The Mexican Revolution of 1910 - Conclusion

The Mexican Revolution was notable less for its ideological novelty than for its successful implementation of ideas that were, in general, well-known, even commonplace. Political liberalism, patriotism, anticlericalism, developmentalism and indigenismo were all familiar elements of the pre-revolutionary -in some cases even the colonial- ideological landscape. Economic nationalism and labour reform were relatively new, being products of late nineteenth-century desarrollo hacia afuera; as such, however, they were by no means confined to Mexico and were to be found throughout Latin America.

The result was a Revolution which followed a pragmatic course and did not adhere to any strict blueprint. Mexican revolutionaries killed each other in the pursuit of power, but they did not parade their ideological virtue in political show trials like their Soviet counterparts. Nor did the Mexican Revolution seek to export itself as a world-historical model, even if aspects of the Revolution certainly influenced some Latin American leftists -Haya de la Torre and Sandino, for example.

The genetic material of the Revolution was therefore Mexican, hardly suitable for extensive cross-breeding in foreign climes. This peculiarly national revolution, possessed of a vague, eclectic ideology, was unusually resistant to external upheavals (the rise and fall of Communism had less impact in Mexico than perhaps any other Latin American country); but it was also capable of endless Jesuitical re-invention by opportunistic politicians and their pet intellectuals.

Thus, the trayectoria ideológica of the revolution tended to follow events and processes rather than determine them: Maderista liberalism failed because of both structural weaknesses and conjunctural obstacles; anticlericalism -dormant during the early Revolution- burst into life following the Huerta coup; economic nationalism was decisively stimulated by the economic collapse of 1915-17 and the economic depression of 1930. Díaz appeared to have laid Church-State conflict to rest, but it flared up with even greater vehemence after 1913, responding to political events; Calles pronounced the end of the agrarian reform in 1930 yet Cárdenas, pushed by the peasantry, soon enacted the greatest reparto of all.

Long after the revolutionary generation of 1910-40 had left the scene, Mexico's leaders continued to legitimize themselves -and every twist and turn of their policy- in the name of the Revolution. Even Salinista neo-liberalism, which made a bonfire of so many revolutionary heirlooms, claimed to do so in the name of the Revolution. To the extent that such legitimizing claims were believed (and often, no doubt, they got a mixed reception), we may speak of the enduring success of Mexico's revolutionary ideology; a success which had little to do with intellectual novelty or consistency, but a lot to do with political structures, affective allegiances, and cultural diffusion.

On the day that NAFTA came into being, seeming to crown Salinas's neo-liberal reforms, the Chiapas rebels startled the world, evoking the old revolutionary symbol of Zapata. They have not been silenced. It would be rash lo assume that the genetic material of the 1910 Revolution is definitively dead, rather than quietly dormant.