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Chapter Reference: Independence; Nationalism; Revolution; Reaction
El Salvador exemplifies Latin America's revolutionary tradition. In the 1820s, El Salvador was the political base of Francisco Morazán, Central America's great caudillo of the post-independence period, representative of a revolutionary ideology called liberalism. Much later, El Salvador's Agustín Farabundo Martí, revolutionary leader of the 1920s, fought alongside Sandino against U.S. marines in Nicaragua, eventually leaving because he regarded Sandino as not revolutionary enough. And, without intending to, El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero became one of the hemisphere's most poignant revolutionary martyrs during the Central American crisis of the 1980s. A student who wants to understand Salvadoran revolutionaries of the twentieth century should focus mostly on the 1980s but could also explore the testimony of Miguel Mármol, a firing-squad victim during the legendary Slaughter of 1932—a rare one who lived to tell the tale. Marmol's testimony was recorded and narrated by Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton in the 1960s. Available in English translation, the book constitutes one of Central America's more interesting Cold War testimonios.
Questions for Analysis and Further Reflection:
- Revolutionaries of different epochs have shared the goal of political transformation. However, their social visions have varied greatly. What did Morazán share, and not share, with Martí and Romero?
- How did the Salvadoran crisis of the 1980s fit into the larger context of reaction in Latin America, and what part did U.S. policy toward El Salvador and Central America during the 1970s and 1980s have in the crisis?
- What were the outcome and some of the consequences (on demographics, politics, physical infrastructure, state institutions, and so on) of the revolutionary years of the 1980s?
Bibliography: (Titles with ** are good starting places.)
** Browning, David. El Salvador: Landscape and Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
Browning's book provides an excellent view of the process by which El Salvador's indigenous Pipil people were reduced to the status of a starving peasantry—one of the roots of the rise of a revolutionary tradition there.
Byrne, Hugh. El Salvador's Civil War: A Study of Revolution. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner
Publishers, 1996.
Byrne offers a readable background to revolution in El Salvador, as well as a detailed look at the crisis throughout the 1980s.
** Dalton, Roque. Miguel Mármol. Translated by Kathleen Ross and Richard Schaaf. With a
preface by Margaret Randall and an introduction by Manilo Argueta. Willimantic,
CT: Curbstone Press, 1982.
Miguel Mármol is the memoir of the man whose name appears in the title.
Grenier, Yvon. The Emergence of Insurgency in El Salvador: Ideology and Political Will.
With a foreword by Mitchell A. Seligson. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1999.
** Montgomery, Tommie Sue. Revolution in El Salvador: From Civil Strife to Civil Peace,
2nd ed. With an introduction by Ignacio Martín-Baró and Rodolfo Cardenal. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 1995.
Like Byrne, Montgomery provides an overview of the roots of revolution, an up-close view of the period of conflict in the 1980s, and a look at the peace process that followed in the early 1990s, making this book a good starting point for students interested in the revolutionary left.
Other Resources:
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