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For family, God, and country: The Mexican right and the political culture of a revolutionary state, 1929-1940. Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Sherman, John Wesley. Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 10/10/2021 16:44:21 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/186774 INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality or this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. 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Contact UMI directly to order. U·M·I University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. M148106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9432843 For family, God, and country: The Mexican right and the political culture of a revolutionary state, 1929-1940 Sherman, John Wesley, Ph.D. The University of Arizona, 1994 Copyright ®1994 by Sherman, John Wesley. All rights reserved. V·M·I 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 FOR FAMILY, GOD, AND COUNTRY: THE MEXICAN RIGHT AND THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF A REVOLUTIONARY STATE, 1929-1940 by John Wesley Sherman Copyright@ John Wesley Sherman 1994 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1 9 9 4 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by John \.;resley Sherman entitled For Family, God, and Country: The Mexican Right and the ----------~~--------------~~--------------~~------------- Political Culture of a Revolutionary State, 1929-1940 and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of _____D__ o_c_to_r __ o__ f_P_h_l_"l_o_s_o_p_h_y ________________ __ )nULa ').~ I ''t<i~ Date ~ Ols-( ):jCj '-/ Date iY~l (3, (171 Date/ Date Date Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate's submission of the final copy of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. Dissertat~ (·M~Meyer 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Like any author, I am indebted to far more persons than I have opportunity to mention. While I take responsibility for the shortcomings of this work, faculty members at the University of Arizona deserve partial credit for its merits. Kevin Gosner, my second reader, encouraged me to pursue my interests in interdisciplinary theory over the course of my doctoral program. For this, and his thoughtful critique of this manuscript, I am grateful. Donna J. Guy, my first reader, also deserves credit for expanding my approaches to history; the gender component herein is just one of her many contributions. It is to Michael C. Meyer that I express my highest gratitude. An advisor who early on demonstrated faith in my abilities, he has given me the "space" I wanted during my Ph. D. studies, yet has been warm in his support and counsel. John W. Sherman Tucson, May 25, 1994 5 DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to past and future victims of los tecos, right wing extremists who continue to organize in a network of cells at the ultra-Catholic Universidad Aut6noma de Guadalajara. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. ABSTRACT............................................. 7 2. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION: ANTECEDENTS OF THE MEXICAN RIGHT TO 1929................................ 8 Terminology: Right versus Counterrevolution ...... 13 Fascism and Nationalism in the Right ............. 19 Antecedents of the Mexican Right to the 1910 Revolution.................................. 24 The Right in Revolutionary Mexico, 1910-1929 ..... 35 Summary and Conclusion................... 48 3. CHAPTER 2: THE MEXICAN RIGHT IN THE MAXIMATO, 1929-1934............................................ 51 1929: PNR, Escobar Revolt, and Vasconcelismo ..... 53 The Catholic Right from the Arreglos to 1934 ..... 66 The Right in Business, Labor, and Agriculture .... 84 Summary and Conclusion...................... 97 4. CHAPTER 3: THE MEXICAN RIGHT AND EARLY CARDENISMO, 1934-1936................................ 99 Lazaro Cardenas and the 1934 Electoral Opposition ..... ~ . .. 100 Cardenismo and the Catholic Right, 1934-1936 ..... 119 The Right in Business: Labor and the "Gold Shirts" ..........•........................ 135 Summary and Conclusion ..•........................ 145 5. CHAPTER 4: THE GREAT IDEOLOGICAL DEBATES, 1936-1938. • . .. 148 Debates on Communism and the Spanish Civil War ... 158 Taming the "Old Right" of Church and Army ........ 182 6. CHAPTER 5: THE MEXICAN RIGHT AND THE UNITED STATES, 1938 ........................•........................ 193 1938: The Oil Crisis and Fears of Fascism ........ 203 7. CHAPTER 6: SHOWDOWN: PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS, 1939-1940 ............................................ 219 New Opposition Parties and Attacks on Cardenismo. • . .. 232 Juan Andreu Almazan and the 1940 Presidential Election. • . .. 251 Summary and Conclusion ........................... 270 8. A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL AND ANALYTICAL CONCLUSION ........ 273 9. WORKS CITED.......................................... 281 7 ABSTRACT united in a quest to restore order, preserve hierarchy, and avoid profound change in Mexican society, different components of the political right resisted the Revolutionary regime from 1929 to 1940. Catholic peasants in the Bajio joined lay organizations and persisted in armed Cristero rebellion as they rejected socialist education in the mid- 1930s. Industrialists, who had given tacit support to the government in the Maximato, were slow to organize but vigorous in their fight against the labor policies of Lazaro Cardenas's administration from 1935 to 1940. Urban middle sectors attempted to vote the government out of power with the 1929 presidential campaign of Jose Vasconcelos, and mobilized even more effectively a decade later--joined by northern ranchers fearful of continued agrarian reform. Weak and frayed by personalism during the Maximato, the right coalesced only after a frail electoral effort in 1934, when the rise of radicalism prodded it to action. Aware of cardenismo's vision for Mexico, and cognizant of the decline of its institutional bulwarks of army and church, by 1937 the right offered a fresh political discourse on family, faith, womanhood, and nation. It engaged the Revolutionary establishment on these issues with devastating effect, placing the Cardenas government on the defensive and forcing a fundamental shift rightward in body politic by 1940. 8 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: ANTECEDENTS OF THE MEXICAN RIGHT TO 1929 For students of Latin America, the political right has become an important topic of inquiry.l Scholars in multiple disciplines have offered sophisticated theoretical analyses of rightist regimes, and, more recently, historians have begun to delve into Latin American archives in order to uncover the roots of the region's contemporary right wing movements. Keen interest in the political right is something new. The political left has stolen the spotlight throughout the breadth of twentieth-century world political history, and for Latin Americanists in particular, the substantial and growing interest in the right contrasts with the focus of the last generation of scholars. 2 Working in the context of the Cold 1 Examples of the surge in recent studies include Douglas Chalmers, Maria do Carmo Campello, and Atilio