History of Mexico: Encyclopedia II - History of Mexico - Stabilization and the revolution institutionalized

History of Mexico - Stabilization and the revolution institutionalized

In 1929 the National Mexican Party, PNM, was formed by the serving president, General Plutarco Elías Calles. (It would later become the PRI or Partido Revolucionario Institucional that ruled the country for the rest of the 20th century.) The PNM succeeded at convincing most of the remaining revolutionary generals to dissolve their personal armies to create the Mexican Army, and so its foundation is considered by some the real end of the Mexican Revolution.

President Lázaro Cárdenas del Río came to power in 1934 and transformed Mexico: on April 1, 1936 he exiled Calles, the last general with dictatorial ambitions, managed to unite the different forces in the PRI and set the rules that allowed this party to rule unchallenged for decades to come without internal fights. He nationalized the oil industry on March 18, 1938, the electricity industry, created the National Polytechnic Institute, granted asylum to Spanish expatriates fleeing the Spanish Civil War, started land reform, started the distribution of free textbooks for children, and, in general, pursued policies that for good or ill have marked the development of Mexico until the present day.

Manuel Ávila Camacho, Cárdenas's successor, presided over a "bridge" between the revolutionary era and the era of machine politics under PRI that would last until 2000. Camacho, moving away from nationalistic autarchy, proposed to create a favorable climate for international investment, favored nearly two generations ago by Madero. Camacho's regime froze wages, repressed strikes, and persecuted dissidents with a law prohibiting the "crime of social dissolution." During this period, the PRI regime thus betrayed the legacy of land reform. Miguel Alemán Valdés, Camacho's successor, even had Article 27 amended to protect elite landowners.

Although PRI regimes achieved economic growth and relative prosperity for almost three decades after World War II, the management of the economy collapsed several times, and political unrest grew in the late sixties, culminating in the Tlatelolco massacre in 1968. In the 1970s, economic crises affected the country in 1976 and 1982, after which the banks were nationalized, having been blamed for the economic problems. (La Década Perdida) On both occasions the Mexican peso was devalued, and until 2000, it had been normal to expect a big devaluation and a recessionary period after each presidential term ended every six years. The crisis that came after a devaluation of the peso in late 1994 threw Mexico into economic turmoil, triggering the worst recession in over half a century.

On September 19, 1985, an earthquake measuring approximately 8.0 on the Richter scale struck Michoacán and inflicted severe damage on Mexico City. Estimates of the number of dead range from 6,500 to 30,000. (See Great Mexican Earthquake.)

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