Biography: Venustiano Carranza | Mexican politician who led the Constitutionalist stage of the revolution.

(Four Ciénegas, Coahuila, 1859 - Tlaxcalaltongo, Puebla, 1920) Mexican politician who led the Constitutionalist stage of the revolution. Venustiano Carranza was able to combine the wills of the various revolutionary warlords against the counter-revolutionary dictatorship of general Victoriano Huerta (1913-1914), but after a quick victory, had to deal with the demands of the two agrarians leaders who had supported him: Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. After strengthening his position, he called a Constituent Congress in Queretaro which would be the Constitution of 1917 and who chose him as President of the Republic (1917-1920), putting an end to the most harrowing phase of the Mexican Revolution.

Venustiano Carranza

Venustiano Carranza studied law in Mexico City and from 1887, year in which married Virginia Salinas, began to actively participate in local politics, gradually reaching the offices of municipal President of Cuatro Ciénegas, local Deputy, Senator and Governor of Coahuila. When the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910, Venustiano Carranza adhered to the wood; a year later, the revolution and the elections had aupado to Francisco i. Madero for the Presidency of the Republic. During the term of Madero (1911-1913), Carranza was appointed Minister of war and Navy.

In 1913, President Madero was assassinated by sicarios who would be his successor as President: Victoriano Huerta, which established a strong militarist dictatorship (1913-1914) clearly counter-revolutionary sign. Shortly after the murder of Madero, Venustiano Carranza proclaimed the Plan of Guadalupe (March 1913), manifesto to the nation that denied the authority of the usurper Victoriano Huerta's Government and named himself Prime leader of the Constitutionalist army. Its political flag was obedience to the Constitution and the restoration of altered order.

In his fight against Victoriano Huerta, Carranza received the support of other revolutionary leaders. In the North it counted with the help of Álvaro Obregón, Pablo González and Pancho Villa, while in the South, another revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata, began an independent struggle. In 1914, the United States invaded Mexico; Carranza established agreements with the Americans to avoid meddling in internal Mexican politics. Meanwhile, the Constitutionalist armies also on all fronts, forcing Victoriano Huerta to resign the Presidency in July 1914.

Venustiano Carranza

Carranza entered victorious city of Mexico; However, differences between the various revolutionary leaders soon emerged. To try to alleviate them convened the Convention of Aguascalientes (October 1914), in which irreconcilable gap, opened becoming insurmountable division into two camps: the agrarian revolution of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, who refused to disband their armies and to recognize the authority of Carranza and the trend of moderate and legalist who embodied the same Carranza and which had the support of Álvaro Obregón.

Venustiano Carranza as first Chief of the Constitutionalist army authority had been challenged, which retreated to Veracruz, where established his own Government, appointed the general Álvaro Obregón Commander of the army's operations and planned the offensive against Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. At the same time it issued agrarian, tax, labor, judicial and provisions in the field of mining and petroleum resources. He also instituted the free municipality, it legalized divorce, established maximum working hours and minimum wages.

The withdrawal of Carranza to Veracruz left the way open to Villa and Zapata, who entered in the city of Mexico and installed in the Presidency first Eulalio Gutiérrez and Roque González Garza. But between April and June of 1915, a series of victories of Álvaro Obregón forced Pancho Villa to leave the city and allowed to Venustiano Carranza returned to the capital of the country. Carranza then convened a Constituent Congress in Queretaro that drafted the new Constitution of 1917 and was elected as constitutional President. It ended with the Mexican Revolution, or at least its most turbulent phase.

Management of Carranza was characterized, first, by the efforts of pacification of the country, not entirely fruitless. Neither Zapata and Villa had put down the arms, but looked very reduced his power; the first was killed in 1919, and Villa did not abandon the fight until 1920. On the other hand, the Carranza Government undertook the reconstruction of the war-ravaged infrastructure, promoted the revival of the economy, and began a timid reform, with the cast of two hundred thousand hectares of land. Despite the lateness of the ideas contained in the Constitution of 1917 which had promoted, Carranza ended playing it in a clearly conservative direction; He repressed the workers demonstrations and ended up crippling land reform. The murder of Zapata still more reduced his popularity.

The natural successor of Carranza was general Álvaro Obregón, but when approaching the presidential baton, Carranza changed his idea and appointed a civilian. The reaction was swift. In 1920, Álvaro Obregón and Sonora Plutarco Elías Calles and Adolfo de la Huerta generals ignored, by the Plan of Agua Prieta, the presidential authority. Carranza felt threatened and decided to move the Government to Veracruz, but was ambushed in Tlaxcalaltongo, Puebla, and murdered. Succeeded him temporarily Adolfo de la Huerta, and once held the elections, Álvaro Obregón (1920-1924).

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas