Reference no: EM133432102

The Course of Mexican History.

"The depression had not singled out Mexico, it was not partial to one or another ideology or economic system. The principles upon which the revolution had been founded were still sound, and in 1934, a new, dynamic leader Lázaro Cárdenas would give them the opportunity to run their course... Agrarian reform more than anything else dominated the administration's concern during the first few years. Since the initiation of the land distribution program some 26 million acres had been parceled out...(yet) millions of Mexican peasants still owned no land at all and felt cheated by two decades of revolutionary rhetoric [until Cardenas became president]. [Under Cardenas], the vast majority of the land distributed did not go to individuals or even heads of households but rather to community ejidos...On the largest ejido, some 8 million acres, thirty thousand families...engaged in the cultivation of cotton, wheat, and maize for commercial sale. Most families also held small individual plots on which to grow their subsistence crops."

Explain why the Mexican government would have strong popular support during the depression. Explain one way that Mexico's political policies were similar to the one's adopted by the Soviet Union in the Interwar Period. Explain one way that Mexico's political policies were different from the one's adopted by the Soviet Union in the Interwar Period. Use evidence from the passage to support your answers.