6 SOCIAL SCIBNTIST population is illiterate. The three-centuries-old Spanish colonial rule, brought to an end in 1822 after the Napoleonic Wars that left Spain vanquished and weak, had kept El Salvador backward and underdeveloped. While independence proved meaningless to the majority of the Salvadorans, mostly of mixed Spanish-Indian descent, it kept the rich land-owning families of the country, who came with the Spanish conquistadors, prosperous. Feudal relations with a subsistence agrarian system that was economically stagnant prevailed for years; with the spread of US imperialism a mono-culture economy based on the export of coffee was created. Fourteen land-owning families, along with some multinational firms emerged as owners of large coffee plantations on which the country's economy was based. The Great Depression of 1929-1933, however, was to,shake this system to its very foundation as coffee prices crashed in the international markets, sharpening the class division and increasing the burden on the peasants and workers to staggering proportions. Because of this, the organized movement of the workers and peasants had grown sharply by 1931. Mass dismissals of workers in farms and low wages made the situation unbearable. The daily wage from 1894 to 1950 ranged between 25 and 37 centavos (about 10 to 14 US cents), enough only to by a corn tortilla with beans. The revolutionary struggles meanwhile had developed throughout Central America. Farabundo Marti, the Salvadoran patriot who had served under another famous revolutionary, General Cesar Sandino of Nicaragua, founded the Communist Party of El Salvador in 1930. Faced with growing unrest from th^ working class, the ruling oligarchy adopted new tactics. General Maximiliano Hernandez staged a coup "to sort things out" for the oligarchies and the multinationals. On 3 January 1932, a general strike was called by a coalition of democratic parties. Wide-scale repression followed with mass retrenchment of workers, reduction in wages and victimization of the peasants. The Communist Party, the peasant organizations and the revolutionary groups had little option but to call for a general insurrection on 22 January 1932. Farabundo Marti and other leaders of the Communist Party were arrested on the eve of the insurrection and executed on 1 February. More than 30,000 Salvadorans were massacred by the regime to install nearly 30 years of ruthless dictatorship during which all the mass organizations were emasculated and scores of leftist leaders slaughtered. General Martinez (1931-1944) and his followers made El Salvador "safe" for imperialism till 1960, when the impact of the Cuban revolution spilled over into El Salvador. That year a group of progressive military officers, in close collaboration with some bourgeois democratic parties, deposed the dictatorial regime of Colonel Lema§.