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The Institutionalisation of the Mexican Revolution*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Peter Calvert
Peter Calvert*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, University of Southampton, England
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Extract

“This period [1928-1934] between the murder of Obregón and the election of Lázaro Cárdenas is most perplexing,” wrote one of the most perceptive foreign observers of the Mexican scene some years ago. “If it were possible to discover what had taken hold of the leadership of Mexico in those debased and clouded years, it would illumine much of Mexican history.”

What are the reasons for perplexity? Basically, they are two: that the events of this period do not seem to fit the generally accepted view that the history of Mexico from 1910 to the present day forms one grand panorama of historical evolution called the Mexican Revolution, and that the only explanation that has been offered of why they do not seems inherently improbable. The view that the Mexican Revolution is a coherent whole we owe principally to the Mexicans themselves and to sociologists who see revolutions in general and the “Great Revolutions” in particular as social rather than political events.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , October 1969 , pp. 503 - 517
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1969

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Footnotes

*

Research in Mexico forming the basis for this paper was carried out under a grant from the William Waldorf Astor Foundation, whose assistance is here gratefully acknowledged.

References

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12 Ibid., p. viii.

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33 J. Dulles, Yesterday in Mexico.

34 Abelardo L. Rodríguez, Autobiografía (México: Novaro Editores, 1962). 3B Weyl & Weyl, The Reconquest of Mexico, p. 106.

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37 Daniels, Josephus, Shirt-Sleeve Diplomat (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947), p. 47 Google Scholar. Rodríguez himself (p. 155) says, “Calles jamás fue ni trató de ser el jefe de mi Gobierno.”

38 Gil, Portes, La crisis política, p. 21.Google Scholar Alatorre, Chico, Cauce y horizontes de la Revolución Mexicana, pp. 68–69 Google Scholar.

39 Beteta, Ramón, The Mexican Revolution, a Defense (Mexico: DAPP, 1937)Google Scholar summarises; Bosques, Gilberto, The National Revolutionary Party of Mexico and the Six Year Plan (Mexico: Bureau of Foreign Information of the National Revolutionary Party, 1937)Google Scholar, gives text and exegesis.

40 Gil, Portes, Quince años, pp. 89–103 Google Scholar; Scott, Robert E., Mexican Government in Transition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964), p. 269 Google Scholar.

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