Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 08:56:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: Nicaragua: A historic opportunity lost?


On Sun, 28 Apr 1996, Rahul Mahajan wrote:

> You have
> in the past stated categorically that the Sandinistas were not like the
> Popular Front in Spain. While conceding that they certainly were not with
> regard to authoritarian suppression of alternative currents, I still would
> like a clearer formulation or understanding of what the other differences
> were. Could you briefly sketch them for us?
> 

Louis: Put in the most simple terms, the Popular Front was an electoral 
bloc between workers parties and bourgeois parties, while the Sandinista 
government included no bourgeois parties. With respect to land reform, 
Nicaragua had the most extensive expropriations in Central or Latin 
America since the Cuban revolution. This came in two stages. First, all 
Somocista land was nationalized in 1979. These properties were exactly 
the types of massive agribusiness holdings that were ripe for seizure. 
The next wave of nationalizations took place in 1982 and 1983 when 
underutilized land became the target. If Spain had the type of land reform 
that Nicaragua did, it is entirely likely that Franco would have never 
become dictator.


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