Lázaro Cárdenas

Lázaro Cárdenas del Río was born on 21 May 1895, one of eight children in a lower-middle-class family in the village of Jiquilpan, Michoacán, where his father (Dámaso Cárdenas Pineda) owned a billiard hall. His family was of prominent Purépecha ancestry. After the death of his father in 1911, from the age of 16, Cárdenas supported his family (including his mother and seven younger siblings). By the time he reached 18, he had worked as a tax collector, a printer's devil, and a jail keeper. Although he left school when he was eleven, he used every opportunity to educate himself and read widely throughout his life, especially works of history.

Service under President Calles

Cárdenas was a political protégé of Calles, but his ideological mentor was revolutionary General Francisco J. Múgica, a strongly anticlerical, secular socialist. President Calles appointed Cárdenas Chief of Military Operations in the Huasteca, an oil-producing region on the Gulf Coast. Cárdenas saw first-hand the operations of foreign oil companies. In the Huasteca, U.S. oil companies extracted oil, avoided taxes owed to the Mexican government, and treated the region as "conquered territory." Múgica also was posted to the Huasteca and he and Cárdenas became close. During their time in the Huasteca, Múgica told Cárdenas that "socialism [is] the appropriate doctrine for resolving conflicts in Mexico."

Governor of Michoacán, 1928–1932

Cárdenas was appointed governor of his home state of Michoacán in 1928, which was undergoing the political conflict between state and Church, known as the Cristero War. His ideological mentor Múgica had previously served as the state's governor and had attempted to counter the power of the Catholic Church in Mexico through laws. He mobilized groups to support his positions, creating "political shock troops," consisting of public school teachers and members of a disbanded agrarian league, forming the Confederación Revolucionaria Michoacana del Trabajo, under the slogan of "Union, Land, Work." The organization was funded by the state government, although not listed as an official expenditure. It became the single-most powerful organization representing both workers and peasants. Mobilizing worker and peasant support and controlling the organization to which they belonged became the model for Cárdenas when he became president.

Military career

Cárdenas set his sights on becoming a teacher but was drawn into the military during the Mexican Revolution after Victoriano Huerta overthrew President Francisco Madero in February 1913, although Michoacán was far from the revolutionary action that had brought Madero to the Mexican presidency. After Huerta's coup and Madero's assassination, Cárdenas joined a group of Zapatistas, but Huerta's forces scattered the group, where Cárdenas had served as captain and paymaster. Given that revolutionary forces were voluntary organizations, his position of leadership points to his skills and his being a paymaster to the perception that he would be honest in financial matters. Both characteristics followed him through his subsequent career. He escaped the Federal forces in Michoacán and moved north, where he served initially with Álvaro Obregón, then Pancho Villa, and after 1915 when Villa was defeated by Obregón to Plutarco Elías Calles, who served Constitutionalist leader Venustiano Carranza. Although Cárdenas was from the southern state of Michoacán, his key experiences in the Revolution were with Constitutionalist northerners, whose faction won. In particular, he served under Calles, who tasked him with military operations against Yaqui Indians and against Zapatistas in Michoacán and Jalisco, during which time he rose to a field command as general. In 1920, after Carranza was overthrown by northern generals, Cárdenas was given the rank of brigadier general at the age of 25. Cárdenas was appointed provisional governor of his home state of Michoacán under the brief presidency of Adolfo de la Huerta.

Health and Welfare

A number of measures aimed at improving health and welfare were carried out under the Cárdenas administration. During the six years of Cárdenas's presidency, water supply systems had been constructed in 337 towns, while health stations and hospitals were established. In 1936, social medicine and rural hygiene services were set up. A nation-wide welfare program was also adopted by the government that included, as Cardenas noted in a 1940 message, "medical assistance, aid to mothers and children, and general social therapy directed toward the education and rehabilitation of socially and economically weak and dependent persons and their eventual re-establishment as useful members of society."

In 1937 the Compania Exportadora e Importadora Mexicana was set up with the aim of providing markets for producers and stabilizing commodity prices for urban workers. The following year the Comite Regulador del Mercado de Subsistencias (CRMS) was set up (as noted by one study) "to better combat shortages, higher prices, and labor demands for higher wages." By 1939, CRMS had opened up retail shops which sold staples such as beans, rice and sugar at 50-75% below market rates.

Other political opposition to Cárdenas

There was more organized and ideological opposition to Cárdenas. Right-wing political groups opposed Cárdenas's policies, including the National Synarchist Union (UNS), a popular, pro-Catholic, quasi-fascist movement founded in 1937 that opposed his "atheism" and collectivism. Catholic, pro-business conservatives founded the National Action Party (PAN) in 1939, which became the principal opposition party in later years and won the presidency in 2000.