https://socialistaction.org/2019/02/15/the-nicaraguan-revolution-betrayed/
The Nicaraguan revolution betrayed
/ 4 mins ago
Feb. 2019 Ortega (Reuters)
President Daniel Ortega and wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, wave
to supporters following their election with 72 percent of the vote in
2016. (Reuters)
BY LAZARO MONTEVERDE
A review of “What went wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution: A Marxist
Analysis,” by Dan La Botz. (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2018.)
When I visited Nicaragua in 1983 as part of a delegation of religious
activists from the Central America Movement, I thought I was witnessing
a miracle. The country was radically transformed both economically and
culturally. So different was it from my previous visit in 1978, when the
country was ruled by the brutal caudillo Anastasio Somoza Debayle and
his family, that I did not believe my eyes.
So different too was it from my beloved Honduras, which had been ruled
by General Melgar Castro in the 1970s, another caudillo, and which was
now in the 1980s ruled almost directly from the U.S. Embassy. Our
delegation had first visited Honduras. The difference between the two
countries, and the differences in Nicaragua before and after the 1979
revolution struck all of us.
The political history of Latin America is the repetitive story of the
caudillo. A caudillo is a strong man or woman who exercises
authoritarian rule, using the military and a political party. Caudillos
can be of the right or left, or in some cases both, as with Peron in
Argentina, who moved from left to right. Caudillos dominate the history
of Latin America because of the institutional weakness of the Latin
American ruling classes and because of the comprador nature of the
elites, serving not just their own interests but the interests of the
imperialist powers.
Latin America has witnessed at least six significant revolutions (and
many more pre-revolutionary situations), beginning with the historic
Haitian revolution of 1791 to 1804 (1). The second was the Mexican
Revolution of 1910 to 1920. The Mexican Revolution was ultimately
“interrupted,” and a one-party nominally democratic state serving
Mexican capital arose led by the PRI, the Institutionalized
Revolutionary Party (2).
The third revolution was the Cuban Revolution of 1958-59, which resulted
in a revolutionary socialist government (3). The fourth was in Chile,
from 1970 to 1973, under the leadership of Salvador Allende. This “third
way” revolution, a revolution based on winning elections, was destroyed
in the U.S.-backed military coup of Sept. 11, 1973 (4). The fifth was
the Grenadan Revolution of 1979, which ended after the U.S. invasion of
1983 (5). And the sixth was the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979 to 1990,
analyzed in “What went wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution: A Marxist
Analysis,” by Dan La Botz.
La Botz’s new book is the single best history of the Nicaraguan
Revolution to appear. It is a must read for serious revolutionaries and
antiwar, anti-imperialist activists. He has synthesized a great deal of
the history of the revolution from both Spanish and English sources. His
book will also be essential reading for years to come for all who wish
to understand the dynamics of change in Latin America and who seek to
build a world socialist revolution.
A Marxist analysis
La Botz presents a Marxist analysis of the Nicaraguan revolution, that
is to say, an analysis grounded in the political and cultural history of
Nicaragua that focuses on questions of social class and class power. The
book is dense with historical facts and analysis at the same time that
it is highly readable and engaging. I wish to summarize a small portion
of the text so that the reader will have an idea of his achievement.
La Botz begins in Chapter 1 with the pre-colonization history of the
indigenous peoples, traces the conquest of the region by the Spanish,
and the independence of Central America from Spain in the early 19th
century. Much of Chapter 1 details the post-independence period of
Nicaragua from 1821 to 1893, an especially important time. It was during
this time that conservative and liberal wings of the ruling elite fought
each other for control of the government, with neither faction of the
ruling class gaining control.
It was also during this period that Great Britain and the U.S. competed
for imperial dominance of Nicaragua and all of Latin America. The
famous, in Latin America we would say infamous, Monroe doctrine,
articulated by President James Monroe in 1823, declared all of Latin
America to be in the U.S. sphere of influence, to be essentially “our
backyard.” Saying it does not make it so, however, and the U.S. had to
struggle against Great Britain, and to a lesser extent the vestiges of
Spanish power in Cuba and Puerto Rico, for almost 100 years before the
U.S. empire totally dominated Latin America in the early 1920s.
This period includes the efforts of Cornelius Vanderbilt to construct a
transoceanic canal through Nicaragua, starting in 1849, and the invasion
and occupation of Nicaragua by William Walker in 1855-1857. Walker and
his backers in the U.S. hoped to expand slavery into Latin America
(Nicaragua had abolished slavery in 1838), made English the official
language, and awarded vast tracts of land to Walker’s U.S. soldiers.
When Walker returned to the U.S. he was treated as a hero. He spoke at a
mass meeting of 20,000 whites in New Orleans in 1860, on the eve of the
U.S. Civil War.
Chapter 2 examines the period of 1893 to 1935, when the Nicaraguan
ruling class and the U.S. imperialists built the modern Nicaraguan state
and capitalist economy. During this period the U.S. directly occupied
Nicaragua from 1909 to 1927. After withdrawing U.S. troops in 1927, the
U.S. re-occupied Nicaragua from 1927 to 1933 to fight against the troops
of Augusto Sandino in an extraordinarily violent civil war. Sandino had
a nationalist and anti-imperialist political program but he was not a
socialist.
In the mid-1920s, the U.S. pressured a number of Latin American
countries through treaties with the U.S. to form their own national
guards or armies. These national guards were trained and shaped by the
U.S. as instruments of local political and military control. Sandino,
with approximately 2000 troops, fought against 5000 U.S. Marines and
2000 Nicaraguan National Guard troops. The Great Depression in the U.S.
and the resistance of Sandino and his troops led to new elections in
Nicaragua in 1932 and the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1933.
A truce and peace conference was soon announced, and soon afterward
Sandino laid down his arms. A year later, after dining with the
president, Sandino and his top advisors were ambushed and executed by
the Nicaraguan National Guard.
Chapter 3 outlines the rise and dominance of the Somoza dynasty in
Nicaragua from 1936 to 1975. During this period the Somoza family ruled
Nicaragua as loyal servants of U.S. and Nicaraguan capital. They tried
to modernize the Nicaraguan state and economy in the service of
themselves, their cronies, and their U.S. masters. In this, the Somoza
family formed alliances or pacts with various local capitalists, the
labor movement, and political parties. The Somoza family itself
dominated the Liberal Party, one of the two traditional political
parties in Nicaragua, as well as controlling the National Guard. They
became a classic Latin American caudillo dynasty.
Cuban revolution inspired Nicaraguan youth
Chapters 4 and 5 shift the narrative focus away from the development of
the Nicaraguan state and economy to the emergence and triumph of the
FSLN. La Botz traces the history of the FSLN and its key figures to the
Nicaraguan Socialist Party (PSN-Partido Socialista Nicaraguense), the
Stalinist Communist Party of Nicaragua. All the founding members of the
FSLN were young militants in that party, which backed the Somoza dynasty
at various times.
These young militants were deeply influenced by the Cuban revolution,
which triumphed in January 1959. They broke with the PSN around two
issues. The first was the subordination of the struggles in Nicaragua to
the needs of the USSR. The second was the use of armed guerilla struggle
based on the Cuban model of “focos” nuclei of militants fighting in the
jungle or mountains with connections to peasants and workers.
This break with the PSN and an embrace of armed struggle led to the
formation of two guerrilla groups—the New Nicaragua Movement, formed in
1961 by Carlos Fonseca, and the Sandinista Revolutionary Front by Eden
Pastora. Under pressure from Cuba, their main sponsor, both groups
merged in 1961-62 under the name the National Liberation Front (FLN), a
tribute to the Algerian revolutionary organization. The group soon added
Sandinista to its name to become the FSLN.
For most of its 18-year struggle, the FSLN remained a marginal and
ineffective force. They sent their best militants into the jungle to
take up armed struggle and never succeeded in forming close connections
with peasants and workers. Nor did they succeed in growing the
organization and threatening the Somoza dynasty.
They did emerge as the only steadfast and uncompromising political force
against the dynasty. In the mid-1970s they carried out some spectacular
actions, including assassinations and kidnappings. Also in the 1970s,
two important developments occurred. First, radical Christians
influenced by Vatican II adopted a theology of liberation that was
highly critical of capitalism and imperialism. A number of priests and
nuns began working closely with the FSLN to form a socialist revolution.
Second, the PSN and the FSLN began working together closely in 1976 and
formally merged in 1978.
Alongside these advances, the FSLN suffered substantial losses due to
military attacks, including the death of Carlos Fonseca in 1976 and the
near total destruction of all the focos. With the death of Fonseca, the
primary leader of the organization, a split occurred within the group.
Two currents emerged, the Prolonged People’s War current, led by Tomás
Borge, and representing the historic orientation of Fonseca, and the
Proletarian Tendency, which sought to develop organizations among urban
and especially rural workers.
The Prolonged People’s War current expelled the Proletarian Tendency and
threatened to kill them. At the same time, a third current emerged, led
by Daniel Ortega and his brother Humberto, that favored a mass
insurrection and alliances with capitalists and capitalist political
parties. This current became known as the Third Tendency, or Terceristas
in Spanish.
As popular discontent with the Somoza dynasty was on the rise, including
a spontaneous and brutally repressed mass insurrection in 1978, Fidel
Castro sought to re-unify the FSLN. Given the defeat of virtually all
the guerrilla focos in 1976, the Prolonged People’s War group was not
the dominant faction in the reunified organization. The Terceristas
allied with the weaker Proletarian Tendency to gain effective control.
The reunification was announced in March of 1979 with a directory of
nine commanders (comandantes), three from each tendency. The Terceristas
under Ortega’s leadership was in effective political control. Using
cross-class political alliances and with Sandinista leadership of a mass
urban and rural insurrection, the Somoza dynasty ended on July 19, 1979.
Chapters 6 and 7 detail the FSLN in power immediately after the
overthrow of the Somoza dynasty, through the Contra War of the 1980s, to
their electoral defeat in 1990. Originally working in coalition, the
FSLN was able to consolidate its power over the state by smashing the
existing state apparatus and rebuilding it along Sandinista lines.
Chapter 6 and 7 discuss the successes of the revolution, including the
literacy campaign and the health campaigns, and the revolution’s initial
failures, such as the relations with the indigenous peoples of the
Caribbean coast.
La Botz does not discuss the incredible success of the revolution in
feeding the Nicaraguan people and eliminating malnutrition, one of the
main achievements. In these chapters La Botz also highlights the lack of
democracy within the FSLN and within the top-down mass organizations
they created. Chapter 7 details the Contra War and the U.S. efforts to
destroy the revolution. Given the massive literature on this subject, La
Botz’s chapter is necessarily brief but to the point.
Chapters 8 and 9 trace the restoration of the neoliberal capitalist
regime in Nicaragua from 1990, when the Sandinistas lost a crucial
election, to Ortega’s return to power in 2006. This period marked two
important developments. First, the restoration of a neoliberal
capitalist government and economic model in Nicaragua, beginning with
the government of Violeta Chamorro (1990-96) and then under the
governments of Alemán (1996-2001) and Bolaños (2001-2006). These
regimes were also corrupt.
Second, the capitalist restoration of the state and economy was carried
out with the collaboration of the FSLN, especially the Ortega brothers.
This restoration included a number of political pacts and agreements and
two massive give-aways of state assets to the leaders of the FSLN. The
Ortega brothers, Borge, and others became multimillionaires overnight,
and they converted the FSLN and its unions into giant patronage
machines. The capitalist restoration could not have taken place without
the active participation of the FSLN leadership, who prevented any
democratic decision-making in the party and drove out many of the
original cadre who did not accept the betrayal of the revolution.
In Chapter 10, La Botz traces the period from 2006 to the present, when
Ortega won election to the presidency and became a new caudillo. He
immediately set about consolidating his hold over society, changing the
constitution to permit his re-election and the election of his wife as
his vice-president. He also installed his children as the heads of key
media corporations or government agencies. Ortega and his family are
creating a new caudillo dynasty to rule over Nicaragua in the interests
of capital (although not necessarily U.S. capital).
Chapter 10 also highlights some of Ortega’s reactionary policies,
especially against women, Indigenous peoples, independent unions, and
the environment. Ultimately, as La Botz shows, the Nicaraguan revolution
has degenerated into a tragedy.
While “What went wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution” is a germinal work,
it is not without its political weaknesses. La Botz rightly emphasizes a
major failing: the lack of democracy within the FSLN and within the
Sandinista government. He also notes the failure of the FSLN to carry
out a revolutionary program, especially to give land to the peasants.
This criticism, also important, has been made by Socialist Action from
the early 1980s onward and was communicated by SA directly to the
Sandinistas.
But La Botz does not spend enough time examining the imperialist
intervention beginning immediately after the overthrow of the Somoza
dynasty and continuing through 1990. No isolated revolution can survive
for long without support. Socialism in one country is a Stalinist myth
and cannot exist in the real world.
Lessons for today
“The lessons of the Nicaraguan Revolution,” La Botz writes, “that is,
the answers to the question ‘What went wrong?’ therefore have valuable
broader implications, not only for understanding the past, but also for
contemporary politics and the struggle for socialism in the future” (p.
1). In my opinion, La Botz highlights some of these lessons but not all.
What then are the lessons for today?
First, the current Ortega government is not a revolutionary government.
Ortega has become a caudillo, basing his power in the army and the FSLN,
which now operates as a patronage machine. Ortega is now a wealthy
capitalist himself, as are other top Sandinistas, and he is building a
family dynasty.
The U.S. does not forget or forgive easily, and while Ortega is a
capitalist and a pro-capitalist politician, he is also pursuing an
independent foreign policy that is critical of the U.S. This by itself
would place him on the U.S. imperialists’ “enemies list.” But it gets
worse since Ortega and the Sandinistas are close allies of China, and
especially seek Chinese investment, such as for the proposed
transoceanic canal in Nicaragua.
The correct position for U.S. anti-imperialist and antiwar activists to
take is the one adopted by the Executive Bureau of the Fourth
International on Oct. 28, 2018: Solidarity with popular demands and
against Ortega’s repression and U.S. intervention (6).
Second, the foco strategy, and more broadly guerrilla warfare, is a
political dead end. Following the Cuban revolution, and also under the
influence of the Vietnamese revolution, many revolutionaries around the
world turned toward a foquista strategy, believing that revolution is
best brought about by small groups of revolutionaries (focos) fighting
in the mountains or jungles to build a base of resistance to the regime.
This strategy failed in Nicaragua, and elsewhere, starting with Che’s
tragically doomed efforts in Bolivia. As La Botz shows, when the FSLN
modified their focquista strategy to include organizing among the
working class and mass urban insurrections, they were able to achieve
success—although, unfortunately, only in coalition with capitalist elites.
A guerrilla strategy excludes the masses and makes socialist revolution
unlikely. But what about Cuba, you may ask? The history of the Cuban
revolution is more complicated than the official story. It followed a
pattern similar in many ways to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the
July 26 movement used many of the elements of the Leninist strategy. The
Cuban revolution was a mass revolution carried out by the urban and
rural working class, led by a vanguard organization, the July 26
movement. The real path forward is by adopting a Leninist strategy.
Socialist revolutions can only be made by the masses, with the
leadership of a vanguard party. The FSLN took the role of the vanguard
in Nicaragua, but as long as it sought to substitute itself for the
masses it failed.
Making a revolution is not the same as making a successful revolution.
To be successful, the vanguard must have a revolutionary program. There
must be democracy in the vanguard and in the mass organizations. And
ultimately, there must be world revolution, for socialism cannot be
built or survive in one country. This is the essence of the lessons of
all the revolutions in the 20th century.
Nicaragua now
Nicaragua is again in the news. In April 2018 mass opposition to the
Ortega government erupted after Ortega cut social security benefits.
Students soon joined their parents and grandparents in protesting the
cuts and demanding that Ortega resign and new elections be held. These
protests spread and were violently repressed by Ortega and his security
forces. At present, many from the political opposition are in hiding or
exile.
Many on the left treat the Ortega dictatorship as a progressive and
revolutionary force, seemingly following the logic of “the enemy of my
enemy is my friend.” Nothing could be further from the truth, as La
Botz’s evidence proves time and again.
This is not to say, however, that the U.S. is not conspiring to
overthrow Ortega and replace him with a loyal servant to U.S. imperial
interests. This is exactly what happened in neighboring Honduras in 2009
when the U.S. backed a coup that overthrew the democratically elected
president who dared propose minor reforms that would hurt corporate
profits and improve the lot of the Honduran people.
The subsequent U.S. puppet regimes, backed strongly by the U.S., have
undermined the rule of law in Honduras and produced the wave of violence
that now forces thousands of Hondurans to flee their homes for the U.S.
and Mexico.
While U.S. covert operations in Nicaragua are difficult to pinpoint, it
is clear that the U.S. government has made an effort to strangle the
Nicaraguan economy (yet again) with the NICA Act of December 2018,
signed into law by Trump. The act seeks to cut off international aid and
loans to Nicaragua, a classic imperialist tactic of economic warfare.
I saw with my own eyes what difference a revolution could make, and my
heart is shattered by the betrayal of that revolution by the FSLN and
the defeat of that revolution by U.S. imperialism. But having seen
revolution, I have hope. I know that revolution is complex, difficult,
hard; but revolution is also possible and necessary. If you wish to make
a revolution, you need to learn from past revolutions. Dan La Botz’s
book is essential for that purpose.
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February 15, 2019 in Latin America. Tags: Nicaragua
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Carl Sagan
“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind
and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says
everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the
fallibility of all the human beings involved?”
― Carl Sagan
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