The Mexican Revolution Part One

1. The Porfiriato runs out of steam. "Trickle-down" fails. 2. Camilo Arriaga begins Liberal Clubs and convention of San Luis Potosi held. Francisco Madero writes on democracy. 3. The Magon Brothers publish "Regeneracion"-arrested 3 times-class conflict, generational conflict, jobs to gringos, foreign values and culture, no federal help for small farmers and workers. Latifundios drive out Mestizos. 4. Francisco Madero gives financial help to Magons. Magons to San Antonio-Diaz sends assassin-Magons to St. Louis. Arriaga in exile with them. 5. St. Louis Junta and Plan Liberal pronounced. Press and assembly freedom, no more local jefes, secular education, nationalize church property, 8-hour day, 6 day week, no more company stores (tienda de raya), no more script, no child labor, seize uncultivated lands, credit banks, ejidos restored. 6. Socialism and Syndicalism comes to Mexico. 7. June 1, 1906: Col. Wm. Greene's Cananea Copper crisis. "Regeneracion" read, Mexicans paid less, Gringos have the best jobs. Delegation selected to meet Greene. Rebuff from Greene. Lumber mill violence. Gov. Rafael Izabel calls in Arizona Rangers. Col Emilio Kosterlitzksy and the rurales hang the leaders. 9. Chihuahua R.R. strike and Veracruz Gran Circulo de Obreros Libros formed as strikes spread. 10. Rio Blanco Mill dismissals-Diaz appeal fails-January 6, 1907 strike-tienda de raya altercation-100 dead. 11. 1907 Depression in the U.S.-layoffs, falling wages, migrants return modernized, food prices up due to drought, floods. Military colonists lose land. Nationalist-Capitalist opposition grows. Mestizos the only forward looking Mexicans. 12. 1908: Porfirio Diaz interview with James Creelman. "Retirement and Opposition Welcomed." 13. Francisco Madero publishes book on democracy and becomes a presidential candidate. Army backs Gen. Bernardo Reyes. Cientificos want Diaz-Ramon Corral ticket. 14. 1910 convention nominates Madero for President on the San Luis Potosi slate. Madero speaking tour. 15. Madero jailed. Reyes sent to Europe. Election of June 21, 1910 rigged. "99% for Diaz." Madero released and escapes to San Antonio. 16. September 21, 1910: 80th birthday of Diaz and 100th birthday of independent Mexico. Huge celebration costs more than education budget. Malnutrition, childbirth deaths, unemployment, 85% illiteracy. 17. Madero calls for revolution to begin on November 20, 1910. 4 hour battle in Puebla. Aquiles Cerdan killed.

19. Madero calls for November 20th revolution from San Antonio with the Plan de San Luis Potosi. 20. November 18th, 1910: Aquiles Serdan family the first martyrs in Puebla. 21. Abraham Gonzalez, Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa rise in Chihuahua. 22. Guerrilla War of vaqueros, rancheros, indios versus centralized and weak corrupt army of Diaz. A terror war of the dark and dispossessed against the white and privileged. 23. May, 1911: Battle of Ciudad Juarez; Orozco and Villa attack Gen. Juan Navarro against Madero orders. 24. Navarro surrenders. Ciudad Juarez now provisional capital. Madero made provisional president. 25. May 13: Orozco and Villa demand new cabinet, shoot Navarro, back pay for men. Get back pay only. 26. Emiliano Zapata begins agrarian revolt in Morelos. "Land and Liberty" the battle cry. Landlords and overseers killed. Mansions burned. Rich refugees to Mexico City. 27. May 19: Treaty of Ciudad Juarez: Diaz to resign, "Cientificos" to be ousted. Real democracy to be installed. Diaz refuses to resign. Mobs form outside Presidential palace. 100 shot and then Diaz surrenders. Diaz into exile. Francisco de la Barra interim until November elections. 28. Madero takes triumphant train ride to Mexico City. Emiliano Zapata awaits. Land demands made. Madero counsels patience, promises visit to Morelos, demands Zapatistas lay down arms. Splits between the Northern revolutionaries and Zapata. 29. Madero meets Zapata at Cuernavaca and Madero refuses Zapata's demands. 30. Gen. Victoriano Huerta attacks Zapatistas brutally in Cuernavaca and revolution reignites in Morelos. 31. October 1911 elections. Madero wins big. Urban professionals and northerners back Madero. 32. Madro's program; democracy, trade schools, pensions, no drinking or gambling. He misunderstands the land question and social justice.

33. Zapata & the Plan de Ayala: November, 1911. Recognizes Orozco as president, one-third of land tobe redistributed. Revolt spreads into mid-section. Zapatistas disrupt rails, telegraphs, towns. 34. Second Rising: General Bernardo Reyes crosses into Mexico and loses to rurales and surrenders and jail in Mexico City. 35. Third Rising: Pascual Orozco rises in Chihuahua on March 25, 1912. Against corruption, nepotism, for 8 hour day, child labor laws, higher wages, no tienda de raya, nationalization of railroads, Mexican nationals to be employed, after 25 years of working the land, title is granted, all illegal seizures of land to be restored, uncultivated lands to be redistributed. 36. Orozco marches to Mexico City with 8000 men. Victoriano Huerta sent by Madero to stop Orozco. Orozco worn down and retreats north. 37. Pancho Villa neutral on Orozco rising. Huerta almost kills Villa. Madero jails Villa. 38. Madero declares oil tax on foreign oil properties to pay for army battles. Germany, Spain, Britain, U.S. outraged. 39. Fourth Rising: Felix Diaz, nephew of Porfirio rises in Veracruz and is crushed and jailed in Mexico City. 40. Fifth Rising: Diaz and Reyes make contact and on February 9, 1913. They escape jail and march to the National Palace. Reyes is killed by the first machine gun blast. Diaz is repulsed and flees to the Ciudadela. Villa escapes to Texas. 41. The Decena Tragica begins on February 17. 42. Henry Lane Wilson, U.S. Ambassador, interfering 43. Pact of the Embassy: Huerta joins Felix Diaz in a Reyista-Catholic-Cientifico alliance and arrests Madero and Pino Suarez. 44. Madero and Pino Suarez resign. Huerta is sworn is as president and Madero and Pino Suarez are murdered.

The Mexican Revolution Part Two

1. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson horrified. Mexican Congress ratifies Huerta. One dissenting Senator murdered. Huerta has army, church, elite, foreigners. Mexicans in despair. Huerta runs Mexico from a cantina. 2. Venustiano Carranza rises. Abraham Gonzalez in Chihuahua, Alvaro Obregon in Sonora. Pancho Villa and the "Division of the North." Emiliano Zapata in the South. 3. Woodrow Wilson vociferous. Arms embargo by Wilson. 4. October elections invalidated. U.S. sends arms to Carranza. ________________________________________

4. Huerta increases education budget to 9.9% and builds 131 new rural schools. Changes cientifico curriculum. Indigenismo begins. Free seed distributed. Agricultural school in Mexico City funded. 78 ejidos for Yaquis and Mayos in Sonora. Huerta increases hacienda taxes. 5. New revolutionaries Mexican. Sonoran Obregon and Calles draw in young. Carranza dislikes land taking and is rebuked. The North falls to the Sonorans. Pancho Villa rides across the deserts, takes Ciudad Juarez with Yaqui, miner, railroad worker's army. Rail and artillery used efficiently. Uneven violence of Villa and his men. 6. Revolutionaries attack Tampico. Foreign fleets arrive. Veracruz landing by Americans. German arms arriving. Carranza unhappy with U.S. 7. Incident at Veracruz used by Wilson. Atrocities by Americans. Villa silent. Huerta's revenues and supplies cut. 8. Villa's "dorados" attack Zacatecas against Carranza's orders. Wilson likes Villa. Carranza cuts Villa's coal. 9. Obregon takes Mexico City in August, 1914. Huerta flees on German boat. 10. Constitucionalistas, Villistas, Zapatistas in uneasy truce. Villa alienated. Zapata distrustful. Carranza pompous. 11. Obregon incorporating army regulars.

The Mexican Revolution Part Three

1. Aguascalientes chosen for a Convention called by Obregon and Villa to pick provisional president untilelections. Obregon agrees to social revolution. 2. Zapatista delegate recognizes Villa and Zapata as the leaders and not Carranza and Obregon. Land and Liberty not suffrage and no re-election should be the battle-cry. Pistols pointed at one another. Immediate confiscation of haciendas promulgated. 3. Eulalio Gutierrez chosen as provisional president. Carranza withdraws. Villa marches into Mexico City to install Gutierrez. Carranza & Obregon withdraw to Veracruz. U.S. withdraws so that Carranza can have a provisional capital without overt U.S. involvement. 4. Villa and Zapata run Mexico City. Two governments exist. Carranza in Veracruz. Villa and Zapata in Mexico City. Mexican Revolution in anarchy. Atrocities and deaths and back stabbings mount. 5. Anarcho-syndicalists unions dislike Villa and Zapata. Zapatas men behaved. Villa's men wild. Food scarce and money worthless. 264,000 leave Mexico for Texas. 25,000 rich Mexicans in San Antonio. Villa and Zapata screw up Mexico City. Anarchy, work stops, no money. Villa meets Zapata at Xochimilco. 6. Carranza seizes initiative, declares himself president, pledges indio land and labor reforms to exproprate haciendas. Alvaro Obregon training army with barbed wire, trenches, machine guns. Waits for Villa and Zapata to eat all the food in Mexico City and withdraw. Zapata to Morelos. Villa to the Bajio. Obregon enters the Mexico City. Recruits unions in to "red battalions.". Obregon moves against Villa in Celaya. Villa in frustration attacks. 50,000 men in the battle. Obregon soundly defeats Villa at the Battle of Celaya. Loses his arm. Church savaged for supporting Huerta. 7. Wilson switches to Carranza and constitutionalist cause. Villa takes vengeance in January, 1916 in Santa Isabel train massacre. March 9, 1916; Villa raids Columbus, New Mexico killing 18 Americans. Town burned down. 8. General John Pershing expedition of 6,000 troops into Chihuahua. Carranza orders them to withdraw after Carranza troops are killed by Americans. Villa in hiding. Carranza troops control Chihuahua. US withdraws in January, 1917. 9. Carranza convokes Queretaro Convention to draw up new constitution. No Villistas or Zapatistas invited. Church limited. Marriage a civil ceremony. Priests ordinary citizens. public worship outside churches disallowed. Stated limit number of priests. All had to be natives. Priests had to register with the state. No new churches without government approval. Primary education free and compulsory. Secular education.

10. Article 27: All lands seized illegally from the peasantry had to be returned. All unused land could be seized. Subsoil rights belong to Mexico. Article 123: 8-hour day, 6-day week, minimum wage, equal pay, unions legal, social security, nationalized medicine, child labor laws, pensions, minimum wages and maximum hours. 4 year presidential term. Very strong presidency. No re-election. U.S. style government, congressional government. Ejidos would be under government supervision. Land acreage limits on haciendas. A Meztizo nationalist-capitalist revolution finally suceeds. 11. Carranza wins elections in March, 1917. Money worthless, mining ruined, industrial production way off, communications and transportation systems ruined, food prices high due to agricultural ruin. Carranza begins undermining the constitution. He distributes only 450,000 acres, uses army to put down strikes, arrests rail union leaders. Labor leader Luis Morones gets death sentence. Commuted under Obregon pressure. 12. U.S. enters World War I. Mexico not mad at Germany. Germany never invaded Mexico like the others nor stolen territory or dictated policy like the U.S. 13. Zimmerman Telegram turned down and Carranza chooses neutrality. 14. Carranza sends General Pablo Gonzalez into Morelos after Zapata. Thousands executed. Crops and villages burned. Zapata blows up trains. 15. Colonel Jesus Gaujardo tricks Zapata, executes former Zapatistas and Zapata agrees to meeting at the Hacienda de Chinameca on April 10, 1919. Assassination follows. 16. Carranza reduces teachers salaries, restore land to Porfirista owners, cuts education to the bone and all social spending. 17. 1920: Carranza attempts to name Ignacio Bonias successor. Alvaro Obregon and Calles in revolt. Northerners march on capital. Carranza flees and is assassinated by one of his guards on the way. 18. de la Huerta provisional president. Land confiscations legalized. Military confiscators happy. Guajardo executed. Villa bought off with huge cattle hacienda. Obregon would assassinate him in 1923.

The Sonoran Presidencies; Alvaro Obregon and Plutarco Elias Calles

The Sonoran Era: Authoritarian populism, anti-clerical, pro-union, U.S. must be placated. Mines, electricity, oil, banks, plantations still foreign owned. No seizures possible. 1. Alvaro Obregon elected in 1920. silver cannon balls distributed, military controlled, executed Guajardo and Pancho Villa bought off with hacienda at Canutillo. Liberal Partyt leaders poisoned at Obregon dinner. 2. Jose Vasconcelos the Secretary of Education and Moises Saenz; Article 3 of the Constitution: rural schools, teachers national mission, the "cosmic race," 2000 libraries and 1000 rural schools. the muralist movement. Some priests kept. Protestants invited in, YMCA welcomed. 3. Article 123 and labor: Luis Morones and CROM. Arbitration Boards. Pro-Union and strikes but Communist unions and the I.W.W. crushed. Foreign leaders expelled, strikes by them illegal. Oil Union crushed, textile workers shot. 4. Article 27: Hacienda system stays. Obregon fears rapid distribution of land and U.S. meddling. 3,000,000 acres distributed to 624 villages in the form of ejidos. Deliberate slow process. Special taxes on the rich and foreigners. 5. U.S. President Warren G. Harding: 1921 oil boycott, debts. claims and oil rights. Obregon not recognized. Fear of retroactive enforcement. 6. Bucareli Street Accords: 50 year agreements. Diplomatic recognition follows. Claims commissions drawn out. Debt paid by oil tax. 1921 Supreme Court decision. Railroads and telephones sold to foreigners. 7. Pancho Villa murdered by 8 men. Obregon implicated. Obregon backs Elias Plutarco Calles as successor. 8. Artistic renaissance; Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros, Kahlo. Social Realism and the Muralist movement 9. 1923 rising: Nationalists, anti-Bucareli factions, military disgruntled by cutbacks, Vasconcelos resigns. Anti- CROM labor leaders, fear of Elias Plutarco Calles and rebellion begins behind Adolfo de la Huerta. Coolidge blockades coast against rebels and arms Obregon. 10. Obregon fights 15 days in three major battles and wins. 7000 die. Obregon lasts out term. The first president since 1884 to do so. Ample firing squads and 40,000 troops discharged. Officer corps professionalized. "Political" generals shot, exiled and retired. de la Huerta allowed to escape. 11. Plutarco Calles elected in 1924. Calles will use army, jailings, "suicides" to control Mexico. 1920's prosperity. 8 million acres more distributed. Credit banks and more rural schools. Banamex. Hacendados to banking and industry. CROM under Luis Morones coopted. Health and sanitation measures. Anti-alcohol and gambling moves. War scare with US as Calles moves to enforce Article 123. Dwight Morrow settles. 12. The Catholic Church intransigent. Joining CROM as mortal sin. Catholic unions. Priests preach against "godless" regime. Rural teacher movement by Catholics. "Socialist" education. Teachers expose priests. Teachers killed. Schools burned. Newspapers join Church. 13. Cristero Rebellion: Catholic terrorism. Trains dynamited. Calles counterattack. Priests hung from poles. One priest murdered for every teacher murdered. Churches robbed and stripped. Bishops deported. Only Mexican priests allowed. Catholic Church "strike" blessed by Pope, who calls Calles the "anti-Christ."

14. 6 year term for president adopted. No-reelection. Alvaro Obregon to succeed. 2 generals rise and are crushed. 150 shot. bomb thrown at Obregon's car. 15. Obregon re-elected in 1928. Jose de leon Toral assassinates him in San Angel. Sister Concepcion Acevedo de la Llata (Madre Conchita) implicated with zealots. Sensational trial. The sister gets 20 years. "Red Shirts" in Tabasco demolish churches and machine gun Catholics on way to mass. Only 100 priests left. 16. 1928-1930; Interim President Emilio Portes Gil is a Calles puppet with Calles generals in cabinet. Calles is jefe maximo. 2 million more acres distributed, but land reform ending. New economy dictates against it. 17. 1930-1932; Puppet #2 is Pascual Ortiz Rubio running against Jose Vasconcelos. Rigged election and Vasconcelos flees to exile. General Escobar rises in Sonora and is crushed. A new army now cut by 50%. Leftist troops to penal colony. 18. Rubio serves two years and is "resigned" to be replaced by 1932-1934; General Abelardo Rodriguez. 19. PNR formed in 1929. Mexico becomes a one party state for 71 years. 20. US Ambassador Dwight Morrow settles Cristero problem. Exiled bishops return. Priests must register. No religion in schools. Government will respect church integrity. Priests resume services and Cristeros lay down arms. 21. Rightward shift in the Maximiato. No more land distribution. Rural education cut. 22. The Revolution is de-railed. the Great Depression of 1929-32. Capital flees. Deflation and tight credit. CROM crushed. 23. Calles chooses General Lazaro Cardenas as successor.

Lazaro Cardenas (1934-40)

1. Calles six year plan; 12,000 new rural schools, collective bargaining, agricultural and industrail cooperatives, land reform acceleration, public works. 2. Calles picks Lazaro Cardenas and his cabinet. Lazaro a Puritan. Affronted by poverty of workers and life-styles of foreign managers. 3. 1928-32: Governor of Michoacan. 100 new rural schools, inspected classrooms, teachers paid on time, encouraged labor and peasant organizations, modest land distributions, lives modestly. 4. He cuts his own salary by half and lives at home. Travels and listens to poor, closes casinos and brothels. 5. He maneuvers against Calles in the army and cabinet. He supports strikes and attacks corrupt Union bosses. 6. Cardenas devoted to workers and peasants. A new younger generation of revolutionaries are now of age. 7. Agrarian reform; 26 million acres so far redistributed. Cardenas distributes 49 million acres. 1940; one-third of all Mexicans got land by redistribution from Cardenas. Only large cattle haciendas on arid land left undistributed. Foreign owned lands also distributed. 8. Ejido experiments in Laguna cotton fields on Coahuila-Durango border of 30,000 families. government schools, social services, hospital built. Henequen fields in the Yucatan distributed. 9. Banco de Credito Ejidals to 3,500 ejidos but population growth offsets gains and not enough capital, too much corruption, not enough skill and machinery. Ejido crops are not cash crops and production falls. New government technocratic bureaucracy. 10. But the Hacienda system is broken and Cardenas is aware that the sacrifice of falling production is worth the political victory. Rural life expectancy higher and infant mortality lower and per capita income grows. 11. Article 3 of the constitution calling for Socialist curriculum in K-12 grades and sex education. Churchthreatens excommunication of parents. Cardenas compromises. No sex education and no direct attacks on the church in the curriculum. Education budget doubles. Inflation and birth rate outrun education reforms. No religious mail allowed. 12. Vicente Lombardo Toledano forms the CTM. Class struggle and the dictatorship of the Proletariat his program. 3000 Unions joined with 600,000 workers. Health and sanitation programs, sports and recreation, higher wages. 4 pesos needed to take care of a family daily and workers making one peso daily. Toledano achieves 3 pesos daily wage. 13. Calles attacks him in the press and conspires. Calls Cardenas a "communist." Cardenas deports Calles and Morones. 14. Obregon Monument and Monument to the Revolution, radios to all ejidos. 15. 1936 Strike in the oil fields over pay and conditions. Oil companies refuse to negotiate honestly. Mexican economy hurt. Cardenas calls for federal arbitration board and the board orders a 27% pay raise and better pensions and welfare. Companies appeal to Mexican supreme court and lose. They refuse to obey. Cardenas nationalizes all the oil on March 18, 1937 and expropriates all of their property for violating Mexican sovereignty and law. 17. Saturnino Cedillo revolts in San Luis Potosi and is executed. The last military rising. 18. Latin America jubilant. U.S. hostile. Celebrations in Mexico City. A second independence day.

19. Franklin D. Roosevelt on "Good Neighbor Policy" course refuses to act roughly. U.S. Ambassador Josephus Daniels orders oil companies to negotiate in good faith as Standard Oil wants war and $200,000,000 in payment for their assets in Mexico. Britain wants $250,000,000 more. Cardenas points out that their original investment has been paid for many times and offers $10,000,000. Mixed claims commission pays $24,000,000 in 1941 to the U.S. Britain gets $80,000,000. Cardenas exposes privileges, demeaning of Mexican workers, highest profits in Mexico and lowest pay. Oil companies boycott Mexican oil. 20. 1937: Cardenas nationalizes rail lines and rail unions push for higher wages and Cardenas turns over rails to Union leadership. Union fails in the effort to make profits and run safe rails. Government takes rails over. Commercial basis financing, new rail lines financed, debts paid. 21. Sinarquistas and Fascists (gold shirts) begin to move in Mexico. Rivera, Siqueiros and Octavio Paz and guest Leon Trotsky keep the revolutionary spirit alive. Trotsky criticizes Cardenas and is assassinated in 1940 by Stalinist. 22. UNAM fight and compromise. Department of Indigenous Affairs begun. Chiapas struggle. Hacendados forced to build schools on haciendas. The women's movement failure. 23. 1938: Cardenas forms the PRM from the labor, agrarian and technocratic sectors and by 1938 runs out of steam. Investment by rich Mexicans and foreigners ending. PEMEX formed but old machinery, lack of skills, no spare parts will be sold by U.S. companies, national debt rising, inflation of 40% on food. Exports sinking, foreign exchange disappearing.             24. Spanish Civil War. Mexico takes in 40,000 Spanish Republicans and gives them aid but must sell oil to Italy and Germany until U.S. enters World War II and needs Mexican Oil and helps build up PEMEX. Cardenas aids Spanish Republic against fascists and sends arms. FDR unhappy. 25. PAN formed and Grupo Monterrey pressures for an industrilization drive and forget radical idealism, land distribution and workers state ideas. Cardeans moderates. 26. Reforms in education, labor, agriculture costly. Cuts have to be made. Hacienda system was broken. Rural education was established. Labor was cleaned up. The oil and rails were nationalized, Church remained tamed, no strong-arm tactics used, the principles of the Constitution of 1917 were realized. Hacendado class rule, military adventurers, dictatorships over. 27. No dogmatism as in the Soviet Union. Social justice, modernization, nationalism achieved. 28. 1939: Cardenas passes over ally Francisco Mugica for Manuel Avila Camacho, a conservative, for the succession. 29. 1940 Elections: Juan Almazan challenges Avila Camacho. Almazan has conservative, Catholic, anti-statist, rural and Northern support and may win election. Cardenas clamps down and rigs elections big time announcing Camacho wins 2.26 million to 126,000. Many gunned down during protests against rigging.

Manuel Avila Camacho (1940-46)

1. Cardenas wanted Francisco Mugica and is thwarted by the Party. Gen. Manuel Avila Camacho chosen. 1946 "elections." 2. The new "technocratic" class takes over. 3. U.S. partnership and credits and commercial treaties. 4. World War II: Mexican neutrality turns to declaration of war against the axis in 1942 after Pearl Harbor and sinking of 2 Mexican ships by Germans. Mexican air squadron 201 to the Pacific. Cardenas commands Pacific defenses and becomes Defense Minister. German and Japanese citizens concentrated in Mexico City. 5. Industrial policy begins: Protectionism and state aid, metal, textiles, chemicals, construction, department stores, Acapulco 6. Land redistribution stops after 7 million acres. Government titles to medium sized farms. 7. Education policy turns right: mentoring, privatization, conservative curriculum 8. Era of "good feelings." Disney and Hollywood and "golden age" Fondo de Cultura Economica 9. Religious reconciliation. Camacho a believer. Processions and religious schools return. 10. Battle over Article 3 and "socialist education." Assassination attempt on Camacho by fanatic Catholic when Camacho forbids military to attend Church in uniform. Article 3 change, giant illiteracy campaign and prizes for teaching illterates. 11. Fidel Velasquez takes over labor. PAN formed. 1943 elections; 50 candidates, 21 win, given 0. Leon victory leaves 21 dead. 1946; 110 run and 4 allowed. 12. Party becomes the PRI in 1945. Military sector cut from 21% to 15% of the budget. (Creole army discredited, Liberal victors not career men and Mestizo run, Huerta officers purged, Obergon danger passes, Calles a civilian, Cardenas character anti-army, Camcho moves them out of the PRI altogether and begins schools for military.) 13. IMSS formed. Ejidal Committees corruption. Camacho turns to private land and irrigation and war demand helps. 14. The Bracero Program in the US 15. The PRI is liberal authoritarianist. No more demagogues allowed. Presidential candidates screened. No taking from indios, no re-election, no alienation of the patrimony of Mexico.

Miguel Aleman (1946-52)

1. The Party stays with rapid industrialization and vast increase in agriculture budget. Tractors, corn and wheat and ejidos shrink. Conservatives decide economic policy and Leftists determine foreign policy. 2. Public works expand: highways and rail and University City. Tax breaks, post-war boom. 3. Tools and machinery versus imports. Imports drain money from Mexico. Aleman devalues the peso. Exports up. Profits used to buy machinery. 4. Massive corruption tolerated. Payoffs re-channeled into reinvestment and Mexico. Taxes very low. 5. Population boom. Mexico City booms. Population pressures. Mexicans move to U.S. and Mexico City 6. 400,000 new jobs a year needed. Rising expectations. 25% illiteracy. 7. Pemex leaders jailed in labor showdown and Luis Gomez Z replaced by "Charro" leader Jesus Diaz de Leon in rail union. Union hiring and the PRI under Fidel Velasquez. 8. Truman visits Mexico. Aleman visits Washington. 9. The "New Class" runs it. Labor and Campesinos coopted. The governors, legislature, unions, press, agrarian agency, judiciary, theater all run as PRI enclaves. "Bread or Bludgeon." The example of Jorge Pasquel. 9. CONASUPO formed, military budget cut further to 7% of the budget. 10. Aleman hints at reelection. Cardenas shoots this down by threatening coup. 11. 1952 elections; Adolfo Ruiz Cortines chosen by the PRI. General Miguel Henriquez Guzman of PAN and Toledano of the People's Party run.

Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (1952-58)

1. The PRI self corrects. (corruption, inflation, waste) 2. Cortines honest and colorless bureaucrat. Cuts his own salaries and others must follow. Stingy with teachers and other civil servants. All government officials must disclose their wealth. Tough on strikes and opposition parties. 3. Female suffrage and University completed. IMSS expanded to indigent 4. Another devaluation. 5. Large public works end. Hand labor replaces machines on public works as austerity begins. 6. PEMEX growth 7. Cortines honest but straight PRI. PAN victories annulled. 8. Cardenas criticizes Arbenz removal in Guatemala, attends Kahlo funeral, protects young Castro. 9. The PRI moves left. Nixon and Eisenhower visits. Mexico neutral on anti-communist bloc issues. Cortines lectures Nixon and Eisenhower in Mexico on poverty and interventionism. 10. Cortines goes out saying the social justice program is lagging behind industrial policy.

Adolfo Lopez Mateos (1958-1964)

1. Communist unionists strike PEMEX, schools, rails. Lopez Mateos crushes them with troops. Siqueiros jailed. Demetrio Vallejo leads rail strike. Tape recorder incident, strikes, army intervention, 10,000 fired, "phantom trains." Vallejo and others jailed 10 years under the "social dissolution" law. Legislature attacks union. Judges silent. Church happy.  Article 123 amended to make strikes very difficult. Telegraphers strike and are fired. Teachers Union and Oil workers strike. Teachers Union president beaten. "Requisa" or seizure becomes the law with air line pilots and telephone operators. 2. Prefab schools in rural areas. Ford, G.M., V.W. move in. 3. 10 million new acres redistributed in far north and far south. 15% of farms producing 75% of food. Resettlement policies begin. Social Security expanded. Profit sharing clause. 4. Ruben Jaramillo organizes sugar cane workers in Morelos and is hounded and flees to mountains and continues political fight. He and his whole family murdered on Mateos OK. Salvador Nava runs against PRI in San Luis Potosi. Model city government, shootings, Nava arrested and taken to Campo Militar 1 and tortured. Gen. Celestino Gasca incident. 5. Typhoid, smallpox and yellow fever eradicated. 6. Phone Co., electrical utilities, movie industry, petrochemicals, automotive parts expropriated from the gringos. 7. Foreign industry and foreign loans finance expansion and purchases. 8. Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta developed. 9. Neutrality on Cuban revolution. Cardenas goes to Cuba and appears with Castro. Agrarian reform, ideas. Tries to fly to Cuba during Bay of Pigs and is stopped. Forms MLN. 10. Mexico refuses to vote with OAS to expel Cuba and refuses economic sanctions. Closely watches Cubans, Cuban travel and Cuban propaganda. 11 Lazaro Cardenas protests land policy and sees progress on socialist farms in Cuba. Accepts Stalin Peace Prize. Forms MLN. 11. De Gaulle visits and "non-alignment." 12. Free textbooks, student breakfasts, museums, CONASUPO program. 13. Sequeiros freed. 14. Cardeans retreats and accepts Balsas River post. 15 New electoral law guarantees some seats for opposition in Congress. 16. "Medio Siglo" introduces Carlos Fuentes and Octavio Paz. "Labyrinth of Solitude" and "The Death of Artemio Cruz." Fuentes and Cardenas tour agrarian region. Total agrarian reform, union democracy, anti-free enterprise, pro-Cuba, anti-Yankee. 17. Liberation Theology begins with Second Vatican Council and Pope John XXIII.

Gustavo Diaz Ordaz (1964-1970)

1. The presidency of order 2. Economics Minister Antonio Ortiz Mena: 6% growth, 2.6% inflation, buying power up 6.4% 3. Hospital strike and doctor's union: March on Zocalo, 3 minute meeting with the president, strike spreads to 46 hospitals, press attacks and army occupation. The "informe" brands doctors as delinquent and criminal. Paid worker counter-demonstrations 4. PAN victory in Merida, the "White City." PRI retaliation. Carlos Medrazo tries to reform PRI. Plane crash death. 5. Oscar Lewis and "Children of Sanchez" attacked and editor fired. (Fondo de Cultura Economica) 6. University of Michoacan strike over bus fare increases. Student shot and killed. "Outside" agitators blamed. Demonstrations and paratroopers occupy university. Residences sacked. Jail and students flee. 7. Che Guevara becomes the symbol for youth. 8. They attack: the army, the unions, the congress, the imposed governors, the press, the business sector, the Church. Socialism and revolution becomes the battle cry. 9. July 22, 1968 football game altercation and grenadiers attack. Demonstrations follow and fighting for a week in Mexico City. 10. The military occupies San Ildefonso Academy. The rector leads a 50,000 student march on the Zocalo. National Strike Committee formed demanding firing of police chiefs, end to grenadiers, university autonomy, payment for injuries, end to "social dissolution" law, release political prisoners. 11. 100,000 person march and a demand for a dialogue. Press attacks on the students begin. 12. The 1968 Olympics coming. More marches. August 28th Zocalo fights. Diaz Ordaz defamed. 13. Ordaz sees a plot of the Kremlin, Cuba, FBI, CIA, Jesuits, PAN. Calls students "blood-sucking parasites, beggars, cynics, illiterates, stinking filth." Accuses them of raping women: "abused in a filthy manner." 14. September 13th silent demonstration of 200,000. UNAM occupied, brutality and mass arrests. 15. October 2: Tlatelolco massacre. 16. The last days of Diaz Ordaz

Luis Echeverria (1970-76)

1. A new Cardenas? The generation of the mid-century president? A return to nationalist and agrarian politics? 2. Echeverria moves left with taxes on rich and release of students, and labor leaders, statism, import substitution, price controls on basics, intellectuals recruited, Carlos Fuentes to Paris, Third World image. 3. Revolutionary movements grow (FRAP, MAR, Luis Cabanas). "Dirty War" in Guerrero. Bombings and Kidnappings. Echeverria's father-in-law kidnapped. 4. Voting age lowered to 18. Age for Senator lowered to 30 and Deputy to 21. 5. Telephones and Tobacco nationalized. 6. Huge inflation, rising expectations, revolutionary rhetoric. Excessive spending. Gyrating rhetoric on protectionism and foreign investment and dependency. 7. Corpus Christi Thursday, June 10, 1971. 30 killled. 5 more at Puebla. 8. Mexican industry not competitive, balance of payments crisis, too many imports 9. Capital flight and 3 devaluations. Coca Cola threat. Devaluations lead to high costs for spare parts and technology needs. 10. Jobs in education and bureaucracy. White collar Peronism. Subsidies to henequen and nuclear power draining while foreign debt skyrockets. Food production continues to lag and food must be imported. 11. The issue of Third World politics in the U.N. Zionism as racism. Allende and Pinochet, Cuba and China 12. Gabriel Zaid in "Siempre" reveals the truth about the June 10, 1971 massacre. Echeverria stoned and driven from University campus. 13. October 19, 1970: Cardenas dies. 14. Debt up by 6 X and purchasing power cut in half as inflation rockets to 20%. Peso from 12 to 22 to $1.00. Shoddy goods, most money from mines and plantations and tourism and mines foreign owned. 15. Coup at "Excelsior." Editor replaced. Peasant occupation. Thugs. "La Jornada" born. 16. 1975 US economic crisis impacts Mexico. 17. Nepotism and Corruption. Ross Perot raid to free 14 US prisoners. Echeverria incident in San Antonio. Mexico on a par now with Iran and Libya, 25% illiteracy, widespread malnutrition, huge job injury levels, 40% without full time jobs.

Jose Lopez-Portillo (1976-82)

1. As Portillo comes to office, bank and hotel explosions set off by urban guerrillas and military backlash. Army smashes into students at UNAM. 1000 arrested. Hundreds of political dissidents murdered including PRI dissidents. political opponents, drug dealers and urban guerrillas. Death squads roam Mexico. 2. OPEC cartel formed and Mexico pegs price of oil to OPEC prices and Portillo goes on a vast spending spree on rails, highways, Pemex tower, $1.5 billion dollar pipeline to the border, steel, Tabasco City, salaries. Lopez Portillo statue at the mint. Burns off natural gas in price conflict with the US. 3. Portillo employs whole family and mistress. Arturo Durazo, police chief is a murderer and thief on a grand scale. Pemex corruption (page 356) 4. Agricultural program (SAM) payed for with oil revnue to give subsidies, price supports, investment to farms including ejidos. agricultural education, crop insurance. Mexican oil reserves soar and Oil profits quadruple due to OPEC. 5. Unemployment too high. Oil money does not help. 25% unemployment. 50% underemployment. 150,000 jobs generated by oil. 800,000 needed yearly. 87% of all Pemex assets owed. 6. 1981 oil glut as OPEC collapses. High interest rates in the U.S. hit Mexico hard asd cost of loans become exorbitant as do debt payments on interest on the debt. Coffee, silver and copper prices fall at the same time. 7. Huge debt. Economy collapsing. Portillo says he will defend the peso "like a dog." Peso falls from 22 to 125 to the dollar as money flees fast from the country. Peso devalued 3 times, dollar accounts frozen, exchange controls. Dollars scarce, imports costly, industry hurt. Machinery needed from abroad now very expenisve due to cheap peso. 8. Hallucinatory swindles and huge deception. $250 million a week in interest payments owed. 9. Portillo nationalizes 59 banks in protest against collapse. All dollars converted to pesos, capital flight, 10. U.S. boycotts Moscow Olympics over Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Mexico will not join the boycott. 11. Mexico recognizes El Salvador guerrillas as a force. Pope John Paul II visit, Mexico keeps ties to Castro's Cuba and helps them with oil exploration. Sandinista Nicaragua forgiven debts and given free oil, Mexico supports rebels in El Salvador and Guatemala Carter visit in 1979 a fiasco as fight begins over Mexican immigration to the US and US trade for oil and gas. 12. Portillo ends with soaring inflation, recession, sky high interest rates, falling living standards.

Miguel de la Madrid (1982-88)

1. Inflation, mismanagement, corruption, stagnating industry, capital flight, huge foreign debt, printing money recklessly. 2. Mexico suffering from Tlatelolco, Corpus Christi Thursday, Lopez Portillo. 3. The problem; no limits on the presidency. 4. Inflation pact and austerity. Government hiring freeze, 51,000 bureaucrats laid off, no new spending, subsidies cut, bankrupt state enterprises sold off. Restricted credit brings back dollars, dollar accounts allowed again. Maquiladoras up, population increases down. Trade surplus, utility bills skyrocket. IMF bailout of $12 billion; 51% rule had to be relaxed and trade barriers lowered as gringos buy pharmaceuticals, steel, telecommunincations. Privatization sped up. Auto and beer exports up and tourism increases as Mexico develops Cabo, Zihuantenejo, Cancun. 5. But inflation continues to 159% and peso continues free fall from 125 to $1.00 to 2,300 pesos to $1.00. Wage indexing drives inflation higher. 6. Money flees out of Mexico. Middle class ruined. Standard of living drops 50%. 7. Sandinistas in Nicaragua supported. El Salvador rebels supported. Mexico Vs. Reagan. CIA meddles in Mexico to try to force de la Madrid to support Contras, abandon helping El Salvador rebels and Cuba. Reagan allies have Washington D.C. meeting with PAN. Liberation theology in Chiapas 8. Enrique Camarena in Guadalajara and Victor Cortez in Jalisco. These 2 are US Drug undercover men in Mexico taken by state police and turned over to drug trafficers for torture and murder. U.S. Senate hearings, border slowdown, threats of sanctions and PRI march in Mexico City shouting "Death to Reagan." L.A. grand jury indicts many Mexican police and Mexico voids the actions in Mexico. Hot pursuit by US aircraft over the border rejected. 9. "Moral Renovation" begins as Jorge Serrano, ex head of Pemex, is jailed and hundreds of corrupt police and Arturo Durazo chased around the world. 10. PAN gains in Chihuahua and Ciudad Juarez. Gubernatorial fraud in Nuevo Leon and Sonora. 1986 Chihuahua gubernatorial elections. Francisco Barrio the PAN candidate. PRI steals it wholesale. (Page 372). PSUM violence in Puebla and Oaxaca. Political war with PAN in Northern Mexico and people die. 11. 3 PAN leaders go on hunger strike and intellectuals sign broadside. De la Madrid dinner and warns of Church, US, big business threat with PAN and calls the theft "patriotic fraud." 12. The Earthquake of September 19, 1985; 20,000 dead. Mexico refuses aid. Students rescue citizens.

Carlos Salinas (1988-1994)

1. Cuauhtemoc Cardenas forms a coalition and pushes for free elections, and statism and cooperative ejidos, press and public agencies and nationalism and threatens PRI control. 1988 presidential elections rigged. Records burned by Salinas 2. Cuauhtemoc Cardenas avoids challenge but forms the PRD 3. Oil Union boss Joaquin Hernandez arrested Corrut Union leadership guilty of extortion and murders. 4. NAFTA propaganda begins (emigration, complementary economies, Europe and Asia blocs) 5. Solidarity program begins financed by sale of state properties. Money for hospitals and schools and local improvements becomes PRI patronage tool. 6. Church ties strengthened. Vatican recognized and diplomats exchanged. Priest can wear costumes and talk politics and own property. 7. Salinas arrests corrupt policemen and generals. Allows PAN victories in Baja (first non-PRI Governor allowed), Guanajuato and Chihuahua. Vicente Fox begins his rise with fight for democracy in Guanajuato. 8. PRD repressed severely. PRD occupations and alternate city governments in Puebla, Guerrero and Oaxaca. Salinas sends troops and people are killed. 9. Salinas begins selling state industries to friends and cronies and US investors. He asks all rich businessmen for $25 million contributions at a state dinner to PRI coffers. The story of the killing of a Salina's family maid by Carlos when he was younger surfaces. 10. Drug trade problems. fake war on drugs, US planes allowed in. Army and police chiefs and governors on the payroll of drug lords. Shotout between army and federales in the Gulf. Brother Raul Salinas involved. 11. Cardinal Ocampo murdered by drug dealers in Guadalajara. Murky reasons. 12. Nov. 17, 1993: NAFTA passes in the US Congress as Clinton bribes Congress with $50 billion in pork barrel. 13. Situation in Chiapas heats up as death squads gun down dissident peasants. Gen. Guzman tells 750 peasants he wants to talk to them at the airport. They are gassed and clubbed when they arrive. Guzman forced to resign as human rights abuses embarass Salinas. 13. January 1, 1994: Subcomandante Marcos rises in Chiapas with the EZLN. EPR rises in Oaxaca and Guerrero. 14. Bishop Samuel Ruiz and Liberation Theology in Chiapas. 15. Manuel Camacho Solis sent to Chiapas to negotiate with Zapatistas. Subcomandante Marcos rejects any agreement and demands Salinas resignation. 16. Luis Donaldo Colosio chosen by the PRI joins the Democratic Reform caucus in the PRI and is gunned down in Tijuana. Police chief who testifies to conspiracy gunned down. Two of Colosio's bodyguards gunned down in LA later. 17. The PRI Secretary General Francisco Ruiz Massieu gunned down. Gov. of Tamulipas Munoz charged with conspiracy. Brother Mario Ruiz Massieu in charge of investigation. 18. Privatization proceeds, banks sold to US investors, US oil exploration allowed. Debt reduction takes place as revenues from sale of state assets pay off debts. inflation falls, government spending controlled. 51% rule relaxed. PEMEX layoffs huge as it is restructured. Sewer explosion which kills 200 in Guadalajara points up need for PEMEX restructuring. 19. NAFTA takes effect as Salinas is deliberately keeping the peso at 3 to 1 to make Mexicans believe NAFTA made them rich. Wild spending spree on US luxury products with rich peso. Mexican reserves disappearing as a result of this trick. 20. Ernesto Zedillo the stand in for Colosio.

Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000)

1.1994 Elections: de Cevallo, Cardenas and Zedillo. Zedillo wins and the shock occurs when Zedillo finds that the reserves are gone. Zedillo blames Salinas when he is forced to let the peso float. 2. The largest capital flight in Mexican history. The largest commercial deficit in Mexican history. The largest unemployment rate in Mexican history. 50% inflation, suicides, crime soars. 3. Raul Salinas jailed for murder of Ruiz Massieu and disappearance of Gov. Munoz. Carlos Salinas hunger strike and exile. 4. Mario Ruiz Massieu flees to Texas with huge sums of cash from the Abrego drug cartel. He is arrested and kills himself and leaves note accusing Salinas and Zedillo of killing Colosio. 5. Drug Czar Gen. Gutierrez arrested. 6. Clinton $20 billion loan. Oil as collateral. 7. El Barzon debtors movement begins 8. Boom in US gets Zedillo out of trouble as the US purchases Mexican materials in big amounts. Zedillo begins to democratize the PRI and Mexico and will not choose succesor. Primaries introduced and Civic Alliance becomes a hug democratizing force. 9. But kidnappings and drugs continue to bedevil Mexico. Anti-kidnapping squads are kidnapping. In Morelos, you can pay ransoms in convenient montly payments. No arrests made. The PRD grows in Guerrero, Puebla, Oaxaca and PAN grows across the entire North. Vicente Fox victorous in Guanajuato. Cardenas elected Mayor of Mexico City. 10. Zedillo sends in army to Chiapas to try and apprehend Marcos and fails. The Acteal Massacre takes place as whole peasant families are butchered by death squads as they are in Church. The police and army helped. 11. Raul Salinas wife and brother in law arrested in Geneva. 12. The 2000 elections: Fox, Labastida, Cardenas. The PRI finally loses and the 71 year one party state ends as Fox and the PAN Party are victorious.