Huerta Forces Madero example essay topic

Revolutionaries vs. reformers in the Mexican revolution In Mexico between 1910 and 1920 the country underwent a series of revolutions. It underwent so many that in some said it was compared to an old fashioned record moving at a speed of 33 1/3 revolutions per minute. Some of the men that took over seized power for personal pleasure and others for philanthropy. But in the course of these revolutions some were sought out to bring a complete governmental change and were revolutionaries, and other tried only to reform the government for the good of the people. These leaders consisted of Madero, Villa, Zapata, Huerta, Orzoco, Carranza, and Obregon. Francisco Madero was known by reputation as a philanthropist and a model citizen.

He tried to help the people. By some was known as the chocolate fool for his habit of giving chocolate to little kids (Lanning 34). He never smoked, drank or even ate meat. Madero then became disturbed by the actions of Diaz; in 1904 Diaz had increased the length of the presidential term from four years to six and selected a highly unpopular politician named Ram " on Corral as vice-presidential candidate. By choosing a man as widely disliked as Corral, Diaz operated on the cynical principle of "look what would follow if you got rid of me". Tension between the Diaz and Madero built in 1908 Madero wrote a book about the succession of the president.

Then in 1910 Diaz had Madero jailed for enticing a rebellion. Then escaped jail to the US and plotted his revolutionary (Lanning 23). Madero was unhappy with Diaz's actions and his choice of VP. Prices of food and land were too inflated for common man to afford. Madero had also lost the 1910 election and was seeking power He now wanted to overthrow the government and then became a revolutionary with reforms. Then when Madero crossed over the border he had his revolution.

With the help of Pancho Villa, Pascual Orzoco, and Emiliano Zapata, he defeated the Diaz army at Juarez. In 1910 in San Antonio, Madero announces the Plan de San Luis Potosi which declared the 1910 election invalid and said Madero had been elected president; But after the battle he and Orzoco had a large dispute over the life of General Navarro and Orzoco became extremely upset with Diaz's decision to let him live. Madero did try his best as a revolutionary but did little to reform the government. Under Diaz the average person was worse off than they were in 1810. There were then no reforms under him and none at all until Aguascalientes Convention of 1914 (Moses 12). Eventually this revolutionary was ousted from power by Huerta who was a former general of his who came to disrespect him in a dispute over finances, and denied being governor of Chihuahua.

Therefore it can be concluded that he wanted to reform the government but in order to do so had to become a revolutionary. Madero also poorly conducted out his goals of the revolution to restore food, and land to the people and failed as a reformer. Pancho Villa was another man in the Mexican revolution that was both a revolutionary and a reformer. He joined the Madero revolution as a general and then remained loyal to his cause. Villa had a history of Robin Hood Type reforms. He killed a man for harming his sister in his early life and stole cattle to give to the poor (Katz 56).

Villa also never drank alcohol. But he was one of the revolutionaries that sided with Madero. Villa was known as a rowdy gunfighter (Katz 19). He had no personal reforms that he wanted to take place and fought battles to help reformers and therefore could be considered as either a revolutionary or a reformer.

Huerta was a man notorious for his drinking and stupidity, and only tried to seize the power of the government for revenge. He was a revolutionary. Huerta after he heard that he was to account for the funds that he lost when was hired to fight against Orzoco. Huerta then changed sides and immediately went to take control and bring down Huerta.

He staged battles against Diaz (nephew of Po rfio) in order to stir things up in a plot to take the presidency with Diaz (Cline 58). Then Huerta forces Madero out of power and seizes the presidency. Huerta's ego was enlarged after the battles he won against Orzoco and therefore showed no political reform and only cared about power. Soon after he was forced out of the presidency this revolution was based only on vengeance and no reform took place (Lanning 64). Orzoco split off from the Madero forces n March 3, 1912, and he announced his revolt against the Madero government, thereby driving the anti-Madero movement. Many called him as a traitor.

Then he decided to beat out Huerta and become a reformer by saying that after the battle of Re llano, on March 23, was the high-water mark of the Orozquista military campaign. Two days after it Orozco issued his Plan Orozquista, which called for the abolition of company stores, the payment of all workers in legal tender rather than company scrip, and other reforms (Alman 64). After Huerta, who at the time had been hired to fight Orzoco, seized the presidency Orzoco then joined him of hoping to get his reforms across. Orzoco had some reforms that he wanted to get across and not just a search for power, even though he was after power. In comparison was a revolutionary that did take over and stage a coup on the government.

Emiliano Zapata was a true reformer to help the people. He helped out Madero in the revolution. And when it was over met with Madero and asked him to exert pressure on the provisional president to return the land to the ejidos (Womack 37). Madero insisted on the disarmament of the guerrillas and offered Zapata recompense so that he could buy land, an offer that Zapata rejected. Zapata began to disarm his forces but stopped when the provisional president sent the army against the guerrillas. Then Zapata decided that Madero had failed as a reformer and drew up The Plan of Ayala.

Madero was elected president in August 1911, and Zapata met with him again but without success. With the help of a teacher, Ot ilio Montano, Zapata prepared the Plan of Ayala, which declared Madero incapable of fulfilling the goals of the revolution. The signers renewed the revolution and promised to appoint a provisional president until there could be elections. They also vowed to return the stolen land to the ejidos by expropriating, with payment, a third of the area of the haciendas; those haciendas that refused to accept this plan would have their lands expropriated without compensation. Zapata adopted the slogan "Tierra y Libertad".

In the course of his campaigns, Zapata distributed lands taken from the haciendas (Womack 98). Zapata continued to fight for reform and invited the Constitutionalists (Carranza's men) to accept his Plan of Ayala and warned them that he would continue fighting independently until the plan was put to action. After this then Zapata joined forces with Pancho Villa and agreed on reforms which created agrarian commissions to distribute the land and he spent much time supervising their work to be sure they showed no favoritism and that the landowners did not corrupt its members. He established a Rural Loan Bank, the country's first agricultural credit organization; he also tried to reorganize the sugar industry of Morelos into cooperatives. Zapata had by far the most reform and a new U.S. envoy; William Gates said, "the true social revolution can be found among the Zapatistas". Fighting against Zapata was Venustiano Carranza.

Carranza switched sides to fight for Madero after Diaz had angered him by no backing him up for a governor position. He then joined the Madero forces. But after Huerta betrayed Madero and became dictator to draw up the Plan of Guadalupe, in which he refused to accept the powers of the dictator. And then he organized the Constitutionalist Army to defeat the new dictator. Huerta was forced to abandon the country in July 1914 (Carranza). In 1915 and 1916, the need for reforms in seven fundamental areas of Mexican life became extremely apparent: the agrarian sector, labor, sovereignty over natural resources, the relationship between the Church and the State, the role of the State in the economy, education and the political structure.

In 1915, Carranza issued the Law of January 6th, which conceived the ejido (collective farm) as compensation for injustice, rather than as a new system of land ownership. The ejido was intended to restore the territorial heritage of the dispossessed villages and to create new units with the land surrounding the villages; land would be expropriated for this purpose. Carranza then tried to reform the current way of life for Mexicans to bring back order. Then in 1918, the Carranza Doctrine was issued; this document upholds the equality between the states and condemns all intervention in the internal affairs of other nations; it also covers the equivalent of the rights of nationals and of foreigners in the eyes of the law of a given country (Moses 98). Carranza overall led a life to seek out political reform and went for the issues tat were important and not the power positions. The last and most successful member of the Spanish revolution was Obregon.

He was part of the 3 who were Obregon, Carranza and Villa that waged the successful campaign, which drove Huerta into exile in July 1914. Then Obregon split up from the rest of the group in disputes. He then called for Plan of Agua Prieto, calling for Carranza's overthrow. This got him in power and then once in power became a powerful reformer. During his four-year term, he showed himself to be more a pragmatic reformer than a wild-eyed destroyer of existing political structures (Cline 48). He favored labor but also encouraged foreign investment and domestic private enterprise.

Though he distributed almost ten times as much land to campesinos as Carranza, he differed from radicals in his administration by arguing that land distribution should be accompanied by instruction in the techniques of farming. Oreg " on's boldest initiatives were in the field of education. His Education Minister, Jos'e Vasconcelos, was a brilliant scholar with many innovative ideas (Lanning 39). Under his supervision, the ministry held festivals and sponsored hundreds of idealistic young teachers who gladly went into the most remote sections of the country.

Vasconcelos also took a lively interest in the arts and his ministry provided valuable teaching. Obregon overall was in for power but in the end was a very powerful reformer. The Mexican revolution is summed up with having the Madero team of war initially rebel and then Huerta against them and Carranza against him, and then Obregon against him. Huerta and Orzoco wanted to kill Madero and were not after reform but power.

Pancho Villa was after fighting and no after reform. Power hungry generals mask the crossing and double-crossing that went on shows us how close absolute power and anarchy are to each other, and how true good reformers.

Bibliography

Alman, Lucas, Historia de Mexico, (SJ 1952) 1-23 - Cline, Howard F Mexico: Revolution to Evolution, 1910-1960 (New York: Vintage Books 1992,100-1710) -Katz, Friedrich: The Life and Times of Pancho Villa (NY: Johnson press) 1-34 -Carranza, Venustiano PLAN DE GUADALUPE Veracruz, 1914 -Lanning John T.
Academic Culture in Spanish Americas. (NY, 1955) 34-54 - Moses, Bernard, Old Mexico (NY: Ann Arbor 1959) 45-109 -John Womack, Jr, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1968,400-404).