Salvadorean elections.
President Duarte's Democratic Party, widely regarded as no-hope losers to a coalition of extreme right wing parties, narrow victory, winning 33 of the 60 seats for the country's toothless Constituent Assembly.
Among those surprised at this outcome will be the Reagan administration, which gave tacit support to the hard right. This position itself is a clear turnabout from Reagan's stance in the 1984 elections, quired a "moderate Victory by the
allegedly Duarte in order to persuade the US Congress to endorse continued US military and economic aid regime. He also wanted to avoid a series of embarrassing right wing excesses in the run-up to Presidential elections in November. Shrewd adjustments to the machinery ensured that that "election" went according to plan.
But with his own second and final term safely under his belt. Reagan no longer faces the same domestic electoral pressures: and the administration is confident of pushing a massive $430 million package of military aid through Congress. Now Reagan is concerned to prevent any fragmentation of the reactionary forces. means trying to preserve dependence upon the ultra right, and curtail any possible tendency towards serious negotiations with the guerrilla forces of the FMLN and their political leadership, the FDR.
Duarte's two rounds of exploratory talks with the FDR leaders last year -though publicly welcomed by the
White House - sent a shudder o horror through the hard right, and, coupled with his rhetorical promises of social reforms, were sufficient to produce the new coalition of parties around the objective of holding on to and even increasing their combined majority in the Assembly. The tailure
victory? Christian scraped a largely where he re- ostensibly "reformist" the to the US of the right wing armed forces "intervened" nulled. His This Duarte's chiets. guerrillas and handful and military backing of the USA.
By HARRY SLOAN would lose Duarte — even with US support - to achieve this has been met with angry claims from ultra-right leader Roberto D'Aubuisson that the
Tin the election to ensure a victory for Duarte and the Christian Democrats, and that the election result should be an-
protests have been significantly rebuffed by top army
Duarte on regaining office has promised a third round of talks with the
programme of social reforms". These could only be achieved at the expense of the tightknit Salvadorean oligarchy - the
Cof ruling families whose behina system of exploitation is upheld by the brutal officer corps of the armed tion result: forces, the death squads and the ultra right wing Parties with the economic
reaction.
Should Duarte attempt to move in His
ractice along the road of "reform he will be in tor a very rough ride inSocialist Viewpoint, No. 5, April 1985. Page 7
deed. For if he antagonises the ultra-right and the oligarchy to the extent of alienating the Reagan administration, then he could rapidly lose his protected" status as Washington's annointed recipient of aid: and once this was thrown into question, Duarte
Tany hope of controlling the army chiefs, many of whom are already hostile to his talks with the
However, it is likely that these latest pledges from previous promises. He promised land reform: it was predictably blocked by the far right in the Assembly. He talked of taming the death squads — yet their murder toll against the left and oppositionists is rising once (from 14 in January to 22 in February) and responsibility for these killings plainly includes leading members of today's military hierarchy.
pledge to pursue and punish officers implicated in political
been quietly detached And despite the fanfares and frenzied right wing opposition, the elaborately stage-managed "talks" with guerrilla leaders last year were tokenistic in the extreme - offering nothing new, but effectively going through the mo tions in public in order simultaneously to placate the hardliners who op pose the slightest concession, and Salvadorean society who are sick and tired of the repression and civil war, and have looked to Duarte as the man least unlikely to negotiate some kind
So far, Duarte has skilfully maintained his balancing act between the various intersecting and mutually exclusive pressures: but the political evolution of the far right after their bruising deteat at the polls is un predictable, and Reagan's stance ambiquous. Duarte will be well pleased that 15 senior army officers and the country's Defence Minister rallied
Whim to repudiate D' Aubuisson's challenae to the elc.
Tat present his is the strongest hand in this strugle for control within the camp of Salvadrean
victory has underlined substantial problem for the liberation forces of the FMLN-FDR, who have
come under increasingly military pressure in the rural areas. The geography and limited size of El Salvador make it unsuitable terrain for holding "liberated areas" for any length of time - while aid and equipment has facilitated a marked strengthening of the forces. The guerillas have taken a steady toll of army casualties, sapping army morale, but no longer talk in terms of a "final offensive" have begun to look for alternative tactics to pursue the struggle other than an escalating rural war.
Despite the continued problem of the death squads, it numbers of guerilla fighters are now moving into urban areas to ticipate in the reorganisation of trade unions and student The extent to which this has occurred makes it doubly obvious that they retain wide popular support. military leaders assess that up to 75% ot the guerilla torces — as many as 7,000 fighters - have dispersed in this way into the towns and the capital itself — working to widen their own popular base, and possibly preparing to strike in later guerilla raids on urban targets.
Work in the unions is important since they are in the main dominated by supporters of Duarte and, sections of peasants, appear to have provided his most decisive electoral support. But mass struggles in 1979 and 1980 showed the potential to rally the working class behind political and economic demands which bring them into conflict with the oligarchy and US imperialism.
However, it is far from certain that the present FMUN-FDR political line is adequate to develop the maximum potential of this resistance. Since the spring of 1984, the FMLN-FDR-have put forward a programme which focusses on the call for a cross-class "government of national consensus" tion' overnment of broad participa-
(GAP), and for the merger of the FMLN forces with the existing army, purged of its hardline untra-right officers.
This demand, cupled with the increasing FDR concentration upon talks with Duarte, seems calculated to cause maximum confusion amongst El Salvador's workers and peasants. After all, Duarte ticipated in two propods of talks", and himself has proposed has urged the guerillas to set down their arms and enter the process". If the guerillas themselves propose a joint government and joint army, what, many will wonder, is the real difference?
In practice, of course, any move by the guerillas to disarm or and engage in ballot-box politics would be met by an immediate offensive by the hard right aimed at wiping out the militant opposition. economic survival of depends upon its savage exploitation of El Salvador's working poor peasantry: this in turn requires
heavy US military state , and struggle must repressed. appears that par- front government and organisations. are a reactionary utopia. They reactionary because they could only possibly US in Zimbabwe and revolutionary themselves. (In Zimbabwe, obtained even more than the FMLN. with fused armed forces have consistently repressed the black working class.. Smith regime regime is no free agent, but a highly dependent government with the US government breathing down its neck Central America. ship of the FDR itself almost "political disband The the oligarchy class and
(PCS). the procure a tagious that any political movements which left-talking seek to mobilise these forces in mass
Tbe ruthlessly
But this same situation is precisely why the FMLN-FDR's own programmatic demands for a joint popular Stalinist
Ta joint army are achieved similar democratic fashion to the merger of Mugabe's guerrillas with Smith's armed forces
Tat the expense of sacrificing the independent struggles
chiefs aspirations of the guerillas Mugabe that: FDR are asking for: he took control of the government. But his programme of cross class alliance meant that the
They are utopian because, unlike neither Britain nor the USA could or armed struggle, and determined to rule out any compromise which might further encourage revolutionary or democratic struggles elsewhere in adopted this line? The answer must has the FMLN-FDR be seen both in the political leader-
headed up by two bourgeois politicians - social democrat Guillermo Ungo, and
capitalism. Socialist Viewpoint, No. 5, April 1985. Page 8
in the Salvadorean Communist Party
In this environment, under the combined pressure of the reformist "Socialist International"; the Latin American bougeois governments of
"Contadora" group seeking to "negotiated" stabilisation of the region to avoid a possibly con-
Fall-out civil war, and the Castro leadership (as the most tangible expression of Kremlin policy), the
"popular front' politics of the Communist Party have become increasingly influential. In the aftermath of the Grenada invasion, the threat of an outright US intervention lent added pressure to uphold the
search for a negotiated, "popular front" solution. dropped its call for a "revolutionary February 1984 the FMLN-FDR
government" adopted instead the proposal for a
government of broad participation' (GAP), incorporating businessmen ("private property owners") and army
("the reconstructed armed forces"). The proposal underlined
"No single force will dominate this political forces in favour of the overthrow of the oligarchy's regime, of
re-establishment sovereignty and independence, and of private property and foreign investment not contradicting society, s interests, will be represented in it.
The fact that El Salvador contains no significant equivalent to the anti-Somoza sections of the Nicaraguan bougeoisie who might en enticed into such a "popular front" does not premisleading policy. Having (belatedly) joined the common guerilla front in January 1980 to avoid being totally isolated and discredited on the left for its line of class collaboration, the PCS
clearly emerged as leading political force.
By June 1984, in the hands of FDR leader Guillermo Ungo, this policy had been translated into a line of "give Duarte a chance" after his elec tion as President. And in December the reconvened talks once again featured the "GAP" proposals as the central line of FMLN-FDR intervention. While the armed struggle continues, it is obvious that Ungo, Zamora and the Stalinists see guerrilla activity as simply a type of pressure to procure negotiations, an lave no intention of carrying throug the struggle to an expropriation of
Obviously many of the most dedicated militants in the ranks of the FMLN see the struggle differently:
Gutt of Mexton LEGEND -Existing Airstrips *-Airstrips to be built -Rador Stations "Dollar figures *noicole amount spent or proposed for each site Source: Letter to Congress trom Doputy Defense Secretary William H. Tott IV. GUATEMALA OV-1 Mohawk Reconnaissance plane many see the GAP purely as a tactic, and look forward -clearly - to completion of democratic revolution with establishment of a genuinely revolutionary government reflecting needs and demands of the masses.
Anyone serious about the struggle for socialist revolution in El Salvador will be fighting in and with FMLN-FDR; but there is a real need for a Marxist critique of the policy of the GAP if the agitational work in the unions and student movement is to achieve its full potential and exploit the weaknesses of the Duarte regime, and if the Stalinist reformist influence in the FMLN-FDR is not to gain a complete strangelhold.
While campaigning perialist countries tor El Salvador" and maximum solidarity with the FMLN-FDR in its struggle, Marxists should argue against the current popular frontists policy.
It must not be forgotten that one key reason why the leadership has been able to sustain itself despite the continuation of capitalist property relations since 1979 is that the old Somocista armed forces were completely smashed and disbanded and a new body of armed people, committed to the Sandinista revolution was constructed. FDR policy renounces this road in advance. To defend both the Sandinista regime and the GAP in El Salvador — as some Marxists do — is a contradiction in terms.
In any case, to seek to head off the threat of a US intervention by aban-
ZU,S.= MEXICO U.S. listening ships and at times, aircratt carriers operate off both coasts. BELIZE Polmerolo $19.5 million + Cucuyague $213 thousana EL SALVADOR Site of U.S.-Honduran Joint Task Force headquarters, hospital, Army i air reconnaissance unit that flies over El Salvador and proposed air munitions storage bunkers. US forces deployed to intimidate Central American liberation struggle. more or less the retreat the tactical capitulation. the national liberation, region-wide the New! in the im- "US hands off Nicaraguan FMLN- context.
CUBA Caribbers Sea Possible site of $150 million U.S.-built naval base. verto lempira Co Puro Coils Orie 60 thousand $28.6 million No Ceiba 58 million Aguacale y $199 thousand NICARAGUA HONDURAS * Jamastian $166 thousand Irgueigalpa • Cerro la Mole S110 thousand → San Lorenzo $3.4 million Tiger Island Corinto $116 thousana Pacifie Ocean doning the fight for socialism rather than by seeking international allies in the anti-imperialist struggle is not a a political but in Marxists must insist that the fight in El Salvador is not simply a question of but part of a struggle tor In- dependence from imperialism: the planned perspective must be for socialism in El Salvador and Nicaragua as part of region. New! New! Castrout support henal chagen. on Cubou should recd Cuba. Face of Stalinism. Dissecting the politics and evolution of the Cuban leadership, this book reasserts the need for a Trotskyist party and pro- gramme in Cuba, and presents the events firmly in their global Copies available now (£5.00 including postage) from Left View books, Box 3956, London WCIN 3XX. Sccialist Viewpoint, No. 5, April 1985. Page 9
JAMAICA U.S.-supported counterrevolutionaries operale along border, reportedly from U.S.-improved airstrips, and mine harbors of Corinto and Puerto Sanding with CIA aid. Site of 11-mile defensive tank traps and proposed ammunition storage bunkers. Lake Managua Lake Nicaragua Puerto Sandino the fight for a socialist United States of Central America. And in such a fight, the question must be raised of links with the powerful working class the biggest Central American country - Mexico — not just from the standpoint of solidarity, but in pursuit of a common struggle for the over- throw of capitalist rule, unity against any US intervention, and a jointly socialist economy for the CUBA Radical face of Stalinism choices on Cuba were to support
IS THIS THE END FOR KARAMANLIS?
A special report explaining the background to recent events, from SISSI VOVOY in Athens. IN A abrupt political turn which was shocking as well as sudden, Greek Prime Minister and president of PASOK, Papandreou, on March 9 put an end to his collaboration with the president of the Konstantin Karamanlis, introducing a new chapter in the politics of his party.
Many readers of the foreign leftwing press are, we suppose, aware of the above fact. What perhaps they do not know is: Why Papandreou should make such an abrupt turn literally at the last moment? What did the collaboration between Papandreou and Karamanlis mean? And, finally, what will the impact of the new policy of PASOK be on the political situation? Why the surprise?
1985 is an election Greece. According to the time limits, there was going to be an election of the president of the Republic on March 15, chosen from Parliament according to the reactionary rules of the 1975 constitution followed by national parliamentary elections in October, where PASOK would contest for the majority of the popular vote for a new four year term.
The surface of political reality, mirrored every day in systematically striving to form public opinion, was characterised by the most unprecedented class collaboration and social consent that ever existed in Greece. PASOK, a party "socialist" in name only, had managed to betray all its electoral promises to the people, most important of them being to throw out the American bases and to pull the country out of NATO and the EECut, more impor not to mention its domestic policy. antly, PASOK had maintained cellent relations with the president of the Republic and systematically among the people the