Revolution in the Making

The most immediately recognizable sign of
a revolution in Nicaragua is that people aren’t
afraid of the soldiers. Such trust didn’t exist in
the past. Somoza’s National Guard was the
direct contact people had with the repressive
dictatorship, and thus symbolized its ugliest
aspects. The repression ebbed and flowed,
and often it was arbitrary. Even in quiet
times, the Guard was always there, always to
be feared, always ready to extort from the
people what little they had. The National
Guard even committed genocide against its
own people. It did this massively by bombing
the poorer neighborhoods from the air, after
the September insurrection; and individually
by shooting young boys in the head in front of
their hysterical parents to prevent the boys
from joining the FSLN.
Now when soldiers stand at attention
children come up to examine their canteens
and rifles, and to ask what they did during the
insurrection. Women dance freely with men
in uniform at the street fairs which happen so
frequently now in Nicaragua. And nearly
everyone has learned to accept the women in
uniform, knowing that almost a third of the
FSLN guerrilla combatants were women.
The new mood is everywhere. For a visitor
it starts at the airport: Welcome to Free
Nicaragual, the gigantic banner reads. Fresh
new murals and graffiti lauding the revolu-
tion adorn walls through out the country.
Even the Catholic Cathedral, which faces
Managua’s new Plaza of the Revolution, is
graced with a three-story high portrait of
Nicaragua’s national hero, Cesar Augusto
Sandino.
The entire country is intense with activity.
Throughout the cities crews on government-
sponsored public works projects repair
the enormous destruction caused by the
Somoza regime. On weekends, thousands of
volunteers head into the countryside on buses
Courtesy of Barricada
2
NACLA Report0 U
Plaza of the Revolution on International
Workers’ Day, May 1, 1980.
and trucks to work on state-owned farms and
plantations. Both neighborhood mobiliza-
tions and massive demonstrations are com-
monplace. The causes can be domestic–the
inauguration of the literacy campaign, or in-
ternational- the assassination of Archbishop
Romero in neighboring El Salvador.
The motor force of this revolutionary fervor
is the Sandinista National Liberation Front,
the FSLN -a fact even acknowledged reluc-
tantly by the bourgeoisie.
The FSLN, like many other Latin
American left groups initiated in the early
1960s, was founded by radical students, and
began as a rural-based guerrilla organization,
engaging in hit-and-run attacks on military
outposts. By September 1978, when a nation-
wide but premature insurrection was viciously
crushed by Somoza’s National Guard, it was
clear that the FSLN had become the political
and military vanguard of the popular forces
in the cities and countryside alike. “The black
and red flag of the FSLN can be frequently
seen flying over schools and slums,” described
the New York Times correspondent that
July.’
The Project:
“There can only be one solution
for us-socialism.”
If the FSLN is the chief architect of the new
Nicaraguan society, what is to be its design?
FSLN National Directorate member Daniel
Ortega publicly declared the class basis of the
new Nicaragua in a major speech in October
1979: “This is the revolution of the vast ma-
jority, of the workers and peasants who pro-
duce all the country’s wealth.” While such a
general statement could be consistent with
even radical reformist aspirations, another
Sandinista leader close to the National Direc-
torate was more explicit: “The ultimate goal
[is] to build a socialist society.”s
But the revolution in Nicaragua has only
just begun, and its ultimate destiny is far from
decided. As the Cubans are quick to admit,
armed struggle is the easy part.
Evaluating the events of the past year, it is
clear that this revolution is for the workers
and peasants. It also appears that the San-
dinista Front is carefully and creatively laying
the basis for a socialist society, knowing full
well that the dependent capitalist society in-
herited from Somoza could not be reformed
so as to provide any future for the masses. As
one worker said, “We are a poor country
with many problems, but there can be only
one solution for us–socialism.”‘ This was
echoed by a rural organizer for the Associa-
tion of Rural Workers (ATC), who declared
that, “Our real enemies are all the bourgeois
elements, those who own lands and factories,
and those who are still in the church and the
government.”
The ATC is but one of the mass organiza-
tions that have blossomed under FSLN
leadership within the past year. Yet, for all4
this, the workers and peasants, led by their
vanguard, the FSLN, have not taken total
control of either the state or the economy.
The Government of National Reconstruction,
set up onJuly 19, 1979, is based on an alliance
that includes sectors of the bourgeoisie. Two
of the five members on the executive Junta
itself represent the private sector, though no
initiative is taken without full consultation
and approval by the FSLN National Direc-
torate. The state controls the banks and much
of the economic infrastructure, while most of
the country’s industries and a large portion of
its agricultural lands remain under private
control. Bourgeois political parties and
business associations continue to exist, voicing
the interests and concerns of the privileged
sectors of society.
If this is truly a revolution of the workers
and peasants, why is there such an alliance?
Why haven’t the means of production–the
factories, the fields, the mines, etc. -been
totally expropriated so that a socialist society
can be developed?
To evaluate why the FSLN has carried out
two seemingly contradictory policies-the
maintenance of an alliance with the
bourgeoisie, and the fomenting of mass
organizations with a militant class perspec-
tive- we must look at how the victory was
won and what the objective conditions were
that existed on July 19, 1979.
There are numerous elements in such an
evaluation. One is the physical destruction of
a country wracked by a liberation struggle
against such a ruthless tyrant. Another is the
country’s position in the global structure-its
relation to economic and political forces that
it does not control. And not the least is the
debilitating impact on the social forces
themselves of a half century of unrelenting
dictatorship.
The Bourgeoisie:
“We don’t know where we’re go-
ing or what will happen next.”
The Nicaraguan revolution has been pro-
foundly affected by the particular
characteristics of the Somoza dictatorship.
During its 45-year reign, the Somoza family
treated Nicaragua as its own personal estate
and the country’s standing army, the Na-
tional Guard, as its personal bodyguard.
The Somozas also enjoyed a special rela-
tionship with U.S. imperialism. The first
Somoza was installed by the U.S. government
in the mid-1930s to maintain stability and
protect U.S. interests when the Marines
departed after two decades of occupation. In
many ways the Somoza dynasty was a foreign
government imposed on the Nicaraguan peo-
ple, always ready to curry favor with its U.S.
sponsor as a means of ensuring its own
perpetuation in power.
While active capitalists themselves, the
Somozas were often unresponsive to the in-
terests of other sectors of their own class. This
had serious economic and political conse-
quences for the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie.
Taxes, bank loans, import duties and govern-
ment subsidies were all manipulated by the
Somoza clan in a way that often discriminated
against one sector or another of the capitalist
class. Politically, this created an emasculated
and fragmented bourgeois opposition, never
able to develop a coherent alternative project.
Constantly on the defensive, its represen-
tatives often turned to the United States to
mediate their disputes with the Somoza
regime.
The most sustained attempt of the dissident
bourgeoisie to wrest control from Somoza
began after the 1972 earthquake. The dynas-
ty’s greed had finally become untenable. Not
only was Tachito Somoza more openly cor-
rupt than his family predecessors, he even
began to romp on previously independent
bourgeois sectors of the economy, such as con-
struction and banking.
In mid-1978, the bourgeoisie made a last
effort to pull itself together. Through its
traditional political parties and business
organizations, it created the Broad Opposi-
tion Front (FAO), to devise a moderate
bourgeois alternative to Somoza. This time
they had some support from the United
States. The Carter Administration had begun
to recognize that the FSLN might just succeed
in toppling the Somoza dictatorship and
establishing a revolutionary government.
But the U.S. attempt to negotiate Somoza’s
departure in exchange for leaving intact ma-
jor elements of somocismo ended in failure.
Somoza remained intransigent: “This has to
end with a military solution.” 6 In the final
NACLA ReportMaylluns 1980 5
months of the struggle, the opposition was left
with no alternative but to cast its lot with the
FSLN. “Somoza is more of an obstacle to
democracy than the FSLN,” said a former
university rector. 7 As a class, the bourgeoisie
disintegrated even further. Some disinvested
and ran, others provided funds for arms to
the FSLN, still others continued to urge the
U.S. government to do something. “We don’t
know where we’re going or what will happen
next. We’re living in the early stages of civil
war,” explained a member of one of
Nicaragua’s wealthiest families who had par-
ticipated in a business strike to overthrow
Somoza. 8
The Masses:
“In the past many people
remained unorganized.”
The FSLN was literally swept to power
through the mass participation of hundreds of
thousands of Nicaraguans. But this obscures
the contradiction that on the eve of the insur-
rection Nicaragua had one of Central
America’s least advanced popular move-
ments. It possessed neither a strong organiza-
tional base nor developed political con- sciousness. “In the past,” explained Silvia
Reyes, an FSLN militant and leader in the
women’s organization, AMNLAE, “many
people remained unorganized for fear of
repression, for lack of political clarity, or
many other factors.” 9 This corresponded in
part to the tremendous repressive capacity of
the National Guard, and to the pervasiveness
of Somoza’s rabid anti-communist propagan-
da. It also corresponded to the historically low
level of industrialization and urbanization. By 1979, peasants and rural workers still
comprised more than half of Nicaragua’s
labor force, in total only 600,000 people. The
industrial proletariat was at most 35,000, with the majority of urban workers involved
in commerce and services. 1 0 Even this
represented a growth from the early 70s, as
the 1972 earthquake created work in con-
struction and related industries.
Less than six percent of all workers were
members of trade unions.” The strength of
those unionized was further debilitated both
by the division of the union movement into six
labor federations (one of which was under the
direct control of the Somoza dictatorship),
and by the predominance of economist and
weak leadership. The FSLN, which historical-
ly had emphasized work in the rural sector
and among students, did not begin to play a
significant role among urban workers until
the mid-70s, when one tendency (Proletariat)
laid aside rural guerrilla tactics in favor of
building a strong political base in urban
areas.
Yet another FSLN strategy emerged out of
the changing conditions of the 70s. The In-
surrectionists, or Terceristas, assessed that
Somoza’s own base of support had grown
perilously weak, and that a broad coalition of
disaffected forces could be harnessed to a
mass insurrection in the short run. Thus they
eschewed mass organizing in favor of building
a strong military organization which often at-
tacked from bases outside the country. For
several years the tendencies worked in-
dependently, creating separate organizational
structures and leadership.
Responding to the repressive climate, much
of the FSLN’s urban work concentrated on
developing clandestine nuclei in the
workplace and the barrio. Known in the fac-
tories as Revolutionary Workers’ Committees,
Committees for Trade Union Liberty and the
Movement of Working People, and in the
slums as Civil Defense Committees (CDC),
these small units later played an invaluable
role in the crucial tasks of the insurrectional
struggle.
But beginning in 1976, landless peasants
were organized by the FSLN into Committees
of Agricultural Workers, which led land inva-
sions and protest marches. Within two years
they had grown strong enough to found the
ATC as a national organization.
In 1977, the FSLN started AMPRONAC
(Association of Women Confronting the Na-
tional Problems), which fought to assert
women’s rights and provide a focus for human
rights at the national level. Its initial middle-
class image helped it avoid direct repression,
but its strength grew particularly among
working-class women as its militant commit-
ment to the overall struggle became more ex-
plicit. 12
By late 1977 the mass movement had begun
to pick up real momentum, and in mid-1978,
some 20 popular organizations founded the
MaylJune 1980 5NACLA Report
United People’s Movement (MPU). This new
body promoted coordination among the em-
bryonic organizations and hammered out a
program of unity which would become a plat-
form for replacing the dictatorship with a new
popular and democratic government.13 All
three tendencies of the FSLN endorsed this
program.
The Insurrection:
“. . . an imperative that preced-
ed full political consciousness.”
Parallel to the coalescence of this rapidly
expanding mass movement, the three tenden-
cies initiated a conscious process of reunifica-
tion, beginning with a declaration of “unity in
action.” A revolutionary situation was
developing rapidly and the FSLN needed to
be able to move in concert if it was to seize the
moment.
The year 1978 brought with it a tumult of
events, starting with the assassination of
Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, charismatic leader
of the bourgeois opposition, by the Somoza
forces. By mid-year the initiative had moved
to the hands of the FSLN. The Sandinista
Front had become the leader of a people in
motion.
But the return from exile of “The Twelve”
in July 1978 symbolized the ideological boun-
daries of that motion. The Twelve were in-
fluential businessmen, clergy and intellec-
tuals, many with close family ties to the
FSLN. Speaking to 100,000 cheering people
from all social sectors (who had turned out
despite dire threats by Somoza), the Twelve
espoused armed insurrection as the only way
to remove Somoza, and called for the con-
stitution of a popular government with FSLN
participation. They were the embodiment of
the broadest possible project, except that they
were the creation of the Terceristas, not the
bourgeoisie.
Petty bourgeois sectors now flocked to the
ranks of the Terceristas, as did sons and
daughters of the bourgeoisie. On the other
hand, the somewhat spontaneous September
insurrection showed the weakness of the
popular forces–lack of sufficient arms, lack
of training and lack of organizational cohe-
sion.
A crossroads had been reached. Each
tendency had to reassess certain elements of
its strategy. The FSLN determined that the
main enemy was imperialism, not its own
crippled bourgeoisie. The main manifestation
of imperialism, and its weakest link, was the
Somoza regime. As long as Somoza held
power, the FSLN could not gain more in-
itiative than it held at this crucial juncture.
Though its conception of an alternative
society was limited, the populace fighting
alongside the FSLN had shown itself willing
to die to get rid of the hated dictator. Life
held no other options. But the masses could
not succeed alone, and they need not. The
banner of national liberation could be sup-
ported by other dissident sectors in Nicaragua
as well. And it would be embraced by pro-
gressive governments and political parties in
other countries, whose diplomatic and finan-
cial help was indispensable in defeating the
National Guard and preventing U.S. in-
tervention. As one Sandinista summed it all
up, “The insurrection was an imperative that
preceded full political consciousness.””14
By March 1979, the three tendencies of the
FSLN were able to announce organic unity.
The multi-class strategy which had been
forged in practice during the previous year
was ratified, and within four months would
successfully overthrow the entire Somoza
dynasty, National Guard and all. Tomas
Borge, the only FSLN founder still alive, ex-
plained the reunification: “There were never
serious ideological differences between us.
The differences have been essentially of a
political and strategic nature.”‘
Alliance in victory:
“In Nicaragua the important
point is that the people are
armed.”
The workers, the peasants, the
unemployed, the urban poor, the migrant
agricultural workers, and the impoverished
women who suffered a particularly brutal ex-
istence in Nicaragua–these were the people
who provided the bulk of the Sandinista
fighting forces. As Comandante of the San-
dinista Army Humberto Ortega noted, the
guerrilla’s role was that of providing “support
6MaylJune 1980
for the masses so they could defeat the enemy
by means of insurrection.””‘ Those who didn’t
become combatants organized supply lines in
the cities and the countryside, built bar-
ricades to halt the troop movements of the
National Guard, provided sanctuaries for the
guerrillas and formed civil defense commit-
tees that ambushed and harassed the Na-
tional Guard units that penetrated their com-
munities. Thirty-five thousand people were
killed in the year preceding victory.”
But at the moment of victory, the
Nicaraguan masses, having played this
decisive role in the victory, were not at a level
of political and organizational development
that would enable them to immediately con-
solidate their position in the revolution. The
long struggle against the dictatorship had
engendered a broad anti-capitalist bias
among the masses, but they were not
prepared to launch a full-blown socialist pro-
ject. A transitional strategy was called for,
one which allowed for the continuing par-
ticipation of social classes that wanted to
maintain their economic privileges even while
speaking of reforms.
There were other, even more crucial
reasons for this strategy. The struggle against
Somoza had left much of the country in ruins.
A special study by the United Nations
Economic Commission on Latin America
(ECLA) reported well over half a billion
dollars in physical destruction. Aerial bomb-
ing by the National Guard had left many fac-
tories destroyed or damaged. Most of the cot-
ton crop (a major foreign exchange earner) as
well as staple food crops had gone unplanted
or been heavily damaged by neglect during
the fighting. Thirty percent or more of the
population were without jobs. One million
people, nearly half the population, needed
emergency food supplies.
Raw materials and spare parts had to be
obtained from abroad to reactivate the
economy. With the country bankrupt
(Somoza had left $3.5 million in the Central
Bank), international grants and credits for
these necessities were needed from Western
Europe, the United States and the interna-
tional aid agencies. Somoza had also left
behind a staggering foreign-exchange debt of
$1.6 billion, one of the highest per capita
debts in the world.
Hotel Europa in Estell,
destroyed by National
Guard Bombing
To reactivate the economy, the FSLN and
the Government of National Reconstruction
called for the participation of all social sec-
tors. Petty bourgeois administrators were
needed to provide their economic expertise.
The professional sectors -doctors, engineers,
lawyers, teachers, etc. – in short the entire
middle strata of Nicaraguan society-were
needed by the revolution and would have to
be won over.
The bourgeoisie, too, was asked to par-
ticipate in the reconstruction of the war-torn
land. The bourgeoisie was given a clear
choice: participate in a restructured economy
in which social needs would take precedence
over profits, or don’t participate at all, in
which case the enterprise becomes the proper-
ty of the state.
And finally there was imperialism itself.
The U.S. government had tried, even after
the Junta of National Reconstruction had
been named, to impose elements linked to the
Somoza clan on the new government. Even
some of the opposition business leaders were
incredulous: “It’s as if Ike had asked some of
the Nazis to stay on in Government,” said
one.” The United States was looking for any
opportunity to reverse the revolutionary pro-
cess, particularly as struggles against otherNACLA Report
Central American dictatorships gained
momentum.
In the other direction, Nicaragua was tied
to its northern neighbor just as securely as
Cuba had been tied two decades earlier. The
United States was a major trading partner, it
had influence over institutions holding most
of Nicaragua’s foreign debt, and it controlled
most of the technology and spare parts for
Nicaragua’s industry. The FSLN had learned
from the Cuban experience that immediate
expropriation of the capitalist class was not a
viable solution. A blockade such as Cuba has
borne these twenty years was to be avoided if
at all possible.
A major question remained. Was the
bourgeoisie weak enough, and FSLN leader-
ship of the masses strong enough, that the
FSLN could maintain the initiative in an
alliance without sacrificing the longer-term
goals of the revolution?
The FSLN determined that its control of
the military forces, its solid position as
vanguard of the revolution, and the
weakness of the bourgeoisie could allow for
such a transitional period. In short, the San-
dinista Front would be able to dictate the
terms of an alliance with the bourgeoisie. As
Comandante Jaime Wheelock pointed out,
“Usually the most important characteristic of
the bourgeoisie is that it is armed, separated
from the people. In Nicaragua the important
point is that the people are armed; the Army
becomes the base for all the changes.”‘ 9
The initial period of reconstruction is ex-
tremely important for the revolution. It is a
period of transition and rapid change, a
period filled with dangers for the advance of
the revolutionary process. The alliance is
becoming increasingly unstable as the masses
move forward and the FSLN begins to build a
new state and economy to respond to the in-
terests of the vast majority. Conflict between
the bourgeoisie and their political and
business organizations on the one hand, and
the FSLN and the mass organizations on the
other, is inevitable. As one leading member of
the FSLN said, “There are two historic pro-
jects in conflict, one that wants to forge a new
society that ends exploitation, the other that
wants to reintegrate elements of the old social
order into a society based on class privilege.” 20
REVOLUTION
1. Alan Riding, “National Mutiny in Nicaragua,”
New York Times Magazine, July 30, 1978.
2. Barricada (Managua, Nicaragua), October 30,
1979.
3. NACLA interview, November 1979.
4. NACLA interview with worker at metal fabrication
plant.
5. NACLA interview with ATC organizer near
Masaya.
6. Riding, “National Mutiny.”
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Lynn Silver, “Nicaraguan Women Organize to De-
fend the Revolution,” Intercontinental Press, October
15, 1979.
10. Adolfo Gilly, “La Central Sandinista de Traba-
jadores,” Uno Mas Uno (Mexico), December 13, 1979.
11. Barricada, March 16, 1980.
12. “Entrevista al MPU de Nicaragua,” Agence
Latino-Americaine D’lInformation (Montreal), January
11, 1979.
13. NACLA, “Crisis in Nicaragua,” NACLA Report
on the Americas, Vol. XII, No. 6 (November-December
1978), p. 36.
14. Interview with representative of Casa Nicaragua,
New York City.
15. EPICA Task Force, Nicaragua: A People’s Revolu-
tion (Washington, D.C.: EPICA, 1980), p. 11.
16. Cited in Granma (Havana, Cuba). January 27,
1980.
17. Comision Economica para America Latina
(CEPAL), Nicaragua: Repercusiones economicas de los
acontecimientos politicos recientes (Santiago, Chile:
CEPAL, August 1979), p. 18.
18. New York Times, June 28, 1979.
19. Interview with Jaime Wheelock.
20. Interview with Orlando Nunez, Ministry of
Agriculture and Agrarian Reform (INRA), Managua,
Nicaragua.