History ETDs

Publication Date

1-30-1968

Abstract

Not since 1931 has El Salvador experienced civil supremacy in national affairs nor is it likely that this tiny nation will witness the withdrawal of military officers from politics in the near future. However, the mere fact of uninterrupted military rule offers little understanding of the variety of roles played by the armed forces or does it revel the reasons for changes in the pattern of civil-military relations during the past three decades. Soon after the turn of the century, maintaining internal order replaced national defense as the primary role of El Salvador’s armed forces. The reduction of the foreign threat, the consolidation of elite elements under the leadership of one family, and the growth of popular pressures for social and economic reform encouraged this change of roles and made possible a twenty-year period of civilian leadership. Military officers remained content to share political power so long as their institution was liberally maintained and reform pressures were held in check. With the assistance of Chilean and Spanish missions, El Salvador’s military acquired the reputation of being the best police keeping force in Central America. After 1927, accelerated modernization of the armed forces, in the form of new promotion and retirement laws, new officer training systems and closer civilian control, created new tensions between the government and the military and undermined the traditional power and prestige of the senior officer group. In addition, the relaxation of political controls, combined with economic crisis, intensified social and economic stresses and strains and complicated the military’s task of maintaining internal order. These circumstances produced the military insurrection of December 2, 1931, and the assumption of direct political control by the armed forces. Under General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez (1931-1944), order was restored and the nation returned to oligarchical rule. The abortive peasant uprising of early 1932 proved to be a convenient excuse for a thorough militarization of the government and the expulsion of reform-minded officers from the armed forces. The net effect of these policies was to freeze conservative officers in key civil and military positions and was to create deep divisions within the officer corps. When pressures for reform mounted during World War II, it was the sympathy and aid of disgruntled junior officers that turned the tide and brought about the overthrow of Hernández Martínez. The expulsion of Hernández Martínez triggered a brief period of political turbulence unprecedented in the nation’s history. Popular forces, united before the dictator’s fall, divided on variety of issues and, in their haste to obtain civilian government, alienated officers sympathetic to reform by launching an all out propaganda campaign against the military. In defense of their institution, conservative officers seized the government in 1944 and initiated a series of policies designed to hold the line and minimize the pressures of fundamental reform. Between October of 1944 and December of 1948, the military regimes of Colonel Osmín Aguirre y Saminas and General Salvador Castaneda Castro reestablished elitist rule, restricted political activity, and once more closed the military to junior officer advancement. When Castaneda Castro maneuvered to extend his term in 1948, young officers again rose against the government, ousted the General President, and began a deliberate and thorough purge of tradition-bound senior officers from the military. In order to contain the raised expectations of reform groups, the new government assumed the role of sponsor of national reforms. By abandoning the traditional pattern of complete military rule and by allowing civilian participation at all but the highest level of government, the new military leaders avoided a serious challenge for twelve years. Only when the reform programs appeared to be losing their original momentum in 1960 did revolt take place. The revolt of October 1960 and the counter-revolt of January 1961 made on thing clear: whereas the majority of officers were unwilling to allow civilians the opportunity to manage national affairs, few officers wanted to abandon the reform policies of the previous decade. In the future, differences of opinion within the military would revolve more around the means of achieving basic social and economic reform than whether reform should or should not take place.

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Degree Name

History

Department Name

History

First Committee Member (Chair)

Edwin Lieuwen

Second Committee Member

Troy Smith Floyd

Third Committee Member

Martin Cyril Needler

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Download

Included in

History Commons

Share

COinS