We Die for GodThe Mexican Revolution and La Cristiada

Sixth in the Series

By Christopher Zehnder

Revolution and Counter-revolution

President Obregón

he government that replaced Carranza in 1920 was able to bring some peace to Mexico. Pancho Villa was bought off by the gift of a hacienda in Durango. The zapatistas laid down their arms when the government assured them they could keep whatever lands they had taken in Morelos. President

Obregón, unlike Carranza, seemed a friend to labor and radical agrarian aspirations – so much so that disgruntled businessmen in the United States soon were complaining that the president of Mexico was a “Bolshevist.”

TObregón, though, was not too radical, and he was no

Bolshevist. For instance, though he did not suppress organized labor, he recognized only one union, the CROM of Luis Morones. Government boards which arbitrated strikes recognized only CROM strikes as legal; actions by independent unions (such as Marxist or anarchist unions, or the various Catholic workers organizations) failed to pass muster. This was all to the liking of Morones, who wanted to bring all unions under the CROM umbrella. With his gang of thugs, called his palanca, or “lever,” Morones murdered rivals and terrorized business owners. Morones and other CROM leaders became so corrupt that employers could pay them off to avoid strikes -- or worse consequences. Morones in time became so rich that he decked fingers with costly diamond rings – which he claimed he kept as a monetary trust for the workers. CROM’s core power structure, Grupo Acción, built for its members a sumptuous country estate complete with swimming pools and bought hotels and factories through third parties. At the same time, though workers’ wages did rise, they barely reached subsistence level.

Obregón’s land reform measures were, to some extent, even less satisfactory. Though he established the Confederación Nacional Campesina (National Farm Workers’ Confederation) under the former zapatista Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama, he did little more to further agrarian reform. Free villages could apply to the government for lands, but since the initiative was entirely theirs, few did. The Indians often feared what the hacendados would do to them if they applied for land, and some priests told them that the government’s land reform was thievery. Even when Indians obtained land, they could not purchase the seed and farming implements needed to work it.

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© 2003 Christopher Zehnder

President Obregón

To take out loans was out of the question, since interest rates were too high. In all, Obregón’s government distributed three million acres of land to 624 villages, only a small portion of the lands that remained in private hands.

Obregón did encourage education. José Vasconcelos, to whom Obregón entrusted his education program, was committed to Hispanidad, the ideal of Spanish culture. He built over 1,000 schools in rural villages throughout Mexico. He also had translated great European classics into Spanish, which were printed in inexpensive editions.

Though Obregón and the men who surrounded him used socialist terminology, their policies were anything but Marxist or Bolshevist. Under Obregón, a new class of Mexican capitalists arose; and though many hacendados held on to their wealth, a new ruling class merely replaced the old. Obregón formed a dictatorship that was native-born Mexican. He ruled in a manner reminiscent of Don Porfirio, playing off rival caciques against each other. In the states his governors were more often than not, corrupt. The military maintained its time-honored privileges.

Though, as a revolutionary general, he had been among the principal supporters of the anti-clerical provisions of the Constitution of 1917, as president, Obregón adopted a more or less tolerant attitude toward the Church. In 1923, he wrote to the bishops of Mexico that his government's social program “is essentially Chris-tian, and it is complementary to the fundamental program of the Catholic Church.” Here, the president was apparently trying to reconcile the social program of the Church --- the chief rival of the revolutionary program --- to his own. Yet, despite this overture, Obregón continued to back Protestant missionary

endeavors in Mexico, and his government gave direct support to Protestant missions. In 1922, Protestant missionaries from the United States assisted over 700 Protestant congregations that served about 22,000 people. By 1926, American Methodists were running 200 schools in Mexico, while Protestants had taken control of the ministry of education. And American Protestants reciprocated Obregón's friendship. “Millions of Americans feel for you and pray for you while you struggle to unloose the grip of the Roman Catholic Church upon your great country.” So said a letter to Obregón from the Episcopal churches of Toledo, Ohio, and Taylor, Pennsylvania.

But if Obregón got on well with U.S. Protestants, his relationship with their government was troubled. Washington refused to recognize him as Mexico’s president, primarily because Article 27 of the 1917

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Plutarco Calles (center) with President Coolidge (right)

constitution threatened the possessions of American investors in Mexico. The Harding and Coolidge administrations considered Obregón’s government the advanced guard of Soviet Communism in America. Obregón had declared that Article 27 did not apply to lands foreigners possessed from before 1917, but Washington wanted the guarantee written in a treaty. Obregón refused.

Obregón, though, needed U.S. friendship if his hand-picked candidate for president were to succeed him without trouble in 1923. Plutarco Elías Calles, now a leftist member of the president’s cabinet, faced opposition from members of congress, military leaders, and hacendados. Without U.S. support, civil war could again erupt, with Washington siding with Calles’ enemies. Obregón finally gave in to Washington’s demands, and President Calvin Coolidge recognized his government on August 23, 1923.

U.S. aid was critical in the rebellion that arose over the election of 1923. Calles’ rival candidate, Adolfo de la Huerta, claimed the election had been rigged in favor of Calles (which it had been) and raised the standard of revolt. It was a violent uprising, and the rebels nearly captured Mexico City; but Obregón, with aid from the United States, crushed the rebellion. De la Huerta fled to Los Angeles, California, where he took up his old profession of music teacher. Plutarco Elías Calles succeeded Obregón as president.

Calles Takes Control While Obregón, fearing to jeopardize his power, was wary of pushing revolutionary social reforms, Calles was more resolute. In the four years he held the presidency, Calles distributed eight million acres to 1,500 villages and established agricultural banks to provide loans for the new farmers. Calles more firmly allied himself with labor than had Obregón. The new president promoted public hygiene and improved sanitation. He instituted irrigation projects to put more land into cultivation. He continued Vasconcelos’ education policies, building more schools in rural areas. Calles --- at least at first --- seemed genuinely committed to social reform along the lines envisioned by the Constitution of 1917; but it was not long before the basic corruption of his regime undid his would-be radicalism.

Calles ruled as an absolute dictator. He worked to concentrate power in his own hands and was ruthless to those who opposed him. Those who dared oppose him were usually executed, or they “committed suicide” in prison. Calles’ dictatorship was more bitter and relentless than Don Porfirio’s had been.

Though he called himself a socialist, Calles little by little warmed to liberal capitalist ideas and policies. His closest associates were wealthy capitalists, and so it was not surprising that he began to promote a native Mexican capitalism instead of the agrarianism for which the revolution was supposedly fought. This change was wrought, in part, through Calles' friendship with the new U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Dwight Morrow. Morrow, unlike previous ambassadors, did not despise Mexicans but seemed to have a genuine love for the country and its traditions. Morrow exercised what Americans began to call his “ham and eggs diplomacy” by meeting Calles frequently for breakfast, where president and ambassador discussed conditions in Mexico. Partly through Morrow’s influence, Calles redirected the revolution away from agrarianism and into the service of the middle class and the wealthy.

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Dwight Morrow

The benefits of Calles’ native capitalism accrued largely to his closest associates. Even Calles’ agricultural banks benefited mainly wealthy landowners. CROM’s Luis Morones, whom Calles appointed secretary of industry, used his office to enrich himself and his Grupo Acción friends. As with Juárez, Lerdo, and Díaz, Calles’ revolution, though radical in its inception, ended in benefitting the established powers.

But if Calles succumbed on other fronts, he remained most radical in his opposition to the Church. Though Catholics had proven they could adjust to new circumstances and propose remedies to modern problems, it was in the interest of the revolutionaries to portray them as reactionaries --- and it must be admitted, many Catholics, lay and clergy, played into the stereotype. Still, Church was proposing reforms that were, in some cases, similar to those of the revolutionaries, but in other cases, different and even more radical. Following the lead of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, Catholics were proposing solutions that would preserve traditional Mexican society rooted in the Catholic faith while allowing it to adjust it to meet the demands of a new age. Revolutionaries like Calles hated traditional society. It was thus they sought the destruction of that body that sought to preserve it – the Catholic Church.

The Church Bells Fall SilentThe Church in Mexico had suffered waves of persecution since 1914. Revolutionaries had used Huerta’s tolerance of the Church and the fact the Catholic Party had acquiesced to Huerta's government as evidence that the Catholic Church was counter-revolutionary. Despite the engagement of many Catholics in seeking solutions to social ills, the Catholic mutualist societies and labor unions, the revolutionaries dusted off the old juarista anti-clericalist slogans and used them with a vengeance.

Though an anti-clerical, Obregón had been selective in applying the anti-clerical articles of the Constitution of 1917. He forbade all religious ceremonies held outside the confines of church buildings. When the papal representative to Mexico attempted to dedicate a monument to Christ the King, Obregón had him expelled. The president broke up a Eucharistic Congress. Obregón’s reign witnessed anonymous acts of terror against religion. In February and June 1921, bombs exploded at the archepiscopal palaces in Mexico City and Guadalajara, and in the basilica in Mexico City. On November 14, 1921, a bomb hidden in a bouquet of flowers placed before the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, went off. The explosion wrought significant damage to the church; but the image of Mary, protected only by glass, was unharmed.

Calles had nothing of Obregón’s restraint but vigorously applied the anti-clerical articles of the constitution. Priests who wore their clerical garb in public were fined 500 pesos; they could be imprisoned for five years if they criticized the government. Calles also closed two seminaries and seized Church-run orphanages and homes for the aged. By March of the following year, Calles had closed 83 monasteries of male and female religious. He even attempted to establish a national, non-papal Church. In the states, governors followed their president’s lead. For example, in January 1925, the governor of tropical Tabasco, Garrido Canábal (a man who had named his children Lucifer and Lenin) decreed that he would allow only six priests in his territory. In October Canábal allowed only “married” priests over the age of 40 to remain in Tabasco.

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Garrido Canábal

Faithful Catholics, however, would not submit to this violence against their religion. Since 1918, Anacleto Gonzáles Flores, a lawyer in Jalisco, had been writing books and articles detailing his vision of a Catholic social and political order for Mexico. The Maestro, as his admirers called Flores, opposed democracy (he thought Mexico was not ready for it) but called for the popular methods of individual sacrifice and non-

violent civil disobedience to oppose the government. To unite Catholics, he formed the Union Popular, whose journal, Gladium (Latin for “sword”) was reaching 80,000 readers by 1924.

In the autumn of 1925, Pope Pius XI denounced Mexico’s revolutionary government, but he urged Mexican Catholics to refrain from direct political resistance; rather he said they should concentrate on actions of a more religious, social, and cultural character. Some Mexican Catholics, however, concluded that nothing but political action would stop Calles from achieving his goal – the complete destruction of the Catholic Church in Mexico. This was the stance of the Liga Nacional Defensora de Libertad Religiosa (National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty) and its zealous leader, René Capistran Garza. Founded in 1924, the Liga took a combatitive stance against the government’s anti-Catholic measures.

The tension between Church and state came to a head in early 1926. On February 4, the newspaper El Universal published on its front page an interview with Archbishop Mora y El Río of Mexico City in which he condemned the anti-clerical legislation of the Constitution of

1917. That the interview was nine years old mattered little to the anti-clericals – here was an assault on the foundations of the government! Calles was outraged. On July 2, he issued a penal code which laid down penalties for those who violated the constitution’s anti-clerical articles. Calles insisted that all priests in Mexico register with the government – a measure preparatory to exile, or worse. He deported 200 foreign-born priests and religious. Thus, the president had thrown down his greatest challenge yet; how would the Church respond?

With defiance. On July 14, the bishops gave their support to a measure Capistran

Garza and the Liga had called for --- an economic boycott. Catholics boycotted movies or plays and gave up the use of government transportation. Catholic teachers refused in teach in public schools. But though many Catholics participated in the boycott, it was unsuccessful; for rich Catholics would have no part in it.

With the approval of Pope Pius XI, the bishops turned to another, more trenchant measure. They would place an interdict on Mexico. All public worship would cease, they threatened, if the government did not rescind its order for the registration of priests. Instead, priests would go into hiding and celebrate Masses and other rites in secret. Calles refused to budge from his demands, and the bishops carried out their threat. At Vespers on July 31, 1926, all public religious ceremonies ceased; the next day, no public Masses were said in all

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Anacleto González Flores

Capistran Garza

Mexico. Though Calles seized church buildings to keep them open (so the “superstitious,” at least, could continue lighting their votive candles), for the next three years no Church bells, anywhere in Mexico, sounded their call to worship.

The Peasants RiseThe bishops had calculated that an interdict would rouse faithful Catholics against the government. They did not realize how terrible the response would be. From August to September 1926, spontaneous armed uprisings occurred, north of the capital, in west-central Mexico. In Guadalajara, 400 armed Catholics barricaded themselves in the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The insurgents defended themselves well and only surrendered when they ran out of ammunition, leaving 18 dead and 40 wounded. Though other uprisings also ended in failure, they gave evidence that devotion to the Faith in Mexico was far from dead. Indeed, it was growing revolutionary.

The Liga Defensora caught the wind of revolt and decided to try to organize a full-scale rebellion On January 1, 1927, Capistran Garza issued a call to arms: A la Nación – “To the Nation.” The response was immediate. Anacleto González Flores, though preferring peaceful means, gave his approval to the rebellion, and thus the Union Popular entered the fight. On January 2, at San Miguel El Alto in Jalisco, Miguel Hernandez and Victoriano Ramirez organized a force of ranchers and farmers, armed with old guns, clubs, machetes, and axes. Similar uprisings occurred in Nayarit, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, and in Colima, chiefly among small farmers and ranchers, share croppers and laborers. Like the zapatista peasants (some of whom joined the rebellion), the

peasants of central Mexico had risen – this time in defense of the Church.

In the early battles, the insurgents were victorious against local forces but were defeated when they confronted the federal army --- which led Federal commander in Jalisco, General Jesús Ferreira, to boast that he would conduct, not a campaign, but a hunt in the state. In the Pacific coastal state of Colima, though, he met his match in the person of an ex-seminarian and leader of the ACJM, Enrique de Jesús Ochoa. When Ochoa removed his

insurgent force from Colima city to Caucentla on the border of Jalisco, Ferreira met him there --- and was repulsed.

Because of the insurgents' war cry --- Viva Cristo Rey! (“Long live Christ the King!”) --- the Federals, perhaps in mockery, named them Cristo-reyes or Cristeros. But though they might despise them for being peasants, Federal commanders learned to their dismay that the Cristeros had a number of gifted leaders. These

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Cristeros

were not militarily trained but were men of the common trades who discovered in the crucible of conflict a gift for strategy and command. Along with Ochoa were Jesús Degollado, a druggist; José Reyes Vega and Aristeo Pedroza, priests; and Victoriano Ramirez and Miguel Hernandez, ranch hands. Under such leaders, in the early months of 1927, Cristero forces won significant victories against crack federal cavalry at San Francisco del Rincón in Guanajuato, and at San Julián in Jalisco.

To address a constant problem the Cristeros faced --- a shortage in armaments --- an underground arms network grew up in Mexico City to supply the insurgents. Women, members of the “Brigades of St. Joan of Arc,” strapped gun belts under their dresses, passed through federal check points, and bravely crossed the lines to deliver ammunition to the rebels. Such an arms supply was not sufficient, though, and Capistrán Garza went to the United States to solicit funds to purchase more arms and amunition.

While Garza was in the United States, Cristero leaders adopted various methods to fill their empty war coffers. In the regions they controlled, they levied taxes on the people. They requisitioned the goods of large landowners. They attacked trains. Some Cristero commanders abducted wealthy men and demanded ransom for them; in the three years of the rebellion, six of these hostages were executed when the demanded ransoms did not materialize. Not all Cristero commanders, however, resorted to such measures. As Ezequiel Mendoza told his soldiers:

We must be as brave as lions, but not tyrannical, as they [the Federals] are towards us. We must be honest at all times. We will take from their goods what we need to live and fight, but we must not steal other men's goods. All the world's goods come from God, and we must not make bad use of this. If we take what is his in order to live and defend what is truly the cause of God, it is not stealing; we have only disposed of our own goods as those of our Father...

But, beginning in March 1927, the Cristero rebellion began suffering setbacks. The government, convinced that González Flores was the linchpin of the rebellion, had orders out for his apprehension. Having obtained evidence of his whereabouts, on March 3 federal secret police, along with city police agents, raided four homes in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco. They found the Maestro in one of the homes, along with his close associate, Luis Padilla, and two young men, Jorge and Ramon Vargas, the sons of the householder.

Throughout the night and early morning hours, the police tortured Flores and the three men, suspending them by their thumbs, whipping them, tearing at their bodies with bayonet points. Despite their pain, the four refused to reveal any of their plans or the whereabouts of their fellow Cristeros. Seeing they could

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The body of Gonzalez Flores, with his wife and children

get nothing out of them, the police lined them up for execution. It was noon, April 1, 1927. The four comrades faced their death with courage. Before the shots rang out, their leader, Anacleto González Flores, uttered these words: “I die, but God does not die. Viva Cristo Rey!” At Flores’ funeral, thousands lined the streets of Guadalajara to pay their respects to the fallen hero.

The death of Flores did not stop the momentum of the rebellion --- a deed done by the priest-commander, José Reyes Vega, nearly did. Padre Vega was not a sterling character. He was none too strict with his vow of celibacy nor in his obedience to Canon Law, which forbade priests to take up arms. On April 19, 1927, Vega lost his brother in a raid the priest led against a train. In revenge, Padre Vega ordered several train cars doused with gasoline and set afire. Fifty-one civilians died in the burning.

Vega’s brutal act turned public opinion against the Cristeros. The Federal general Ferreira marched into the Los Altos region of Jalisco and laid waste to 6,000 square miles, confiscating food and livestock. The peasants of the region, whether Cristero or not, he rounded up and placed in concentration camps. Then Capistrán Garza resigned from the Liga Defensora in July after failing to raise support for the rebellion in the United States. Both bishops and lay Catholics in the United States had been cold to Garza; one bishop even told him to get a job. The wealthy American Catholic, William F. Buckley, was at first willing to support the Cristeros; but a bishop urged him not to, Buckley changed his mind. Without arms, the rebellion could not continue, and by summer it appeared that it was over.

Next: The Uprising Rekindled

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