International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Lázaro Cárdenas del Rio was president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. He was born in Jiquilpan, Michoacan to a rural family. At 18 he joined the Mexican Revolution on the side of the constitutionalist troops and participated in several campaigns in central Mexico. In 1915 he joined the troops of future president Plutarco Elias Calles in Sonora, where they fought Pancho Villa and his followers, the Villistas, until 1917. After Calles gained the presidency, Cárdenas became governor of his home province in 1928 and gained a reputation as a progressive reformer. This reputation carried over into his presidency. During the Revolution, Cardenas witnessed the manner in which the British and American oil companies treated Mexican workers, and this, among other factors, led him to seek better conditions for the poor in Mexico. After he gained the presidency he carried out the most comprehensive agrarian reform of the twentieth century, distributing among peasants and farmers some of the most fertile land. He took a paternalistic attitude, assuming guardianship over peasants as he promoted his National Peasant Confederation, which was established in 1938 to help promote his agrarian reform. He also supported urban and industrial workers in the quest for wage increases and the right to unionize, and he nationalized the railway and expropriated the nation's oil, using the proceeds to fund ... log in or subscribe to read full text