porfirio diaz was the mexican president who distributed land to the peasants in the 1930s.
porfirio diaz was the mexican president who distributed land to the peasants in the 1930s.
who was the mexican president who distributed land to the peasants in the 1930s?
porfirio diaz
in the americas, social democracy was rising as a major political force. in mexico, several social democratic governments and presidents were elected from the 1920s to the 1930s. the most important mexican social democratic government of this time was that led by president lázaro cárdenas and the party of the mexican revolution, whose government initiated agrarian reform that broke up vast aristocratic estates and redistributed property to peasants. cárdenas was deeply committed to social democracy, but he was criticised by his left-wing opponents for being pro-capitalist due to his personal association with a wealthy family and for being corrupt due to his government's exemption from agrarian reform of the estate held by former mexican president álvaro obregón. political violence in mexico had become serious in the 1920s with the cristero war in which right-wing reactionary clericals fought against the left-wing government that was attempting to institute secularisation of mexico. furthermore, cardenas' government openly supported spain's republican government while opposing francisco franco's nationalists during the spanish civil war. during the spanish civil war, cárdenas staunchly asserted that mexico was progressive and socialist, working with socialists of various types—including communists—and accepting refugees from spain as well as accepting communist dissident leon trotsky as a refugee after joseph stalin expelled trotsky and sought to have him killed. cárdenas strengthened the rights of mexico's labour movement, nationalised foreign oil companies and controversially supported peasants in their struggle against landlords by allowing them to form militias to fight the private armies of landlords in the country. cárdenas' actions deeply aggravated right-wing reactionaries and there was fear that mexico would succumb to civil war. cardenas stepped down as mexican president and supported a compromise presidential candidate who held support from business interests in order to avoid further antagonizing the right-wing.
social democracy
under the porfiriato, peasants suffered greatly. large sections of land were lost from indigenous communities. in 1883 the government passed a land law giving ownership of more than 27.5 million hectares of land to foreign companies. by 1894 one out of every five acres of mexican land was owned by a foreign interest. many wealthy mexican families already owned huge estates, resulting in landless peasants working on the property as virtual slaves. in 1910 at the beginning of the revolution, about half of the rural population lived and worked on such landed estates. demands for "land and liberty" motivated peasants in morelos to rebel under the leadership of emiliano zapata. the zapatistas confiscated estates and distributed land to peasants to pursue subsistence agriculture. madero's failure to move on land reform during 1911-13 was a key reason the zapata rebelled against him under the plan of ayala (1911). victoriano huerta had pursued some land reform during 1913, with andrés molina enríquez, a strong advocate of land reform serving in the cabinet. he later advised the constituent assembly drafting the new revolutionary constitution in 1917 on land reform.
mexican revolution