The State

The period studied in this work comes at the end of a phenomenon of long duration, the last stage of the growth and definitive establishment of the modern state, the state that would create the nation, through a centralised system of control and repression intolerant of any alternative – the ‘nation-state’. The contemporary political system was established, complete with its institutions and ideology, and provided a solution to the problem of power in Mexican society, made up as it was of superimposed and juxtaposed groups.

If this was the character of the movement in the long term, the short-term crisis, the tragic moment, was that of the struggle of factions within the group that was master of the state and was building the state. Obregón had dreamed, like a new Porfirio Díaz, of having Calles as his devoted González, in order to return subsequently to the Presidency; the function made the man, Calles became a politician and, utilising the traitor Morones (he was a traitor in the eyes of Obregón because he had previously made a pact with him), obliged his former leader to consent to the alternating diarchy. The religious conflict took place against the background of these circumstances: Obregón feared it, Morones provoked it, and Calles made use of it.

The Birth of a Crisis: the Aggression of 1925

During his election campaign, President Calles had not had any opponent, apart from the rebels, except General Angel Flores, a dissident member of the revolutionary family, supported by the National Republican party, which was the remains of the Catholic party but lacked both its audience and its aggressiveness. The Church never gave it the slightest support. The beginning of 1925 was not marked by any new event; Garrido Canabal, the Governor of Tabasco, continued to harass Bishop Díaz, and in Jalisco Zuno continued the persecution that he had initiated in late 1924. This was intensified in January 1925, and the contagion spread to the neighbouring state of Colima. Zuno, a young, well-educated and respected man, had opposed the candidature of Calles, and it was thought, rightly or wrongly, that he had sympathised with the rebels supporting De la Huerta in 1924. It seemed logical to interpret the fierce attack which he mounted against the Church as a desperate attempt to bring to a halt the political machine that had been mobilised against him. It would not be long before the Senate would sit as a Federal grand jury and depose him.

Geographical Background

Every geographical account of an insurrection has an element of ambiguity: rebellion develops both where men wish to rebel and where they are capable of doing so. Abstention is difficult to analyse, because it may stem from a lack of willingness or a lack of opportunity; finally, the negative factors may prove insufficient to deter men from the moment when the desire to fight has become strong enough. One must, therefore, bear in mind that recruitment is not the same at the beginning as it is at the end of the rebellion, that it fluctuates over the course of time. The near-unanimous participation characteristic of the beginning, which is more in the nature of an assembly than a rising, is replaced by a process of individual commitment that varies according to local circumstances. Thus one sees recruits, in growing numbers and in regions as yet only slightly affected, overcoming measures of intimidation which are already proving effective, because everybody knows that the war is terrible and that it will be long.

Participation in the insurrection is not only governed by geographical, historical, and social factors, but also by psychological considerations. The Federal general Cristobal Rodríguez, who commanded the Querétaro zone, declared that ‘the same fanaticism’ reigned everywhere; nevertheless ‘the perfidious efforts of the Clergy did not achieve the same results in every place’.

From the Conquest to Independence

The Catholic Church arrived in Mexico at the same time as the Spanish conquistadors, and it is extremely difficult to distinguish between the spiritual and the secular in the acts and motivations of the former and the latter; this ambiguity was still further increased by the staunch determination of the Most Catholic monarchs to ‘protect’ the Church; this ‘protection’ was the underlying cause of all the conflicts between Church and state in the various regions which made up the Spanish Empire.

Iberian Catholicism, as reformed by Cisneros, was, of course, bound to exercise an overwhelming influence on the society of the New World, and this tendency was reinforced by the ancient chiliastic expectations aroused by the spectacle of a young and newly-discovered universe; the three centuries of the history of New Spain cannot be understood unless the historian bears in mind the ubiquitous presence of the Catholic religion and of the Church that enshrined it. It was, perhaps, the last time that Western medieval Christendom attempted to build the City of God here on earth, at the very moment when Europe was turning its back on this particular Utopia in order to pursue others.

Cristero Democracy

The mass uprising of January 1927, a resort to arms that was more symbolic than real, was a manifestation of an archaic conception of democracy, because it asserted a belief in popular suffrage and the immediate virtues of the unanimous presence of the people: it was not necessary to be armed; it was a question of demanding one's rights by the mere assertion of the multitude. This insurrection, accepted as a necessary evil by Anacleto González Flores, even though he resented it as a relapse for which the Government was responsible, was carried out in an atmosphere of primitive social rebellion, the League being either absent or ineffectual, and all ‘reasonable’ people (gente de razón) being certain of the victory of the state, renouncing the fight and leaving the peasants to fend for themselves.

What were the people, as a disorganised crowd and unarmed, trying to do? The abolition of the municipal councils and their replacement by authorities elected on the spot, by acclamation, was a proclamation of the downfall of the Government: in April 1927 Coalcomán informed the Federal Government that the canton no longer recognised its authority and was proclaiming its independence, since the Federal pact had been broken unilaterally.

The last Cristeros laid down their arms at the end of September 1929, ‘and have quietly returned to their homes without bothering with the formality of a surrender … to work on the farms from which they originally came’. ‘It was expected that after the religious warfare was ended a number of the Cristeros would turn bandit. This has not resulted.’

For the Cristeros, who were received as victors in their villages, the festivities of the summer of 1929 had a taste of ashes, despite the renewal of public worship, despite the good relations between Church and state. Although the mass of the people rejoiced without a second thought in what they sensed as a victory, the Cristeros felt that the Church had robbed them of a victory which they thought they were about to achieve with their rifles, and refused to believe in the good faith of the Government.

Without plans, lacking organisation, with no leaders, the Cristeros rose in rebellion and began operations by disarming the nearest enemies in order to take their rifles. Without uniforms, with no standard equipment, identified first by a black arm band, the sign of mourning, and later by an arm band in red and white, the colours of Christ, they were organised first in bands, then in companies, then in regiments, and finally in brigades. At the end of 1927 they called themselves the Army of National Liberation. When there were divisions composed of several thousand men, the shortage of ammunition was to limit the war to guerrilla operations; the basis still remained the local unit supported by one of the villages which supported the insurrection, where the combatants could return after the battle and the dispersal of their forces, and wait until the next time they mustered for an operation.

The war did not involve only the combatants, and the Cristeros mansos (non-combatants) guaranteed a rudimentary but effective logistical organisation. The people of the countryside provided both the soldiers and their civilian allies, whereas those of the towns worked to improve organisation, propaganda, and supplies; town and country were in continuous communication with each other, and the flow of refugees reinforced this continuity.

The War of the Federal Army

The Federal army was known among the people by the more familiar name of ‘the Federation’, an abbreviation of the full title ‘Armed Forces of the Federation’. The term employed well expressed the real situation: the army was one and the same as the government of which it formed a part, and in the religious conflict it was openly partisan. As an active agent of anticlericalism and the antireligious struggle, it carried on its own war of religion. General Eulogio Ortiz sentenced to death a soldier who wore a scapular, and some officers fell in their troops to the cry of ‘Long live Satan!’. Colonel ‘Blackhand’, responsible for the massacre of Cocula, died shouting ‘Long live the Great Devil!’. What was this army entrusted in January 1927 with the task of subduing a rebel people?

The Budget

The army and the military factories cost 79 million pesos in 1926 (out of a national budget of 320 millions), and 96 million pesos in 1929 (out of a national budget of 270). In fact, the budget covered only current operations, and in 1929, for example, Escobar's rebellion cost an extra 100 million, of which 30 million went in additional payments to the army.

The Cristiada

From the day when the Episcopate announced its decision to suspend public worship,

The nightmare of 31 July, the last day of worship, and the traumatic experience suffered that night were the immediate causes of the insurrection; more than one person, on his knees in the dark as the Blessed Sacrament passed by, came to his own decision. On the following day Aurelio Acevedo put out his horse to graze ‘so that it could put some fat on and be able to withstand the hard labour which would face it when the rains ended’. This ‘hard labour’ was the war which Aurelio Acevedo saw approaching and for which he was preparing without further delay, visiting all his companions in the peasant union of Valparaíso, Zacatecas.