Plutarco Elías Calles and the Mexican Revolution (review)

Although Calles was the principal architect of the Mexican postrevolutionary state from 1925 to 1935, he remains something as a cipher as a person. Worse, his political legacy has been largely defined by his foes. To remedy this, Jürgen Buchenau's balanced, judicious, and concise biography ably synthesizes an impressive amount of scholarly literature, and mines overlooked primary sources—above all those of the superb presidential archive of Fideicomisio Plutarco Elías Calles y Fernando Torreblanco.

Adopting a chronological order of argument, Buchenau deftly guides the reader through the Byzantine factions of the Revolutionary Family and its enemies, sorting out the rival cliques of generals and políticos. He also analyzes key events such as Calles's complicity in the assassination of "Pancho" Villa. As revolutionary proconsul of his native Sonora from 1915 to 1919, Calles's lasting personal style of politics was already apparent: reliance on family and the military, and a stubborn unwillingness to show any flexibility when challenged. He was also a progressive if authoritarian modernizer from early on. He backed education, and battered the Church. The same pattern would reoccur again during his presidency (1924-1928). Early successes as a statist and reformer (he founded the Bank of Mexico, implemented an income tax, began the federalization of education and professionalization of the military) were overshadowed by a devastating series of crises from 1926 to 1928, including the Cristero War, clashes with U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg, and serious fractures in the Revolutionary Family following the murder of Alvaro Obregón.

Buchenau's treatment of the Maximato (1929-35) boldly challenges conventional wisdom. For Buchenau, the Maximato was more image than reality. And institutionalization, exemplified by the founding of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR), was in no small part Calles's response to his own failing health. Rheumatism compounded by poor diet, alcohol, and tobacco all prematurely aged Calles; the tragic death of his second wife in 1932 left him insomniac, depressed and perhaps a little hypochondriac. This reviewer appreciated the author's brevity and precision, but wished to hear more about how Calles's melancholy shaped his politics. After all, new perspectives on Lincoln's psyche informed by better understandings of depression have changed interpretations of his presidency and his life. Buchenau also fruitfully explores Calles's spiritism after his return to Mexico during the Manuel Avila Cámacho presidency; he went to a seance to debunk it, but ended up believing. The book also discusses Calles's surprising interest in faith healer/folk saint Niño Fidencio in the late 1920s, adding an overlooked dimension to his persona.

Buchenau also situates Calles within the context of Latin America politicians of his age. Like other Latin America populists, Calles tried to expand the state and build a mass popular base, in part by attacking "reaction." But he did not personally reach out through mass media and mass organizations, nor hone his speeches and image like Getulio Vargas or Evita Péron. If he was a populist, he delegated mass politics to intermediaries and institutions to a much greater degree than virtually every other contemporary populist leader. On the other hand, as Bucheneau's title suggests, in his day Calles alone in Latin America ruled a country after a social revolution. His genius lay not in personifying the state, but in trying to harness popular forces indirectly.

While the author ably explains why there is no hero cult of Calles today, we still need to know more about Callismo of the 1920s in the figurative middle of the revolutionary state. How did Secretaria de Educación Pública (SEP) educators, generals, and agrarian engineers imagine Calles and identify with his project? Popular Callismo certainly existed among leaders (and perhaps many followers) of the schismatic Catholic Church, the CROM's peasant and worker base, and the base of Tomás Garrido Canabal's Tabasco. In any event...