An Overview of the Mexican Revolution and the Bad Presidency of Porfirio Diaz

The Mexican Revolution was brought on by discontent and disagreement between officials in office and the people of Mexico. Much of this discontent formed during the presidency of Porfirio Diaz. During the p of thirty-one years that he ruled in office, Diaz had the final decision in who was to partake in the government. Diaz s time in office directly reflected a dictatorship that called denied the people to have any input in the laws that governed Mexico. During the time of the Revolution wealth was scarce and injustice was overwhelming to the people of Mexico. The Revolution grew out of this discontent and was initiated by a liberalist by the name of Franciso Madero. This marks the beginning of social change in Mexican history.

In the early 20th Century, a group of aggressive, young leaders sought to gain the right to participate in their own government by strategizing against Porfirio Diaz and his regime. This group of young leaders believed that they could assume their proper role in Mexican politics once President Diaz announced publicly that Mexico was ready for democracy. Although the Mexican Constitution called for public election and other institutions of democracy, Diaz and his supporters used their political and economic resources to stay in power indefinitely. It was this power that Diaz had over his regime that kept him in office for a total of thirty-one years.

Francisco Madero was one of the strongest believers that President Diaz should renounce his power and not seek re-election. Together with other young reformers, Madero created the "Anti- reeleccionista" Party, which he represented in subsequent presidential elections. Between elections, Madero traveled throughout the country, campaigning for his ideas.

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Francisco Madero was a firm supporter of democracy and of making government subject to the strict limits of the law, and the success of Madero's movement made him a threat in the eyes of President Diaz. Shortly before the elections of 1910, Madero was apprehended in Monterrey and imprisoned in San Luis Putosi. Learning of Diaz's re-election, Madero fled to the United States in October of 1910. In exile, he issued the "Plan of San Luis," a manifesto that declared that the elections had been a fraud and that he would not recognize Porfirio Diaz as the legitimate President of the Republic.

Instead, Madero made the daring move of declaring himself President until new elections could be held. Madero promised to return all land that had been confiscated from the peasants, and he called for universal voting rights and for a limit of one term for the presidency. Madero's call for an uprising on November 20th, 1910, marked the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.

On November 14th, in Cuchillo Parado in the state of Chihuahua, Toribio Ortega and a small group of followers took up arms. On the 18th in Puebla, Diaz's authorities uncovered preparations for an uprising in the home of the brothers Maximo and Aquiles Serdan, who where instantly killed for their intentions. Back in Chihuahua, Madero was able to persuade Pascual Orozco and Francisco Villa to join the revolution. Though they had no military experience, Orozco and Villa proved to be successful in their strategies, and they earned the allegiance of the people of northern Mexico.

In March of 1911, Emiliano Zapata led the uprising of the peasants of Morelos to claim their rights over local land and water. At the same time, armed revolt began in many other parts of the country. The "Maderista" troops, and the national anger which inspired them, defeated the army of Diaz within six months. The decisive victory of the Mexican Revolution was the capture of Ciudad Juarez, just across the river from El Paso, by Orozco and Villa. Porfirio Diaz then resigned as President and fled to exile in France, where he died in 1915.

With the collapse of the Diaz regime, the Mexican Congress elected Francisco Leon De La Barra as President Pro-Temp and called for national popular elections, which resulted in the victory of Francisco Madero as President and Jose Maria Pino Suarez as Vice-President.

His career was filled with contradictions. A white man, he led a movement of oppressed Indians against a government representing a European-descended establishment -- but headed by an Indian. Born to wealth, he led a rebellion of the poor and downtrodden against a greedy power structure many of whose leaders had been born to poverty.

Madero's family was one of the richest in Mexico. Originally of Portuguese-Jewish descent, Catholic for generations, the Maderos settled in the northern state of Coahuila where they made a fortune of diversified origin. Family interests included land, cotton, banks, mines, factories and a wine and spirit industry. Although Madero came from such a privileged background, he became involved with the revolution because of his human kindness and despise of Diaz.

The future liberator was born at Parras de la Fuente, southern Coahuila, on October 30, 1873. Though he is usually known as Francisco Indalecio, legal documents and his marriage license list him as Francisco Ignacio. Like many privileged youths of his day, Madero received part of his education abroad at a Catholic school in Baltimore, and furthered his education at the University of California at Berkeley.

Young Madero was a supremely atypical product of his culture and environment. Though he was never known to lack courage, Madero's five-foot-two-inch height and shrill, high-pitched voice did not exactly conform to the macho image that Mexicans associate with powerful leaders. His education and kindness towards people gained him the trust and loyalty of his followers. In 1908 Madero published a book titled La Sucesion Presidencial en 1910 (The Presidential Succession in 1910). The book called for Diaz to step down from the presidency and for Corral to be removed from the election. The book succeeded in creating an anti-Diaz sentiment and a strong anti-reelection movement sprang up, complete with anti-reelection clubs and then an anti-reelection party, with Madero as its candidate.

He managed to gain supporters through his tactful strategies that called for putting the people first. By committing himself to gain social justice for the people, he gained many supporters. The system of cooperation as suggested by Axelrod suggests that cooperation emerges from a give and take kind of relationship. Madero s strategies follow this theory by giving the people hope and motivation in return they gave him support. Deviating from their government and Diaz-the people of Mexico were ready and willing to put in effort to regain justice.

Social change had begun to take form under Madero s leadership. The discontent among the people was always existent yet there was never a plan for action. Organization was vital to the success of the plot to get Diaz out of office.

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