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Born into a lower-middle class family in the village of Jiquilpan, Michoacan, Lazaro Cardenas was the oldest of seven children. He was forced to become the sole support of his family at age 16, when his father died, and he took such jobs as tax collector and jailer. He had always wanted to be a teacher, although he had to leave school at 11 years of age, but that dream went by the wayside during the turbulent years of the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century, after renegade Gen. Victoriano Huerta overthrew and assassinated President Francisco I. Madero.
Cardenas became a supporter of Plutarco Elías Calles. Huerta was eventually overthrown and Calles was elected President. Cardenas became governor of his home state of Michoacan, and became known for his incorruptibility -- a rare character trait in Mexican politicians of the time -- his program of road- and school-building, his land reform program and the implementation of a social security system, among other things.
When Calles' term was up, however, he was unwilling to let go of the reins of power and used a succession of front men in the office of President while he actually ran the country from behind the scenes. Calles' party, the PNR, selected Cardenas as its presidential candidate in 1934 and Calles assented, believing that he could control Cardenas in much the same way as he had his predecessors. He was in for a surprise, however. In 1936 Cardenas had Calles and several dozen of his cronies arrested for corruption and jailed or deported to the US. It was a move that was wildly popular among the Mexican public, which had seldom -- if ever -- seen its politicians punished for the endemic corruption that characterized Mexican politics. He also ended capital punishment (a policy that stands to this day). Cardenas and his party managed to maintain control of Mexico without resorting to harsh, oppressive and usually bloody military solutions, which many of his predecessors had done during times of crisis, and this policy effectively put an end to the era of seemingly endless rebellions, uprisings and civil wars that had racked the country since 1910.
Cardenas' popularity became so widespread that he soon became the first Mexican President to travel the country without armored cars or convoys of bodyguards as an escort. In the 1934 election he did what few other Mexican Presidents had done -- campaign in many virtually inaccessible regions of the country, often on horseback, and accompanied by only a few aides and a driver. This won him even more respect from the population. After his election he moved the presidential headquarters from the historic -- and somewhat palatial -- Chapultepec Castle into a newly built, and less regal, residence called Los Pinos, and turned the former presidential palace into the National Museum of History.
When Rusian Communust boss Lev Trotskiy was exiled after falling out of favor with dictator Joseph Stalin, Cardenas gave him sanctuary in Mexico. His purpose was twofold -- it effectively neutralized his opponents' claims that he was a Stalinist and gave him credibility among labor unions and workers' organizations, which he needed in order to break the power of the old, corrupt CROM umbrella labor organization and promote the newly organized Confederation of Mexican Workers to take its place, which was headed by a socialist, Vicente Toledano.
During the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, Cardenas was a strong supporter of the Republican government and a fierce opponent of fascist leader Gen. Francisco Franco. When Franco eventually defeated the loyalist forces, Cardenas instructed his ambassadors in Europe to offer asylum and protection to any Spanish loyalist who asked for it, and many Republican officials and ex-soldiers took refuge in Mexico's European embassies. Cardenas also allowed thousands of Spanish refugees to settle in Mexico, including many artists, writers and filmmakers, who came to have a strong influence on Mexico's cultural life.
Another policy of Cardenas' government was land reform, and it seized and re-distributed to landless farmers and sharecroppers millions of acres of land, much of it from wealthy "hacendados" who had illegally seized or stolen it in the first place. He also championed workers' rights and had legislation passed that guaranteed the rights of workers to unionize. He nationalized the hodgepodge of private railroads that crisscrossed Mexico in 1938 and consolidated them into one federally-administered railway system, the Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico.
In the 1940 presidential elections -- by law he could not run for re-election -- Cardenas was not happy with his party's nominee, Manuel Avila, and demanded that Avila and his opponent, Juan Andreu, have public debates, which had been unheard of in previous elections, and that the ensuing elections be open and transparent -- again, an unheard-of situation in Mexican politics. Cardenas' wishes were ignored, however, and Election Day was marred by violent incidents across the country in which people were killed and injured, polling places were attacked and ballot boxes stolen. Each side released its own results showing that it had won, but eventually an official count determined that Avila, the PRI candidate, was the victor. Andreu thundered about leading a revolt and setting up a parallel government, but nothing came of it and Avila was inaugurated as President.
If there was one single action that marked Cardenas' administration, however, it was the nationalization of the oil industry. Vast quantities of oil had been discovered in Mexico at the turn of the century, and by 1921 it was the world's second-largest producer (it supplied more than 20% of the oil used in the US). The Cardenas administration had been negotiating with a consortium of American, Mexican and European oil companies that controlled the production and distribution of Mexican oil, attempting to get more control over the industry and a bigger cut of the profits for Mexico, but the oil cartel refused to consider any change in the system as it was. As a last resort the government proposed a solution devised by a presidential commission, but it was rejected out of hand by the oil companies. On March 18, 1938, Cardenas announced the nationalization of Mexico's oil reserves and the seizure of all equipment from foreign-owned oil companies in the country. It was an expensive action, but one that was so popular with the Mexican populace that the country began a national fund-raising campaign to raise money to compensate the oil companies for the seizures of its properties and equipment. Nevertheless, many European governments severed diplomatic relations with Mexico because of the nationalization and instituted a boycott of Mexican oil and oil products. However, the outbreak of World War II meant a huge demand for oil, and if America and Europe wouldn't buy Mexico's oil, it would look for customers elsewhere, and it soon found one -- Nazi Germany. That was enough for the Americans and Europeans. They patched up their differences with Mexico, ended their boycott and Mexico in turn stopped selling oil to Germany. Cardenas named the government oil company Pemex (Petroleos Mexicanos) and founded the National Polytechnic Institute to ensure that the country had a steady supply of experts to manage and improve its oil industry.
When Cardenas' presidential term expired in 1940, he was appointed as Mexico's Secretary of Defense, a post he held until 1945. Unlike many Mexican presidents, he did not enrich himself while in office, and upon retirement he took up residence in an unpretentious home by Lake Patzcuaro and spent his time supervising local irrigation projects and building schools and free medical clinics in areas that had neither.
He died of cancer in Mexico City in 1970.
