Monument to the Revolution

This monument commemorates the Mexican Revolution, an era of Mexico’s modern history that, whilst undoubtedly a dark, violent period with a grim death toll, was nonetheless a transformation of the Mexican state that redefined the nation as a democracy.

The Revolution was sparked in 1910 by a revolt against Porfirio Díaz, a president-dictator who had ruled Mexico for over three decades. Díaz opened the economy to foreign investment, which unleashed an economic boom but also led to widespread poverty and inequality. The fighting rapidly caused Díaz to surrender his grip on power and to flee the country, but with the revolutionaries lacking a single, unifying successor, a decade-long civil war engulfed Mexico.

Some estimates suggest up to a million lives were lost in the fighting of the Mexican Revolution, as various competing factions fought for control of the nation. Stability did not return to Mexico until the 1920s, when the first post-revolutionary governments came to power and the Revolution’s legacy began to emerge.

Mexican democracy was enhanced: a one-term limit to the presidency has been observed ever since. A new constitution separated church and state, enhanced workers’ rights, and tackled the thorny issues of land distribution and mineral rights.

Yet, whilst the post-revolutionary state was more receptive than the Díaz regime to the needs of the poor and of indigenous communities, the Mexican Revolution did not bring about the kind of radical social change seen in the 20th century’s other major revolutions in Russia and Cuba. Arguably, the nation’s social class system saw more continuity than change in the decades that followed the Revolution.

The monument is an architectural wonder. Dominating the Plaza de la República in the heart of Mexico City, it is perhaps the most visible of all the government’s initiatives to cement the Revolution in the national conscience.

Construction of the structure actually began under the Porfirio Díaz presidency, whose dictatorial rule of Mexico came to an end with the onset of the Revolution. Díaz planned to build a congressional palace to house Mexico’s legislative chambers.

The planned palace would have been one of the biggest congressional buildings in the world, with a European neoclassical architectural style not dissimilar to Díaz’s other grand architectural project, the nearby Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Díaz laid the first stone of the congressional building in November 1910, marking the centenary of Mexico’s War of Independence with Spain, but also now known as the month when the Mexican Revolution began.

Construction of the legislative chamber continued for two years, but came to a halt in 1912 as the government’s financial resources were drained by the fighting engulfing Mexico. As civil war raged, the building’s grand steel structure stood abandoned.

It was not until 1933, under the post-revolutionary presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas that an architect, Carlos Obregón Santacilia, proposed converting the planned congressional building into a monument for those who fought in the Mexican Revolution. The European-influenced neoclassical design of the Díaz era was dispensed with, and in its place came an Art Deco design with influences of social realism and indigenous culture.

The monument would also function as a mausoleum for the leading figures of the Revolution. Laid to rest under the monuments pillars are Francisco “Pancho” Villa, Francisco Madero, Venustiano Carranza, Plutarco Elías Calles and Lázaro Cárdenas.

Visitors can learn more about the Mexican Revolution in the museum in the monument’s base, before ascending a glass elevator to the viewing platforms at its summit, which feature a 360 degree panoramic view of this part of Mexico City.