Deck 4: Forging a New Nation: the Mexican Revolution and the Populist Challenge

Question 1

An important role in the conspiracy to overthrow Madero was played by

A) Emiliano Zapata.
B) Henry Lane Wilson.
C) Pino Suárez.
D) León de la Barra.

Answer 1

Henry Lane Wilson.

Question 2

The principal vehicle of the Cárdenas land reform was

A) the ejido.
B) the collective ejido.
C) the rancho.
D) the state farm.

Answer 2

the ejido.

Question 3

Obregón and Calles proposed to

A) lay the foundations of a Mexican national capitalism.
B) establish a socialist (but not communist) economy.
C) create a mixed economy-part socialist, part capitalist.
D) create a state capitalism based on government ownership of mines and utilities.

Answer 3

lay the foundations of a Mexican national capitalism.

Question 4

Francisco Madero's program for Mexico

A) called for the violent overthrow of Porfirio Díaz.
B) called for a reduction of U.S. influence over the Mexican economy.
C) proclaimed the need for a radical land reform.
D) regarded democracy as an instrument of social control.

Question 5

Juana Gutiérrez de Mendoza and Dolores Jiménez were

A) wealthy aristocratic women who supported Porfirio Díaz.
B) revolutionary activists in a feminist working class group, Daughters of Cuauhtémoc.
C) radical feminists who advocated sexual equality and "free love."
D) middle class radicals who insisted that Mexican women receive exactly the same treatment as men.

Question 6

Cárdenas's successors in the presidency

A) supported U.S. intervention in Cuba.
B) continued Cárdenas's posture of independence in foreign policy.
C) accepted U.S. leadership in the cold war.
D) recognized the Franco government in Spain.

Question 7

Cárdenas's successors in the presidency

A) continued his program of social and economic reform.
B) pursued a development strategy that favored capitalists over peasants and workers.
C) accelerated the pace of land distribution.
D) pursued policies that favored large landowners over peasants.

Question 8

The United States initially supported Madero because

A) Díaz had recently given indications that he was hostile toward the United States.
B) Díaz's violations of human rights met with U.S. disfavor.
C) Madero had promised to favor U.S. capitalists in the grant of oil concessions.
D) Madero was a close personal friend of Woodrow Wilson.

Question 9

During World War II, Article 27 of the Constitution was revised to

A) expand the number of indigenous ejidos.
B) exempt large landowners from further expropriation.
C) discourage foreign trade and investment in Mexico.
D) eliminate property, gender, and literacy qualifications for voting.

Question 10

A major cause of the failure of the peasant revolutionaries to come to power was

A) the superior military resources of the Constitutionalists.
B) U.S. hostility to Zapata and Villa because of their expropriation of foreign properties.
C) personal conflicts between Villa and Zapata.
D) their inability to forge a reform program to unite workers, peasants, and the middle class.

Question 11

The constitution of 1917

A) reflected Carranza's conservative social and political views.
B) reflected the views of the radical majority of delegates to the convention.
C) represented a mixture of conservative and radical articles.
D) made large concessions to attract foreign investment in Mexico.

Question 12

The Constitution of 1917

A) gave women the right to vote.
B) allowed women who owned land to vote.
C) denied women the right to vote.
D) denied women the right to work.

Question 13

The differences between the agrarian programs of Villa and Zapata may in part be explained by the fact that

A) Zapata was better educated than Villa.
B) the economy of northern Mexico was based not on agriculture but on cattle raising.
C) Villa was influenced by his radical advisers.
D) peasant land hunger was much more acute in the north.

Question 14

Women's equal right to vote and hold office, based upon their participation in the revolution, was a view expressed by

A) Francisco Madero.
B) Inez Malváez.
C) Sara Madero.
D) Hermila Galinda de Topete.

Question 15

The women's movement in Mexico was frequently divided over issues of

A) indigenous rights.
B) class.
C) gay rights.
D) women's suffrage.

Question 16

In the closing years of his presidency, Cárdenas

A) increased the pace of land distribution.
B) toughened his stance toward the capitalist class.
C) groomed General Francisco Múgica to succeed him as president.
D) displayed growing moderation in his social and economic policies.

Question 17

President Woodrow Wilson's hostility toward Huerta above all reflected his

A) moral indignation at Huerta's illegal seizure of power.
B) conviction that Huerta could not secure the stability required by U.S. interests in Mexico.
C) anger over the arrest of U.S. sailors in Tampico.
D) dissatisfaction with Huerta's failure to pay the interest on Mexico's foreign debt.

Question 18

PLM leaders Camilo Arriaga and Dolores Jiménez organized Mexico City's Complot de Tacubaya, an urban revolt that

A) championed the rights of the poor and brought Porfirio Díaz to power.
B) denounced Francisco Madero for ignoring the interests of Mexican workers and women.
C) demanded indigenous rights, land reform, eight-hour day, and equal pay for equal work.
D) reflected the urban interests of Mexico's new national bourgeoisie that opposed Díaz.

Question 19

The power of Mexico's ruling party, the PRI, rested on

A) a system of institutionalized coercion and fraud.
B) the paternalistic distribution of favors to the poor.
C) the incorporation of dissidents into the state apparatus.
D) popular identification of the PRI with Mexican nationalism.

Question 20

Cárdenas's oil nationalization

A) was the first of a series of large-scale expropriations of foreign properties.
B) reflected Cárdenas's socialist ideology.
C) was a major victory for Mexican nationalism and capitalism.
D) caused a serious disruption of the Mexican oil industry.

Question 21

How did rock music affect Mexican politics and popular culture?

Question 22

By the late 1960s, Mexico abandoned many of its populist reforms and became dependent on

A) dictatorial decrees that empowered government bureaucrats.
B) a neoliberal dictatorship that crushed all political opposition.
C) foreign loans that increased its foreign debt alarmingly.
D) relatively high agricultural and mineral export prices.

Question 23

What roles did women play in the Mexican Revolution and how did this affect their struggle for equal rights?

Question 24

Luis Echeverría's government was distinguished for its

A) populist policies that discriminated against foreign investors.
B) subservience to U.S. foreign policy interests and objectives.
C) commitment to social justice and the elimination of poverty.
D) use of populist rhetoric to disguise a "dirty war" against political opponents.

Question 25

Popular resistance to an authoritarian state in the postwar world was not reflected by

A) a series of strikes by teachers and railroad workers led by Demetrio Vallejo.
B) a riot of working class fans at the funeral of Pedro Infante, a popular singer and film star.
C) the automobile workers' 1965 strike against General Motors of Mexico.
D) the increasing popularity of rock n' roll among Mexican youth.

Question 26

Some radical activists who demanded social justice nonetheless opposed women's suffrage because they feared that

A) women's political equality would undermine working class men's authority in the home.
B) it would divide the revolutionary coalition and enable the reactionary Díaz regime to return to power.
C) the vast majority of Mexican women would be influenced by the Catholic Church to vote for conservatives.
D) it would be unpopular in rural communities, where some 70 percent of Mexico's people still resided.

Question 27

Obregón and Calles both supported indigenista art because it sought

A) national unity based upon a celebration of Mexico's distinct indigenous traditions.
B) recognition of indigenous communities' right to self-determination.
C) eradication of racist discrimination against indigenous people.
D) abolition of Mexico's cultural connection to Spain.

Question 28

The Avándaro music festival in 1971 provided an opportunity for

A) middle- and upper-class jipitecas to join foreign "hippies" in protest of modernity.
B) the Mexican state to support rock n' roll music as a symbol of its modernity.
C) the Mexican government to promote its "Die Elvis Presley" campaign.
D) working class youth to voice their view that "rock is about revolution."

Question 29

Venustiano Carranza, a moderate bourgeois revolutionary, believed in women's "natural inequality," but he

A) joined with the Catholic Church to oppose women's civil and political equality.
B) supported a constitutional amendment to enfranchise women.
C) vetoed a law that gave women equal rights to exercise guardianship and child custody, file lawsuits, and sign contracts.
D) sought their support by legalizing divorce, establishing alimony, and authorizing women to own and manage property.

Question 30

Despite the shifting attitude of the United States toward some of the main actors in the Mexican Revolution, there was a basic consistency in U.S. policy regarding the revolution. How would you define that policy?

Question 31

What role did popular culture play in shaping resistance to state and private sector modernization programs?

Question 32

Evaluate the achievements of the Cárdenas era, noting its positive and negative aspects.

Question 33

There appears to be a paradox in the fact that the Mexican artistic Renaissance, as reflected in the work of such radical, anti-imperialist artists as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, was generously supported by such moderate politicians as Obregón and Calles. Can you explain?

Question 34

Agrarian reform during the governments of Obregón and Calles was designed to

A) destroy the latifundio and radically redistribute land to the landless.
B) relieve peasant discontent without damaging the interests of large landowners.
C) promote the expansion of peasant subsistence agriculture.
D) satisfy the revolutionary demands of Emiliano Zapata.

Question 35

Mexican women received the right to vote in

A) 1917 after Hermila Galindo de Topete delivered an impassioned speech on the floor of the Constitutional Convention.
B) 1928 when President Plutarco Elías Calles signed the controversial amendment to the 1917 Constitution.
C) 1937 when Lázaro Cárdenas supported Constitutional reform "to grant equal rights."
D) 1953 when a conservative Institutional Revolutionary Party had reached a modus vivendi with the Catholic Church.

Question 36

Madero's admirers called him the Apostle of Democracy. Describe Madero's conception of democracy, with particular reference to social and economic content. Given this idea of democracy, why was a break between Madero and Zapata almost inevitable?

Question 37

"Cuca" García was a

A) feminist arrested in 1932 for accusing the government of murdering campesinos and neglecting poor peasant women.
B) leader of the rural literacy crusades that virtually eliminated illiteracy in the Mexican countryside.
C) moderate, middle class feminist who was content to secure limited political rights for women.
D) talented feminist whose own artistic genius was eclipsed by her marriage to Diego Rivera, a famous Mexican muralist.