Lázaro Cardenas del Rio

(b. Jiquilpan, Michoacan, 21 May 1895; d. 19 Oct. 1970) Mexican; President of the Republic 1934 – 40 The son of a shop/bar owner and a seamstress, Lázaro Cardenas was one of eight children in a poor family living in a small provincial town in the south-western state of Michoacan. He attended school for about four years, then was employed as a bookkeeper in a local tax office and as a printer. The family's situation was modest and made the more so by the father's death in 1911.

Cardenas's involvement in the Mexican Revolution seems to stem from the assassination of Francisco Madero in 1913, when he enlisted with a band of local rebels fighting the regime of Victoriano Huerta. His enthusiasm and clerical skills helped a rapid rise through the ranks of the revolutionary army and he became an important member of a clique associated with Generals Alvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elias Calles. These powerful revolutionary figures from the northern state of Sonora were to become presidents of the Republic, 1920 – 4 and 1924 – 8 respectively, and, as a trusted associate, Cardenas was appointed to important military positions during their presidencies.

His first significant elected political experience was as Governor of his home state, Michoacan, in 1928 where he displayed an enthusiasm for agrarian reform, popular education, and the encouragement of peasant organizations. At the national level his patrón, Calles, although no longer President, was still the dominant force in politics and he selected Cardenas to be the National Revolutionary Party's candidate for the presidency in the 1933 elections. After an extended and populistic campaign he assumed the presidency in 1934. Although he was initially thought to be another tame client of Calles the friendship deteriorated and within two years Calles was exiled.

As President, Cardenas embarked on a series of major reforms. His commitment to agrarian reform led him to expropriate over 40 million acres of private land for distribution to peasant communities. Schoolteachers were dispatched to the countryside to spread literacy and socialist ideas. The industrial sector was also transformed. A number of mines and the railway system were nationalized and, most famously, foreign oil companies were seized in 1938 and reconstituted as a giant state-owned monopoly, Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). These reforms helped his reorganization of the Revolutionary Party in 1938.

The new organization, the Mexican Revolutionary Party (PRM), was a corporatist structure with four sectors. Beneficiaries of the land reforms were drafted into the National Peasant Confederation (CNC), which was the basis of the Agrarian sector. The government's sympathetic attitude towards strikes and worker's organizations helped the creation of a Mexican Confederation of Labour (CTM), which became the mainstay of the Labour sector. The army's commitment to the Revolution was channelled through a military sector; and a catch-all grouping, the National Confederation of Popular Organizations (CNOP), incorporated teachers, bureaucrats, and small businessmen. This mass-based corporatist party has provided a remarkably flexible and effective political machine for the Mexican revolutionary élite and is operative, if under strain, in the late 1990s.

After his retirement from the presidency Cardenas continued to play a political role, briefly as Minister of War and as the director of regional development projects concerned with rural populations in the poorer states of the republic. But he also served as chairman of the pro-Castro Movement for National Liberation in 1968 and acted as a focus for left-wing opinion within the Mexican revolutionary family until his death in 1970. That mantle was inherited by his son Cuauhtemoc Cardenas who now plays a leading role in the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) — the main leftist opposition party in Mexico.

Lázaro Cárdenas (1895-1970) was a Mexican revolutionary leader and president. During his administration he revitalized the people's faith in the revolution by implementing extensive land reforms, expropriating foreign-owned properties, and nationalizing the oil industry.

Lázaro Cárdenas was born of mixed white and Tarascan Indian ancestry in Jiquilpán de Juárez, Michoacán, on May 21, 1895. In order to support his family he worked in the local jail. When the Madero revolution broke out, he released his prisoners and together they went to join the maderistas.

After the Convention of Aguascalientes, Cárdenas fought briefly in the army of Pancho Villa but in 1915 joined the constitutionalists. In the revolt of Agua Prieta he took the side of Álvaro Obregón. During the 1923 rebellion he commanded loyal forces in Michoacán. The following year he was promoted to brigadier general and given command of military operations in the Huasteca, Michoacán, and the Isthmus. In 1928 he became governor of Michoacán, serving until 1932. He actively supported land reform. To his reputation for honest service in the military he added a comparable reputation in civil administration.

During the succeeding years Cárdenas served as president of the government party, minister of interior, and secretary of war and marine. In 1934 the Calles group, intending him to play the straw man for their continued control of the government, misjudged Cárdenas and selected him as the presidential candidate. Cárdenas, however, won and entered office with a radical mandate in the new Six Year Plan and proceeded to carry it out. He gave the people personal attention and patience. His 6-year term was marked by a reaffirmation of revolutionary faith and a revitalization of revolutionary processes.

When Calles challenged his leniency with labor, Cárdenas forced him to leave Mexico. Labor reached unprecedented power as it reorganized under Lombardo Toledano in the Mexican Confederation of Labor. Cárdenas expropriated 45 million acres of land and distributed them to the ejidos, including new collective types with large financial and technical support in the cotton region of La Laguna and the henequén area of Yucatán. The nationalization of the railroads was completed, and in 1938, in an action described as Mexico's declaration of economic independence, foreign petroleum holdings were expropriated and nationalized.

A Department of Indian Affairs was established, and Mexico hosted the First Inter-American Indigenist Congress. After some initial friction a conciliatory policy was adopted toward the Church, and Bassol's strongly socialistic educational program was moderated with greater stress on nationalistic goals. In 1938, Cárdenas crushed the last significant regional revolt which was led by Saturnino Cedillo in San Luis Potosi. Mexico opened its doors to political exiles, including Leon Trotsky and a considerable number of Republican Spanish refugees.

In the presidential election of 1940 Cárdenas backed moderately conservative Manuel Á vila Camacho and served him as secretary of defense in 1943. For more than a quarter century Cárdenas remained a political force to be reckoned with. In 1960, at the time of the Bay of Pigs episode, he took a strongly pro-Castro position, consistent with his noninterventionist sentiments. However, Cárdenas consistently confounded those who have tried to associate his name with violence and the disruption of the political process. In October 1968 he strongly urged the students to end violence, and he remained an advocate of rapid reform, but by peaceful means. He died on Oct. 19, 1970, in Mexico City.

Further Reading

The definitive biography of Cárdenas remains to be written. A sympathetic view is William C. Townsend, Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexican Democrat (1952). An equally sympathetic account of the early years of his administration, written from a Marxist viewpoint, is Nathaniel and Sylvia Weyl, The Reconquest of Mexico: The Years of Lázaro Cárdenas (1939). Frank Tannenbaum, who was closely associated with Cárdenas, wrote one of the best analyses of his character and achievements in Mexico: The Struggle for Peace and Bread (1950). A specialized study of the labor movement is Joe C. Ashby, Organized Labor and the Mexican Revolution under Lázaro Cárdenas (1967).

Additional Sources

Townsend, William Cameron, Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexican democrat, Waxhaw, N.C.: International Friendship, 1979.

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