Pistoleros and Popular Movements: The Politics of State Formation in Postrevolutionary Oaxaca

5. Cárdenas’s Caciques, 1936–40

Cárdenas’s Caciques, 1936–40 rom 1934 to 1940 Cárdenas’s patronage of mass organizations and the reform of the national party reoriented politics at all levels. Traditional descriptions of this process in the regions have linked the formation of a powerful bureaucratic state to the creation of a network of “modern” caciques with links to the prm through control of ejidal committees and unions.1 Some traditional caciques adapted to the changing face of national politics. Paul Friedrich describes how Ezequiel “Scarface” Cruz gradually linked his local power base to Michoacán’s peasant confederation, eventually becoming head of Michoacán’s labor confederation.2 Others were replaced by a new breed of bureaucratically savvy, politically ambitious young caciques, schooled in the complexities of the state administration. These men fought to obtain the armed, electoral, or organizational power of the campesinos to offer to politicians inside or outside the government in exchange for favors such as grants of land, credit, and social and educational services. In Tlaxcala, Raymond Buve outlines the rapid rise of Emilio Carvajal and Ruben C. Carrizosa, who came to dominate the ejidos of Huamantla.3 In turn, the emergence of these “new intermediaries” increased state power and centralization as peasant groups were steadily incorporated into mass organizations and, by extension, into the national party.4 In predominantly indigenous regions, this model of cacicazgos has been 136 cárdenas’s caciques particularly strong. In Chiapas, scholars describe how indigenous caciques such as Enrique Uribe utilized programs of indigenismo to shanghai Tzotzil Indians to lowland coffee fincas as part of a new state union.5 Over the past decade scholars of cacicazgos have started to modify the sharp temporal bifurcation between traditional and modern caciques, dissect the cacique’s relationship with the state, and examine in greater detail the modus operandi of Mexico’s myriad local bosses.6 This chapter attempts to build on that work by examining how four caciques adapted to the new demands of Cardenismo and how the resulting cacicazgos affected the system of state control. In general terms, I posit that although Cardenismo did affect power relations within the Oaxacan countryside, it did not always develop a pattern of leadership modernization, cooption , and control. In fact, despite the adoption of some of the convenient discourses of Cardenismo, many caciques managed to maintain traditional cacicazgos with little or no interference from the central government and often in opposition to the state’s corporatist organizations. In fact, Cárdenas’s concern for stability encouraged the continuation of these practices and, by extension , the prolonged weakness of the Mexican state. In comparing the cacicazgos of Heliodoro Charis Castro, Luis Rodríguez, Francisco Ramos Ortiz, and Celestino Guzmán, this chapter suggests a typology of Oaxaca’s caciques based on the dichotomy suggested by James B. Greenberg. By examining the cacicazgos of Juquila and the Región Mixe, Greenberg has argued that individual systems were dependent on regional histories of capitalist incursion. In late nineteenth-century Juquila, mestizos established huge fincas and exploitative mercantile networks under the control of a cabal of cacical mestizo families. In contrast, in 137 cárdenas’s caciques the Región Mixe, economic control and political power remained in the hands of indigenous leaders such as Luis Rodríguez.7 The following investigation complicates this dichotomy by also looking at ethnic strategies of resistance and the local composition of the Cardenista state apparatus. The intricate interaction of these three factors delineated not only four different cacicazgos but also four different types of continuous resistance to these established boss systems. The ongoing struggle between these divergent factions in the shadow of an ineffective state shaped the regions ’ future politics. The Network of Caciques During the 1920s Francisco López Cortés had relied on a network of strongmen, based in the capitals of the ex-districts. During the next decade little changed. Power still emanated from these centers of legal, fiscal, and educational administration. Local control still depended on the appointment of municipal authorities, school inspectors, tax collectors, judges, agents of the public ministry, and leaders of the defensas sociales. The list in table 2 is broadly similar to that posited in table 1 for the Chicolopista period. But there are some differences. As described in chapter 4, democratic progressives in Ixtlán had managed to escape the domination of their revolutionary caciques during the late 1930s. Many state...