Madero vs Porfirio Diaz

Francisco Madero challenged Porfirio Diaz in the 1910 election. He was defeated and later arrested. Before election day he went to Diaz with an offer to withdraw from the campaign if he could run as Diaz’s vice president. Diaz turned down the offer and had him arrested after being elected. After being released from prison, Madero disguised himself as a railroad worker and went to Texas and drew money from his family’s bank account. He then met with relatives and political supporters to discuss the revolution (Gonzales, p.73). Madero behaved more like a political reformer than a social revolutionary.

The Revolution as envisioned by Francisco I. Madero and his middle-class supporters differed from the goals that lower-class participants had in mind because Madero’s plan focused on political reform. The lower-class participants had social and economic concerns. Even before the election he was replacing Porfirian governors and local officials (Gonzales, p. 87). These created problems for Madero once he had been elected president of Mexico because Madero failed to sever ties with the Porfirian establishment which cost him the support of grassroots revolutionaries.

Madero made a lot of promises to the people, and he did not follow through. This early period of revolution and counterrevolution was significant because it turned the Mexican political platform more democratic. Madero’s loss of rebel support and his reliance on the federal army made him vulnerable to the counterrevolutionaries (Gonzales, p.110).

Gonzales, Michael J. The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1940. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002.