Calles continued to govern as the power behind the throne during Portes Gil’s interim presidency, which extended from December 1928 to February 1930. He orchestrated the nomination of Pascual Ortiz Rubio as presidential candidate for the remainder of the term to which Obregon had been elected. In 1926, Ortiz Rubio had been appointed as Mexican ambassador to Brazil. He was attractive to Calles since by virtue of his having been abroad he had no power base and was totally dependent on Calles.
The designation of Ortiz Rubio triggered Mexico’s last widespread revolt, led by generals Jesus Aguirre and Jose Gonzalo Escobar, who had their own presidential aspirations. They had hoped to attract the broad coalition that had been held together by Obregon’s strong personality. Without its leader, however, the coalition had disintegrated. Thus they were soon defeated by Calles, who stepped in as secretary of war. Irregular rural forces, whose members had either received land in the land reform or hoped to in the future, contributed significantly to Calles’s victory, as did the U. S. government, which supplied the Mexican government with arms. As a result of the revolt, forty-seven generals were shot or exiled and 2,000 combatants died. The failure of the revolt delivered a clear message—from then on, the route to power was through official channels, not through toppling the by-then-entrenched government.76
While the Escobar revolt eliminated Ortiz Rubio’s military challengers, he did face an electoral challenge by educator Jose Vasconcelos, who had served as rector of the National University and as secretary of public education under Obregon. Vasconcelos ran as a reformist, criticizing public office being used for private gain. He advocated a literacy program and an expansion of the educational system. Many saw Vasconcelos, who stressed the need for democracy, as a new Madero. Another plank of Vasconcelos’s platform called for granting the vote to women. In contrast to Madero, Vasconcelos advocated accelerating land reform.77
During his campaign, Vasconcelos, who enjoyed strong urban support, drew large crowds. He was hampered by having to rely on private funds while the PNR enjoyed access to public funds. Pro-government goons repeatedly attacked his rallies. This violence continued through election day, when nine died and nineteen were wounded in Mexico City alone.78
Another feature of the PNR became apparent on election day. The party counted the votes. Despite Ortiz Rubio being virtually unknown, Vasconcelos was credited with only 105,655 votes nationwide compared to Ortiz Rubio’s 1,825,732. Some individual Vasconcelos rallies in Mexico City had attracted more than 100,000 supporters. It was clear that Calles and the generals supporting him were unwilling to lose at the ballot box what they had won by force of arms. As historian Jean Meyer commented, the elections were “quite manifestly fraudulent.”79
Vasconcelos denounced the official results, threatened revolt, and took refuge in the United States. However, it was clear that as Ortiz Rubio had the backing of the army, Calles, and both the U. S. and Mexican governments, rebellion would be futile. The main result of the election was increased cynicism about democracy among an entire generation of middle-class Mexicans.80
Ortiz Rubio served as a figurehead president from February 1930 to September 1932. His dependency on Calles—who lived directly in front of the presidential residence in Chapultepec Castle—was so great that Mexicans would point to the castle and proclaim, “Aqui vive el presidente, el que manda vive enfrente” (“Here lives the president, the boss lives in front”).
Calles ousted his own choice as president when Ortiz Rubio disagreed with him on policy and choice of cabinet members. Ortiz Rubio left without a fight, admitting that he “had arrived at the presidency by the aid and will of the General [Calles] and not through my own popularity or personal strength. . .”81
To finish the presidential term ending in 1934, Calles selected Abelardo Rodriguez, a typical millionaire general. From 1923 to 1929, as governor of Baja California Norte, Rodriguez had loyally served Obregon and Calles and had enriched himself by promoting gambling and prostitution. During Rodriguez’s presidency, which lasted from September 1932 through November 1934, reforms were put on hold and government emphasis shifted to promoting economic development, protecting private enterprise and attracting foreign capital. As president, Rodriguez continued to add banks and casinos to his personal holdings. To maintain the delicate balance between appearing foolish and threatening Calles, the president instructed his cabinet members to consult him, not Calles, unless Calles initiated the contact.82
Calles’s role as the central figure with the final word on political matters earned him the title of Jefe Maximo (top chief). In 1929, he stated that in the future any land taken for land reform would be paid for in cash. Given the lack of funds in the Depression-wracked treasury, Mexicans generally viewed that statement as signaling the end of land reform. After that date, agricultural production, not distributing land to the landless, was emphasized. This reflected Calles’s view that agriculture should be left to commercial farmers receiving government guarantees and incentives.83
Agricultural workers were eating less than in 1896, and the low wages paid them in 1910 would have looked magnificent in 1934. Given this situation, it was hardly surprising that as the 1934 elections approached, the political situation in Mexico was threatening to escape from Calles’s control. The country was still suffering from the Depression. Labor unrest was increasing, and foreign observers spoke of the likelihood of new peasant wars.84
In response to these conditions, a faction opposing Calles formed inside the PNR. Its members were of middle-class origin, felt dispossessed, and were in disagreement with the ruling faction. Weak in itself, this faction found support in workers and peasants, whose aspirations it had raised.85
The leader of this faction was a general of humble origins, Lazaro Cardenas. His ancestry was mixed at a time when other leading political figures were of higher social status and had lighter skins. He joined the Revolution as a teenager after only four years of formal education. Cardenas advanced rapidly through the ranks of the army and was promoted to general at age twenty-five.
Between 1925 and 1928, he served as a military zone commander on the oil-rich Gulf Coast, where he witnessed firsthand the squalor and inequality of oil camps and the companies’ cynical disregard of the host population. Such abuses would later come back to haunt these firms.
In 1928, Cardenas became governor of his native state of Michoacan, where he promoted rural education and carried out land reform on his own initiative. There he faced a conservative backlash. Hacendados and even some conservative Indian communities felt threatened by teachers introducing not only literacy but also modern ways and anti-clerical views. Teachers frequently came to school armed to protect themselves and their schools. As governor, Cardenas set a pattern that he would follow as president—his door was open to peasants and workers with a complaint.86
In 1933, the dissident faction led by Cardenas dominated the drafting of the PNR’s Six-Year Plan for the 1934—1940 presidential term. The Plan called for an increased state role in agriculture, industry, and infrastructure, as well as social development. It reflected the skepticism in the free market produced by the 1929 Depression. It was markedly pro-labor and nationalistic and emphasized the need to provide land to all agrarian communities that did not have sufficient acreage to support themselves. The Plan, which reflected the views of a rising generation of politicians, technocrats, and intellectuals, became Cardenas’s de facto political platform. Few, however, believed that Cardenas would be able to implement it, since Calles remained as Jefe Maximo.87
As the 1934 presidential elections approached, Cardenas openly sought the PNR nomination. As a result of the reforms he had carried out as governor, he enjoyed widespread support within the PNR and from the army and peasants. Calles was virtually forced to nominate Cardenas, despite his preferring a more conservative aspirant, PNR President Manuel Perez Trevino. To have nominated his favorite not only would have alienated important sectors of the ruling coalition but would have also risked rebellion by peasants and workers whose salaries had declined due to the Depression.
Calles, taking into consideration the broad support for Cardenas, approved his candidacy for the 1934—1940 term. The Jefe Maximo assumed Cardenas would distribute enough land to quiet the most radical peasants but not enough to upset the existing social order. He felt he could control Cardenas, as he had controlled his immediate predecessors, and that power would inevitably make Cardenas more conservative. Calles assumed that since Cardenas was not only his friend but had also served as: 1) head of the PNR, 2) a revolutionary general, 3) interior minister, 4) and governor of Michoacan, he was as much a part of his system as one could be. Also, Cardenas’s record was not uniformly progressive since he had participated in a campaign against the Yaqui in Sonora and in 1932 as minister of war he had overseen the disarming of agrarian radicals in Veracruz led by Adalberto Tejeda.88
Even though he lacked significant opposition, Cardenas undertook a marathon campaign, traveling more than 17,000 miles by car, rail, airplane, boat, and horse. This served not to convince voters—his election was assured—but to give him the opportunity to learn about Mexico’s problems, to familiarize people with his ideas, and to build a base of support.89
As a candidate, Cardenas stressed the need for better distribution of wealth, a greatly expanded role for peasant and worker groups, and a larger government role in social and economic matters. He alluded to the inevitable conservative backlash such actions would produce in a May 1934 speech, “I shall give to the campesinos the Mausers [rifles] with which they fought the Revolution so they can defend themselves, the ejido, and the rural school.” In declaring that the solution to Mexico’s economic problems would require massive state intervention, Cardenas was the first major political figure to explicitly repudiate the liberal, laissez-faire model that had been in vogue among Mexican policymakers since the nineteenth century.90
The election, in which Cardenas ran virtually unopposed, aroused little interest. Only 14 percent of the electorate bothered to cast a ballot to select Cardenas for the 1934—1940 term.91
During the Maximato, the PNR simply incorporated caudillos into its ranks. Its goal was to maintain consensus and eliminate violence as a way to settle disputes among the elite. The PNR regularly won elections since it had the backing not only of caudillos but also of government arms and financing. to this, membership in the PNR became an indispensable requirement for political success. No one from the outside could be elected to or volunteer for PNR leadership. In its attempt to satisfy the contradictory demands of labor, business, and peasants, the party called upon these groups to oppose “reactionary forces,” whose identity was never precisely spelled out.92
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