Plutarco Elias Calles (25 September 1877 – 19 October 1945) was President of Mexico from 1 December 1924 to 30 November 1928, succeeding Alvaro Obregon and preceding Emilio Portes Gil; he declared himself Jefe Maximo ("Great Boss") and exercised real power in the country until his exile in 1935. The first half of his presidency saw him and his National Revolutionary Party of Mexico (PNR) promote justice, education, labor rights, and democracy, but he began an anti-clerical phase during the second half of his presidency, and he also banned the communist party and persecuted Catholics. He was exiled by his protege Lazaro Cardenas when he became president, and the conservative PNR became a social democratic party.
Biography[]
Plutarco Elias Calles was born on 25 September 1877 in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico, and he was raised by his uncle after the death of his mother and his alcoholic father's abandonment of the family. Calles was influenced by his uncle's atheist views, and he became known as an anti-clerical activist. During the Mexican Revolution, he served under Francisco I. Madero and became a general in 1915, repelling Pancho Villa's army. That year, he also became Governor of Sonora, and he sought to promote the rapid growth of the national economy. Calles embraced socialist ideals, and he was supported by peasant and labor unions when he ran for the presidency in 1924. He founded the Banco de Mexico and other banks to support the peasants, and his views on Mexico's possible nationalization of the oil industry led to the United States branding him a communist and threatening Mexico.
President of Mexico[]
Calles in 1926
In May 1926, Calles began a campaign of anti-clericalism with support from the Freemasons, and he outlawed religious orders, deprived the Catholic church of property, and violently enforced his laws. On 1 January 1927, Christians in Jalisco, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Colima, and Michoacan rose up against Calles, and 100,000 people were killed in the war, including former president Alvaro Obregon. The effects of his tenure were long-felt, with 13 Mexican states having no priests at all; 4,000 priests were killed or expelled from 1926 to 1934. Calles was also associated with Nicolas Rodriguez Carrasco's Gold Shirts, having them harass communists, Jews, and the Chinese. Calles would leave office in 1928 after one term, but he still remained an influential figure.
Great Boss[]
Calles appointed himself Jefe Maximo after making Emilio Portes Gil temporary president, and he founded the National Revolutionary Party of Mexico (PNR) in 1929. In 1930, he became a conservative, banning the Mexican Communist Party, giving up support for Nicaraguan rebels, ending tolerance for strikes, and acquiring wealth and finance for himself rather than for the people. In 1933, he was forced to support liberal PNR candidate Lazaro Cardenas as the presidential candidate instead of the conservative candidate Manuel Pere Trevino, and Cardenas went against Calles. Cardenas supported strikes and went against Calles' violent policies, and he deported him to the United States on 9 April 1936.
Calles returned in 1941 when the PNR's successor, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, focused more on national unity. He spent his last years in Mexico City and Cuernavaca, and he died in Mexico City in 1945 at the age of 68.