4 ' SOCIAL SCIENTIST towards unity; and on" the other, rulers who, traditionally set against reform, were preparing to eliminate the forces of resistance and challenge. By January 1980, it was clear that the October events had heralded not the resolution of a long-standing conflict but its escalation into a full-scale civil war. This qualitative change is reflected in certain developments of the past three and a half years In the first place, the period had seen El Salvador^ rulers intensifying their war against the people into one of generalised terror and genocide—a development made possible by ' material help from a powerful neighbour to the North. Since October 1979, more than 36,000 civilians have died at the jiands of the state,3 and thousands more, perhaps constituting as much as 20 per cent of the total populatio/n, have been driven into exile.4 ' , A second development has been the strengthening of the forces of popular resistance and challenge. The difficult conditions of the past three and a half years have seen the Salvadoran revolution increasingly on the offensive. With large tracts of territory, perhaps as much as 25 per cent of the land area, now operated as revolutionary ('zones of control5'; with guerrilla fighters, backed by a popular militia, striking almost at will throughout the country and, in their alternation of attack and tactical retreat, never appearing to lose the initiative, the military situation has clearly passed beyond that of the Underlying these advances has been a drive towards unity among ' El Salvador's diverse democratic and revolutionary organisations. In a process remarkable for its rapidity and sweep, these organisations had, by late 1980, coalesced around a unified people's army, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), and a political coalition constituting a government in embryo, the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR). These unified structures today embrace the entire spectrum of political belief in El Salvador, barring the extreme Right and a collaborationist rump of Christian Democracy. Overshadowing this progress, however, and introducing a serious complicating factor, has been a third development ofLthe period: large-scale and growing US intervention on behalf of the Salvadoran dictatorship. The US has never been far removed lYom events in- this tiny country, regarded historically as part of its Central American backyard. Over the years, it has^tepped in frequently to shape the direction of the Salvadoran economy, to bolster its military and to refasl^ion its pplitical life. What is new is not only the scale of current interference, not only the openness with which it is being conducted, but the threat it raises, as it increasingly pushes beyond Salvadoran borders, of provoking a significantly wider conflict.