90th anniversary of the formation of the Communist Party of El Salvador

Translated from the Spanish statement of the PCS.

It was Sunday, March 30, 1930, on the shore of Lake Ilopango, 15 km from the city ​​of San Salvador that a group of 25 to 30 workers, shoemakers, tailors, carpenters with two teachers among them (according to Miguel Mármol, who was one of the founders), made the historic decision to found the Communist Party of El Salvador, inspired by the triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the aspirations of the working class for a better world.

That young party began a revolutionary struggle under the administration of the President Pío Romero Bosque, who had a liberal but also repressive vision. This was in the midst of the great world economic recession at that time, which had started in 1929 and hit the working class and the peasantry hard. This situation caused a serious famine among the impoverished people and especially the peasant masses. In addition to all of this there was the coup d'état of December 2, 1931 by General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, overthrowing President Arturo Araujo.

In this economic and political context, the PCS worked intensively to organize the working class of the city and the countryside. In 1931 it organized for rebellion and participated in the mayoral elections in December of that year and January 1932. Those elections were a grotesque mockery of the working people and the mayors of the parties supporting the dictatorship were appointed.

The PCS was involved in preparing the rebellion that began on January 22, 1932. 30,000 workers, peasants and indigenous people were killed in this rebellion that also saw the shootings of Farabundo Martí and the students Alfonso Luna and Mario Zapata on February 1, 1932.

The Communist Party was decimated and forced to work underground. It resurfaced in 1944 with the fall of General Hernández Martínez and continued its heroic struggle until 1995, when it was dissolved by the Ninth Party congress. In view of  changing circumstances and the historical necessity of its existence, the PCS was re-founded on March 27, 2005.