The Institutionalisation of the Mexican Revolution
“This period [1928-1934] between the murder of Obregón and the election of Lázaro Cárdenas is most perplexing,” wrote one of the most perceptive foreign observers of the Mexican scene some years ago. “If it were possible to discover what had taken hold of the leadership of Mexico in those debased and clouded years, it would illumine much of Mexican history.”What are the reasons for perplexity? Basically, they are two: that the events of this period do not seem to fit the generally accepted view that the history of Mexico from 1910 to the present day forms one grand panorama of historical evolution called the Mexican Revolution, and that the only explanation that has been offered of why they do not seems inherently improbable. The view that the Mexican Revolution is a coherent whole we owe principally to the Mexicans themselves and to sociologists who see revolutions in general and the “Great Revolutions” in particular as social rather than political events.