The "Apostle of Democracy," Francisco I. Madero arrived in Mexico City. Two days before Madero seized the presidency, Governor Benito Juarez Maza selected a new Jefe politico and sent him to Juchitan along with 500 Federal soldiers. The standoff became known as the Chegomista Rebellion.
Diaz's resignation indicated the beginning, rather than the end of the Revolution. Jefe politicos were politicians elected by state governments along with President Diaz. Jefe politicos were critical and played a vital role in Diaz's long-running presidency. In maintaining jefe politicos, Madero faced two hurdles. The endurance of the jefatura politica coupled with the system of popular sovereignty, the foundation of liberal revolutionary philosophy, to create a political condition that encouraged personalist authority and compensated direct action, in opposition to the new regime's stated goal of institutional, indifferent democracy. Second, by mid-year in 1911, the Revolution had introduced to the public a previously marginalized society of political players, cabecillas. Cabecillas were rural masses, and their leaders.
Opposition to Diaz's government was led by educated men steeped in radical ideas and selected primarily from the growing class. These individuals utilized the Revolution to remedy old grievances to leverage their influence amongst the popular masses to assemble them to bring them back to their initial ideas, specifically oppression. The process of fixing jefes politicos brought the new regime and the civilian middle -class politicos it served with the cabecillas, and the masses in a struggle rooted in cultural and political ideals.
Two crucial and broadly similar rebellions developed in Oaxaca in 1911, one of which was in Juchitan. The assassination of Juchitero cacique Che Gómez in 1911 sparked an armed revolt by the juchiteros known as the Chegomista Rebellion, which lasted until the planting season in the summer of 1912. The Juchitero revolt firmly challenged the state government and frightened the federal administration. It provided a warning of the Juchiteros fierce commitment to democracy. It differed from the Zapatista rebellion not in the strength of primary motivation or revolutionary state, but rather in the conflicting reactions of the government, who at least for the moment could more readily permit a degree of Juchitero independence than it could a display of Zapatista agrarianism.
Madero encountered this problem more so in Oaxaca. Jose F. Gomez "Che," gathered the poor in Juchitan for these indigenous people to have political representation as well as his claim to jefatura politica. The Chegomistas used simple means to manifest the will of the people, threatening their more important claims to revolutionary legitimacy. This is not what Madero had in mind; the Chegomistas resurrected the ghost of anarchy in the 19th century.
Francisco Madero caught between the powerful interests of the Old Regime, and the increased interests and expectations of popular revolutionaries caused his downfall. He was unwilling to intrude in the internal politics of the interim regime and thereby allowed for the conservative turn of the Revolution before entering the office (Ristow, pg. 116).
Even though the Chegomistas demanded democratic legitimacy, the tenacity of widespread violence throughout the country remained, and therefore, the participation of the masses in public politics drove individuals of the New Regime to the Old Regime. Unbeknownst to either Díaz or Madero, something had been brewing just beneath the surface for years. Dissatisfaction was much more profound and more extensive than the governing class realized. By the turn of the century, a small group of self-proclaimed liberals had been planning throughout the country, sharing their publication Regeneración (Regeneration). In it, they charged that the government respect the Constitution, comply with the Reform Laws (which included the separation of church and state and the suppression of religious education) and rebuild democracy. They also began building the Mexican Liberal
Party under the leadership of Ricardo Flores Magón. Díaz did not authorize criticism or resistance, so when the liberals rejected
his reelection in 1903, they began to be persecuted. Many were jailed or forced into exile. Liberal newspapers were banned, and no space was allowed them in public, open politics. This caused them to radicalize, and they began preparing an insurgency.
The troubled new administration lasted only 15 months before being overthrown in a coup prompted by the U.S. ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson. An enthusiast of Díaz, who viscerally despised Madero, he plotted with the military commanders in the capital.
In 1908 Porfirio Diaz addressed the necessity of violence in preparing Mexico for peace and progress, justifying his use of the mano dura. Democracy has its limits.
Ristow, An Unfinished Revolution
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