The Mexican Revolution (Spanish: Revolución mexicana), also known as the Mexican Civil

War (Spanish: guerra civil mexicana), was a major armed struggle, lasting roughly from 1910
to 1920, that radically transformed Mexican culture and government. Although recent research
has focused on local and regional aspects of the Revolution, it was a genuinely national
revolution.[4] Its outbreak in 1910 resulted from the failure of the 35-year-long regime of Porfirio
Díaz to find a managed solution to the presidential succession. This meant there was a political
crisis among competing elites and the opportunity for agrarian insurrection.[5] Wealthy
landowner Francisco I. Madero challenged Díaz in the 1910 presidential election, and following
the rigged results, revolted under the Plan of San Luis Potosí.[6]Armed conflict ousted Díaz from
power; a new election was held in 1911, bringing Madero to the presidency.
The origins of the conflict were broadly based in opposition to the Díaz regime, with the 1910
election becoming the catalyst for the outbreak of political rebellion. The revolution was begun
by elements of the Mexican elite hostile to Díaz, led by Madero and Pancho Villa; it expanded
to the middle class, the peasantry in some regions, and organized labor.[7] In October 1911,
Madero was overwhelmingly elected in a free and fair election. Opposition to his regime then
grew from both the conservatives, who saw him as too weak and too liberal, and from former
revolutionary fighters and the dispossessed, who saw him as too conservative.
Madero and his vice president Pino Suárez were forced to resign in February 1913, and were
assassinated. The counter-revolutionary regime of General Victoriano Huerta came to power,
backed by business interests and other supporters of the old order. Huerta remained in power
from February 1913 until July 1914, when he was forced out by a coalition of different regional
revolutionary forces. When the revolutionaries' attempt to reach political agreement failed,
Mexico plunged into a civil war (1914–1915). The Constitutionalist faction under wealthy
landowner Venustiano Carranza emerged as the victor in 1915, defeating the revolutionary
forces of former Constitutionalist Pancho Villa and forcing revolutionary leader Emiliano
Zapata back to guerrilla warfare. Zapata was assassinated in 1919 by agents of President
Carranza.
The armed conflict lasted for the most of a decade, until around 1920, and had several distinct
phases.[8] Over time the Revolution changed from a revolt against the established order under
Díaz to a multi-sided civil war in particular regions, with frequently shifting power struggles
among factions in the Mexican Revolution. One major result of the revolution was the
dissolution of the Federal Army in 1914, which Francisco Madero had kept intact when he was
elected in 1911 and General Huerta used to oust Madero. Revolutionary forces unified against
Huerta's reactionary regime defeated the Federal forces.[9] Although the conflict was primarily a
civil war, foreign powers that had important economic and strategic interests in Mexico figured
in the outcome of Mexico's power struggles. The United States played an especially significant
role.[10] Out of Mexico's population of 15 million, the losses were high, but numerical estimates
vary a great deal. Perhaps 1.5 million people died; nearly 200,000 refugees fled abroad,
especially to the United States.[1][11]
Many scholars consider the promulgation of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 as the end point
of the armed conflict. "Economic and social conditions improved in accordance with
revolutionary policies, so that the new society took shape within a framework of official
revolutionary institutions", with the constitution providing that framework.[12] The period 1920–
1940 is often considered to be a phase of the Revolution, as government power was
consolidated, the Catholic clergy and institutions were attacked in the 1920s, and the
revolutionary constitution of 1917 was implemented.[13]
This armed conflict is often characterized as the most important sociopolitical event in Mexico
and one of the greatest upheavals of the 20th century;[14] it resulted in an important program of
experimentation and reform in social organization.[15] The revolution committed the resulting