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The Salvadoran Armed Left and Revolutionary Violence (1970–1980)

  • Alberto Martín Álvarez
  • Eudald Cortina Orero
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Abstract

This chapter analyzes the actions and strategies undertaken by the Salvadoran armed left from its birth to the creation of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in 1980. Revolutionary violence emerged in the early 1970s in the context of an authoritarian political regime that went to inordinate levels of repression against any expression of dissidence—even against those who attempted to dissent through purely peaceful methods. Drawing on internal documents and a database of armed actions built by the authors, this work clearly identifies different patterns of use of revolutionary violence by the Salvadoran Left along the decade under study. These patterns are in turn linked to the different stages of development of the armed organizations, to the changing domestic and global political context and to the strategy developed by each group.

Keywords

Armed Group Security Force National Guard Research Archive Political Liberalization 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  • Alberto Martín Álvarez
    • 1
  • Eudald Cortina Orero
    • 2
  1. 1.Instituto Mora Mexico CityMexico
  2. 2.Departamento de HistoriaUniversidad de Santiago de CompostelaSantiago de CompostelaSpain

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