The Venustiano Carranza Archive

Recently made available by the Carranza family, this collection of approximately twenty thousand letters, reports, and memoranda provides the researcher with valuable data on many aspects of revolutionary Mexico for the years 1913 to 1920. While most of the other leading figures of the Mexican Revolution have recently received systematic, reasonably objective analysis, writers of the most diverse ideological currents generally dismiss Carranza as a mild reformer or an outright reactionary. But now that the large collection of documents at the Venustiano Carranza Archive is available, it may be possible to view the socio-economic aspects of carrancismo in a broader perspective.

Located in sumptuous working conditions at the Centro de Estudios de Historia de México, Condumex, S.A., in Mexico City’s northern industrial zone, the Manuscrites de Don Venustiano Carranza are divided into 142 carpetas (folders) arranged in chronological order. About ninety percent of the correspondence consists of messages addressed to Carranza, but a few carpetas are devoted exclusively to his outgoing correspondence. Although there are only five carpetas for the year 1913, eighteen comprise 1914, and the collection is at its strongest for vital 1915 (forty) and 1916 (forty-three), leveling off in 1917 (twelve), 1918 (nine), and 1919 (fourteen), with only one for 1920. No guide or index currently exists for the Carranza Archive but two brief descriptions are available.¹

Although the collection contains little on the First Chief’s impact on the shaping of the 1917 Constitution or the murky details surrounding his 1920 assassination, the documents are useful in many other respects. Included are many of Carranza’s important speeches, decrees, and circulars. Luis Cabrera, Rafael Nieto, Pastor Rouaix, Alberto Pani, and Cándido Aguilar are among the leading officials who sent him confidential reports and letters. One also encounters surprisingly frank military reports from important generals such as Alvaro Obregón, Pablo González, Manuel Diéguez, and Jacinto B. Trevino. Many of Carranza’s governors claimed to have been surprisingly dynamic reformers and they submitted detailed lists of alleged accomplishments to Carranza. On the lower level, federal and state bureaucrats, as well as dozens of municipal presidents, corresponded regularly with Carranza. Petitions from rural villages and labor unions constitute some of the most valuable and graphic documents.

The collection’s best research opportunities lie in its extensive data relating to social history. Thousands of vivid letters to Carranza give emotional, detailed accounts of specific grievances, hopes, or support. Because Carranza personally answered many of these letters and offered employment to those he felt deserving, the kind of people Carranza favored can be easily determined. Carranza usually followed up various complaints by investigating cruel or inefficient military commanders, bureaucrats, and governors. Detailed reports on price increases are continuous and allude to the early period’s food shortages as well as to Carranza’s efforts to alleviate the suffering. Xenophobic nationalism manifests itself with reports detailing clashes with Germans, Chinese, norteamericanos, and Englishmen. Spaniards, because of their domination of haciendas, small businesses, and many of the cámaras de comercio, were particularly hated. Fifteen documents refer to the Carranza regime’s concern for Mexicans living in the United States.

The damage to the old hacendado class and changes in land ownership are evident in countless letters to Carranza. Besides many land grants to quiet the innumerable demands of rural Mexico, the real cutting edge of carrancismo was the intriguing Bienes Intervenidos office which had bureaus in every state municipality. The documents relating to land seizures by this agency emphasize the savagely partisan nature of Carranza’s government. Thousands lost their lands because of their refusal to support Carranza, because of loyalty to the Church, or the failure to pay stiff new taxes. The First Chief carefully monitored individual land transactions and in a few dozen instances he ordered the return of property to its original owner. Constant references to Carranza’s ley de 6 de enero de 1915 land reform decree indicate that this proclamation, often slighted by historians, in fact had tangible appeal among the rural poor.

Information on the early Mexican working-class movement abounds in this collection. References to the early history of regional confederations and belated attempts at collective unity are scattered throughout the documents. Carranza’s early labor policy favored the workers, as the documents attest. But labor leaders were not meek in asking for reforms and “persecution of the capitalist element.” The railroad workers and the anarcho-syndicalist Casa del Obrero Mundial labor group emerge as the toughest of all, making their views known in blunt, unmistakable terms. As is the case with other sectors supporting Carranza, working class loyalty to Carranza was very diverse in terms of region, but gradually tapered off after about 1916.

That the Carranza government’s preoccupation with changing everyday life had a significant impact upon Mexican society is quite obvious from varied sources. The zealous Comisión de Propaganda Revolucionario published valuable information on new social reforms while the Agencia Confidencial’s frank and lengthy intelligence reports present discerning views into contemporary social and political affairs. Laws and the relevant correspondence allude to purges of “reactionaries”² in the schools, to new educational regulations, and to the student movement. Members of the middle class often wrote illuminating letters to thank Carranza for new jobs with newspapers, the greatly expanded state apparatus, or the new army. These same social sectors also expressed gratitude for the property they had received which had been seized from Carranza’s conservative opponents. Although never directly confronted as an institution until Calles assumed power in the 1920s, the Church apparently suffered heavy material losses.

In the financial-economic sphere, the Carranza Archive contains much information in an area which has not received thorough analysis. Particularly well described is the state of the railroads with their shortage of rolling stock, fuel, and experienced hands. Corruption in the Treasury Department and its sabotage of new state enterprises is also well documented. Raw data concerning currency depreciation is readily available because the early financial chaos is one of the greatest complaints voiced against Carranza’s regime.

Carranza’s financial and banking policies are another revealing feature of the manuscripts. The government projected a rapid increase in its metal reserves by withdrawing bullion assets from “the clergy and plutocracy.” Another of Carranza’s key goals was a new single bank of emissions created with assets squeezed out of the private banks. The issues at stake were centralized state financial operations, a reduction of foreign financial influence, and agricultural development through forced redistribution of wealth.

The machinery of the federal and state governments is well developed throughout the collection, especially Carranza’s patriarchal control of elections and patronage. The first carpetas and scattered references throughout describe Carranza’s early days as a reformist governor in the state of Coahuila. The national government’s most obvious problem in initiating its various reforms was the continuous resistance of old caciques, merchants, and hacendados in league with municipal and state officials. Justice was stern and rarely impartial, as the documents clearly reveal the close vigilance Carranza exercised over the judiciary. Carranza’s subsidization of newspapers both within and outside of Mexico as well as his appointment of sympathetic directors to both new and established periodicals are also quite apparent.

Especially outstanding among the wealth of material on regional history are the reports and information concerning the various revolutionary as well as opposition movements in the states of Oaxaca, Yucatán, Michoacán, Veracruz, Puebla, Chiapas, Sinaloa, and Jalisco. A number of villages in Puebla, Veracruz, and Guerrero asked Carranza to retain carrancista officials or for permission to form volunteer defense corps to defeat “the bandit” Zapata. Evidence that the wealthy elite supported Félix Díaz’s 1916 uprising is expected, but similar disclosures are more surprising with regard to the villistas. The tempo of class warfare usually depended upon the generally Center-Left ideology of Carranza’s local rulers.

Basic to political stability and reform was the new military created by Carranza. A reasonably close ideological harmony existed between the new political elite in the government and the army. Concerned about the task of social reform, officers often asked Carranza for permission to punish those raising prices, speculating, stealing land, or abusing farmers. Although army officers played an important role in local governments, Carranza kept the military subordinate until his disastrous decision to impose Ignacio Bonillas in 1920. Constant warfare and the ever-present threat of United States intervention necessitated a powerful military establishment.

Alhough there is not a great deal of material on foreign policy, that which exists is quite useful. Unlike his rivals, Carranza’s diplomatic personnel and “commercial agents” were very effective as early as 1913. Especially prominent are Carranza’s attempts to extend Mexican influence into Central America, his constant efforts to purchase arms, and the bitter dispute with the United States over the future development of Mexican oil. Carranza also wooed European capital as part of his clear but unsuccessful effort to reduce Mexico’s traditional economic dependence upon the United States. Unhappy foreigners residing in Mexico wrote heated protests concerning Carranza’s new taxes, decrees, or land seizures—which the government nearly always rejected. Relations with Japan are an interesting highlight of the diplomatic material which is only suggestive with regard to Germany.

Finally, the Carranza papers not only offer a valuable insight into the forces that generated a powerful political movement, but a portrait of its little known, oft-maligned leader as well. Used in conjunction with other major sources such as a collection of 57,000 telegrams also held at the Centro de Estudios de Historia de México, the Zapata papers, the Mexican Foreign Relations archive, the Archivo Histórico de la Defense Nacional, the Archivo General de la Nación, and the published Fabela documents, the Carranza Archive is an invaluable tool for understanding the first decade of the Mexican Revolution.

Author notes