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| 1930–32 |
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| Pascual Ortiz Rubio, president. Calles remained the dominant figure, and the new administration continued the policy of its predecessors. | 1 |
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| 1931, Sept. 9 |
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| Mexico joined the League of Nations. | 2 |
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| 1932, Sept. 3 |
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| President Ortiz Rubio resigned after a difference with Calles, who had (1931) assumed the ministry of war. | 3 |
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| 1932–34 |
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| Gen. Abelardo Rodríguez served as provisional president. | 4 |
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| 1933 |
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| Adoption of a six-year plan of social legislation and economic development, which really signified a move to the right on the part of Calles and the National Revolutionary Party, insofar as it deferred some of the more radical measures earlier envisaged. | 5 |
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| 1934, July 2 |
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| GENERAL LÁZARO CÁRDENAS (1895–1970), the choice of Calles, was elected president for a six-year term (recently extended by constitutional amendment). Cárdenas was a former revolutionary general who had had some success with land reform as governor of Michoacán between 1928 and 1932. Conflict soon developed between Calles and the new president, who represented the advanced wing of the party and regarded Calles as too conservative. In 1935 he forced Calles into exile. Thereafter Cárdenas, undisputed master of the country, embarked upon an accelerated program of reform, in which he was supported by the new Confederation of Mexican Workers (Feb. 1936), led by Vicente Lombardo Toledano. | 6 |
| Within a few years twice as much land was expropriated as in the years 1917–34. This was distributed to the peasants on the communal (ejido) basis. Cárdenas gave out over 49 million acres of land to these communities, and established a bank to provide them credit. Cárdenas used the ejido as the symbol of Mexico's indigenous heritage, focusing his vision on a reconciliation between the noble Indian past and the need for modernization. With regard to the Church, Cárdenas adopted a more conciliatory attitude, though he insisted on the elimination of the Church from politics and upheld the nationalization of its property. | 7 |
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| 1936 |
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| Mexican workers engaged in a series of strikes against foreign-owned oil companies, demanding better wages and working conditions. Although relatively well paid, the workers were angry about the excessive oil profits that left the country and the refusal of the companies to engage in serious labor negotiations. | 8 |
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| Feb. 26–29 |
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| At a National Unification Congress called by various unions, participants agreed to create the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) under the leadership of Lombardo Toledano. Reflecting the reemergence of a powerful labor movement, the CTM was a Communist-backed alternative to the corrupt CROM, and totaled over 1 million members by 1938. | 9 |
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| Nov. 23 |
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| A new expropriation law empowered the government to seize private property when necessary for the “public or social welfare.” | 10 |
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