Plutarco Elías Calles | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Calles in 1924. | |
| 47th President of Mexico | |
| In office 1 December 1924 – 30 November 1928 | |
| Preceded by | Álvaro Obregón |
| Succeeded by | Emilio Portes Gil |
| 2ndGovernor of Sonora | |
| In office 1915–1919 | |
| Preceded by | José María Maytorena |
| Succeeded by | Adolfo de la Huerta |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Francisco Plutarco Elías Campuzano (1877-09-25)25 September 1877 |
| Died | 19 October 1945(1945-10-19) (aged 68) Mexico City,D.F., Mexico |
| Resting place | Monument to the Revolution Spanish:Monumento a la Revolución |
| Political party | National Revolutionary Party Laborist Party (until 1929) |
| Spouses | |
| Parents |
|
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Mexico |
| Branch/service |  Mexican Army |
| Years of service | 1914–1920 |
| Battles/wars | Mexican Revolution |
Plutarco Elías Calles (bornFrancisco Plutarco Elías Campuzano; 25 September 1877 – 19 October 1945) was a Mexican politician and military officer who served as the 47thPresident of Mexico from 1924 to 1928. After the assassination ofÁlvaro Obregón, Calles founded theInstitutional Revolutionary Party and held unofficial power as Mexico'sde facto leader from 1929 to 1934, a period known as theMaximato. Previously, he served as a general in theConstitutional Army, asGovernor of Sonora,Secretary of War, andSecretary of the Interior. During the Maximato, he served asSecretariat of Public Education, Secretary of War again, andSecretary of the Economy. During his presidency, he implemented manyleft-wing populist andsecularist reforms, opposition to which sparked theCristero War.
Born on 25 September 1877 inSonora, Calles fought inVenustiano Carranza'sConstitutional Army during theMexican Revolution, which allowed him to rise in politics, joining the cabinets of Presidents Carranza,Adolfo de la Huerta, andÁlvaro Obregón. Obregón selected him as theLaborist Party's candidate in the 1924 election. His campaign was the firstpopulist presidential campaign in Mexico's history, as he called for land redistribution and promised equal justice, furtherlabor rights, and democratic governance. He won the election and expanded education, implemented infrastructure projects, and improved public health. After this populist phase (1924–1926) he began to persecute the Catholic Church in Mexico (1926–1928), passing severalanticlerical laws that resulted in theCristero War. He allowedCROM'sLuis N. Morones to consolidate unions under the Laborist Party, and launched a failed attempt to cancel theBucareli Treaty. Obregón still held significant political sway and was Calles's main base of support.
Obregón won the 1928 election but was assassinated as president-elect. Calles prevented political instability by founding theInstitutional Revolutionary Party in 1929. During the presidencies ofEmilio Portes Gil,Pascual Ortiz Rubio, andAbelardo Rodríguez, Calles served as thekingmaker of Mexican politics, with only Rodríguez able to assert much true influence. During this period, Calles became more ideologicallyconservative. In 1934, Calles supportedLázaro Cárdenas for president, but Cárdenas exiled him and many of his allies to implement more socialist reforms. Calles was allowed to return to Mexico in 1941, where he died in 1945. His remains are buried in theMonument to the Revolution in Mexico City.
Calles is a controversial figure in Mexican history. Supporters have praised his reforms[citation needed] in areas such as health, infrastructure, and public education, as well as his attempts to separate church and state and to prevent political instability in the wake of Obregón's assassination. Detractors have criticized the escalation of the Cristero War, his crackdowns on labor unions, and for continuing to hold onto power after his presidency. The party he founded, including its two subsequent incarnations, established what Peruvian writerMario Vargas Llosa would describe as "the perfect dictatorship" and ruled Mexico without democratic opposition for much of the twentieth century through a combination of corruption, repression, and electoral fraud.[1][2]
BornFrancisco Plutarco Elías Campuzano, he was one of twonatural children of his bureaucrat father, Plutarco Elías Lucero, and his mother, María Jesús Campuzano Noriega. He adopted the Calles surname from his mother's sister's husband, Juan Bautista Calles, as he and his wife, María Josefa Campuzano, raised Plutarco after the death of his mother.[3] His uncle was from a family of school teachers but was himself a small-scale dealer in groceries and alcoholic beverages.[4] Plutarco's uncle was an atheist, and he instilled in his nephew a strong commitment to secular education and an attitude of disdain toward the Roman Catholic Church, which was separated from the state during this time. This was later reflected in his social agenda, which included the expansion of public education and the removal of church influence from education, politics, and unions.[5]
Plutarco's father's family was descended from a prominent family in theProvincias Internas, most often recorded as Elías González.[6] The first of this line to settle in Mexico wasFrancisco Elías González (1707–1790), who emigrated fromLa Rioja, Spain, toZacatecas, Mexico in 1729.[citation needed] Eventually, Francisco Elías González moved north toChihuahua, where, as commander of the presidio of Terrenate, he played a role in the wars against theYaqui andApache.[7] Plutarco Elías Calles's father, Plutarco Elías Lucero, lost his own father, José Juan Elías Pérez, in 1865 to battle wounds sustained during the resistance to theFrench Intervention, leaving his widow with eight children, of which Plutarco was the oldest.[8] The family's fortunes declined precipitously; it lost or sold much of its land, some of it to theCananea Copper Company, whose labor practices resulted in a major strike at the turn of the twentieth century.[8]
Scholars[who?] review that his hardships in his upbringing; like his social status as a natural or "illegitimate" child, being an orphan, and financial and familial troubles; have all influenced his path, and made him hardworking and determined to overcome such challenges as the eldest to care for his family. "To society at large, Plutarco Elías Calles was illegitimate because his parents never married, but he was even more so in the eyes of religion. Denying the authority of religion would at least in part be an attempt to negate his own illegitimacy."[9]
As a young man, Calles worked in many different jobs, from bartender to schoolteacher, and always had an affinity for political opportunities.[10]
Calles was a supporter ofFrancisco I. Madero, under whom he became a police commissioner, and his ability to align himself with the Constitutionalists led byVenustiano Carranza (the political winners of theMexican Revolution) allowed him to move up the ranks quickly, allowing him to attain the rank of general by 1915. He led theConstitutional Army in his home state ofSonora from this point on. In 1915 his forces repelled the Conventionalist faction in Sonora underJosé María Maytorena andPancho Villa in theBattle of Agua Prieta.[11]
Calles became governor of his home state of Sonora in 1915, building a pragmatic reformist political record, which was to promote the rapid growth of the Mexican national economy, the infrastructure of which he helped to establish. In particular, he attempted to make Sonora a dry state (a state in which alcohol is heavily regulated),[11] promoted education, legislation giving social security and collective bargaining to workers; organized an economic ground for Mexico.[12][13]
In 1919, Calles travelled to Mexico City to take up the post of Secretary of Industry, Commerce, and Labor in the government of PresidentVenustiano Carranza, the leader of the Constitutionalist faction that had won the Mexican Revolution. Calles's position put him in charge of the Mexican economy, which had been devastated by the fighting during the Civil War. The two main sources of production, mining, and agriculture, had been severely affected by the fighting. The key infrastructure of Mexican railways, which had linked many cities and production sites in Mexico to the national market and the United States, had been damaged. The national currency in Mexico had been replaced by paper money issued by revolutionary factions without backing by specie. In response to this, many people used the more stable U.S. paper dollars. The lack of currency meant that in agriculture there was no incentive to produce for the market, which led to food shortages. In addition, malnourished populations are more vulnerable to disease, and Mexico suffered from theSpanish flu pandemic. Calles gained political experience in his months serving in Carranza's government, and his attempt to settle a labor dispute in Orizaba gained him the support of workers there.[6]
In 1920, he aligned himself with fellow Sonoran revolutionary generalsAdolfo de la Huerta andÁlvaro Obregón to overthrow Carranza under thePlan of Agua Prieta. Carranza had attempted to choose an unknown civilian,Ignacio Bonillas, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S. as his successor. Carranza was forced out of power and died escaping, leaving De la Huerta as interim president. De la Huerta then named Calles to the important post of minister of war.[14]
Obregón was elected president in 1920 and he named Calles asSecretary of the Interior.[15] During the Obregón presidency (1920–24), Calles aligned himself with organized labor, particularly theRegional Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM), headed byLuis N. Morones and theLaborist Party, as well asagraristas, radical agrarians.
The serious military conflict was resolved in favor of Obregón when the U.S. threw its support to him. Obregón's government had acceded to concessions to U.S. business interests, particularly oil, in the August 1923Bucareli Treaty. Obregón pushed through ratification in the Mexican Congress, and the U.S. then moved decisively. PresidentCalvin Coolidge sent naval ships to blockade the Gulf Coast to both prevent the rebels from obtaining arms and deliver arms to Obregón's government. Obregón went to war once again and won a decisive victory against his former comrades-in-arms, 14 of whom were summarily executed.
Calles's candidacy was supported by labor and peasant unions. The Laborist Party which supported his government in reality functioned as the political-electoral branch of the powerfulRegional Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM), led byLuis N. Morones. Morones had a national reputation as a labor leader and had allied withSamuel Gompers, head of theAmerican Federation of Labor, a moderate craft union organization. In 1916 Gompers and Morones put pressure on the Mexican and U.S. governments, which were heading toward war. In Mexico, Morones was credited with aiding the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Mexico sent by U.S. presidentWoodrow Wilson. CROM's support for Calles was important for his election.[16] Although the labor movement in Mexico was factionalized, CROM was a staunch supporter of Obregón and Calles.
In 1924, Calles won the election.
Shortly before his inauguration, Calles had traveled to Germany and France to studysocial democracy and the labor movement and he drew comparisons to Mexico. His international travel gave him a perspective beyond the Mexican context. He particularly admired the infrastructure and industry in Germany, as well as the strides that a strong organized labor movement had made. He also observed the power of populist rhetoric to build support.[12]
Calles's inauguration was a great state occasion, with some 50,000 spectators. His predecessor, Obregón, was present for the first peaceful transfer of presidential power since 1884 whenPorfirio Díaz succeededManuel González. Workers from the CROM, headed by Luis Morones and the Laborist Party of Mexico displayed banners. The release of balloons and doves figured in the spectacle. The De la Huerta rebellion had thinned the ranks of the military.[17]
Although Calles was president, he remained in the shadow of Obregón, who had powerful allies in the military and among state governors and the Congress. The contrast between Calles and Obregón was in personality and level of power. "To many, Calles appeared Obregón's creation, a caretaker president who would return power to the caudillo upon the conclusion of his term."[citation needed] Calles sought to build his own power base. He launched a reform program that was modeled on the one in Sonora. It intended to promote economic development, professionalize the army, and promote social and educational welfare. He relied on worker and peasant organizations to support his consolidation of power, particularlyLuis N. Morones of the CROM.[18]
Morones was appointed to a cabinet position as Secretary of Industry, Commerce, and Labor at the same time that he retained leadership in the CROM. In that position, Morones was able to advance his organization at the expense of rivals. Some independent unions and more radical were forced into the umbrella of the moderate CROM. Wage increases and betterment of working conditions were evidence that Calles sought to implement Article 123 of theMexican Constitution, embedding labor rights. The number of labor strikes decreased precipitously during the Calles administration. When railway workers struck in 1926, Morones sent scabs to break the strike.[19]
In 1925, all federal civil servants became eligible for funeral aid, disability, seniority, old age and survivors’ pensions, together with protection against occupational hazards.[20] This was followed a year later with the introduction a social security system for the military.In 1926, a social security system for the military was set up.[21]
In 1926, legislation was enacted with the purpose of establishing a system of channelling credit to all farmers throughout Mexico.[22]
During the Calles presidency, he relied on the financial acumen of his secretary of the treasury,Alberto J. Pani, a loyalist of Obregón, and served in his cabinet. Pani's classical liberal policies of a balanced budget and stable currency helped restore foreign investors' confidence in Mexico. Pani advised the founding of several banks in support of campesinos, but more importantly, theBanco de México, Mexico's national bank. Pani also managed to achieverelief of part of Mexico's foreign debt. After coming into conflict with Calles, Pani resigned in 1927.[23][24][25][26]
The military continued to be very top-heavy with revolutionary generals and the army allocated a third of the national budget. Generals had participated in the De la Huerta rebellion in 1923, which cleared the way for Calles's candidacy. Obregón awarded loyalists following that revolt. The military continued to be a potential interventionist force in Mexican politics, with generals presuming that they could rise to the presidency. Calles sought to professionalize the army and decrease its share of the national budget, puttingJoaquín Amaro in charge of implementing major changes. Many generals had achieved their status as battlefield promotions. The Calles administration called for a change in the law regulating the military, mandating that officers must have professional training to rise in rank. The administration also aimed to decrease corruption by severely penalizing it. Further control was a mandatory retirement age for officers. The most powerful generals were not reined in by such provisions, but Amaro managed to get some cooperation with their enforcement of regulations on subordinates. TheColegio Militar was reformed under Amaro and remained a hope for the improvement of officers.[27]
Since thePorfiriato, railroads have been important to economic development and exerting political control over more remote areas. Fighting during the Revolution damaged railways, so rebuilding had been ongoing since the end of the military phase. Calles privatized the railways and a line was built to connect Sonora, Calles's home state, and Mexico City.[28] Even more important, during his presidency, Calles began what became a major infrastructure project to build a road network in Mexico that linked major cities and small villages to the network. He established the National Road Commission as a government agency, envisioning it as a way to increase economic activity by getting crops to market more efficiently, but also as a means to increase the presence of the state in remote communities. Unlike the nineteenth-century railway network, funded by foreign capital and foreign firms, Mexican road construction depended on federal government support and had limited dependence on foreign technology. Mexicans formed road-building companies, most prominently in northern Mexico with revolutionary generalJuan Andreu Almazán, in the 1920s charge of the military in Nuevo León, forming the Anáhuac Construction Company, making him a wealthy man. This extensive infrastructure project "connected the country, increasingly linking people from different regions and towns to national political, economic, and cultural life."[29] Work began on the Mexican section of thePan-American Highway, linkingNuevo Laredo at the U.S.-Mexico border toTapachula on the Mexico-Guatemala border. Road building was financed internally with a gasoline tax.[28]
Education had been an important part of Obregón's administration, particularly underJosé Vasconcelos. Calles was able to devote more government funding to rural education and added two thousand schools to the thousand that his predecessor had established. A key aim of rural education was to integrate Mexico's indigenous population into the nation-state, so Spanish-language instruction was an integral aspect of public education. Along with turning rural indigenous into Spanish speakers, education aimed to create a loyal and patriotic citizenry. Secretary of Education José Manuel Puig Cassauranc developed education materials lauding the accomplishments of Sonorans Obregón and Calles as heirs to the Revolution.[30] The Secretariat of Public Education, based in the capital and controlled by urban intellectuals, could not command rural residents and public school teachers to adhere to the program, so on-site, there was a kind of negotiation about how education was shaped.[31]
After the Revolution, public health in Mexico was not in a good state, but it had not been particularly good even during the Porfiriato. The Calles administration sought to improve health and hygiene since the health of citizens was considered important to economic development. He gave the issue prominence by creating a cabinet-level position in public health. The ministry was in charge of promoting vaccination against communicable diseases, improving potable water access, sewage and drainage systems, and inspecting restaurants, markets, and other food providers. A new 1926 sanitary code ordered mandatory vaccination and empowered the government to implement other measures for sanitation and hygiene.[33] Also part of the program was the mandatory registration of prostitutes.[34]
Calles changed Mexico'scivil code to give natural (illegitimate) children the same rights as those born of married parents, partly as a reaction against the problems he himself often had encountered being a child of unmarried parents. According to false rumors,[35] his parents had beenSyrians orTurks, giving him the nicknameEl Turco (The Turk). His detractors drew comparisons between Calles and the "Grand Turk", the anti-Christian leaders from the era of theCrusades. In order not to draw too much attention to his unhappy childhood, Calles chose to ignore those rumors rather than to fight them.[36][37]
Another important legal innovation in Calles's presidency was the Law of Electrical Communications (1926), which asserted the radio airwaves as being under government regulation. Radio stations had to comply with government regulations, which included constraints on religious or political messages, and had to broadcast government announcements without cost. Although in the 1920s, there were relatively few people owning radios, the regulations were an important assertion of state power. During the Lázaro Cárdenas presidency (1934–40), state control over broadcasts expanded further.[38]
One of the major points of contention with the U.S. was oil. Calles quickly rejected theBucareli Agreements of 1923 between the U.S. and Mexico, whenÁlvaro Obregón was president, and began drafting a new oil law that would strictly enforce article 27 of the Mexican constitution. The oil problem stemmed from Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917, which re-stated a law of Spanish origin that made everything under the soil property of the state. The language of Article 27 threatened the oil possession of U.S. and European oil companies, especially if the article was applied retroactively. A Mexican Supreme Court decision had ruled that foreign-owned fields could not be seized as long as they were already in operation before the constitution went into effect. The Bucareli Agreements stated that Mexico would agree to respect the Mexican Supreme Court decision in exchange for official recognition from Washington of the presidency of Álvaro Obregón.[39]
The reaction of the U.S. government to Calles's intention to enforce Article 27 was swift. The American ambassador to Mexico branded Calles a communist, and Secretary of StateFrank B. Kellogg issued a threat against Mexico on 12 June 1925.[40] Calles never considered himself a communist; he considered revolution a way of governing rather than an ideological position.[citation needed] Public opinion in the United States turned particularly anti-Mexican when the first embassy of theSoviet Union in any country was opened in Mexico. On that occasion, the Soviet ambassador remarked that "no other two countries show more similarities than the Soviet Union and Mexico."[41] After this, some in the United States government, considering Calles's regimeBolshevik, started to refer to Mexico as "Soviet Mexico".[42]
The debate on the new oil law occurred in 1925, with U.S. interests opposing all initiatives. By 1926, the new law was enacted. In January 1927 the Mexican government canceled the permits of oil companies that would not comply with the law. Talks of war circulated by the U.S. president and in the editorial pages of theNew York Times. Mexico managed to avoid war through a series of diplomatic maneuvers. Soon afterward, a direct telephone link was established between Calles and PresidentCalvin Coolidge, and the U.S. ambassador to Mexico,James R. Sheffield, was replaced withDwight Morrow. Morrow won the Calles government over to the United States position and helped negotiate an agreement between the government and the oil companies.[43]
Another source of conflict with the United States was Mexico's support for the liberals in the civil war inNicaragua, as the United States supported the conservatives. This conflict ended when both countries signed a treaty in which they allowed each other to support the side they considered to be the most democratic.
According to historian Robert Weis:[44]
Against claims that revolutionaries sought to destroy the church, officials insisted that they pursued the rule of law. During his presidential campaign, Calles clarified that he was not an "enemy of religion"; he approved of "all religious beliefs because [he] consider[ed] them beneficial for the moral progress that they encompass." He was, however, an enemy of "the political priest, the scheming priest, the priest as exploiter." This position of lauding religion while inveighing against earthly ecclesiastic machinations was central...to the justification of the anticlerical campaign in general. As president, Calles expressed determination to enforce the laws of the 1917 constitution that mandated secular education, banned foreign priests as well as confessional political parties and newspapers, nationalized all church properties, and granted local governments the authority to limit the number of priests.
Calles had implemented several reforms in the first two years of his presidency (1924–26) benefiting workers and peasants. In this, he followed the pattern of his predecessor, Obregón. However, in the second two years of his presidency and into his post-presidency, Calles precipitated a major conflict between the Mexican government, theRoman Catholic Church in Mexico as an institution, and Mexican Catholics. Calles did not recognize the freedom to join the church.
During his term as president, he moved to enforce the anticlerical articles of theConstitution of 1917, which led to a violent and lengthy conflict known as the Cristero Rebellion or theCristero War, which was characterized by reprisals and counter-reprisals. The Mexican government violently persecuted the clergy, massacring suspected Cristeros and their supporters. The conflict ended in 1929 with the mediation of the U.S. ambassador to Mexico,Dwight Morrow with the Mexican government and the Vatican.
On 14 June 1926, President Calles enacted anticlerical legislation known formally as The Law Reforming the Penal Code and unofficially as theCalles Law.[45] Calles'santi-Catholic actions included outlawing religious orders, preventing corruption from the Church.[citation needed][45][46] However, Catholic antipathy towards Calles was enhanced because of his vociferous anti-Catholicism.[47] In response to the government's enforcement of anticlerical laws, the Catholic Church called for a clerical strike, which entailed ceasing to celebrate Mass, baptize children, sanctify marriage, and perform rituals for the dead. The clerical strike went on for three years.[citation needed]
Due to Calles's strict enforcement of anti-clerical laws, people in strongly Catholic areas, especially the states ofJalisco,Zacatecas,Guanajuato,Colima andMichoacán, began to oppose him, and on 1 January 1927, a war cry went up from the faithful Catholics, "¡Viva Cristo Rey!", long live Christ the King!
Almost 100,000 people on both sides died in the war.[48] A truce was negotiated with the assistance of U.S. ambassador Dwight Morrow in which the Cristeros agreed to lay down their arms.[49] Particularly offensive to Catholics after the truce was Calles's insistence on a complete state monopoly on education, taking away focus from the Catholic education and introducing secular education in its place, saying: "We must enter and take possession of the consciences of the children, of the consciences of the young, because they do belong, and should belong to the revolution."
The effects of Calles's policy on the Church were between 1926 and 1934. At least 4,000 priests were killed or expelled; one of the most famous was theJesuitMiguel Pro.[49] Where there had been 4,500 priests in Mexico before the rebellion, in 1934 there were only 334 priests licensed by the government to serve fifteen million people, the rest having been eliminated by emigration, expulsion, execution, and assassination.[49][50] By 1935, seventeen states had no priests at all.[51]
The conflict weakened Calles politically, and that weakness paved the way for Alvaro Obregón to return to the presidency in the 1928 election.[52]
Obregón ran unopposed in the 1928 presidential election. He was able to stand as a candidate despite having served as president before. Under Calles's administration in 1926, a constitutional change was passed that allowed for a non-consecutive re-election,[53] and in 1928 Obregón was elected as Calles's successor; this amendment was later repealed in 1934.[54] In addition, Mexico passed an amendment to the constitution in 1927 that expanded a presidential term from four years to six years.[55]
In December 1929, District Attorney John Valls ofLaredo, Texas, sent a telegram to US secretary of stateHenry Stimson notifying the federal government of Valls's intent to arrest Calles on a warrant for the 1922 murder ofLucio Blanco. Stimson replied that the government would take any steps necessary to guarantee Calles's diplomatic protections, including armed force;[56] Calles was escorted across the border back into Mexico by US marines without incident,[57] though Valls promised that "the day of reckoning was only postponed."[58]
In protest of this treatment, the Mexican consulate in Laredo was closed, restricting the flow of tourists and merchandise during the holiday season. The consulate was reopened in January after pressure fromPresident Hoover[59] and the Chamber of Commerce[60] ledTexas governor Moody and Laredo city officials to offer assurances that Mexican citizens would not be unlawfully molested.[61]
.svg)
President-elect Obregón was murdered byJosé de León Toral, a Catholic militant, before he could assume power. Calles was ineligible to return to the presidency, but he took steps to avoid a political vacuum.Emilio Portes Gil was appointed temporary president, while Calles created a new political party, theNational Revolutionary Party (Spanish:Partido Nacional Revolucionario, PNR), the predecessor of today'sInstitutional Revolutionary Party (Spanish:Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI).
The period that Obregón had been elected to serve, between 1928 and 1934, was when Calles was requested to come in as an advisor but was instead considered theJefe Máximo, the "maximum chief," and the power behind the presidency; and was a title he never used for himself. The period is known as theMaximato (1928–1934), with many regarding Emilio Portes Gil,Pascual Ortiz Rubio, andAbelardo Rodríguez as puppets of Calles. Officially, after 1929, Calles served as minister of war as he continued to suppress corruption. Still, a few months later, after the intervention of the United States ambassadorDwight Morrow, the Mexican government and the Cristeros signed a peace treaty. During the Maximato, Calles served as Minister of Industry and Commerce.[62]
After a large demonstration in 1930, theMexican Communist Party was banned, Mexico stopped its support for the rebels ofCésar Sandino in Nicaragua, strikes were no longer tolerated, and the government ceased re-distributing lands to poorer peasants. Calles was the candidate of the workers and all for helping those in need of work, campaigning against competing labor organizers, but still opposed and suppressed Communism.[63] It was also during this time that Calles' sympathy forfascist regimes such as those in Italy and Germany began to be noticed.[64][65]
By the summer of 1933, two of Calles's former wartime subordinates had risen to the top of the party:Manuel Pérez Treviño andLázaro Cárdenas.[66] Calles mentored Treviño and supported him to be the party's nominee at the time, teaching his experiences and policies,[66] but soon yielded to pressure from party officials and agreed to support Cárdenas—a former revolutionary general, governor of Michoacán, and popular land reformer—as the PNR's presidential candidate in the1934 Mexican Presidential election.[66] By this time, the PNR had become so entrenched that Cárdenas' victory was a foregone conclusion; he won with almost 98 percent of the vote.
Cárdenas had been associated with Calles for over two decades; he had joined Calles's army in Sonora in 1915.[66] For that reason, Calles and his allies trusted Cárdenas, and Calles believed he could work with Cárdenas as he had with his predecessors.[66] Cárdenas soon asserted himself as an independent. Conflicts between Calles and Cárdenas arose not long after Cárdenas was sworn in. Calles opposed Cárdenas's support for labor unions, especially his tolerance and support for strikes, while Cárdenas opposed Calles's view.[67]
Cárdenas started to isolate Calles politically, removing thecallistas from political posts and exiling many of his political allies:Tomás Garrido Canabal,Fauto Topete,Emilio Portes Gil,Saturnino Cedillo,Aarón Sáenz,Nicolás Rodríguez Carrasco,Pascual Ortiz Rubio and finally Calles himself. Calles and head of the labor organizationCROM,Luis N. Morones, one of the last remaining influentialcallistas and one-time Minister of Agriculture,[62] were charged with conspiring to blow up a railroad and placed under arrest under the order of President Cárdenas. These were false accusations, framing Calles to exile him. Calles was deported to the United States on 9 April 1936 along with the three last highly influentialcallistas in Mexico—Morones, Luis León (leader of the Radical Civic Union in Mexico),[68] and General Rafael Melchor Ortega (one-time Governor ofGuanajuato).[69] His son Alfredo and his secretary were also exiled.
In exile in the United States, Calles was with family and lived inSan Diego. During this time, he also befriendedJosé Vasconcelos, the Mexican philosopher who had previously been a political enemy.
With the Institutional Revolutionary Party now firmly in control and in the spirit of national unity, PresidentManuel Ávila Camacho (1940–1946) allowed Calles to return to Mexico under the reconciliation policy of Cárdenas's successor in 1941. He spent his last years quietly inMexico City andCuernavaca.[70]
Back in Mexico, Calles's political position became more moderate; in 1942, he supported Mexico's declaration of war upon theAxis powers. Upon his return to Mexico, he became interested inspiritualism, attending weekly sessions at the Mexican Circle of Metapsychic Investigations, and coming to profess belief "in a Supreme Being".[71]
He died in Mexico City at 14:20 CST on 19 October 1945, 24 days after his 68th birthday, of ahemorrhage after surviving surgery earlier that week.[72]
Calles married Natalia Chacón (1879–1927) and the marriage produced 12 children.Rodolfo Elías Calles (1900–1965), governor of Sonora 1931–34;Plutarco Elías Calles Chacón("Aco"), (1901–1976), governor of Nuevo León 1929; Bernardina (died in infancy); Natalia (1904–1998); Hortensia ("Tencha") (1905–1996); Ernestina ("Tinina") (1906–1984); Elodia (1908), died in infancy; María Josefina (1910), died in infancy; Alicia (1911–1988); Alfredo (1913–1988); Artemisa (1915–1998); and Gustavo (1918–1990).[73] After his first wife's death in 1927, he married a young woman from Yucatán, Leonor Llorente, who died of a brain tumor in 1932 at age 29.[74][75] Calles's own health was not good over his lifetime, and in his later years deteriorated. His problems date from the winter of 1915 when he came down with a rheumatic ailment, likely from extended periods outdoors in sub-freezing temperatures. He also experienced stomach problems and insomnia. The death of his wife Natalia in 1927 was a severe blow personally. Although he remarried in 1930, his second wife Leonor died soon afterwards.
Calles's main legacy was the pacification of Mexico, ending the violent era of theMexican Revolution through the creation of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR)—known today as thePartido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)—which governed Mexico until 2000 and returned to power for one term in the elections of 2012.
Calles's legacy remains controversial today, but within the PRI it has undergone a re-appraisal. His remains were moved from their original resting place to be interred in theMonument to the Revolution, joining other major figures, Madero, along with Carranza, Villa, and Cárdenas who in life were his political opponents. For many years, the presidency of Cárdenas was touted as the revival of the ideals of the Revolution, but increasingly the importance of Calles as the founder of the party that brought political stability to Mexico has been recognized. When the son of Lázaro Cárdenas broke with the PRI in 1988, the party leadership began to acknowledge Calles' contributions and leadership as the party's founder. In 1990, a monument to Calles was erected that commemorated his September 1928 speech declaring the end of the age ofcaudillos. His speech was made in the aftermath of Obregón's assassination and as the political solution to violence at presidential successions was being resolved by the party he brought into being.[76]
He is honored with statues inSonoyta, Hermosillo, and his hometown of Guaymas. The official name of the municipality of Sonoyta is calledPlutarco Elías Calles Municipality in his honor.
For his actions that portray him as anti-clerical, Calles was denounced byPope Pius XI (r. 1922–1939) in theencyclicalIniquis afflictisque (On the Persecution of the Church in Mexico) as being "unjust", for a "hateful" attitude and for the "ferocity" of the war which he waged against the Church.[77]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | President of Mexico 1924–1928 | Succeeded by |
| Awards and achievements | ||
| Preceded by | Cover of Time Magazine 8 December 1924 | Succeeded by |
| 19th century |
| .svg) |
|---|---|---|
| 20th century | ||
| 21st century | ||
