When Cardenas took office on December 1, 1934, it appeared that the revolution had lost momentum. Millions of campesinos remained without land of their own. With the labor movement splintered into thousands of small local and regional organizations, the Maximato had kept tight hold on labor activism, outlawing strikes that threatened economic growth in the Jefe Maximo's opinion.
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Cardenas refused to accept the role of puppet that Calles had assumed he would. He immediately began to build a broad coalition to challenge Calles’s power. By the end of 1935, the government had distributed more than 6.7 million acres of land to more than 100,000 families. This land transfer not only won support for Cardenas but also undermined the power of Calles’s wealthy backers. The provision of increased agricultural credit and extension services further cemented peasant loyalty.94
On June 14, 1935, Cardenas had his entire cabinet resign. He then replaced Calles’s supporters with those whose loyalty he could count on. During 1935 and 1936, fourteen governors whose loyalty to Cardenas was suspect had their powers declared void, had elections annulled, or were forced “to go on leave.” Most dramatically, he declared void the election of Plutarco Elias Calles, Jr., the Jefe Maximo’s son, as governor of Nuevo Leon. Cardenas’s style contrasted with that of the ruling clique from Sonora. Its members relied on force of arms to obtain power, while Cardenas relied on more subtle political maneuvering.95
Cardenas shuffled army commands to get his loyalists in key positions and moved pro-Calles generals to positions of less power. Military men who had fallen out with Calles, including Zapatistas, Carrancistas, and Villistas, were rehabilitated. Cardenas further bolstered his support by offering loyal officers seats in Congress.96
Few key institutions escaped Cardenas’s base-building. Following a September 1935 shooting incident in the congressional chambers, eighteen of the most prominent Callista deputies were expelled. Cardenas also sought support from the two strongest remaining caudillos, Saturnino Cedillo in San Luis Potosi and Juan Andreu Almazan in Nuevo Leon, both of whom enjoyed the personal loyalty of the troops they commanded. These caudillos viewed weakening Calles as an opportunity to increase their political power without realizing that using Cardenas to weaken Calles might enable Cardenas to become even more powerful than Calles had been.97
In January 1936, Monterrey steelworkers, emboldened by government support for labor, voted to join the Miners and Metalworkers Union. On February 1, after a labor court ruled in their favor, other workers voted to join a union at the Monterrey Glassworks.98
In response to organized labor’s successful establishment in Monterrey, the closely knit, conservative businessmen who dominated the city staged a two-day lock-out, closing industry and commerce. They adroitly framed the issue not as business versus labor but as the defense of the Mexican nation versus imported Soviet communism. On February 5, 60,000, including Catholic women, merchants, professionals, and members of forty-two company unions, attended an antigovernment rally—the largest post-revolutionary protest to date. They built support by using the radio, a medium that was just emerging as a major force. Their radio spots denounced “the communist government of Mexico” and called for “the defense of our holy religion.”99
World History
