Walton, John. Reluctant Rebels, Columbia University Press, 1984
"Neighboring El Salvador (to Nicaragua) at the time
of this writing is in full revolt. As in the historical studies, current
events have a long pedigree including a savagely repressed rebellion in
1932. Teh Salvadoran economy is a classic instance of export monoculture
based on coffee plantations whose land was alienated from Indian communities
beginning in the 1870's and linked into a national network by a planter
elite in collaboration with the military. The rebellion of 1932 was carried
out by worker, peasant, and Indian communities that had organized a popular
movement around the Regional Federation of Salvadorean Workers and won
important electoral victories, which the government refused to recognize."
pg 205 The gov't attempted to adopt reforms to change the country which
was aided by the U.S. particularly after the Cuban Revolution. "But
the military-coffee planter elite was challenged continually at the polls
in the 1960s and in 1972 was forced again to invalidate fraudulently an
electoral sweep by the United National Opposition that included everyone
from the Christian Democrats to the far left. The current revolutionary
situation is a violent consequence of efforts by teh old elite and the
United States to maintain an unpopular and repressive state under the transparent
rationale of a centrist junta and contrived elections whose popular support
is belied by every development in national politics over the last fifty
years. This is a revolution whose progressive fate in being withheld only
by U.S. military intervention." pg 206
He attempts to show through examining Huk and Mau Mau revolutions and the La Violencia the use of violence that "today's revolutions may be theoretically connected with the national revolts of mid-century, and they in turn are closely associated with the classical revolutions- then the implication is that a more comprehensive theory of capitalist transformation is possible...The next step may be understanding socialist revolution in the twin senses of those changing world conditions that lead more national revolts along a socialist road, as well as the new prospect of revolutions within the existing socialist states." pg 210.
He examines four general and interrelated processes:
1. the context of uneven development
2. the conditions of protest mobilization
3. modernization crises and coalitions
4. the role of the state. pg 161
Marx, Karl. Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation 1835
"To man, too, the Deity gave a general goal, to improve mankind and himself, but left it up to him to seek the means by which he can attain this goal, left it up to him to choose the position in society which is most appropriate and from which he can best elevate both himself and society." pg 1.
"What else does this (irrationality) mean except
that God exists for the man to whom the world is non-rational and who is
therefore nonrational himself? In other words, non-rationality is God's
existence."pg 66
return to books