Central America DAVE PACKER ding an adequate strategic road."
Of course, these ideas, which formed the core of Sandinista strategy had to be enriched and developed in the course of the struggle itself. How were the guerillas to become the people and the people an army? What is the relationship between the urban mobilisation and the guerilla in the mountains: between proletarian insurrection and people's war? All of these questions (and many more) are discussed in the Pathfinder collection. Indeed, they are the focus of argument in El Salvador and the other countries of the region today.
In his conclusion to The Long War, James Dunkerley focuses on the principal strategic problem that revolutionaries confront in dependent countries during the epoch of imperialism: "The national liberation movement in El Salvador,' he writes, "is similar to all other post-war anti-imperialist mobilisations in that it incubates two revolutions: the bourgeois-democratic and the socialist. Drawing on Michael Löwy's book, The Politics of Combined and Uneven Development, Dunkerley explores the relation between these two revolutions.
There are no real disagreements between the left and the bourgeois opposition on the priority and objectives of the national and democratic revolution. These objectives, Dunkerley tells us, can be summarised in three main points: I) a solution to the agrarian ques tion through the abolition of pre-capitalist modes of exploitation; 2) national liberation in the 'unification of the nation and its economic emancipation from foreign domination'; and 3) democracy in a secular republic based on democratic freedoms'. However, Dunkerley explains that considerable differences do exist over their adequacy to develop El Salvador or, indeed, be sustained at all within the capitalist mode of production. He goes on to state that 'the one irrefutable lesson of history is that there do not exist in backward capitalist states the social conditions for the full realisation of a bourgeois democratic programme."
This difference — in reality a difference over the class character of the unfolding revolution - does not revolve around the question of armed struggle as such, but rather around which class leads the revolution and the problem of class alliances. The anti-government
tha forces in El Salvador differ over whether the revolution will be bourgeois or proletarian (with the bourgeois-democratic tasks accomplished 'in passing'). The aim of the reformist wing of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR), represented by Ungo and Zamora, is one of 'a strong reforming state capitalism that will take over the bulk of the economic infrastructure and mediate competition between capitals in an economically and socially more rational manner than has hitherto obtained.' For these forces within the FDR (together with the Salvadorean Communist Party), the maintenance of an alliance with the liberal bourgeois parties is of strategic rather than tactical importance for the establishment of a distinct capitalist stage of development.
Dunkerley argues that the 1980 Programmatic Platform of the FDR/FMLN is a classical radical populist programme, a minimum programme that, at best, leaves open the class character of the revolution. It is designed to unite the broadest sections of the popular masses in struggle against the regime and its imperialist backers.
This, of course, has parallels with Nicaragua, where the victorious revolution against the hated Somoza dictatorship was made in the name of a multi-class popular alliance. However, Jaime Wheelock explains in an interview. in the Pathfinder collection entitled The Great Challenge', what the context of their broad policy of alliances was: *The axis of our policy of alliances was not the bourgeoisie but the people. This is not demagogy; that's exactly how it was. it was an anti-imperialist, antidictatorial, popular and revolutionary alliance... The bourgeoisie, on the other hand, was ter-
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rified by the fact that the two extremes in the conflict were the people, with the Sandinista Front as their vanguard, on the one hand; and on the other, the Somozista dictatorship as the vanguard of the Yankees.
Belatedly, the anti-Somoza bourgeoisie attempted to gain political space and form their own party: When the FSLN called for participation in the FAO (Broad Opposition Front made up of pro-bourgeois parties), it was not for tail-ending the bourgeoisie or granting them concessions. It was trying to prevent (them) taking advantage of the crisis of the dictatorship to convert themselves into an alternative to Somoza for imperialism. ...We could have taken power without this alliance, but we made an effort to draw these forces closer when we called for the formation of a national patriotic front. Because of this approach, one wing of the FAO withdrew and joined the patriotic front; the other remained in the FAO.
Later in the interview Wheelock comments on the subsequent desertion of most of these forces: "I don't think you can say that we lost support we never had. If these people, at a given moment, participated in the revolutionary process it was first of all because they had lost their battle, and secondly to influence the revolutionary process, to derail it. But when they saw the firmness of our determination they left. It's not that they stopped supporting the revolutionary programme but rather that they returned to work against the programme.'
It is possible to agree or to disagree with the tactics of the FSLN in dividing the bourgeoisie and in the subsequent establishment of a fully to the fore in the La Palma talks. international, No. I. November/December 1985
revolutionary government with bourgeois participation, but one thing that emerges is the tactical nature of the alliance and its subordination to the FLN's strategic priorities. Such an approach contrasts sharply to that of the reformist and Stalinist wings of the Salvadorean FDR. This has been brought into sharp relief by events since the March 1982 elections in El Salvador.
Dunkerley explains that in this period 'the policies of the FDR/FMLN underwent significant alteration', and that this shift 'did also correspond to a shift in the balance of forces within the popular bloc. It was the reformist wing that benefited from this. In this period increased attention was given to the possibilty of reaching a negotiated settlement with the regime. Dunkerley writes that this should cause little surprise in itself; such an option was not clearly proscribed by the 1980 Programmatic Platform. It is also correct and necessary to employ every tactical option, in a difficult situation, that can give advantage to the popular forces.
On the other hand, the approach to these negotiations marked a significant change in policy objectives. The new programme for a Government of Broad Participation (GAP) suppressed many of the radical objectives of the FDR's Programmatic Platform of 1980 and. for the first time, outlined terms for ceasefire, negotiation and the establishment of a government that would include but not be dominated by the popular forces. The document guaranteed the survival of the existing regular army under such a regime... This policy came
Throughout 1983 it was becoming clear that the social democratic current led by Ungo and Zamora had gained political support from the PCS (Communist Party) and forces in the FPL (a left-wing split from the PCS which based itself on the Prolonged Popular War strategy). The FPL became the eye of the storm. "For the outside world this crisis, hitherto unknown or only vaguely perceived, came to a head in April 1983 with the murder of the organisation's second-in-command "Ana Maria' (Melida Anaya Montes, in Managua on the 6th, and the suicide of its commander 'Marcial' (Salvador Cyetano Carpio).
Dunkerley makes a qualified and guarded attempt to disentangle these tragic events, based on personal discussions with Adolfo Gilly and others. He situates the events in the political context of the time, in particular the revision of the 1980 Programmatic Platform. He quotes approvingly from an article by Gilly in the Mexican periodical Nexos, which describes the FDR/FMLN's proposal for a 'Government of Broad Participation' as: 'A programme of a revolutionary and democratic government, of radical reforms and the transition to socialism has been substituted by a programme of class collaboration over a long period, of moderate reforms that do not exceed the proposals of christian democracy and of the reformist military junta of 1979 or indeed the limits of the bourgeois republic."
Least surprising. perhaps, is the role of the PCS in the change in policy. "The party had not ditched its popular front policies in the spring of 1980 but had simply been obliged to reformulate them within the strategy of armed struggle. (Its) contacts with Cuba and the Soviet Union as well as its historic ties through the UDN to the social democrats and christian democratic dissidents gave it a unique position within the popular bloc. Radicalised in terms of methods, it had not significantly altered its long term strategy. The FSLN, unlike the FDR/FMLN, did not contain within its ranks a powerful and influential Communist Party. This is an important difference between the two movements, which should not be underestimated.
These two books, taken together, point to many other differences of a political, social and historical nature, suggesting that caution is re quired in generalising from the experience of the Sandinistas. If this is true in relation to E Salvador, then a schematic application of the Nicaraguan experience to countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Chile or Peru could prove disastrous. Nevertheless, the Central American revolutions are not only crucial centres of struggle against imperialism and capitalism, they also have much to contribute to the programme of revolutionary Marxism. Both these books make an important contribution to the discussion and are essential reading for socialists. Nicaragua: The Sandinista People's Revolution, Pathfinder E6.95. James Dunkerley, The Long War 25 (second edition), Verso E6.95.
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