2

ORGANIZATIONAL ORIGINS OF THE FMLN

If we take a bird’s eye view of the FMLN on the eve of war, we find a complex, multifaceted organization. Figure 2.1 presents a simplified depiction of the FMLN (and its affiliated mass organization, the Democratic Revolutionary Front [FDR]) in the lead-up to the 1981 insurrection.1 Shorthand descriptions will note their umbrella structure: five politico-military organizations (OP-Ms) begrudgingly came together under a single banner to secure Cuban support. More detailed accounts will include their ties to mass organizations and the fact that the OP-Ms operated differently from one another.2 Zoom in to any one cell, however, and we find that the differences are more than just operational. The organizational chart is like a fractal; magnifying any one part reveals ever more complexity. Indeed, it takes very little digging to find that the OP-Ms comprised different levels and different configurations of military units, finance divisions, media wings, education wings, international diplomacy divisions, radio stations, journalists, writers, technicians, and near-countless structures bridging their affiliation with agricultural cooperatives, trade unions, and political parties. Each OP-M was distinct from the others, both in structure and in culture. Members were loyal and disciplined within their ranks, yet they were prone to quarreling when two OP-Ms crossed paths.3 Nevertheless, they all fought under the same name—quite successfully—for the same outcome.

How did the FMLN organization come to be this way? Were the respective structures inevitable consequences of the resources or the prewar networks that fed into each group? Or is the story multifactorial? This chapter evaluates both the new and conventional organizational approaches by testing their respective abilities to explain the emergence and early structure of the FMLN. Using both descriptive and deductive process tracing, I trace the FMLN’s evolution from the founding of the Partido Comunista de El Salvador (PCS; the Communist Party of El Salvador) in 1930 up through the early years of the war. Tracing the FMLN’s structure through an organizational lens allows me to test the conceptual adequacy of our existing toolkit, demonstrate the analytic purchase of the new approach, and resolve the descriptive contradictions that motivated chapter 1. Finally, it sets the stage for the question that motivates the remainder of the book: How do the respective structures within the FMLN affect its prospects for rebel-to-party transformation?

FIGURE 2.1. FMLN-FDR structure (1981)

Why Focus on the FMLN?

As a case, the FMLN strikes a remarkable analytic balance between uniqueness and generalizability. On the one hand, the OP-Ms’ organizational and operational autonomy, their geographical separation, and the similarities and differences in the social networks from which they emerged make for an uncommon organization. Though umbrella organizations are widespread among rebel groups, the “seed groups” tend to (at least partially) dissolve into the central structure within a few years, thereby muddying the rigor of intragroup comparisons. The FMLN is distinct in this regard: the OP-Ms retained their own organizational structures until party formation began in earnest.

On the other hand, the groups that make up the FMLN represent variation on important dimensions that allow the insights from this chapter to travel well beyond El Salvador’s borders. Some were based in urban centers, others in the hinterlands. Some emerged among the intelligentsia, others among a mostly illiterate peasant class. Some forged politically and administratively diverse organizations, others were considerably more homogeneous. Analytically, the unique features of the FMLN case provide both variation and control where they are most needed. As such, the FMLN represents a rare opportunity to conduct comparative process tracing within a single organization.

To situate the analysis, the next section provides the historical and social backdrops to the war (see figure 2.2 for a map of El Salvador’s departments). The historical discussion recounts the increasingly repressive tactics adopted by the Salvadoran state between 1930 and 1980, which provides both the motivation for and obstacles to fomenting a revolution. The social discussion portrays the existing networks and levels of politicization within Salvadoran society. Together, these discussions provide needed context for tracing the social roots of the rebellion and testing theories about how state tactics, resource availability, and prewar networks shape insurgent structures. Leveraging dozens of early internal documents, memoirs, and press releases, I use process tracing to track development of the respective groups comprising the FMLN. I demonstrate both the descriptive and predictive value of the new organizational approach developed in chapter 1.

Backdrop to the Salvadoran Civil War

The dire sociopolitical conditions that eventually culminated in the Salvadoran Civil War have their roots firmly planted in the economy. Throughout its colonial and independent history, El Salvador’s economy has been fueled by a single agricultural export—first it was cocoa, then indigo, then coffee. With the switch to coffee—a much more labor-intensive crop than the others—came a massive demand for agricultural workers. Power was increasingly consolidated in the hands of coffee oligarchs and the government—the Venn diagram of which was essentially a circle. In turn, the elite leveraged draconian land reform policies to restructure Salvadoran society in service of a single goal: maximize coffee production.4 Peasants were bound to coffee plantations through feudal labor institutions and Indigenous communities were broken up and dispersed both to meet labor needs and to forestall the risks of a coordinated uprising.

By the 1920s, the picture of Salvadoran politics was already grim, yet a cascade of events set off by the Great Depression culminated in a military dictatorship that would ultimately set the stage for civil war fifty years down the line. The already radicalizing labor movement became even more militant when the Great Depression cut coffee harvesters’ wages in half.5 Contemporaneously, El Salvador’s first freely elected president quickly garnered resentment on both sides: the labor movement resented the lack of meaningful agricultural reforms; the coffee oligarchs resented his refusal to pander to purveyors of the sole product driving the economy.

As disenfranchised workers began threatening violent insurrection, the military staged a coup—ousting President Arturo Araujo, installing a military government, and cracking down on labor organizations with mass arrests. Undeterred, Farabundo Martí—one of the radical leaders of the Communist Party and the eponym of the FMLN—called for mass uprisings of workers and students across the country on January 22, 1932. Authorities did not merely stamp out the insurrection. The army, the National Guard, and other security forces around the country engaged in a coordinated retaliation so severe that it earned the name La Matanza—the slaughter. Within a few weeks of the uprising, between ten thousand and forty thousand peasants were murdered.6 Indeed, Elisabeth Jean Wood argues that the army only stopped killing at the behest of landlords who “complained that there would be no labor left.”7

Three short years from 1929 to 1932 shaped the country for the next five decades. In the wake of La Matanza, the military dictatorship further consolidated the repressive labor institutions that had emerged prior to the Depression. The state engaged in a rapid expansion of military and paramilitary organizations with the express purpose of “policing the labor forces.”8 To prevent future rebellion, the Communist Party was banned, labor unions were “officially discouraged,” and all peasant organization was outlawed with the sole exception of church gatherings.9

Notwithstanding the relative economic success throughout the 1950s and ’60s, the confluence of multiple events beginning with the 1972 elections contributed to an unprecedented level of unrest in the 1970s that culminated in the creation of the FMLN. At the time, the National Conciliation Party (PCN) dominated politics, but the Christian Democrats had been gaining momentum since the late 1960s. El Salvador’s facade of progressive reforms was abruptly torn down when, after the news media announced José Napoleon Duarte of the Christian Democrats the winner of the presidential election, the military forcibly suspended all press coverage, causing a three-day news blackout. On the fourth day, the media were coerced into broadcasting fabricated election results, which handed the victory to the PCN’s candidate, Arturo Armando Molina. The clear election rigging and cooptation of the news media fed into the stirring urban and rural unrest.

FIGURE 2.2. El Salvador map with departments

The Social Roots of Rebellion

In the aftermath of La Matanza, the Communist Party went underground and maintained a small membership committed to peaceful engagement with Salvadoran politics.10 Beyond that, there were few explicitly political organizations of which to speak. If indeed prewar social networks are the bedrock of rebellion, the government’s proscription of political organizing should have set the stage for failure.11 However, two contemporaneous trends—one urban and one rural—gave rise to a few social bases on which rebellion could flourish. In the cities, professional organizing was occasionally tolerated. Though professional organizations still needed to maintain low profiles, student organizations, labor associations, and teachers’ unions became hotbeds of radicalization throughout the 1960s and ’70s.

Christian Base Communities: Liberation Theology, Literacy, and Campesino Mobilization

In the countryside, radicalization came from an unexpected source. Inspired by the progressive reforms of Vatican II, radical catechists brought liberation theology to the rural masses across Latin America. Both the ideological content and the social implementation of liberation theology laid the foundation for political revolution. In a drastic break from conventional biblical interpretation—namely, that any suffering was the will of God—liberation theology called for the poor to reflect on their situation, study the Bible, and use the Word as the basis for political action to improve their lot.12

This goal was achieved through the construction of Christian base communities (comunidades eclesiales de base, or CEBs). Priests would travel through rural areas and establish communities of between ten and thirty members who would meet for Bible study. Although ordained priests would lead the initial classes, these groups were “encouraged to develop [their] own leadership” by electing lay teachers and lay preachers.13 In the early 1970s, the church set up training centers for the leaders of CEBs in which the newly elected “delegates of the Word” learned skills that would prove vital far beyond the realm of religious life. According to John Hammond, the training program was built around three pillars: (1) biblical study; (2) “national reality,” which examined social and economic structures of El Salvador through a Marxist lens; and (3) “techniques of popular organization,” which focused on how to plan meetings and manage group dynamics.14 In just under a decade, more than fifteen thousand campesinos were trained as community leaders through church programs.15

Yet, as Hammond notes, the emphasis on active participation in studying not only the Bible but also the political and social structures of El Salvador cast a harsh light on the state of literacy in rural areas.16 With literacy rates hovering around 50 percent, teaching the population to read was an essential first step.17 In response to this crisis of literacy, public education became the liturgy of these communities. Both the training of leaders and the public education that took place in the communities was firmly rooted in the Freirean pedagogical tradition, in which learning is achieved through political engagement. Literacy was taught by choosing a variety of words—one for each letter of the alphabet—that had religious, social, or political meaning to the campesinos. While simultaneously learning the letters that composed the word, students were encouraged to reflect on the concept as it pertained to their lives.18 As such, religious activities transformed from a respite from the people’s suffering to a solution for it.

As the social backdrop of the nascent rebellion, it is difficult to overstate the political implications of Christian base communities. For the first time in half a century, CEBs provided a quasi-legal context and a set of strategies for rural political organization. The pedagogical approach employed in the communities aroused a newfound political consciousness among the peasant class centering on education, social justice, and overcoming oppression. Moreover, the process of training “delegates of the Word” gave rise to a contingent of grassroots leaders throughout the country.19 As such, when the FMLN later encountered these communities, the rebels did not have to struggle against a population complacent with the status quo.

The Rise of the Politico-Military Organizations

By 1970, the PCS was experiencing deepening rifts between those committed to reforming Salvadoran politics exclusively through legal, peaceful channels and those who felt the time had come to take up arms against the regime. The decade preceding the war was punctuated by splinter groups fracturing and coalescing across the country, each vying for primacy. The former Communist leader Salvador Cayetano “Marcial” Carpio was the first to go. In 1970, Carpio and a handful of followers broke away to form the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación (FPL). They began clandestinely organizing militias in preparation for waging a prolonged popular war—a strategy imported from the Vietnam model.20 Carpio dubbed the FPL a politico-military organization.21 In an interview with the journalist Marta Harnecker, he elaborated on the concept and how it captures the critical balance between peaceful political work and militarization:

HARNECKER: What do you mean when you say “politico-military organization”?

MARCIAL: [Politico-military means] combining all the means of struggle in which the political work must be complemented by the army. . . . When we proclaimed the organization as “politico-military,” we did so in response to a real need, because there were organizations that refused the military route. . . . [However] by considering ourselves as a politico-military organization, we tried to avoid falling into pure militarism. . . . From the beginning we were clear that the political side is fundamental, it has to lead the war, and the military is subordinate.22

Notwithstanding Carpio’s push to strike political-military balance, which the PCS refused to engage, it was only two years before divisions emerged in the FPL leadership over how best to mount an insurrection against the state. Led by Sebastián Urquilla and Joaquín Villalobos, a growing contingent believed the FPL was focused excessively on political training and mass organization at the expense of what was really needed: militarization. Believing that the state was too weak to require prolonged warfare, this contingent split from the FPL to form the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP) in 1972.23 This split was far from the last. The ERP fractured in 1974, giving rise to the Resistencia Nacional (RN), and then again in 1976, resulting in the Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores Centroamericanos (PRTC). Finally, in 1977, the PCS rethought its peaceful stance following the state’s massive voter-intimidation campaign, which culminated in a public massacre of civilians. In response, the PCS leader Schafik Hándal concluded that armed struggle was a necessity and the group began assembling militias.24 While “OP-M” derives largely from the FPL’s specific approach, it quickly became the standard term used to refer to the five constituent organizations that would make up the FMLN.

Though each group had a clear (and unique) vision of how the insurrection should go, executing any one of their plans in practice—whether rural or urban, quick or prolonged—demanded extensive military training and adequate supplies. The groups spent years competing unsuccessfully for Cuba’s support. Then in 1979, the Sandinistas’ victory against the Samoza regime in Nicaragua simultaneously established precedent for a successful leftist insurrection in Central America and created an opportunity to exploit the supply chain from Cuba to Nicaragua. There was only one problem. While Fidel Castro viewed the Nicaraguan victory as a favorable moment to incite leftist revolutions throughout the region, he insisted that the left in El Salvador would only receive support on the condition that the revolutionary groups form a united front. Not without considerable drama, they agreed. Following a year of fraught negotiations, the five leaders came together in October of 1980 to form an umbrella organization they called the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in honor of the leader and martyr of the 1932 peasant uprising against the government.

Despite pushback from the ERP—whose leaders argued that the FMLN should be a truly unified front—the composite organizations each retained their own ideology, structure, and tactical approach throughout the war.25 Thus, the leaders from each constituent organization together composed the General Command, which in theory (if not always in practice) operated via democratic centralism; and the OP-Ms on the ground continued operating as they had prior to unification.26

Explaining the FMLN’s Structure

How did the FMLN come to be structured the way it did? What accounts for the stark variation across the OP-Ms, and what are the implications within and beyond the war? Drawing on conventional theories of militant groups’ structures and the integrated explanation I lay out in chapter 1, I derive a series of organizational predictions. Though most conventional explanations of rebel group emergence describe the organization as a whole, where possible, I extrapolate to make more nuanced predictions about suborganizational variation in accordance with the new approach and, more importantly, to suit the specifics of this case. For each explanation, I identify the type of evidence needed to support a given account of structure.

Doctrinal Ideology

The broad principles of ideological doctrine seldom translate into clear organizational blueprints. As such, deriving a coherent (let alone complete) argument about how a given ideology dictates a corresponding organizational structure can be a mystifying task. However, if there were ever a situation where the ideology argument should work, Marxist-Leninist organizations would be it. Leninist thought establishes an inextricable link between ideology and organization, citing a vanguard party, propaganda and political education, and peripheral organizations in service of recruitment and mobilization as core organizational priorities.27 Since organization itself is central to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, deriving a set of structural predictions is more straightforward here than for groups espousing other ideologies.28

If ideology is the core determinant of organizational form, groups should build structures to support behaviors advocated by Marxist doctrine: civilian governance, political education, and propaganda. Crucially, given that all the OP-Ms (i.e., the five subgroups composing the FMLN) subscribe to the same overarching doctrine, conventional ideological explanations would lead us to expect structural similarities across the FMLN’s component organizations. Their structures should differ only insofar as the respective OP-Ms have access to different resources (thereby making some subdivisions more difficult to support) or draw on different social networks to feed into the organization (thereby making some subdivisions more difficult to staff). Most broadly, if ideology is driving organizational structure, we should also expect the FMLN’s structure to mirror that of other Marxist-Leninist organizations worldwide.

Structural (State-centric) Explanations

Structural theories attribute militant organizational form to leaders either exploiting or being constrained by the broader context in which they operate.29 Given that each component of the FMLN emerged in the context of the same repressive state apparatus and under similar (if not identical) structural conditions, these accounts of organizational structure suggest the OP-Ms should be organizationally comparable as well. By their nature, structural explanations of militant organizational form will not be especially conducive to explaining why organizations emerging in the same context differ considerably from one another. Nevertheless, the logic can be extended to make some predictions.30

To the extent that the FMLN’s composite groups exhibit differences, they should be functions of emerging in different structural conditions. For example, the FPL and ERP emerged and operated primarily in rural areas, where the state’s reach was considerably weaker than in cities like San Salvador, where the PCS was headquartered. Additionally, differences in terrain, state reach, and even the social networks surrounding the nascent rebellion may likely account for different organizations. However, absent from the literature are fine-grained predictions about how these divergent structural conditions might translate into predictable organizational variation. This omission is reminiscent of the problem with ideology. Namely, it is easy to imagine that different structural conditions might give rise to different organizational forms; it is considerably harder to specify logically (let alone empirically) which organizational dimensions (roles, relations, institutions, or traits) these structural features would affect and how. Michael Horowitz, Evan Perkoski, and Philip B.K. Potter’s theory yields a specific, albeit narrow, prediction. According to their structural theory, we should expect tactical diversification when militant groups face state repression and competition from rival groups.31 Thus, since each OP-M faced competition from four rivals, we should expect tactical diversification across all of the groups.

Resource Endowments

While the resource explanation is not often used to explain suborganizational variation, it too can be amended to make more granular predictions. If resource endowments contribute to opportunistic recruitment profiles and indiscipline, then we should expect these outcomes to manifest in the ERP and the PCS.32 Though the ERP lacked a wealthy social base, Cuba’s preference for the ERP’s strategy and the ERP’s control of supply lines meant that it often had the most resources and the best weapons.33 On the financial front, the PCS led the pack. It had a robust network of international support predating the war—and this wealth was not a secret.34 As Ralph Sprenkels observed, “interviewees often joked that, in lean times, everyone wanted to defect from their own factions and join [the PCS] because [they] were never short of food, medicine, weapons, or ammunition.”35 In contrast, Amelia Hoover Green describes the FPL as “largely bereft of both arms and money [in the early years of the war].”36 Consequently, it should boast more ideologically committed recruits, and thus, greater discipline than the other two factions.

Conventional resource endowment theories focus primarily on material resources and only account for variation in the recruitment profile of militant groups and not the specific structures they build. One could reasonably extend resource explanations to account for the type of structural diversification relevant to the rebel-to-party theory advanced here. Specifically, if building wartime structures dedicated to social service provision, political messaging, and governance better positions rebel groups to take on party-relevant tasks once the war ends, one might expect that the operation and maintenance of these wings is entirely a function of whether groups have the resources available to construct them in the first place. If this hypothesis holds, we should then expect the most pronounced organizational diversification to occur in the OP-Ms with the greatest access to resources, the ERP and the PCS. In contrast, we should expect the FPL and the PRTC to exhibit a sort of organizational sparseness, at least relatively speaking.

Prewar Networks

Finally, if prewar networks explain organizational structure, we should expect structural parallels between OP-Ms cut from the same social cloth. The FPL and ERP are the most obvious contenders to test the full breadth of this theory. Both groups emerged in poor, rural areas of El Salvador: Chalatenango and Morazán, respectively.37 Both coalesced among the CEBs established in the 1960s and ’70s. And for both groups, these communities were not just backdrops to a burgeoning rebellion; rather, they were integral parts of the FPL’s and ERP’s organizational development.38 According to Staniland’s framework, we should expect the FPL and the ERP to exhibit the following structural similarities by virtue of being rooted in similar networks: bureaucratic specialization, standard operating procedures, and coherent ideology.39

Staniland goes on to predict that strong vertical ties with locals will also give rise to an “organizational backbone to govern, provide services, and control the population.”40 In organizational terms, this hypothesis implies that strong (or comparably strong) vertical relations will result in organizations developing similar roles or subdivisions to manage those relations. In other words, this theory posits that the strength of ties can predict organizational content. Since the FPL, ERP, and PRTC emerged with strong ties to local communities, we should observe structures that support governance, social service provision, and local administration.

Integrated Theory of Organizational Emergence

Each factor previously enumerated matters. Even through the lens of the new organizational approach, existing theories are not supplanted; they are made more complete. Rather than dismiss them or even frame them as “rival explanations,” I demonstrate that previous explanations are on the right track with a rickety vehicle.41 The theory I propose in chapter 1 integrates these factors and relates them more directly to the scope of organizational structures relevant to rebel-to-party transformation. Specifically, to understand how organizations change, we must first understand what structures they start with and how they came to be that way.

The outcome I seek to explain is the FMLN’s organizational structure at the point of emergence—with particular attention paid to the diversity and type of noncombat subdivisions.42 As noted in the previous chapter, leaders have more room to make consequential organizational decisions at the nascent stages of rebellion than at later stages when organizations fall into patterns of inertia. Whether they are following an established blueprint for insurgency or formulating a structure from the ground up, the question is the same: what drives and constrains their choices?

Organizational ideology is likely to play two key roles in the FMLN’s organizational genesis. First, splits will fall along organizational-ideological lines; groups will fracture and coalesce around different views of “how to get the job done.” Second, organizational ideology, in turn, will shape structures both directly, as leaders rely on those principles to determine what form their organization should take, and indirectly, by conditioning how resources and social networks are incorporated into the organization as it coalesces. Groups whose foundational principles emphasize political work and mass engagement will likely construct more numerous—and more extensive—political and administrative wings outside of the combat domain. In contrast, groups that coalesced around principles emphasizing the central role of militancy will likely build noncombat structures only to the extent that they directly serve the combat apparatus.

Confirming this mechanism is not without challenges. In the first place, attributing any organizational outcome to this concept demands evidence that organizational ideology is conceptually valid. In practice, this means finding evidence that leaders are intentionally adapting doctrine into organizational guidelines and then finding evidence that they are making organizational decisions in accordance with those principles. Otherwise, wartime structures may still be incidental outcomes of some antecedent condition that better explains both structure and, eventually, transformation. Table 2.1 summarizes the organizational predictions for the FMLN’s structure, disaggregated by theory.

TABLE 2.1. FMLN organizational expectations by theory

Organizational Analysis of the FMLN

Using comparative process tracing, we can now track the FMLN’s organizational evolution from its initial fractures to its postinsurrection structure(s). The objective is twofold: to test the predictions derived from the various theories of organizational emergence and to acquaint the reader with the structural nuances across the FMLN’s constituent parts. While I touch on all five OP-Ms, the analysis focuses most extensively on the FPL, the ERP, and the PRTC to optimize across meaningful variation and tractability. The FPL and ERP were the two largest organizations composing the FMLN. They split and armed earlier than the others and, as a result, they were central players in the negotiations to unify. Moreover, they stemmed from similar—if not identical—social bases, held comparable territories throughout the war, and faced similar amounts of state violence. At the outset, their only detectable difference was in how they wanted to get the job done. The PRTC, in contrast, was the smallest of the OP-Ms. It formed late and joined the negotiations even later—so much so that it cost the PRTC any real say in the future of the revolutionary left.43 To situate the analysis, the section begins by elaborating on the organizational ideologies, structural context, prewar networks, and resources of each group.

Since the core of the argument hinges on whether organizational ideology is conceptually (and empirically) valid, let us begin there. Evidence from the ground is conclusive. Marxist-Leninist doctrine guided the rebellion, yet each OP-M articulated a different interpretation and cleaved to (and rejected) different principles. The salience of organizational-ideological distinctions is evident even in how leaders discuss their organizations. One of the few areas in which Carpio (FPL) and Villalobos (ERP) agree is in their outright rejection of the idea that a doctrine as broad as Marxism-Leninism is sufficient to determine the organization’s approach or structure. Indeed, Carpio even calls Marxism-Leninism the “common trunk” from which the PCS and the FPL emerged—careful to note that where they differ is in how they “interpret and apply it to the Salvadoran condition.”44 Similarly, when asked how the FMLN defined its core ideology, Villalobos responded, “Within the FMLN and the FDR, there are many different doctrines.”45 In a written account of the FPL’s origins, the Central Command makes a nearly watertight case against equating broad dogma with specific outcomes.46 “Dogmatism is a false application of Marxism-Leninism, with static, dead, mechanistic methods that kill its creative spirit, turning it not into a guide to action, but a vast repetition of formulas that try to be applied to a reality.”47

Even Carpio, the most ardent Marxist, rejects the notion that Marxism can be adopted whole cloth:48

“[We are] clear that Marxism is . . . a scientific instrument for the interpretation of reality that permits us to find the most correct solutions and proposals for each situation.”49

The PRTC commander “Roberto Roca” further reifies organizational ideology when he speaks of the movement as a whole: “We want democracy and stability and we’ll want help from abroad. We’re an expression of . . . pluralism [the broad spectrum of Marxist and democratic views represented in the opposition]. Our new society cannot be built under the domination of one political force.”50

At one point or another, each group stresses that Marxist doctrine works only when it is adapted to the Salvadoran context. Each organizational ideology, in turn, has clear structural implications.

Through the FPL’s lens, Marxist-Leninist ideology clearly points to a prolonged popular war firmly rooted in the masses. The FPL sought to “establish the infrastructure of resistance” among the population, which Carpio viewed as essential to waging a successful revolution.51 Crucially, this argument is not merely rhetorical; FPL leaders argued explicitly that the organization must reflect this priority: “No revolutionary movement seeking the liberation of the people can do so without developing an adequate structure that allows the widest participation of the masses in the war.”52

Of course, seeking mass support is not unique. Local support is regarded as indispensable to any successful rebellion for everything from material provisions to recruitment to discretion.53 Beyond these critical roles, the FPL regarded the masses as “much more than just logistical support.”54 They were considered extensions of the movement—players whose organization, education, and politicization was a defining feature of the struggle. FPL leaders spoke early and often of this priority.55

Finally, the FPL’s organizational ideology casts the revolution as a multidimensional fight: they consistently emphasized the importance of “incorporating the people into the diverse tasks of the war: education, ideological training, political messaging, diplomacy.”56 This call is as much a prescription for organizational structure as it is an articulation of the group’s priorities. Carrying out any of these tasks in practice demands an organizational structure that reflects its ideals.

The founding documents of the ERP tell a very different story. Crucially, the ERP’s leaders were also staunch adherents of Marxist-Leninist thought.57 Despite their comparable commitment to a socialist revolution, the group’s organizational ideology differed markedly from its counterparts and had direct implications for its structure. In a stark contrast to the FPL’s stance that militarism should be subordinate to political work, the ERP wrote that “the seizure of power through arms, the resolution of the problem through war . . . is the highest expression of the revolution.”58 Indeed, the front cover of the ERP’s first printed call to action features Mao Zedong’s slogan: Power is born of the rifle.

The primacy placed on military action abounds in the ERP’s writing: “Freedom is not requested, it is conquered with weapons in hand,” “without a revolutionary army, the people will have nothing,” and “only with the power of arms can the working class defeat the armed bourgeoisie.”59 However, it would be wrong to assume that the ERP was a hypermilitant force devoid of principles. The ERP was built on a cohesive set of principles encompassed by the foquismo theory of revolution, and the organization was structured accordingly.60 The principles shaping its organizational and strategic approach were based on two core beliefs. First, the ERP leaders believed the people were sufficiently aggrieved that as long as they knew of revolutionary action, they would join it.61 Second, the leaders were convinced that the state was too weak to defend itself. As such, the ERP leaders felt that time spent organizing the masses was wasteful; to them, popular uprising was an inevitability. To the extent that they viewed mass organizing as a good use of time and resources, it was only “as a means of gaining new recruits.”62 As Hugh Byrne notes, the ERP “put less emphasis on developing an independent peasant movement and more upon harnessing the grievances of the peasantry into military action.”63 This view of revolution paves the way for a more homogeneous organizational structure that prioritizes expansion of the armed forces.

The PRTC’s organizational ideology is evident from the moment it broke with the ERP. In a document recounting the origins and history of the PRTC, Nidia Díaz (one of the group’s founders) attributes the split directly to disagreements over how the war should be fought and how the organization should be structured to reflect its ideological orientation.64 The PRTC’s approach was much closer to that of the FPL: its members, too, expressed frustration with the ERP’s sole focus on militancy.65 They viewed the armed struggle as necessary, but not primary. Echoing Carl von Clausewitz, Díaz writes, “The point is that armed struggle is a way to carry out the political struggle. It is to do politics through weapons because you were excluded from engaging in an unarmed political fight.”66

The PRTC heavily emphasized the importance of coordinating and interfacing with the masses. To achieve this goal, the group placed organization and political education front and center—both within and beyond its ranks. The primacy of political, educational, and mass work permeates its writing and is evident in how PRTC members think and talk about the organization.67 The notable distinction in the PRTC’s interpretation of the struggle was its commitment to a pan–Central American revolution, which had distinct organizational implications down the line.

Before examining how the groups’ respective ideological tendencies shape their organizations, we must first consider their contexts and the social bases in which they emerge. Following Staniland’s logic, I account for the nucleus of each OP-M as well as the local social base in which each is embedded.68 Similarly, I expect that an organization’s underlying social networks will shape the efficacy of command-and-control structures (e.g., communication, discipline, and hierarchy). Illuminated by the new organizational approach, however, I also expect that social networks—filtered through a group’s organizational ideology—will shape the content of the organization: the roles and subdivisions within the group and the type and extent of interactions beyond the group’s bounds.

At the top, the FPL, ERP, and PRTC had similar origins. The FPL’s leadership primarily comprised activists from the labor movement and educational sectors. Many professors rose to prominence within the movement, including one of the founders of ANDES—a radical teachers union that maintained close ties with (and often fed into) the FPL and the PRTC throughout the war.69 The PRTC, likewise, originated among radical teacher and student unions. Perhaps surprisingly, the initial nucleus of the ERP looked quite similar. The ERP’s core was also deeply rooted in revolutionary teacher and student organizations, the labor movement, and peasant cooperatives as well as artists and poets.

The social bases of the FPL and ERP were even more similar—differing most notably in their locations.70 The FPL was primarily based among the campesinos of rural Chalatenango, a department in northern El Salvador. The ERP was headquartered in rural Morazán, a department in the east. Both departments were among the poorest in the country; both are quite rural and were populated largely by agricultural workers and their families. Both departments also suffered tremendous violence at the hands of the state.71 As such, the broader structural conditions of their organizations were similar as well. Furthermore, in spite of the strict proscriptions on public organizing, CEBs flourished in both areas.72 Thus, both the FPL and ERP were forged among politicized social bases with some experience in leadership and popular organization. And CEBs would come to play integral roles in both organizations.73

Before moving on, a brief detour is in order. Specifically, the incorporation of these networks occupies an interesting place at the intersection of organizational ideology and social networks that should not be taken as given. CEBs pose a notable explanatory challenge as the social foundation of a Marxist rebellion.74 If, indeed, a strict adherence to doctrine were the guiding force in determining organizational structure, then we should expect staunch Marxists to balk at the incorporation of religious networks. Alternately, if the organizations’ ideological principles trump their guiding doctrine, then both the FPL and the ERP should embrace these networks, but they should do so in very different ways. The FPL takes up this question explicitly in a document articulating how its organizational ideology shapes it structure:

Our revolutionary work is directed against the enemy of the people, it is not aimed at undermining religion. [Our] experience in this area indicates that religious activity and revolutionary activity can be fruitfully combined in the interests of the people. . . . The FPL accepts in its ranks every honest revolutionary who consciously subscribes to our strategy and politics as well as our organizational and disciplinary guidelines, provided their religious practices do not pose an obstacle.75

Where the groups did ultimately diverge was in their resource access—both in material goods and manpower. In terms of size, all estimates place the FPL and ERP at relative parity. Each had somewhere between three thousand and four thousand armed members during the war.76 The PRTC, in contrast, was the smallest OP-M, with an armed membership hovering between five hundred and seven hundred.77 The groups split differently on the material front. While the FPL, ERP, and PRTC emerged as relatively resource poor, Cuba’s (eventual) decision to favor the ERP’s strategic approach resulted in a notable resource disparity between the ERP and the others throughout the war. Recall that the FPL was notoriously resource-poor.78 And as the PRTC glibly noted of themselves, their early cadres were “lacking shoes, but had great morale.”79 The disparities were sufficiently severe that the ERP allegedly exploited them to try to recruit members from other OP-Ms with the promise of more goods and better weapons.80

Similar Origins, Divergent Paths: The FPL and the ERP

The FPL and ERP exhibit notable parallels in their prewar networks and the populations among which they emerged. According to some theories, these parallels would lead us to expect similarly structured organizations—at least on the dimensions we are equipped to evaluate.81 We should expect effective command-and-control structures, high levels of discipline, cohesion among the leadership as well as the rank-and-file, and strong vertical ties to local populations.82 Even their membership profiles should look similar, given the tools we have to describe them: since neither group was especially well endowed (at least until Cuba came into the picture) we should expect early members to be ideologues rather than opportunists.83 Conventional organizational tools point only to two areas in which we might observe differences: (1) in the size and tactics of their military units, and (2) in their combat resources, since the ERP eventually came to occupy a privileged role vis-à-vis Cuba’s supply lines. To be sure, this is exactly what we find. By the late 1970s, the FPL and ERP are cohesive and disciplined, and both have forged strong ties to populations in their respective areas.84

However, these traits paint a picture that is both accurate and misleading. While the FPL and ERP were similar on these dimensions, they diverged sharply on others. If my theory holds, their distinct organizational ideologies should lead the FPL and the ERP to use the same resources to build very different organizations. Given the value that the FPL placed on “the political side of the fight” combined with its prewar roots in the education and union sectors, I expect this group to build robust subdivisions dedicated to political education and political messaging. Moreover, the members’ staunch commitment to grounding the revolution in mass organization suggests that we should observe a deeply embedded organization with social outreach structures and high overlap between the networks composing its social base and the (related) subdivisions of the organization. In contrast, the primacy placed on spectacular displays of military force should lead the ERP to forge a much more homogeneous structure with more utilitarian relations between the organization and its surrounding communities. The divergence tracks in lockstep with my expectations.

If organizational ideology shapes role diversification the way I anticipate, the leaders’ heavy emphasis on diverse political and mass work should be reflected in the FPL’s structures. Far from just talking the talk, the FPL’s internal documents are filled with concrete organizational tasks to this end, all of which (eventually) came to fruition on the ground. FPL leaders immediately documented the need to create the internal structures necessary to coordinate what they call “the diverse tasks of war,” including “the [urgent] need for propaganda, finances, and education.”85 “The organizational structure was being created from the top down because the base was not yet defined. We saw the need for [our] Central Committee to create national commissions and rely on them to coordinate the different aspects of work: a Mass Commission, Military, Relations, Organization, Propaganda, Education, Finance, etc.”86

To wit, they emphasized seven organizational tasks that had to come before fighting: “organizing the workers, creating unity among labor unions, organizing the peasantry, creating a peasant-worker alliance, organizing different popular sectors, creating the necessary political vehicles to incorporate the popular sectors, and strengthening clandestine organizing.”87 Indeed, the process of constructing the FPL followed this directive so closely that it actually caused rifts severe enough that dissenters eventually split off to form the ERP.

The process of building up the organizational base followed suit. This trend is evident in both the FPL’s recruitment strategies and the brokerage structures it built to link the rebellion with popular organizations. Even from the beginning, recruitment efforts prioritized skilled personnel who could be promoted to political and organizational work. This emphasis is explicitly laid out in documents recounting the FPL’s organizational formation, as the following quote illustrates:

“Each of the five members of the Central Command was forced to find 15 collaborators as a cover to be able to eat, sleep, etc. Among these 75 collaborators, the most advanced would be promoted to do political work. So the command grew, and we gave them the name ‘Support Groups.’ Their role was to take charge of the political work[;] . . . they were not just logistical support.”88 Beyond the top-down recruitment tactics, even the FPL’s intake forms illustrate the extent to which political aptitude was prized above almost all else. Following basic demographic questions, the next section was titled “Political, Ideological, and Military Level,” in which recruits were asked to explain their knowledge of the FPL’s political-military line and their knowledge of Marxism-Leninism.89 They inquired about recruits’ prior military experience as well, but the emphasis on vetting recruits based on their education levels, political knowledge, and skill sets provides clear evidence that the FPL was looking to staff subdivisions beyond its combat wings.

To broker relationships beyond the FPL’s membership, leaders built “political structures of the masses” to coordinate, provide services to, and conduct political-ideological training among the local population, even prior to the war.90 They also constructed a mass organization, the Popular Revolutionary Bloc (BPR), which helped coordinate action between their affiliated student and labor groups and the clandestine side of the rebellion.91 The composition of the BPR mirrored that of its leadership: labor unions, revolutionary teacher and student organizations, as well as agricultural cooperatives and a popular culture group.

Finally, the FPL’s value of organizational diversification is evident even in how the group sees its armed forces, as the FPL leader Leonel González illustrates. In discussing the importance of mass mobilization, González says, “[Our plan is to] . . . make each one of our combatants an organizer of the people.”92 They also built structures dedicated to political education within the organization to promote discipline and ensure members understood their role. Consider, for example, how Carpio characterized a military cell—the unit that we would assume would have the most clear task and narrow scope:

“What role does a cell have? To study and control militancy. But this is only part of their work. If a cell does not enhance the political-ideological knowledge of its members, then it has no purpose. The cells exist fundamentally to carry the Party line to the masses, to organize and guide them.”93 As Jenny Pearce notes, they viewed their territory within the same framework:

The FPL had never seen the zones of control as mere military rear-guards. Rather they saw them within a broader framework of political mobilization, and as a means by which the civilian population could guarantee their needs and organize their society independent of the military command of the FPL. . . . They contrasted their view with the situation in territory controlled by the ERP, where the [local popular organizing] tended to be a means of mobilizing people for the war effort rather than for political preparation.94

Thus, in the run-up to the insurrection, the FPL built an organization that reflected its view of what revolution is. It is, of course, worth noting that many of the organizational structures the FPL planned prior to the war were not fully developed until shortly after the 1981 insurrection. For example, the group’s early attempts to create mass literacy and educational structures were ad hoc and inefficient—though eventually the FPL would go on to build a robust educational apparatus and local governance structures.95 Nevertheless, its codified plans to diversify into a wide scope of social, political, and administrative domains give rise to clear organizational predictions that manifest in its wartime structure.

The ERP’s ideology yields a very different set of organizational expectations. Two priorities suffuse the group’s writing: militancy and communication, where the latter exists primarily in service of the former.96 Thus, we should expect a strong and expansive combat division, and any structural diversification beyond that should focus on logistics and communication. Unsurprisingly, the ERP dedicated most of its resources to building and training its army. As James Dunkerley notes, the ERP limited its work throughout the 1970s to perfecting its military capacity, “in which it far outstripped the other groups.”97

Notwithstanding their laser focus on militancy, ERP leaders understood that recruits are won rather than born. They just thought winning would be easy. A guiding premise of ERP operations was that the public was sufficiently aggrieved that merely learning about antigovernment action would be enough to galvanize them. All they needed was information. ERP graffiti from the era neatly captures this sentiment: Estar desinformado es como estar desarmado (to be uninformed is to be unarmed).98 Thus, complementing the ERP’s emphasis on assembling combat units was an explicit call for a robust communications apparatus to coordinate action.99 There was just one hitch: the rebels had no way to get the word out. The media blackout following the 1972 elections culminated in lasting and rigid control over all media outlets.100 El Salvador had no free press to speak of, journalists were routinely targeted by the regime, and the penalty for distributing antigovernment literature was often death on the spot.101

Two external challenges shaped the form a communication wing would take: First, the regime’s draconian control over print media meant that even if they could efficiently produce written material, the people would be unlikely to take it. Second, even if they could print and distribute their message, nearly half of the population couldn’t read.102 Their solution was beyond ambitious: to create a mobile radio station in under a month with the broadcast strength to reach the capital. What followed is a prime example of how state-centric (structural) features shape organizational structures in critical ways beyond what Horowitz, Perkoski and Potter predict.103 José López Vigil’s memoirs speaks directly to the interplay between repression and organizational composition:

“The repression was brutal. Print media was no longer effective. If you had a leaflet in your bag, it could cost you your life. Was it worth risking the lives of those handing leaflets out, to say nothing of those accepting them? Maybe that’s why the idea of a radio station took root—they can’t frisk you for a voice.”104

From both an organizational and logistical standpoint, any one component of this plan was quixotic: Only shortwave radios were legal, which meant they needed to find one, find a technician capable of converting it into an AM transmitter, hire the staff to run and maintain the station, and make the whole operation mobile. Nevertheless, in just thirteen days, ERP members stole a sixty-pound shortwave radio; recruited Toño, an electrical engineer who managed to convert “The Viking” into an AM transmitter; and found Carlos Henríque Consalvi (a.k.a. “Santiago”), a journalist who would host the radio’s programming and eventually become “the most recognizable voice in El Salvador.”105

Thus was born ¡Radio Venceremos!—not just a radio station, but a subdivision of the ERP that managed to broadcast twice a day for the entire twelve years of the civil war. Furthermore, the ¡Radio Venceremos! subdivision would eventually expand to include a host of publications, including books, newspapers, and pamphlets.106 The logistics of maintaining this operation were enormous: they needed staff, writers, technicians, and, crucially, protection, as they were one of the most sought-after targets of the Salvadoran army.107

Beyond (and even including) the organizational and operational feat that was ¡Radio Venceremos!, diversification outside the combat realm was always subordinate to the ERP’s army. Even ¡Radio Venceremos! was viewed primarily as a logistical tool. It was a way to convey information (rather than ideology) and to coordinate action among the movement and the masses. As Villalobos notes in an interview, “The role of ¡Radio Venceremos! is precisely to break the [state’s] information blockade, to allow other information to be available.”108 Further, the one-time ERP member Francisco Jovel recalled how the leadership eschewed ideological discussion: “People [inside the ERP] really looked down on those who were interested in the theoretical and intellectual training of guerrillas.”109 Beyond core logistical tasks like financing and distribution, ¡Radio Venceremos! was the ERP’s most extensive diversification move.

Zooming out, the origin story of ¡Radio Venceremos! highlights how macro-structural features (like state repression) are filtered through organizational ideology (the critical role of communication) to shape the group’s decisions. As López Vigil’s evocative quote illustrates, the regime’s particular brand of repression and El Salvador’s systemic illiteracy together explain why the ERP opted to build a radio station over other, simpler forms of communication. The takeaway is that structural and contextual idiosyncrasies can incite different types of diversification—but to find them, we need a model of organizations that acknowledges variation beyond the combat realm.

Turning back to the ERP’s organizational trajectory, I examine how its prewar connections to CEBs figured into the group. In contrast to vast governance structures the FPL planned and (eventually) built to interface with local populations, the ERP took a staunchly utilitarian approach to the masses.110 Despite being similarly situated among CEBs, the ERP leadership saw these networks as important, but only as a pool of viable resources. When asked why having influence over the masses was necessary, Villalobos replied predictably: “Because we depend on them. Without the masses, we in the rearguard would not have had the greatest opportunity—lacking both human reserves and supplies.”111 Those who would later leave the organization characterized the ERP’s view of the masses in an even grimmer light, arguing that the ERP was “building an armed apparatus detached from the mass struggle,” which was “an erroneous position” that made it possible to cultivate not only “sensationalist actions” but also “contempt for the masses, the mass struggle, and political work.”112 The extent to which the ERP did build administrative structures to coordinate local populations was to form People’s Military Committees, which functioned exclusively as a training and recruitment apparatus.113

Finally, unlike the other OP-Ms, each of which were quick to build an affiliated popular organization, the ERP remained indifferent to mass political mobilization. Though initially it affiliated with the United Popular Action Front (FAPU), the ERP’s militaristic approach “lost peasant support” and FAPU eventually broke ties with it.114 Unsurprisingly, given its priorities, the ERP remained reluctant to build another mass front for some years.115 As Tommie Sue Montgomery notes, when the ERP finally did build one in 1978 (the Ligas-Populares 28 de Febrero, or LP-28), it was “the result of a belated recognition by the ERP that if it did not, it was going to be left in the dust by the FPL and the RN.”116 Predictably, and despite primarily comprising faculty and students from the University of El Salvador, the LP-28 had the “least developed political program.”117 It was used to “capitalize on the social influence developed by the guerrillas [throughout their strongholds]” through militia teams, which eventually “fused with the ERP” to establish its stronghold in Morazán.118

Reminiscent of adages about hammers and nails, the ERP-FPL comparison illustrates how organizational-ideological differences shape how leaders view local communities, resources, and the state context in which they emerge. Organizational ideology is a frame, a lens through which leaders see the world. While frames can complement and call attention to important features of a picture, they are also borders—forcing other features out of bounds. Leaders will see the world through the tints and distortions of their principles. In practice, this means two leaders can look at the same world, see very different opportunities, and, in turn, build very different organizations—which is exactly what we find.

As the smallest of the OP-Ms, the PRTC is a useful counterpoint to test the other side of the organizational resources hypothesis.119 Namely, one might reasonably assume that structural diversification is a by-product of size.120 After all—just statistically—the more people you have, the more skills you likely have access to. In turn, once these skills exist within the organization, corresponding subdivisions may coalesce organically around them. Were that the case, however, we would expect very different trajectories from both the ERP and the PRTC: of all the organizations, the ERP should be the most organizationally diverse, the PRTC should be the least so. Additionally, the PRTC lacked the territorial stronghold of its larger counterparts. The absence of a rearguard matters because many scholars view rebel-held territory as a necessary condition for activities like rebel governance (and thus, the building of governance and administrative structures).121

Yet the PRTC, despite being poorer and less than one-fifth the size of the ERP, boasted a highly diverse structure across what will prove to be some of the most salient organizational domains for this study.122 In spite of the factors stacked against them, members of the PRTC built an organization that clearly reflected the organizational ideology articulated previously. Initially, their international organization spanned Costa Rica, Honduras, and El Salvador with Zonal Directorates in each of the countries.123 By 1980 their Salvadoran contingent also comprised the Adan Diaz political-ideological school and the Humberto Mendoza military school to train new recruits.124 The primacy of political, educational, and mass work permeates the PRTC’s writing and is evident in how PRTC members think and talk about the organization—in addition to how they built it.125 Throughout Díaz’s field diaries, for example, the cadres and subdivisions dedicated to peaceful political work take clear primacy over the military when she depicts the organization’s structure (see figure 2.3).126

The PRTC’s priorities are as evident in the structures they built as they are in the recruitment strategies they employed to fill those structures. Figure 2.4 depicts a redacted control sheet for people enlisting in the PRTC.127 Reminiscent of the FPL’s intake forms, the content and order of the questions is revealing. Following basic demographic data, the forms immediately ask whether a candidate can read and write and what grade of school they completed. They ask for express justification for joining the PRTC (and what, if anything, prompted the recruit to leave a different OP-M). Finally, they ask whether the recruit has undergone political or military training. These questions demonstrate a clear interest in the scope of skills potential members bring to the table. And the leaders confirm this inference from the top. In a document outlining the plan for political expansion of the PRTC, Díaz expressly calls for the organization to “prioritize those with skills as propagandists and political organizers.”128

FIGURE 2.3. PRTC organizational documents. Wartime Diary, Nidia Díaz Papers, box 1, folder 6, Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Ultimately, if wartime organizational structures were governed solely by resources or the structural conditions under which the group operates, we would not find this level of diversification among the group with fewest resources. Yet, the PRTC eventually built a mass organization, it set up administrative councils to interface with and govern local populations, and it built and ran schools during the war.

The Remaining OP-Ms

The FPL, ERP, and PRTC were just three of the five politico-military organizations that made up the FMLN. Beyond them, the RN and the PCS also boast unique organizational ideologies and distinct social bases, and they built corresponding structures and affiliated mass organizations. Here, I briefly recount the emergence of the other two groups and the process of building the FMLN to contextualize the case.

FIGURE 2.4. PRTC organizational documents. PRTC Recruitment Cards, Nidia Díaz Papers, box 1, folder 2, Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Like the PRTC, the Resistencia Nacional also originated as a faction within the ERP. At the top, the ERP’s founding nucleus was quite diverse, comprising individuals from the educational sector, organized labor, and the arts. While this diversity could have evolved into an organizational asset, the group was beset by the same brand of ideological fissures that characterized earlier splits. Hardliners were committed to prioritizing military action above all else; others felt political engagement should occupy a more central role.129 Worse yet, these ideological divisions fell along organizational faults corresponding to the lines between different groups composing their core.

As former ERP members recounted, “In light of the predominance of the militaristic organizational bent, finding the right political path became difficult. At the level of the leadership, there was a concern for mass work and internal political life only in theory, but the very structure and the organizational focus on building the armed apparatus prevented any practical steps from being dedicated to this concern.”130

Members of the faction that eventually became the RN consistently wrote of “impasses” at the leadership level and “clashes between the theoretical level” (which acknowledged the salience of political work) and “the practical” (which focused almost exclusively on building “militaristic cliques”).131 These divisions culminated in the entrapment and murder of the poet and prominent ERP member Roque Dalton.132

Fearing for their lives after Dalton’s assassination and still discontented with the narrow focus on grandiose military action, the more politically-oriented faction broke away in 1974 to form the RN. The RN emphasized a mass orientation, which manifested organizationally as structures dedicated to organizing local populations, forging strong alliances with labor associations, and of course, formally affiliating with the United Popular Action Front—the mass organization that earlier broke ties with the ERP.133

The RN’s emphasis on a political-ideological orientation in service of combating fascism manifested in predictable organizational ways. It emphasized bottom-up work, which the group fostered by building political schools.134 It also built a robust propaganda wing, which Montgomery notes, “acquired a reputation for incisive analysis of the Salvadoran reality” and “had a profound impact” on the FMLN’s ability to develop a “unified political program by 1980.”135

Finally, the government’s ever-growing corruption and militarization ramped up to the point that the PCS, the Communist Party, could no longer ignore it. The ruling party enlisted the help of the Democratic Nationalist Organization (ORDEN) (a state-controlled paramilitary organization) to engage in a massive voter-intimidation campaign ahead of the 1977 elections. When people gathered in San Salvador to protest the fraudulent elections, ORDEN alongside state security forces indiscriminately opened fire on the crowd. In response to the massacre, the PCS concluded that armed struggle was a necessity.136 It began assembling militias, which eventually coalesced into an armed wing, the Forces Armadas de Liberación (FAL).137

Given their established dedication to peaceful political engagement, the PCS formed and maintained robust subdivisions dedicated to political messaging and international diplomacy. It viewed both the military and sociopolitical sides of the struggle as crucial and interdependent. As the PCS leader Schafik Jorge Hándal noted in an interview, “Of course, the armed path to revolution does not exclude the struggle to implement socio-economic reforms. This fight plays an important role both in the political education of the masses and in the effort to broaden the range of allies in the democratic anti-imperialist struggle.”138

The long-standing PCS presence in San Salvador meant that its inclusion in the FMLN brought a wealth of urban support networks built around the Communist Party. Crucially, since the PCS has been in existence since the 1930s, these networks were well established. Yet, the most important support networks that the PCS contributed to the FMLN were not those at home, but abroad. The PCS had a catalog of international contacts that exceeded those of the Salvadoran state, which proved crucial to the FMLN’s ability to secure funding and resources throughout the war.139 It was through the PCS’s contacts with the socialist world that the soon-to-be Political-Diplomatic Commission (CPD) would be able to travel to and station official representatives in nearly three dozen countries.

A More Comprehensive Model of Rebel Organizations

Absent the organizational approach derived in chapter 1, the FMLN’s structure would remain analytically intractable. The analysis in this chapter reveals that conventional approaches are problematic on two dimensions. First, alternative theories of militant group structures rarely yield predictions that pan out on the ground. Ideological, structural, and prewar network theories all lead us to expect structural similarities where instead we find difference. And on the flip side, resource-based explanations predict differences where instead we find similarities.

Second, these explanations were not developed in the context of a comprehensive organizational approach. As such, each factor is tied only to some features of organizational structure, but not others—and never the same parts. While certain variables may explain the strength of disciplinary institutions, the strength of ties to local populations, or differences in tactical approaches, none can (nor do any purport to) explain the content and diversification of militant organizational structures.140 Examined through a more complete organizational lens, it is clear that attributing wartime structure to any single antecedent condition is naive, if not impossible.

As it is conventionally understood, ideology performs poorly in accounting for many aspects of rebel groups’ structures. To be sure, we find some structural similarities between the FMLN and other Marxist-Leninist organizations, such as a Vanguard Party (i.e., a mass political front) and comparable bureaucratic structures promoting democratic centralism. However, these similarities mask an even greater wealth of differences. Even if we were to only stick with the structures ideology purports to explain, the five OP-Ms vary considerably in their respective emphases on building mass fronts. So, even the theoretical commitment to Vanguardism is not uniform.141 More broadly, the FMLN’s structure was unique from other Marxist-Leninist rebels in ways for which ideology cannot account. A core problem is that ideological explanations do not account for the full scope of organizational features—nor do they account for the most important, at least for this study.142

The groups vary widely in their levels of diversification, their engagement with the masses, and the extent to which they prioritize noncombat work as part of the struggle. Even where ideological predictions appear to map onto structure—giving rise to structural similarities between the groups—the respective internal narratives suggest an alternate mechanism is in play. While both the FPL and the ERP established radio stations, which grew into broader propaganda wings, the FPL viewed its propaganda apparatus as a tool of political education and liberation, whereas ERP leaders saw ¡Radio Venceremos! primarily as a tool of mobilization and strategic communication in service of the fight. Ultimately, organizational ideology (as it is conceptualized here) accounts for the salient differences across the groups.

Structural explanations alone also fall short of accounting for organizational nuance. In this chapter, I enumerated three theories that make organizational predictions based on structural or state-level features. Attributes of the state or regime cannot account for any differences across OP-Ms, since they emerged in the same context. Alternately, theories attributing differences to urban versus rural emergence would lead us to expect the most similarities among the groups with the most stark differences: the FPL and the ERP. Finally, I find some support for the last structural explanation—that intergroup competition will incentivize diversification—but not where the authors would expect (namely, in military tactics). Specifically, we observe an important extension of this logic in the ERP’s acquiescence to building a mass front. Thus, rather than intergroup competition leading to tactical diversification, the same logic plays out in a different domain. Acknowledging that the other OP-Ms were at an advantage—if only in their pools of viable recruits—the ERP built the LP-28 to keep up.143 While this theory does not account for the full scope of organizational differences, evaluating it through an organizational approach demonstrates that it has more explanatory power than even the original authors may conclude. Critical to arriving at that insight, however, is a more comprehensive model of rebel organizations.

Organizational theories about resource endowments use groups’ wealth to make predictions about their recruitment profiles, which in turn are posited to shape patterns of violence.144 Since the FMLN allowed each group to maintain its own funding structures (as well as its own recruitment tactics) and wealth varied considerably from one OP-M to the next, this case again presents an ideal opportunity to test this theory.145 However, I find no convincing evidence in support of this explanation. As Hoover Green observes, the groups composing the FMLN were highly disciplined across the board.146 Moreover, Wood argues that the most salient material resource that could be provided during the war—land—was not a selective benefit.147 As such, one only had to provide “minimum support” to the rebellion to make free riding an option.148 This insight cuts off resource endowment theories at the source: material benefits are not even sufficient to explain participation in rebellion, let alone the organizational features purported to follow later.

Finally, evidence from the rebellion supports some of the predictions deriving from prewar network theories. Groups that emerged among similar social bases do exhibit similarities in their levels of cohesion, their articulation of a coherent ideology, their ties to local communities, and many of their bureaucratic procedures.149 However, the logic does not reliably extend to predicting other parts of organizational structure. If, as Staniland argues, robust ties to local communities “make it possible to quickly establish institutions for local control” and “make it possible for leaders to share their ideology . . . [by] facilitating political education,” we should have observed similarities in organizational form among groups with similar goals embedded in similar networks.150

The FPL and ERP were the ideal test cases. Since they were cut from essentially the same cloth and deeply embedded among the same types of communities, we should have found the most structural similarities in popular organizing, local administration, and political education. The evidence, however, reveals a sharp divergence even in their initial structures on these dimensions. From early in their organizational life, the FPL built precisely the types of structures we would expect from this hypothesis. The ERP, in contrast, eschewed them. Thus, while I do find support for the hypothesis that prewar networks influence organizational structure, the new framework provides the analytic nuance to specify with greater precision the traits that social networks can and can’t shape.

The deep dive into the formation of the FPL, ERP, and PRTC reveals how much variation we overlook when our understanding of militant organizations is limited to the arrangement and composition of their combat units and the tactical approaches they use. This comparison also reveals why “political wing” is a blunt conceptual tool. By definition, each of the politico-military organizations had political wings (a term they themselves used); however, the content, breadth, and prioritization of those political wings differed considerably from one OP-M to the next. The new organizational framework allows us to make more accurate predictions about the FMLN’s emergence and more nuanced descriptions of its structure and traits in the run-up to the civil war.

Epilogue: The Run-Up to War

From December of 1979 to May of 1980, leaders from the five organizations met in Havana to negotiate the terms of unification. Notwithstanding various walkouts and noticeable absences (usually by one of the RN or the ERP), the meetings led to a successful unification on May 22, 1980.151 They formed a five-man General Command, comprising the leader from each of the OP-Ms, and each group came together under the umbrella they called the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front to honor Farabundo Martí, the leader and martyr of the 1931 peasant uprising. Crucially, however, the OP-Ms did not dissolve into a united front. Each retained its own organizational structure, its own tactical approach, and its own finances.152 Additionally, as the OP-Ms came together under the FMLN umbrella, their affiliated mass fronts united as the Coordinadora Revolucionaria de Masas (CRM). The CRM then formed alliances with marginalized political parties to form the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR). Of the five component groups, the ERP’s strategic approach happened to be most similar to that of the (recently successful) Sandinistas in Nicaragua.153 Accordingly, the Cuban sponsors insisted—much to the dismay of everyone else—that the Salvadorans adopt the ERP’s military-first approach to revolution. The plan was to mount a single violent insurrection on January 10, 1981, which would coincide with a nationwide strike and a mass defection from the armed forces. This meant the FMLN had only three months to arm, train, and mobilize the population for the optimistically titled “Final Offensive.”

At the risk of inciting even more animosity among the groups, Cuba and the FMLN leadership agreed that the best course of action was to allow each OP-M to retain its own organizational structure. This directive, however, came with a rather large asterisk: Because the run-up to the incursion was so short, the fastest way for each group to build a large standing army was to strip its political cadres of members and repurpose them into the armed forces.154

FMLN leaders planned a three-part insurrection to maximize both the military and psychological impact on the government. The first component was a nationwide military offensive in which the five OP-Ms would simultaneously attack bases of the Salvadoran Armed Forces (FAES). The second component entailed calling for a nationwide worker’s strike—in part to demonstrate support for the movement, and in part to create mass chaos. The commotion would force FAES troops to spread their manpower too thin to get control of the country. The third component of the Final Offensive was to encourage a mass defection from the armed forces.155 Over the course of the previous year, numerous lower-level members (mostly affiliated with the ERP) had been infiltrating the armed forces with a two-part goal: gather intelligence on the state of the armed forces and incite unrest within the FAES ranks.

On January 10, 1981, strategic guerrilla attacks enabled FMLN forces to commandeer a state-owned radio station to inform the people of the rebellion and call for the mass strikes.156 According to many accounts, the first few hours of the insurrection played out in the FMLN’s favor: popular organizations mobilized supporters to go out into the streets and in some places the Salvadoran army seemed to be on the defensive.157 However, the leaders’ sanguine hopes of a single insurrection that would hand power back to the people were soon dashed. Unable to secure the radio station for long enough, Carpio was able to tell people to “prepare for a general strike,” but not when the strike would be. Defections from the army were far below FMLN estimates, and state forces were soon able to regain control of military barracks and public spaces. Within a few days, FMLN leaders reluctantly announced “the end of the first phase of the general offensive” and withdrew from the cities to regroup in the hinterlands in the north and east of the country. By all scholarly, military, and internal accounts, the Final Offensive was a complete failure. Unlike other military debacles, however, the Final Offensive was not simply a matter of being overpowered by a well-equipped military. On the contrary, the FAES fared little better than the nascent insurgency and they exhausted many of their resources in the process.158

The immediate aftermath of the Final Offensive was a critical juncture for the FMLN as its members retreated, regrouped, and moved forward with the rebellion. The question is, where did the organizations go from there? While the account of their development illustrates the sheer diversity of organizations that can arise under the same context, the rapid shift to a military-first directive meant some of the structures most central to rebel-to-party transformation were decimated. However, whether and to what extent the groups stuck to the ERP strategy or repopulated their messaging, administrative, and outreach subdivisions will have major implications for how the group evolved and adapted as the war went on.