ON NEW Year's Eve 1991, the guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and El Salvador's government announced they had reached an accord ending the 12-year old civil war.
Shortly afterwards the UN general secretary hailed the accord as a "negotiated revolution.' Two weeks later in Mexico City the two parties signed the formal accords. Arturo y Damas, Archbishop of San Salvador remarked at the signing that 'the war has ended but the Has the war endod? Will peace arrive? Were the revolutionaries successful? While we cannot definitively answer these questions we can give a tentative, provisional analysis.
Hyperbole aside, this was no negotiated revolution. At best the peace accords mark a new stace in the struggle o the FMLN, and simultancously a new stage in the US's attempts to politically defeat the revolution.
At worst, the accords and the subvictory for the Salvadoran ruling class an0 us mieraisul Unfashionable Our support for the Salvadoran masses, coupled with the limited political space won by the FMLN, should not blind us to the realitics. This argument is very unfashionable on the left in the US and El Salvador.
To understand this argument, we must examine the strategy of the FMLN, the international context, the content of the aocords and the events since the mid. January 1992 signing.
Us intervention in b Salvador was guided from the beginning by the doctrine of ow imensity Contict (LIC). a slightly updated version of the doctrine which guided US intervention in Vietnam. The doctrine includes the use of cconomic einbargoes, trade policy, cconomic ao, Kains an ivesanical to cor trol a country or cripple it.
"Low intensity' is a military cuphemism; in this conflict it resulted in 75,000 deaths and over one million displaced people - an exceedingly peculiar kind of low intensity -In ai saivador inc oocurine pursuco two goals: first to militarily defeat the FMLN using the Salvador armed forces trained in counter-insurgency; sccond to politically defeat the FML.N through "naton building", that is to reform the Salvadoran government so that by itself it could solve the problems that gave rise to the revolutionary movement. (The "solutions' would of course maintain the dependent capitalist nature of Salvadoran society).
Nation building would entail, in the view of the US, elected govemments, elimination of human rights abuses, reform of the judicial system and civilian government, and land reform.
Military ald
Over the course of the decade the US pumped in over $7 billion in economic and military aid. This was in recum for doing Utings 'our way'. "Our way included demonstration elections to help segiumuse (ood naboriy and inictee tionally) the rule of the Salvadoran ruling class, the use of helicopters and air cavalry tactics against the FMLN, bombing of civilian populations, and limited reforms of the Salvadoran state.
Until 1990 the US uscd a low intensity strategy to altempt to win a clear, decisive military victory against the FMLN. This failed because of the strength and acumen of the FMLN. In 1990 the US shifted its strategic goal. Instead of socking an all-out military victory, it shilted to seeking a political victory over the revolutionarThe shift in strategy was the product ora ocoae mine roreiga poncy colablishment, and an article by James LeMoyne in the influential magazine Foreign Affairs. He argued that the FMLN wcfe the best-organised Marxist-Leninist quemla movement that Latm America had seen, and while they could not win the war, they could make the country ungovernable.
More and more, a negotiated solution, brokered by the UN, seemed desirable. Such a solution, organised by a UN increasingly under the direct control of the imperialist powers, would require the participation of the FMLN itself. This was made possible by changes in the FMLN's strategy in the post-November 1989 period.
The FMLN strategy had emphasised the centrality of the armed struggle since the beginning of the war, but also always combined it with mass organisation of political struggle. However, when the US introduced air cavalry tactics the FMIN was forced to roduce the size of its miliLary units, placing even greater emphasis on the political struggle and mass organisation.
At the same time the FMLN recog: nised the military stalemate which had developed.
The FMLN became more willing to use negotiations to end the war, in the hope of gaining some political spacc, when the support it had received from other countries collapsed. Especially crucial was the defeat of the Sandinistas in 1990 wilch nao an atparcauy cvasial ing effect on the FML.N's morale, and the collapse of the castern bloc.
Deprived of the small but important support from these forces, the FMILN was faced with the prospect of combatting unrestrained US and Salvadoran military atlacks on its own, for an indefinite time. Thus it was changes in the insemnational conert of the strigie,awalls tre military stalemate which led the FMLN to the negotiating table.
Torture
Since the signing of the accords, the Salvadoran military has continued to use torture and disappearances against the mass movements. On the fundamental question of land reform, no progress has been made Demobilisation of the military has been delayed, or in some cases carried out deceptively with units being renamed or transferred rather than disbended. There a victory. the struggle so far:revolutionary forces. will continuc. has been a general pardon of senior offiThe FMLN and its mass organisations have been granted legal status, but they have also demobilised and disarmed most of their forces. In short the power structure remains essentially unchanged. The Salvadoran ruling class and the US have made substantial progress in polttt• cally defcating the FML.N in a relatively shor period. Ail our hopeng will not turn the Ei Salvador revolution's defeat into At the same time we must recognise that the defeat was limited; the Salvadoran revolution and its leadership, the FMLN, was not finished off. Indeed the revolution did win some limited political Schematically, we can draw the following conclusions from the outcome of • The key factor in preventing the victory of the FMI.N was the international contexi. The ability of the US to massively intervene on behalf of the Salvadoran ruling class and the collapse of the former Soviet bloc were the two major factors. Additional factors were the WORLD NEWS clectoral defeat of the Sandinistas and the reverses suffered by the Guatemalan • A secondary factor was the difficulty in developing an urban mass movement. Relative to the strucgies in tnc countryside, the struggles of the urban mass movements were les developed. This was because of state terorism and the emphasis given to the armed struggle by the FML.N at certain points in the war.
• The end of the war represents a tactical defeat, but not a strasegic defcat, for the FMLN. By continued political organising in the mass movements, both urban and rural, the FMLN can continue to pursue its revolutionary objectives. The rhetoric of the FMLN makes it uncicar as to the present goals of the PMILN.
It appears, but may not be the case, that some sectors of the FML.N have abandoned revolution as a goal. Nevertheless "it ain't over till its over.' The revolutionary struggle of the Salvadoran masses
Final part of a series by Harry Sloan EXPERIENCE the world over shows that there is no automatic bridge between trade union militancy and political activity. Workers who will risk their lives fighting employers do not necessarily see the need to fight for It is therefore especially important for socialists to play a leading role in the unions, and combine this with actively wine the need for a revolutionary. so cialist programme.
In the 1930s American Trotskyists emerged at the forefront of militant unsonisation struggles, spearheaded by the Minneapolis Teamsters.
The powerful wave of militancy also car plants, where a tenacious rank and file cadership warco sir-cown sinkes and occupations, and fought pitched battles with scabs, police and the National Guard to build what became the United Auto Workers Union.
In the face of inaction from the traditional AFL union bureaucracies, a breakaway, radical union federation, the CIO was formed. But even as workers radicalised in trade union action on this scale there was no automatic political break from the twin parties of US capitalism, MARXISM formation of a genuine Labour Party.
As a result once the momentum of the struggles had been dissipated, the CIO itself bocame bureaucratised, and eventually merged with the more conservative AFL.
The spontancous militancy which can spur workers to fight arms in hand against scabs or the police can be disarmed or derailed by political weakness, and defused if the necessary leadership is not given.
Inatelling 1938 discussion with a CIO official rotsky drew out the implications of a situation in which the potential of the mamberstup 1s nogaica by te Terontist limitations of their leaders.
"The masses are immeasurably better, more daring and resolute than the leaders. The very fact of the rapid rise of the CIO shows that the American worker has changed radically.... When you showed a little initiative in building more combative unions, the workers immediately responded and gave you extraordinary, unprecedented support. And what about the so-cauca sir-oown sunkest i washe the leaders who thought them up, but the Reformism revived In Britain the failure of the CP to offer any coherent alternative allowed Labourworking class - and this was reinforced by the post-war period in which a relative "boom' in capitalism enabled the unions to win improved living standards.
Fugalenca or the masco exaccaibons of the retuming armed forces, the employers preferred to make far-reaching concessions than to risk any major confrontation. The welfare state was established, bankrupt industries and run-down utilities were nationalised.
Many radicalised workers were persuaded once again that militant trade unA growing shop stewards' movement emerged, especially in the boom industries of engineering, cars and chemicals. With rare exoccions the stewards move. ment remained tied - often through the mentary "British Road to Socialism' - to The stewards" movement was a classic combination of organisational strength and pollical calciss. Opportunis boreaucrats - notably the TGWU's Jack Jones and the AUEW's Huch Scanion -were able to climb the ladder to the top of growing unions on the basis of shop steward support.
But from the mid 1970s it became clear that every economic seback and serious offensive against jobs based on cconomic viability found union officials - and the rank and fi sicwaros - posu cally defenceless.
Eventually the Thatcher government was to grasp the scope of the opportunity inis gave for rous back toe rigats ano power of the unions in their traditional bastions.
Fighting back
Occasional attempts were made by the marxist let to organise a poutical caullenge to the right wing leaderships and the feeble antics of the left' bureaucrats and their allies in the Stalinist-run Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade UnLarge rank and file conferences wer lled in the 1960s by the Trotskyi Newsletter, and bigger but less representative and less constructive rallies were organised in the 1970s by the All Trades Unions Alliance, the industrial arm of the increasingly sectarian Socialist Labour League (later Workers Revolutionary Party), Big rank and file rallies were also called in the late 1970s by the In the 1980s Militant stepped in, with its burcaucratic BLOC conference of Broad Lefts. Each initiative eventually became mired in the sectarianism of the grouping concerned, making no lasting political contribution.
The last 15 years have seen the slump take a beavy toll of the shop stewards' movement, with wholesale closures of many of the industries in which the union ised rank and file has in turn strengthened bureaucracy - epitomised by the leader. ships of the electricians and engineers.
The politics of new realism have also caused needless casualties- the most obness to struggle from the leadership of NUPE, the public socior manual union, shortly to merge with NALGO and COHSE to form the country's biggest union, Headed by arch new-realist Tom Sawyer, the NUPE right wing now peddies the view that any sustained fight. back by public sector workers would be damaging to Labour's clectoral chances, since it would recall in the public's mind the images of the winter of discontent' of 1978-79.
Though dressed up in trendy right on' rhetoric, NUPE's defeatist line links in practice with the right wing positions of the slumbering giant GMB. whose lead ers* legendary lack of militancy reaches back almost to the tum of the century.
Against this background, the small minority of dependably left wing union leaders stand little chance of forcing any concerted action from a TUC that seems determined constantly to prove its own irrelevance to the daily problems of workers. Sections that do take action know they are likely to be fighting alone against the combined forces of the employers, the law and the forces of the State.
Women workers
Whole sections of low-paid and part-time workers - including hundreds of thouands of women workers - are left unorgarasca by wons too tumid ao oureaucratic to contemplate the battles involved in winning bargaining rights and decent wages from increasingly arrogant employers.
Every union retreat further strengthens the resolve of the employers to press Today's labour movement therefore lems for marxists that have been faced by previous generations of socialists.
The trade unions have proved inadequate either to wage today's struggles of the working class or even the concessions and rights won in previous rounds of struggle. They are also clearly incapaready-made revolutionary leadership to emerge of its own accord. A conscious marxist current must be developed, capable of sutracting and assisting the work of cas stiggle activists must me be vital decisions as isolated individuals, but brought into wider discussions analysing the strengths and weaknesses of campaigns and disputes, the problems and possibilities facing the movement, and the ways in which the difficulties can be tackled by systematic work of the revolutionary left.
Solidarity with sections of workers in struggle must be supplemented by frank and scrious criticism and debate over History has shown that sectarian ata march on their competitors- either by running uncritical solidarity work or by creating smail breakaway groupings -achieve little. Relatively few union activists will be persuaded simply through propaganda and limited campaigns that they should ally with the revolutionary Sustained, patient work, combining a genuine attention to day to day struggles with the commitment to fight for principied leadership at every level of the trade union movement is essential in the building of a revolutionary current in the unAnd wider. non-sectarian initistives such as the successful conferences orTrade Union Committee offer an opportunity to combine the practical work of uniting the left with debate on some of the differing positions held by various groupings.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 45 June 26 1993. Page 13
SOGIALIST OUTLOOK No. 45 June 26 1993. Page 12 Bumsalls: a rare example of unions responding to the power of working women