After the assassination of Álvaro Obregón, Elías Calles founded the Institutional Revolutionary Party and held unofficial power as Mexico's de facto leader from 1929 to 1934, a period known as the Maximato.

Supporters have praised his reforms [citation needed] in areas such as health, infrastructure, and public education, as well as his attempts to separate church and state and to prevent political instability in the wake of Obregón's assassination.

The party he founded, including its two subsequent incarnations, established what Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa would describe as "the perfect dictatorship" and ruled Mexico without democratic opposition for much of the twentieth century through a combination of corruption, repression, and electoral fraud.

[4] Plutarco's uncle was an atheist, and he instilled in his nephew a strong commitment to secular education and an attitude of disdain toward the Roman Catholic Church, which was separated from the state during this time.

[citation needed] Eventually, Francisco Elías González moved north to Chihuahua, where, as commander of the presidio of Terrenate, he played a role in the wars against the Yaqui and Apache.

[8] The family's fortunes declined precipitously; it lost or sold much of its land, some of it to the Cananea Copper Company, whose labor practices resulted in a major strike at the turn of the twentieth century.

[11] Calles became governor of his home state of Sonora in 1915, building a pragmatic reformist political record, which was to promote the rapid growth of the Mexican national economy, the infrastructure of which he helped to establish.

[12][13] In 1919, Calles travelled to Mexico City to take up the post of Secretary of Industry, Commerce, and Labor in the government of President Venustiano Carranza, the leader of the Constitutionalist faction that had won the Mexican Revolution.

[6] In 1920, he aligned himself with fellow Sonoran revolutionary generals Adolfo de la Huerta and Álvaro Obregón to overthrow Carranza under the Plan of Agua Prieta.

[15] During the Obregón presidency (1920–24), Calles aligned himself with organized labor, particularly the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM), headed by Luis N. Morones and the Laborist Party, as well as agraristas, radical agrarians.

The Laborist Party which supported his government in reality functioned as the political-electoral branch of the powerful Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM), led by Luis N. Morones.

Shortly before his inauguration, Calles had traveled to Germany and France to study social democracy and the labor movement and he drew comparisons to Mexico.

Wage increases and betterment of working conditions were evidence that Calles sought to implement Article 123 of the Mexican Constitution, embedding labor rights.

Calles sought to professionalize the army and decrease its share of the national budget, putting Joaquín Amaro in charge of implementing major changes.

This extensive infrastructure project "connected the country, increasingly linking people from different regions and towns to national political, economic, and cultural life.

The ministry was in charge of promoting vaccination against communicable diseases, improving potable water access, sewage and drainage systems, and inspecting restaurants, markets, and other food providers.

Calles quickly rejected the Bucareli Agreements of 1923 between the U.S. and Mexico, when Álvaro Obregón was president, and began drafting a new oil law that would strictly enforce article 27 of the Mexican constitution.

The Bucareli Agreements stated that Mexico would agree to respect the Mexican Supreme Court decision in exchange for official recognition from Washington of the presidency of Álvaro Obregón.

Soon afterward, a direct telephone link was established between Calles and President Calvin Coolidge, and the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, James R. Sheffield, was replaced with Dwight Morrow.

During his presidential campaign, Calles clarified that he was not an "enemy of religion"; he approved of "all religious beliefs because [he] consider[ed] them beneficial for the moral progress that they encompass."

[44] In response to the government's enforcement of anticlerical laws, the Catholic Church called for a clerical strike, which entailed ceasing to celebrate Mass, baptize children, sanctify marriage, and perform rituals for the dead.

The consulate was reopened in January after pressure from President Hoover[56] and the Chamber of Commerce[57] led Texas governor Moody and Laredo city officials to offer assurances that Mexican citizens would not be unlawfully molested.

The period that Obregón had been elected to serve, between 1928 and 1934, was when Calles was requested to come in as an advisor but was instead considered the Jefe Máximo, the "maximum chief," and the power behind the presidency; and was a title he never used for himself.

[59] After a large demonstration in 1930, the Mexican Communist Party was banned, Mexico stopped its support for the rebels of César Sandino in Nicaragua, strikes were no longer tolerated, and the government ceased re-distributing lands to poorer peasants.

Calles and head of the labor organization CROM, Luis N. Morones, one of the last remaining influential callistas and one-time Minister of Agriculture,[59] were charged with conspiring to blow up a railroad and placed under arrest under the order of President Cárdenas.

Calles was deported to the United States on 9 April 1936 along with the three last highly influential callistas in Mexico—Morones, Luis León (leader of the Radical Civic Union in Mexico),[63] and General Rafael Melchor Ortega (one-time Governor of Guanajuato).

With the Institutional Revolutionary Party now firmly in control and in the spirit of national unity, President Manuel Ávila Camacho (1940–1946) allowed Calles to return to Mexico under the reconciliation policy of Cárdenas's successor in 1941.

Upon his return to Mexico, he became interested in spiritualism, attending weekly sessions at the Mexican Circle of Metapsychic Investigations, and coming to profess belief "in a Supreme Being".

His remains were moved from their original resting place to be interred in the Monument to the Revolution, joining other major figures, Madero, along with Carranza, Villa, and Cárdenas who in life were his political opponents.

For many years, the presidency of Cárdenas was touted as the revival of the ideals of the Revolution, but increasingly the importance of Calles as the founder of the party that brought political stability to Mexico has been recognized.