The Mexican Revolution is considered the most significant political and social event in Mexico during the 20th century, far more than just a civil war. Beginning on November 20, 1910, with repercussions extending until 1920—and, according to some interpretations, for decades afterward—it shook the foundations of a country marked by decades of dictatorship, land concentration, and social exclusion, leaving a legacy that still resonates in Mexico’s national identity.
To understand the revolution, it is essential to grasp the regime it overthrew. Since 1876, General Porfirio Díaz had ruled Mexico with an iron fist. His long rule, known as the Porfiriato, lasted 34 years and combined significant economic growth with severe political repression and glaring social inequality. The benefits of progress were concentrated in the hands of a few: by 1910, less than one percent of Mexican families controlled about 85% of the country’s arable land. The rural population, which made up more than half of the inhabitants, lived in extreme dependence on neighboring estates.
The land situation was the cruelest reflection of this inequality. Throughout the 19th century, a series of laws—including the Lerdo Law of 1856 and other land demarcation measures in 1863, 1883, and 1894—gradually stripped Indigenous communities of their communal lands, known as *ejidos*. Those with resources and influence took advantage of the legal framework to seize vast tracts of land, while traditional populations lost the land they had lived on for generations and were forced to work on the estates of the new landowners.
The political spark came when Díaz, in an interview, stated he would not seek re-election at the end of his term. This declaration opened space for the opposition to organize. Francisco I. Madero traveled the country forming a political party to contest the elections but was arrested for sedition before the vote. The elections took place with Díaz in power, and, naturally, the dictator won. Madero escaped prison and took refuge in the United States, from where, in San Antonio, he proclaimed the Plan of San Luis, calling on the Mexican people to take up arms on November 20, 1910—a date that would mark the official start of the revolution.
The armed conflict began in the north of the country and spread. The rebels' capture of Ciudad Juárez, in the state of Chihuahua, was the decisive blow that broke the regime. Facing the advance of revolutionary forces, Díaz resigned the presidency and went into exile in France. In 1911, Madero won the elections and took power, carrying with him the hopes for transformation that had mobilized the nation.
Madero’s government, however, faced deep contradictions. Other revolutionary leaders, such as Emiliano Zapata—who demanded immediate land reform—and Pascual Orozco, felt betrayed by the new government and rebelled against it. The fatal blow came in February 1913, during the so-called *Decena Trágica* (Tragic Ten Days): a counterrevolutionary movement orchestrated by Félix Díaz, Bernardo Reyes, and General Victoriano Huerta culminated in the assassination of Madero, his brother Gustavo, and Vice President Pino Suárez. Huerta assumed the presidency, triggering a new phase of the conflict.
The reaction to Huerta’s government was immediate. Venustiano Carranza and Francisco Villa, among others, took up arms against the usurper. After just over a year of fighting, compounded by the U.S. occupation of the port of Veracruz, Huerta resigned and fled the country. But Huerta’s departure did not bring peace: the factions that had fought together turned against one another. The Convention of Aguascalientes attempted, unsuccessfully, to name a single leader above the disputes—Eulalio Gutiérrez was designated president, but hostilities resumed when Carranza rejected the agreement.
The Constitutionalists, led by Carranza, emerged victorious from this internal conflict. In 1917, Mexico gained a new constitution, a progressive document for its time, which incorporated labor rights, agrarian reform principles, and limitations on the power of the Catholic Church. Carranza became president that same year, but lasting peace was still far off. The following years were marked by assassinations that eliminated the revolution’s key figures: Zapata was killed in 1919, Carranza in 1920, Villa in 1923, and Álvaro Obregón in 1928.
The human cost of the Mexican Revolution was devastating. Over two million Mexicans lost their lives during a decade of conflict, uprisings, and massacres. Families were destroyed, entire regions were ravaged, and waves of refugees crossed the border into the United States. The interference of foreign powers with economic interests in Mexico—particularly that of the United States—further complicated an already chaotic situation.
Yet the revolution’s legacy is undeniable. It ended decades of dictatorship, laid the groundwork for land redistribution that would transform the Mexican countryside in the following decades, and consolidated a national identity that blended Indigenous traditions with the project of a modern state. The debate over when exactly the revolution ended—in 1917, with the Constitution; in 1920, with Adolfo de la Huerta’s presidency; or in 1924—reflects the depth of the changes it set in motion, changes that continued to unfold long after the guns fell silent.