Plutarco Elías Calles
Encyclopedia
Plutarco Elías Calles was a Mexican general and politician. He was president of Mexico
from 1924 to 1928, but he continued to be the de facto ruler from 1928–1935, a period known as the maximato
. Calles is most noted for his fierce oppression of Catholics which led to the Cristero War
, a civil war between Catholic rebels and government forces that erupted as a reaction against his anticlerical policies, and for founding the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolutionary Party, or PNR), which eventually became the Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI) – which governed Mexico for more than 70 years.
The younger Plutarco worked many different jobs from a bartender to a schoolteacher, and always had a keen sense of political opportunity. He was a supporter of Francisco I. Madero
, under whom he became a police commissioner, and his ability to align himself with the political winners of the Mexican Revolution
(1910–1920) allowed him to quickly move up the ranks, attaining the rank of general in 1915. He led the Constitutional Army
in his home state Sonora, and managed to repel the conventionalists of José María Maytorena and Pancho Villa
in the Battle of Agua Prieta
in 1915.
In 1915, Elías Calles became governor of Sonora
and became known as one of the most reformist politicians of his generation. His radical phraseology tended to conceal the pragmatic essence of his policy, which was to promote the rapid growth of Mexican national capitalism, whose infrastructure he helped to establish. In particular, he attempted to make Sonora a dry state he promoted legislation giving social security and collective bargaining to workers, and he expelled all Catholic priests from Sonora. In 1919, Venustiano Carranza
promoted Calles to Secretary of Commerce, Industry and Labor. In 1920 Calles aligned himself with Álvaro Obregón
to overthrow Carranza, and Obregón named him head of the interior ministry. Calles used his ability to draw in labor class votes to come to power with Obregón. He aligned himself with the Laborist Party and was in 1924 elected president, defeating the agrarianist
candidate Ángel Flores and the eccentric perennial candidate Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda
.
(CROM), led by Luis Napoleón Morones
. Shortly before his inauguration he had travelled to Europe to study social democracy
and the labor movement, and he tried to implement the things he had learned there in Mexico. Calles supported land reforms and promoted the ejido
as a way to emancipate campesinos but nonetheless no large tracts of land were redistributed under his presdidency. Calles founded several banks in support of campesinos as well as the Banco de México
, Mexico's national bank. Calles secretary of hacienda Alberto J. Pani managed to achieve debt relief
of a part of Mexico's foreign debt. After a conflict with Calles, Pani resigned in 1927.
Calles changed Mexico's civil code
, giving illegitimate children the same rights as legitimate, partly as a reaction against the problems he himself often had encountered being a child of unmarried parents. According to false rumours, his parents had been Syrians
or Turks
, giving him the nickname El Turco (The Turk). His detractors drew comparisons between Calles and the 'Grand Turk
', the barbarian anti-Christian leaders from the era of the Crusades. In order not to draw too much attention to his bad childhood, Calles chose to ignore those rumours rather than to fight them.
was president, and began drafting a new oil law that would strictly enforce article 27 of the Mexican constitution. The oil problem stemmed from article 27 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917, which restated a law from Spanish origin which makes everything under the soil property of the state. The language of article 27 threatened the oil possession of U.S. and European oil companies, especially if the article was applied retroactively. A Mexican Supreme Court decision had ruled that foreign-owned fields could not be seized as long as they were already in operation before the constitution went into effect. The Bucareli Agreements stated that Mexico would agree to respect the Mexican Supreme Court decision in exchange for official recognition from Washington of the presidency of Álvaro Obregón
.
The reaction of the U.S. government to Calles' intention to enforce article 27 was swift. The American ambassador to Mexico, Ambassador Sheffield branded Calles a communist, and Secretary of State Kellogg issued a threat against Mexico on June 12, 1925. Calles himself never considered himself a communist but considered revolution a way of governing rather than an ideological position. Public opinion in the United States turned particularly anti-Mexican when the first embassy of the Soviet Union in any country was opened in Mexico, on which occasion the Soviet ambassador remarked that "no other two countries show more similarities than the Soviet Union and Mexico". After this, some in the United States government, considering Calles' regime Bolshevik
, started to refer to Mexico as "Soviet Mexico".
The debate on the new oil law occurred in 1925, with U.S. interests opposing all initiatives. By 1926, the new law was enacted. In January 1927 the Mexican government canceled the permits of oil companies that wouldn't comply with the law. Talks of war circulated by the U.S. president and in the editorial pages of the New York Times. Mexico managed to avoid war through a series of diplomatic maneuvers. Soon after, a direct telephone link was established between Calles and President Calvin Coolidge
, and the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Sheffield, was replaced with Dwight Morrow
. Morrow successfully won the Calles government over to the United States' position, and helped negotiate an agreement between the government and the oil companies.
Another source of conflict with the United States was Mexico's support for the liberals in the civil war in Nicaragua
, as the United States supported the conservatives. This conflict ended when both countries signed a treaty in which they allowed each other to support the side they considered to be the most democratic.
. His anti-Catholic actions included outlawing religious orders, depriving the Church of property rights and depriving the clergy of civil liberties, including their right to trial by jury (in cases involving anti-clerical laws) and the right to vote. Catholic antipathy towards Calles was enhanced because of his vocal atheism. He was also a Freemason. Regarding this period, recent President Vicente Fox
stated, "After 1917, Mexico was led by anti-Catholic Freemasons who tried to evoke the anticlerical spirit of popular indigenous President Benito Juárez
of the 1800s. But the military dictators of the 1920s were a lot more savage than Juárez."
Due to the strict enforcement of anti-clerical laws, people in strongly Catholic areas, especially the states of Jalisco
, Zacatecas
, Guanajuato
, Colima
and Michoacán
, began to oppose him, and on January 1, 1927, a war cry went up from the faithful Catholics, "¡Viva Cristo Rey!" The opposition againist anti-Catholicism led to the Cristero War
from 1926 to 1929, which was characterized by brutal atrocities. Some Cristeros applied terrorist tactics, while the Mexican government persecuted the clergy, killing suspected Cristeros and supporters. On May 28, 1926, Calles was awarded a medal of merit from the head of Mexico's Scottish rite of Freemasonry for his actions against the Catholics.
and did not relent until 1940, when President Manuel Ávila Camacho
, a faithful Catholic, took office.
The effects of Calles' policy on the Church were profound. Between 1926 and 1934 at least 4000 priests were killed or expelled., one of the most famous was the Jesuit Miguel Pro
. Where there were 4,500 priests serving the people before the rebellion, in 1934 there were only 334 priests licensed by the government to serve fifteen million people, the rest having been eliminated by emigration, expulsion, and assassination. By 1935, 17 states had no priest at all.
, a Catholic militant, before he could assume power. To avoid a political vacuum, Calles named himself Jefe Máximo, the political chieftain of Mexico and Emilio Portes Gil
was appointed temporary president, although in reality he was little more than a puppet of Calles. The following year, Calles founded the PNR, or Partido Nacional Revolucionario, the predecessor of today's Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).
The period which Obregón had been elected to serve between 1928 and 1934, in which Calles was Jefe Máximo, is known as the Maximato in Mexican history, with many regarding Emilio Portes Gil, Pascual Ortiz Rubio
, and Abelardo Rodríguez as his puppets. Officially, after 1929, he served as minister of war, as he continued to suppress the rebellion of the Cristero War, but a few months later after intervention of the United States ambassador Dwight Morrow
the Mexican government and the cristeros signed a peace treaty. During the Maximato, Calles became increasingly authoritarian and would also serve as Minister of Industry and Commerce. In the early 1930s he appears to have flirted with the idea of implementing aspects of fascism in the government, and the ideology clearly had an influence on him. After a large demonstration in 1930, the Mexican Communist Party
was banned, Mexico stopped its support for the rebels of César Sandino in Nicaragua, strikes were no longer tolerated, and the government ceased redistributing lands amongst poorer peasants. Calles had once been the candidate of the workers and at one point had used Communist unions in his campaign against competing labor organizers but later, having acquired wealth and engaging in finance, suppressed Communism.
In 1934, Calles selected his old wartime subordinate Lázaro Cárdenas
as presidential candidate, on the false assumption he could control Cárdenas as he had controlled his predecessors. Soon after his inauguration however, conflicts between Calles and Cárdenas started to arise. Calles opposed Cárdenas' support for labor unions, especially his tolerance and support for strikes, while Cárdenas opposed Calles' violent methods and his closeness to fascist organizations, most notably the Gold Shirts
of general Nicolás Rodríguez Carrasco
, which harassed Communists, Jews and Chinese.
Cárdenas started to isolate Calles politically, removing the callistas from political posts and exiling his most powerful allies: Tomás Garrido Canabal
, Fausto Topete, Emilio Portes Gil
, Saturnino Cedillo, Aarón Sáenz and finally Calles himself. Calles and Luis Napoleón Morones
, one of the last remaining influential callistas and onetime Minister of Agriculture, were charged with conspiring to blow up a railroad and placed under arrest under the order of President Cárdenas and deported on April 9, 1936 to the United States
along with the three last highly influential callistas in Mexico- Morones, Luis León (leader of the Radical Civic Union in Mexico), and General Rafael Melchor Ortega(onetime Governor of Guanajuato
)-, his secretary and his son Alfredo. At the time of his arrest, he was reportedly reading a Spanish translation of Mein Kampf
.
In exile in the United States, Calles was in contact with various American fascists, although he rejected their anti-Semitic and anti-Mexican sentiment
s, and also befriended José Vasconcelos
, a Mexican philosopher who had previously been a political enemy. Calles was allowed to return to Mexico under the reconciliation policy of Cárdenas' successor Manuel Ávila Camacho
in 1941. He spent his last years quietly in Mexico City
and Cuernavaca
.
Back in Mexico, Calles' political position become more moderate; in 1942 he supported Mexico's declaration of war upon the Axis powers
. In his last years he reportedly became interested in Spiritualism. A few months before his death in October 1945, aged 68, Calles reportedly stated that he "most certainly believed" in a higher power.
through the creation of the Partido National Revolucionario (PNR) which eventually became Partido Revolucionario Institutional (PRI), which governed Mexico until 2000.
Calles' legacy remains controversial today. He is honored with statues in Sonoyta, Hermosillo, and his hometown of Guaymas. The official name of the municipality of Sonoyta is called General Plutarco Elías Calles in his honor. His starting the PRN is also criticized as the beginning of a long undemocratic period in Mexico.
He was denounced by Pope Pius XI
in the encyclical
Iniquis Afflictisque
(On the Persecution of the Church in Mexico) as being "unjust", for a "hateful" attitude and for the "ferocity" of the war which he waged against the Church.
in the upcoming film Cristiada
, an epic historical drama also starring Andy Garcia
, Peter O'Toole
, Eva Longoria
, Alma Martinez
, and Eduardo Verástegui
.
President of Mexico
The President of the United Mexican States is the head of state and government of Mexico. Under the Constitution, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Mexican armed forces...
from 1924 to 1928, but he continued to be the de facto ruler from 1928–1935, a period known as the maximato
Maximato
The Maximato was a period in the historical and political development of Mexico ranging from 1928 to 1934. That period was named after Plutarco Elías Calles, who was known as the Jefe Maximo of the Revolution. Elias Calles was president in the period 1924-1928, but in the next six years, there were...
. Calles is most noted for his fierce oppression of Catholics which led to the Cristero War
Cristero War
The Cristero War of 1926 to 1929 was an uprising and counter-revolution against the Mexican government in power at that time. The rebellion was set off by the strict enforcement of the anti-clerical provisions of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 and the expansion of further anti-clerical laws...
, a civil war between Catholic rebels and government forces that erupted as a reaction against his anticlerical policies, and for founding the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolutionary Party, or PNR), which eventually became the Institutional Revolutionary Party
Institutional Revolutionary Party
The Institutional Revolutionary Party is a Mexican political party that held power in the country—under a succession of names—for more than 70 years. The PRI is a member of the Socialist International, as is the rival Party of the Democratic Revolution , making Mexico one of the few...
(PRI) – which governed Mexico for more than 70 years.
Early years
His father being an alcoholic and unmarried to his mother, Elías Calles grew up in poverty and deprivation. He adopted the Calles surname from the uncle who raised him after the death of his mother, Maria de Jesús Campuzano. This uncle was a devout atheist and raised his nephew with a fanatical hatred of the Catholic Church. His father, also called Plutarco Elías, was, despite his degenerate nature, descended from a prominent family in the Provincias Internas, most often written out as Elías González. The first of this line to settle in Mexico was Francisco Elías González de Zayas (1704–1790), a Spaniard of distant Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Elías González emigrated from La Rioja, Spain to Alamos, Sonora, Mexico, arriving in 1729, where, as commander of the presidio of Terrenate, he played a role in the wars against the Yaqui and Apache.The younger Plutarco worked many different jobs from a bartender to a schoolteacher, and always had a keen sense of political opportunity. He was a supporter of Francisco I. Madero
Francisco I. Madero
Francisco Ignacio Madero González was a politician, writer and revolutionary who served as President of Mexico from 1911 to 1913. As a respectable upper-class politician, he supplied a center around which opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz could coalesce...
, under whom he became a police commissioner, and his ability to align himself with the political winners of the Mexican Revolution
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
(1910–1920) allowed him to quickly move up the ranks, attaining the rank of general in 1915. He led the Constitutional Army
Constitutional Army
The Constitutional Army was the army that fought against Huerta's Federal Army, and later, against the Villistas and Zapatistas during the Mexican Revolution. It was formed in March 1913 by Venustiano Carranza, so-called "First-Chief" of the army, as a response to the murder of President Francisco I...
in his home state Sonora, and managed to repel the conventionalists of José María Maytorena and Pancho Villa
Pancho Villa
José Doroteo Arango Arámbula – better known by his pseudonym Francisco Villa or its hypocorism Pancho Villa – was one of the most prominent Mexican Revolutionary generals....
in the Battle of Agua Prieta
Second Battle of Agua Prieta
The Second Battle of Agua Prieta was fought between the forces of Pancho Villa and those of the future President of Mexico, Plutarco Elías Calles, a supporter of Venustiano Carranza, on November 1, 1915, at Agua Prieta, Sonora, as part of the Mexican Revolution. Villa's attack on the town was...
in 1915.
In 1915, Elías Calles became governor of Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
and became known as one of the most reformist politicians of his generation. His radical phraseology tended to conceal the pragmatic essence of his policy, which was to promote the rapid growth of Mexican national capitalism, whose infrastructure he helped to establish. In particular, he attempted to make Sonora a dry state he promoted legislation giving social security and collective bargaining to workers, and he expelled all Catholic priests from Sonora. In 1919, Venustiano Carranza
Venustiano Carranza
Venustiano Carranza de la Garza, was one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution. He ultimately became President of Mexico following the overthrow of the dictatorial Huerta regime in the summer of 1914 and during his administration the current constitution of Mexico was drafted...
promoted Calles to Secretary of Commerce, Industry and Labor. In 1920 Calles aligned himself with Álvaro Obregón
Álvaro Obregón
General Álvaro Obregón Salido was the President of Mexico from 1920 to 1924. He was assassinated in 1928, shortly after winning election to another presidential term....
to overthrow Carranza, and Obregón named him head of the interior ministry. Calles used his ability to draw in labor class votes to come to power with Obregón. He aligned himself with the Laborist Party and was in 1924 elected president, defeating the agrarianist
Agrarianism
Agrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
candidate Ángel Flores and the eccentric perennial candidate Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda
Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda
Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda was a Mexican eccentric who was famous for being a perennial candidate in his country's presidential elections. Although he never managed to win a significant share of the votes, he considered himself to be the victor every time.Zúñiga y Miranda was born in Zacatecas into...
.
Presidency
Calles' presidency was supported by labor and peasant unions. The Laborist party which supported his government in reality functioned as the political-electoral branch of the powerful Regional Confederation of Mexican WorkersRegional Confederation of Mexican Workers
The Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana is a federation of labor unions in Mexico....
(CROM), led by Luis Napoleón Morones
Luis Napoleón Morones
Luis Napoleón Morones was a Mexican union boss who served as secretary general of the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers and as secretary of economy under President Plutarco Elías Calles....
. Shortly before his inauguration he had travelled to Europe to study social democracy
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
and the labor movement, and he tried to implement the things he had learned there in Mexico. Calles supported land reforms and promoted the ejido
Ejido
The ejido system is a process whereby the government promotes the use of communal land shared by the people of the community. This use of community land was a common practice during the time of Aztec rule in Mexico...
as a way to emancipate campesinos but nonetheless no large tracts of land were redistributed under his presdidency. Calles founded several banks in support of campesinos as well as the Banco de México
Banco de México
The Bank of Mexico , abbreviated BdeM or Banxico, is Mexico's central bank and lender of last resort. The Bank of Mexico is autonomous in exercising its functions, and its main objective is to achieve stability in the purchasing power of the national currency.On December 15, 2009, Agustín Carstens...
, Mexico's national bank. Calles secretary of hacienda Alberto J. Pani managed to achieve debt relief
Debt relief
Debt relief is the partial or total forgiveness of debt, or the slowing or stopping of debt growth, owed by individuals, corporations, or nations. From antiquity through the 19th century, it refers to domestic debts, in particular agricultural debts and freeing of debt slaves...
of a part of Mexico's foreign debt. After a conflict with Calles, Pani resigned in 1927.
Calles changed Mexico's civil code
Civil code
A civil code is a systematic collection of laws designed to comprehensively deal with the core areas of private law. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure...
, giving illegitimate children the same rights as legitimate, partly as a reaction against the problems he himself often had encountered being a child of unmarried parents. According to false rumours, his parents had been Syrians
Demographics of Syria
Syrians today are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history...
or Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
, giving him the nickname El Turco (The Turk). His detractors drew comparisons between Calles and the 'Grand Turk
Grand Turk
Grand Turk may refer to:* Grand Turk * Grand Turk Island* Cem, a Turkish prince made famous by his extended captivity in the West* an informal western name for the Great Sultan of the Turkish Ottoman dynasty...
', the barbarian anti-Christian leaders from the era of the Crusades. In order not to draw too much attention to his bad childhood, Calles chose to ignore those rumours rather than to fight them.
U.S.-Mexico Relations During Calles' Presidency
One of the major points of contention with the U.S. was oil. Calles quickly rejected the Bucareli Agreements of 1923 between the U.S. and Mexico, when Álvaro ObregónÁlvaro Obregón
General Álvaro Obregón Salido was the President of Mexico from 1920 to 1924. He was assassinated in 1928, shortly after winning election to another presidential term....
was president, and began drafting a new oil law that would strictly enforce article 27 of the Mexican constitution. The oil problem stemmed from article 27 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917, which restated a law from Spanish origin which makes everything under the soil property of the state. The language of article 27 threatened the oil possession of U.S. and European oil companies, especially if the article was applied retroactively. A Mexican Supreme Court decision had ruled that foreign-owned fields could not be seized as long as they were already in operation before the constitution went into effect. The Bucareli Agreements stated that Mexico would agree to respect the Mexican Supreme Court decision in exchange for official recognition from Washington of the presidency of Álvaro Obregón
Álvaro Obregón
General Álvaro Obregón Salido was the President of Mexico from 1920 to 1924. He was assassinated in 1928, shortly after winning election to another presidential term....
.
The reaction of the U.S. government to Calles' intention to enforce article 27 was swift. The American ambassador to Mexico, Ambassador Sheffield branded Calles a communist, and Secretary of State Kellogg issued a threat against Mexico on June 12, 1925. Calles himself never considered himself a communist but considered revolution a way of governing rather than an ideological position. Public opinion in the United States turned particularly anti-Mexican when the first embassy of the Soviet Union in any country was opened in Mexico, on which occasion the Soviet ambassador remarked that "no other two countries show more similarities than the Soviet Union and Mexico". After this, some in the United States government, considering Calles' regime Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
, started to refer to Mexico as "Soviet Mexico".
The debate on the new oil law occurred in 1925, with U.S. interests opposing all initiatives. By 1926, the new law was enacted. In January 1927 the Mexican government canceled the permits of oil companies that wouldn't comply with the law. Talks of war circulated by the U.S. president and in the editorial pages of the New York Times. Mexico managed to avoid war through a series of diplomatic maneuvers. Soon after, a direct telephone link was established between Calles and President Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the 30th President of the United States . A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state...
, and the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Sheffield, was replaced with Dwight Morrow
Dwight Morrow
Dwight Whitney Morrow was an American businessman, politician, and diplomat.-Life:Born in Huntington, West Virginia, he moved with his parents, James E. and Clara Morrow to Allegheny, Pennsylvania in 1875. His father James, was principal of Marshall College, which is now Marshall University...
. Morrow successfully won the Calles government over to the United States' position, and helped negotiate an agreement between the government and the oil companies.
Another source of conflict with the United States was Mexico's support for the liberals in the civil war in Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
, as the United States supported the conservatives. This conflict ended when both countries signed a treaty in which they allowed each other to support the side they considered to be the most democratic.
Cristero War
On June 14, 1926, President Calles enacted an anticlerical legislation known formally as The Law Reforming the Penal Code and unofficially as the Calles LawCalles Law
The Calles' Law, or Law for Reforming the Penal Code, was a reform of the penal code in Mexico under the presidency of Plutarco Elias Calles. The code reinforced strong restrictions against clerics and the Catholic Church put forth under Article 130 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917. Article 130...
. His anti-Catholic actions included outlawing religious orders, depriving the Church of property rights and depriving the clergy of civil liberties, including their right to trial by jury (in cases involving anti-clerical laws) and the right to vote. Catholic antipathy towards Calles was enhanced because of his vocal atheism. He was also a Freemason. Regarding this period, recent President Vicente Fox
Vicente Fox
Vicente Fox Quesada is a Mexican former politician who served as President of Mexico from 1 December 2000 to 30 November 2006 and currently serves as co-President of the Centrist Democrat International, an international organization of Christian democratic political parties.Fox was elected...
stated, "After 1917, Mexico was led by anti-Catholic Freemasons who tried to evoke the anticlerical spirit of popular indigenous President Benito Juárez
Benito Juárez
Benito Juárez born Benito Pablo Juárez García, was a Mexican lawyer and politician of Zapotec origin from Oaxaca who served five terms as president of Mexico: 1858–1861 as interim, 1861–1865, 1865–1867, 1867–1871 and 1871–1872...
of the 1800s. But the military dictators of the 1920s were a lot more savage than Juárez."
Due to the strict enforcement of anti-clerical laws, people in strongly Catholic areas, especially the states of Jalisco
Jalisco
Jalisco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Jalisco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is located in Western Mexico and divided in 125 municipalities and its capital city is Guadalajara.It is one of the more important states...
, Zacatecas
Zacatecas
Zacatecas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Zacatecas is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and its capital city is Zacatecas....
, Guanajuato
Guanajuato
Guanajuato officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 46 municipalities and its capital city is Guanajuato....
, Colima
Colima
Colima is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, make up the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It shares its name with its capital and main city, Colima....
and Michoacán
Michoacán
Michoacán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 113 municipalities and its capital city is Morelia...
, began to oppose him, and on January 1, 1927, a war cry went up from the faithful Catholics, "¡Viva Cristo Rey!" The opposition againist anti-Catholicism led to the Cristero War
Cristero War
The Cristero War of 1926 to 1929 was an uprising and counter-revolution against the Mexican government in power at that time. The rebellion was set off by the strict enforcement of the anti-clerical provisions of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 and the expansion of further anti-clerical laws...
from 1926 to 1929, which was characterized by brutal atrocities. Some Cristeros applied terrorist tactics, while the Mexican government persecuted the clergy, killing suspected Cristeros and supporters. On May 28, 1926, Calles was awarded a medal of merit from the head of Mexico's Scottish rite of Freemasonry for his actions against the Catholics.
Aftermath of the Cristero War and toll on the Church
About 90,000 people on both sides died in the war. A truce was negotiated with the assistance of U.S. Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow. in which the Cristeros agreed to lay down their arms. Calles, however, did not abide by the terms of the truce, he had approximately 500 Cristero leaders and 5,000 other Cristeros shot, frequently in their homes in front of their spouses and children. Particularly offensive to Catholics after the supposed truce was Calles' insistence on a complete state monopoly on education, suppressing all Catholic education and introducing "socialist" education in its place: "We must enter and take possession of the mind of childhood, the mind of youth." The persecution continued as Calles maintained control under his MaximatoMaximato
The Maximato was a period in the historical and political development of Mexico ranging from 1928 to 1934. That period was named after Plutarco Elías Calles, who was known as the Jefe Maximo of the Revolution. Elias Calles was president in the period 1924-1928, but in the next six years, there were...
and did not relent until 1940, when President Manuel Ávila Camacho
Manuel Ávila Camacho
Manuel Ávila Camacho served as the President of Mexico from 1940 to 1946.Manuel Ávila was born in the city of Teziutlán, a small town in Puebla, to middle-class parents, Manuel Ávila Castillo and Eufrosina Camacho Bello. He had several siblings, among them sister María Jovita Ávila Camacho and...
, a faithful Catholic, took office.
The effects of Calles' policy on the Church were profound. Between 1926 and 1934 at least 4000 priests were killed or expelled., one of the most famous was the Jesuit Miguel Pro
Miguel Pro
Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez , also known as Blessed Miguel Pro, was a Mexican Jesuit priest, executed without trial during the persecution of the Catholic Church under the presidency of Plutarco Elías Calles after trumped up charges of involvement in an assassination attempt against former President...
. Where there were 4,500 priests serving the people before the rebellion, in 1934 there were only 334 priests licensed by the government to serve fifteen million people, the rest having been eliminated by emigration, expulsion, and assassination. By 1935, 17 states had no priest at all.
Maximato and Exile
Under Calles' rule in 1926 a constitutional change was passed that allowed for a non-consecutive reelection, and in 1928 Obregón was elected as Calles' successor; this amendment was later repealed in 1934. In addition, Mexico passed an amendment to constitution in 1927 which allowed a President to serve a six-year term. However, Obregón was murdered by José de León ToralJosé de León Toral
José de León Toral , December 23, 1900 - Mexico City, February 9, 1929) was a Roman Catholic militant who assassinated general Álvaro Obregón, president elect of Mexico in 1928....
, a Catholic militant, before he could assume power. To avoid a political vacuum, Calles named himself Jefe Máximo, the political chieftain of Mexico and Emilio Portes Gil
Emilio Portes Gil
Emilio Cándido Portes Gil was President of Mexico from 1928 to 1930.-Biography:Portes Gil was born in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of the state of Tamaulipas in northeast Mexico....
was appointed temporary president, although in reality he was little more than a puppet of Calles. The following year, Calles founded the PNR, or Partido Nacional Revolucionario, the predecessor of today's Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).
The period which Obregón had been elected to serve between 1928 and 1934, in which Calles was Jefe Máximo, is known as the Maximato in Mexican history, with many regarding Emilio Portes Gil, Pascual Ortiz Rubio
Pascual Ortiz Rubio
Pascual Ortiz Rubio was a Mexican politician. He was born in Morelia, Michoacán as the son of Pascual Ortiz de Ayala y Huerta and Lenor Rubio Cornelis...
, and Abelardo Rodríguez as his puppets. Officially, after 1929, he served as minister of war, as he continued to suppress the rebellion of the Cristero War, but a few months later after intervention of the United States ambassador Dwight Morrow
Dwight Morrow
Dwight Whitney Morrow was an American businessman, politician, and diplomat.-Life:Born in Huntington, West Virginia, he moved with his parents, James E. and Clara Morrow to Allegheny, Pennsylvania in 1875. His father James, was principal of Marshall College, which is now Marshall University...
the Mexican government and the cristeros signed a peace treaty. During the Maximato, Calles became increasingly authoritarian and would also serve as Minister of Industry and Commerce. In the early 1930s he appears to have flirted with the idea of implementing aspects of fascism in the government, and the ideology clearly had an influence on him. After a large demonstration in 1930, the Mexican Communist Party
Mexican Communist Party
The Mexican Communist Party was a communist party in Mexico. It was founded in 1911 as the Socialist Workers' Party by Manabendra Nath Roy, a left-wing Indian intellectual. The PSO changed its name to the Mexican Communist Party in November 1919 following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia...
was banned, Mexico stopped its support for the rebels of César Sandino in Nicaragua, strikes were no longer tolerated, and the government ceased redistributing lands amongst poorer peasants. Calles had once been the candidate of the workers and at one point had used Communist unions in his campaign against competing labor organizers but later, having acquired wealth and engaging in finance, suppressed Communism.
In 1934, Calles selected his old wartime subordinate Lázaro Cárdenas
Lázaro Cárdenas
Lázaro Cárdenas del Río was President of Mexico from 1934 to 1940.-Early life:Lázaro Cárdenas was born on May 21, 1895 in a lower-middle class family in the village of Jiquilpan, Michoacán. He supported his family from age 16 after the death of his father...
as presidential candidate, on the false assumption he could control Cárdenas as he had controlled his predecessors. Soon after his inauguration however, conflicts between Calles and Cárdenas started to arise. Calles opposed Cárdenas' support for labor unions, especially his tolerance and support for strikes, while Cárdenas opposed Calles' violent methods and his closeness to fascist organizations, most notably the Gold Shirts
Gold shirts
The Revolutionary Mexicanist Action , better known as the Gold shirts , was a Mexican fascist paramilitary organization in the 1930s.The group was founded by general Nicolás Rodríguez Carrasco in 1933 with the official title of Acción Revolucionaria Mexicana...
of general Nicolás Rodríguez Carrasco
Nicolás Rodríguez Carrasco
Nicolás Rodríguez Carrasco was a Mexican general and fascist.During the Mexican Revolution Rodríguez fought alongside Pancho Villa. He managed to become brigadier general but deserted in 1918. After the revolution he moved to the right and joined several racist, antisemitic and antisinist...
, which harassed Communists, Jews and Chinese.
Cárdenas started to isolate Calles politically, removing the callistas from political posts and exiling his most powerful allies: Tomás Garrido Canabal
Tomás Garrido Canabal
Tomás Garrido Canabal , was a Mexican politician and revolutionary. Garrido Canabal served as dictator and governor of the state of Tabasco from 1920 to 1924 and again from 1931 to 1934, and was particularly noted for his anti-Catholic persecution...
, Fausto Topete, Emilio Portes Gil
Emilio Portes Gil
Emilio Cándido Portes Gil was President of Mexico from 1928 to 1930.-Biography:Portes Gil was born in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of the state of Tamaulipas in northeast Mexico....
, Saturnino Cedillo, Aarón Sáenz and finally Calles himself. Calles and Luis Napoleón Morones
Luis Napoleón Morones
Luis Napoleón Morones was a Mexican union boss who served as secretary general of the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers and as secretary of economy under President Plutarco Elías Calles....
, one of the last remaining influential callistas and onetime Minister of Agriculture, were charged with conspiring to blow up a railroad and placed under arrest under the order of President Cárdenas and deported on April 9, 1936 to the United States
along with the three last highly influential callistas in Mexico- Morones, Luis León (leader of the Radical Civic Union in Mexico), and General Rafael Melchor Ortega(onetime Governor of Guanajuato
Guanajuato
Guanajuato officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 46 municipalities and its capital city is Guanajuato....
)-, his secretary and his son Alfredo. At the time of his arrest, he was reportedly reading a Spanish translation of Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
.
In exile in the United States, Calles was in contact with various American fascists, although he rejected their anti-Semitic and anti-Mexican sentiment
Anti-Mexican sentiment
Anti-Mexican sentiment is a fear, distrust, stereotype, hostility and aversion of people of Mexican descent, Mexican culture and/or the Spanish language...
s, and also befriended José Vasconcelos
José Vasconcelos
José Vasconcelos Calderón was a Mexican writer, philosopher and politician. He is one of the most influential and controversial personalities in the development of modern Mexico. His philosophy of "indigenismo" affected all aspects of Mexican sociocultural, political, and economic...
, a Mexican philosopher who had previously been a political enemy. Calles was allowed to return to Mexico under the reconciliation policy of Cárdenas' successor Manuel Ávila Camacho
Manuel Ávila Camacho
Manuel Ávila Camacho served as the President of Mexico from 1940 to 1946.Manuel Ávila was born in the city of Teziutlán, a small town in Puebla, to middle-class parents, Manuel Ávila Castillo and Eufrosina Camacho Bello. He had several siblings, among them sister María Jovita Ávila Camacho and...
in 1941. He spent his last years quietly in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
and Cuernavaca
Cuernavaca
Cuernavaca is the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico. It was established at the archeological site of Gualupita I by the Olmec, "the mother culture" of Mesoamerica, approximately 3200 years ago...
.
Back in Mexico, Calles' political position become more moderate; in 1942 he supported Mexico's declaration of war upon the Axis powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
. In his last years he reportedly became interested in Spiritualism. A few months before his death in October 1945, aged 68, Calles reportedly stated that he "most certainly believed" in a higher power.
Legacies
Calles' main legacy was the pacification of Mexico ending the violent era of the Mexican RevolutionMexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
through the creation of the Partido National Revolucionario (PNR) which eventually became Partido Revolucionario Institutional (PRI), which governed Mexico until 2000.
Calles' legacy remains controversial today. He is honored with statues in Sonoyta, Hermosillo, and his hometown of Guaymas. The official name of the municipality of Sonoyta is called General Plutarco Elías Calles in his honor. His starting the PRN is also criticized as the beginning of a long undemocratic period in Mexico.
He was denounced by Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
in the encyclical
Encyclical
An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Catholic Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop...
Iniquis Afflictisque
Iniquis Afflictisque
Iniquis Afflictisque is an encyclical of Pope Pius XI promulgated on November 18, 1926, to denounce the persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico. It was one of three encyclicals concerning Mexico, including Acerba Animi and Firmissimam Constantiamque...
(On the Persecution of the Church in Mexico) as being "unjust", for a "hateful" attitude and for the "ferocity" of the war which he waged against the Church.
Popular culture
Calles will be portrayed by the actor Ruben BladesRubén Blades
Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres...
in the upcoming film Cristiada
Cristiada (film)
Cristiada is a drama film and historic epic, currently in post-production, directed by Dean Wright and written by , based on the true story of the Cristero War . Although filmed in Mexico, it is in English...
, an epic historical drama also starring Andy Garcia
Andy García
Andrés Arturo García Menéndez , professionally known as Andy García, is a Cuban American actor. He became known in the late 1980s and 1990s, having appeared in several successful Hollywood films, including The Godfather: Part III, The Untouchables, Internal Affairs and When a Man Loves a Woman...
, Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...
, Eva Longoria
Eva Longoria
Eva Jacqueline Longoria is an American actress, best known for portraying Gabrielle Solis on the ABC television series Desperate Housewives...
, Alma Martinez
Alma Martinéz
Alma Socorro Martínez Toores is a female footballer from Mexico.-Career:Martinéz competed for her native country at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, where she finished in 8th place with the Women's National Team.-References:*...
, and Eduardo Verástegui
Eduardo Verástegui
Eduardo Verástegui is a Mexican model, singer, and actor.- Biography :Verástegui was born in Mante, Tamaulipas, México and was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. He moved to Mexico City to pursue modeling, landing work with Calvin Klein among others...
.
Further reading, viewing
- Buchenau, Jurgen, Plutarco Elias Calles and the Mexican Revolution, (Denver: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).
- Mexico Before the World by Plutarco Elías Calles at archive.org
- El General, film on P.O.V.P.O.V.POV is a Public Broadcasting Service Public television series which features independent nonfiction films. POV is a cinema term for "point of view"....
on PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
(US) co-presented by Latino Public Broadcasting; July 20, 2010. Filmmaker Natalia Almada works from audio recordings made by her grandmother about Calles, Almada's great-grandfather, relating history to present in Mexico. - Lucas, Jeffrey Kent. The Rightward Drift of Mexico's Former Revolutionaries: The Case of Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010.