James Dunkerley: The long war: dictatorship and revolution in El Salvador, Junction Books, 1982. £5.95
Of the recent spate of books on the Salvadorean revolution (reviewed elsewhere in this issue) James Dunkerley's The long war stands out as having the most conscious political analysis of the strategic questions facing the Salvadorean revolution.
The Fourth International is at present involved in a discussion of the new non-Stalinist revolutionary leaderships that are emerging in Central America and the Caribbean. Dunkerley's book assists this discussion in that it provides a valuable account of this process in El Salvador. He explains that the contemporary Salvadorean revolutionary organisations had their origins in the severe internal crisis faced by both the Salvadorean Christian Democratic Party (PDC) and the Salvadorean Communist Party (PCS) at the end of the 1960s. He explains that the crisis in the PCS was the most severe and of the greatest consequence for the Left since it was extended and was expressed through a debate over Leninist strategy. It was not simply a process whereby a new generation of radicalised youth took the path of armed struggle out of frustration and voluntarism.
The central strategic question was the question of armed struggle but the framework of the debate was the character of the revolution in El Salvador: a stagist conception of the revolution (first the bourgeois-democratic revolution and then the socialist revolution) versus a conception of permanent revolution (whereby the bourgeois-democratic revolution grows over into the socialist revolution in an uninterrupted process). Dunkerley outlines the electoralist strategy of the PCS, its bourgeois-democratic path, and he charts the development of the opposition within the party to this path.
The opposition characterised El Salvador as a dependent capitalist country. They rejected the PCS thesis that El Salvador was semi-feudal and that a national bourgeoisie existed that could still play a revolutionary role in the establishment of a bourgeois-democratic regime that would allow the rapid development of capitalism by the national bourgeoisie and with this the development of the working class as the stage before the initiation of the revolutionary struggle towards socialism.
The opposition analysed the character of the revolution in El Salvador as one in which the 'people's revolution accomplishes anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist tasks throughout its development' and that this revolution would be 'travelling towards socialism in its development'. It said that this revolution could only be led by the working class and that there was not a 'national bourgeoisie because the Salvadorean bourgeoisie was not independent of the imperialist bourgeoisie.'
The rebellion against the party's line came early in 1970, sparked off by the party's support for the war with Honduras, when the opposition (led by the party's general secretary, Salvador Cayetano Carpio, a veteran trade union leader) split to form the Fuerzas Populares de Liberacion — Farabundo Marti (FPL). The formation of the FPL was the most important landmark in the development of the Salvadorean left and it remains today the most influential force within the revolutionary opposition.
The FPL's programme was significant in its rejection of the Stalinist policies of class collaboration as practised by the Latin American Communist Parties. But at the same time the FPL also rejected the tenets of foquismo, the other school of thought about revolutionary strategy in Latin America.
Foquismo had acquired enormous popularity amongst the Latin America left in the 1960s largely as a result of its identification with the victory in Cuba. Its central tenet was that the insertion of a small nucleus (foco) of revolutionary fighters in the countryside would act as a spark for mass peasant rebellion. The experience of the campaign would proletarianise the revolutionary vanguard and the peasantry, with the guerillas acting as a substitute for the Leninist party.
The FPL drew a balance sheet of the experience of the foci in Guatemala and other Latin American countries and of US intervention and concluded that it was up against not only its own bourgeoisie but also US imperialism. As Dunkerley explains, the FPL studied the experience of Vietnam and derived from this the strategic lesson that the people's war was of necessity extended and had to derive from a return to the masses. Their strategy stood in stark contrast to the strategy of foquismo.
There are four other revolutionary organisations in El Salvador and Dunkerley gives an account of the strategic orientation of these groups too, albeit a less detailed one. But even more important, he explains how the guerilla groups, two of whom consciously saw themselves as a party in embryo, made the transition from being an extreme form of vanguard to mass organisations. This is very important. From the standpoint of Europe it is all too easy for armchair observers of the revolution to explain this transition by reference to the hot climate, the Latin temper and the excessively rotten nature of the local bourgeoisies. Dunkerley explains that the Salvadorean revolutionaries resolved this problem by developing, ironically, the method used by the PCS to circumvent its illegality: a mass from or 'popular organisation' linked through the programme to the politico-military vanguard but dedicated to popular organisation rather than guerilla activity.
From an account of the rise of the Left Dunkerley moves to an account of its unification, including the continuing struggle within the revolutionary forces over the clarification of the line of march of the revolution and the formation of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR).
The FDR brought together all the opposition forces in El Salvador, the revolutionary organisations and the reformist ones, including the small Salvadorean Social-Democratic party and the Popular Social Christian Movement, a split from the Christian Democrats. Dunkerley's assessment of the FDR is contradictory. On the one hand he argues that the platform of the FDR was 'as accessible to a "democratic" reading as it was to a "revolutionary" interpretation' and points out that the first head of the FDR was Enrique Alvarez Cordoba, a member of one of the oligarchic families and ex-Minister of Agriculture in the October 1979 junta. He all but characterises the FDR as a popular front. But at the same time he acknowledges that the political authority within the FDR lies with the FMLN, the unified guerilla organisation.
He warns against the project of European social democracy which, while opposed to the interventionist project of US imperialism, remains nonetheless a strategy for the defeat of revolutionary socialism in El Salvador. At the same time he doesn't rate the chances of this social democratic strategy and its supporters within the FDR as being very high. He is worried that the FMLN has accepted the idea of a finite democratic stage in the Salvadorean revolution and has subordinated itself to the liberal bourgeois parties in the FDR but thinks that the expulsion of these parties from the FDR in the present circumstances of the war would in all probability be disastrous.
Dunkerley's contradictory attitude to the FDR arises from a confusion over the question of whether or not it is permissible for revolutionaries to enter into alliances with non-revolutionary forces. Our attitude is that the formation of the FDR represents quite clearly the culmination of a process in which the revolutionary organisations have won hegemony over all the other forces of opposition in this stage of the struggle against the Salvadorean junta. It does not seem very likely that an organisation like the FPL will mistake this point of convergence, and agreements at a military level with the bourgeois forces in the FDR, for the existence of a common strategy for the revolution as a whole.
Dunkerley begins this book with a prediction that soon the social and political conflicts in Central America will go beyond the colonial boundaries established in 1841 when the short-lived experiment of a Federal Central American Republic collapsed. The conscious revolutionary strategies being pursued by the new leaderships in Central America will be the basis of a new socialist federation of Central American republics. The unresolved factor is our ability to mobilise a massive anti-intervention campaign.
Robert Armstrong and Janet Shenk: El Salvador: the face of revolution, Pluto Press, 1982. £3.95; Liisa North: Bitter grounds; roots of revolt in El Salvador, Zed Press, 1982, £4.95; El Salvador; background to the crisis, Central America Information Office, 1982, £2.95; Cynthia Arnson: El Salvador; a revolution confronts the United States, Institute for Policy Studies/Transnational Institute, 1982, £3.95.
The large number of books that have recently appeared about El Salvador reflects the suddeness of interest in this tiny country which many people had never even heard about until the assassination of Archbishop Romero in 1980. It is this small country that is now presenting the biggest challenge to US foreign policy of any country in the world.
The current crop of books is a mixed bag. There is not among them any 'definitive' book which describes adequately the history, politics, economy and the struggle of the people of El Salvador. But they can be used to complement each other in various ways.
El Salvador: the face of revolution is written by two staff writers for the North American Congress on Latin America who have been involved in research on El Salvador for many years. They rattle off facts in a machine-gun fashion and combine this with an analysis of every important point in the country's development. They deal with the history of the country from the destruction of the communal lands to the growth of the coffee oligarchs. They give an account of the collapse of the coffee markets in the early thirties which paved the way for the insurrection of 1932, the genocidal 'matanza' which followed and the beginning of half a century of military rule. But the book excels in its coverage of contemporary events, particularly its description of the mass organisations which make up the FDR/FMLN; the development of the 'death squads' and their links with the armed forces and the government; and the succession of electoral frauds. The book has a vividness which comes from Armstrong and Shenk's use of first-hand material from the participants in the Salvadorean struggle, including a passage where Salvador Cayetano Carpio of the Popular Liberation Forces explains his view on the strategy of guerilla warfare.
Bitter grounds, in contrast, touches only very lightly and not very well on modern developments. It concentrates on the earlier history of El Salvador and the Central American region which has shaped the present crisis. More than any of the other books it understands the significance of the land question and the crucial importance that the expulsion of the peasants from the communal lands has played in the political formation of the peasantry.
The chapter on the peasant rebellion of 1932 paints a clear picture of what imperialism means for the economic development of a dependent country. It shows how the cultivation and export of coffee strangled any possibilty of worthwhile industrial development. In 1932 some 95 per cent of the country's total exports was composed of one product — coffee. The world depression forced the price of coffee to an all-time low putting thousands out of work and reducing the wages of others. The resulting crisis meant that the only possible capitalist mode of government in El Salvador was a military regime which held power by the use of the most unbridled savagery.
Bitter grounds also contains the most detailed information on the industrialisation of El Salvador. It explains that while industrialisation began in the mid-forties it really took off only through the development of the Central American Common Market, Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, and foreign investment in the mid-sixties. Arising out of the discussion on the industrialisation North also devotes a chapter to the 'football war' of 1969 when Honduras declared war on El Salvador ostensibly over El Salvador's success in qualifying for the World Cup. It is here that the central weakness of North's book, the absence of a coherent political framework, becomes most obvious. She downplays the significance of El Salvador's dominance in the Central American Common Market as the most important factor in leading to the conflict.
El Salvador: background to the crisis has been written by a committee. It has all the attendant disadvantages and advantages. The transition in the book from chapter to chapter, author to author, is clumsy, the book lacks continuity and the individual chapters vary in quality. But some chapters are excellent. Those on the Indians, women, the Catholic Church, the right-wing paramilitary groups, the role of Honduras are the best researched and best written analyses on these aspects of El Salvador's reality to date.
Arnson's book is the least useful. It does not really live up to its title in examining in more detail than the other books the impact of El Salvador on US foreign policy. Indeed the book tends to lack any direction and just chronicles various 'peak' events without any real system or analysis. It tends to stab at events erratically and while this produces some useful insights it is not a very effective approach.
All the books provide appendices which add various extras in the way of information: the platform of the FDR/FMLN; a chart outlining the relationship of the various opposition groups to each other; statistics on US investment, US military and economic aid; various chronicles of the struggle; and maps. It is necessary to read more than one of these books for a proper understanding of the Salvadorean revolution but when a country the size of El Salvador can frighten the mightiest military power on earth then the more we can learn, the better.