The War Has Brought Peace to Mexico: World War II and the Consolidation of the Post-Revolutionary State

Epilogue

215 epilogue On July 7, 1946, less than eight months after the triumphant return of the men of the Mexican Expeditionary Air Force to their homeland, Miguel Alemán Valdés won election as president of Mexico for the 1946– 1952 term. For the first time since the Revolution, the contest for the presidential chair had been between two civilian candidates. That fact, along with the contrast between the chaotic and bloody election day that Mexico had experienced in 1940 and the peaceful, orderly atmosphere that prevailed in 1946, seemed to confirm the extent to which Mexico had changed during the war years. Claims by supporters of Ezequiel Padilla that fraud had taken place and that they had been subject to intimidation were not entirely without foundation, to be sure, but the scale of the alleged irregularities was relatively small, and Alemán’s margin of victory was substantial and convincing.1 The transfer of power from Ávila Camacho to Alemán on December 1, 1946, marked the beginning of a new era in Mexican history. For the rest of the century, Mexico would be led by civilian politicians representing the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). The fact that the Partido de la Revolución Mexicana had reconfigured itself as the PRI in January 1946 was another sign of the completion of a significant shift; the reconstituted party’s name suggested that the Revolution was entering a new phase, one in which reform would occur in a more measured, gradual way, through institutional channels. 216 e p i l o g u e In the years that followed, the Mexican regime became more markedly conservative and authoritarian, even as it presided over a period of rapid industrialization and explosive economic growth. Alemán and his successors went further than Ávila Camacho in limiting the influence and independence of the once powerful labor unions, the expanded intelligence services took a more active role in monitoring and stamping out dissent, and those who dared to protest against the increasingly repressive character of the state often found themselves facing charges of “social dissolution.” International conditions played a part in making possible this more open shift to the right; Cold War tensions between East and West created an environment in which crackdowns on leftist activity could be framed in terms of the alleged need to counter the threat to national sovereignty posed by global communism. To be sure, the regime faced significant challenges during the postwar decades: from an opposition presidential campaign by Henríquez Guzmán in 1952, from major strikes by teachers and railroad workers in the late 1950s and by doctors in the mid-1960s, and from guerrilla groups in the countryside, to name a few examples. However, with the “Mexican miracle” of sustained economic expansion bringing improved standards of living for many during these years, successive PRI administrations were generally able to maintain stability by continuing to claim the mantle of the Mexican Revolution, by dispensing patronage through clientelistic networks, by co-opting potential opponents, and, at times, by forcefully repressing dissent. It was only after the regime violently suppressed a student protest movement calling for reform in 1968, and after episodes of economic mismanagement and crisis in subsequent decades, that the PRI regime’s claims to legitimacy were increasingly called into question. As historians, political analysts, and individual citizens have reflected on the Mexican experience during the second half of the twentieth century , they have often not fully recognized the importance of the World War II era as the period in which the foundations of the PRI regime were laid. This tendency to underestimate the significance of the war years can be understood in part as a consequence of the subtlety with which Ávila Camacho managed Mexican political life during the early 1940s. While he was in office, “the gentleman president” was happy to cultivate a rather dull image of himself. After visiting Mexico in 1941, American journalist John Gunther described the president as being e p i l o g u e 217 “about as colorful as a slab of halibut,” calling him “steady, cautious, and efficient,” and adding that the “key to his character is sobriety.”2 The contemporary Mexican press commented not on his charisma, his ideological dogmatism, or his personal magnetism, but rather on his “serenity .”3 Ávila Camacho himself once told a political associate that he had learned “that the president of the...