Workers World, Vol. 23, No. 16
April 12: What is behind all the recent hints in the capitalist press of a negotiated settlement in El Salvador?
Who is pushing it and on behalf of whom?
It is impossible to discuss this question as it relates to the U.S. and El Salvador unless it is viewed from the perspective of the relationship between an oppressing, imperialist power and an oppressed people. No correct appreciation can possibly be made of this relationship unless it is seen precisely from the viewpoint of the predatory and expansionist character of finance capital.
Involved here, of course, is the right of nations to self-determination. An oppressed people in the throes of bloody conflict in which they are seeking their liberation has an inalienable right to self-determination and to define its relationship to the oppressing imperialist power.
It is not unusual for an oppressed country, especially in the contemporary international situation, to call for unconditional withdrawal of the imperialist power or to call a conference for the purpose of consummating a withdrawal agreement. It is also possible, as history has shown in the struggles of oppressed people in Asia, Africa, as well as Latin America, that the oppressed country may attempt to negotiate an agreement or may call for the negotiation of an agreement with the objective not only of obtaining full sovereignty but of becoming completely independent on the basis of the ultimate withdrawal of the imperialist power.
Under any and all circumstances, it is the right of the oppressed country to set the conditions and the specific immediate objectives for which it is struggling. On innumerable occasions, the oppressing and the oppressed contenders have carried out protracted negotiations, some lasting years, before any settlement is arrived at. On other occasions, no settlement is reached until the oppressor is militarily overwhelmed and thrown out, as in Vietnam, Cuba, and other countries.
During the course of these long, bitter, and bloody battles, international solidarity with the oppressed people by the anti-imperialist forces worldwide is most important and contributes significantly to the ultimate victory of the oppressed country.
Revolutionary Marxism-Leninism has always recognized the obligation of the working class in the imperialist, oppressing country to support unconditionally the struggle of the oppressed peoples against imperialism.
“Unconditional support” means the complete independence of the anti-imperialist movement from the maneuvers of the imperialism, oppressing bourgeoisie. “Unconditional support” means that the anti-imperialist and working-class forces in the metropolitan imperialist country have the duty to support the oppressed people free from any and all conditions that the imperialist powers may, as is almost always the case, seek to foist upon the oppressed people.
Of course, there always may be tactical variations on presenting this general Leninist principle based on the development and consciousness of the anti-war movement. But the working class in the imperialist country has an internationalist obligation to the oppressed people to be completely free from defending any conditions which the imperialists seek to impose upon the workers’ class brothers and sisters in the oppressed country.
For that reason, slogans such as those demanding unconditional withdrawal and U.S. out of Vietnam, Nicaragua, Turkey, Iran, or any other oppressed country, including El Salvador of course, are absolutely correct. In addition to these general slogans, there are also slogans which are derivative from the principled position of unconditional withdrawal which are correct, such as “No U.S. aid or advisors,” “Not one penny for war,” etc.
On the other hand, the slogan of unconditional withdrawal should in no way be intended as a condition put upon the embattled oppressed people whose struggle depends upon the measure of their strength and the collective strength that they can garner nationally and worldwide in the struggle against imperialism.
For the working class in the imperialist countries to do otherwise is to infringe upon the right of self-determination. The oppressed and the oppressed alone have the right to determine whether to fight for full withdrawal under the circumstances, how and by what means to arrive at a political settlement, if that is desirable, and what conditions should be embraced in any agreement.
It is a gross violation of the right of oppressed people to self-determination for working-class and progressive organizations to take up the slogan or to push the idea of a negotiated settlement if it is the imperialist bourgeoisie that is initiating and pushing it and not the leaders of the embattled, oppressed people.
One would think that this would be elementary more than 80 years since Lenin first began to expand on Marx’s ideas. Nevertheless this is not understood in some quarters in this country and is adding to the confusion in the ranks of the anti-war movement – precisely at the moment when the resistance to the struggle against U.S. intervention is taking on momentum.
Of late, there has been talk in the imperialist countries of a negotiated settlement. But those who raise this never bother to ask what the revolutionary masses of oppressed people in El Salvador are thinking or what their leaders are proposing.
So that even two months ago, the West European imperialist countries, led by the prominent Social Democrats, jumped the gun and came out for a negotiated political settlement.
Their view of a negotiated settlement is to arrive at some sort of a modus vivendi between the fascist murderous junta and the revolutionary opposition. What this amounts to is an imposition upon the oppressed people.
It is one thing when a beleaguered oppressed country after years of almost super-human struggle, such as was the case with Vietnam, negotiated a settlement with the imperialists which it found for the time being as correct and appropriate for the Vietnamese people. Such was the case with the peace treaty signed in 1973.
Under such circumstances it was correct for the working class in the imperialist countries to support the agreement, not because the imperialist powers wanted it but because the oppressed people found it necessary and desirable for the moment. Propagating and promoting support for the agreement was part and parcel of the anti-imperialist struggle and consistent with international solidarity with the Vietnamese.
But what about the call for the negotiated settlement in El Salvador currently being pushed by the bourgeoisie?
It is not the Salvadoran people who have raised the demand. When and if they raise the question of a negotiated settlement between them and the U.S., it would be another matter.
Supporting their demand is support for the right of self-determination. Supporting the demands put forth by sections of the U.S. bourgeoisie and others for the kind of settlement imposed from the outside is an imperialist imposition and a violation of the right of the Salvadoran people to determine their own destiny.
It is especially important now to have clarity on this question. Only yesterday, April 11, 1981, the New York Times carried one of its fraudulent editorials on the Salvadoran situation.
“Bit by bit,” it said, “the Reagan administration is retreating in its El Salvador policy. ... The tune is changing. After more than 20 civilians were murdered ... a State Department spokesman demanded an end of acts of violence ‘by all parties.’ And for the first time in this administration, a particular atrocity by right-wing death squads was noted and deplored.”
And what is the conclusion of the Times? “The Reagan team may begin to build a policy that is distinctly and more promisingly its own.”
The effect of this editorial is to soften opposition to the murderous Reagan interventionist policy. It is meant to dangle the promise of a change of policy by the Reagan administration via a negotiated settlement of the type which the liberal bourgeoisie had earlier preached, which the European imperialists took up later, and which in essence is the kind of settlement which would securely tie down and disarm the revolutionary opposition and securely bind the Salvadoran people to the chariot wheel of Yankee imperialism.
It would therefore be absolutely erroneous for anyone in the progressive movement, in the anti-war struggle, and among the working class generally to confuse the character of any negotiated settlement that is pushed by the imperialists – the enemy of the oppressed people in El Salvador and the class enemy of the working class and oppressed people in this country – with a specific proposal for negotiation by the revolutionary opposition.
Confusing the two is absolutely impermissible, a violation of the right of self-determination, and a boon to the Reaganite reactionaries and the unbridled military in particular.
The touchstone in the anti-war struggle is solidarity with the aspirations and rights of the oppressed people. The fraudulent deceptions and catchphrases put out by the bourgeoisie must be shunned by the anti-war movement and exposed to the masses for the fraud they are intended to perpetrate upon the El Salvadorans as well as the people of the United States.
Last updated: 11 May 2026