Partido Comunista Salvadoreño
Partido Comunista Salvadoreño (PCS) , also Partido Comunista de El Salvador (PC) ( German : Communist Party of El Salvador) is the communist party in El Salvador .
The PCS was founded on March 30, 1930 by Abel Cuenca , Miguel Mármol and Modesto Ramírez and was a member of the Comintern from the start . The party built an important base for itself in the west of the country, where there was great dissatisfaction as a result of the expansion of coffee cultivation since the end of the 19th century at the expense of the indigenous Pipil population.
In 1931 the party was admitted as a party under President Arturo Araujo and its participation in the parliamentary and local elections in January 1932 was approved.
On December 2, 1931 , Defense Minister General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez came to power. In January 1932, the PCS won local elections in a number of municipalities, such as Juayúa in the Pipil region, but the party was banned and the result was annulled in the municipalities where the PCS ran. The PCS planned an uprising, but the government learned about it. The communists Agustín Farabundo Martí , Mario Zapata and Alfonso Luna were then arrested.
In the indigenous Pipil communities in the west of the country, however, preparations had already been made for a peasant uprising, which had acquired a dynamic that was independent of party politics and which the PCS leadership could no longer prevent. On January 22nd, Pipil farmers occupied the mayor offices (alcaldías) in several municipalities, such as Izalco , Nahuizalco and Tacuba . In Juayúa , which became a stronghold of the uprising, the Pipil and PCS member Francisco Sánchez led the resistance actions. The uprising was put down after a few days, however, and then came the " matanza ", a slaughter in which government troops and paramilitary units of the large landowners killed around 30,000 farmers. Francisco Sánchez, Agustin Farabundo Marti, Alfonso Luna and Mario Zapata, but also peasant leaders outside the PCS such as Feliciano Ama were executed. Miguel Mármol managed to escape an execution squad because he was believed dead.
Long decades of illegality followed.
The party was led in the 1960s by Salvador Cayetano Carpio , before he left the PC and founded the Fuerzas Popular de Liberación "Farabundo Martí" (FPL) and began the armed struggle against the regime. 1980 Schafik Handal led the PC along with four other political organizations in the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN). There it existed as an independent organization until 1994 under the leadership of Handal. After the 1994 elections, the five FMLN organizations, including the CP, disbanded and became completely part of the FMLN. Handal was a candidate for the FMLN in the 2004 presidential election.
On March 27, 2005 the party was re-established.