WP060784

El Salvador: Roots of The Crisis

by

Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr. Professor of History Tulane University New Orleans, Louisiana 70018

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The views presented here are not necessarily those of The Strom Thurmond Institute of Government and Public Affairs or of Clemson University . The violence and civil war that has devastated the • Republic of El Salvador since 1979 is presented by our govern­

0 ment and by a large part of the press as a struggle between

Marxism and Democracy. They have promoted the image of a

peaceful, mountain country victimized by Moscow-inspired

Communists intent on knocking down another domino on the

road from Havana to Managua to San Salvador and ultimately

to Mexico, Dallas and Washington. Such interpretations have

a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies if we can learn

anything from the experience of Cuba and Nicaragua. The

bitter political and economic realities of contemporary

Central America are deeply rooted in the past and have little

to do with the international forces that are now exploiting

the crises on the Isthmus. The present conflicts are neither

recent in origin nor conducive to short-term military, eco­

nomic or political solutions. To be sure, the Soviets exploit

these conflicts, but they did not initiate them and their ' withdrawal would not terminate them. The present crises in

the Central American states all represent the inevitable

collapse of political, economic and cultural structures

erected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

to serve the interests of the elites who commanded the Liberal

Reforms or Revolutions of that era ,but which now fail to 1 • meet the needs of the societies they created.

At the root of the present crise s is an historic process

by which the traditional society of lords and peasants e v ol ved

CLEMSON UNIVERSITY LIBRAR~ 2

into a more modern society, with small but significant middle

sectors demanding a share of the oligarchies' political and economic

preserves. Conflict between a privileged elite on the one

hand and an oppressed peasantry on the other dates from the

Spanish Conquest. Calculated terror has been an established method of control of the rural population for five centuries.

Resentful peasants have often responded violently, and some-

times touched off widespread revolution and civil war. This

first took place in Guatemala and Nicaragua between 1525 and

1550, but these confrontations became more frequent as greater demands were made upon the peasantry and their lands, and as

they developed some awareness of the possibility of improving

their condition, or at the very least of preserving what

little they had. In broad historic terms, El Salvador and

the rest of Central America are still involved in a classic

struggle to replace the vestiges of Spanish feudalism with

capitalism. The failure to mitigate some of the harsher eco­ nomic and social consequences of this shift have encouraged

the rise of Marxist and other modern anti-capitalist forces.

Unified under Spain for nearly 300 years as the "Kingdom

of Guatemala," Central America achieved its independence in

1821 and, after 18 months as part of a Mexican Empire, es­

tablished a republican federation optimistically called the

''United Provinces of the Center of America." That tragic

experiment need not delay us here. By 1840 the federation • had disintegrated and the five present-day city states were going their separate ways. The two political parties, • 3 however, that formed around the ideological issues of the first decades of independence provided the structure for the political activities of the socio-economic elites in each of the Central American states and underscored a degree of continuity among members of the elites in all five states.

These parties--Conservative and Liberal--were factions of a landholding and bureaucratic elite, but they reflected funda­ mentally different perceptions on how best to develop their country. 2

Conservatives looked toward maintenance of the two­ class society that had so long characterized both Spain and

Central America. They favored policies that would preserve the aristocratic landholding elites in their traditional, dominant roles, but also, in noblesse oblige fashion, assured the peasants of a degree of protection, especially against exploitation by the Liberal modernizers. Overcoming initial

Liberal gains at the outset of independence, these Conserva­ tives and their caudillos controlled most of Central America in the mid-nineteenth century. They emphasized traditional

Hispanic values and institutions, especially the Roman

Catholic Church, and rewarded loyal I ndian and mestizo peasants with paternalism and respect for their communal lands.

Their demands on the peasants were real, but limited, and subsistence agriculture continued to be the principal ac­ tivity of most. They relied on the Church and local caudillos and landowners--in feudal sty le--for social control and to guarantee peace and security . They thus defended states' 4 rights against national unity and were xenophobic toward foreigners who threatened the traditional society with Protes­ tantism, democracy and modernization. While they welcomed some expansion of agricultural exports, which allowed them a few luxury imports, they were sensitive to the danger of upsetting native labor and land tenure patterns, and they were essentially opposed to granting the nation's land and resources to foreign capitalists who generally did not share their re­ ligion, language or social and cultural values, or who might threaten the preeminent place that they held in the social . 3 structure o f t h e provinces. Peasant insurgency in the 1830s, sometimes instigated by small hacendados, in Guatemala, Hon­ duras and El Salvador, against Liberal innovators, had been 4 instrumental in the Conservative accession to power.

Liberals, on the other hand, represented that segment of the landholding elite and an incipient bourgeoisie that wished to modernize Central America through emulation of the economic and political success of western Europe and the

United States from the late eighteenth century forward.

These "modernizers'' rejected traditional Hispanic values and institutions, especially the Church, and espoused classical economic liberalism, opposing monopolies while encouraging private foreign trade, immigration and investment. They emphasized exports, and treated the rural masses and their lands as the principal resources to be exploited in this effort. Although republican and democratic in political theory, they became much influenced by positivist materialism 5

later in the century, and were contemptuous, even embarrassed,

by the Indian heritage of their countries. Once in power • they resorted to dictatorship to accomplish their economic goals and to defend their gains. Thus the professionalization

of the military, which became their power base, was a constant

trend in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The Liberals wished to modernize their countries in imitation

of the United States and western Europe, but the absence of

stronger middle sectors in the traditional two-class Central

American society and the persistence of elitist attitudes

toward the masses meant that in practice that development

proceeded very differently than in the industrialized nations.

What emerged were elite oligarchies 9f planters and capitalists

who cynically and without the noblesse oblige of their Con-

servative predecessors, continued to live off the labor of

an oppressed rural population which shared little if any of

the benefits of the expanded export production. On the

contrary, they found their own subsistence threatened by 5 encroachment on their lands for the production of export crops.

El Salvador was at the heart of many of the frequent

clashes between Conservatives and Liberals in the early

independent years. A part of the province of Guatemala

throughout most of the colonial period, El Salvador began to

emerge as a separate jurisdiction in the eighteenth century

when it became the principal idigo-producing region of the

Kingdom, responsible for the majority of Guatemalan exports.

Its separate political status was recognized with the 6 establishment of an intendency at San Salvador in 1786 and the economic growth of the region made it rival the new capital of Guatemala, established after the destruction of Antigua

Guatemala by a devastating earthquake in 1773. Even then,

Salvadorans had the reputation for being economically the most aggressive of all Central Americans. In the early days of independence they struggled against Guatemalan dominance for their independence, a struggle symbolized by their demand for an establishement of a separate doicese with their own bishop, in order to escape the ecclesiastical control 0f the ultra-conservative hierarchy in Guatemala. Thus San Salvador became the center of liberalism against the Conservative citadel of Guatemala during the first half-century of inde­ • pendence.

Liberal triumph in every state after 1870 was accompanied by a boom in coffee exports, with urbanization, railway construction and significant economic growth under Liberal guidance. The "coffee prosperity'' assured not only Liberal political dominance (enforced by a strong military establish­ ment), but the emergence of a new ''coffee elite" and an allied urban national bourgeoisie in these ''liberal states," especially in Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica. 6

Liberal dominance was absolute in Guatemala and El Salvador until 1944. Under the Liberals, then~ powerful, export­ oriented elites exploited the labor of the rural masses in collaboration with foreign capital, management and markets.

The old Conservative parties disappeared, while in reality , 7

of course, the Liberals became the conservatives of the

twentieth century.

A salient characteristic in the rise of these oligarchies

was their ever-closer relationship with North American capital

and the US government. The development model during the past

century which Central Americans have most sought to duplicate

--to imitate--is the North American experience. It has been

a model which has stimulated significant modernization in

Central America, yet which has failed to fulfill the promises

of prosperity and general welfare which its promoters expected.

Instead, new levels of poverty and misery have come to be

associated with the development process, and instead of

''developing nations," these states have become dependent poor

relations of an industrialized core of North Atlantic mother

I countries.

The charge of "dollar diplomacy'' found easy documentation

in Central America from the 1860s forward. A close relation­

ship between the Liberal Parties and the United States evolved

between 1870 and 1945 in the economic, social, political and

cultural spheres. Even as early as the 1840s, US diplomats

had favored the Liberals in contrast to Britain's courting

of the Conservatives. The Anglo-American rivalry by 1914

was decided clearly in the US favor. The United States be­

came the principal market for Central American exports,

especially bananas, which developed with US capital, shipping

and technology. US industrial and agricultural exports

flooded the Central American markets, often destroying 8 native handicraft industries. North American manufacturing and construction companies supplied the material and technology for modernization of Central America's city-state capitals.

The International Railway of Central America and Tropical

Radio, both subsidiaries of the giant United Fruit Company, monopolized transportation and communications throughout the Isthmus and overcame, greatly aided by World War I,

German and British competition, completing US hegemony over 7 Central America.

The elite sent their children to school in the United

States, and they often returned with spouses who brought

North American values directly into the social structure of the Isthmus, blending more modern attitudes with traditional Hispanic values. 8 This became noticeable even among the • emerging middle class. The Liberals imitated US political forms if not realities, and the terminology of North American democracy filled the Liberal rhetoric. They rewrote the

Central American constitutions to conform more closely to the

US Constitution of 1789, although in practice Central American chiefs-of-state retained far more authority than in the

United States. North American politicians, businessmen and academics of the era pointed to the enthusiasm with which

Central Americans were adapting to the US model. Without actually hoisting the stars and stripes, Central America became a US colonial dominion. US embassies became in­ ordinately large for such tiny countries, and basic economic and political decisions for these states were often made within our embassy walls. Major US military interventions 9

occurred only in Nicaragua and Panama, but military missions

provided significant assistance toward the maintenance of the

Liberal dictatorships through the training of national police

forces to maintain internal security.

El Salvador followed this pattern closely. Its military

dictatorships were less blatant in the late nineteenth and

early twentieth centuries than in some of the other Central

American states, and its oligarchy appeared to encourage

some democratic practice along with important expansion of

economic opportunity for the middle class. More than in

other Central American states, the effects of the Liberal

revolution was seen to expand prosperity, building the .. infrastructure of paved roads and ports, expanding education for the middle class and converting San Salvador into a

I modern city. In reality, however, the coffee elite discreetly

/ monopolized the power, with the Melendez family getting the

largest share. The oligarchy called the shots, passing

around the presidency and the principal ministries among

themselves. No opposition party was allowed to win national

elections. More and more land was put into coffee and other

export crops at the expense of food production. Especially

in El Salvador, as the population increased because of

eradication of epidemic diseases, the lot of the rural peasant

deteriorated steadily, so that the Salvadoran peasant became 9 ,. one of the most oppressed and poorly fed in the world. Some North Americans are shocked to learn that capitalist

"modernization" over the past century has actually meant 10 a lowered standard of living for most Central Americans.

Central American travel accounts of the nineteenth century, however, reflect significantly better living conditions than those found today among most rural Central Americans. Most had land upon which to grow food, and fresh fruits, vegetables, .. grains, meat and poultry were generally abundant and inex­ pensive. The wife of a British diplomat observed in 1869 that most of the rural peasants had their own land and house.

"The cottages of the poor people," she noted,"were remarkably neat and clean, each surrounded by its own beautiful shrubbery of fruit trees." She and many other foreign travellers also commented on the relatively modest life-style of the elite and their direct involvement in the labors of their businesses or estates. 10 The distinctions between rich and poor were • less marked than today. Debt peonage was not widespread in most of the region before 1870 and was much less prevalent . . 11 tanh in Mexico. By the 1970s malnutrition was widespread, and El Salvador compared with Bangladesh as among the most 12 poorly nourished and land poor countries in the world.

While many Americans are compassionate regarding the poverty and misery in El Salvador, they become defensive when the suggestion is made that it has been caused by North American capital development in that country. While it is true that this was done in collaboration with the native elite, the foreign capitalists have been active if sometimes naive partners in brutally keeping Salvadoran wages lower, sup­ pressing labor unions and generally working against 11 participation in government by the working masses. The paradoxical trend of greater economic development being accompanied by greater poverty accelerated rapidly after

World War II, with the Alliance for Progress, the Common

Market and industrialization of San Salvador. 13

Serious challenges to the Liberal regimes in Central

America began during the 1920s, and after the Great Depression the elite turned to stronger dictators to silence the middle and working classes. Ubico in Guatemala (1931-44), Hern~ndez

Martinez in Salvador (1931-44), and Somoza in Nicaragua

(1934-56) were the classic Liberal dictators of the 1930s, symbols of order, stability and protection of American interests in an otherwise troubled world. Somoza directed the assassination of the popular Augusto Sandino, who had led the successful resistance to US occupation of Nicaragua, ,, and Hernandez's troops massacred as many as 30,000 peasants in a "communist" uprising in El Salvador. Along with Carias in Honduras (1933-49) they built fascist-like regimes on the 14 oligarchies' fear of "communism" and labor action generally .

Only Costa Rica departed from this pattern significantly .

The beginning of the end of the Liberal era had begun, however. Liberal economic programs and the foreign trade it promoted engendered significant urban middle classes. While the elite controlled and oppressed the rural masses on their estates, the urban population became more prosperous and better educated, consistent with Liberal modernization promises. But these middle classes also demanded a greate r 12 share of the economic product and participation in the politi­ cal process. The oligarchies begrudgingly made minor con­ cessions, but jealously preserved most of the real economic and political power to themselves, thus preventing the sort .. of evolution toward social democracy that occurred in the

United States and western Europe. Enrique Baloyra has recently pointed out that this "reactionary despotism" of Central

American elites was based not on ignorance. They were well educated, but perceived the situation in selfish terms.

"Their historical opposition to political liberalization stems from a keen awareness of the costs and benefits of reform," writes Baloyra. "Their intransigent preference for nine- teenth-century economic liberalism is rooted in this under­ standing, and both help to nourish their basically reactionary 15 political stance."

Several institutions, however, served the interests of the new urban middle sectors. The military itself was one of these, providing a means of social mobility and access to power from the lower echelons of society. Repeatedly, ele­ ments of the military have demanded reform and attention to the economic concerns of the middle sectors. 16

More important, especially in El Salvador, have been two elements less well connected to the oligarchies, more clearly institutions of the new middle classes created by modernization. As has already been suggested, the children of the elite ., frequently were educated abroad, especially in the United

States, but the growing demand for skills in the modernizing 13

cities demanded the expansion of Central American universities

and these became a major avenue for middle-class mobility and

entrance into the political arena. Irideed, . development of higher education outside the control of the Church was a major point in nineteenth-century Liberal policy. Thus, from

the 1920s forward, students, professors and other intellectuals began to form political parties and to establish a dialogue of issues distinctly outside the old Liberal-Conservative

framework. Professionals trained in Central American univer­ sities played leading roles in these new parties, which re­ flected philosophical and political currents of the twentieth century, of Europe and later the "third world", rather than the nineteenth-century Liberal, US orientation of the elite.

Marxism found favor with many, for it offered ''scientific" explanations for their limited economic gains and their dependent exploitation by capitalism. But more moderate views were also prevalent, developing into the so-called "democratic

left," best represented eventually in Christian Democracy and Social Democracy. All of these new forces had in common that they were asking very different questions from those which their Liberal predecessors had posed. Although these students and intellectuals were only a tiny minority of the population, they provided articulation and leadership for the middle and working classes. Their alienation from the

Liberal establishment that created them is one of the major . 17 keys toteh present crises.

Alberto Masferrer, with his doctrine of vitalismo, l e d

Salvadoran intellectuals in attacking militarism and 14 championing the cause of labor. An advocate of broad social reform, but rejecting Marxist "class struggle" analysis,

Masferrer nonetheless appeared ''redder than Trotsky" to the

Salvadoran elite of the 1930s. He led the Salvadoran intel­ lectual attack on the old order and is still revered among 18 opponents of Salvador's repressive right-wing government.

There was a natural link, therefore, between the univer­ sity communities and the emergence of organized labor, often under-estimated in Central America because of labor's relativ e weakness in comparison with its position in more industrialized countries. Late in organizing, owing to the small industrial population and the anti-labor policies of the governments, serious labor organization began in the 1920s. Teachers' unions were often in the vanguard of the labor movement. ..

Although suppressed ruthlessl y as "Communist" by the dicta­ tors of the 1930s, organized labor played a role in their overthrow and an even larger role in the emerging parties after 1945. The majority of Central American workers were rural, but it has been the organization of urban workers that has been most important in making labor a political force in Central America, and the new political parties have recognize. d tis.h. 19

More recently, the Church has once more become a vocal advocate of Central America's oppressed peoples. The strong­ l y anti-clerical Liberals allowed the Church to surviv e onl y in a depressed, subservient condition, and after 1870 it was largely excluded from education, government and economic .) 15

activity, areas where it had been of major importance before

about 1870. What remained was a servile clergy that supported

the authority of the Liberal state. Regular orders had nearly

all been expelled from Central America, but in the mid to

late twentieth century, in the name of religious toleration

and in response to international pressure, some were allowed

to return. Foreigners often dominated these orders and some

of them, like the Maryknollers and Jesuits, began to emphasize

the Church's traditional concern for the masses. By the

1970s a great movement, called "liberation theology,'' which

emphasized the social gospel and both lay and clergy responsi­

bility to the poor had arisen. The effects have been notable,

but have divided the Church in every Central American state.

Radical liberation theology combines Marxism and Christianity,

but more moderate clergy, especially after the Episcopal

conference at Medellin in 1968, also joined in condemning

government disregard for human rights. In El Salvador the movement was especially strong and extended to the ranks of

the hierarchy itself, Archbishop Oscar Romero calling for more attention to the poor and criticizing the repeated 20 violations. . o f h uman rig. h ts b y t h e government an d mi·1· itary. The challenge to the elite employed both revolutionary

violence and new political parties. More modern parties

emerged first in Costa Rica, where the elitist parties

(Liberal and Conservative) were never so firmly entrenched as 21 in the other states.

In Guatemala a middle-class oriented revolution ended 16

/ the Ubico regime in 1944. Philosopher-President Juan Jose

/ Arevalo launched a sweeping social revolution the following year, incorporating many features of the Mexican Revolution, 1 and encouraging the rise of labor unions in the political and economic life of the country. His successor, Jacobo Arbenz, carried the revolution further to the left, inaugurating a major land reform program that challenged the United Fruit

Company hegemony, and led to a U.S-supported overthrow of the

Revolution by Guatemalan nee-Liberals headed by Miguel Ydigoras and Carlos Castillo-Armas. Guatemala has been under right- wing. contro l ever since. . 22

In El Salvador the story is less complex but similar.

Students, workers and progressive military officers overthrew

/ Hernandez Martinez in 1944 and formed the basis of more effective middle class participation in politics. In El

Salvador, however, the compact coffee oligarchy--the so-called

''14 families"--managed to keep control, and through the military they were able to prevent their state from pursuing the re­ formist route of either Costa Rica or Guatemala. The Sal­ vadoran elite had reacted savagely to ''save the country from communism" in the 1932 peasant uprising and killed an estimated 23 10,000 to 30,000 peasants.

Yet labor and student organizations advanced, so that they have become important forces in Salvadoran politics since

1945. San Salvador industrialized notably as a result of the

Common Market. This both expanded the urban middle and working classes and widened the oligarchy, recently counted at 254 17

families, who maintained power throughout the period through , / the Party of National Conciliation (PCN). Jose Napoleon

Duarte led the Christian Democratic Party to challenge

seriously the ruling clique, and won the mayorship of San

Salvador, 1964-70. Organization of peasants by the Christian

Democrats, the growing role of the Church on the side of

reform, pressures brought on by the 1969 "soccer war'' with

Honduras, and polarization of political issues all placed

great strain on the outmoded political ideology of the ruling

elite. The showdown came in 1972 when Duarte won the presi­ 24 dential election but was denied office.

Factions of the oligarchy now turned to military terror • squads, as in Guatemala. Here was the place for the United States to play a role on behalf of orderly political process and

emergence of more modern--and moderate--political and social

forces. Instead, the Nixon government continued our support

for the elite-backed PCN military regime, and we therefore

find ourselves in today's crisis. The revolutionary junta

that took power in October 1979, with subsequent reshufflings

that eventually included Duarte as the chief-of-state,

represented more centrist, but relatively impotent elements

of the middle class after the conflict had already become

polarized. Larqe numbers of the politically active, including

many Christian Democrats, had joined the guerrillas and their • political organizations as the only means of dealing with a government that refused to recognize legitimate elections .

• Denying gradual reform and change as the Christian Democrats 18 had advocated, a bloodbath enveloped the country, where more than 45,000 people have died, mostly at the hands of the government or its terrorists. Comparing this as a percentage 1 of the population with the United States, it would be equiva­ lent to nearly two million people dying in revolution here.

And more than a half million Salvadorans have fled the country, equivalent to some 28 million in the US in terms of a per­ centage of its total population.

Moderates could not control the right wing military, and when the reformist Col. Adolfo Majano was forced out of military command at the end of 1980, coinciding with the election of the Reagan government in Washington, Duarte simply became a captive of the old order, still believing he could do more within the government than outside. But he was in­ effectual in stemming the atrocities of the military or in bringing peace. His agrarian reform was a step in the right direction but it could not undo overnight the inequitites of hundreds of years nor was it capable of bringing about the necessary expansion of the economy to solve the severe eco­ 25 nomy and social problems of the country. His defeat in the

1982 elections ended that phase of the conflict with the election, under highly questionable circumstances, of a reactionary coalition headed by Roberto d'Aubisson. While the February 1982 election reflected widespread exhaustion with the civil war, it also reflected consolidation of neo­ liberal forces to terminate the moderate coup of 1979. The new provisional president, Alvaro Magana, although moderate 19

in some respects, is dependent on this right-wing coalition.

so the war goes on in El Salvador, with heavy US military 26 aid to the government.

Contemporary El Salvador reflects the persistence of

nineteenth-century Liberalism, conservative by today's defi­

nitions, among Central American elites, along with the

inevitable rise of more modern, middle class elements against

it. While certain segments of the middle class have embraced

nee-liberalism, others, along with working class representa­

tives, have risen to challenge it, with the inevitable clashes

of working class versus capitalist interests becoming important

in Central American politics. The principal failure of

Liberalism and capitalism in Central America has been their

' failure to reward labor with adequate wages so that the pros­

perity could become more general and expand in a healthy

manner. Especially in agriculture, but also in the capital

intensive new industries promoted by the Common Market, labor

has failed to receive a fair share of the gains, and this has

retarded development of a stronger consumer-based economy.

This continued repression of labor has deprived most Central

Americans of better standards of living and a more participatory

role in their governments. The close relationship of the

United States to the old elites has been a major force in

allowing the repressive policies to continue as long as

they have.

' Not until the Carter administration was there official • recognition that this relationship could be permanently 20 damaging to US interests in the region, as the inevitability of change would sooner or later leave the US on the losing side. This is the lesson of Cuba, and of Nicaragua, El

Salvador, and Guatemala. Whether moderate forces--as the

Christian Democrats or Social Democrats, seeking a synthesis of socialism and capitalism into mixed economic and social orders--will prevail in Central America will undoubtedly depend to some degree on the willingness of United States private and government interests to break with archaic politi­ cal forces and strongly support more progressive but potentially friendly elements such as the anti-Communist Christian Democrats,

Social Democrats or Socialists. The alternative will almost certainly be more violence, more radical Marxist strength, and potential loss of our hegemony in the region to the

Soviet Union. I can only note here the contrast with US policy in Panama under Jimmy Carter, where returning the

Canal Zone to Panama in a statesmanlike fashion resulted in a sounder relationship with the government and people of

Panama.

Great nations often decline when they become enchanted with their own past to the degree that they lose sight of the future. This is the danger that the United States faces ir1 its adulation of neo-Liberalism to the exclusion of twentieth century social democracy. The Central American crises are direct challenges to our continued insistence on social and l economic solutions of the past. We can support social democracy now and endorse the principal of the greatest good 21

for the greatest number, or watch the rest of the world

leave us behind with our vision of the world as it was.

' • NOTES

1. Since 1970 a number of excellent books have presented de­ tailed data and analyses of various aspects of contemporary Central America. Among them, John Bell's Crisis in Costa Rica: the 1948 Revolution (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971); Richard Millett, Guardians of the Dynasty (Maryknoll, N. Y.: Orbis, 1977); Charles Amerinqer's Don Pepe:~ Political Biography of JoseFigueres of Costa Rica (Albuqerque: University of New Nexico Press, 1978); Kenneth Grieb, Guatemalan Caudillo, the Regime of Jorge Ubico, 1931-1944 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1979); Stephen Webre, Jose Napole6n Duarte and the Christian Democratic Party in Salvadoran Politics, 1960-1972 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979); Jos.! Aybar, Dependency and Intervention: The Case of Guatemala in 1954 (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1979); Marvin Gettleman, et al, El Salvador: Central America in the New Cold War (New York: Grove, 1981); Richard Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala (Austin: University of Texas Pres~l982);Enrique Baloyra, El Salvador in Transition (Chapel Hill: University 1 of North Carolina Press, 1982); Tommie Sue Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1982); JohnBooth, The End and the Beginning (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1982); Stanford Central America Action Network, Revolution in Central America (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1983); andBarry B. Levine, ed., The New Cuban Presence in the Caribbean (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1983), especially have added to our enlightenment regarding the history of mid-twentieth-century Central America, but all suffer from varying degrees of myopia regarding longer historical patterns. Thomas P. Anderson's Matanza, El Salvador's Communist Revolt of 1932 (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1971) andRichard N. Adams' Crucifixion 2.¥ Power: Essays on Guatemalan National Social Structure, 1944-1966 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970) offer, at least superficially, a better understanding of the relation events of the mid-twentieth century and those of the nineteenth, but only David Brewing's El Salvador, Landscape and Society (Oxford: Clarendon [Oxford University Press], 1971), an historical geography, provides the sort of detailed historical research that conclusively links the present crisis in that country to long term economic and social practice. Browning suggests, in much greater detail, the general hypothesis which I elaborated in my , Central America, a Nation Divided (New York: Oxford University Press,-1976). Except as otherwise indicated, information and ideas expressed in this paper are con- ) densed from the last named work. 23

2. For a brilliant exposition of the origins of Central American liberalism, see Mario Rodriguez, The Cadiz Experiment in Central America, 1808-1826 (Berkeley: UniversitY. of C~lifornia Press, 1978). See also R. L. Woodward, Jr., "The Economic and Social Origins of the Guatemalan Political Parties (1773-1823)," Hispanic American Historical Review 45 (1965): 544-66, t and "The Economy of Central America at the close of the Colonial Period," in Duncan T. Kinkead, ed., Urbanization in Colonial Central America (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Arnericanos and Duke University Press, forthcoming). See also Miles Wortman, Government and Society in Central America, 1680-1840 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).

3. Revealing statements on the Central American Conservative philosophy may be found in many editorials in El Tiempo (Guatemala); Gaceta Oficial (Guatemala); Gaceta de Guatemala; La Gaceta, Diario Oficial (Managua) and other newspapers representing Conservative governments during the mid-nineteenth century.

4. On the peasant uprisings in Guatemala in the 1830s, see R. L. Woodward, Jr., "Liberalismo, Conservadurismo, y la actitud de los campesinos de la montana hacia el gobierno de Guat~ala, 1821-1850," Anales de~ Academia de Geografia ~ Historia de Guatemala 56 (1982): 195-210.

5. The Liberal approach has been frequently described, for Central American historiography was dominated by Liberals from 1870 through the mid-20th century. See Lorenzo Montu/f ar, Resena- h 1stor1ca. / . d e Centro America,,, . 7 vo 1s. (Guatemala: El Progreso, 1878-87), upon which many other pro-Liberal accounts of the nineteenth century were based. This literature is described in William J. Griffith, "The Historiography of Central America since 1830," Hispanic American Historical Review 40 (Nov. 1960): 548-69. See also Robert Wauchope and Margaret Harrison, editors, Applied Enlightenment: 19th Century Liberalism (New Orleans: Tulane University, Middle American Research Institute, Publication No. 23, 1972).

6. Works dealing with the rise of the coffee elite are numerous. The viewpoints expressed here have been especially well developed by Ciro Cardoso and HJctor Ptrez Brignoli, CentroamJrica y ~ economfa occidental (1520- 1930) (San Jose: Editorial Universided de Costa Rica, 1977) and in Ciro Cardoso, "Historia ~cono'mica del cafe' en Centroamtrica (siglo XIX): estudio comparative," Estudios Sosiales Centroamericanos 4(10) ( 1975): 9-55; see also David J. Mccreery, "Coffee and Class: The Structure • of Development in Liberal Guatemala," Hispanic American 24

Historical Review 56(3) (1976): 438-60, further developed in his Development and the State in Reforma Guatemala (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1983); Browning, El Salvador; Derek N. Kerr, The Role of the Coffee Industry in the History of El Salvador, 1840-1906 (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Calgary, 1977); Carlos Araya Pochet, OriJen y desarrollo de la burguesfa agro-exportadora en Centroam rica: los casos de Costa Rica y Guatemala (1840-1900) (San Jos'r: Universidad de Costa Rica, 1977); Carolyn Hall, El caf.f y el desarrollo hist~rico-geografico de Costa Rica (San Jose~ Editorial Costa Rica, 1976) and Formaciondeuna hacienda cafeterlera, 1889-1911 (San Jos?: Universidad de Costa Rica, 1978); Alberto Lanuza --Matamoros, Estructuras- socioeconomicas,ooder-- --- y estado en Nicaragua, de 1821 ~ 1875 (San Jose: Tesis de Grado, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales de la Univesidad de Costa Rica, 1976). Lanuza's thesis was published in a very limited edition, but its three important chapters have been published separately in major Central American scholarly journals: "Comercio exterior de Nicaragua (1821-18750, Estudios Sociales Centroamericanos 5(14) (1976): 109-36; "Nicaragua, territorio y poblaci6n (1821- 75)," Revista del Pensamient9, Centroamericano 31(151) (1976): 1-22; and "La mineria en Nicaragua (1821-1875)," Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos 3 (1977): 215-24.

7. The history of the banana industry and its subsidiaries in Central America is well documented. See especially Watt Stewart, Keith and Costa Rica (Albuquerque: Uni­ versity of New Mexico Press, 1964); Stacy May and Galo Plaza, The United Fruit Company in Latin America (Wash­ inton: National Planning Association, 1958); Charles Kepner, Social Aspects of the Banana Industry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936); Richard LaBarge, "Impact of the United Fruit Company on the Economic Development of Guatemala, 1946-1954," Studies in Middle American Economics (New Orleans: Tulane University, Middle American Research Institute Publication No. 29, 1968): 1-72; Thomas L. Karnes, Tropical Enterprise: The Standard Fruit and Steamship Company in Latin America (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978); Lester Langley, Banana Wars (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1983); and Vilma Lainez and Victor Meza, "El enclave bananero en la historia de Honduras, "Estudios Sociales Centroamericanos 2(5) (1973): 115-56.

8. See Daniel Goldrich, Sons of the Establishment: Elite Youth in Panama and Costa Rica (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966).

9. Browning, El Salvador, describes this process in detail throughouthis work, summarizing it on pp. 292-303. ) 25

10. Mrs. Henry Grant Foote, Recollections of Central America and the West Coast of Africa (London: T. C. Newby, 1869), pp. 54-55.

11. There are a large number of perceptive and informative travel accounts which give some indication of nineteenth­ century living standards in Central America. A good selections of some of these and bibliography of others in found in Franklin D. Parker, Travels in Central America, 1821-1940 (Gainsville: University of Florida Press, 1970). See also R. L. Woodward, Jr., "Population and Development in Guatemala, 1840-1870," SECOLAS Annals 14 (1983): 5-18; and "The Sandinista Revolution in Historical Perspective," paper presented at the Southeastern council on Latin American Studies meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 8 April 1983. For a very perceptive article on the growth of debt peonage in Guatemala under the Liberals, see David J. Mccreery, "Debt servitude in Rural Guatemal a, 1877-1936, "Hispanic American Historical Review 63 (1983): 736-59, and "An Odious Feudalism: Mandamiento Labor and Communist Agriculture in Guatemala, 1858-1920," Latin American Perspectives, forthcoming.

12. "U. S. Response to Crisis in El Salvador, Dialogue between U. s. Ambassador to El Salvador, Hon. Robert White, and Dr. Tommie Sue Montgomery, Florida Inter­ national University, October 8, 1 980," Occasional ( Papers Series, Dialogues (Miami: Florida International University, 1980), pp. 1-2; see also Dissent Paper on El Salvador and Central America (Boston: Citizens for Participation in Political Action, 1980).

13. V. Bulmer-Thomas, "Economic Deve l opment Over the Long Run--Central America since 1920," Journal of Latin American Studies 15(2) (Nov. 1983): 269-294, shows clearly how the expansion of the export economy in Central America since 1920 has affected adversely large segments of the population. See also, in the same issue, Htctor P~rez Brignoli and Yolanda Baires Martinez, "Growth and Crisis in the Central American Economies, 1950-1980," pp. 365-98.

14. Dr. Tiburcio Carias was neither a General nor a member of the Liberal Party, but he pursues policies similar to the other dictators of Central America in those years in a somewhat more benign way. Generals Ubico and HernJndez Martinez both were initially concerned over the rise of non-Liberal Carias, but soon decided that he fit the liberal pattern after all, despite the conservative origins of his National Party. See Grieb, Guatemalan Caudillo, p. 97-100 . •

CLEMSON UNIVERSITY L\BRAR~ 26

15. Enrique A. Baloyra-Herp, "Reactionary Despotism in Central America," Journal of Latin American Studies 15(2) (Nov. 1983): 296.

16. See Stephen Ropp, In Search of the New Solider: Junior Officers and the Pros ect of Social Reform in Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua (Ph.D. dissertation, niversity of California, Riverside, 1971); R. V. Elam, Appeal to Arms: The Army and Politics in El Salvador, 1931-1964 (Ph.D. dissertation, University or N-e-w Mexico, 197G); and S. L. Rozman, The Socialization of Military Rule in El Salvador (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nebraska, 1970).

17. See Alistair Hennessey, "Students in the Latin American University," in Joseph Maier and R. W. Weatherhead, editors, The Latin American University (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1979), pp. 147-84.

18. Anderson, Matanza, pp. 45-46; Hugo Lindo, "El Ano de Alberto Masferrer," Revista Interamericana de Bibliografia 19 (1969):263-77.

19. Roque Dalton, Miguel Marmol, los sucesos de 1932 en El Salvador (San Jose: EDUCA, 1972) describes vividly the career of one of El Salvadors's most important labor ~ leaders. See also Moises Poblete Troncoso and Ben G. Burnett, The Rise of the Latin American Labor Movement (New Haven: College and University Press); R. L. Woodward, Jr., Communist Infiltration of the Guatemalan Urban Labor Move­ ment. 1920-1954 (UnpublisheJ M. A. thesis, Tulane university, 1959); R. L. MacCameron, Organized Labor in Honduras, 1954- 1963 (Ph.D. dissertation, SUNY, Buffalo, 1976). On peasant organization, see N. J. Pearson, "Guatemala: The Peasant Union Movement, 1944-1954," in Henry Landsberger, ed., Latin American Peasant Movement (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969).

20. The definitive work on this topic in Central America remains to be written, but some idea of the magnitude of the Church's influence and the rise of liberation theology in Central America can be found in Philip Berryman, ~eligious Routes of Rebellion (Maryknoll, N. Y.: Orbis, 1984); Penny Leroux, The Cry of the People (New York: Doubleday, 1980): and the important work of two Maryknollers, Thomas and Marjorie Melville, Guatemala: The Politics of Land Ownership (New York: Free Press, 1971). There is a more extensive literature on liberation theology in Latin American in general. ~ee for example, John J. Considine, ed. Social Revolution in the Ne~ Latin ~merica, a Catholic Appraisal (Notre D~me, Indiana: Fides, 1965); Gustavo GutiE!'rrez, Libera- tion and Change (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1977); ) 27

Enrique D. Dussel, History and the Theology of Liberation Maryknoll, N. Y.: Orbis, 1976) and Ethics and the Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, N. Y-:-;-Orbis, 1978); and Juan Lusi Segundo, Liberation of Theology (Maryknoll, 1 N. Y.: Orbis, 1976). On Archbishop Romero, see James Brockman, The World Remains: A Life of Oscar Romero (Maryknoll~. Y.: Orbis, 1983).-- - ' 21. See Jorge Mario Salazar Mora, Caldero'n Guardia (San Josi: Editorial Universidad Estatal a Distancia, 1980), and, by the same author, polftico y reforma en Costa Rica, 1914-1958 (San JosJ: Porvenir, 1981) ;Bell, Crisis; Ameringer, Don Pepe; Carlos Araya Poc~et, Historia de los partidos pol.fc:icos: Liberacion Nacional (San Josl': Universidad_pe Costa Rica, 1968); J. E. Romero P., Partidos politicos, poder y derecho (Costa Rica) (San Josef: Universidad de Costa Rica, 1979 ) and La social democracia en Costa Rica (San Jos~: Universidad de Costa Rica, 1977);~nd Jos~JLuis Vega, La formacion del estado nacional en Costa Rica (San Josd; Institute Centrp­ americano ~e Administra~io'n Publ i ca,, 1981) and Poder pol{ti c a y democracia en Costa Rica (San J ose: Porvenir, 1982 ) . 22. See Jonathan L. Fried, Marvin E. Gettleman, Deborah T. Levenson, and Nancy Peckenham, eds., Guatemala in Rebellion: Unfinished History (New York: Grove Press, 1983). For ongoing coverage of events in Guatemala, see Noticias de Guatemala (Mexico) for the point of view t of leftist exiles, and Central America Report (Guatemala ) for an objective viewpoint from within the country. See also Aybar, Dependency and Intervention; Ronald M. Schneider, Communism in Guatemala (New York: Praeger, 1958); J. D. Rozzolo,El caracter de la revolucion guatemalteca (Mexico, 1955); and Gabriel Aguillera Peralta, La violencia en Guatemala como fenJmeno politico (Cuernavaca, 1971); Stephen Schlesdinger & Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit, The Untold Story of the Amerian Coup in Guatemala (Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/ Double­ day. 1983); and Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala; Melville and Melville, Guatemala, the Politics of Land Ownership; Eduardo Galeano, Guatema1a;-occupied Country(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969); Susan Jonas and David Tobis, eds., Guatemala (Berkelye & New York: NACLA, 1974); New York Times, 7-10 August 1983.

23. See Anderson, Matanza. I 24. See Webre, Jose Napoleon Duarte. 28

25. See David Browning, "Agrarian Reform in El Salvador," Journal of Latin American Studies 15(2) (Nov. 1983): 399-426;and Carmen Diana Deere, "A Comparative Analysis of Agrarian Reforrn in El Salvador and Nicaragua," Development and Change 13 (1982).

26. See Montgomery, Revolution in El Salvador; "La situacion nacional," Estudios Centro America.nos 34(369/70) (1979): 469-672; "Agui, El Salvador: La insurrecci6n rnilitar del 15 de octubre de 1979, y sus consecuencias sociales," Estudios Centro Arnericanos 34 (372/73) (1979): 849-984; Tornls R. Campos, "Anylisis coyuntural sobre la situaci 'n sobre la situacicfn del pals," Estudios Centroarnericanos 37 (399/400): 17-58; Gabriel Zaid, "Enemy Colleagues: a Reading of the Salvadoran Tragedy, "Dissent 29 (Winter 1982): 13-40; and James Dunkerley, The Long War: Dicta­ torship and Revolution in El Salvador (London: Junction Books, 1982). A special issue on Central America of The Nation, 28 January 1984, pp. 66-109, includes several perceptive articles on the contemporary situation.

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