No Olvides Nunca : early twentieth-century fascism and Afroindigenous Marxism in El Salvador

Abstract

This article attempts to historicise and theorise the development of fascism and Marxism in early twentieth-century El Salvador from 1920 to 1940 amid the global rise of twenty-first century fascism. By drawing special attention to the little-known testimonial novel Cafetos en Flor by Miguel Ángel Ibarra, an Afrodescendant communist involved in the widely studied 1932 Indigenous uprising, the author argues that Afroindigenous Marxism manifested not only as a direct response to the crisis of agrarian capitalism, but also to the rise of fascism in El Salvador. This is done by analysing Cafetos en Flor through a theoretical lens and framework rooted in José Carlos Mariátegui’s ‘Indigenous Marxism’ and Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism, as well as through a brief historical analysis of the Martinato, the era that defined the fascist dictatorship of President Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez (1931−1944). This article addresses a historical void in a collective understanding of the development of fascism and Marxism in El Salvador with implications for today.