and priests, while sexual education corrupted Mexi-
can youth.'5 Also responding to the call to combat communism with
the pen was Jos6 Cantui Corro, a well-known religious orator in the
1930s. Born in Oaxaca in 1884 and ordained in 1907, he pursued writ-

14 Diego Arenas Guzman, "Medios eficaces para combatir comunismo," El Hombre Libre,
March 1, 1937; "Manifiesto constitutivo del PSDM, que serai discutido en la pr6xima convenci de
los Independientes," El Hombre Libre, May 31, 1937; "Programa del Partido Social Dem6crata
Mexicano," El Universal, August 24, 1937.
15 Acci6n Civica Nacional, "Serie de folletos sobre el socialismo y el comunismo ante el sentido
comfin," 1937, Index of descriptions of booklets, available at Biblioteca Nacional, UNAM,
Mexico City.

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366 REASSESSING CARDENISMO

ing with vigor after the Revolutionary uphea

mid-1930s he published pamphlets such as
sold for fifteen centavos via a Mexico City a
which appeared under various titles, was a six
its author perceived as dangerous ideologies
"Society can not exist without the family, w
organic component," the priest explained. "W
of Dante, awaits the world if a society adopts
Cantti Corro held up the Soviet Union as t
earthly hell, adding that Soviet agents, includ
talists, plotted to destroy civilization and a
without God, home, or law."16 In its literary
government, the right repeatedly pointed to
as an example of where their nation was hea
view of the Soviet system was expressed by f
Rodriguez, who visited the country after leav
his impressions as an "impartial observer" in
Notas de mi viaje a Rusia. Rodriguez, a millio
president had made a fortune through race t
nos in Tijuana, attacked Soviet Russia in the
Not surprisingly, he concluded that the savag
seph Stalin rested on "oppression and slave
brilliant demagoguery, and "insidious and
which convinced the Russian people that t
paradise" (perhaps a realistic view, but hardl
own impartiality). Rodriguez evaluated the r
cluded that they were overworked. Employin
his own ends, he noted ironically that "in the
declared:

" ... the emancipation of the woman, the liberation of the woman from
the fetters of the kitchen!" It is true that she must leave the home, the
company of her family, her husband, her children; but only to be led to
other cruel environments, to other even harder activities for which her
sex and spiritual make-up are ill-equipped.Y7
The lack of nurturing mothers, in turn, had produced a sharp rise in th

16 Diccionario Porrua, vol. 1, p. 483. The most complete title of the pamphlet was "LQu6 es
Liberalismo?, LQue es el Socialismo?, iQu6 es el Comunismo?, iQu6 es el Anarquismo
(Mexico City, 1937), pp. 9, 11-13. ACN tracts also frequently targeted the Soviet Union f
critique, see ACN, Serie de folletos, 1937.
17 Abelardo Rodriguez, Notas de mi viaje a Rusia (Mexico City: Editorial Cultura, 1938), p
10-11, 22-23.

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 JOHN W. SHERMAN 367

number of orphans and street childr

women, thirsting to again be feminin
apparel and perfume, yielding a "sca
The conclusions drawn by Rodrig
Mexicans receptive to the warnings o
they were to remain in the home, t
could feel secure and fulfill their role
removing women from the safety of th
of society: children degenerate to life o
guiding hand, while husbands, presu
Women themselves long for the "com
prostitution-a development for whic
ably bore no responsibility.

If the Soviet system ruined the fam

home, it crucified democracy by a c
pression. With perhaps a mind to
Cardenismo, Rodriguez charged that
litical monopoly exercising supreme
reaucracy. A party of only 1.7 million
country, in part because of the talen
held key posts in finance and industry,
their skills with money are known t
of all this was inflation (a timely ob
cycle gripping 1930's Mexico), and if
Rodriguez made it so by noting that
cans fifty-five pesos under similar c
a topic in the ideological debate m
right's repeated charges that Moscow
in Mexico. The Partido Comunista M
late 1930s after suffering persecution
its membership from around 1,500 t
and 1938. Still, the party itself was
influence Mexican society in only lim
organizations. Yet the right implicate
of the PCM and its members, in la
charges of Ultimas Noticias, which c
behind infighting in the railroad uni

18 Rodriguez, Notas de mi viaje, pp. 23-27, 83-86, 8

Cirdenas government, which had closed down mo

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368 REASSESSING CARDENISMO

verge of making Stalin "master" of Mexico's r

alarming citizens with its predictions of a mo
etized Mexico, the right found useful fodder
Cardenismo in the dramatic events of the Sp
1939). It saw ready parallels between the Repu
ment of Manuel Azafia and its own Revolu
attempts to weaken the role of the church, imp
initiate socialist education had triggered the F
tary insurrection that had cast Spain into its
Mexicans expect anything different under Ca

The Spanish Civil War "served to establish

radical and conservative forces" in Mexico, in
dent opted to support the Republican (or Loy
with enthusiasm. Yet like his policies in gener
nas's foreign policy won "only limited appro
populace. Most Mexicans rejected it. Governm
alist Spain particularly angered the devout C
Bajio. Labor organizer Vicente Lombardo To
in November 1937 that Constitution anniver
r6taro were marred by rural "fascists" yelling
were ahead of the church hierarchy, however
silent on events in Spain as part of its continu
dation with the regime. Clerics squelched thei
the most part, even after receiving a July 1937
counterparts that criticized the Republican go
the war to "irreconcilable ideologies."20 And i
over the war were not enough, the Cairdena
tered a storm of protest with its refugee
haven for Loyalists seeking asylum; a trickle
ing the fighting, and a flood followed in the
start, the right decried the government's ope

19 "Moscui prepara la siembra de c61ulas en los ferrocarrile

Noticias, November 2, 1938; "Esti en manos de c61ulas de S
dicese," Ultimas Noticias, November 3, 1938; Barry Carr, Ma
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), pp. 46, 53, 76.
20 Thomas Bowman, Consul General to SS, "Monthly Report
812.00/30405. T. G. Powell, Mexico and the Spanish Civil War
Mexico Press, 1981), pp. 104, 110; Lombardo Toledano to CAr
gram, AGN, FLC, 551/14.2.41; Martaelena Negrete, Relacion
Mexico, 1930-1940 (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico y La U
p. 216.

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 JOHN W. SHERMAN 369

cal grounds and out of a sense of n

however, made the rightist critique d
June 1937 the Cirdenas government
children to Mexico amid considerable
fers to put the children (mostly of Lo
the President sent them to a school in
state. Teachers at the school were to educate the children in socialism
and the principles for which their parents had died.21 How could th
right, with its commitment to protecting the family, condemn the fee
ing and clothing of orphans? The manner in which the president h
self took an interest in the children further complicated matte
"Tata" Cirdenas greeted the little ones and posed with them for ph
tographs widely circulated in the press, making the very man which th
right condemned as anti-God and anti-family appear fatherly and co
passionate. Even in an age free of the excesses of political imaging a
"spin control," in all probability this message was the intention
government-and it testifies to the importance of the political righ
and the need of Cardenismo to defend itself on the same terms of
family values. The right struggled to respond to this public rel
coup. Unable to condemn the succoring of orphans, it attacke
policy on tangential grounds. The Confederaci6n de la Clase M
commended the government's aid, but called for placing the ch
in homes and decried as shameful "that these orphans of the w
to be educated and prepared for communism." El Hombre Libre
its readers if the new arrivals were not, in truth, victims of the Loy
government that had "caused" the war (it bypassed the inconven
fact that Franco had initiated the fighting). It denied that all o
children were even orphans, as the government claimed, and crit
their upkeep "when there are millions of Mexican children dyin
hunger and abandonment." It joined the CCM in decrying the "i
trination," noting that the Spanish colony had offered to care fo
orphans to no avail. The brainwashing began on arrival, accordin
the paper, when bands played "The International" to the little on
authorities placed them on a train.22 Whether using the Spanish

21 Patricia Fagen, Exiles and Citizens: Spanish Republicans in Mexico (Austin: Univers
Texas Press, 1973), p. 26. The best source on the school itself is Vera Foulkes, Los 'n
Morelia' y la escuela Espaiia-Mgxico: consideraciones analiticas sobra un experiment
(Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de Mexico, 1953).
22 "La Confederaci6n de la Clase Media y los hu6rfanos espafioles," El Hombre Libre,
15, 1937; " Son victimas del gobierno de Azafia los pequefios llegados a Mexico?" El H
Libre, June 11, 1937.

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370 REASSESSING CARDENISMO

War or the Soviet Union as its basis of critique,

preservation of the family in its relentless a
lutionary regime. As a consequence Cardenas
rate the family into his own political discour
policies, for example, he told the newspaper
The government is endeavoring to strengthen fa
home an institution protected against poverty,
unsanitary living conditions which exist in the m
poor.

The right reaped a rich harvest by sowing these seeds of fear among
Mexicans. It was so effective that as early as 1937 the Chamber of
Deputies called for the disbanding of rightist groups because of their
success at "confusing and alarming the general public."23

THE BEST PROOF: 1940 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

The greatest evidence of the right's success in turning millions

Mexicans against the CQrdenas regime came, of course, with the 19
presidential campaign. CQrdenas was forced to select a moderate s
cessor, Manuel Avila Camacho, over his good friend, Francisco
Muigica, and had to use fraud even to elect him. It is persuasive tes
mony to the strength of the right that, in his failed bid to become th
PRM's nominee, Muigica cloaked his radicalism and sought to allay
fears. Promising to balance the needs of capital and labor, resp
private property and preserve freedom of religion and the press,
answered charges that he was a communist by bluntly stating, "ne
have I been affiliated with the Communist Party." Yet his attempt
moderate his views failed to capture for him the official party's no
nation; in the face of a formidable opposition right, the PRM mo
quickly to the center, ousting left-of-center Chairman Luis Rodrig
in spring 1939 in favor of conservative General Heriberto Jara.24
the 1940 presidential campaign began, Mexico's ruling party and go
ernment, in a pattern that would become commonplace, faced a cyn
and largely hostile electorate. What was different about 1940 was t
the presidency was occupied by an idealist, a true reformer who pro

23 "Una entrevista con El Presidente," Excelsior, April 14, 1935; Negrete, Relacione
Mexico, p. 215.
24 "El general Mtigica y su programa de gobierno," El Universal, February 3, 1939; Ariel
Contreras, Mkxico 1940: Industrializaci6n y crisis politica (Mexico City: Siglo Veintiuno Editor
1977), pp. 30-31. The PRM had difficulty with rightist veterans' groups that vigorously oppos
Rodriguez. See "A los veteranos de la revoluci6n," Omega, November 20, 1938.

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 JOHN W. SHERMAN 371

ised, and might actually deliver, clean

prepared to engage electoral politic
enemy. Millions of Mexicans believed
the country: out-of-control strikes, in
tainty about the future drove them
vinced Mexicans that Cirdenas and
their nation on the road to communism
education, and a refugee policy that m
'radicals'.

The opposition coalesced quickly around the candidacy of Juan A

dreu Almazain in summer 1939. Born in Guerrero and raised in the c
of Puebla, Almazain rose quickly through the ranks to become Me
co's youngest brigadier general in the early stages of the 1910 Rev
lution, before his ill-advised decision to side with Victoriano Huerta
after the February 1913 coup, and later attempts to back the count
revolutionary designs of F61lix Diaz. Despite these choices, Almaza
remained one of Mexico's highest ranking officers by the early 192
and accumulated a small fortune through government contracts w
his Anihuac road construction firm a decade later. He had "all t
dash of a soldier," U.S. Ambassador Josephus Daniels wrote in
diary after visiting the General at Chipingua, his mountain home ov
looking Monterrey. Nearby, one could find Almazain's ever-loy
troops, who lived in model barracks and enjoyed the one-hundred y
long swimming pool constructed for them by their affable co
mander.25 Almazain's campaign generated widespread support in bo
the cities and countryside. On August 27, with his arrival in Mexi
City, an estimated 200,000 greeted him at the Monument to the Re
lution. Speakers such as political activist Blanca Trejo, a thirty-thr
year old ex-consulate worker in Spain, called on women to back hi
for the good of the country. "The presence of women was especial
evident," noted one newspaper account of the rally. The mammoth
crowd chanted raucously against Lombardo Toledano and Cirden

Rural Mexicans also responded enthusiastically to Almazain. T

traditional assumption that the burgeoning Uni6n Nacional Sina
quista stifled the right by forbidding its hundreds of thousands o
members from participating in the election process must be reeva

25 Albert Michaels, "Las elecciones de 1940," Historia Mexicana 21:1 (July- September 19
106-109; Josephus Daniels, Shirt-Sleeve Diplomat (Chapel Hill: University of North Caro
Press, 1947), p. 80.

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372 REASSESSING CARDENISMO

ated. There is evidence that many Sinarqu

perhaps voted, for Almazain, despite the po
najuato UNS officials reported that Alma
discredit them and had influence with the
doubt the same procedure is taking place th
they warned, urging UNS leaders to counter
faithful in line. Other opposition groups
electoral position of the UNS and wooed th
campaign. In Michoacin, for example, Parti
cials paid visits to Sinarquista activists such
Ario de Rosales, who complained that they
the UNS voting ban. In Chihuahua, the sma
publicano distributed leaflets on the eve of
devout Catholic Sinarquistas to go to the po
ballot box was "morally wrong," it warned
infamies (such as voting for the wrong cand
give an answer before the tribunal of Go
Cardenismo on matters relating to the fam
termed socialist education "atrocious," an
popular implementation. Playing on fears of
the home, family, and morality as fundam
order was the overarching theme of his ca
Mexico could become a vassal state of the So
that the government's famed Six Year Plan
invention. Labelling his opponents imposici
posed on Mexico an unpopular government-
bardo Toledano for special criticism as the
tonio Diaz Soto y Gama, who campaigned on
his audiences that the election was a choice between Mexico or Russia
and Lombardo Toledano or Almazain. Almazain made a special appeal
to women, calling for their suffrage and contending that only then
could they "defend the family and peace." The key to peace, just and
moral government, required the feminine touch; in contrast, he ex-
plained, the unjust tyranny of "our official communism has not liber-

26 "El candidato aclamado al arribar ayer," Excelsior, August 28, 1939; Dagoberto Moncada,
Comonfort, Guanajuato, to J. Francisco L6pez C., June 12 1940; Gregorio Marroquin, Ario de
Rosales, Michoacin, to Manuel Zermefio Perez, no date; and Partido Dem6crata Republicano
pamphlet attached to Jesuts Barrera, Chihuahua, to Zermefio Perez, July 5, 1940, all in Reel 33,
Uni6n Nacional Sinarquista Papers, Subdirecci6n de Documentaci6n, Museo de Antropologia e
Historia, Mexico City.

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 JOHN W. SHERMAN 373

ated women, because materialistic communism liberates no one."27

Almazan's family rhetoric even helped him cut into the segment of the
electorate that should have been most loyal to Cardenismo: industrial
labor. A number of independent unions joined his campaign, including
the Partido Central Ferrocarrilero Pro-Almazan, headed by Eladio
Medina and organized in April 1939. Other Pro-Almazan groups
formed among miners, electrical, and streetcar workers, as well as
textile employees organized in Puebla by the Federaci6n Revolucio-
naria de Obreros y Campesinos. The Confederaci6n Regional Obrera
Mexicana backed Almazain, and the candidate who enjoyed the warm
support of much of Monterrey's business elite even captured the hearts
of many oil workers within the Confederaci6n de Trabajadores de
M6xico [CTM]! A striking number of industrial workers, perhaps even
a majority, sympathized with Almazain-out of a desire for indepen-
dent unionism, democracy, frustration with rising costs of living, and
the success of the right in the ideological debates over the family and
communism. Signs of labor's defections marred Mexico City's May
Day parade, where participants chanted anti-government slogans.28 In
the face of the Almazain onslaught, Manuel Avila Camacho's campaign
seemingly sputtered. Even before the PRM's convention adjourned he
must have realized the need to move to the right. Avilacamachistas
working to revise Lombardo Toledano's second Six Year Plan pressed
for changes. The revised document, dubbed the Plan of Government in
an apparent effort to avoid the Soviet-like title, shunned Marxist ter-
minology and radicalism. Avila Camacho and Heriberto Jara, the new
party chairman, both avoided reference to the plan in their closing
convention speeches.

On the campaign trail the official candidate frequently employed

conservative rhetoric. At times he sounded like Almazan. In an at-
tempt to calm northern ranchers he promised to respect private prop-
erty, while he echoed his rival's call for foreign investment and friend-
ship with the United States. The right ridiculed him for his undistin-
guished military record, referring to him as the "unknown soldier" and
"virgin sword" (the latter clearly an assault on his masculinity). Avila

27 Michaels, "Elecciones de 1940," pp. 124-30; Contreras, Industrializaci6n y crisis politica, p.

188; Paulino Machorro Narvaez, "El programa de Almazin," La Reacci6n 3:74 (February 15,
1940): 11.
28 Contreras, Industrializaci6n y crisis politica, pp. 80-84; Michaels, "Elecciones de 1940," pp.
109, 123; Alan Knight, "The Rise and Fall of Cardenismo," in Leslie Bethell, ed. Mexico Since
Independence (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 291, 299.

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374 REASSESSING CARDENISMO

Camacho answered his critics by arguing tha

reflected his "respect for human life and preo
and the family"-once again an appeal to Mexic
right. In his final speech he extended the rhetor
voters to unite, "not as winners and losers, b
same family." Shortly before the election, in
help his man, Cirdenas announced a halt to Sp
tion.29 Harassment of the opposition for two
ing produced "a climate of anarchy and viole
election day." The same local officials that ha
against the right during the campaign largely
lists and voting procedures, assuring Avila C
fraud. Almazain, in a final manifesto to the M
of the election, rallied his forces, but indicate
inevitability of the outcome. Mexicans are
proclaimed, and demand that the Revolutio
popular will. He closed his appeal for an enor
honoring the Mexican woman, "unjustly d
rights" by a regime which spouted rhetoric ab
tion rules fueled the widespread violence of J
of 1918 stipulated that polling booths were to be
citizens to arrive (an invitation to then try an
control of lists and ballots). The 214 polling
were especially problematic, because the CTM
fifty to one hundred men to reach them firs
Mexico City (there is little doubt that he wo
in a fair election), and his supporters also fiel
Confrontation between partisans was inevitab
stations under the watch of Almazanistas
unionists and local bureaucrats. Foreign corr
sive evidence of fraud, and Cirdenas himself
one station that had been closed to prevent h
Almazain. The disturbed President decided to
to encounter crowds of would-be voters shout

29 Daniel Cosio Villegas, La Sucesi6n presidencial (Mexico Ci

p. 66; Michaels, "Elecciones de 1940," pp. 116-21; Albert Mich
Journal of Latin American Studies 2 (1970): 76.
30 Luis Medina, Del cardenismo al avilacamachismo (Mex
1978), pp. 118-19; "El Gral. Almazain dirige un manifiesto
ciones," July 2, 1940, in Almazain, Memorias: Informe y docum
1940 (Mexico City: E. Quintanar Impresor, 1941), pp. 120-23.

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 JOHN W. SHERMAN 375

decrying the fraud, and telling him th

munists and thieves." By the afternoo
ation in the capital deteriorated. Gun
booths and downtown on major thoro
thousands of Almazain supporters ma
faced army troops and police, who soo
protesters dead. Despite Almazanista e
the PRM won a victory with official res
The earliest tabulations credited 2,2
and only 128,574 votes to Almazain.31

RETHINKING THE HISTORIOGRAPHY

What does the strength of the right in the face of Cardenismo tell us
about the broader contours of Mexican political history? Social scien-
tists have long recognized 1940 as a pivotal year in Mexico's evolution,
when the "institutionalized" Revolution either changed its course or
ceased to exist.32 Certainly after 1940 Mexico veered away from the
ideas central to Cardenismo. Although moderate changes marked the
governance of Avila Camacho, the administration of Miguel Alemain
(1946-1952) saw a dramatic reordering of both politics and the broader
economic agenda. The idealism of a nationalistic regime that sought to
remake society and mitigate the worst consequences of skewed wealth
distribution gave way to a new pragmatism-one that emphasized eco-
nomic growth above all else and fostered a cynicism that spawned
massive corruption.33

Historiographically, a generation of contemporary observers offered

the first broad interpretation of Cardenismo, praising the movement in
accomplishing much for a generally appreciative populace. Many
North Americans are counted among this group, including Nathaniel
and Sylvia Weyl and early biographer William Cameron Townsend.
The problem with this view, of course, is that the 1940 election debacle

31 Medina, Del cardenismo al avilacamachismo, pp. 118-21, 125; Betty Kirk, Covering the
Mexican Front (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1942), pp. 240-44. The final ballot count,
entered into the records on August 14, cut Almazain's tally to just 15,101, or .6 of the total.
32 For a collection of essays by leading scholars and Mexican political figures on periodization,
change in the Revolution, and the importance of 1940, see the classic Stanley Ross, ed., Is the
Mexican Revolution Dead? (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966).
13 One reason why historians have viewed Cardenismo as so significant is that very little work
has been done on the period that follows. In a forthcoming book Stephen Niblo chronicles the
"counterrevolution" under Alemain that undid much of the political legacy of Cirdenas. See
Mexico in the 1940s (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1998).

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376 REASSESSING CARDENISMO

reveals the exceedingly limited support enj

while the institutional right of church and
vibrant grassroots right pummelled Carden
political culture, putting it on the defensiv
issues including the role of women and prese
Cirdenas government failed to win the 'hear
majority of Mexicans, though this failure lar
its earlier and overly-sympathetic chronicler

The historiography on Cardenismo underw

generation later when mostly Mexican scho
sacre of anti-government demonstrators in M
ited it and offered a scathing critique. Pinni
contemporary authoritarianism on Cardena
porate leviathan that had emerged and squa
for democracy and change. To these critics
but revolutionary; it was capitalistic and eve
bilized working classes and manipulated thei
intransigent regime.34 But the contention th
Revolutionary principles and laid the founda
ern state denies the President's obvious moralis
Cirdenas led what Alan Knight has termed "
ment" and he desired to restructure Mexican
the disadvantaged. His hand was forced in a
the succession crisis of 1940, however, not si
the Revolutionary party and government s
political hegemony, but also by the relent
right.

In order to support the contention that Cirdenas set up a political

system that controlled the masses and imposed on Mexicans an au-
thoritarian structure, many of the revisionists emphasize his reorgani-
zation of the official party in 1938. It is true that the PRM, with its four
sectors representing labor, peasants, "popular" groups, and the mili-
tary, evolved into the Partido Revolucionario Institucional [PRI] in
1946. One problem with the significance of the restructuring, however,

34 Regarding the first interpretation see, among others, Townsend, Ldzaro Cdrdenas, Mexican
Democrat, Nathaniel and Sylvia Weyl, Reconquest of Mexico, and Frank Tannenbaum, The
Struggle for Peace and Bread. For revisionist interpretations see, among others, Hernandez
Chavez, La mecdnica cardenista, Octavio lanni, El estado capitalista en la epoca de Cdrdenas
(Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 1977), and Arturo Anguiano, El estado y la politica obrera del
cardenismo (Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 1975).

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 JOHN W. SHERMAN 377

is that of numbers. At its inception t

million members. Even if one were to
face value, that still leaves eighty per
the party. With a population of 19.4
process of sustaining an unpopular
continued use of election fraud. Carde
mobilize the great majority of Mexican
historian contends, the reorganized p
the grasp of the regime," why did the
that agrarian reform under Cirdenas
"control" of the peasants and "lay t
reform."36 Such an argument is a non
mented reform in order to terminate
existed after 1940 that were not in place
PRI incorporated the peasantry (on
what, exactly, prevented them from
forms ended? Certainly the PRI won m
tions in the postwar era by fraud, but

Concomitant to most of the revisioni

Cardenismo as capitalistic populism
centered in Monterrey. Ariel Jose Co
interpretation that contends that the
made a pact with the Revolutionary g
1940 campaign, to rule on its behalf.37
tion that Cirdenas and the PRM were
ment, it would be necessary to emp
discontentment with the regime, at th
elite to have their way.

At the heart of the two broad interp

35 Lieuwen, Mexican Militarism, p. 125. By sectors

labor (overwhelmingly in the CTM), 2.5 million in
Nacional Campesina), 55,000 in the army, and 55,00
Its limited mobilization notwithstanding, many sch
to write in terms of a near-total inclusion. "The R
Spencer, for example, and "peasants recognized Cird
"The Mexican Revolution under Lazaro Cardenas:
Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1990, pp. 284,
36 Dana Markiewicz, The Mexican Revolution and t
(Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1993), pp. 75,
37 Contreras, Industrializaci6n y crisis politica, pp.
endorsement of Almazin and meetings between the

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 378 REASSESSING CARDENISMO

pivotal question of historical continuity. Sym

viewed CQirdenas' government as the apogee
institutionalized revolution. Critics a generat
tempted to link it to the postwar authoritari
condemned. But when we analyze Cardenismo
grassroots right it becomes apparent that its dr
came largely from the top-down. It did not
groundswell of popular currents imbued in th
the 1910 Revolution-on the contrary, it foun
Conversely, it did not sink its own wells deep
so as to create a foundation for a long-ter
vestiges hardly lasted into the mid-1940s).39
be viewed as the political exception in twenti
tory. Its failure, not its success, assured the rul
cal regime for decades to come.

Wright State University JOHN W. SHERMAN

Dayton, Ohio

"3 This thesis is in keeping with a wide range of recent regional and topical studies that show
the severe limitations of Cardenismo. See, among others, Marjorie Becker, Setting the Virgin on
Fire: Lazaro Cdrdenas, Michoacdn Peasants, and the Redemption of the Mexican Revolution
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Ben W. Fallaw, "Cirdenas and the Caste War
that Wasn't," The Americas 53:4 (April 1997): 551-577; Mary Kay Vaughan, "The Educational
Project of the Mexican Revolution," in John A. Britton, ed., Molding the Hearts and Minds:
Education, Communications, and Social Change in Latin America (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly
Resources, 1994): 106-18. See also the important synthesis of Alan Knight, "Cardenismo: Jug-
gernaut or Jalopy?" Journal of Latin American Studies 26 (February 1994): 73-107.
39 The two obvious legacies, land reform and a nationalized petroleum industry, endured only
in marginalized form. The ejidos established by Cirdenas slid into disrepair in the postwar era,
eclipsed by the rise of capital-intensive commercial farming in the 1950s; instead of serving as a
catalyst for social justice, PEMEX became an organ of aggrandizement for ambitious and corrupt
PRI politicians and their allies.

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