How the Mexican Revolution ended in 1992 with an act of betrayal
School-age children in Mexico learn that the Mexican Revolution kicked off in 1910 and ended with the signing of the constitution of 1917, thanks to the battlefield victories of Emiliano Zapata and Francisco Villa — both of whom would be assassinated in the following years.
Or did it? There’s a case to be made that it lasted until 1992 — 75 years later.
The Mexican Revolution is far too complex to be addressed in a single post. Of course, there are extensive tomes and excellent podcasts, like Season 9 of Mike Duncan’s Revolutions.
Its origins share similarities with other revolutions, such as in France or Russia. Those involve extreme social inequality, the hoarding of power by a strong man, and a powder keg of anger and resentment just waiting for a spark to explode.
The main thrust of the Mexican Revolution was land reform, as just about every acre of plowable land had been privatized.
In Mexico, the spark was President Porfirio Díaz’s refusal to give up power after 30 years. Díaz aggravated the situation after an interview in 1908 in which he claimed plans to step down in 1910 and allow the opposition to form their own political parties. Díaz did not follow through, enraging entire generations of elites waiting to pounce into power.
In an attempt to hold Díaz to his promise, Francisco Madero (the scion of one of Mexico’s most prominent families) challenged the presidency, which got him imprisoned and then exiled, but ended up launching the revolution anyway, deposing Díaz and sending him to exile in France.
Of course, it would not be smooth sailing for Mexico from there, as counter-revolutions and coups continued to plunge the country into political violence. Land reform was finally written into the constitution in 1917.
Its complicated rollout took over a decade to indeed come into effect. However, hundreds of millions of square miles would be granted to the people through the ejido system, a form of communal ownership in which members have the right to farm specific parcels while not owning them outright.
So, if the agrarian reform was a success and the main objective of the revolution was achieved, why is 1992 so relevant?
In 1929, the Partido de la Revolucion Institucional (though it went through a handful of names), was founded by President and former revolutionary Plutarco Elías Calles. While it could be argued that despite the PRI’s authoritarian bent, at least in the beginning the party’s ideology was to continue the legacy of social justice of the revolution. But the PRI just hung on to power, becoming more and more repressive.
Historians like Alan Knight of Oxford University argue that the Mexican Revolution wrapped up by the 1940s, yet others see events like the student massacre at Tlatelolco in 1968 as a continuation of a history of violence whose roots stem back to the beginning of the 20th century.
In the first half of the 1990s, what many today see as the last gasp of revolutionary fervor in the country exploded in the state of Chiapas, with the appearance on the national and international stage of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional. The EZLN, in the name of Zapata himself, undertook paramilitary action to bring attention to the plight of the Indigenous people of Chiapas — carving out autonomous enclaves where the federal government to this day dares not venture.
So what happened?
Under the banner of the PRI, 1988 saw Carlos Salinas de Gortari become president of Mexico, Yet as was typical of the time, his actual electoral victory was and still is considered fraudulent by the vast majority of historians, political scientists, and foreign observers.
In 1992, the fourth year of his tenure, de Gortari made several changes to the constitution. These included rollbacks to the separation between the church and state (which were mostly unsuccessful) and, more crucially, alterations to agrarian reform, which would allow ejido land to be sold.
In the aftermath of the 1992 land reform, the country experienced a brief economic boom, with domestic and international corporations and individuals buying up large tracts of land. Though some of these transactions were above board, several well-documented land sales were made under threats of violence, often backed up by the government, a practice that continues to this day.
After Gortari left power, Mexico fell into a severe economic crisis, in part due to the sacking of the treasury and the effects of the all-out theft of the Land Reform Act. Though Carlos Salinas de Gortari was never convicted, his brother and leading business partner Raúl Salinas spent a decade in federal prison.
To this day, Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s presidency is seen as among the worst in Mexico’s history and the final nail in the country’s revolutionary fight for social equality and justice. The PRI was ousted from power in 2000.
Anyone spotting an opportunity to purchase ejido land should consider the nation’s history and ramifications — not to mention the legal and bureaucratic headache.
Senior Editor Carlos Rosado van der Gracht is a Mexican expedition/Canadian photographer and adventure leader. Born in Mérida, Carlos holds multimedia, philosophy, and translation degrees from universities in Mexico, Canada and Norway.
