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Judith Adler Hellman “Mexico in Crisis” Chapter 2 ISBN: 0841908958 Format: Paperback, 346pp Pub. Date: October 1997 Publisher: Holmes & Meier Publishers Inc



A RULING PARTY IS FORMED

Tacho Somoza, who runs Central America's most efficient dictatorship, confided to an Excel- sior reporter last summer that he envied the offi- cial party and wished he had one of his own. Joseph C. Goulden December 1966

Few people observing the motley conglomeration of semi-independent parties, movement, interest groups, and political cliques that was the PNR in 1929 could have believed that it would develop into a unified and enormously powerful political organization. From a frail coalition held together principally by the forceful personality and political clout of President Calles, the PNR evolved gradually toward institutionalization and legitimacy. By the late 1930s, the PNR had undergone various changes in its internal structure and had been renamed the Party of the Mexican Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Mexicana, or PRM). By this time the political potpourri pulled together by Calles had emerged as the "official party," a ruling party linked directly to government institutions at local, state. and national levels.1
For all his long and checkered career as a military man, politician, and administrator, Calles is probably best remembered by Mexicans in his creative, unifying role as founder of the official party. But once this party was established, the man who did the most to shape its features and set its course was Lázaro Cárdenas.
CÁRDENAS COMES TO POWER
When the orange, green and white sash of office was draped across the chest of Lázaro Cardenas few Mexicans realized that the inauguration of this young general from western Mexico would mark a definitive break with the past. (Cardenas had come to the presidency through the familiar route of military service and political loyalty to the northern dynasty. At sixteen he had left his native Michoacan and walked halfway across the republic to join the forces of general Calles. As a soldier he rose quickly through the ranks of the Constitutionalist Army, and by the age of twenty he held the post of lieutenant colonel; at twenty-seven, he was a general. Calles remembered him as a loyal and dutiful officer, and accordingly, after the revolution he appointed Cárdenas to serve as governor of Michoacán.2
It was during his term as governor (1928 -1932) that Cárdenas began to distinguish himself as a progressive force within the Calles camp. He initiated a serious land reform program, distributing 350,000 acres of hacienda lands to 181 peasant villages. He encouraged the formation of peasant leagues throughout the state, and in so doing won for himself the vigorous support of national peasant organizations such as the National Agrarian Party (Partido Nacional Agrarista). Along with his agrarian program, Cárdenas's social reforms, especially the commitment to popular education he demonstrated with his construction of technical schools explicitly designed for Indians and for working class women, earned him the respect of most of the progressives in the PNR.3 In the early 1930s these progressive elements began to coalesce behind Cárdenas as a candidate for president of the republic. The politicians who rallied behind Cárdenas wore those who were most frustrated by callista corruption, by Calles's concessions to foreign capital, and the anticlerical demagoguery and ultrarevolutionary rhetoric used by Calles to cover his regime's failure to provide concrete benefits to the peasants and working class.4 In Cárdenas, leftists saw a man who was honest, popular, and clearly concerned with social transformation. What made Cárdenas a particularly attractive candidate was that while demonstrating his commitment to social justice, he had managed to retain his legitimacy as a loyal callista. Cárdenas had been one of the key military figures who stood by Calles when the chief's control over national politics was threatened by military coup in 1929. A year later, at Calles´s request, Cárdenas had served briefly as head of the official party, and in 1932 as minister of war in the cabinet of Abelardo Rodríguez, Calles's puppet president. Thus support for Cárdenas's candidacy offered progressives the possibility of shifting the course of national politics to the left while avoiding a head-on clash with Calles and his conservative clique.5
The Clash with Calles
Calles considered Cardenas to be an "extremist," and it is doubtful that the old revolutionary chief wanted to see Cárdenas in the presidential palace. But Calles's party was in crisis, torn by the conflict between conservative and radical forces. In effect Calles was obliged to choose Cárdenas or a man like him in order to defuse the increasingly militant demands of leftists within his own organization and to reduce the pressure from peasant and labor groups across the republic. With the unity of the party at stake, the jefe máximo had no choice but to support Cárdenas to avoid a direct confrontation with progressives. All Calles could do was accede to Cárdenas's candidacy and hope to control the young general once he came to office in the same fashion that Calles had manipulated the men who had served him in the presidency from 1928 to 1934. 6 But Cárdenas was determined to be his own man, and he soon came into direct conflict with Calles. Again and again the two leaders clashed over the issue of who would be the real head of the Mexican political system, and whose policy would prevail. Cárdenas differed sharply with Calles over the issue of labor's right to organize and strike. By June of 1936, the two leaders had broken publicly over the fact that Cárdenas refused to suppress the strikes that were spreading throughout Mexico as workers, encouraged by the new president's pro-labor sympathies, demanded the full rights guaranteed to them by Article 123 of the constitution.7 Calles complained loudly in newspapers and public statements that labor unrest was wrecking the economy and the very stability of the Mexican state was threatened. Cárdenas faced this charge directly, stating:
If the strikes cause some uneasiness, and even temporarily injure the economy of the country, when settled reasonably, and with a spirit of equanimity and social justice, they contribute with time to making the economic situation more stable, since their rightful solution brings about better conditions for the workers....8
On the question of land reform, Cárdenas stood firmly by the principle that the land belongs to those who work it. In the Constitution of 1917 he found the concrete mechanism through which agrarian justice could be achieved. Cárdenas clearly meant to throw the full power of his office behind a dramatic, large-scale land distribution. Accordingly, he gave encouragement and support to peasant syndicates, leagues and petitioning committees as they organized to press their demand for the immediate resolution of the "agrarian problem." If the peasants could articulate their demand for land, Cárdenas would respond with the full authority of his office.
Another area of conflict between Cardenas and Calles was thc issue of foreign investment. Of Calles's position, one observer wrote, "perhaps not since the time of Díaz had any leader made so firm a defense of foreign capital."9 Cardenas on the other hand was determined to set limitations on foreign ownership of Mexican resources and infrastructure. In thc course of his first years as president Cardenas locked horns with Calles over this issue.
As Calles felt his power slipping away he regrouped his forces to attack the man he had set in the presidential chair. But Cárdenas out-manuvered him by organizing the National Committee for Proletarian Defense. Cárdenas brought tens of thousands of workers and peasants into this popular militia, trained to defend his government against coup or insurrection.10 Under this program, arms were eventually distributed to 60,000 peasants who constituted a "rural reserve," organized to defend Cárdenas and the land they would receive from him.11 Leaders of the National Committee for Proletarian Defense openly denounced Calles, labeling him a traitor to the Mexican Revolution and as an enemy of the working class.12 With the backing of a popular militia, Cárdenas began to feel more secure in his position. Thus, when the Calles-Cárdenas split reached its climax in 1936, Cárdenas was able to take decisive action. In the spring of 1936 he learned that Calles was orchestrating an elaborate military coup, and so Cárdenas immediately ordered the former president's expulsion from Mexico along with other prominent callistas.
Once rid of Calles, Cárdenas still had to cope with the old callista machine and its supporters throughout the republic. Calles's strength had rested to a large extent on the backing or reluctant cooperation of regional strongmen.13 Some of these regional chiefs could be won over to the Cárdenas camp by the offer of direct and significant participation in the reform movement of the new regime. In the case of those regional chiefs who would not support Cárdenas, a clear effort was made to deprive them of their peasant following by incorporating their supporters into a unified peasant confederation sponsored by Cárdenas.14
The problem facing the president was more than the question of winning the cooperation of regional strongmen or ousting Calles's people and replacing them with his own. Rather, Cárdenas had to build a whole new coalition of support because the policies that he intended to push would inevitably bring down on his head the full opposition of conservative forces in Mexico.
Cardenas's Program
The policies Cárdenas hoped to pursue were not revolutionary; they were reforms aimed at improving, rather than overturning, an existing situation. On this point there was a great deal of confusion on both the right and left during the Cárdenas years. Cardenas´s speeches and those of his top ministers were full of talk of "slate ownership of the means of production", "worker cooperatives," and "workers' democracy as the first step towards socialism.15 In several addresses, Cárdenas threatened that factory owners who did not comply with the rulings of government arbitration boards would have their property expropriated and nationalized "for the good of the nation." He asserted that it was the role of government to "intervene in the class struggle on the side of labor which was the weaker party." Yet, only weeks later Cárdenas would turn around and state, "The working classes know that they cannot appropriate factories and other instruments of work because they are not, for the time being, either technically fitted for management nor in possession of the financial resources needed for the success of an undertaking of such magnitud".16 And in February 1936, Cárdenas went on to reassure capitalists that, "The government desires the further development of industries within the nation since it depends upon their prosperity for its income through taxation."17
While Cárdenas's rhetorical turnabouts often confused his contemporaries, in retrospect it is clear that the policies he had in mind wore inspired by the doctrines of socialism, but were in fact piecemeal reforms rather than revolutionary transformations. Cárdenas accepted the division of Mexican society along class lines. He viewed his task as one of "conciliation" among conflicting classes in the interest of "national progress." For Cárdenas, the plight of the exploited groups in Mexican society would be remedied through political and legal action on the part of the state. Social contradictions would be mediated by the government in such a manner that the state itself would act to protect the interests of peasants and workers rather than permit the masses to take justice into their own hands and eliminate their exploiters.18
Evidently Cárdenas felt that while class conflict certainly existed, for the good of the country, class struggle should not be allowed to overflow into the liquidation of one of the contenders. And why for thc good of the country? Simply, because class struggle without restraint was, for him, anarchy, and-this was decisive-because he considered the capitalist class to be necessary for the progress of Mexico.19
Thus Cárdenas was not setting out to destroy the bourgeoisie. He was, rather, attempting to shake up a social, political, and economic structure that had grown rigid since the revolution. He had to force the bourgeoisie to yield sonic of its power so that some desperately needed reforms could begin. Far from building socialism, Cárdenas's reforms were calculated to improve the conditions of peasants and workers enough to establish thc "social peace," the climate of political stability, which would permit capitalist development to proceed in Mexico. Cardenas was interested in fostering a particular kind of capitalist development; his plan involved heavy government intervention and control in all sectors of the economy.20 But, not withstanding the active role foreseen for government, Cardenas´s vision of Mexican development was essentially a capitalist one.21 "The government's design was to develop a capitalism which was Mexican-owned, tax-paying, and beneficial to the nation."22
But even the moderate reform implemented by Cárdenas would meet with fierce resistance from the interest groups entrenched since the revolution. Landowners, industrialists, bankers, and foreign capitalists had thrived during the years that Carranza, Obregón, and Calles held power. These bourgeois interest monopolized power and privilege in Mexico. They were unwilling to permit even the most modest reforms (such as piecemeal land distribution or slightly improved working conditions) much less the more significant reforms (large-scale land reform and nationalization of foreign-owned petroleum and railway companies) that Cárdenas wanted to carry out.
Cárdenas was working against incredible odds. Once he took office, Mexican capitalists began investing abroad or accumulating their profits in foreign bank accounts. Foreign capitalists began withholding their funds as fear of labor militancy and possible expropriation of their holdings made investment in Mexico increasingly unattractive. The press, controlled by conservative money, vilified Cárdenas and his administration. The middle class was injured by inflation, frustrated by the feeling that they would be left out of the social transformations directed by this new administration, and profoundly frightened by what they regarded as Cárdenas's communist leanings. The president's support for the Spanish Republican cause and his policy of open immigration for Spanish Republican refugees was taken by middle class Mexicans and devout Catholics of all social classes as proof that Cárdenas meant to establish in Mexico a "godless" state modeled on the Soviet Union.23 Finally, during those years, fascism was on the rise in Mexico as it was in Europe.24
Faced with this array of destabilizing forces, Cárdenas had to move decisively to build a new power coalition to back his regime. His government was threatened by the bourgeoisie, diehard partisans of Calles, organized fascist groups, and the specter of economic reprisals by the American and British governments. And he had not yet secured the solid support of socialists, communists, and organized labor groups. This predicament prompted him to make a direct appeal for the backing of workers and peasants.
A NEW POWER COALITION AND THE RESTRUCTURING OF THE OFFICIAL PARTY
To gain the necessary support, Cárdenas moved ahead with a program of liberalizing labor Legislation, strengthening peasant and labor unions, and uniting each under the forceful leadership of men he trusted to support his regime. The appeal for the allegiance of the peasants and workers, in many cases an appeal made over the heads of their old guard callista Ieaders, was an essential stop for Cárdenas in the formation of the supportive coalition needed to back up his reform administration.
In order to consolidate the support he was winning, Cárdenas set about reorganizing the official party in a way that would strengthen the relative position of the peasant and labor groups. A first step was to draw peasant groups out from under the domination of labor unions and establish them as a separate political force within the party. The separation of peasants from labor was consistent with Cárdenas's policy of never relying completely on the political loyalty of any one group.25
Cárdenas's next step was to institutionalize peasant and worker participation in his government by creating a role for the two groups within the official party. In December 1937, Cárdenas dissolved the PNR and called for the formation of a "new" revolutionary party to be named the PRM, the Party of the Mexican Revolution. The reorganized party featured a four-sector structure. Each of the party's sectors, peas- labor, military, and the so-called popular sector, were to play an equal role in making national policy. According to Cárdenas's vision of how the new political coalition would operate, the party's candidates for public office would be drawn in fairly equal proportions from all four interest groups. Local party organizations would caucus before any local, state, or national election to determine the number of candidacies to be allotted to each of the sectors.26 Once the nominees were selected by this process, their electoral victory would be all but assured as all four sectors would close ranks behind the party's chosen candidate.27 With peasants and workers chosen by their sector leaders to stand for election on the official party ticket, Cárdenas anticipated that the interests of the masses would be safeguarded by members of their own class who had been elected to public office. By providing for the protection of peasants' and workers' interest and by vastly increasing their influence within the political system, Cárdenas hoped to build a base of support for the land reform program and the nationalization of railroads and petroleum that he would carry out during his administration.

In short, he hoped permanently to redefine the balance of power in Mexican politics, giving far greater weight to peasants and workers. The sectoral organization of the official party was the keystone of Cardenas´s new power structure. For this reason it is worth examining each of these sectors more closely.
THE LABOR SECTOR
Cardenas's initiative toward labor was not thc first occasion on which union leaders had been asked to lend the support of their movement to a national political figure in return for increased influence in the formation of government policy.28 As we saw in chapter 1, Carranza had exuberantly pledged that "labor would enjoy special benefits once hostilities ceased."29 But far from reaping a harvest of special benefits, the workers found that even the most basic rights guaranteed to them under the Constitution of 1917 were ignored by thc postrevolutionary governments. The house of the Workers of the World was shut down by government order and its membership and activities suppressed. The House was replaced by a new labor organization, the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederación Regional de Obreros Mexicanos. or CROM) directed by men loyal to the Carranza regime. When Obregon broke with Carranza, he, in turn, called on the membership of the CROM to back him in his bid for national power.30 In the power struggle that followed, the CROM swung its support of Obregón. And yet again, the workers had little concrete benefit to show for their intervention and participation in national politics. The Obregon regime did not provide the working class with the benefits for which it had struggled so long.
Thus when it came time for Cardenas to make his appeal for working-cclass support, he had to find some way to convince labor leaders that he did not intend to repeat the old patterns of deceit and betrayal. He had to back his rhetoric with some kind of concrete action. But Cardenas was in no position to give real power to the working class. What he had to do was to give government backing to the dynamic Marxist labor organizer, Vicente Lombardo Toledano. Within a year, Lombardo Toledano was able to persuade tens of thousands of workers to organize unions to join government organized unions, to bring previously independent syndicates into federation with one another, and finally to affiliate with the government-sponsored Mexican Workers Confederation (Confederacion de Trabajadores de Mexico, or CTM). The CTM was then to form the base for the labor sector of the official party. Although other labor organizations joined the party independently of the CTM,31 the giant confederation dominated labor sector politics. With full government support, the CTM continued to expand its base until Cardenas's administration came to an end in 1940.
"When Cardenas left office, the CTM lost not only much of its stimulus from the presidency but also much of its ideological militancy."32 The rhetoric of "class struggle" was abandoned in favor of an ideology that championed "national unity." The short-lived tradition of militant labor struggle gave way to a policy that stressed collaboration with government and industry to hasten the economic development of Mexico. 33 Thus, throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the CTM led the labor sector into a policy of ever increasing cooperation with government and big business. And as this process accelerated, the more militant labor unions in the confederation-the petroleum, mining, electrical and railway workers' unions-dropped out of the organization.34
In the meantime, the CTM was plagued by continuismo, the tendency of leaders to perpetuate themselves in office. The CTM committees at national and state levels increasingly dictated the selection of leaders in affiliated unioIls.35 With officers imposed from above, union rank and file found themselves powerless to remove and replace leaders guilty of bad management, dishonesty, or abuse of power Because workers in the same industry were members of various regional federations within the CTM, horizontal contacts among them ware discouraged, greatly reducing the opportunity for a successful revolt from below. And because the national leaders were not elected by direct vote but instead b! a public show of hands of carefully selected delegates opportunities for removal of incumbent leaders were further limited.36
The lack of internal democracy within the labor sector was exacerbated by the tact that the old-guard CTM leaders drew ever closer to management and government as they became a moneyed elite in their own right. Over the years, as the same group of labor leaders continued in office, many amassed personal fortunes so large that their interests began to coincide more with those of big business than with the working class. Eventually workers within the CTM movement began to claim that the! were "exploited by their own leadership." As one observer noted:
Critics of the CTM point to the absence of union democracy and rank-and-file control. Fidel Velázquez, Secretary General of the CTM since the 1940s, is ited as the prototype of union leadership within te Mexican labor movement - unresponsive, oligarchial, and often corrupt.37

And this model of union corruption has persisted into the 1980s, as another observer indicates:
The union leadership has become a political bureaucracy headed by the old labor bosses, some of whom have been in power for as long as forty years. The oligarchic model of union organization has permeated all levels of the labor structure from top to bottom. Corruption is said to be endemic.38
The tacit alliance between CTM bosses and management has led to a general decline in the number of strikes and in the militancy of the demands pressed. Furthermore, corrupt union officials frequently collaborate with management, speeding up the rate of production and quelling protests.39 And given these links between union bureaucrats and big business and government, the official labor movement has gradually lost its independence as an autonomous interest group and the economic and political bargaining power of the workers has declined sharply. 40 Over time the role of union leaders was totally transformed. Instead of bargaining for concessions to labor, they worked to assure labor support for the government. "Many large unions have been instruments of government policy, an unfailing source of electoral support for the PRI, and an ally of management rather than a countervailing force in economic life."41 Of course some demands on management are formulated, contracts are negotiated, strikes organized, and some benefits won by the organized working class. But, "all of those events have taken place, usually in circumstances which would not prove embarrassing to the government or to government-protected sectors of the economy"42
If the integration of the organized workers movement into the official party has spelled the end of any genuine independence or political autonomy for the working class, there is a curious irony in this turn of events. For some students of Mexican labor movements have argued that working-class support is not even so crucial to the ruling party as it was in the past. As the Mexican political situation stabilized and the threat of armed insurrection against the federal government diminished, the government came to depend less and less upon the potential military aid of the workers.34 In terms of the balance of power within the official party, this new situation of increased political stability has meant that the influence of the labor sector has declined steadily since its heyday under Cárdenas.
THE PEASANT SECTOR
The second group that has suffered a steady decline in political influence is the peasantry. It is ironic as well as tragic that the major instrument that has rendered the peasants politically ineffective is thc very organization designed by Cardenas to give the peasants genuine political power.
In June 1935 Cardenas ordered the formal organization of a peasant sector for the official party. To form the peasant sector, landless peons, sharecroppers, agricultural wage earners, the owners of small land parcels, and the recipients of government land grants were all incorporated into a single organization, the National Peasant Confederation (Confederación National Campesina, or CNC).
Cárdenas's drive for unification of peasant groups was prompted by his apparently sincere belief that such an organization would come to represent a political force equal to that of any interest group or class in Mexican society. He calculated that millions of peasants, united in a single federation, would prove strong enough to stand up to the power of the landholding class. Whereas the landowning patrón had formerly monopolized political and economic power in the countryside, the new National Peasant Confederation was designed to alter that situation. Through the CNC, Cárdenas set out to break the political influence of the great landowners by creating an alternative network to replace or offset the patronage traditionally provided by the landowners.44 In order to do this, Cárdenas tried to institutionalize a patron-client relationship through which government goods and services would come to the peasantry in return for the peasants' loyal adherence to his own regime.
Once this mutually supportive government-peasant relationship was established, Cárdenas anticipated that the CNC would develop into a compelling spokesman for peasant interests, capable of lobbying for the extension of land reform, agricultural credit, irrigation projects, and improvements in rural welfare such as electrification, schools, and medical facilities. Cárdenas had great confidence in the capacity of peasants to govern their own communities and to pressure effectively for their interests, just as he believed they could successfully cultivate any land grant that they would receive under his agrarian reform program. Nevertheless, he saw a key role for government in guiding and assisting the peasants in meeting the new challenges which would come with political enfranchisement and control of property. For Cárdenas, land distribution was not a unilateral measure taken by a progressive government. The president understood the importance of the political interaction between peasant demands and government response. It was not his place to "bestow" land upon the peasants. To be effective, agrarian reform had to come in answer to a clearly articulated demand on the part of peasants for land that was rightfully theirs. Hence, Cárdenas believed it crucial to create a climate in which peasants could organize politically. And so he promoted an institution which would give voice to peasants organizations.
Unfortunately thc CNC did not develop along the lines envisioned by its founder. The peasantry never became a political force equal to any of the other major interest groups in the political arena. The men who succeeded Cardenas in the presidency looked to groups other than the peasants and workers for their base of support. We have already noted that as the official party machine gained full control over national politics, it became increasingly unlikely that the government would ever need to call upon an armed peasant and worker militia to rescue itself from a military coup d'état. Accordingly, the loyalty of the peasantry became marginal to the government although government support continued, to be crucial to the peasantry. And in most regions of Mexico, the mutually supportive relationship between the peasants and their national government gradually disintegrated.
In addition to the decline in the peasants' strategic importance in the years following Cárdenas's regime, the organizational structure of both the CNC and the official party have contributed to holding the peasantry in the relatively powerless position it has occupied to the present day. The membership of the CNC is made up of a variety of different kinds of peasants. Included in its ranks are landless peasants, agricultural wage workers, sharecroppers, minifundistas,45 and colonos.46 The bulk of CNC members, however, are ejidatarios47 who are automatically incorporated into the CNC by virtue of their membership in their own ejidal community. The mass of peasants who make up the CNC's rank and file are supposed to be represented on the local level by a local peasant union or ejidal commissariat (the governing body of the ejidal community), at the state level by the State League of Agrarian Communities and Peasant Syndicates, and at the national level by the Executive Committee, and the Secretary General of the CNC.
One basic problem for peasants affiliated with the CNC is that their organization has a rigidly hierarchical structure. The ejidatarios who form the main body of the CNC membership exercise direct influence in the organization only in the election of their local officers. These local officers who form the ejidal commissariat have some influence in elections at regional and state levels. However, the ballots presented at the state conventions are accepted by acclaim, while the slate itself is prepared ahead of time by state level politicians of the official party. Only at the local level are offices filled by a voting procedure, and oftentimes serious irregularities occur in these ejidal elections. Once every three years, the subtle play of forces at the top level of the organization determines the selection of the secretary general of the CNC. Most other top functionaries are ushered into office by a unanimous voice vote at the state or national conventions.48
Because middle- and upper-level CNC officials are appointed rather than elected, the CNC functionary owes his position of power and prestige not to the peasant constituency he, in theory, is chosen to serve, but to a group of powerful state and regional politicians many of whom are representatives of the landowning class. Thus the responsibility of the CNC officer is to the politicians who appoint him.
When we look at the way in which CNC operations are financed, we better understand the degree of control that high level politicians are able to exercise over local and regional CNC functionaries. In most states' the regional committees depend for the larger part of their budget on subsidies from the state machine of the official party. Aside from the subsidy paid directly to the CNC by the party, various government agencies pay regular extralegal subsidies to the peasant organization and provide the all-important patronage which further ties the interests of the CNC official to the government and to the government agencies. As both recruitment and financial support in the CNC flow from the top down, the CNC rank and file has no lever of control over its officers.
The relatively brief but secure tenure of the CNC official also contributes to his irresponsibility. CNC office is inevitably a patronage plum for which the recipient has waited many long years. Once installed in his position in the hierarchy, the CNC functionary may have only three years in which to exploit the financial and personal benefits which go along with the job. But, since these rewards can be bountiful, particularly when compared to the lot of the average peasant, to many people the long wait in the patronage line is more than justified by the material opportunities for social and economic improvement available during even a brief tenure as CNC officer.49
Thus many of the CNC's problems spring directly from the socioeconomic structure of Mexico; specifically, the lack of alternative roads of social and economic mobility open to people of peasant origin. For peasants who have so few avenues for the expression and realization of their personal aspirations, the CNC offers an important opportunity for advancement. The men who have the tenacity to climb step by step up the CNC hierarchy are generally rewarded with social and economic status of which ordinary peasants only dream.
It might seem that under this system of leadership recruitment, the CNC members would at least have the leadership services of a group of quick-witted, dynamic individuals who have managed to push their way to the head of the patronage queue. Unfortunately, however energetic, efficient, and dedicated aspirant leaders of the CNC may be in the promotion of their own careers, overenthusiasm in the representation of the peasant constituency is self-defeating to rising CNC politicians. It is to be avoided at all costs. This is because Cárdenas's vision of a representative peasant organization has been completely distorted. Over the last forty years the orientation of the CNC has gradualIy altered. It has become far more involved in maintaining the status quo of land tenure than in pushing for the extension of the agrarian reform program. Over the same period, it has changed in such a way that it no longer is an organ for thc expression of peasant interests. Since 1940 the CNC, like the workers' CTM, has proved to be an instrument through which the government controls the peasantry, rather than a means through which the peasants may exercise a measure of control over their government and its policies.50
THE MILITARY SECTOR
In addition to a labor and a peasant sector, the official party of the late 1930s featured a sector comprised entirely of military personnel. Incorporation of the military into the party was part of Cárdenas's plan to reform and reorganize the army and bring it under civilian control. Military intervention or the threat of a military coup had been a constant of postrevolutionary politics up to Cárdenas's day. Enormous political power was wielded by this top-heavy military establishment, which absorbed more than one-third of the federal budget, boasted one general for every 338 enlisted men, and had supplied every president and most of the state governors since the revolution. Cárdenas was keenly aware that the power of this conservative force would have to be reduced if his reform administration was to survive.51
Cárdenas's strategy to subordinate the military to civilian control involved reorganizational measures which he, a revolutionary general himself, was well equipped to undertake. He restructured the army by pushing for greater professionalism: instituting proficiency tests for commanders of all ranks, remedial training for those who failed, and competitive examinations to determine promotion. Placing a ceiling of 55,000 troops on the army and closing down marginal military installations, Cárdenas was able to cut the military's share of the federal budget from 25 percent in 1934 to 19 percent in 1938. All this he accomplished while sweetening the reorganization with pay boosts to officers and enlisted men, increased equipment and uniform allowances, and improved military housing and medical services.52
The other key to Cárdenas's plan to control the military was the incorporation of army men into the PRM. In December 1937 he recommended the formation of a military sector for the new official party in which the army would be represented "not as a deliberating body or as a class corporation" which would promote the interests of a "special caste", but as a group of responsible citizens.53 On the face of it, Cárdenas was proposing to enfranchise military men and bring them into a political process to which their status had previously denied them acces.54 What he in fact accomplished with this move was to force the generals' political activities into the open and oblige them to operate in a political context in which they were constrained to share power with three other organized sectors. "We did not put the army in politics," Cárdenas explained, "it was already there. In fact it had been dominating the situation, and we did well to reduce its influence to one out of four."55 Of course the military chiefs were not fooled by Cárdenas's maneuver, but they saw little alternative to acting out the citizenship role that had been thrust on them.
The life span of the military sector was brief. At no time did the sector participate in official party politics as fully as the other three sectors. For example, the military role was limited in that the sector did not take part in the nomination process at the national level, nor in state and local elections.56 But even with limited participation, the formal incorporation of the army into the political process succeeded in reducing its tendency to intervene surreptitiously and illegally. In 1941, the same desire for civilian preeminence which earlier had made compulsory PRM membership for military personnel seem a good idea now led to Cárdenas's successor to disband the sector.57 Soon after his inauguration, Manuel Avila Camacho dissolved the military sector, and its members either left the party to join right-wing opposition movements, or were absorbed into the other sectors of the official party. And so, by the early 1940s, the official party was left with the same trisectorial structure it retains up to the present day.
THE POPULAR SECTOR
Given the heavy emphasis that Cárdenas placed on his peasant and labor support, industrialists and businessmen regarded his administration as a terrifying threat to their interests. But, as we have noted, Cárdenas was in no position to destroy the bourgeoisie. He was trying to break their monopoly on political power and bring them under government control. Thus, while carrying forward programs favorable to peasants and workers, Cardenas maintained contact with business interests and attempted to involve organized business groups in his administration through their formal participation in the official party. As in the case of the military, it seemed a good idea to incorporate potential enemies directly into the intraparty political process rather than simply sitting back to await their attempts to sabotage or overthrow the government For its part. thc business community responded favorably to Cardena´s initiative. Business leaders perceived the growing concentration of power in the federal government, and they opted for a strategy maintaining links with the national administration in order to obtain the contracts, concessions, and compromises that would favor the expansion of business and industry.58
Thus, when Cárdenas called for the formation of a "popular sector," a large assortment of professional, trade, civic, and business associations wore formally incorporated into thc official party. By virtue of their membership in these organizations, industrialists, landowners, businessmen, anti a variety of middle-class groups automatically became affiliated with the ruling party. Included in the "popular sector" are doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals, as well as merchants, manufacturers, middle- and large-sized landowners, youth organizations, women's organizations, and a number of social associations. This sector is basically a federation of middle-class and elite interests rather than the "popular" grouping implied by its name. Nevertheless, included in the same heterogeneous conglomeration are some skilled workers' unions and the union of government employees. Thus it is probably more accurate to say that the popular sector brings together not only middle- and upper-class groups, but also people whose objective interests are much closer to those of the labor sector but who, for various reasons of social status, are not considered-or more significantly, do not consider themselves-to be laborers. Through their incorporation into the popular sector, skilled workers, white collar employees, managers, clerks, low-level government functionaries, postal workers, and even municipal street sweepers are encouraged to identify with their employers, rather than with their own class interests.
In 1943 the groups that had been drawn into the popular sector were reorganized as the National Confederation of Popular Organizations (Confedoración National de Organizaciones Populares, or CNOP). The CNOP, like the peasants' CNC and the workers' CTM, operates at local, regional, state, and national levels. The secretary general of the CNOP sits on tile party's Central Executive Committee, as do the secretaries general of the CNC and CTM. However, unlike the CNC and CTM, the CNOP has no legally prescribed relationship with the government. No special legislation such as the labor code or the agrarian code formally binds the CNOP to the machinery of government.59 This lack of institutionalized restraint has eft CNOP relatively free to develop along lines most convenient to its membership. Because membership in the CNOP and the official party is more a matter of choice for popular sector people than for peasants and labor, "its members must be continually courted and cajoled into allegiance. This gives a premium to the political skills of the CNOP leadership and creates pressures for efficiency and effectiveness that often are missing in the other sectors."60 The popular sector enjoys other political advantages over the peasant and labor sectors. Members of the popular sectors have generally received specialized education or technical training far superior to that available to either peasants or workers. Their representatives are professional bureaucrats, technicians, lawyers, and entrepreneurs, people well equipped by background and training to lobby effectively for the sector's interests. Such people also command extensive corporate or personal fortunes which provide them with the financial means to work as vigorously and efficiently as possible to defend their political and economic interests. To the extent that crucial policy decisions are fought out within the official party, the popular sector clearly has the upper hand in terms of financial, educational, technical, and personal resources. "The Popular sector is the strongest of the three divisions of the Party. This is due in great part to its ability to produce leaders from within its own ranks of middle-class members who possess the requisite political skills of manipulation and conciliation."61
The result is that of the three sectors, the popular sector receives by far the greatest share of government benefits.62 Since the creation of the CNOP in 1943, this sector has dominated the legislature. In the Chamber of Deputies the proportion of popular sector representatives has climbed steadily. For example, between 1976 and 1979, the popular sector's share of deputies' seats rose from 42 to 49 percent, while labor's share dropped from 30 to 23 percent and the CNC fell from 29 to 26 percent.63 The number of senators who belong to the CNOP has also increased over the years, while the number of peasant and labor sector representatives has declined proportionately.64 Hence, peasants and workers are underrepresented in the national governing bodies. For example, the peasant sector has almost half of all members of the official party, but it holds only a quarter of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies.65 They are also underrepresented throughout the official party apparatus. Popular sector members control the vast bulk of committee positions and political appointments at all levels of the party hierarchy. Through this numerical advantage on party committees and the preponderance of nominations and appointments it receives, the popular sector plays a role in the government which is disproportionate to its size, but not to its economic importance. Of the three party sectors, popular sector members have the greatest access to the president of the republic and thc greatest influence over policy formation. Hence, party decisions on the allocation of scarce resources among the three sectors are generally highly favorable to this powerful sector.
POLITICAL DOMINANCE OF THE BOURGEOISIE
We know that one of Cárdenas's main purposes in organizing the various sectors of the official party was to provide the workers and peasants with some political clout to strengthen their political position with respect to the middle class and the bourgeoisie. But neither the CTM nor the CNC evolve d into the vigorous representative organ that Cárdenas envisioned. To the extent that the CTM and CNC were organized to consolidate worker and peasant support for the governing party and its leaders, the two confederations have functioned with relative success. But insofar as their role is also that of representing the working class and peasantry, articulating the demands of those classes and pressuring effectively for their interests, the official party's labor and peasant sectors have been a failure. Within the official party itself, both the peasant and labor sectors have continually lost ground to the increasingly powerful popular sector. This process has accelerated since the official party was reorganized in 1946. In that year, the ruling party was renamed the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institutional, or PRI), and neither its name nor its basic structure has been altered since. The reorganization of the official party in 1946 did nothing to redress the imbalance among the three sectors. On the contrary, the PRI is structured in such a way that the preponderance of appointments, nominations, and patronage of all kinds continues to flow to the popular sector.
Interest Groups
While the popular sector has come to dominate intraparty politics, the old landowners, the industrialists, the businessmen, and bankers, in short, the bourgeoisie, has also strengthened and consolidated its political position outside the ruling party. The economic power of the bourgeoisie is sufficient to make it the most influential pressure group in Mexico. Although some crucial sectors of the Mexican economy are state owned or state controlled (petroleum, railroads, electricity, and, as of 1982, domestic banks), and while a variety of government credit banks play a key role in directing development, the entire public sector produces less than 10 percent of the gross national product.66 The remaining 90.5 percent is produced by private enterprise. And among the largest enterprises, foreign-owned businesses, or those with strong foreign participation earn more than half of the total income.67 Together, Mexican and foreign-owned enterprises wield enormous economic empires are often controlled by foreign and domestic industrial, commercial, and finance capitalists organized in conglomerates, or "grupos." Beyond the economic power commanded by the grupos on the basis of their holdings, the political impact of these entrepreneurs is further enhanced by confederations, associations, chambers of commerce, and clubs which they have organized to protect their interests.68 Giant umbrella organizations like the National Confederation of Industrial Chambers (CONCAMIN), the National Confederation of Chambers of Commerce (CONCANACO), the Confederation of Employers (COPARMEX), and the National Chamber of Consumer Goods Industries (CANACINTRA), do no_ operate as members of the official party, yet they exercise great influence over PRI and government policy. In these confederations, member enterprises cooperate with one another and with their foreign colleagues to work out a unified strategy for the pressure group. The organized business community has virtually unlimited financial resources at its disposal, and is able to employ the full-time services of lawyers, technicians, and experts in every field, as well as paying full salaries to the representatives elected by the organizations to speak out for business interests.
Their financial solvency . . . makes it possible for them to sponsor special studies, formulate position papers, conduct propaganda campaigns, and communicate their attitudes openly to the bureaucratic structure. The government often (but not invariably) consults their leaders in matters perceived to touch on the interests of their members, thus giving them advance opportunity to influence the shape of legislation or executive action.69
In this way the entrepreneurs' organizations have developed effective techniques for influencing legislation and administration and for modifying decisions made by the president.70 CONCAMIN and CONCANACO "can censure the economic reports sent them by the government and, with the support of the major newspapers, propose modification of the government's economic and financial policy."71 This high degree of organization and efficiency backed by big money gives the capitalists formidable influence above and beyond their participation in formal party politics.
The Bourgeoisie and the Mexican State
Over the last decade a lively debate among scholars has focused on the question of how, or in what fashion, the bourgeoisie is linked to the Mexican government-or, as it is usually termed in those discussions, "the Mexican state." One way to address the issue is to ask whether, and to what degree, the same people occupy elite positions in both the economy and in government. This approach has its limits, but if we do find the same individuals or members of the same groups or families in both types of position, there would certainly be a strong suggestion of an identity of interests. Another way of framing this issue would be to ask how much independence or autonomy the Mexican government has from the economic powers that be, that is, from the industrialists, financiers, large commercial landowners, and others. We need to establish whether the "Mexican state" in the persons of elected and appointed officials, civil servants, and bureaucrats simply acts on behalf of the class interests of the bourgeoisie. If political and economic elite groups are not one and the same, what evidence call we point to that indicates the independence of one from the other? Are there instances in which the Mexican state has clearly acted against the interests of the bourgeoisie-or in favor of one sector of the bourgeoisie and against the interests of another? We have already noted that the peasantry and working class have very few means by which to pressure either the party or the government to respond to their needs. Certainly members of the bourgeoisie (or bourgeoisies) possess abundant resources which give them great weight when compared with the masses of peasants and workers. But to note the relatively greater power and influence of the upper classes or even of the middle sectors is not to specify the degree of freedom they enjoy to pursue their class interests, unrestrained by the central government.
Some scholars argue that the Mexican government has a striking number of different means to control the economy, and that it exercises this control in ways that frequently place the interests of the nation as a whole ahead of the concerns of the upper classes.72 Furthermore,
since state ownership and control is sanctioned and encouraged by nationalist sentiments of both the regime and the population in general, the private sector can do little to challenge effectively the continuous expansion of such ownership and control without appearing to be "unpatriotic" and "unrevolutionary."73
As we have noted, the state owns or controls the most important industries in the country and holds large shares in many private firms. "Needless to say, the government's pricing policies in these industries as well as its decisions regarding the purchase of goods and services for them can seriously constrict the options of the private sector."74 In addition, the state manages energy resources and much of the raw material required by private industry.75 As we will see in greater detail in the next chapter, the government also plays a major role in credit and finance, in channeling investment, and in determining the form, shape, and direction of industrial and agricultural development. However, the fact that the state possesses and wields these powers does not necessarily mean that it does so in conflict with or in opposition to the interests of the bourgeoisie, or at least of the dominant sectors of the bourgeoisie. Purcell, for example, stresses the various mechanisms for economic: control available to the Mexican state. But she also notes:
Tile government, however, has not used its potential power to hurt the private sector Instead, ''beginning with the administration of Lázaro Cárdemas. and particularly since the presidency of Miguel Alemán, government anti private industry have cooperated to mutual advantage in what might be termed an 'alliance for profits'."76
Notwithstanding the high degree of government participation in the economy, the bourgeoisie, it seems, retains many means to press its interests. Apart from the influence of organizations like CONCAMIN and CONCANACO as pressure groups, "another way in which business might exercise power vis-a-vis the public sector is through membership of business leaders in government institutions."77
Representatives of the private sector sit on the boards of development banks regulatory agencies and commissions, fiscal boards, and some government owned enterprises such as the railroads. They thus have an opportunity to be consulted by the government on a variety of economic decisions. This kind of consultation has become broader over the years and now extends into agencies dealing with social as well as economic issues such as the social security commission.... Finally, high government positions are becoming increasingly available to business leaders. The most notable is that of . . . a former official of CONCAMIN who is at present minister of industry and commerce.76
Does this mean that we cannot distinguish between the politicians elected officials, appointed functionaries, and the others who run the state and the big businessmen, bankers, and industrialists who comprise the bourgeoisie? In an empirical study which traces the socioeconomic origins, education and career patterns, and class links of Mexican politicians through the twentieth century, Peter Smith finds that "the bulk of Mexico's political leadership has come from a tiny, and highly privileged, socioeconomic stratum."79 Drawn largely from the urban middle class, the overwhelming preponderance (80-90 percent) of these political leaders are university educated. Furthermore almost all of thc university graduates studied at the same institution the National University in Mexico City (Uníversidad National Autónoma de México, or UNAM), where most trained as lawyers or teachers.
People from lower-class occupations, by contrast, have never formed substantial portions of the national political elite. It comes as no surprise to learn that campesinos and industrial workers wore totally excluded from the Diaz group. What is surprising is the fact that they have been almost totally excluded from the revolutionary and postrevolutionary cohorts… The two major groups in whose name the Mexican Revolution presumably took place, peasants and workers, have had very few agents from their own ranks in decisionmaking centers of the government. 80
A striking finding of Smith's study is the clear distinction between what he calls "the economic" and "the political" elites.
The Revolution did not alter, in any fundamental way, the class composition of the national political elite, but it did lead to an effective reallocation of political power within the country's upper strata.... On the basis of socioeconomic trends in Mexico, one might expect that rising capitalists, particularly industrialists (of either upper- or middle-class status), would be moving into positions of political power. This has not happened, …[because] the Revolution has brought about a separation of political and economic elites.81
Smith finds that the economic and political elites do not overlap. Although they share some socioeconomic characteristics, they are definitely not the same individuals. For example, while urban, middle and upper-class backgrounds are common to both groups, the fathers of the economic elite were largely merchants and small industrialists, while the fathers of the politicians wore in the professions, military or civil service, or were themselves politicians. Both elites are overwhelmingly university graduates; but while the politicians studied at the National University, the economic elite generally received technical training at either the Polytechnical Institute in Mexico City or the Technological Institute of Monterrey. A notable 44 percent of the economically powerful are foreign born or sons of immigrants in contrast to the politicians, virtually all of whom come from Mexican families. But Smith underscores that if "entrepreneurs and office holders emerged from a single class" it is from "demonstrably different segments of that class."82 Indeed it is hard to find instances of intermarriage between the two.83 There is little crossover between the two groups, and, generally speaking, the economic elite does not take an overt part in politics, nor do individual families branch out into both business and politics, with one son becoming a governor, for example, while another heads a large corporation.84
On the basis of his findings, Smith argues that there is an identifiable "state interest" which can be distinguished from the class interests of the bourgeoisie.85
Instead of a unified power elite, Mexico therefore appears to have a fragmented power structure that is dominated, at the uppermost levels, by two distinct anti competitive elites. They have specific common interests, most notably in the continuing subordination and manipulation of the popular masses and in the promotion of capital accumulation. But aside from this tacit consensus, and the collaboration needed to maintain it, those elites are at the same time struggling for control of the country's development process-and for supremacy over each other...86
The struggle among bourgeois elements for supremacy over competing interests is a pattern also noted by Nora Hamilton. Hamilton focuses not so much on competition between economic and political elites as on conflicts between and among those segments of the Mexican bourgeoisie whose interests are tied in with foreign capital, those elements which participate in joint ventures involving heavy government funding, and other Mexican capitalists whose interests diverge from these more powerful groups.87 In Mexico,
. . . the linkages among the dominant state factions, foreign interests, and the dominant segment of the national bourgeoisie are varied and complex, and each may seek to maximize its specific interests with varying degrees of Success. But the state is limited to options available within the framework of a structure in which these groups are dominant.88
Based on the evidence provided by Hamilton, Smith, Lomnitz, Camp, Stevens, the Purcells, and others, it seems fair to say that the bourgeoisie comprises a complex of economic groups, which at times have conflicting interests or at least different preferences with regard to state policy. It is also clear that the bourgeoisie does not "rule" directly that it does not control the functioning of the Mexican state in any absolute sense, and that the government is ran by a political elite that is identifiably distinct from the industrialists, bankers, commercial landowners, and commercial elite who make up the bourgeoisie. However for all the distinctions that can be drawn between the bourgeoisie as a social class, and the Mexican state as an autonomous entity, it is equally clear that the influence of the bourgeoisie over the policy makers who manage the state is more powerful than that of any other group in society, if it is not, at all times, absolutely determinant.
The Bourgeoisie and the "Revolutionary Family"
Perhaps the most significant form in which the bourgeoisie presses its interests is through the inclusion of key representatives in an informal but immensely powerful decision-making body variously referred to as the "revolutionary coalition" or the "revolutionary family," an inner circle of extremely powerful men who have the ear of the president and advise him on all key questions of policy or succession.89 All other political organs in Mexico-the PRI itself, the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, the federal and state government bureaucracies-are subordinate to the revolutionary family. So powerful is this small elite that it easily overrides tilt decisions of the official party and all the formal interest organizations that stand behind that hierarchy.
The exact membership of this inner circle is a matter of speculation. Probably only the members of the family themselves know for certain who belongs to the group and who among that number are the most influential members. But among those who have studied Mexican politics, there is general agreement that all living former presidents, the most powerful regional strongmen, the governors of the most important and richest states, the mayor of the federal district, the commander-in-chief of the army, the head of the Bank of Mexico and other important banks, the wealthiest foreign and domestic industrialists and those who control key industries, the American ambassador, key cabinet ministers, the secretaries general of the CTM, CNC, and CNOP, the president of the Senate, the rector of the National University, and a few intellectuals of international repute may all enjoy partial or full access to the deliberations and decisions of this select policy-making group. In general, the "family" consists of those men whom the president feels constrained to consult on major policy decisions.90 The decision on who will succeed in the presidency, the choice of PRI nominees for state governors, the selection of federal senators and deputies, and the choice of party candidates for the most important political posts at national, state, and sometimes even the local level, are all decisions in which the revolutionary family may play a key role.
Not every member of this elite is consulted on every issue, nor does each member's opinion carry equal weight.91 Indeed it might be more accurate to speak of an ''Immediate family" of very influential men, and a larger "extended revolutionary family" which includes all members of this elite circle. But even the term "family" itself is somewhat misleading in that it tends to conjure up an image of a close-knit group of people who sit together around a table hammering out political decisions. In fact members of the revolutionary family may never see one another. The president does not arrive at his decisions by a show of hands or by counting votes, but rather by sounding out the opinions of family members and assuring that no particular policy or decision meets with the intractable opposition of a significant number of important family members.92 The idea of a family conclave is to build consensus among the most important representatives of the most powerful or potentially powerful elements in Mexican society.
Members of the three party sectors, particularly members of the popular sector, participate in the revolutionary family as selected advisors to the president, but not as formal representatives of their sectors. In the deliberations of the revolutionary family, as in the decision making process in the official party, the interests of peasants and workers are underrepresented, or they are not represented at all. If and when they are consulted by the president, the secretaries general of the CNC and CTM may try to influence the selection of candidates, and particularly the choice of a presidential nominee acceptable to the peasantry and to labor.93 However, although the president may consider the objections raised by a peasant or labor representative, in the end the preferences of these two groups are usually outweighed by the members of the revolutionary family who represent the interests of foreign capital and the national bourgeoisie.94
Mexican political mythology has it that the peasants and workers are the heirs of the Mexican Revolution. However, as discussed in chapter 1, the group that really emerged victorious from the revolution was the rising middle class, the industrial and agricultural bourgeoisie, and members of the prerevolutionary elite who managed to preserve their former positions of power and privilege by declaring themselves to be "with the revolution." During the six decades of relative political stability that have followed the revolution, the power relationships that emerged at the end of that struggle have been institutionalized in the official party and in the extraparty pressure groups. The popular sector enjoys an advantaged position within the governing party, and bourgeois interests are preeminent in the Mexican political system as a whole. As a result, the development policies that have been promoted m Mexico over the last forty years clearly reflect the interests of the national bourgeoisie and its foreign business partners.