Cesare Borgia vs Plutarco Elias Calles

Plutarco Elias Calles vs Cesare Borgia ### The Prince and the Jefe In the winter of 1507, a solitary figure in battered armor bled out in a muddy ditch near the Spanish town of Viana. Cesare Borgia, once the most feared man in Italy, had been killed in a petty skirmish, his body stripped and left to rot. Four centuries later, in 1929, another strongman—Plutarco Elías Calles—stood in Mexico City and founded a political party that would rule his nation for the next seventy-one years. One died forgotten, a cautionary tale of ambition without roots. The other died a retired elder statesman, his legacy woven into the very fabric of his country. Why did the Cardinal and the Jefe—both ruthless reformers, both military commanders, both men who remade their worlds—meet such different fates? ### Origins Cesare Borgia was born into the most scandalous family of Renaissance Italy. His father, Rodrigo Borgia, bought the papacy in 1492 and became Pope Alexander VI, a man who treated the Church as a family business. Cesare was made a cardinal at eighteen, a position of immense power that he never wanted. He was a creature of the Vatican, a prince of the Church who despised the clergy. His world was a chessboard of city-states, mercenary armies, and shifting alliances—a place where power was personal and trust was a weakness. Plutarco Elías Calles was born in 1877 in the dusty state of Sonora, Mexico, to a poor family. His father died when he was a child; he worked as a bartender, a schoolteacher, and a mill hand before the Mexican Revolution gave him a rifle and a cause. He had no noble blood, no family dynasty. His world was a nation torn apart by war, a land of feudal haciendas and a Catholic Church that owned half the country’s wealth. For Calles, power was not about family—it was about institutions. ### Rise to Power Cesare Borgia’s rise was a product of nepotism and nerve. In 1498, he did the unthinkable: he resigned his cardinalate—the first man in history to voluntarily give up the purple—to become a secular prince. His father gave him French troops, a papal army, and a license to carve out his own kingdom. In 1499, he stormed into the Romagna, a lawless region of petty lords and robber barons. City after city fell: Imola, Forlì, Rimini, Pesaro. He fought alongside his men, a general in the mud, and he ruled with a blend of terror and competence that made Machiavelli gasp. Calles rose through the chaos of the Mexican Revolution. He was a competent administrator, not a charismatic caudillo. In 1915, as governor of Sonora, he banned the Church from politics, closed Catholic schools, and redistributed land to peasants. He was not a warrior like Pancho Villa; he was a builder. In 1924, he was elected president of Mexico. Where Borgia conquered with swords, Calles legislated with laws. ### Leadership & Governance Borgia’s leadership was a study in controlled violence. He conquered the Romagna in two years, then appointed a brutal lieutenant, Ramiro de Lorca, to pacify the region. When the job was done, Borgia had de Lorca cut in half and displayed in the town square—a message that the prince, not his agent, held ultimate power. He built a centralized state, unified laws, and crushed the feudal lords. But his system depended entirely on his person. There was no bureaucracy, no party, no constitution. When his father died in 1503, the entire edifice collapsed. Calles governed through institutions. As president, he built roads, schools, and irrigation systems. He enforced the anti-clerical laws of the 1917 Constitution, closing hundreds of churches and deporting foreign priests. This sparked the Cristero War (1926-1929), a bloody Catholic uprising that killed 90,000 people. Calles did not lead armies in the field; he directed the war from his desk, sending federal troops to burn villages and execute rebel leaders. When his presidential term ended in 1928, he did not cling to office. Instead, he created the National Revolutionary Party (PNR) in 1929—a political machine that would control Mexico for decades. He became the *Jefe Máximo*, the maximum chief, ruling through puppet presidents during the Maximato (1928-1934). The party, not the man, was the source of power. ### Triumph & Tragedy Borgia’s greatest moment was the conquest of the Romagna. For a brief, brilliant period, he was the model of a new prince—ruthless, efficient, and visionary. Machiavelli, who met him in 1502, wrote that Borgia was the only man who understood how to seize and hold power. His tragedy was that his power was personal. When Alexander VI died, Borgia was caught between the French, the Spanish, and the Italian city-states. He was imprisoned, escaped, and died at thirty-one in a meaningless battle, his kingdom dissolved, his name a byword for corruption. Calles’s triumph was the creation of a stable, one-party state. After a decade of revolution and civil war, Mexico needed order. Calles provided it. His tragedy was the cost: the Cristero War left deep scars, and his anti-clericalism poisoned Mexican politics for generations. But unlike Borgia, Calles did not die in the mud. He was forced into exile in 1936 by his own protégé, Lázaro Cárdenas, but he returned to Mexico in 1941 and died peacefully in 1945. ### Character & Destiny Borgia was a gambler. He staked everything on his father’s papacy, on French support, on his own charisma. He was brilliant but brittle—he could build a state but not a succession. Calles was an organizer. He saw that the Mexican Revolution needed not a king but a party, not a dynasty but a system. He was cold, pragmatic, and patient. Borgia burned bright and fast; Calles built to last. Their eras shaped them. Renaissance Italy was a world of city-states, mercenaries, and papal intrigues—a place where a single death could undo a kingdom. Post-revolutionary Mexico was a nation of peasants, generals, and intellectuals—a place where a party could outlive its founder. Borgia could not imagine a state without himself; Calles could not imagine a state without his party. ### Legacy Cesare Borgia lives on as a character in Machiavelli’s *The Prince*, a symbol of amoral ambition. His name is synonymous with poison, betrayal, and the dark arts of power. He is a warning, not a model. Plutarco Elías Calles is remembered as the founder of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for seventy-one years. He is a controversial figure—hated by Catholics, admired by modernizers. His reforms secularized the state, built a modern economy, and ended the age of caudillos. He is a founder, not a footnote. ### Conclusion Two men, two worlds. One died in a ditch, his kingdom a memory. The other died in bed, his party a machine. The difference was not in their ambition—both were ruthless—but in their vision. Borgia built a throne for himself; Calles built a temple for his party. One was a prince; the other was a jefe. In the end, the institution outlasts the man—and that is the cruelest lesson of power.