Editing Mexican Revolution (section)

===Strong central government, civilian subordination of military===
Although the ignominious end of Venustiano Carranza's presidency in 1920 cast a shadow over his legacy in the Revolution, sometimes viewed as a conservative revolutionary, he and his northern allies laid "the foundation of a more ambitious, centralizing state dedicated to national integration and national self-assertion."<ref name="Knight p. 573"/> In the assessment of historian [[Alan Knight (historian)|Alan Knight]], "a victory of Villa and Zapata would probably have resulted in a weak, fragmented state, a collage of revolutionary fiefs of varied political hues presided over by a feeble central government."<ref name="Knight p. 573"/> Porfirio Díaz had successfully centralized power during his long presidency. Carranza was an old politico of the Díaz regime, considered a kind of bridge between the old Porfirian order and the new revolutionary.<ref name=":7"/> The northern generals seized power in 1920, with the "Sonoran hegemony prov[ing] complete and long lasting."<ref>Meyer, Jean. "Revolution and Reconstruction in the 1920s" in ''Mexico since Independence'', [[Leslie Bethell]], ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 201</ref> The Sonorans, particularly Álvaro Obregón, were battle-tested leaders and pragmatic politicians able to consolidate centralized power immediately after 1920. The revolutionary struggle destroyed the professional army and brought to power men who joined the Revolution as citizen-soldiers. Once in power, successive revolutionary generals holding the presidency, Obregón, Calles, and Cárdenas, systematically downsized the army and instituted reforms to create a professionalized force subordinate to civilian politicians. By 1940, the government had controlled the power of the revolutionary generals, making the Mexican military subordinate to the strong central government, breaking the cycle of military intervention in politics dating to the independence era. It is also in contrast to the pattern of military power in many Latin American countries.{{sfn|Lieuwen|1981}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Camp |first=Roderic Ai |title=Mexico's Military on the Democratic State |location=Westport CT |publisher=Praeger Security International |date=2005 |pages=15–25}}</ref>