Evaluate the achievements of Lázaro Cárdenas up to 1940.

The question requires that candidates make an appraisal of the achievements of Lázaro Cárdenas. As achievements, candidates may evaluate the agrarian reform programme that successfully distributed land among peasants. Cárdenas also organized the National Peasant Confederation (Confederación Nacional Campesina) and extended the services of government banks so that peasants could borrow money. Another major policy was taken in 1936 when most of the country’s labour groups were organized into the Confederación de Trabajadores de Mexico. In 1938, Cárdenas also reorganized the government party, restructuring and renaming it as Partido de la Revolución Mexicana (PRM). The new scheme allowed mass groups to join the PRM. Candidates may also evaluate Cárdenas’s efforts to expropriate foreign-owned industries. In 1937, the government expropriated the nation’s principal railways, and in 1938 signed a decree nationalizing the country’s oil industry. Candidates may argue that Cárdenas’s attempt at putting both of these industries under the control of their workers’ unions failed, and they were placed under autonomous public corporations that functioned as private industries. Candidates may also evaluate Cárdenas’s foreign policy regarding the conflict in Spain, the condemnation of dictatorships and the help given to exiled people. Candidates’ opinions or conclusions will be presented clearly and supported by appropriate evidence.

This question requiring candidates to make an appraisal of the achievements of Lázaro Cárdenas up to 1940 produced few responses recorded with weak performance. Limited specific knowledge on Cardenas was observed as well as a very superficial evaluation of his success.