1941 ORIGINAL PRESIDENT MEXICO CALLES PHOTO VINTAGE MEXICAN GENERAL for Sale

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1941 ORIGINAL PRESIDENT MEXICO CALLES PHOTO VINTAGE MEXICAN GENERAL:
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PRESIDENT PLUTARCO ELIAS CALLES VINTAGE ORIGINAL 7X9 INCH PHOTO FROM 1941
Plutarco Elías Calles was a Mexican military general and politician, and a freemason. He was the powerful interior minister under President Álvaro Obregón, who chose Calles as his successor, he was violently anticlerical and fought against the Catholic Church.Plutarco Elías Calles, (born September 25, 1877, Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico—died October 19, 1945, Mexico City), Mexican military and political leader who modernized the revolutionary armies and later became president of Mexico. He was the founder of the National Revolutionary Party (Partido Nacional Revolucionario; PNR), which became the major Mexican political party (renamed in 1938 the Mexican Revolutionary Party [Partido de la Revolución Mexicana] and in 1946 the Institutional Revolutionary Party [Partido Revolucionario Institucional; PRI]).
CallesSee all mediaBorn: September 25, 1877 Guaymas MexicoDied: October 19, 1945 (aged 68) Mexico City MexicoTitle / Office: president (1924-1928), MexicoFounder: Institutional Revolutionary PartyPolitical Affiliation: Institutional Revolutionary PartyHe began his career as an elementary schoolteacher but joined the struggle of Francisco Madero against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz in 1910. Calles was an extremely gifted organizer and leader and was a general in the battles, first against Victoriano Huerta and then against Pancho Villa and his rebel forces.
MexicoREAD MORE ON THIS TOPICMexico: The northern dynasty: Obregón and CallesWhen Carranza failed to move toward immediate social reforms, General Obregón enlisted two other powerful...In 1917 Calles became governor of Sonora. Appointed secretary of commerce, labour, and industry in the cabinet of Pres. Venustiano Carranza, he resigned to support the candidacy of Alvaro Obregón and was instrumental in overthrowing Carranza in 1920. Calles served as secretary of foreign relations in the provisional government of Adolfo de la Huerta (1920) and then as secretary of the interior under President Obregón (1920–24).
In 1924 Calles was elected president. Though he was becoming increasingly conservative, he sponsored agrarian, labour, and educational reforms. Recognizing the dangers of military coups, he curtailed the influence of the army in Mexico’s political life. Calles was vehemently anticlerical and introduced a series of oppressive laws aimed at eliminating the pervasive influence of the Roman Catholic Church. He applied the constitutional provisions that limited the number of clergy and prohibited church schools. The church, as a consequence, held no public religious services for three years until the dispute was arbitrated in 1929. He approved legislation that restricted alien ownership of land and regulated the petroleum industry; both of these actions angered the United States.
Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content.Subscribe NowPresident-elect Obregón was assassinated in 1928, and for the next six years Calles was the real power behind three puppet presidents. His base was the PNR, which he had organized in 1929; its support of a candidate was tantamount to election. In those six years the more radical aspects of the revolution were methodically curbed. By 1934, however, when left-wing groups had begun to control the PNR, Calles was forced to support their candidate for president, Lázaro Cárdenas. This misalliance deteriorated into an open break, and Calles was forced into exile. He lived in California until 1941, when he was permitted to return to Mexico.
Calles, Plutarco Elías (1877–1945)Plutarco Elías Calles (b. 25 September 1877; d. 19 October 1945), president of Mexico (1924–1928). The poor relation of a notable family in the northwestern state of Sonora, Calles was an aspiring young professional and entrepreneur who had met with only limited success before the Mexican Revolution. Initially on the periphery of Francisco Madero\'s movement against the Porfirio Díaz regime, from a minor appointment in the new state government he rose steadily in the ranks of what became the constitutionalist army, becoming Alvaro Obregón\'s principal political associate. As president, and then as jefe máximo (supreme chief) in the wake of the assassination of president-elect Obregón (1928), Calles dominated the national government for more than a decade and initiated the institutionalization of the Revolution.
Until the Revolution, Calles\'s life had been punctuated with misfortune and disappointments. He was the illegitimate son of Plutarco Elías, scion of one of the most prominent families in northeast Sonora in the nineteenth century. Following the death of his mother when he was four, he was raised by his stepfather, Juan B. Calles, who owned a small cantina in Hermosillo (and from whom he took his second family name). After being educated in Hermosillo, Calles became a schoolteacher. The death of his first wife, Francisca Bernal, in 1899 prompted him to move to the port of Guaymas, where he began a decade-long search for economic success and social mobility. To do so, he relied on his connections with, and the support of, his father\'s family, the Elíases. First a school inspector and newspaper editor in the port, Calles next was appointed municipal treasurer (he lost the post when funds were discovered missing), followed by a stint as manager of his half brother\'s hotel until it burned. He moved in 1906 to Fronteras, where he managed his father\'s modest hacienda, was bookkeeper for and shareholder in a small flour mill, and served as municipal secretary—at last achieving modest success and some local prominence. But he then became embroiled in the Elíases\' conflict with the local cacique (boss) and in a dispute with farmers over water rights. As a result he returned to Guaymas in 1910 to manage a hotel and open a commission business in partnership.
Though not an active participant in the local Maderista movement, Calles lent it some support—his store as a meeting place. He used this connection to run unsuccessfully for the state legislature in 1911. Again he returned to northeast Sonora, opening a general store (in partnership) in the border town of Agua Prieta, a most fortunate choice. The railroad running through the town connected Arizona with important mining districts in the interior of Sonora; and the new governor, José M. Maytorena, was looking for a loyal follower who, as the town\'s police chief, would secure customs revenues, quiet disgruntled former insurgents, and forestall a rumored invasion from Arizona by the radical Magonista revolutionaries. His choice of Calles proved to be the turning point of the latter\'s life. Calles proved to be a capable, diligent local official, against the Orozquista rebels (1912) and the Huerta coup a year later (being among the first to proclaim armed resistance in the state).
Calles soon developed a working relationship with Obregón, who was emerging as the leader of the revolutionary jefes in the northwest. While Obregón carried the constitutionalist movement beyond the state, Calles remained to manage the military and political affairs of Sonora. As governor of Sonora (1915–1916, 1917–1919) and working with Obregón\'s other principal Sonoran associate, Adolfo De La Huerta (governor, 1917, 1919–1920), Calles set forth a radical program to promote education on a broad scale; break up monopolies (including the cancellation of all prior government concessions which had tax exemptions) and support small entrepreneurs; extend secularization (including the legalization of divorce and the expulsion of all priests); establish an agrarian commission to distribute the expropriated land of those deemed enemies of the Revolution; foster government patronage of workers, assisting in their organization and legislating rights and benefits; and limit foreign influence (principally, severe economic and social restrictions on Chinese immigrants, and cancelling contracts with some large foreign investors). This radical program put Calle at loggerheads with President Venustiano Carranza. Obregón sought to moderate these concepts, but failed in his efforts to establish singular control over the state. He was forced to work with Calles and de la Huerta, forming a triumvirate.
When Obregón announced his presidential candidacy, Calles resigned as secretary of industry, commerce, and labor (1919–1920). Soon after, he led the military forces and proclaimed the Plan of Agua Prieta against Carranza\'s attempt to impose his successor, and then served as Obregón\'s interior secretary (1920–1923). When Obregón chose to support Calles over de la Huerta as his successor, and de la Huerta led a revolt, Calles commanded the troops in the northwest. As president, Calles pressed his radical anticlericalism in the face of the Catholic Church\'s challenge to the restrictions of the 1917 Constitution and then of the Cristero Rebellion (1926–1929). But his support of agrarian reform and the workers\' movement ebbed as he moderated his policies and concentrated on the development of the nation\'s infrastructure (especially irrigation, roads, air and postal service, a telephone network, national banking and investment institutions) and on the promotion of enterprise, even to the point of supporting large-scale domestic and foreign investors.
To retain control over the national government in the wake of the assassination of president-elect Obregón, Calles and his followers pursued a limited and expedient institutionalization of the hierarchical, personalist system that had bound the ruling coalition of revolutionary jefes together: the National Revolutionary Party. However, the Maximato (the oligarchic rule of the Callista political machine) increasingly lost a popular base, as it turned away from the Revolution\'s promises of reform and as the Great Depression deepened. Reformers in the party used its structure to institute a radical program and mobilize popular support, coalescing around Lázaro Cárdenas. Again employing expediency, Calles responded by acceding to some of the reformist demands and settling on Cárdenas for the 1934 presidential elections, as the best option to contain growing party dissidence and rising popular alienation. This time, however, his expedient adjustments set in motion forces he could not control. Cárdenas mobilized popular support and employed the institutional prerogatives of the party and the presidency to the fullest. When Calles resisted, he was deported (April 1936). He remained in California until Cárdenas\'s successor, Manuel Ávila Camacho, permitted his return in 1941 and accorded him full honors at his funeral four years later.
Calles, Plutarco Elías, 18771945, Mexican statesman, president (192428). In 1913 he left schoolteaching to fight with Álvaro Obregón and Venustiano Carranza against Victoriano Huerta. In 1920 he joined Obregón and Adolfo de la Huerta in the rebellion against Carranza. After Obregón\'s term as president, Calles, who had been a cabinet member, became the presidential nominee. Adolfo de la Huerta, claiming election fraud, revolted (Dec., 1923), but Obregón and Calles established their supremacy by force (1924); Calles became president.
Calles\'s administration was noted for its revolutionary zeal, which often precipitated violence. At the outset agrarian reform was pursued vigorously but recklessly. Many rural schools were built, although teachers were still scarce and underpaid. Material improvements were given special attention; vast road-building and irrigation projects were undertaken. The struggle between church and state reached a new level of bitterness. In 1926 the enforcement of anticlerical legislation provoked violence; in 192627 the cristeros, terrorists whose slogan was “Viva Cristo Rey” [long live Christ the King] took up arms in the states of Colima, Jalisco, and Michoacán. Military chieftains reciprocated by victimizing innocent Roman Catholics, and government officials used the strife to political advantage. At the same time legislation over land and petroleum rights brought about a serious dispute with the United States; relations between the two countries improved when Dwight W. Morrow was appointed (1927) ambassador, and the oil question was temporarily settled.
Calles created and directed a powerful national army and dissolved the private militia that threatened internal peace. He unified the government and molded the National Revolutionary party into the dominant force in Mexican politics. Calles rapidly lost his radicalism when he gained power and became a landowner and financier; he moved toward dictatorship. Already in control of the labor movement, he made himself the force behind the Callistas, a circle of financiers and industrialists who dominated the country\'s economy and politics. Thus he became undisputed Jefe Máximo, or political chieftain, of Mexico.
When Obregón was assassinated (1928) after his reelection to the presidency, Callas appointed Emilio Portes Gil. In 1930 he declared the agrarian reform program a failure. In the same year he engineered the election of Pascual Ortiz Rubio. Two years later he removed him to appoint Gen. Abelardo Luján Rodríguez. The mighty labor union, CROM, was smashed. The conflict with the church, temporarily subdued (1929) by Morrow, was resumed; priests were openly persecuted. Communist unions, previously used by Calles in his campaign against the CROM, were ruthlessly suppressed, and a Callista-backed fascist organization, the Gold Shirts, harassed minority groups. As the new champion of conservatism, Calles in 1935 openly opposed the policies of his former protegé, Lázaro Cárdenas, but was defeated in the contest; in 1936 he was exiled. He was allowed to return under an amnesty in 1941.
Mexico is a land of intense faith. The cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the saints on automobile dashboards, the vast crowds making pilgrimages on their knees — all attest to the depth of religious feeling in a land where the culture of the Spanish conquistadores clashed and then melded with that of terrifying Aztec and Maya deities.
But strong religious faith has a way of generating its opposite. The political power and vast wealth of the Church succeeded in engendering within Mexico an anticlericalism of unmatched ferocity. Mexico may be the land where barefoot Indian women burn candles and offer gifts to figures of the Dark Virgin — it is also the land where red-shirted militiamen burned churches, where priests hid for their lives and where a powerful, half-crazed state governor had cards printed describing him as “the personal enemy of God.”
Though this governor — Tomás Garrido Canabal of Tabasco — was an extreme example of the clerophobe in politics, it should be taken into account that he was supported and his activities legitimized by an even more powerful man: his president. That president was Plutarco Elias Calles, who held the office between 1924-28 and then ruled through puppet presidents until 1934, when he was succeeded by an independent-minded man he incorrectly believed would be the next in a succession of stooges. Calles was the leader and symbol of the anti-Catholic movement that emanated from the 1910 Revolution and proved such a powerful force in the 1920s and 1930s.
He was born in Guaymas, Sonora, in 1877. But not as Calles. His origins are obscure and his enemies would later claim that he was a Turk or a Jew. Actually, he was neither. Near as can be ascertained, he was the natural son of a woman named Maria de Jesús Campuzano and Plutarco Elias, member of a prominent local family of Lebanese descent. The boy grew up in poverty as Plutarco Elias and according to Fernando Torreblanca, who was both his secretary and son-in-law, took the name Calles from his maternal uncle, who befriended and raised him after his mother’s death. Historians suggest that this background of illegitimacy and deprivation had much to do with shaping Calles’s morose nature and fanatic hostility toward his enemies.
Before the 1910 Revolution he worked at a number of occupations — small businessman, schoolteacher, bartender (though he later became an ardent prohibitionist), and flour mill manager. But his real talent was for politics. With an instinct for picking a winner, he supported Madero against Diaz, Carranza against Huerta and Obregón against Carranza. After Madero’s victory he became police commissioner in the border town of Agua Prieta. As a military man, he helped Madero and Huerta in their campaign against Pascual Orozco and then joined the obregonista General Benjamin Hill in the struggle to oust Huerta. Though not particularly gifted as a commander, his political skills propelled him to the rank of general.
Under Carranza, he served as governor and military commander of Sonora in 1915-16. Then he took a cabinet post, as Carranza’s secretary of industry, commerce and labor. In February 1920 Calles resigned and returned to Sonora to aid Obregón in his presidential campaign. Carranza, fearful of the able and ambitious Obregón, had chosen a man named Ignacio Bonillas to succeed him. Bonillas, formerly Mexican ambassador to Washington, had spent so much of his life outside Mexico that political enemies claimed he had difficulty speaking Spanish. They called him “Meester” Bonillas and on one occasion derailed his campaign train, causing him to miss an engagement. Then they spread rumors that Bonillas had cancelled – the engagement to take a Spanish lesson.
Carranza retaliated by terrorizing Obregón campaign workers and Obregón went into rebellion. Calles supported him by issuing the Plan de Agua Prieta, a manifesto disavowing Carranza as president. The Obregón-Calles forces triumphed and Carranza was treacherously murdered while attempting to flee to Veracruz.
To fill out Carranza’s unexpired term, Sonora Governor Adolfo de la Huerta became interim president in May 1920. On November 30 of the same year Obregón was formally inaugurated to serve a regular term. Calles was by now Obregón’s right-hand man. He had been secretary of war and marine during de la Huerta’s interregnum and Obregón named him to head the all-powerful interior ministry (gobernación), from which post he launched his campaign for the presidency.
Calles showed his loyalty to Obregón during a brief but bloody rebellion mounted in December 1923 by de la Huerta, the former interim president. Though 60 percent of the federal army supported de la Huerta, Obregón and Calles won out because they had a broad base of labor-farmer support. In addition, Obregón was able to procure arms and aircraft from the United States. De la Huerta fled to Key West in March 1924 and Fortunato Maycotte, the last of the rebel generals, was captured and shot on May 14.
Though Obregón had a sense of humor, he could be ruthless when the occasion demanded. Determined not to make Madero’s mistake when he retained Huerta (who turned on him), he shot every officer over the rank of major who supported the de la Huerta rebellion. This meant that the remainder of the army, organized labor and the agrarian groups would be united in support of his heir apparent, Plutarco Elias Calles.
Calles was inaugurated on November 30, 1924, and lost no time plunging Mexico into the most severe religious crisis of her history. The 1917 Constitution contained articles which practicing Catholics considered intolerable — among them were provisions outlawing monastic orders, prohibiting religious organizations to own property and reducing clergy to the status of second-class citizens by taking away their right to vote. Obregón disliked Catholicism but was a practical man who followed a policy of applying the articles selectively — with rigor in areas where the Church was weak, leniently or not at all in regions where the Church was strong.
Calles, by contrast, was a fanatic determined to extirpate every trace of Catholicism from Mexico. On June 14, 1926, he signed a decree known officially as “The Law Reforming the Penal Code” and unofficially as the “Calles Law.” Designed to put teeth into the constitutional articles, it spelled out in specific terms the penalties for violations — 500 pesos for wearing clerical garb, five years imprisonment for criticizing the laws or inducing a minor to join a monastic order, etc.
The trouble came when Calles mulishly attempted to enforce the laws in strongly Catholic west-central Mexico, particularly the states of Jalisco, Colima, Zacatecas, Guanajuato and Michoacán and even more particularly the Los Altos ranch country of northeast Jalisco, focal point of what would turn out to be the terrible 1926-29 Cristero War. Shouting their battle cry of Viva Cristo Rey! (“Long live Christ the King!”), a motley assortment of ranchers, Catholic students and workers from Guadalajara and Indians from Jalisco’s northern sierra held off the cream of the federal army for three years.
In the end, the issue was never decided by force of arms. Calles completed his term in 1928 and his successor, Emilio Portes Gil, was flexible enough to cooperate with the able American ambassador, Dwight Morrow, in arriving at a settlement which in fact granted little to the Catholics. The Portes Gil-Morrow efforts were aided by an appeasement-minded majority in the Catholic hierarchy that betrayed the Cristeros in the field.
Though no longer president, Calles continued to run Mexico. When a military rebellion broke out in March 1929, he took over as minister of war and marine and energetically stamped it out. Two presidents that succeeded Portes Gil, Pascual Ortiz Rubio and Abelardo Rodríguez, were pretty much in his pocket, though Rodríguez showed flashes of independence from time to time.
In 1934 Calles made the mistake of backing the candidacy of Lázaro Cárdenas, who proved to be both the most honest and the most radical president in Mexican history. Now rich and increasingly corrupt, Calles was moving steadily to the right as Cárdenas implemented his radical reforms. Calles soured on land reform, called the Revolution a “political failure” and, after a trip to Europe, seemed to be moving in the direction of fascism. Guessing — probably correctly — that Calles wanted to remove him, Cárdenas struck first. On April 9, 1936, he had Calles arrested and dumped over the border. When a picked detachment of soldiers and police burst into Calles’s bedroom, they found him reading a Spanish edition of Mein Kampf.
Calles was allowed to return to Mexico by Manuel Avila Camacho, Cárdenas’s moderate successor. As if to symbolize the decline of raoffer anticlericalism that had gripped Mexico in the heyday of Calles and Garrido, the “personal enemy of God,” Avila Camacho publicly announced that he was a religious believer. Calles took up residence in Mexico City and there lived quietly until his death in 1945, at the age of 68.The only substantive study of Plutarco Elías Calles and the Mexican Revolution, this book traces the remarkable life story of a complex and little-understood, yet key figure in Mexico\'s history. Jürgen Buchenau draws on a rich array of archival evidence from Mexico, the United States, and Europe to explore Calles\'s origins and political trajectory. He hailed from Sonora, a border state marked by fundamental social and economic change at the turn of the twentieth century. After dabbling in various careers, Calles found the early years of the revolution (1910-1920) afforded him the chance to rise to local and ultimately national prominence. As president from 1924 to 1928, Calles embarked on an ambitious reform program, modernized the financial system, and defended national sovereignty against an interventionist U.S. government. Yet these reforms failed to eradicate underdevelopment, corruption, and social injustice. Moreover, his unyielding campaigns against the Catholic Church and his political enemies earned him a reputation as a repressive strongman.
After his term as president, Calles continued to exert broad influence as his country\'s foremost political figure while three weaker presidents succeeded each other in an atmosphere of constant political crisis. He played a significant role in founding a ruling party that reined in the destructive ambitions of leading army officers and promised to help campesinos and workers attain better living conditions. This dynastic party and its successors, including the present-day Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI, or Party of the Institutional Revolution), remained in power until 2000. Many of the institutions and laws forged during the Calles era survived into the present. Through this comprehensive assessment of a quintessential politician in an era dominated by generals, entrepreneurs, and educated professionals, Buchenau opens an illuminating window into the Mexican Revolution and contemporary Mexico
Plutarco Elías Calles was a Mexican military general and politician, and a freemason. He was the powerful interior minister under President Álvaro Obregón, who chose Calles as his successor, he was violently anticlerical and fought against the Catholic Church. The 1924 Calles presidential campaign was the first populist presidential campaign in Mexico\'s history, as he called for land redistribution and promised equal justice, more education, additional labour rights, and democratic governance. After Calles\' populist phase he ushered in a state atheism phase, ushering a period of persecution against Catholics. After leaving office he continued to be the dominant leader from 1928 to 1935, a period known as the Maximato, after a title Calles awarded to himself, Jefe Máximo of the Revolution. Calles is most noted for his implementation of anti-Catholic laws in the Mexican constitution. This led to the Cristero War, a civil war involving Catholics opposed to the administration. Calles also founded the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1929. The party had ensured political stability in the wake of the assassination of president-elect Alvaro Obregón in 1928.
Plutarco Elías Calles was president of Mexico from 1924 to 1928, taking over from Alvaro Obregón. He was the founder of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolutionary Party), which in 1946 would become the Institutional Revolutionary Party and dominate Mexican politics until 1988.
Plutarco Calles was born on September 25, 1877, the son of Plutarco Elías Lucero, a Lebanese man hired by the U.S. Army to test the use of camels in the southwestern United States. He was orphaned when he was three and went to live with his father\'s sister, Josefa Campuzano, and her husband, Juan Bautista Calles.
They looked after him well, and he took his uncle\'s surname as his own. Young Calles became one of the earliest teachers at the Colegio Sonora and also contributed some articles on problems in the Mexican educational system of the time. However, he left teaching, as he found the strictures too great for his independent thought.
During the Mexican Revolution, Calles became a supporter of Francisco Madero and became mayor of Agua Prieta, a town on the Mexican side of the Mexican-U.S. border. When Madero was deposed and killed, Calles was involved in the resistance to the new government and rallied supporters of the revolution in Sonora.
He was involved in a battle in 1915 against Maytorena, an ally of Pancho Villa, defeating him. However, he was a politician rather than a military strategist and became the interim and later the constitutional governor of Sonora.
There he introduced some of the educational reforms that he had advocated as a teacher. He was also affected by the anticlerical traditions of the period, expelling all Roman Catholic priests from Sonora. He also introduced laws prohibiting the production and consumption of alcohol.
In 1914 President Venustiano Carranza offered Calles a cabinet position on two occasions, with Calles finally accepting the post of minister of industry, trade, and labor in 1919. By this time Calles was seen as a clear supporter of Alvaro Obregón, who was emerging as a major rival to Carranza. Both came from Sonora, and as the alliance between Carranza and Obregón began to falter Calles resigned from the cabinet and in April 1920 published his Plan de Agua Prieta calling on Sonorans to overthrow Carranza.
After the death of Carranza, Adolfo de la Huerta became president, and during his short presidency Calles became minister of war. He was then minister of the interior for three years during Obregón\'s period as president. It was not long before Obregón and de la Huerta were arguing, and very soon the latter was getting army support for a revolt. Calles sided with Obregón and quickly defeated the de la Huerta rebellion. When Obregón retired as president on December 1, 1924, Calles became the new president.
One of his most controversial political decisions was the Law Reforming the Penal Code. Published on July 2, 1926, this law reinforced the anticlerical provisions of the 1917 constitution by fining people who wore church decorations and even threatening five years in prison for anybody who questioned the law. Some Roman Catholics were involved in the Cristero revolt, which caused much trouble in central and western Mexico from 1926 until 1929.
Although Calles was a revolutionary, his enemies in the United States denounced him as a communist and even as a Bolshevik. On September 29, 1927, he established a direct telephone link with Calvin Coolidge.
He also managed to get the new U.S. ambassador, Dwight Morrow, who had worked for banker J. P. Morgan, to get the famous aviator Charles Lindbergh to visit Mexico City. There Lindbergh met Morrow\'s daughter Anne, whom he later married. Morrow was, however, critical of many of the measures that Calles had introduced.
Calles drew much of his support from the poor farmers, and his plan was to improve their lot as small businessmen. To help them, on February 1, 1926, he established the National Bank of Agricultural Credit, having overhauled the banking system and established the Bank of Mexico, modeled on the American Federal Reserve, five months earlier. He also introduced a new system of running the government finance ministry.
On November 30, 1928, Calles stood down as president, and with Obregón having been killed Emilio Portes Gil became provisional president. In 1934 Calles supported Lázaro Cárdenas, who was elected president. In the following year the press became extremely critical of Calles, who returned from retirement to defend the decisions he had made in office.
However, in 1936 Cárdenas had Calles deported after he was accused of trying to establish his own political party. After some years in exile in San Diego, where he reflected on his time in office and played golf, in 1944 President Manuel Ávila Camacho invited him to return to the country to provide more unity during World War II. He died on October 19, 1945, in Mexico City.
Plutarco Elías Calles (25 September 1877 – 19 October 1945) was a Mexican military general and politician, and a freemason.[1][2] He was the powerful interior minister under President Álvaro Obregón, who chose Calles as his successor, he was violently anticlerical and fought against the Catholic Church.[3] The 1924 Calles presidential campaign was the first populist presidential campaign in Mexico\'s history, as he called for land redistribution and promised equal justice, more education, additional labour rights, and democratic governance. After Calles\' populist phase (1924–1926) he ushered in a state atheism phase (1926–1928), ushering a period of persecution against Catholics. After leaving office he continued to be the dominant leader from 1928 to 1935, a period known as the Maximato, after a title Calles awarded to himself, Jefe Máximo (Maximum Chief) of the Revolution. Calles is most noted for his implementation of anti-Catholic laws in the Mexican constitution. This led to the Cristero War, a civil war involving Catholics opposed to the administration. Calles also founded the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1929. The party had ensured political stability in the wake of the assassination of president-elect Alvaro Obregón in 1928. In its two subsequent incarnations, it held power continuously from 1929 to 2000.Contents1 Early life and career2 Before the presidency2.1 Participation in the Mexican Revolution, 1910–19172.2 Governor of Sonora2.3 Service in the Carranza administration2.4 Revolt of the Sonoran generals, 19202.5 Obregón administration, De la Huerta revolt, election of 19243 Presidency, 1924–19283.1 Labor3.2 Finance3.3 Military3.4 Infrastructure3.5 Education3.6 Public health3.7 Civil law3.8 Petroleum and U.S.-Mexico relations3.9 Church-state conflict4 1928 Election5 Post Presidency5.1 Founding a new party and the Maximato 1929–19345.2 End of the Maximato and exile5.3 Return from exile and final years6 Personal life7 Legacies8 See also9 References10 Further reading11 External linksEarly life and career
The colonel José Juan Elías. His paternal grandfather.Francisco Plutarco Elías Campuzano one of two natural children of his alcoholic 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.[4] His uncle was from a family of school teachers, but was himself small-scale dealer in groceries and alcoholic beverages.[5] 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. This was later reflected in his social agenda, which included expansion of public education and the removal of church influence from education, politics, and unions.[6]
Plutarco\'s father\'s family was descended from a prominent family in the Provincias Internas, most often recorded as Elías González.[citation needed] The first of this line to settle in Mexico was Francisco Elías González (1707–1790), who emigrated from La Rioja, Spain, to Zacatecas, Mexico in 1729.[citation needed] Eventually, Francisco Elías González moved north to Chihuahua, where, as commander of the presidio of Terrenate, he played a role in the wars against the Yaqui and Apache.[citation needed] 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 the French Intervention, leaving his widow with eight children, of which Plutarco was the oldest.[7] The family\'s fortunes declined precipitously; it lost or sold much of its land, some of it to the Cananea Copper Company, whose labor practices resulted in a major strike at the turn of the twentieth century.[7]
Calles became a committed anticlerical. Some scholars[who?] attribute this to his social status as a natural or \"illegitimate\" child. \"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.\"[8]
As a young man, Calles worked in many different jobs, from bartender to schoolteacher, and always had an affinity for political opportunities.[9] Calles was an atheist.[10][11]
Before the presidencyParticipation in the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1917
Plutarco Elías CallesCalles was a supporter of Francisco I. Madero, under whom he became a police commissioner, and his ability to align himself with the Constitutionalists led by Venustiano Carranza (the political winners of the Mexican Revolution) allowed him to move up the ranks quickly, allowing him to attain the rank of general by 1915. He led the Constitutional Army in his home state of Sonora from this point on. In 1915 his forces repelled the Conventionalist faction in Sonora under José María Maytorena and Pancho Villa in the Battle of Agua Prieta.[12]
Governor of SonoraCalles was elected as governor of his home state of Sonora, building a pragmatic political record. In 1915, Calles became governor of Sonora, known as one of the most reformist politicians of his generation. His radical rhetoric tended to conceal the pragmatic essence of his policy, 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),[12] promoted legislation giving social security and collective bargaining to workers, and expelled all Catholic priests.
Service in the Carranza administrationIn 1919, Calles travelled to Mexico City to take up the post of Secretary of Industry, Commerce, and Labor in the government of President Venustiano 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 to 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 had suffered from the influenza pandemic of 1918. Although Calles was in the halls of power, Carranza appears to have brought him to Mexico City to put him in a holding pen with no impact on Carranza\'s policies, aimed at dividing the triumvirate of Sonoran generals, Alvaro Obregón, Adolfo de la Huerta, and Calles himself. Calles did gain 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.[13]
Revolt of the Sonoran generals, 1920In 1920, he aligned himself with fellow Sonoran revolutionary generals Adolfo de la Huerta and Álvaro Obregón to overthrow Carranza under the Plan 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 administration, De la Huerta revolt, election of 1924Obregón was elected president in 1920 and he named Calles as Secretary of the Interior.[15] During the Obregón presidency (1920–24), Calles aligned himself with organized labor, particularly the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM), headed by Luis N. Morones and the Laborist Party, as well as agraristas, radical agrarians. In 1923, Obregón tapped Calles to be his successor in the presidency, but Adolfo de la Huerta and others in the Mexican army opposed to Calles as the presidential choice revolted.President Obregón, fellow Sonoran revolutionary general, who tapped Calles to succeed himThe 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 1923 Bucareli Treaty. Obregón pushed through ratification in the Mexican congress, and the U.S. then moved decisively. President Calvin 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. Obregón\'s support of Calles for the presidency was sealed by force of arms against those opposing his choice. That steely resolve set the precedent that the incumbent\'s choice of successor \"had to be accepted by the \'revolutionary family\'\" or be crushed.[16]Plutarco Elías Calles at the American Federation of Labor Building, 1924.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 powerful Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM), led by Luis N. Morones. Morones had a national reputation as a labor leader and had forged an alliance with Samuel Gompers, head of the American 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. President Woodrow Wilson. CROM\'s support for Calles was important for his election.[17] Although the labor movement in Mexico was factionalized, CROM was a staunch supporter of Obregón and Calles.
In 1924, following these events, \"Calles won the pre-arranged elections before the eyes of an indifferent nation.\"[18] He defeated the agrarianist candidate Ángel Flores and the eccentric perennial candidate Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda.
Shortly before his inauguration, Calles had traveled to Germany and France to study social 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 strides that a strong organized labor movement had made. He also observed the power of populist rhetoric to build support, and early in his presidency such rhetoric served him to distance himself from Obregón.[19]
Presidency, 1924–1928
Plutarco Elías Calles.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, when Porfirio Díaz succeeded Manuel 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.[20]
Although Calles was president, he remained in the shadow of the powerful Obregón, who had powerful allies in the military and among state governors and the Congress. The contrast between Calles and Obregón was of 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. Its intent was 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, particularly Luis N. Morones of the CROM.[21]
Labor
Luis N. MoronesMorones 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 the Mexican Constitution, embedding labor rights. The number of labor strikes decreased precipitously in the Calles administration. When railway workers struck in 1926, Morones sent scabs to break the strike.[22]
FinanceDuring the Calles presidency, he relied on the financial acumen of his Secretary of the Treasury, Alberto J. Pani, who was 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 the Banco de México, Mexico\'s national bank. Pani also managed to achieve relief of part of Mexico\'s foreign debt. After coming into conflict with Calles, Pani resigned in Joaquín Amaro, who implemented military reformsThe military continued to be very top heavy with revolutionary generals and army was 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, putting Joaquín 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 at decreasing corruption by severely penalizing it. A 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. The Colegio Militar was reformed under Amaro and remained a hope for improvement of officers in the future.[27]
Infrastructure
1933 map of the Mexican portion of the Pan-American Highway.Since the Porfiriato, railroads had been important to economic development and exerting political control over more remote areas. Fighting during the Revolution damaged railways, so rebuilding had been on going since the end of the military phase. Calles privatized the railways and a line was built to establish a connection between 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 as well as 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 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 general Juan Andreu Almazán, in 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 the Pan American Highway, linking Nuevo Laredo at the U.S.-Mexico border to Tapachula on the Mexico-Guatemala border. Road building was financed internally with a gasoline tax.[28]
EducationEducation had been an important part of Obregón\'s administration, particularly under José Vasconcelos. Calles was able to devote more government funding to rural education, 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, the aim of education was 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]
Public healthAfter 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 of 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.[32] Also part of the program was the mandatory registration of prostitutes.[33]
Civil lawCalles changed Mexico\'s civil 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,[34] his parents had been Syrians or Turks, giving him the nickname El Turco (The Turk). His detractors drew comparisons between Calles and the \"Grand Turk\", the anti-Christian leaders from the era of the Crusades. In order not to draw too much attention to his unhappy childhood, Calles chose to ignore those rumors rather than to fight them.[35][36]
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, But stations had to broadcast government announcements without cost. Although in the 1920s, there were relatively few people owning radios, nonetheless, the regulations were an important assertion of state power. During the Lázaro Cárdenas presidency (1934–40), state control over broadcasts expanded further.[37]
Petroleum and U.S.-Mexico relations
Dwight Morrow, U.S. Ambassador to MexicoOne of the major points of contention with the U.S. was oil. Calles quickly rejected the Bucareli Agreements of 1923 between the U.S. and Mexico, when Álvaro 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 from 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.[38]
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 State Frank B. Kellogg issued a threat against Mexico on 12 June 1925.[39] 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 the Soviet Union in any country was opened in Mexico, on which occasion the Soviet ambassador remarked that \"no other two countries show more similarities than the Soviet Union and Mexico.\"[40] After this, some in the United States government, considering Calles\'s regime Bolshevik, started to refer to Mexico as \"Soviet Mexico\".[41]
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 the New York Times. Mexico managed to avoid war through a series of diplomatic maneuvers. Soon afterward, a direct telephone link was established between Calles and President Calvin Coolidge, and the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, James R. Sheffield, was replaced with Dwight Morrow. Morrow won the Calles government over to the United States position and helped negotiate an agreement between the government and the oil companies.[42]
Another source of conflict with the United States was Mexico\'s support for the liberals in the civil war in Nicaragua, 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.
Church-state conflictMain article: Cristero War
Government forces publicly hanged Cristeros on main thoroughfares throughout Mexico, including in the Pacific states of Colima and Jalisco, where bodies would often remain hanging for extended lengths of time.Calles had implemented a number of reforms in the first two years of his presidency (1924–26) benefiting workers and peasants. In this he followed in 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, the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico as an institution, and Mexican Catholics. Calles was a staunch anticlerical from Sonora, a region of Mexico where the Catholic Church was less strong than the center and south of Mexico.
During his term as president, he moved to enforce the anticlerical articles of the Constitution of 1917, which led to a violent and lengthy conflict known as the Cristero Rebellion or the Cristero 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 the Calles Law.[43] Calles\'s anti-Catholic actions included outlawing religious orders, depriving the Church of property rights and depriving the clergy of civil liberties, including their right to trial by jury (in cases involving anti-clerical laws) and the right to vote.[43][44] Catholic antipathy towards Calles was enhanced because of his vociferous anti-Catholicism.[45] In response to the government 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.
Due to Calles\'s strict and sometimes violent enforcement of anti-clerical laws, people in strongly Catholic areas, especially the states of Jalisco, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Colima and Michoacán, 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.[46] A truce was negotiated with the assistance of U.S. Ambassador Dwight Morrow in which the Cristeros agreed to lay down their arms.[47] However, Calles reneged on the terms of the truce within a few months; he had approximately five hundred Cristero leaders and 5,000 other Cristeros shot, frequently in their homes in front of their wives and children.[47] Particularly offensive to Catholics after the truce was Calles\'s insistence on a complete state monopoly on education, suppressing all Catholic education and introducing \"socialist\" education in its place, saying: \"We must enter and take possession of the mind of childhood, the mind of youth.\"[47] The persecution continued as Calles maintained control under his Maximato and did not relent until 1940, when President Manuel Ávila Camacho, a practicing Catholic, took office.[47]
The effects of Calles\'s policy on the Church were profound. Between 1926 and 1934, at least 4,000 priests were killed or expelled; one of the most famous was the Jesuit Miguel Pro.[47] Where there had been 4,500 priests in Mexico prior to 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.[47][48] By 1935, seventeen states had no priests at all.[49]
Economically, the Cristero War had an adverse impact on Mexico, with grain production greatly reduced in the region of the Bajío, where fighting was fierce. Government resources were diverted to the military conflict rather than into reform programs for workers and peasants. The conflict weakened Calles politically, and that weakness paved the way for Alvaro Obregón to return to the presidency in the 1928 election.[50]
1928 ElectionMain article: 1928 Mexican general electionObregón ran unopposed in the 1928 presidential election. He was able to stand as a candidate, despite his having served as president before. Under Calles\'s administration in 1926, a constitutional change was passed that allowed for a non-consecutive re-election,[51] and in 1928 Obregón was elected as Calles\'s successor; this amendment was later repealed in 1934.[52] In addition, Mexico passed an amendment to the constitution in 1927 that expanded a presidential term from four years to six years.[53]
Post PresidencyFounding a new party and the Maximato 1929–1934Main articles: Maximato and Partido Nacional Revolucionario
Logo of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario, founded by Plutarco Elías Calles in 1929. The logo has the colors and arrangement of the Mexican flag, with the party\'s acronym replacing the symbol of the eagle.
Mexican flag during Calles\'s termPresident-elect Obregón was murdered by José 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, the National Revolutionary Party (Spanish: Partido Nacional Revolucionario, PNR), the predecessor of today\'s Institutional Revolutionary Party (Spanish: Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI).
The period that Obregón had been elected to serve, between 1928 and 1934, was when Calles became the Jefe Máximo, the \"maximum chief,\" and the power behind the presidency. It was a title he never used for himself. The period is known as the Maximato (1928–1934), with many regarding Emilio Portes Gil, Pascual Ortiz Rubio, and Abelardo Rodríguez as puppets of Calles. Officially, after 1929, Calles served as minister of war, as he continued to suppress the Cristero War, but a few months later, after intervention of the United States ambassador Dwight Morrow, the Mexican government and the Cristeros signed a peace treaty. During the Maximato, Calles became increasingly authoritarian and would also serve as Minister of Industry and Commerce.[54] In the early 1930s, he appears to have flirted with the idea of implementing aspects of fascism in the government,[55] and the ideology clearly had an influence on him.[56]
After a large demonstration in 1930, the Mexican Communist Party was banned, Mexico stopped its support for the rebels of César Sandino in Nicaragua, strikes were no longer tolerated, and the government ceased re-distributing lands to poorer peasants. Calles had once been the candidate of the workers and at one point had used Communist unions in his campaign against competing labor organizers, but later, having acquired wealth and engaging in finance, suppressed Communism.[57]
By the summer of 1933, two of Calles\'s former wartime subordinates had risen to the top of the party: Manuel Pérez Treviño and Lázaro Cárdenas.[58] Calles sought to have Treviño be the party\'s nominee at the time, seeing that he would be the most likely to continue his policies,[58] 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 the 1934 Mexican Presidential election.[58] 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.
End of the Maximato and exile
Upon his death, on 19 October 1945, the mortal remains of Calles were deposited in the crypt of his godmother with his wife\'s Natalia Chacón. In 1969, by orders of the President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, his remains were transferred to Monumento a la Revolución.Cárdenas had been associated with Calles for over two decades; he had joined Calles\'s army in Sonora in 1915.[58] For that reason, Calles and his allies trusted Cárdenas, and Calles believed he could control Cárdenas as he had controlled his predecessors.[58] However, Cárdenas soon revealed himself as an independent. Indeed, conflicts between Calles and Cárdenas started to arise 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 violent methods and his closeness to fascist organizations, most notably the Gold Shirts of general Nicolás Rodríguez Carrasco, which harassed Communists, Jews and Chinese.[59]
Cárdenas started to isolate Calles politically, removing the callistas 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 organization CROM, Luis N. Morones, one of the last remaining influential callistas and one-time Minister of Agriculture,[54] were charged with conspiring to blow up a railroad and placed under arrest under the order of President Cárdenas. Calles was deported to the United States on 9 April 1936 along with the three last highly-influential callistas in Mexico—Morones, Luis León (leader of the Radical Civic Union in Mexico),[60] and General Rafael Melchor Ortega (one-time Governor of Guanajuato).[61] His son Alfredo and his secretary were also exiled.[54] At the time of his arrest, Calles was reportedly reading a Spanish translation of Mein Kampf; a political cartoon of the era depicts this.[62][63]
In exile in the United States, Calles was in contact with various U.S. fascists, although he rejected their anti-Semitic[64] and anti-Mexican sentiments, and also befriended José Vasconcelos, the Mexican philosopher who had previously been a political enemy.
Return from exile and final yearsWith the Institutional Revolutionary Party now firmly in control and in the spirit of national unity, President Manuel Ávila Camacho (1940–46) allowed Calles to return to Mexico under the reconciliation policy of Cárdenas\'s successor in 1941. He spent his last years quietly in Mexico City and Cuernavaca.[65]
Back in Mexico, Calles\'s political position became more moderate; in 1942, he supported Mexico\'s declaration of war upon the Axis powers. Upon his return to Mexico he became interested in spiritualism, attending weekly sessions at the Mexican Circle of Metapsychic Investigations, and coming to profess belief \"in a Supreme Being\".[62]
Personal life
Plutarco Elías Calles and Natalia Chacón.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; Berndardina (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).[66] After his first wife\'s death in 1927, he married a young woman from Yucatan, Leonor Llorente, who died of a brain tumor in 1932 at age 29.[67][68] 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. Grief and ill health appear to have distracted him from political involvement.[69]
Legacies
The Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City where the remains of Madero, Carranza, Villa, Cárdenas, and Calles are entombed
Calles monument inaugurated in 1990, commemorating his speech of September 1928 declaring the end of the age of caudillosCalles\'s main legacy was the pacification of Mexico, ending the violent era of the Mexican Revolution through the creation of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR)—known today as the Partido 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 the Monument to the Revolution, joining other major figures, Madero, along with Carranza, Villa, and Cárdenas who in life were his foes. 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 burnish Calles\'s reputation 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 of caudillos. 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.[70]
He is honored with statues in Sonoyta, Hermosillo, and his hometown of Guaymas. The official name of the municipality of Sonoyta is called Plutarco Elías Calles Municipality in his honor.
For his fierce anti-clericalism, Calles was denounced by Pope Pius XI (r. 1922–1939) in the encyclical Iniquis 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.[71]
See also