Personal Government in Mexico
Article Summary and Author Biography
Editor's Note: This article will form part of a chapter in "The United States and Mexico," a volume in a series edited by Sumner Welles, to be published by the Harvard University Press.
FRANK TANNENBAUM, Professor of Latin American History at Columbia University; author of "The Mexican Agrarian Revolution," "Whither Latin America?" and several other works
FOR a half a century up to 1876, the one political certainty in Mexico was that any government, regardless of party or announced purpose -- good, bad or indifferent -- would be overthrown. Only two governments in all this time lasted through their allotted periods, and even these only because they had the good luck to defeat numerous efforts to overthrow them. Almost every part of Mexico at one time or another threatened to set up a separate government, and the miracle is that only Texas carried the threat to fruition. Entire regions were independent of the federal government for years at a time.
The Díaz régime produced the great political miracle in modern Mexico -- stability. It is probably true that the Díaz régime was no more just or free from violence than the previous improvised administrations. But it did keep order. At least everyone knew where the power rested -- in the person of General Diaz. By controlling the army he controlled the country. It was under this régime that Mexico became a nation with a sense of destiny and coherence. An extensive program of development of railroads, ports, telegraphs and so on was possible, and this in turn contributed to political consolidation.
The revolution of 1910 returned the nation to chaos. Between 1910 and 1930, the country was either torn by revolution or in active preparation for revolution. The local caudillo reappeared and the federal government did not dare challenge him for fear that he and his friends -- or he and the government's numerous enemies -- would prove stronger than itself. The governments lived upon sufferance. All the astute ruthlessness of Obregón and Calles, with the deliberate killings of leaders of any uprising, was required to give the political situation a semblance of stability...
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