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I. 1920 - What to do?

• A. Enormous Destruction
• 1. One million dead
• 2. ruined mining, ranching, farming
• 3. No major bank or newspaper survived the war
• 4. only oil improved (needed in war)
• B. What Ideology?
• 1. No single ideology fueled the war
• 2. A revolution of discontent, but no single vision
• 3. Much side-switching had taken place
• 4. many plans meant no plans
• 5. Painfully obvious that government would have to build an ideology out of experience

II. Alvaro Obregon and the Founding of the Sonoran Dynasty

• A. Obregon and the Sonorans
• 1. People now in charge largely from Sonora
• 2. Sonoran Dynasty will create a government of "savage pragmatism"
• 3. survivors of war and the harsh land of the northern frontier
• 4. alien to most Mexicans - saw themselves as Californians of Mexico
• 5. Greate cultural divide
• B. Obregon in power (1920-1924)
• 1. enlightened despotism + capitalism + corruption
• 2. Enlightened despotism meant Sonorans governed as an empire, imposing rule and order on a heterogeneous majority
• 3. Began building a capitalist, modern state
• 4. Power based on triad - army, agraristas (Zapata's people), unions
• 5. Each leg supported government, checked the others
• 6. bound together by nationalism
• 7. Wealthy elites enriched but kept out of power
• 8. Catholic Church becomes de facto opposition party

• A. Minister of Education under Obregon
• B. Patron of the arts - would establish a new nationalism
• C. Key organizer of ideology of the revolution
• 1. Old, pre-Revolution concept of nationalism had focused on Spanish heritage
• 2. Old nationalism had been dismissive of Amerindian and mestizo culture
• 3. Vasconselos sought to create a unifying nationalism
• 4. Two main ideas:
• a. Indigenismo - Mexico should be proud of Amerindian heritage
• b. Cosmic race - Mexico strong because it mixed the best of all the world's races
• 5. New focus on indigenous culture
• 6. Cuahtemoc (last Aztec leader to fight Spanish) becomes new national hero
• D. Education
• 1. rapid building of schools and libraries
• 2. Millions of cheap books provided to libraries (promoting government approved ideas)
• 3. Rural teachers become missionaries of new regime - the "new Franciscans"
• 4. Inevitable conflict with the Catholic Church
• E. Arts
• 1. all arts must support the new crusade
• 2. Mexico, Vasconselos warned, must not be Americanized, like Texas or Puerto Rico
• 3. Key development is new school of muralists, largely commissioned by Vasconselos
• a. muralism a pre-Spanish tradition, thus fits neatly in new ideology
• b. also, great as a teaching art in society with many illiterates - teaching art important to Vasconselos
• c. Diego Rivera the most important - also Siqueiros and Orozco
• F. Of course, one problem - how do define "Indian" or "indigenous"?

IV. Other Reforms Under Obregon

• A. Obregon something of a reformer - had forced the more radical portions of the 1917 Constitution
• B. Some land redistribution (3 million acres)
• C. Unions legalized
• D. But....
• 1. redistributed land often belonged to Obregon's enemies
• 2. much "redistributed" into hands of the generals
• 3. Land reform extensive in Morelos, where Zapata's soldiers were, not so much elsewhere
• 4. Unions legal, but riddled with corruption, represented only a fraction of the people

V. Plutarco Elias Calles (1924-1928) and the later part of the Sonoran Dynasty

• A. Former schoolteacher, last survivor of the major revolutionary leaders
• B. Essentially a nationalist
• 1. Got into conflict with USA over attempt to nationalize oil - backed down
• 2. looking to save face, picks on Church instead
• C. Cristero Revolt
• 1. Calles sought to enforce anti-clerical provisions of Constitution
• 2. Church, provoked by educational reforms, Calles, and efforts of some to create a new church, preaches rebellion
• 3. Church goes on strike July 31, 1926
• 4. Spontaneous rural revolts break out - full scale rebellion by January, 1927
• 5. Eventually, a compromise is forced
• D. Calles begins process of institutionalizing revolution
• 1. Creates a political party, the PNR
• 2. This is the ancestor of modern PRI, which goverened Mexico until the election of Vicente Fox in 2000.
• E. Agrarian reform
• 1. not much - start and stop
• 2. by 1934, less than 10% of land redistributed
• 3. Often resulted in local violence
• F. Maximato - Calles rules from behind the scenes, 1928-1934

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