40yrs ago today, FMLN launched it’s first large scale attack against the fascist government of El Salvador, called the “Final Offensive”. They believed people’s justice and democracy to be right around the corner… but in the end, the system still stood. Why?
Thread:

During the years leading up to 1981, the revolutionary atmosphere had been building up in Central America. Nicaraguan Sandinistas had overthrown Somoza’s dictatorship in 1979, while Salvadoran communists formed a united front in late 1980.

However, time was not in their favor. Far right Republican Ronald Reagan was to take office on January 20th. He would provide a massive boost in funding to the Salvadoran military and death squads unless they were defeated by then.

The date for the offensive was set: January 10th. However, some obstacles stood in the way of the revolution’s victory. Internally, we can look to the policies of the largest factions to determine why the offensive failed.
(More on each faction:) https://twitter.com/PaoloAMendoza/status/1314991337339604992?s=20

1. The Communist Party’s reformism, which considered armed struggle to be “adventurist”, denied the working classes revolutionary leadership from 1933 to 1970. The people organized themselves mostly into unarmed student and worker unions.

2. The People’s Revolutionary Army responded to reformism with spontaneity, believing that a few revolutionaries could, through high profile violence, inspire a mass insurrection without having laid the necessary political groundwork.

3. The People’s Liberation Forces accepted armed struggle, political organizing, and established rural bases - but was often dogmatic and sectarian, complicating cooperation with other factions, urban centers and broader democratic classes*

*Theoretically, some classes could be “democratic”, having an interest in overthrowing fascism, like the national bourgeoisie had in Nicaragua, but could not push for the socialist revolution.

4. Together the factions had nearly reached coordination, but not unity. They acted with similar goals in mind, but shared communication and resource lines had not yet been established.

As a result of these issues, many combatants were underprepared and undertrained. The expected mass insurrection did not occur. Insufficient numbers of soldiers in the Armed Forces defected. The national bourgeoisie did not budge.

Externally, the aid the capitalists supplied the Armed Forces with vastly outweighed what socialist allies sent to FMLN. Cuba and Nicaragua were the Salvadoran people’s closest friends, but the US military had deeper pockets.

Moreover, the Salvadoran government had for decades carried out terror attacks on the civilian population, murdering socially conscious union and religious leaders. This discouraged many from joining leftist organizations.

Consequently, weapons and reinforcements were in short supply for FMLN. Their early advances caught the government off guard and allowed them to temporarily attack certain cities, but eventually the offensive stalled and was repelled.

Reagan took office 10 days later, promising to not lose “one more inch” to communism. El Salvador became the 2nd highest recipient of US “foreign aid”, with a million dollars a day coming into the country.

FMLN took a huge losses. They fell back to their rural bases and fully committed to protracted people’s war, hoping to negotiate establishing a broader participatory government that represented all classes, if not necessarily socialism.

The “Final Offensive” was renamed the “General Offensive”, and, despite the missteps, marked only the beginning of a decade long conflict. The Salvadoran people were still determined to earn their democracy, by any means necessary.