The Communist Party of El Salvador ( es, Partido Comunista de El Salvador) is a

communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

El Salvador El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...

. The Communist Party was founded by Miguel Mármol on 10 March 1930.

History

In the mid-1960s the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 200.Benjamin, Roger W.; Kautsky, John H..
Communism and Economic Development
', in The

American Political Science Review The ''American Political Science Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all areas of political science. It is an official journal of the American Political Science Association and is published on their behalf by Cambridg ...

, Vol. 62, No. 1. (Mar., 1968), pp. 122. In 1980, it joined with four other

leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

parties in the country - the FPL, RN, PRTC and ERP - to form a revolutionary political-military front called the

Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN) is a left-wing political party in El Salvador. The FMLN was formed as an umbrella group on 10 October 1980, from five leftist gu ...

( - FMLN). The FMLN waged a guerrilla war against the Salvadoran government, which had been a military dictatorship since the 1930s. The Communist Party of El Salvador and the four other parties continued to exist as separate organizations under the umbrella of the FMLN throughout El Salvador's civil war from 1980 to 1992. When the civil war ended in 1992, the FMLN became a legal political party and began to compete in elections. After the 1994 elections, the Communist Party and the four other parties that comprised the FMLN dissolved themselves as separate organizations, merging into a singular FMLN with no competing internal organizations. At that point the Communist Party of El Salvador ceased to exist as an independent entity, though many of its leaders and members are still visible in the FMLN. For example, former Communist Party leader

Schafik Hándal Schafik Jorge Hándal Hándal ( ar, شفيق جورج حنضل; October 14, 1930 – January 24, 2006) was a Salvadoran politician. Biography Born in Usulután, he was the son of Palestinian immigrants from the town of Bethlehem. Between 197 ...

was the FMLN's presidential candidate in the 2004 elections. During the Salvadoran civil war from 1980 to 1992, Schafik Hándal was the leader of the Communist Party. Prior to him,

Cayetano Carpio Salvador Cayetano Carpio (6 August 1918 – 12 April 1983), also known as Commander Marcial, was the leader of the Communist Party of El Salvador in the 1960s, until he quit the party to found the Salvadoran revolutionary political-military organ ...

was the Communist Party leader in the 1960s, before leaving the CP to form the FPL and launch the armed struggle against the dictatorship in 1970. On March 27, 2005, a group of Salvadoran communists formed a new PCES, in the tradition of the old party that dissolved into the FMLN.

References

External links

{{Authority control Comintern sections, El Salvador Communist militant groups Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front Political parties in El Salvador Salvadoran Civil War Communist parties in El Salvador International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties