ABSTRACT
With the exception of Costa Rica, at the end of the 1950s Central America was a region dominated by different types of authoritarian regimes that were an expression of the alliances between the landowning elite and the armed forces. The political exclusion and persecution of dissidents, together with the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the agrarian oligarchies, were the distinguishing traits of the small Central American republics. The victory of the Cuban Revolution and its radicalization from 1961 to 1962, questioned the strategies and action repertoires of the Central American communists, thus leading to deep divides in their organizations. In Central America, it contributed to an escalation in the activity of the revolutionary movements in Guatemala and El Salvador, which went on the offensive in 1981 and 1982 in an attempt to emulate the Nicaraguan example, although without success.
