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Enustiano Carranza is one of the most important characters of the Mexican Revolution. His main legacy was convening the Constituent Congress that created the most advanced Political Constitution of its time, a Constitution that was a model for many other countries and that is still the Constitution that governs us. He also stood out for his nationalism and for defending national sovereignty in one of the most complicated periods in world history, for the First World War and one of the greatest crossroads in our history, for the revolutionary civil war and the complicated relations of our country with the United States.
Venustiano Carranza Garza was born in Cuatro Ciénegas, Coahuila, on December 29, 1859. His father, Jesús Carranza, participated in the great liberal exploits led by Benito Juárez. He fought on the side of the liberals in the Reform War and, later, under the orders of Mariano Escobedo, he fought against the imperial troops supporting Maximilian of Habsburg.
He was municipal president of Cuatro Ciénegas. There he realized the precariousness of municipal resources, their lack of independence. He became convinced of the need for the municipalities to be free. He was a local deputy and senator for Coahuila. He ran for governor of his state against the candidate of Porfirio Díaz, but was defeated by the undemocratic practices of the Porfirio regime.
That is why he joined the movement promoted by Francisco I. Madero so that Mexico would be a democratic country with laws. When that civic insurrection that was electoral Maderismo failed, he joined the rebellion called by Madero. Madero appointed him Secretary of War of his first provisional government. When the Madero revolution triumphed, he held the provisional governorship of Coahuila and later was constitutional governor, accompanying Madero in his presidency.
When the Tragic Decade broke out, he was the only governor who refused to recognize the usurping government and called for its overthrow to restore constitutional order. On March 26, 1913, he proclaimed the Plan of Guadalupe and began to organize the Constitutionalist Army, a popular and revolutionary army that is the origin of our current army.
Since he proclaimed the Plan of Guadalupe, Carranza assumed himself as the representative of the Mexican State, as the only legal and legitimate authority in the country, given that the other powers and levels of government had recognized the coup government. And from those first weeks he acted with a statesman’s vision, always following the law. For this reason, he issued hundreds of decrees so that all his actions were in accordance with the law.
He successfully led the Constitutionalist Army. Within a year and a half, he defeated Victoriano Huerta and forced him to resign. On August 13, 1914, with the signing of the Treaties of Teoloyucan, Carranza achieved the dissolution of the federal army and navy and the surrender of Mexico City. These treaties represented the death certificate of the oligarchic Porfirio State. It was also the beginning of a new stage in the country’s development.
When the unification of the revolutionary currents was not possible, with the failure of the Sovereign Convention, Carranza understood that to defeat Francisco Villa and Emiliano Zapata he had to incorporate social demands into his movement. From Veracruz, he issued social legislation, with laws that gave rise to agrarian, labor, educational and social justice demands. This helped him, with the military support of Álvaro Obregón, to defeat Villa and Zapata.
Carranza was the successful leader of the Revolution. As head of the Executive Branch, he organized his pre-constitutional government in 1916 and convened the Constituent Congress of 1916-1917, convinced that Mexico, after the Revolution, should have a Constitution in accordance with the new country, where peasants, workers and popular sectors had become protagonists of its history and demanded the solution of their demands.
Carranza proclaimed the new Constitution, swore to comply with it and enforce it. That is what he dedicated his government to. He assumed the constitutional presidency on May 1, 1917 under extremely difficult conditions. The country was semi-destroyed and exhausted after a 7-year civil war; public finances were bankrupt; a good part of the economic activities were destroyed. To complicate the picture, regional rebellions persisted: Villa in Chihuahua, Zapata in Morelos, Félix Díaz in the southeast, Manuel Peláez in the oil region of the Huastecas. And there were also external pressures, since the United States and Germany wanted to force Mexico to enter the First World War and control our country’s oil production, since said fuel had become strategic for the war.
Carranza firmly maintained Mexico’s neutrality in the face of war, defended national sovereignty and gave one of the most brilliant lessons in dignity and defense of international legislation. These principles, known as the Carranza Doctrine, rejected any form of foreign intervention in the internal affairs of a country, reaffirmed the sovereignty and independence of countries, and gave Mexico a leading role among neutral countries, in promoting a peaceful solution to the world conflict.
Carranza’s nationalism, his dignity and courage to defend that position despite economic pressures and two armed invasions of the United States, in 1916 and 1919, give him a special place in national history.
