Plutarco Elías Calles

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Plutarco Elías Calles

President of Mexico
In office December 1, 1924 – November 30, 1928
Preceded by	Álvaro Obregón
Succeeded by	Emilio Portes Gil

Born	September 25, 1877 Guaymas, Sonora
Died	October 19, 1945 Mexico DF
Political party	National Revolutionary Party
Spouse	Natalia Chacón

Plutarco Elías Calles (September 25, 1877 – October 19, 1945) was president of Mexico from 1924 to 1928.

Calles founded the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolutionary Party, or PNR) – which would later rename itself the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) – in 1946.

He was born as Plutarco Elías Campuzano in 1877 in Guaymas, Sonora, son of a prominent man of Spanish descent. His father, Plutarco Elias Lucero, came from one of the most distinguished families of Sonora. However prominent his father was, Calles still grew up in poverty and deprivation. He took the last name of Calles from the uncle who raised him after the death of his mother, Maria de Jesús Campuzano. Calles worked many different jobs from a bartender to a schoolteacher. Calles had a keen sense of political opportunity. He was a supporter of Francisco Madero, under whom he became a police commissioner, and his ability to align himself with the political winners of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1940) allowed him to quickly move up the ranks, attaining the rank of general in 1915. He was rumored to be a high ranking Freemason and was said to have received a Masonic medal of merit for oppressing Catholicism in Mexico, although his personal papers contain no information regarding this issue.

In 1915, Calles became governor of Sonora and became known as one of the most reformist politicians of his generation. His radical phraseology tended to conceal the pragmatic essence of his policy, which was to promote the rapid growth of Mexican national capitalism, whose infrastructure he helped to establish. In particular, he attempted to make Sonora a dry state, he promoted legislation giving social security and collective bargaining to workers, and he expelled all Catholic priests from Sonora. In 1919, Venustiano Carranza promoted Calles to Secretary of Commerce, Industry and Labor. In 1920 Calles aligned himself with Álvaro Obregón to overthrow Carranza, and Obregon named him head of the interior ministry. Calles used his ability to draw in labor class votes to come to power with Obregon, and subsequently as president of Mexico from 1924 to 1928.

On June 14, 1926, the stridently anti-Catholic and anti-clerical Calles signed a decree known officially as "The Law Reforming the Penal Code" and unofficially as the Calles Law. The Calles Law fined those wearing church decorations up to 500 pesos and up to 5 years in prison for questioning the law. Due to these strict laws people in strongly Catholic areas began to oppose him, and this opposition led to the Cristero War from 1926 to 1929. Calles once boasted, "I have a personal hatred for Christ!" He presided over the worst persecution of Catholics and clergy in the history of Mexico, including the killing of hundreds of priests and other clergy. Calles sponsored the Callistas, prominent financiers and industrialists who controlled Mexico's economy at the time. He became the Jefe Máximo, the political chieftain of Mexico after Obregon's assassination on July 17, 1928. The following year, he founded the PNR, or Partido Nacional Revolucionario, the predecessor of today Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). After his term, he effectively controlled the government until 1934, with many regarding Emilio Portes Gil, Pascual Ortiz Rubio, and Abelardo Rodríguez as his puppets. Officially, after 1929, he served as minister of war, as he continued to suppress the rebellion of the Cristero War.

In 1934, Calles selected his old wartime subordinate Lázaro Cárdenas as presidential candidate, on the false assumption he could control Cardenas as he had controlled his predecessors. Calles became more and more authoritarian as his power grew, and was known to have been moving toward fascism. He was reportedly reading Mein Kampf when placed under arrest under the order of President Cárdenas and deported with many of his collaborators on April 9, 1936 to the United States. Calles was allowed to return to Mexico by the moderate Manuel Ávila Camacho in 1941, and lived quietly in Mexico City until his death.

Despite his reputation as an elitist and anti-Catholic strongman, he is honored with statues in Sonoyta, Hermosillo, and Guaymas in Sonora, and the official name of the municipality of Sonoyta is named General Plutarco Elías Calles in his honor.