Plutarco Elías Calles

President of Mexico (1924-1934)

• Born: September 25, 1877
• Birthplace: Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico
• Died: October 19, 1945
• Place of death: Mexico City, Mexico

Calles was a member of the Sonoran Dynasty, which dominated Mexico’s political life between 1920 and 1934. As president and jefe máximo, he institutionalized the Mexican Revolution and embarked on a reform program that laid the foundation for modern Mexico’s economic and political growth. Among his reforms was the creation of the Bank of Mexico and the initiation of Mexico’s first income tax.

Early Life

Plutarco Elías Calles (plew-TAHR-koh ay-LEE-ahs KAW-yays) was born into a family that had lived in the Mexican province of Sonora for generations. His ancestors had founded towns, fought against American filibusters and French invaders, and served as governors of the province. His parents were Plutarco Elías and Maria Jesus de Calles, and he was orphaned at an early age. He was educated in the Guaymas public schools and at the State National School in Hermosillo. As a teenager he taught school in Guaymas and at the Escuela de la Moneda in Hermosillo.

His family connections served him well. He served as treasurer of the Guaymas Teaching Association, bartender, hotel manager, operator of a hacienda and flour mill, and newspaper editor. During this period, Calles had become an alcoholic, and, as a consequence, most of his positions were plagued by irregularities, firings, and bankruptcies. Calles also married twice, once during this period to Natalie Chacon in Sonora, with whom he had seven children, and later to Leonor Llorente, with whom he had two children.

Life’s Work

Calles’s real interest, however, was in politics. He supported the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) and fought for Francisco Madero and Venustiano Carranza. In 1911, he lost a campaign for congress, but in 1912 he became police chief of Agua Prieta. At this time, he attached his political star to the Sonoran caudilloÁlvaro Obregón and over the next few years emerged as part of the Sonoran Triumvirate (Obregón, Calles, and Adolfo de la Huerta). In 1917, following Carranza’s triumph, Calles became constitutional governor and military commander of Sonora.

Calles’s complex character emerged during this period. On the one hand, he posed as a reformer with socialist and anticlerical biases. As a reformed alcoholic, he promoted a prohibition campaign against the sale, manufacture, and use of alcohol, and he established Cruz Galvez Industrial School for orphans. On the other hand, his rule reflected ruthless intolerance for political opposition, including jailings, beatings, firing squads, and ley fuga as well as self-aggrandizement. These contradictory impulses remained a constant feature of Calles’s career.

In September, 1919, Carranza made Calles secretary of industry, commerce, and work. In February, 1920, however, Calles resigned to support the presidential aspirations of General Obregón against Carranza’s hand-picked successor. On April 23, 1920, the Sonoran Triumvirate pronounced the Plan de Agua Prieta and drove Carranza from office.

Calles served briefly as secretary of war in the interim government, and, when Obregón assumed the presidency in December, 1920, Calles became secretary of the interior (1920-1923). The Obregón government made a determined effort to implement the principles of the Mexican Revolution, especially in education, land, and economic programs. In 1923, Obregón tilted in favor of Calles as his successor, forcing conservatives and anti-Obregónistas to rally behind the aspirations of Huerta. A brief and bloody revolt occurred late in 1923, and Huerta was compelled to flee to the United States. Calles then easily won the presidential election and assumed office on December 1, 1924, the first peaceful transfer of power in Mexico since 1884.

President Calles proved to be a tough, no-nonsense leader. He was a tall, solidly built man with a short mustache and a dour demeanor. His features earned for him the nickname El Turco. His cabinet was filled with cronies who became wealthy by looting the treasury. The most notorious of these so-called forty thieves was Luis Morones, head of the Confederacion Regional Obrera Mexicana (CROM), whom Calles made secretary of labor. Morones used his position to bring all recalcitrant labor groups under his control. For his part, Calles became a large landowner near Cuernavaca and ruled with an iron fist, adding ley de suicidio to his list of repressive measures.

Even so, Calles’s record was filled with accomplishments. He had come to power at a moment when the Mexican economy was expanding and there were revenues available to finance his modernization program. He secured Mexico’s finances by creating the Bank of Mexico, and he initiated Mexico’s first income tax. He instituted a massive public works program to build Mexico’s infrastructure: railroads, roads, bridges, dams, canals, and air service. He sent teachers into isolated rural areas, and he began national public health and inoculation campaigns. Agricultural schools were established to improve farming techniques.

Calles was aggressive in other areas as well. In land reform, he distributed eight million acres to fifteen hundred ejidos, and then plots were distributed to individual farmers. Agricultural banks were established to provide credit, but this proved to be a major source of corruption as most of the loans went to Callistas and hacendados. Calles used his relationship with Morones to keep labor strikes down while modestly increasing wages and other benefits. One of Calles’s great achievements was to tame the Mexican army and subordinate it to civilian control. This enabled him to reduce the military budget and transfer money into his public works program.

The opposition of the Roman Catholic Church to the Mexican Revolution and the Constitution of 1917 proved to be one of the gravest challenges to the Calles government. Calles precipitated the crisis by banning all religious processions, closing church schools, and exiling foreign priests. The Church responded by going on strike, and the Cristero War (1926-1929) was quelled only with great difficulty. In 1929, with unofficial mediation from the United States, the Church and the government agreed to a modus vivendi in which the government promised not to destroy the Church and the latter would submit to registration of its priests with the government.

Calles also zealously enforced the constitution’s provisions regarding state control over natural resources. In 1925, Calles ordered all domestic and foreign oil companies to exchange their titles for fifty-year leases. Consequently, United States-Mexican relations became strained. In 1927, Ambassador Dwight M. Morrow arrived in Mexico City to resolve the crisis. Morrow exhibited sensitivity toward the Mexican people and their culture, and he developed a close working relationship with Calles. At Morrow’s suggestion, Calles worked out a compromise. In 1927, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that the oil companies had to comply with the law, but the leases would not be terminated in fifty years.

By 1927, it was clear that no Callista could succeed to the presidency, and Calles decided to allow Obregón to return to power. He amended the constitution to allow six-year presidential terms and to allow former presidents to serve nonconsecutive terms. Political enemies censored this move as violations of the principles of the revolution and launched a brief and unsuccessful revolt. This left Obregón without significant opposition in the 1928 presidential campaign. Unfortunately, Obregón’s victory was short-lived, because he was assassinated on July 17, 1928, by a Catholic fanatic.

Obregón’s murder was Calles’s great opportunity. He decided not to take the presidency himself and appointed General Emilio Portes Gil of Tamaulipas as provisional president until an election could be held. On September 1, 1928, he declared that the era of the caudillo was over and that the revolution would be dominated by institutions, not by men. To achieve this, he met in February, 1929, in Querétaro with state governors, generals, and influential politicos to create a national political party, the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR). This party represented the various sectors of the Mexican economy as well as politicos and military officers. The PNR then proceeded to nominate General Pascual Ortiz Rubio of Michoacán as the next president.

Calles’s great achievement was tarnished by his desire to rule behind the scenes as jefe máximo de la revolución (supreme leader of the revolution), thus making the presidency a satellite of his power. This era is known as the maximato (1928-1934). Calles changed presidents at will: Ortiz Rubio was replaced in 1932 by General Abelardo Rodriguez. The maximato reflected a significant shift to the right as Calles lost much of his reforming zeal, especially in agrarian and labor matters. Instead, the era saw the consolidation of national power under the PNR and corruption at all levels of government.

As the maximato concluded, Calles became concerned over the drift of the revolutionary program, and he made an effort to move to the left with a six-year plan designed to promote further reform and stimulate the economy. He also selected General Lázaro Cárdenas, governor of Michoacán, to be the next presidential candidate. On Cárdenas’s victory in 1934, however, Calles was dismayed to find the president unwilling to take orders. Cárdenas moved rapidly to isolate Calles from the power elites of the party and the military. When Calles criticized the government’s handling of labor unrest, Cárdenas exiled him on April 11, 1936, to the United States. Calles remained in exile until May 5, 1941, when President Manuel Ávila Camacho allowed him to return in peace. In 1942, Calles was given his old position in the Mexican army, and on Independence Day, 1942, Calles joined Ávila Camacho and all living former Mexican presidents on the balcony of the National Palace to symbolize Mexican unity during World War II. Calles died in Mexico City on October 19, 1945.

Significance

Calles’s record is a mixture of dedication to public service and to self-interest. As a result, his place in Mexican history remains controversial. Whatever his motivations, he unquestionably helped to bring an end to the cycle of revolutionary violence that had characterized Mexican politics between 1910 and 1928. The creation of the PNR was statecraft of the highest order it brought political peace to Mexico at long last, and it represented a successful experiment in authoritarian, one-party democracy that continued into the 1980’s. That act was tarnished by Calles’s lust for power and his intention to govern Mexico as jefe máximo.

Calles did much good. His public works program broke down the isolation of Mexico’s agrarian poor, and his public health campaigns improved their general standard of health. He distributed more land to peasants than any other president before him, but he failed to increase agricultural production, leading to food shortages in the 1930’s. In the end, Calles was forced to declare that the revolution had failed and needed to be reinvigorated by a bold new plan for economic development.

At heart, Calles was one of the last caudillos, not a democrat. He believed in force and power, and he devoted his political life to the institutionalization of power and to making it work for the common good and for himself. He also defended Mexican nationalism and independence from foreign encroachment, particularly by the United States. For all of his flaws as a political leader, Calles was a giant of the revolution whose impact, for good or ill, is still felt in Mexico.

Bibliography

Alba, Victor. The Mexicans: The Making of a Nation. New York: Pegasus, 1967. A balanced overview of Mexican political history, emphasizing the Mexican revolutionary era. A generally positive interpretation of Calles’s career.

Brenner, Anita. The Wind That Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1942. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1943. Combined with George R. Leighton’s photographs, this is an interesting, if jaundiced, view of the revolutionary era. Calles’s career is emphasized.

Callcott, Wilfred Hardy. Liberalism in Mexico, 1857-1929. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1931. A well-researched analysis of liberalism’s impact on Mexico. Very good description of Calles’s reform program.

Calles, Plutarco Elías. Mexico Before the World: Public Documents and Addresses of Plutarco Elías Calles. Translated by Robert Hammond Murray. New York: Academy Press, 1927. Consists of addresses made by Calles relating to Mexican concerns. Includes personality portraits and biographical data provided by Calles’s supporters.

Cline, Howard F. The United States and Mexico. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963. Excellent analysis of United States-Mexican relations from the 1800’s to the post-World War II era. The section on the Sonoran Dynasty is scholarly and detailed.

Dulles, John W. F. Yesterday in Mexico: A Chronicle of the Revolution, 1919-1936. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961. An excellent review of the Sonoran Dynasty, with emphasis on the Calles era. Well written and balanced in discussing political movements and personalities.

Magner, James A. Men of Mexico. Milwaukee, Wis.: Bruce, 1943. Consists of a series of small biographies of those who made Mexico a nation. Harshly critical of Calles.

Meyer, Michael C., William L. Sherman, and Susan M. Deeds. “Mexico Under Plutarco Calles.” In The Course of Mexican History. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. The latest edition of this authoritative textbook includes a chapter on Calles’s administration.