Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 21:21:06 -0800
From: iwp.ilo-AT-ix.netcom.com (CEP )
Subject: Re: Understanding Nicaragua


You(Louis) wrote: 
>
>On Mon, 4 Mar 1996, Adam Rose wrote:
>> 
>> Nevertheless, the question remains, why was it defeated ?
>> Not to mention the contras is ridiculous, but this does not
>> serve as an explanation.

    Carlos:

    I mentioned the Contras nine times in my previous postings,         
    including the information that the first core group of contras
    was constituted by National Guardsmen freed by the FSLN under
    the slogan of "implacable in combat, generous in victory"

    So, please stop this nonsense of "forgetting what I posted before
    in order to continue forever a discussion.

>Louis: Disappointment with the Sandinista revolution is rather 
wide-spead 
>on the left. Carlos is simply the most strident expression of this. I 
>have been meaning for the longest time to try to come up with a more 
>nuanced analysis than one that simply states that the FSLN was a 
>sell-out, opportunist, popular front, etc. They were not a Nicaraguan 
>version of the Spanish Popular Front or Allende in Chile. There 
>*was* something different about the FSLN.

    Carlos:

    Again Louis, you are not listening ... rather, reading.  I never
    mentioned the words "sell-out".  If one thing the Sandinista did
    was to do what they said they were set up to do.  Therefore they
    were not "sell-out", just reformists.

    They were popular frontists (they governed with the shadow of the
    shadow of the bourgeoisie and allowed it to reconstitute itself).
    I already explained this at lenght in the previous discussion we
    had and that you interrupted abruptly, so I won't insist.  If you   
    would like to read my arguments, go to the files.  They are there.

    I never compared the FSLN with Allende.  Allende was a disarmed,
    pacifist socialist.  The FSLN was reformism with fatigues and
    AK-47.  Hardly the same in appearance, hardly different in          
    politics.

    I *neer* felt disillusioned with the Sandinistas because I never
    doubted or disguised their positions.  I always took them for what
    they said they were.  They were not mistaken, I wasn't either.

    Dissappointment, cries of "sell-out" came from people who           
    interpreted the FSLN and tried to sell something that simply
    wasn't there.  Remember the idotic discussions of Mandel's party:
    "they are objectively revolutionaries" and the SWP: "The            
    Nicaraguan government is a workers and peasant goverment and it
    is close to be a workers states" -- I remember the laugh that this
    caused to many Sandinistas.

    Please, Louis, stop putting in my mouth ... sorry in my fingers,
    something I *never* wrote.
>
    Curious, though: what is the "was" in the Sandinistas that you
    cannot spell? Wondering...

    Louis:
>
. I exchanged the 5 books I had on China 
>for books on Nicaragua and am looking forward to sharp but comradely 
>debate with Hugh, Carlos or whoever else wants to jump in.
>
    Carlos:

    I would love so, but I think we are reaching the end of this        
    thread.

    Now your question was "what would carlos have done different than
    the FSLN?":

    I will just sinthetyze what I said before:

    I. Internationalism

    1. In order to make US counter-revolutionary attacks more difficult
    I will have expanded the revolutionary tide to El SalVador and
    Guatemala and call for the federation of Central American           
    revolutions with Cuba.

    2.  I would have formed a combined military command between the
    FSLN,FSLN and the EGP in Guatemala and call upon all                
    revolutionaries in the world to send volunteers and financial aid
    for this.

    II. Internal Measures

    3.  I would have had all bourgeois and landowners' property         
    confiscated if the owners were not radicated and present in the
    country and if they did not properly pay their workers.  At the
    moment of the victory, 87% of all bourgeois and oligarchs of
    Nicaragua were out of the country and they did not return until
    16/18 months later.

    4. I would have done the literacy campaign in a similar way as
    the sandinistas did but respecting the right of self-determination
    of Indians and Blacks  (and the respect of their languages).  The
    FSLN alienated from the revolution most of them by forcing them to
    use Spanish (Atlantic Coast) and they become a source for the
    counter-revolution.

    5. I will form workers committees in factories across the country
    with instructions to govern over production and organize            
    distribution.

    6. I would have had distribute all lands to the peasants but not
    in little parcels as the FSLN did with Somoza's land only which
    maintained peasants in poverty and eventually turned many of
    them against the revolution.  I would have had organized 28         
    different regional cooperatives with peasant control of production
    and distribution in concertation with the workers committees in
    the factories (28, because that's the number of natural regions
    in Nicaragua according to natural resources)

    III.  Government

    7. Instead of governing with the shadow of the shadow of the
    bourgeoisie, I would have the peasants and workers committees
    act as the governing bodies of the countries.

    8. I would have had an alliance (immediately after the revolution)
    with all the left forces supporting the overthrown of the Somoza
    regime and that generally agreed with a workers and farmers         
    government (MAP -- former Maoists; PRT, Trotskystas; independent
    workers and farmer organizations; some of the factions of the PSN
    and the PCN, etc)

    It is important to note that on March 24, 1994, Commander Henry
    Ruiz have this to say:

    "I see (the possibility of the FSLN governing) but not by itself. I
    think that no force in Nicaragua can, by itself, govern.  In this
    electoral process we should organize first all those forces of 
    Sandinismo and other close to it ... Those forces are today         
    disperse and we need to make agreements with them ..."

    Bolsa Electoral, Managua, January 24, 1996

    In the same magazine, an official annalisis of the FSLN:

    "Even though the FSLN have three pre-candidates for the presidency,
    the leadership of the party, under the present political            
    circunstances do not believe it had found the candidate or the      
    neccesary alliances to even have internal cohesion and eventually
    take power"

    There are presently 37 parties!!!!!! en Nicaragua competing for
    the presidency.  Eleven of them claim some kind of allegiance to
    the revolution of 1979 and several of them claim to be a faction
    of the Sandinistas.

    This is the result of the sectarian, reformist policies of the `   
````F`SLN.

`   Louis, maybe we should discuss some other thing.  I think, for what
    you said in another posting that you are re-evaluatiing Nicaragua
    and the FSLN.  Why not to give you time and reading before we got
    deeper in this discussion.  I hate to make it a discussion of two
    opposites.

    ONE CLARIFICATION: I didn't ask you where youwere doing your
    solidarity work to check on you.  I wanted to know where as to know
    how much of the dispute on the Simon Bolivar Brigade was taking     
    place at that time in your area.  In Los Angeles, for example, was
    one of the central discussions in the months prior to the victory.

    Sorry if I came across as trying to check on you or your            
    credentials.  Was not my intention.

    Comradely,
    Carlos

    





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