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Ex-Guerrillera from El Salvador Writes:

Survival and Success Depend On Organizing Soldiers For Communism

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El Salvador, 1980s

My experiences during the pseudo- revolutionary war in El Salvador taught me how valuable it is to have soldier friends inside the army. Now, as a member of ICWP, I have learned about the great revolutions and the important, vital, role that revolutionary soldiers have played in the relationship of forces.
Therefore, I am convinced and certain that a communist revolution of the magnitude and importance that ICWP is organizing could not triumph and maintain its strength and forward march if today we do not struggle sharply to organize communist consciousness inside the bosses’ army.
 One of my experiences took place in the village where I lived with my family. Since the invasions by the army were frequent and savage, we had set up posts with guards who warned the residents when an invasion was coming. There were two guard posts. One was close to the village; the other farther away.
In August, 1980, it happened that the guards farther away fell asleep and when the closer ones gave the warning, the army was already at the entrance to the village. Our house was one of the first, so they took us by surprise.
I left, running the best I could, zigzagging through some small bushes, but the soldiers were already coming behind me.  I could see and hear them. Worse still, I was dressed in bright orange and I heard an official or commander ordering the soldiers to kill me. 
A soldier answered, “It’s just a cow that’s moving.”
 The angry commander yelled, “How could it be a cow, you stupid idiot? It’s a guerrilla.”
Finally the soldiers shot but they shot in the air. This gave me time to run and escape and hide in a lake full of aquatic flowers.
Another time, in February, 1981, I was in the house recuperating from an illness when I was surprised by a military contingent. The interrogation was intense. They asked questions like “Why is a guerrilla here?” “Where are the weapons?”
I thought that I was going to get out of danger until a soldier I knew very well came into the house. He had participated in meetings and political activities carried out in our house. When I saw him, I thought that he was going to denounce me and that this would be our end. However, he looked at me and then left the house without saying a word. I am still very grateful to this soldier because he saved my life and that of other members of my family.
This soldier reacted out of class consciousness. He knew he had more in common with me and my family than with the bosses. Incidents and situations like these were common. It was also common for soldiers to desert the army with their weapons to join the guerrillas. When others were captured, they often decided to stay to fight along with the rebels.
Why do some soldiers fight to defend the government which is the enemy of the working class to which they themselves belong? In some countries they are volunteers motivated by the illusion that in the army they will learn a skill or that the army will help them financially with their studies.
In other countries they are recruited by force.  From the day they join they are threatened that any act of rebellion will be paid by being whipped or killed. There are other corporal (physical) punishments to keep them terrorized.
In times of war the bosses resort to drugs to keep soldiers fighting. However, in spite of all this, there are internal rebellions of soldiers discontented with the lousy food, mistreatment, and the horrible poverty wages they receive.
When soldiers are sent into combat, the majority would avoid it if they could. Or if there are alternatives, they would be to desert as an individual or as a group, or political alternatives in which the soldiers  have been won to side with the rest of the working class to fight against the bosses’ system and for communism.
Fellow Party members, let us not be afraid to send our youth to organize in the army. There are infinite possibilities. But if we do not do it, we are losing or underestimating the victory of communism.
As a communist Party we have the historic and military responsibility to secure communist political work that will lead to recruiting soldiers to our Party in the USA, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, South Africa, Spain and all countries.

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