Unrevolutionary Mexico: The Birth of a Strange Dictatorship

by Paul Gillingham

An essential history of how the Mexican Revolution gave way to a unique one-party state

In this book Paul Gillingham addresses how the Mexican Revolution (1910–1940) gave way to a capitalist dictatorship of exceptional resilience, where a single party ruled for seventy-one years. Yet while soldiers seized power across the rest of Latin America, in Mexico it was civilians who formed governments, moving punctiliously in and out of office through uninterrupted elections.
 
Drawing on two decades of archival research, Gillingham uses the political and social evolution of the states of Guerrero and Veracruz as starting points to explore this unique authoritarian state that thrived not despite but because of its contradictions. Mexico during the pivotal decades of the mid-twentieth century is revealed as a place where soldiers prevented military rule, a single party lost its own rigged elections, corruption fostered legitimacy, violence was despised but decisive, and a potentially suffocating propaganda coexisted with a critical press and a disbelieving public.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

464 pages, Hardcover

Published May 25, 2021

Reviews

[Andrew Paxman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deeply researched and analytically astute political history of Mexico in the 1940s and 1950s. It persuasively argues that these decades, and especially 1945-55, saw the country transformed from a radical post-revolutionary regime into a fairly conservative "dictablanda", or quasi-dictatorship, and from a state dominated by generals-turned-politcians into one run by civilians. Mexico's presidents and its people thus saved the country from the military dictatorships common to the rest of Cold War-era Latin America. Generally too dense and detailed for the general reader but useful for the specialist.

Full review to come in the journal Historia Mexicana.

[Jorge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gillingham’s book Unrevolutionary Mexico analyzes the transition from the Revolution to a long-term dictatorship, commonly known as the ‘dictablanda’ in 20th century Mexico. This new regime was characterized by its wide acceptance among the population and the lack of a military regime that controlled the state, with the emergence of the political party PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) as the institutional body that governed the country for consecutive decades. This book traces the origins of this regime and the consolidation of its power, especially during the decade 1945 to 1955 under Miguel Alemán, by focusing on two different Mexican states in this period: Guerrero and Veracruz.

The main question this book tries to answer is: why Mexico did not become a military dictatorship unlike many other countries in Latin America? To answer this question, Gillingham analyzes the success of the PRI in convincing the military to integrate within the political regime they had built, with many in the army actively benefitting from their social, legal and economic privileges at a local level while at the same time high-ranking military officials enjoyed a lot of power at the federal level by influencing political decisions. For Gillingham, this strategy avoided a more active intromission of the military in the state affairs and prevented the development of a military dictatorship. On top of that, the PRI successfully portrayed itself as a flexible party at the regional level, as it often permitted local actors participate and shape regional politics. However, in the end, the PRI would guarantee a victory for himself by rigging elections, although the use of violence and intimidation against political opponents was often pursued to achieve results too. But it was not only this use of violence what most of the times guaranteed an electoral victory, also their monopoly of power and control of the official narrative at both local and state levels. The PRI successfully managed to build a whole state propaganda apparatus, with the total control of information through radios, newspapers, films and books. Despite allowing certain critique towards the party, the opposition and complains to the regime were often buried within the constant flow of state propaganda that Mexicans received in their daily lives, guaranteeing the survival of the regime. Added to this, wide state corruption, which was promoted and encouraged, was the norm to not only eased local opposition but to sustain the whole regime too.

In conclusion, this book offers a detailed study of the development of the PRI regime, from the last years of the Revolution until the full consolidated dictablanda under the Miguel Alemán years. It provides a very detailed analysis of this political transition in the two states of Guerrero and Veracruz, by looking at different local actors and case studies. It would have been interesting to see the relationship of the government of Miguel Alemán with the US, and to what extent this 'complicit' relation allowed the regime to perpetuate itself, unlike many other democratically elected governments in Latin America, that suffered coups d'état financed by the United States of America.

[Camilo Ruiz Tassinari · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly valuable and original contribution to postrevolutionary Mexican history.