Venustiano Carranza Garza (28 December 1859 – 21 May 1920) was President of Mexico from 1 May 1917 to 21 May 1920, succeeding Francisco S. Carvajal and preceding Adolfo de la Huerta. Carranza, a conservative member of the Progressive Constitutionalist Party, was responsible for the drafting (but not the implementation) of the radical Mexican Constitution during the Mexican Revolution, but his attempts to crush his opposition and appoint a puppet president led to his assassination.
Biography[]
Venustiano Carranza was born in Cuatro Cienegas, Coahuila, Mexico on 28 December 1859. The son of a landowner, he was active in politics from 1880 and became governor of Coahuila, the home state of both Francisco Madero and himself, in 1910. He eventually supported Madero in his revolutionary struggle against Porfirio Diaz in the Mexican Revolution, and he became the leading constitutionalist leader in the revolution after General Victoriano Huerta assassinated Madero. Carranza became provisional president after forcing Huerta's resignation in 1914, having held command over a large army. He initially lacked a clear social programme, but he restored order to the masses with promises of land reform and the creation of favorable labor laws. He managed to defeat the armies of his most formidable opponent, Pancho Villa, in 1915, which rendered the latter unable to mount a national military challenge. With his position secured, he called for a constitutional convention in 1916, and the 1917 constitution was far more radical and socialist than Carranza himself had envisaged. As it stipulated that a president's six-year term was non-renewable, he attempted to realize the appointment of a successor who would be his mouthpiece, Ignacio Bonillas. He failed and was forced to flee by his military commander, Alvaro Obregon, who ordered his assassination on his way to Veracruz to regroup with his army. On 21 May 1920, he was betrayed and shot dead in Tlaxcalantongo in the Sierra Norte de Puebla Mountains, having been awaken by gunshots.