Revolutions - 9.10- Chickens Coming Home To Roost

Episode Date: October 22, 2018

How Porfirian politics helped destroy the Porfiriato

and welcome to revolutions. Episode 9.10, chickens coming home to roost. So as I mentioned at the end of last week's episode, I have been off on a book tour this week and could not write a new episode. So I thought that what follows would be a fun stand in, because it fits in perfectly with the course of our narrative. We put Porfrio Dias on a boat to France last week. And what follows is a paper that I wrote for a grad school class I took

at Texas State University on the Mexican Revolution. The paper is dated December 5th, 2012, so just about six months after I stopped doing the history of Rome and 10 months before I started revolutions. The paper is called Chickens Coming Home to Roost, how Porphyrian politics helped destroy the Porfuriato. Now, there are times where I quote from primary sources and secondary sources and various academic articles, and you will know when I am quoting because I'll preface it with quote and end it by saying unquote. There are also a number of names that get dropped that you should just let come and go and pick up who they are from the context. But other than that, just sit back and enjoy this final word on the Porfariato. So here we go.

Chickens coming home to roost. How Porfarian politics helped destroy the Perfariato by Mike Duncan. On the eve of the Mexican Revolution, the dictatorship of Porfirio Dias appeared stable, healthy, and strong. 35 years of sustained autocracy had cemented the authority and legitimacy of the regime. The modernization of the economy had flooded Mexico with the tangible material benefits of capitalism. All serious political threats had either been co-opted or eliminated. In writing, less than a year after Dias's fall, Latin American scholar L.S. Roe posed the

question that has puzzled historians since the day Dias boarded a ship to France in May of 1911. Quote, why is it that at the close of this period of development, when law and order seem permanently assured throughout the Republic, when the government seemed more firmly established than ever before, there should burst forth a revolutionary movement, unquote. Though the explosion of revolutionary chaos that followed Don Porfiro's ouster was rooted in the deep fissures created by a combination of rapid industrialization and social repression, the actual collapse of Dias' regime was the result of an unsustainable political system built on hypocrisy, corruption, and stagnation, finally buckling under the weight of its own contradictions.

Ironically, the same political strategies that had kept Dias in power for 30 years wound up guaranteeing that his regime's response to the Madero insurgency would be inadequate. One, hypocrisy. No contemporary observer could deny that President Porfiro Dias of Mexico was a dictator. But although Dias clearly stood at the head of an authoritarian regime, he was sensitive to the danger of scrapping the outward forms of democracy and embracing pure autocracy. So he maintained the liberal institutions prescribed by the Constitution of 1857. Papering over his authoritarianism with democratic rhetoric proved a useful political strategy for Dias. But eventually, the flagrant

hypocrisy began to erode the legitimacy of his administration. As Alan Knight, writes, quote, as long as constitutions remain, however neglected and abused, authoritarian regimes can hardly expect their subject to maintain indefinitely a willing suspension of disbelief regarding matters political and constitutional. End quote. By 1910, Mexico's willingness to suspend its disbelief was finally exhausted. The most obvious manifestations of Porfarian political hypocrisy were the local, state, and national elections dutifully held each year. Despite the great display of democratic pageantry,

only candidates pre-selected by Diaz were allowed to win. This open mockery of the Constitution was resented by politically astute citizens. But for the majority of his reign, Diaz was savvy enough with his choices to make the electoral impositions tolerable. If a preferred candidate began to generate too much opposition, as was the case with Carlos Ortiz and Sonora in 1882, and Jose Maria Garza Galan in Coahuila in 1893, Diaz would withdraw his support and back a more palatable candidate. So although democracy was dead in Mexico, Dias was careful to take local sentiment into account when imposing political leaders.

By the early 1900s, however, Dias's electoral instincts began to desert him. Against all reason, he backed his chief of staff, Pablo Escondon, for the governorship of Morelos in 1909, sparking widespread agitation that eventually led to a revolutionary uprising. That same year, Dias deposed Miguel Cardinus as governor of Kuala, but replaced him with Prakis de la Pena, provoking hostility among the local ruling elites. By supporting unpopular candidates in the latter years of his reign, Dias tested the limits of his citizens' ability to stomach the political charade. It is one thing to endure fake elections if the candidate is palatable.

It is quite another to endure fake elections if the candidate is intolerable. Abraham Gonzalez claimed that he did not join the revolution because he hated Dias, but because he hated the men who governed Chihuahua. However, if there was any single institution that revealed the stark contradiction between the democratic rhetoric of the Porfuriato and its despotic reality, it was the hefe's politicos. These unelected officials were the central government's representatives in local municipalities, and they acted as a combination political enforcer, chief of police, moneylender, and one-man judiciary.

Often drawn from the families of the local asandados, the hefe's politicos were politically well-connected and given a wide degree of latitude in governing their districts. This unaccountable autonomy led to frequent complaints of sloth, corruption, and cheap despotism. In the early years of the Perfriado, local citizens were able to exert some influence over who would be their hefe, But by the 1900s, the choice was made with little input from the people, leading to widespread resentment. It is telling how hated these quote-unquote miniature autocrats had become that in his final national address, as he was attempting to save his presidency, Diaz promised to reform the Hefe system in order to, quote, correct abuses of petty officials, unquote.

For more than 30 years, President Diaz managed to rule Mexico as an autocrat while pretending to be a Democrat. But though the decision to leave the Constitution of 1857 in place helped legitimize his regime initially, the daily aggravation of democratic rhetoric being contradicted by authoritarian practice soon began eroding rather than bolstering Dias's legitimacy. As Alan Knight puts it, when the citizens are no longer willing to endure the electoral charade, quote, the constitutional chickens come home to roost, unquote. Two, fossilization. The stark anti-democratic reality of the Porfuriato might not have been such an irritant,

had Diaz been willing to open the system to the wide pool of educated young men looking to play a role in government. But instead, as the president aged, so too did his administration. In 1910, Ignacio Mariscal, the outgoing Secretary of Foreign Relations, was 81 years old and had been at his post for 26 years. Manuel Gonzalez Cascio was 74 and had held various positions in the cabinet for 20 years. Jose Liemontour had been Treasury Secretary for 17 years. The Secretary of Development was 67. The Secretary of Public Instruction was 62 and had been at his post for almost a decade. This pattern of entrenchment and old age repeated itself throughout the administration.

State governors regularly served for at least a decade, and many stayed in office for more than 20 years. The Senate, as Francisco Bolness wrote, quote, housed a collection of senile mummies in a state of lingering stupor, unquote. After battling his way to power in the 1870s, Dias consolidated his rule by not only rewarding political allies with the spoils of victory, but also by offering positions to former enemies in exchange for their loyalty to the new regime. Choosing the carrot over the stick, men who had opposed Dias' bid for power like Joaquin Baranda, Manuel de Blon and Romero Rubio,

found themselves appointed to cabinet positions alongside staunch Dias loyalists, like Carlos Pacheco and Pedro Hinojosa. Dias' willingness to use capable men, quote, wherever he found them, irrespective of what their past political opinions may have been, unquote, was one of the hallmarks of his early reign. But once the initial process of solidification was complete,

Dias continued to rely on the men of his own generation, rather than leaving the door open for new blood to enter the system. The upside of this strategy was that Diaz knew he could count on the personal loyalty of almost everyone in his administration. The downside, as John Mason Hart writes, was that, quote, by the 20th century, the Porphyrian government was largely composed of an aged click rendered increasingly obsolete by the creation and growth of new social and political groups that emerged as a result of overall economic growth, unquote.

The problem Dias faced was that the rapid economic development he prized had created a whole new generation of educated middle and upper class men eager to gain political influence, but denied access to the levers of power. These men had taken advantage of the economic opportunities Porfarian capitalism presented, but were disappointed to find those opportunities did not extend into the political arena. Hart writes, quote, the regime politically excluded the newly affluent small merchant. and industrialists, professionals, and intelligentsia, who were created by the growth of the economy before 1900, as well as provincial and local elites from representation or real power in the political process, unquote. Thus, when Francisco Madero, the economically successful, but politically stifled, Hassandado from Coahuila, began establishing political clubs with an eye on winning the presidency in 1910, the men who joined his coalition were not anarchist workers or

oppressed peasants, but members of the disaffected middle and upper classes, who were, quote, the beneficiaries, not the victims of Porfarian economic progress, unquote. Abraham Gonzalez of Chihuahua was a Notre Dame educated bank cashier, whose promising career stalled for want of the right political connections. Jose Maria Metraena of Sonora was the sion of a family of prominent landowners who had been shut out of state politics by the Dias-approved ruling triad of Luis Torres. Roman Corral and Raphael Isabel. A future vice president and revolutionary martyr, Jose Maria Pino Suarez, was a Yucatan journalist

financed by disgruntled planters, angry at the monopolization of political power by the Molina and Montez families. Indeed, one of the enduring legacies of Madero's revolt was that it paved the way for political power to be redistributed, quote, among relatively dispossessed segments of the nation's middle class." Unquote. Had the president found a way to absorb these men into his ruling coalition, as he had once found a way to absorb his opponents after seizing power, the election of 1910 might never

have been contested, and the Mexican Revolution might never have erupted. As Ramon Ruiz notes, quote, somehow Diaz, who himself had rebelled against Juarez because of hunger for public office, had forgotten how dangerous it was to deny upward mobility to the young and gifted. And quote, with so few holding on to power for so long, it was almost inevitable that the critical mass of stifled ambition would eventually explode. Three, disharmony.

Though stifling the ambitions of would-be political leaders is dangerous, it is not necessarily fatal. If an entrenched regime is sufficiently unified, it will be able to disrupt any nascent revolt before it picks up steam. Unfortunately for Porfirio Diaz, his modus operandi was to keep his subordinates as disunited as possible. Far from being the monolithic force that is sometimes purported to be, the Diaz regime was actually a patchwork quilt of rival political groups who shared little in common beyond personal loyalty to Don Porfirio.

The men who served Diaz were often bitter enemies locked in fierce competitions with one another for power, influence, and wealth. Rather than clamped down on the rampant infighting amongst his underlings, President Diaz encouraged their feuds as a way to check potential threats to his authority. For three decades, this strategy helped guarantee Diaz's personal security, but at the moment of revolutionary crisis, it played a major role in his undoing. The most important of these internal riffs divided the Scientifico clique in Mexico City from regional elites who valued provincial autonomy.

On one side, Scientifico ministers like Jose Liemintour and Ramon Corral believe that political stability and economic expansion, the vaunted order and progress of the Porfiriato, could only be achieved by a highly centralized government. On the other side, state governors like Teodoro de Hesa of Veracruz and Bernardo Reyes of Nuevo Leon continued to believe in the virtues of federalism. Somewhere in between these two political polls were provincial elites like Enrique Creel, who traveled in Scientifico circles, but who also guarded their regional prerogatives. The case of Creel offers a further insight into the riffs that divided the Dias regime.

The son of an American consul, Creel had married the daughter of Luis Tarazas, the richest and most powerful man in Chihuahua. Because of the prominent position he attained in the national government, the half-American Creel is often lumped in with the Scientificos, but he never fully trusted his more nationalistic compatriots. By the 1900s, the Scientifocs began to favor European investment to prevent the United States from completely dominating Mexico, while Creel remained a zealous advocate of U.S. investment to the very end. So even the inner circle of the Dias regime was defined by tension and division. Dias was only too happy to play these factions off each other to ensure his own position remained inviolate. When the president began to

began to worry about Lehman Tours growing influence in the run-up to the 1900 election. He tacitly approved a public smearing of the finance minister organized by Dehasa and Reyes. When the popularity of Bernardo Reyes began to set off alarm bells in the presidential palace, Dias allowed the governor's Scientifico enemies to orchestrate a humiliating show trial in 1902 that blamed Reyes for the death of demonstrators in Monterey. The bitterness ran so deep that as Dias's regime was collapsing in May of 1911, Reyes placed the blame for the revolutionary chaos not on Francisco Madero, but on, quote, the criminal tyranny of a faction who in derision only is termed the Scientifico Party, and quote.

All of these clashing interests, personal feuds, and bitter rivalries, served on Perfrio well for the majority of his reign. But when the winds of anti-relectionism began to gather after 1908, the so-called Dias regime proved to be less a totalist, humanitarian dictatorship, and more a fragmented collection of petty backbiders, ready to toss each other in front of the train at the first opportunity. When Madero embarked on his speaking tour in 1909, he was warmly received in Veracruz and protected from harassment by Governor DeHesa, perhaps in the hope that Madero would be able to curb Scientifico influence. Meanwhile, the Scientificos were so obsessed with defeating Bernardo Reyes that they all but ignored Madero until he had whipped up a genuine national following for. himself. Reyes, for his part, refused to dissuade supporters from organizing opposition to the regime, which contributed mightily to the chaotic political atmosphere. In all of these cases, the men who composed the Dias regime were so focused on undercutting each other that they missed the very

real threat posed by Madero until it was too late. Four, succession. The shaky anti-democratic system of the late Porfiriato, defined by tenuous, alliances internally and barely constrained ambitions externally, was rocked in early 1908 by President Diasa's sudden announcement that he was ready to step down and allow for truly democratic elections in 1910. Almost overnight, all those tenuous alliances began to break apart, and all those barely constrained ambitions began to break free. As Paul Garner notes, quote, while restrictions on the development of political institutions and parties helped to keep opposition under control. They deprive the regime of either an institutional means of succession or a means

of channeling the growing demand for wider democratic participation, unquote. Once again, Dias was caught pursuing a strategy that long guaranteed his political survival, but eventually proved a major part of his undoing. By the time Dias gave his infamous Creelman interview, the problem of succession had been looming over Porphyrian Mexico for only. almost two decades. The men who became known as the Scientificos first came together as Dias sought a third re-election in 1892, in part because they, quote, pause to wonder what would happen when the linchpin of the system was removed, unquote. Among the liberal reforms they advocated in exchange for supporting Dias's re-election was the creation of a vice presidency, which would help

transform the national government from a shaky, personalist venture into a stable regime with clear mechanisms of succession. But their efforts failed, and the Scientificos resigned themselves to the danger that lurks when, quote, there are no institutions but one man on whose life depends peace, productive work, and credit, unquote. The problem of succession continued to play a major role in national politics for the rest of Dias's reign. Speculation about who was next in line for the presidency intensified after Dias began hinting that he would not seek re-election in 1900, and then, after he did seek re-election in 1900, began hinting that he would not seek re-election in 1904.

Though the name of Foreign Minister Ignacio Mariscal was floated, the candidates most often cited in the press as likely successors were Jose Leman Tours and Bernardo Reyes. Unfortunately, for supporters of both men, however, the very fact that they were often cited in the press as likely successors was enough to convince Dias he could not risk anointing either one as his political heir. The possibility they might overthrow him in the interim was too great. With this fear in mind, when he finally succumbed to calls for vice presidency, Dias picked as his running mate not the popular Reyes or the respected Lehman Tour, but the relatively obscure former governor of Sonora and recently appointed minister of the interior, Ramon Corral.

The selection of Corral would have profound consequences. Dias himself admitted that his choice was driven by a desire to find an unpopular man who would be unable to threaten his position. But if there was a danger to putting a popular man into the vice presidency, there was also a danger to putting an unpopular man into the vice presidency. Corral's new position as air-presumptive, quote, stimulated public animosity, unquote, and further intensified divisiveness within the regime, as men who supported Diaz had no desire to see Coral succeed him. Ramon Ruiz called the selection of Corral

nothing less than, quote, a cardinal miscalculation, unquote. As long as Dias remained in place, the elevation of an unpopular vice president was merely an annoyance. But when the revelation that Dias would not seek re-election in 1910 hit, the fact that Corral was in line to succeed him set off a wave of political agitation. Though Dias, hinting at retirement, had by this point become a quadrennial tradition, with the president almost 80 years old, there was reason to believe he might be serious this time. Even after Dias reversed coerced and announced that he would seek re-election after all,

the president's advanced age ensured the question of succession remained on the table. With few believing Dias was going to live through his next six-year term, the battle over who would be his running mate in 1910 became a life and death political struggle. The Scientifico constituency in Mexico City lobbied hard to keep Corral in place. But outside of that circle, Dias' choice of successor rankled men across the political spectrum. For both regime insiders like Bernardo Reyes and Dioro Deiero who despise the Scientificos, and regime outsiders like Francisco Madero, who hoped Dias' retirement would bring democracy back to Mexico, the prospect of a Coral presidency confirmed their worst chance.

fears about the future. By refusing to transfer power to a credible successor, like Reyes or Limentor, or even Enrique Creel, and instead focusing on the temporary expedient of ensuring his second in command would not be able to overthrow him, Dias did much to invite the trouble that would soon be upon him. There are good reasons to believe that, quote, if Dias had replaced Corral, Madero would never have called for revolution, unquote. The inescapable, problem Diaz faced is that in a personalist dictatorship, the alliance network that binds the regime together runs through a single man. Transferring that alliance network to a successor without breaking it is a delicate task. By refusing to replace Corral as heir, Diaz failed that delicate task.

Despite fawning profiles in the press, the vice president simply did not have enough political support to entrust him with the future of the regime. When Diaz was young, he was young, he was His unwillingness to designate a credible successor was not an urgent problem. But now that the president's death was imminent, the lack of a credible successor paved the way for a power struggle to see who would really control the future of Mexico. Five, the Army. Even with all these flaws undermining the political structure of the Porfuriato, the collapse of the Dias regime was by no means inevitable. His government was shaken by the contentious election of 1910. But when Madero called for armed revolution in November, there was no reason to believe his

band of insurgents would actually be able to topple the regime. Just as the revolution was beginning, a government spokesman dismissed the notion that, quote, a handful of malcontents could upset or endanger the existence of the administration. To think that such a thing is possible at present is simply infantile, unquote. For the first few weeks of the revolt, nothing happened to challenge that assumption. But as the campaign dragged on, it became apparent that the federal army was not the omnipotent force it was supposed to be. Unfortunately for Dias, his overriding imperative vis-à-vis army had always been to neutralize it as a political threat. Now that he needed that army to defend his

regime, the president found himself betrayed by the inefficiency and incompetence he himself had fostered. As with the upper rungs of the government, the upper rungs of the military were stocked with aging dinosaurs. 80-year-old colonels, 70-year-old captains, 60-year-old lieutenants all long past their prime. These officers were veterans of the reform wars and the French intervention, who, like Dias himself, had never been professionally trained soldiers. Promotion in the Porphirian military was based on, quote, political agility rather than military ability, and quote. And the old war horses who composed the general staff were loath to make decisions without the direction of Don Porphyria, less they risk the privileged social status their military commissions provided.

This reliance on aging political allies to run the military did much to dampen the endemic coups that had plagued Mexico before Dias came to power, but it also created a cast of senior commanders unable to think for themselves or act decisively in a crisis. Compounding this failure of leadership was the fact that loyalty to Dias did not translate into loyalty to each other. Just as the president had encouraged rivalry among his civilian subordinates, he encouraged rivalry among his military subordinates. As the campaign against Madero's guerrilla army dragged on, clashes among senior officers hindered the federal army's ability to craft a unified response. While out in the field, quote, officers squabble. amongst themselves and at times committed acts of rash in subordination. Unquote.

Staff officers, artillery technicians, and engineers look down on infantry and cavalry officers and refused to coordinate maneuvers with them. As Paul Vanderwood notes, quote, Diaz had encouraged a kind of competition among his subordinates as a means of checking the ambition of any single individual. Such a policy might have helped preserve the peace of the Perfariato, but it seriously detracted from efforts to stem Madero's movement. Unquote. On one occasion, General Juan Hernandez, his own commander in Chihuahua,

ordered a subordinate to pursue some Mataristas into the mountains. The subordinate refused and told General Hernandez that if Hernandez wanted the rebels pursued into the hills, that he better come down and do it himself. Further detracting from efforts to stem Madero's movement was the actual rank and file of the army. Though the common criticism of Dias' troops as that, being mostly forced conscripts, they ran away or switched sides at the first opportunity, Vanderwood's investigation of the campaign of 1910, 1911 led him to conclude that Dias' forces actually performed well under the circumstances. The problem was not necessarily the quality of the troops, but the quantity. As part of his ongoing effort to neutralize the army as a potential threat, Dias had allowed his officers to inflate.

troop numbers over the years and pocket excess appropriations as an unspoken bribe. On paper, the Federal Army in 1910 was 30,000 strong. In reality, there were only 14,000 men in uniform. This lack of troops mattered little when it came to combating the kinds of isolated brush fires the Porphyrian military was used to seeing. But when multiple fires began breaking out all over Mexico, the army was spread too thin to put them all out. Finally, there is Diaz's counterproductive micromanagement during the armed conflict itself. Because he had built a system that prized subservience over efficiency, the president, quote, insisted on personally directing the campaign against the surging matteristas, unquote.

Not only did this create a logjam of orders and intelligence, but Diaz was rumored to be directing the campaign in Chihuahua, where Terrain was playing a key role in the fighting from a postal zone map. hobbled by a toothache, unwilling to listen to his officers, quote, the attempt to direct every detail of the military operations from the president's palace was fordoomed to failure. Unquote. The state of the federal army on the eve of the Mexican Revolution was a microcosm of

all that was rotten about the Porphyriotto. Its senior leadership was old and docile. Its officers were engaged in running feuds with one another that prevented them from working together. Its on-paper strength did not match its actual strength. It was commanded by a single general who was both physically sick and mentally out of touch. It was a system that had long guaranteed Dias would not have to worry about the army rising up against him. It was also a system designed to fail the minute it faced a real military crisis.

Conclusion. Rising to power after 50 years of chaos, it is a testament to the political skill of Porfioria Dias that he was able to sustain his regime for so long. His decision to maintain the democratic forms of the Constitution provided a convenient alibi that helped deflect accusations he was a mere dictator. His reliance on old and trusted allies ensured that the men who governed Mexico were loyal to him and him alone. His deft ability to play factions and personalities off one another built a self-perpetuating system of checks and balances that prevented any one group from gaining too much power. His enigmatic treatment of the succession issue kept potential candidates on their

toes while not alienating their opposition. His reorganization of the military shut the army down as a launching pad for potential usurpers. Dias emerged from anarchy to forge a stable regime that lasted 35 years. It was a remarkable achievement. But the seeds of Dias's destruction were sewn in the political strategies he used to forge that regime. The hypocrisy of his democratic rhetoric was as obvious as it was obnoxious. His dependence on old men serving de facto lifetime appointments embittered legions of capable men who were shut out of power. His encouragement of rivalries kept the regime internally divided. His unwillingness to settle the question of succession left the future dangerously uncertain. His weakening of the army left it unable to defeat a disobey

organized and, frankly, amateurish guerrilla insurgency. In the end, the political strategies Perfrio Dias employed to keep himself in power for more than three decades turned out to be a double-edged sword. A fact Dias did not realize until that sword was buried in his back.