Dreaming of Reform: University Intellectuals during the Lemus regime and the Civic-Military Junta in El Salvador (1960-1961)

Abstract

Lieutenant-Colonel José María Lemus, a protégé of President Oscar Osorio (1950-1956), rose to power in 1956. Lemus is often remembered as an authoritarian ruler, but at the outset of his presidency he allowed the return of exiles and abolished the “Law in Defense of Democratic and Constitutional Order,” sanctioned during Osorio’s anti-communist crackdown in 1952. Lemus governed El Salvador during a period of declining prosperity as coffee prices plunged in the international markets, forcing an economic restructuring which had particularly negative consequences for the poor. But more importantly, the changing political landscape in Latin America posed enormous challenges to Lemus, as opposition forces ousted Venezuelan dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez in January 1958 and revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in January 1959. Political events in Venezuela and Cuba inspired a new wave of mobilization in El Salvador led by the recently formed Partido Revolucionario Abril y Mayo (PRAM) and Frente Nacional de Orientación Cívica (FNOC) which challenged Lemus’ authoritarian regime. While the local press followed step by step events in Cuba as reported by U.S. press agencies, Lemus and the Revolutionary Party of Democratic Unification (PRUD), the official party, showed a renewed determination to prevent the spread of “Cuban-inspired subversion” in El Salvador. To this end, Sidney Mazzini, a representative of the PRUD at the National Assembly envisioned the formation of what he termed a “sanitary cordon” around Cuba.

Keywords

• totalitarismo
• exiliado
• comunismo
• política
• sistema económico