Date: Wed, 6 Mar 96 09:26:57 GMT
From: Adam Rose <adam-AT-pmel.com>
Subject: Re: The Nicaraguan working-class and socialism



Of course, there is not a direct comparison between Nicaragua and Russia.

Russia may have been backward but it was one of the major Imperialist nations
of the time. It had the heavy industry precisely because the Tsarist regime
realised it needed to compete economically and militarily with Austria, Germany,
Japan, Britain, France, US.

While the concentration of the proletariat seems to be a lot less, the absolute
numbers seem similar between the two cases. But what was going on in agriculture ?
I would argue that the class structure in agriculture in Nicaragua in 1979 and
Russia in 1917 was more advantageous in Nicaragua.

I can't give figures for this, but I'd guess that the people in the countryside
were agricultural proletarians, not peasants in the Feudal sense at all. I'd
guess it would be a slightly more mechanised version of the situation in Britain
before WW1, when the T+G built a very strong organisation amongst agricultural
workers.

Lenin was forced by the real social nature of Russia to abandon his plan for
Soviets of poor peasants, and collective ownership of land. But this may have
been more realistic in Nicaragua. Of course, the urban proletariat would have
been the dominant partner.


The other arguments Louis puts forward can be read two ways. He chooses to read
them as implying the Sandinistas had no choice other than to act as they did.
I could equally read them as meaning they had no choice other than to act 
differently. People always put practical problems as arguments against revolution.
In advanced countries, they are different ones : "the economy is too complex" ,
"workers have more than just chains to lose" , "reformism is too strong" ,
"the state is too strong".

I think in particular that the subjective problems - low union organisation etc - 
Louis raises had a lot more to do with the politics of the Nicaraguan CP,
which supported their own national bourgeoisie against Imperialism, than objective
social composition.

Adam.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK

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