Editing Mexican Revolution (section)

==Prelude to revolution: Porfiriato and the 1910 election==
{{see also|Porfirio Díaz|Porfiriato}}
{{Campaignbox Mexican Revolution}}
{{History of Mexico|1864–1928}}
{{revolution sidebar}}
[[File:Porfirio diaz.jpg|thumb|left|upright|General [[Porfirio Díaz]], President of Mexico]]

Liberal general and war veteran [[Porfirio Díaz]] came to the presidency of Mexico in 1876 and remained almost continuously in office until 1911 in an era now called [[Porfiriato]].<ref>Garza, James A. "Porfirio Díaz", in ''[[Encyclopedia of Mexico]]'', 406</ref> Coming to power after [[Plan of Tuxtepec|a coup]] to oppose the re-election of [[Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada]], he could not run for re-election in 1880. His close ally, General [[Manuel González Flores|Manuel González]], was elected president (1880–1884). Díaz saw himself as indispensable, and after that interruption, he ran for the presidency again and served in office continuously until 1911. The constitution had been amended to allow unlimited presidential re-election.<ref name=":8">Garner, Paul. ''Porfirio Díaz''. New York: Pearson 2001, p. 98.</ref> During the Porfiriato, there were regular elections, widely considered sham exercises, marked by contentious irregularities.<ref name=":8"/>

In his early years in the presidency, Díaz consolidated power by playing opposing factions against each other and by expanding the {{lang|es|[[Rurales]]}}, an armed police militia directly under his control that seized land from local peasants. Peasants were forced to make futile attempts to win back their land through courts and petitions. By 1900, over ninety percent of Mexico's communal lands were sold, with an estimated 9.5 million peasants forced into the service of wealthy landowners or ''[[Hacienda|hacendados]]''.{{sfn|Meade|2016|p=162}} Diaz rigged elections, arguing that only he knew what was best for his country, and he enforced his belief with a strong hand. "Order and Progress" were the [[watchword]]s of his rule.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Emily |last1=Edmonds-Poli |first2=David A. |last2=Shirk |title=Contemporary Mexican Politics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oBmS_18l4cYC&pg=PA28 |year=2012 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |page=28 |isbn=978-1-4422-0756-1 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>

Díaz's presidency was characterized by the promotion of industry and the development of infrastructure by opening the country to foreign investment. Díaz suppressed opposition and promoted stability to reassure foreign investors. Farmers and peasants both complained of oppression and exploitation. The situation was further exacerbated by the drought that lasted from 1907 to 1909.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wolfe |first=Mikael D. |date=2017-03-29 |title=Drought and the Origins of the Mexican Revolution |url=https://oxfordre.com/latinamericanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.001.0001/acrefore-9780199366439-e-379 |access-date=2021-09-12 |website=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History |language=en |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.379 |isbn=978-0-19-936643-9}}</ref> The economy took a great leap during the Porfiriato, through the construction of factories, industries and infrastructure such as railroads and dams, as well as improving agriculture. Foreign investors bought large tracts of land to cultivate crops and range cattle for export. The cultivation of exportable goods such as coffee, tobacco, [[henequen]] for cordage, and sugar replaced the domestic production of wheat, corn and livestock that peasants had lived on.{{sfn|Meade|2016|p=163}} Wealth, political power and access to education were concentrated among a handful of elite landholding families mainly of European and mixed descent. These {{lang|es|hacendados}} controlled vast swaths of the country through their huge estates (for example, the Terrazas had one estate in Sonora that alone comprised more than a million acres). Many Mexicans became landless peasants laboring on these vast estates or industrial workers toiling long hours for low wages. Foreign companies (mostly from the United Kingdom, France, and the U.S.) also exercised influence in Mexico.{{sfn|Katz|1981}}

===Díaz and the military===
Díaz had legitimacy as a leader through his battlefield accomplishments. He knew that the long tradition of military intervention in politics and its resistance to civilian control would prove challenging to his remaining in power. He set about curbing the power of the military, reining in provincial military chieftains, and making them subordinate to the central government. He contended with a whole new group of generals who had fought for the liberal cause and who expected rewards for their services. He systematically dealt with them, providing some rivals with opportunities to enrich themselves, ensuring the loyalty of others with high salaries, and others were bought off by rewards of [[landed estate]]s and redirecting their political ambitions. Military rivals who did not accept the alternatives often rebelled and were crushed. It took him some 15 years to accomplish the transformation, reducing the army by 500 officers and 25 generals, creating an army subordinate to central power. He also created the military academy to train officers, but their training aimed to repel foreign invasions.{{sfn|Lieuwen|1981|pp=1–5}} Díaz expanded the rural police force, the {{lang|es|[[rurales]]}} as an elite guard, including many former [[Banditry|bandits]], under the direct control of the president.<ref>Vanderwood, Paul. ''Disorder and Progress: Bandits, Police, and Mexican Development''. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 1981.</ref> With these forces, Díaz attempted to appease the Mexican countryside, led by a stable government that was nominally civilian, and the conditions to develop the country economically with the infusion of foreign investments.

During Díaz's long tenure in office, the Federal Army became overstaffed and top-heavy with officers, many of them elderly who last saw active military service against the French in the 1860s. Some 9,000 officers commanded the 25,000 rank-and-file on the books, with some 7,000 padding the rosters and nonexistent so that officers could receive the subsidies for the numbers they commanded. Officers used their positions for personal enrichment through salary and opportunities for graft. Although Mexicans had enthusiastically volunteered in [[Second French intervention in Mexico|the war against the French]], the ranks were now filled by [[draftee]]s. There was a vast gulf between officers and the lower ranks. "The officer corps epitomized everything the masses resented about the Díaz system."{{sfn|Lieuwen|1981|p=5}} With multiple rebellions breaking out in the wake of the fraudulent 1910 election, the military was unable to suppress them, revealing the regime's weakness and leading to Díaz's resignation in May 1911.{{sfn|Lieuwen|1981|p=9}}

===Political system===
[[File:La Constitucion ha muerto 1903.jpg|thumb|A banner (1903) at the office of opposition magazine {{lang|es|[[:es:El hijo del Ahuizote|El hijo del Ahuizote]]}} reads: "The Constitution has died..." ({{lang|es|La Constitución ha muerto...}})]]

Although the Díaz regime was authoritarian and centralizing, it was not a military dictatorship. His first presidential cabinet was staffed with military men, but over successive terms as president, important posts were held by able and loyal civilians.<ref>Camp, Roderic Ai. ''Political Recruitment Across Two Centuries, Mexico 1884–1991''. Austin: University of Texas Press 1995, 62</ref> He did not create a personal dynasty, excluding family from the realms of power, although his nephew [[Félix Díaz (politician)|Félix]] attempted to seize power after the fall of the regime in 1911. Díaz created a political machine, first working with regional strongmen and bringing them into his regime, then replacing them with {{lang|es|jefes políticos}} (political bosses) who were loyal to him. He skillfully managed political conflict and reined in tendencies toward autonomy. He appointed several military officers to state governorships, including General [[Bernardo Reyes]], who became governor of the northern state of [[Nuevo León]], but over the years military men were largely replaced by civilians loyal to Díaz.

As a military man himself, and one who had intervened directly in politics to seize the presidency in 1876, Díaz was acutely aware that the [[Federal Army]] could oppose him. He augmented the {{lang|es|rurales}}, a police force created by [[Benito Juárez]], making them his private armed force. The {{lang|es|rurales}} were only 2,500 in number, as opposed to the 30,000 in the army and another 30,000 in the federal auxiliaries, irregulars and National Guard.<ref name=":15">Womack, John Jr. "The Mexican Revolution", in ''Mexico Since Independence'', Leslie Bethell, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 130.</ref> Despite their small numbers, the {{lang|es|rurales}} were highly effective in controlling the countryside, especially along the 12,000 miles of railway lines. They were a mobile force, often sent on trains with their horses to put down rebellions in relatively remote areas of Mexico.<ref>Vanderwood, Paul. ''Disorder and Progress: Bandits, Police, and Mexican Development''. Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, rev. ed. 1992.</ref>

The construction of railways had been transformative in Mexico (as well as elsewhere in Latin America), accelerating economic activity and increasing the power of the Mexican state. The isolation from the central government that many remote areas had enjoyed or suffered was ending. [[Telegraph line]]s constructed next to the railroad tracks meant instant communication between distant states and the capital.<ref>Coatsworth, John. ''Growth Against Development: The Economic Impact of Railroads in Porfirian Mexico''. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1981. P. 47</ref>

The political acumen and flexibility Díaz exhibited in his early years in office began to decline after 1900. He brought the state governors under his control, replacing them at will. The Federal Army, while large, was increasingly an ineffective force with aging leadership and troops conscripted into service. Díaz attempted the same kind of manipulation he executed with the Mexican political system with business interests, showing favoritism to European interests against those of the U.S.<ref>Baldwin, Deborah J. ''Protestants and the Mexican Revolution''. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990, p. 68.</ref>

Rival interests, particularly those of the foreign powers with a presence in Mexico, further complicated an already complex system of favoritism.{{sfn|Katz|1981}} As economic activity increased and industries thrived, [[Trade union#Mexico|industrial workers began organizing]] for better conditions. Díaz enacted policies that encouraged large landowners to intrude upon the villagers' land and water rights.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brunk |first=Samuel |date=1996 |title="The Sad Situation of Civilians and Soldiers": The Banditry of Zapatismo in the Mexican Revolution |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2170394 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=101 |issue=2 |pages=331–353 |doi=10.2307/2170394 |jstor=2170394 |issn=0002-8762}}</ref> With the expansion of Mexican agriculture, landless peasants were forced to work for low wages or move to the cities. Peasant agriculture was under pressure as ''haciendas'' expanded, such as in the state of [[Morelos]], just south of Mexico City, with its burgeoning sugar plantations. There was what one scholar has called "agrarian compression", in which "population growth intersected with [[land consumption|land loss]], declining wages and insecure tenancies to produce widespread economic deterioration", but the regions under the greatest stress were not the ones that rebelled.<ref>Tutino, John. ''From Insurrection to Revolution: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence in Mexico, 1750–1940''. Princeton: [[Princeton University Press]] 1986.</ref>

===Opposition to Díaz===
[[File:Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magon.jpg|thumb|[[Ricardo Flores Magón]] (left) and [[Enrique Flores Magón]] (right), leaders of the [[Mexican Liberal Party]] imprisoned in the Los Angeles (CA) County Jail, 1917]]
[[File:Partido Liberal Mexicano button 1911.svg|thumb|upright=0.7|"Land and Liberty", the slogan of the Mexican Liberal Party]]

Díaz effectively suppressed strikes, rebellions, and political opposition until the early 1900s. Mexicans began to organize in opposition to Díaz, who had welcomed foreign capital and capitalists, suppressed nascent labor unions, and consistently moved against peasants as agriculture flourished.<ref>{{cite book |last=McLynn |first=Frank |title=Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution |chapter=The Rise of Villa |publisher=Carroll & Graf Publishers |location=United States |year=2001 |isbn=0-7867-1088-8}}</ref> In 1905 the group of Mexican intellectuals and political agitators who had created the [[Mexican Liberal Party]] ({{lang|es|Partido Liberal de México}}) drew up a radical program of reform, specifically addressing what they considered to be the worst aspects of the Díaz regime. Most prominent in the PLM were [[Ricardo Flores Magón]] and his two brothers, [[Enrique Flores Magón|Enrique]] and [[Jesús Flores Magón|Jesús]]. They, along with [[Luis Cabrera Lobato|Luis Cabrera]] and [[Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama]], were connected to the anti-Díaz publication {{lang|es|[[El Hijo del Ahuizote]]}}. Political cartoons by [[José Guadalupe Posada]] lampooned politicians and cultural elites with mordant humor, portraying them as skeletons. The Liberal Party of Mexico founded the anti-Díaz [[Anarchism|anarchist]] newspaper {{lang|es|[[Regeneración]]}}, which appeared in both Spanish and English. In exile in the United States, [[Práxedis Guerrero]] began publishing an anti-Díaz newspaper, {{lang|es|Alba Roja}} ("Red Dawn"), in San Francisco, California. Although leftist groups were small, they became influential through their publications, articulating their opposition to the Díaz regime. [[Francisco Bulnes (politician)|Francisco Bulnes]] described these men as the "true authors" of the Mexican Revolution for agitating the masses.<ref>Claudio Lomnitz citing Francisco Bulnes, {{lang|es|italic=no|cat=no|"El verdadero Díaz y la revolución"}}. In Claudio Lomnitz, ''The Return of Ricardo Flores Magón''. New York: Zone Books, 2014, p. 55 and fn. 6, p. 533.</ref> As the 1910 election approached, [[Francisco I. Madero]], an emerging political figure and member of one of Mexico's richest families, funded the newspaper {{lang|es|Anti-Reelectionista}}, in opposition to the continual re-election of Díaz.

Organized labor conducted strikes for better wages and just treatment. Demands for better labor conditions were central to the Liberal Party program, drawn up in 1905. Mexican copper miners in the northern state of Sonora took action in the 1906 [[Cananea strike]]. Starting June 1, 1906, 5,400 miners began organizing labor strikes.{{sfn|Meade|2016|p=323}} Among other grievances, they were paid less than U.S. nationals working in the mines.{{sfn|Turner|1969|pp=181–186}} In the state of Veracruz, [[Río Blanco strike|textile workers rioted in January 1907]] at the huge [[Río Blanco, Veracruz|Río Blanco]] factory, the world's largest, protesting against unfair labor practices. They were paid in credit that could be used only at the [[company store]], binding them to the company.{{sfn|Turner|1969|pp=167–173}}

These strikes were ruthlessly suppressed, with factory owners receiving support from government forces. In the Cananea strike, mine owner [[William Cornell Greene]] received support from Díaz's rurales in Sonora as well as [[Arizona Rangers]] called in from across the U.S. border.{{sfn|Turner|1969|pp=181–186}} This Arizona Rangers were ordered to use violence to combat labor unrest.{{sfn|Meade|2016|pp=323–324}} In the state of Veracruz, the Mexican army gunned down Rio Blanco textile workers and put the bodies on train cars that transported them to Veracruz, "where the bodies were dumped in the harbor as food for sharks".{{sfn|Turner|1969|p=173}}

Since the press was censored in Mexico under Díaz, little was published that was critical of the regime. Newspapers barely reported on the Rio Blanco textile strike, the Cananea strike or harsh labor practices on plantations in Oaxaca and Yucatán. Leftist Mexican opponents of the Díaz regime, such as Ricardo Flores Magón and Práxedis Guerrero, went into exile in the relative safety of the United States, but cooperation between the U.S. government and Díaz's agents resulted in the arrest of some radicals.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Raat |first=William Dirk |date=1976-11-01 |title=The Diplomacy of Suppression: Los Revoltosos, Mexico, and the United States, 1906–1911 |journal=Hispanic American Historical Review |volume=56 |issue=4 |pages=529–550 |doi=10.1215/00182168-56.4.529 |issn=0018-2168|doi-access=free }}</ref>

===Presidential succession in 1910===
[[File:Bernardo Reyes 1909.jpg|thumb|upright|General [[Bernardo Reyes]], who later rebelled against President Madero]] 
[[File:Francisco I Madero campaigning.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Francisco I. Madero campaigns from the back of a railway car in 1910.]]

Díaz had ruled continuously since 1884. The question of presidential succession was an issue as early as 1900 when he turned 70.<ref name=":5">Garner, Paul. ''Porfirio Díaz''. New York: Pearson, 2001, p. 209.</ref> Díaz re-established the office of vice president in 1906, choosing [[Ramón Corral]]. Rather than managing political succession, Díaz marginalized Corral, keeping him away from decision-making.<ref name=":4"/> Díaz publicly announced in an interview with journalist [[James Creelman]] for ''[[Pearson's Magazine]]'' that he would not run in the 1910 election. At age 80, this set the scene for a possible peaceful transition in the presidency. It set off a flurry of political activity. To the dismay of potential candidates to replace him, he reversed himself and ran again. His later reversal on retiring from the presidency set off tremendous activity among opposition groups.

Díaz seems to have initially considered Finance Minister [[José Yves Limantour]] as his successor. Limantour was a key member of the {{lang|es|Científicos}}, the circle of [[Technocracy|technocratic]] advisers steeped in [[Positivism|positivist]] political science. Another potential successor was General [[Bernardo Reyes]], Díaz's Minister of War, who also served as governor of Nuevo León. Reyes, an opponent of the Científicos, was a moderate reformer with a considerable base of support.<ref name=":5"/> Díaz became concerned about him as a rival and forced him to resign from his cabinet. He attempted to marginalize Reyes by sending him on a "military mission" to Europe,<ref name=":4">Garner, ''Porfirio Díaz'' p. 210.</ref> distancing him from Mexico and potential political supporters. "The potential challenge from Reyes would remain one of Díaz's political obsessions through the rest of the decade, which ultimately blinded him to the danger of the challenge of Francisco Madero's anti-re-electionist campaign."<ref name=":4"/>

In 1910, [[Francisco I. Madero]], a young man from a wealthy landowning family in the northern state of [[Coahuila]], announced his intent to challenge Díaz for the presidency in the [[1910 Mexican general election|next election]], under the banner of the Anti-Reelectionist Party. Madero chose as his running mate [[Francisco Vázquez Gómez]], a physician who had opposed Díaz.<ref>Mark Wasserman, "Francisco Vázquez Gómez", in ''[[Encyclopedia of Mexico]]'', 151.</ref> Madero campaigned vigorously and effectively. To ensure Madero did not win, Díaz had him jailed before the election. He escaped and fled for a short period to [[San Antonio, Texas]].<ref name=clayton285-86>{{cite book |title=A History of Modern Latin America |last=Clayton |first=Lawrence A. |author2=Conniff, Michael L. |year=2005 |publisher=Wadsworth Publishing |location=United States |isbn=0-534-62158-9 |pages=285–286}}</ref> Díaz was announced the winner of the election by a "landslide".