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rallies or conferences where solidarity is expressed with the struggle, will know that the political representatives of the guerrilla forces are the Democratic Revolutionary Front - the FDR.

But behind this single title and behind its well-known leaders on their travels round world capitals, lies an organis. ation profoundly divided in its social and political basis.

Formed in April 1980, the FDR is in reality an umbrelle grouping spanning the whole political spectrum from the Guevarist left, through the official Communist Party to the social democrats, the tiny Socia Christian Party and leadin‹ Christian Democratic politician who formerly served in th junta.

General secretary of the FD at its formation was Enriqu Alvarez, a former agricultur minister for the Duarte juntz Other one-time junta-men i in the FDR include Hector Dad (former Foreign Minister Ruben Zamora (ex-Minister ‹ Presidency); Ramon Mayorg (ex-junta member) and Guil ermo Ungo (leader of the soci democratic MNR and ex-junt member).

It is the involvement of thes bourgeois political leders (wh for a period actively participate in a regime which slaughtere hundreds of workers and pea! ants in the service of their U overlords) that distinguishes th Broad a theaparent imi ', the FSLI which led the overthrow Nicaraguan dictator Somoza.

In Nicaragua whole sections of the capitalist class had themselves run into conflict with the monolithic state apparatus controlled lock,: stock and barrel by the Somoza dynasty. Denied any other means of asserting influence over events, they threw in their lot with the more radical petty bourgeois forces of the FSLN.

The eventual revolutionary overthrow of Somoza installed as a result a cross-class ruling junta in which the radical forces rested upon the mass movement of workers and peasants, while the capitalist elements sought to defend their property and profits. The "alliance" has come under enormous strains -but while various bourgeois leaders have left the Sandinista government and began to mobilise against it, the petty bourgeois forces have not taken decisive steps to expropriate the capitalists.

Nicaragua remains a "mixed" capitalist economy in which the right to strike nd the rights of left wing organisations are restricted while the 'progressive' bourgeoisie have in large part become agitators for counterrevolution.

The defeat of Somoza by such a confused cross-class alliance however has had a massive impact upon revolutionary forces elsewhere in Central America, despite the fact that conditions - particularly in In El Salvador, within months of the Nicaraguan victory, rouomes crar nao oreviousi ought against the notion of reformist bourgeois governments, and argued for the leading role in the struggle of the working class or a worker-peasant alliance' abruptly switched line and began to pursue a Sandinista-style "'broad alliance" with apparently progressive bourgeois politicians.

By 28 February 1980 the main left wing groupings and the Communist Party (which had had five ministers in the October 1979 junta) had come together to form the Coordinadora Revolucionaria de Masa (CRM), whose programme is an explicit call for a cross-class alliance.

The section entitled •The Revolutionary Democratic Government. Its Composition states:

'This government will be based on a broad social and political foundation formed in the first place by the working class, the peasants and the advanced middle classes. Intimately united with them will be the social classes prepared to carry forward this platform, managers of small and medium sized industries, artisans and agricultural businessmen, (small and medium coffee growers and other branches of agriculture and cattle raising).

It will also include honest professionals, the progressive clergy, democratic parties such as the MR (Revolutionary Nationalist Movement), the advanced sectors of Christian Democracy, worthy and honest army officers, who are willing to serve the interests of the people and all other sectors, groups, support in every way..."

(Tasks and Objectives, section e).

It calls for the destruction of the repressive bodies ORDEN, the Guardia Nacional and the Policia de Hacienda but not the army.

A new army will be created:

"constructed during the course of the revolutionary process, into which will be incorporated those healthy and worthy members of the present army."

(ibid., subsection g). A later paragraph confirms that this includes officers.

This appeal to the 'progressive' bourgeoisie was swiftly taken up - and within two months the CRM got together with the Democratic Salvadorean Front (FDS) - a cobbled grouping of social democrats, Social Christians, dissident Christian Democrats . and right wing trade unions - to form the FDR.

The motives for these right wing forces in joining the opposition appear to be mixed.

Some of those politicians who have joined the opposition may have been offended by the brutal methods of their former colleagues in the junta.

But the main reason for their Fi rit teveruge uf trié ruk ituuers the dictatorship and creating a structure for a 'mixed' economy.

Though much of the public retoric of the FDR appears to the left of that produced by the Sandinistas, and it is stridently anti-imperialist and anti-dictatorial, it is not in general anticapitalist. Nor does it offer any independent political line for the Salvadorean working class.

In fact the declared political objectives of the FDR constituted a significant step backwards by several of its more left-wing The founder of the Salvade Faribundo Marti, is well know side the Nicaraguan revolutic today's rulers of Nicaragua takr But what is seldom mentio broke with Sandino over the revolutionary nature" of Sa marines.

Marti was executed after tl ection in El Salvador. The gu porate his name into the title his internationalist decision to to his subsequent criticism an nationalism.

Thus one of the few positiv of the Salvadorean commun in the demagogic pursuit of a ci US State Department". • Two months later, as a principal architect of the FDR, Cayetano was to be sitting next to Zamora in a common 'front"!

The BPR had for years attacked the Communist line of seeking an alliance with the Salvadorean bourgeoisie and its 'belief in the possibility of the growth of a "national" independent bourgeoisie; a position that for many years has lost its objective basis and possibilities, to the degree that international oran Communist Party, Agustin n for having campaigned along›nary Sandino - from whom e their title of 'Sandinistas'. ned in this context is that Marti "merely nationalistic and nonndino's fight against the US he disastrously-led 1932 insurrerrilla forces who today incorof their liberation front look to join with Sandino, rather than a break from Sandino's narrow re lessons from the early history list movement has been buried ross-class 'national' alliance.