Joaquín M. Chávez
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199315512
- eISBN:
- 9780190661106
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199315512.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
The chapter illustrates the fundamental roles that peasant leaders played in the transformation of the relatively small urban insurgency in the early 1970s into a massive rural insurgency by the end ...
More
The chapter illustrates the fundamental roles that peasant leaders played in the transformation of the relatively small urban insurgency in the early 1970s into a massive rural insurgency by the end of the decade. It examines the political crisis that fueled the intensification of state terror, militant activism, and insurgency that led to the civil war. The chapter also describes a major realignment that took place within the left and right between 1979 and 1981. It considers the foundation of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) as an historical convergence between the Old and New Left that articulated the grievances and demands of vast urban and rural sectors. A new right-wing coalition made up of businessmen, middle-class activists, military officers, and paramilitaries formed the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), displacing the Party of National Conciliation (PCN), the official party created in 1962, as the main political force of Salvadoran conservatives, and becoming a key player in Salvadoran politics during the civil war and beyond. The chapter analyzes the transformation of the peasant movement into a massive rural insurgency in Chalatenango.Less
The chapter illustrates the fundamental roles that peasant leaders played in the transformation of the relatively small urban insurgency in the early 1970s into a massive rural insurgency by the end of the decade. It examines the political crisis that fueled the intensification of state terror, militant activism, and insurgency that led to the civil war. The chapter also describes a major realignment that took place within the left and right between 1979 and 1981. It considers the foundation of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) as an historical convergence between the Old and New Left that articulated the grievances and demands of vast urban and rural sectors. A new right-wing coalition made up of businessmen, middle-class activists, military officers, and paramilitaries formed the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), displacing the Party of National Conciliation (PCN), the official party created in 1962, as the main political force of Salvadoran conservatives, and becoming a key player in Salvadoran politics during the civil war and beyond. The chapter analyzes the transformation of the peasant movement into a massive rural insurgency in Chalatenango.
Joaquín M. Chávez
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199315512
- eISBN:
- 9780190661106
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199315512.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
The conclusion examines the transformation of insurgent intellectuals into leaders of the civil war that pitted the FMLN and its civilian allies against US-sponsored Salvadoran governments between ...
More
The conclusion examines the transformation of insurgent intellectuals into leaders of the civil war that pitted the FMLN and its civilian allies against US-sponsored Salvadoran governments between 1980 and 1992. These intellectualsled a transition from politics to war that posed an unprecedented challenge to oligarchic-military rule and US hegemony in El Salvador. It ponders the roles that elite intellectuals –professionals, public figures, and scholars–played in the formation of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR), a broad based alliance created by social movements, legal political parties, and civil society organizations. The convergence between the insurgent and elite intellectuals that made up the FMLN-FDR leadership endowed the democratic revolution in El Salvador with extraordinary political, diplomatic, and military capacities throughtout the civil war. The transition involved the massive conscription of social activists into insurgent forces, the creation of a guerrilla army under a centralized command, and the consolidation of the rebels’ territorial control over rural areas.Less
The conclusion examines the transformation of insurgent intellectuals into leaders of the civil war that pitted the FMLN and its civilian allies against US-sponsored Salvadoran governments between 1980 and 1992. These intellectualsled a transition from politics to war that posed an unprecedented challenge to oligarchic-military rule and US hegemony in El Salvador. It ponders the roles that elite intellectuals –professionals, public figures, and scholars–played in the formation of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR), a broad based alliance created by social movements, legal political parties, and civil society organizations. The convergence between the insurgent and elite intellectuals that made up the FMLN-FDR leadership endowed the democratic revolution in El Salvador with extraordinary political, diplomatic, and military capacities throughtout the civil war. The transition involved the massive conscription of social activists into insurgent forces, the creation of a guerrilla army under a centralized command, and the consolidation of the rebels’ territorial control over rural areas.
