Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996 12:55:28 -0800
From: iwp.ilo-AT-ix.netcom.com (CEP )
Subject: Re: Nicaragua, socialism vs nationalism


You(Hugh) wrote: 
>
>The Nicaraguan party affiliating to the international tendency within 
which
>the MAS was the biggest party, was indeed interested in ousting the
>Sandinistas from power - as any Marxist socialist party would be that
>didn't think a petty-bourgeois nationalist leadership such as the FSLN
>capable of leading a revolution in a semi-colonial country to victory. 

    Carlos:

    Sorry, Hugh, I need to correct you in this one.  The position of
    the LIT(CI), MAS and the PRT(Nicaraguan party of the LI-CI) *was
    not* "ousting the Sandinistas from power".  That, without a mass
    revolutionary party to replace them would have been an              
    irresponsible act of "vanguardism".  The demands, at the time (1979
    and 1980) of the LIT(CI) -- then called the Bolshevik Faction of
    the Usec, by the way --, the PST (later the MAS) of Argentina and
    the Nicaraguan PRT were: 1) FSLN: Break with the bourgeoisie and
    form your own government; 2)Popular tribunals for all National
    Guardsmen captured (the FSLN later *released* most of them who
    in turn became the first bulk of the Contras) and 3) Nationalize
    all industries and lands -- distribute them to poor peasants.
    Additionally they demanded: 4) Expand the revolutionary upturn
    to El Salvador and the rest of Central America and 5) For a 
    federation of a Socialist Central America with Cuba.

    You may, as I do, disagree with some of these formulations, but
    those were the one raised at the time.

    Now, that strategy was designed to a)Explain and organize the
    working class and the peasantry around transitional demands and
    b) build an alternative revolutionary leadership.

    Hugh:

The
>process leading to a revolutionary socialist leadership in place of 
the
>Sandinistas would not involve coups or putsches but organization,
>explanation and better leadership of the struggles the people of 
Nicaragua
>were involved in.

    Carlos:

    I agree with this comment, but somehow was contradictory with
    your previous one.  Unless I'm missinterpreting in which case
    I apologize in advance.

    Hugh:

 The FSLN, however, were more interested in maintaining
>their own grip on power and hobnobbing with the 'national bourgeoisie' 
than
>mobilizing the people in Nicaragua and Central America against 
imperialism.

    Carlos:

    It was these things but some others.  The FSLN was strongly
    influenced by all the Stalinist crap coming from the Cubans
    and the Vietnamese.  I remember castro visiting Nicaragua
    and "advising" the FSLN "not to commit the same mistakes we did"
    and then he explained: "We nationalize and expropriated the
    bourgeosie; alienated many frieds and potential allies and we
    run into unnecesarry conflicts internationally"  This was no
    more than the continuation of the "advise" he gave to Allende
    in Chile "to persist in the peaceful road to socialism" --
    Remember?

    In his visit to Nicaragua, the Vietnamese premier spoke at a
    rally and held many meetings with the FSLN in which he repeatedly
    asserted that "preserving the unity with the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie
    and resisting the temptation of advancing too fast" were the
    lessons "the Vietnamese people learned in many years of struggle".

    Hugh:
>
>The defeat in Nicaragua was an expensive lesson in the inadequacy of
>nationalist, class-collaborationist politics in semi-colonial 
countries.
>For those who claim more revolutionary approaches would have been
>adventurism, I would remind them that in spite of strategically 
hopeless
>leadership, and in spite of apparently overwhelming odds against them 
(such
>as US military might), the Nicaraguan revolution remained in the 
balance
>for a decade or so. This indicates the power of a people in revolution 
to
>shape their own lives in the teeth of imperialist opposition and in 
the
>teeth of demobilizing 'support' from the likes of the Castro regime 
(not to
>be confused with the Cuban workers' state).

    cARLOS:

    Agree on this one.
>
    Hugh:

>The defeat in Nicaragua was also yet another vindication of the 
necessity
>of the strategy of Permanent Revolution if semi-colonial countries

    Carlos:
    I believe the LIT(CI) still sustain the applicability of the
    permanent Revolution in advanced countries, too.  Isn't that
    true?  It did then ...(1979)

    Hugh:
to
>create the political conditions for forming a state capable of 
defending
>even basic popular democratic conquests from imperialist attack. In 
other
>words, expropriation of the means of production (agriculture and 
other) and
>a regime of socialist democracy in a dictatorship of the proletariat. 
Only
>a socialist revolution will be capable of carrying out the tasks of 
the
>democratic revolution.
>
    Carlos:

    Agreed on this one.
    
    Hugh:
>
>PS You could have checked the MAS reference before accusing Carlos and
>myself of 'arrogance', couldn't you? But the accusation was too good 
to be
>passed up, wasn't it?

    Carlos:

    Agreed.  Check the post I sent to Louis before I saw yours.

    Comradely,
    Carlos



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