Social And Political Conflict In Tommie Montgomery's Revolution In El Salvador

El Salvador experienced social and political unrest since the 1960s, ending with a civil war from 1980 until the signing of peace accords in 1992. During this time, most of the scholarship from inside and outside the country focused in the war and the circumstances around it. One of the scholars, Tommie Montgomery, published “Revolution in El Salvador: origins and evolution” where she explains the social and political circumstances that justified the 1932 revolt, not to understand the event itself, but as a precedent to the civil war that was in progress in 1982. Even if Montgomery presents the first argument that goes beyond the communist influences and “brainwash”, it does not develop it beyond mentioning the context of the 1932 revolt, without

Perez Brignoli uses a political and social approach, discussing the exaggerated official story contrasted with the Indigenous groups living conditions of exploitation and lack of land ownership. Nevertheless, Perez Brignoli also accepts the influence of the Partido Comunista in the revolt, but in a less relevant way than the official

The documents explained the less than important role that the party played in the revolt, becoming the necessary evidence to prove that the Matanza could not be justified as a communist movement, but the radicalization of a group of peasants due to the substandard living conditions that the government, in conspiracy with the army and the oligarchy, allowed. Ching presents this new analysis in "In Search of the Party: The Communist Party, the Comintern, and the Peasant Rebellion of 1932 in El Salvador". Before the publication of that book, Ching worked in his doctoral thesis, “From clientelism to militarism: the state, politics and authoritarianism in El Salvador, 1840-1940”, where he discusses how the elites controlled politics, influencing economic power and social development, since the Independence from Spain in 1821. Even if Ching does not review the “why” only the “how”, this previous work provides a background for the nature of Salvadoran politics and the historical progress of