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"The FMLN/FDR has used diplomacy to try to exacerbate differences in the enemy camp." 16 Socialist Action June 1984 The Central American revolution is at a critical juncture. Like every attempt to break the bonds of oppression, it is met by fierce resistance from the old propertied classes and by the very symbol of reaction in the world today: U.S imperialism.

That resistance takes the form of violence, to be sure. The 1000 deaths of Nicaraguan workers and peasants at the hands of the contras, the over 40,000 murders by the Salvadoran death squads, and the 50,000 deaths wreaked by Somoza's National Guard during the Sandinista revolution all testify to the barbarity and the desperation of the ancien regime.

The U.S. government is on the side of the barbaric policies of the Central American ruling classes. It trains, supplies, and increasingly leads the military operations of the reactionary armies in Central America. Honduras has become one large U.S. military base from which the United States is reported to have run not just reconnaissance missions but actual combat missions as well. And the CIA is more and more openly directing, organizing, and carrying out the attacks on key economic targets in Nicaragua.

U.S. diplomacy is another arm of its policy of war and counterrevolution in Central America. In Nicaragua, this meant demanding elections until elections were called; then it meant opposition to the elections which are going to clearly demonstrate the popularity of the Sandinistas.

And it meant demanding that the Nicaraguans halt arms shipments to El Salvador; but what the imperialists— who admit that one-half of the FMLN's arms are captured American weaponsreally want is to stop the boundless solidarity that the Nicaraguan people feel for their brothers and sisters in El Salvador. In the final analysis, the United States cannot tolerate the example that Nicaragua continues to set for El Salvador and the rest of the continent. Imperialism's real objective remains the crushing of the Sandinista power.

In El Salvador, through diplomacy combined with increasing military aid and intervention, the United States has sought to divide the revolutionaries. It proposes "negotiations" over the terms of participation in El Salvador's rigged elections. It hopes to win over a Guillermo Ungo or Ruben Zamora, who had participated in the 1979 "progressive junta.' Or perhaps it can entice a section of the guerrillas to lay down their arms.

The FMLN/FDR's diplomacy On these questions, the FMLN/FDR has taken a clear position. The FMLN/ FDR has rejected the idea that free elections can be held in the middle of a civil war; that elections can be free when the death squads and the military have a free hand. And it clearly is not laying down its arms to participate in an electoral farce.

The FMLN/FDR, like the U.S. government, has used diplomacy to try to exacerbate differences in the enemy camp. The position they have held since 1981 is for a negotiated political settlement to end the bloodshed. This position stands in stark contrast to the refusal of the Salvadoran and U.S. governments to enter into any negotiations. This intransigence, in fact, did exacerbate differences between the United States, the Western European governments, and certain Latin American countries. Out of these differences came the Franco-Mexico initiative and the Contadora nations' attempt to mediate the conflict.

The new proposal of the FMLN/ FDR for a Government of Broad Participation intends to increase the demoralization in the Salvadoran army, win over war-weary sections of the Salvadoran population, and place the aggressive actions of the U.S. government in as unfavorable a light as possible.

On its own terms, it proposes a coalition government formed by the FMLN/ FDR on the one hand, and the Salvadoran government on the other. This new government would include all political parties except Arena, the ultrarightwing party of Major d'Aubuisson. Likewise, the new army would be composed of the FMLN and the Salvadoran armed forces purged of the death squads.

Such a coalition government has never been formed successfully by opposing sides in a civil war. During the Vietnam War, for example, the conditions of the Paris Peace Accords, which proposed a coalition government, were never implemented. Instead, there was a renewed conflict under more favorable conditions-given the departure of thousands of American troops-and the Provisional Revolutionary Government was able to victoriously enter Ho Chi Minh City (then Saigon) two years later.

Even in Nicaragua, where the anti-Somoza forces formed a coalition government after the Sandinista victory of 1979, this government merely sheltered two opposing classes with antagonistic aims for a brief period of time. As the Sandinistas implemented a series of social measures to accompany the military victory, and as the mass mobilizations continued, the opposition bourgeoisie, one by one, dropped out of this government. Today, the most important leaders of the opposition bourgeoisie have reunited with the Somozaists to wage counterrevolutionary war against the Sandinista government.

The FMLN proposal for such a coalition government is unacceptable to any wing of the Salvadoran government or bourgeoisie. The Salvadoran government, stripped of its ultraright sector, which includes the high command of the armed forces and most of the officer corps, is a government that could not defend the interests of the oligarchy. And the Salvadoran bourgeoisie-stripped of the oligarchy-is only the shadow of a social class.

Socialist Action does not take a position in favor of a coalition government in El Salvador—we are in favor of the victory of the FMLN as we have always been. However, we also support the right of the FMLN/FDR to engage in whatever diplomacy and conduct whatever negotiations they deem necessary. Our central responsibility is to aid in the construction of a massive movement in opposition to the U.S. government's intervention in Central America.

Where the PC Majority goes wrong The point of view expressed by the PC Majority statement, while it correctly points out the inherent difficulties of a coalition government, incorrectly takes the position that the new FMLN/ FDR proposal could lead, under given circumstances, to the defeat of the revolution:

"These planks are more than the Junta and the United States are proposed to accept and have so far been unilaterally rejected. But should the government's military posture deteriorate further and the United States be unable to intervene en masse, they may be forced to reconsider their stance toward negotiations with the FMLN. (Duarte has now taken a stance in favor of "negotiations" in the course of his Street meeting in Nicaragua run-off election contest with d'Aubuisson) Under such circumstances, it should be recognized that the structure of the proposed provisional government would give the Salvadoran ruling class and the United States room to maneuver, and possibly to derail the revolution. To the United States government, this potential would be more significant than the written objectives of the government" (original emphasis).

And later, the article states even more clearly: "The structure of the provisional government, then, would at best postpone the resolution of the civil war in El Salvador. At worst, it could lead to the defeat of the revolution (my italics). Moreover, the consequences of this dilemma, forced on the Salvadoran liberation forces by the United States, is not restricted within the boundaries of El Salvador; as reflected in the sections on foreign policy, the FMLN/FDR proposal can have a profound effect throughout the region?"

These passages contain several errors:

1) They are based on the real possibility of the realization of a "government of broad participation" under conditions in which the FMLN is close to victory, and the U.S., "unable to intervene", proposes a class collaborationist government which the FMLN accepts!

2) It fails to understand that the real policy of U.S. imperialism is one of military defeat of the revolutionary forces from Guatemala to El Salvador to Nicaragua, not one of negotiations. Duarte's stance, like that of the U.S. State Department, is in favor of negotiations over the conditions of participation in elections in which the FMLN or a section of it would lay down its arms. He absolutely rejects "power sharing"' And Duarte is intelligent—he wasted no time in coming to Washington to lobby for millions and millions of dollars of arms for his true objective: military escalation.

3) It is wrong because it is an absolutely premature and therefore incorrect judgement. There is a raging civil war, with thousands of U.S. troops in Honduras ready to invade when necessary, and no visible movement towards a negotiated settlement on any basis.

Yet, the PC Majority statement decides to engage in speculation. What if, they ask, the FMLN is close to toppling the Salvadoran regime? What if the U.S. is unable to intervene militarily? What if, on the verge of being defeated, the Salvadoran dictatorship accepts the peace plan, the revolution is derailed, and capitalism is saved in El Salvador?

In the current situation, the FMLN is not close to toppling the regime, and the United States is hardly unable" to intervene. But, if these conditions were met, based on the trajectory of the struggle of the FMLN, there is no reason to believe that it would stop short of victory. In that case, the proposal for a government of broad participation would be a scrap of paper, just as the 1973 Vietnamese accords were.

The Vietnamese peace accords Premature judgements often look preposterous when they are measured by the test of events. One week before the Provisional Revolutionary Government marched into Saigon in 1975, Dick Fidler wrote the following words in the socialist magazine Intercontinental Press in an article with the incredible title "PRG Signals Readiness to Compromise with Saigon:"

"All observers agree that only a major political deal with the liberation forces could head off the complete defeat of the puppet Saigon government.

"The Provisional Revolutionary Government and the North Vietnamese leadership are seeking such a deal" (my emphasis).

Later in the article, he cautions: "It remains to be seen if all of the elements advocating a compromise political deal will be successful. It is not excluded that the momentum unleashed by the collapse of Saigon's puppet armies and the advances of the liberation forces could yet inspire a mass uprising within Saigon itself, or result in the total breakdown of all civil administration in that city. In that case, the Provisional Revolutionary Government may well find itself forced to march into the capital, just as Mao's armies were forced to occupy Peking in 1949??

These conclusions, which seem unbelievable today, flowed from an error that Fidler made in his analysis of the Vietnamese Accords, which is similar to the one that the PC Majority makes on the significance of the latest FMLN/ FDR proposal. He believed that these accords, which called for a coalition government, could be the basis for a betrayal of the Vietnamese revolution, and for the salvation of capitalism. He compounded his error in cautioning that the PRG "may well find itself forced to march into the capital." This implied as well that the PRG had no conscious intention of liberating the capital, just a few days before they actually did so.

The position of the International (continued 17)