El Salvador

National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1893–1932 ✕ Executed

Father of Central American communism, Sandino's colonel, martyr of La Matanza

As US planes bombed Sandino's camp, Martí pushed aside his typewriter and declared: "When history cannot be written by the pen, it must be written by the rifle." He then picked up a gun and fired at the planes.

Salvadoran Marxist-Leninist revolutionary and pioneer of Central American communism. In 1930 he co-founded the Communist Party of El Salvador (PCS) and in 1932 led a peasant-indigenous uprising amid the Depression; the Martínez military regime crushed it in the La Matanza massacre and had him executed by firing squad. His name was later adopted by the FMLN guerrilla coalition, making him an enduring symbol of Central American revolution.