Cárdenas, oil and the long rule of the PRI
The ruling party founded in 1929, later the PRI, holds the presidency for 71 years; under Lázaro Cárdenas it distributes land and nationalises oil, and later it presides over decades of growth, corruption and repression.
- Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 — Enrique Krauze, HarperCollins (1997)
- The Course of Mexican History — Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman and Susan M. Deeds, Oxford University Press (2014)
- Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy — Julia Preston and Samuel Dillon, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2004)
- The Mexican Revolution (2 vols.) — Alan Knight, Cambridge University Press (1986)
After the assassination of president-elect Obregón in 1928, ex-president Plutarco Elías Calles founded the National Revolutionary Party (PNR) in 1929 to settle power struggles among revolutionary generals inside one party. Renamed the PRM in 1938 and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1946, it would win every presidential election until 2000. Each president served a single six-year term (sexenio) and, by unwritten rule, chose his successor with the dedazo, the “tap of the finger”.
- Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 — Enrique Krauze, HarperCollins (1997)
- The Course of Mexican History — Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman and Susan M. Deeds, Oxford University Press (2014)
Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40) gave the system its popular base. He distributed about 18 million hectares of land, largely as communal ejidos, organised workers and peasants into mass organisations tied to the party, and on 18 March 1938 expropriated the British and American oil companies. Mexicans lined up to donate money, jewellery and even chickens to pay the compensation.
- Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 — Enrique Krauze, HarperCollins (1997)
- The Mexican Revolution (2 vols.) — Alan Knight, Cambridge University Press (1986)
From the 1940s to around 1970, the economy grew strongly, cities boomed and a middle class emerged. But the system hardened: it crushed independent unions and student protest, culminating at Tlatelolco in 1968, and fought a “dirty war” against leftist guerrillas in the 1970s. Debt crises in 1982 and 1994–95 wrecked living standards; the state’s slow, inept response to the devastating Mexico City earthquake of 19 September 1985 spurred citizens to organise themselves; and the 1988 election, in which a computer system “crashed” while the opposition candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas appeared to be leading, became a byword for fraud.
- Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy — Julia Preston and Samuel Dillon, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2004)
- Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 — Enrique Krauze, HarperCollins (1997)
The party ended the cycle of coups and civil wars, kept the army out of politics, built schools, hospitals and social security, and gave Mexico decades of stability and growth, the "Mexican miracle", while much of Latin America fell to military dictatorships.
- Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 — Enrique Krauze, HarperCollins (1997)
- The Course of Mexican History — Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman and Susan M. Deeds, Oxford University Press (2014)
It was an authoritarian system that rigged elections, co-opted unions and the press, repressed dissent and allowed vast corruption. The Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa called it "the perfect dictatorship" on Mexican television in 1990.
- Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy — Julia Preston and Samuel Dillon, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2004)
- Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 — Enrique Krauze, HarperCollins (1997)
Why it matters today
The PRI shaped how Mexicans think about power: a strong presidency, a state that delivers jobs and favours through networks, and deep cynicism about elections and officials. 18 March, the anniversary of the 1938 oil expropriation, is still a moment of national pride, and Pemex a symbol of sovereignty.