Sandinista National Liberation Front Research Articles

Theory in the practice of the Nicaraguan revolution

Even in the period following the electoral defeat of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1990, the revolution of 1979 continues to have a profound effect on the political economy of Nicaragua. Wright's study, which is based on interviews with people from all walks of life - from government and party officials to academics and campesinos - as well as on the large volume of literature in both English and Spanish, focuses on the FSLN understanding of the relationships between the state, the party, and mass actors, and the nature of social classes. Wright considers the topics of agrarian reform, the development of mass organizations, the role of labor, and other aspects of the Nicaraguan political economy in order to assess their significance in theoretical as well as practical terms.

Assessing Candiate Preference Polling and Other Survey Research in Nicaragua, 1989-90: Comments on Anderson, and Bischoping and Schuman

Both Katherine Bischoping and Howard Schuman (1992) and Leslie Anderson in her comment here (1994b) note the confusion engendered by numerous and hotly debated preelection presidential preference polls conducted in the months before Nicaragua's 25 February 1990 national election. Certain polls (some overtly and publicly associated with opposition forces) predicted a comfortable victory for Violeta Barrios de Chamorro's National Opposition Union (UNO). In striking contrast, other polls conducted by experienced foreign survey research organizations, by nongovernmental Nicaraguan research groups, and by the Sandinista National Liberation Front's (FSLN) own pollsters wrongly predicted that FSLN incumbent Daniel Ortega Saavedra would easily win reelection. An important casualty of these poll wars was confidence among certain audiences in the very reliability of public opinion polling in Nicaragua and, even more broadly, in Latin America. Although relatively novel in Nicaragua until quite recently, surveys by scholars and public opinion research organizations had proliferated throughout Central America and Latin America in recent decades. Yet the highly publicized failure to predict an important election outcome by a number of sophisticated and experienced pollsters seemed by implication to call this entire methodology into question, at least in the region. The controversy presented by the AJPS includes some of the calmer and more reasoned efforts by scholars to understand the nature and causes of the striking discrepancies among the Nicaraguan preelection

The sandinistas and the Atlantic coast: Revolution, Ethnic conflict and the struggle for peace 1984–90

Abstract The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN or Sandinistas) came to power in 1979 after a protracted guerilla campaign against the US supported Somoza dictatorship. However, the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, home to a multi‐ethnic community including Miskitu Indians and African descendant Creoles, was practically unscathed during the revolutionary insurrection in which 50,000 people died. During the years of FSLN rule, fighting raged between the Sandinista government and a US backed counter‐revolutionary force. The Atlantic Coast was severely affected by this war. Within eighteen months of the revolution, over 10,000 Miskitu had joined the US backed counter‐revolutionary forces based in neighbouring Honduras. By late 1983, the FSLN government began to change their rhetoric and policies affecting the Atlantic Coast. Negotiations and cease‐fires with armed Indigenous groups were entered into, evacuated communities were allowed to return to their lands and a political autonomy law was enacted. By ...

The São Paulo Forum: Is There a New Latin American Left?

Is there a new left emerging in Latin America in the post-Cold War era? Over the past few years, a quite diverse group of parties and movements has coalesced around a reconstructed left identity. All of them share a commitment to rethink revolution and social change in the new international situation of the 1990s. This group includes the Workers Party of Brazil (PT), the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua (FSLN), the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front of EL Salvador (FMLN), the Democratic Party of the Revolution of Mexico (PDR), the Broad Front of Uruguay (FA), the Free Bolivar Movement of Bolivia (MBL), the United Left of Peru (IU), and the Lavalas movement of Haiti, among others. Taken collectively, they are poised to play a major role in the hemisphere in the 1990s as a counterweight to the neoliberalism currently being pushed on the continent by transnational capital and local ruling elites.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Totalitarianism in Sandinista Nicaragua

Abstract From its inception in July 1979, a debate raged in policy and academic circles as to the fundamental political, ideological, and structural nature of the Sandinista regime. The two main intellectual camps fell along these lines: (1) the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) showed signs of traditional Latin American authoritarianism, but had a healthy strain of social democracy within its ranks. If only the U.S.‐sponsored “counterrevolution” would disappear, the Sandinistas would be able to develop their latent pluralism; (2) the FSLN was a Marxist‐Leninist regime, the leadership of which had a clear blueprint for taking and holding power and which sought to construct a Communist Utopia. Although this paper argues that the second line more clearly characterizes the nature of the Sandinista state, it strives to reach a broader understanding of the nature and structure of that state by employing the “Totalitarian” model of analysis first developed by Hannah Arendt in her monumental study “Origins of Totalitarianism.” That model recognized numerous similarities between the regimes of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, such as a Utopian ideology, a secret political police, a single dictatorial party (and leader), and a compulsion to control all areas of civil society. Having defined Totalitarianism theory, the paper then moves on to examine Sandinista ideology, Sandinista “party” institutions like the “block committees” and the youth group, and the instruments of coercion such as the politicized armed forces and the secret political police. It shows how any and all rivals to the Front's power were penetrated, harassed, and in some cases crushed in order to smooth the way toward the leadership's Leninist Utopia∗ The paper finds that, by adhering to a Utopian ideology, by constructing an elaborate party‐army‐police nexus, and by seeking to penetrate every aspect of life in Nicaragua, the Sandinista regime met the definition of totalitarian and that it fell within the numerous experiments of the 20th century.

Education and Revolutionary Transformation in Nicaragua, 1979-1990

This article examines the role of education in Nicaragua during the period of the revolutionary government of the Frente Sandinista de Liberaci6n Nacional, 1979-90. It describes and analyzes the goals, achievements, and shortcomings of the education system plus the many tensions and contradictions the socialist-oriented government faced in attempting to design and implement a new education system consonant with a more just social order and a new model of economic accumulation. In 1979, a broadly based revolutionary front overthrew a repressive dictatorial regime that had ruled the country for over 4 decades. In principle, the new revolutionary junta was committed to political and cultural pluralism, a mixed economy, and a nonaligned foreign policy. These broad guidelines, however, coexisted with a commitment to pursue a socialist road to development. Although opponents of the new regime were quick to characterize the development strategy of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) as an attempt to transplant a Soviet-cum-Cuban model of socialism-a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship-these labels were gross distortions of the Nicaraguan reality during the period 1979-90. Moreover, despite declarations that the national elections of February 1990 that led to a change of government were the first free elections in over 50 years, remarkably free elections were held in 1984, when hundreds of international observers testified to the representativeness, fairness, and integrity of the electoral process.' The 1984 and 1990 elections, like so many other events, underscore the uniqueness of the Nicaraguan 11-year social experiment-one that was never allowed to come to fruition or even be more than partially implemented and tested because of opposition by the U.S. government to the Sandinista government. After enduring 7 years of external aggression and economic warfare, in addition to self-admitted economic mismanagement by the Sandinista government during which the Nicaraguan economy had deteriorated to the level of the 1940s, the civilian population, which had borne the brunt of 30,000 casualties, had reached the end of its patience with that government. Contrary to widespread expectations

Nicaragua 1979-1989 : un programme socialiste utopique ?

Nicaragua 1979-1989 : an Utopian programme for socialism ? An analysis of Nicaragua's economic organization, within the framework of a study of small socialist countries may seem like a contradiction in terms from two points of view : firstly, because the S.N.L.F. (the Sandinista National Liberation Front) was defeated at the elections, and secondly, because the system introduced by the S.N.L.F. (1989-1990) was not compatible with the socio-economic systems of the USSR, Eastern Europe, or even Cuba. However, the fact that the Sandinista experiment was aimed at acting as a viable counter-model to two systems of capitalist dependence operating in the region, and that it was implicitly (and indeed explicitly, according to some statements) socialist in orientation, justifies the inclusion of the Nicaraguan economic experiment in a study on socialism, including in its broadest sense of research and implementation of new systems of social organization. The study is in two parts. The first examines projects for socio-economic change, and tries to evaluate whatever elements of originality they may contain for example, how fitted they are to engendering change, and in what way they resemble other socialist projects. The second part is concerned with the results that have been obtained, and how far these diverge from the initial projects. We are able to identify external and internal causes of these divergences and which are doubtless, in the final analysis, responsible for the electoral defeat.

Resource Mobilization and Political Opportunity in the Nicaraguan Revolution:

Abstract. A previous paper in this Journal presented a resource mobilization‐political opportunities paradigm about violent revolution in the Third World. Key propositions put forward in the previous paper find empirical support in a study of the Nicaraguan revolution. In keeping with the paradigm, the Nicaraguan revolution occurred after a period of economic growth during which urbanization, school enrollments, and the size of the middle class increased. Also consistent with the paradigm was the existence of an organization of professional revolutionaries espousing a Marxist‐Leninist ideology which received resources from abroad, especially from Castro's Cuba. The Sandinista National Liberation Front put into practice a number of strategems which the paradigm considers to be promising in a revolution, including staging paralyzing acts of institutional disruption, enlisting the aid of social and economic elites, and deceiving the public and its allies about the true goals of the organization. Also, the FSLN was adept at exploiting political opportunities and realignments which left the Somoza regime weakened and vulnerable.

Democracy in the Nicaraguan Countryside

Following the Sandinista victory in 1979, a heated debate concerning in the Nicaraguan Revolution has galvanized the American political scene. The debate has been characterized by its polemical content and the empty rhetoric of key participants rather than informed discussion. This article seeks to provide much needed factual information by analyzing the impact of the Sandinista revolutionary project on the Nicaraguan countryside. Upon taking power, the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN) promised to institutionalize a form of based on the policies of popular hegemony and national unity. The central objective of popular hegemony is to realize the radical restructuring of the socioeconomic and political conditions of the Nicaraguan workers and peasants, based on the control by the popular classes over the political system. National unity, in contrast, is a policy of alliance which enlists all sectors of society in support of new relations of production (Vilas, 1986: 175). In order to implement its revolutionary project, the Sandinista government has forged elements of representative and participatory democracy into a model of revolutionary, democratic Marxism. The participatory element is central to the notion of popular hegemony, whereas representative features are essential for a successful policy of national unity. According to the Sandinista conception of democracy, it is the participation of the masses in the transformation of the inherited relations of production that guarantees that this process benefits the previously marginalized worker and peasant classes. Thus, special emphasis is placed on the devel-

Pluralism and Vanguardism in the Nicaraguan Revolution

One of the major principles of the Nicaraguan constitution is that state guarantees the existence of political (Article 5). One clear aspect of such pluralism is the maintenance of a multiparty system. Indeed discussion with representatives of the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN) as well as active scholars within Nicaragua reveals that political pluralism is often simply identified with a multiparty system.' Yet it is clear that the FSLN as the sees its function as guiding the revolution. Traditionally the concept of a vanguard party has been connected with the notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat and a monopoly of state power by a single party; in a word, it has been associated with Stalinist strategy for maintaining political control through the Communist Party. How, then, can these two concepts work together? Here I will not speculate on the view that these concepts are combined only as a sort of cynical manipulation on the part of the FSLN.2 Only the future can show whether this is in fact the case. Here my concern is to show that the concepts of pluralism and of the vanguard have been synthesized in Nicaraguan theory and practice in a manner that does violence to neither of them. Further, I hope to show that such a synthesis can yield valuable theoretical insights which can go beyond the particular context of contemporary Nicaragua; the dynamism of contemporary Nicaragaun life is partially derivative of the combination in practice of two apparently contradictory notions. This example demonstrates that a creative approach to the combination of old political ideas can yield practical realities that go beyond old expectations. The notion of hegemony constitutes a key linkage between the concepts in question here. Hegemony, often associated with the thought of Gramsci, but commonly used in the Nicaraguan context without clear relation to his works, suggests that particular social orders function within the context of

Cuba and Nicaragua

The question of the relationship between the governments of Cuba and Nicaragua and their respective ruling parties has become a highly politicized part of the ongoing debate over the Central American policy of the United States. This article will seek to examine that highly charged exchange and explore through historical analysis and an assessment of the current situation the actual nature of that relationship. The article will document the origins of the cooperation between Cuba and the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN) in the early 1960s, the shifts in their relationship over time, the role of Cuba at the time of the Sandinista triumph in 1979, and the nature of their relations during the nearly 11 years that the FSLN has held state power in Nicaragua. The FSLN was founded in July 1961 under the combined leadership of Tomas Borge, Carlos Fonseca, and Silvio Mayorga. Its founding had its roots in the long struggle against the Somoza family dynasty and the domination of the country by North American political and economic interests.1 The Frente took its name from Augusto Sandino, the legendary Nicaraguan guerrilla fighter who fought a seven-year war against the U.S. Marines and the Nicaraguan National Guard until his assassination in 1934.2 The founding of the FSLN in 1961 definitely had its main roots in the wars of Sandino and the subsequent struggles against the dictatorship, particularly the assassination of the elder Somoza in 1956 by Rigoberto L6pez. In that sense the FSLN was and is today a strongly nationalistic movement. However, there was another important component to the birth of the FSLN and that was the triumph of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement in Cuba two years earlier. Like the FSLN, the 26th of July Movement was primarily a nationalist organization. It fought to rid Cuba of a hated dictator, Batista, and to end

Out of darkness into light: The National Literacy Museum in Nicaragua

On 24 March 1980 a multitude of young people climbed the mountains of Nicaragua, spread through the countryside and reached the hills; in urban districts housewives and workers were mobilized. They were going forth to teach literacy, in fulfilment of the command of the National Hero, Carlos Fonseca Amador, Commander‐in‐Chief of the Popular Sandinista Revolution and founder of the Sandinista National Liberation Front—‘and also teach them to read’.

Augusto César Sandino, 1895–1934

On 1 January 1929, Augusto César Sandino wrote his now famous declaration that aptly summarizes both the Sandino and the Frente Sandinista de Liberatión Nacional (FSLN, the Sandinista National Liberation Front) positions on the issue of foreign domination. He issued the statement in response to a letter from the officer commanding American forces in Nicaragua, Admiral D. F. Sellers. When Sellers suggested that Sandino's resistance would serve “no useful purpose,” Sandino replied:

The Bear in the Back Yard: Moscow's Caribbean Strategy (review)

232 SAIS REVIEW The Bear in the Back Yard: Moscow's Caribbean Strategy. By Timothy Ashby. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1987. 240 pp. $22.95/cloth. Reviewed by Thomas Mahnken, M. A. candidate, SAIS. As Timothy Ashby amply demonstrates, since 1960 Soviet influence has increased in Latin America and the Caribbean. According to Ashby, Soviet strategy aims to use this influence to apply geopolitical pressure on the United States pressure that the Soviets hope will lead to a retraction of U.S. overseas commitments and to a shift in the global balance of power. The policy is vulnerable, however, because Latin America is distant from the Soviet Union, while literally in the back yard of the United States. Hence, the strategy is not only extremely costly to the USSR but also dependent on proxies, which are themselves vulnerable to internal and external pressures (and which, though Ashby rarely mentions it, have their own interests). Ashby's thesis, that the USSR has a systematic plan for the penetration of Latin America, is itself arguable. Still, his enumeration of Soviet activities in the region is impressive. The linchpin of the strategy is Cuba, the USSR's "unsinkable aircraft carrier." Despite the fact that Fidel Castro's relationship with the Cuban Communist party began as one of mutual mistrust and hostility, Soviet assistance to Castro escalated rapidly after he seized power. Cuba's dependence on the USSR grew throughout the 1960s, climaxing in Castro's 1968 decision essentially to trade Cuban sovereignty for steady aid. Since then Cuba has become a major Soviet surrogate for spying, power projection, and support of revolutionary movements. Unfortunately, the book lacks sufficient consideration of the effect of domestic politics on Cuban foreign policy. While Ashby sees Havana's policies as a function of subservience to Moscow, Castro's own aspirations to grandeur may be equally important. A similar transformation occurred on Grenada following the 1979 coup that brought Maurice Bishop and his NewJewel movement to power. Evidence of the Soviet- and Cuban-sponsored covert buildup, which made the island an epicenter of regional revolutionary activity, is compelling and is corroborated by documents captured during the 1983 U.S. invasion. Grenada was anxious to be a Soviet proxy, probably as much for national prestige as for socialist internationalism . While Grenada was no doubt valuable to the Soviets as a rallying point for regional destabilization, its strategic significance is debatable. Ashby's exploration of the origins of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua is insightful, although here, too, the analysis suffers from ignoring Nicaraguan society as a variable. In contrast with its initially cautious attitude following the Cuban revolution and its covert assistance to the Bishop regime, Moscow heralded the Sandinistas with immediate and substantial aid. Cuban and Soviet sponsorship of the massive Nicaraguan buildup is incontrovertible , as is the Nicaraguan role in exporting revolution through such groups as the Faribundo Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador and the M- 19 faction in Colombia. BOOK REVIEWS 233 Ashby uses a wide range of sources to back his assertions, including captured Cuban, Grenadan, and Nicaraguan documents; interviews with government leaders and defectors; congressional testimony; and memoirs. The author's reliance on details, however, often obscures the larger picture in which regional events occur and which would provide a more useful context for studying Soviet strategy in the Caribbean. Life and Death in Shanghai. By Nien Cheng. New York: Grove Press, 1987. 496 pp. $19.95/cloth. Reviewed by Linda S. Crowl, SAIS M.A. 1987. Life and Death in Shanghaiis a highly readable account of one woman's disenchantment with the People's Republic of China. Nien Cheng relates the story of her imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution and her subsequent years of "freedom" and "rehabilitation" before her emigration to the West. The tale flows so well that the reader has difficulty setting the book aside. One wonders how Cheng could recount the dialogue with such precision so many years after the events. But prison is a lonely place; she had many solitary days to reflect on her captors' words. Cheng writes fluently and for the most part chronologically of the strugglemeeting leading to her arrest, her stay...

Library Education in Revolutionary Nicaragua

Beginning with a look at library education before the revolution in Nicaragua, this study emphasizes current interests and concerns. Examination of the formation and development of the library school highlights the need for more trained librarians. The revolution began on July 19, 1979, with the overthrow of the Somoza dynasty by the Sandinista National Liberation Front. The new regime began a complete social, political, and economic restructuring of Nicaragua. Libraries and library education were given new emphasis in the process. Some of the developments that have taken place in library education since the establishment of the revolutionary era are discussed.

Art in Contemporary Nicaragua

From its inception, the transformation of contemporary Nicaragua has been termed a 'revolution of poets'. This unusual designation, which has surfaced in numerous references from Nicaraguan street graffiti to Hollywood movies such as Under Fire, seems appropriate for several reasons, among which is the fact that many Sandinistas are accomplished writers and artists. Significantly, the 1969 Manifesto of the F.S.L.N. (Sandinista National Liberation Front) included a section on the anticipated 'Revolution in Culture and Education', which as a result of the victory in 1979, has since begun. Seldom before in history have art and culture been so central to a revolutionary process as they are in Nicaragua at present. While this new role for the arts has been criticized by some and praised by many more, no one has denied that bold new cultural programmes are an intrinsic part of the revolution in this Central American country. Even Pablo Antonio Cuadra, an editor of La Prensa and outspoken critic of the Sandinistas, admits that the Nicaraguan Revolution has 'increased the cultural possibilities of the people. It has impelled the democratization of culture with brilliant results'.1 Besides the remarkable educational campaign in 1980, which raised national literacy from only 50% to almost 90?/O, several other cultural developments have registered international attention.2 Perhaps the best known of these efforts to democratize culture are the nation-wide network of Talleres de Poesia (Poetry Workshops), the national system of Centros Populares de Cultura (Popular Centres of Culture), the revival of public mural art, the rise of a now famous school of campesino painting and the increasing prominence of Nicaraguan writers in Latin American literature. In reviewing the artistic advances of contemporary Nicaragua, we will examine several interrelated issues: (1) the proto-revolutionary and pre-colonial tendencies in the arts that have served as a foundation for the revolutionary artistic developments since 1979; (2) the dialogical framework for the arts that accounts both for the absence of any 'official style' (Socialist Realism enjoys little support in Nicaragua) and for the new synthesis of high art with popular culture, of national traditions with international concerns; and (3) specific artworks from Nicaragua that both encapsulate these artistic advances and embody social progression in a larger sense. As such, we should find ourselves in a position to assess whether the same small Central American country that gave us the word 'modernism' a term coined in the 1880s by Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario3 has now given us a new conjuncture of advanced art and progressive politics that reasserts on a higher plane the old and often forgotten convergence of avant-garde art with revolutionary politics.

Nicaragua's Sandinista project: Ideology, power building, and social manipulation

Abstract This paper examines the ideology of the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) through an evaluation of official declarations, published objectives and analyses, stated objectives, and programs pursued. Since its seizure of power in 1979, the FSLN's efforts to “Leninize” the country have occurred gradually and often have been camouflaged. For example, the FSLN has promoted a ‘'people's church” to capitalize on the strong Nicaraguan religious sentiment while extending countrol over public life and undermining the official church. The paper describes the Sandinistas’ use of “magnet” and “salami” tactics to attract useful collaborators and restrict the influence of rival political organizations. While the FSLN ostensibly has tolerated other parties’ participation in the National Assembly, the Sandinistas in reality have required support for FSLN programs and have increased their own numbers in the assembly and gained control of the top positions in all state institutions, ministries,...

The Vatican Bureaucracy and Its Neo-Christian Project

We who participated in the Fourth Congress of Central American Sociology, which took place in Managua in July 1980, can testify to the happy and optimistic atmosphere of those days closely following the first anniversary of the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution. We all shared the feeling of happiness and of national independence. Dark clouds were not absent, of course, but the optimism in the wake of victory was intoxicating. In some respects, the Nicaraguan revolution seemed even to surpass the Cuban. There was, for example, the open and enthusiastic participation of many Christians in the Sandinista struggle-a participation highlighted by the close collaboration of a large group of priests with the leaders of the Sandinista National Liberation Front. Thanks in great part to the pastoral letter published by the Nicaraguan bishops in November 1979, optimism about the revolutionary position of the Catholic church persisted for many months.

Nicaragua: The Strategy of Counterrevolution

On July 19, 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front marched triumphantly into Managua. Over 50,000 people had given their lives in the war to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship, whose fifty dark years had left the country in ruins. The Nicaraguan people believed the nightmare was over, and that they could finally build a new, more just society in peace. Yet within months of the triumph the United States was beating the war drums against Nicaragua. It has continued to do so, with increasing intensity, ever since.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Sandino's Daughters: Testimonies of Nicaraguan Women in Struggle

First published in 1981 in the wake of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) revolution in Nicaragua, Sandino's Daughters can now be seen not as a triumph of revolutionary ideals, but as a triumph of the spirit. Through a series of interviews with participants at all levels in the resistance, Margaret Randall recounts the lives of ordinary women who became pillars of strength and perseverance during their decades-long involvement in the Sandinista struggle against the Somoza dictatorship. Believing firmly that women's liberation was inextricably linked with national liberation, many of these women were in the vanguard of the movement inspired by Augusto Sandino. At the peak of revolutionary activity, women from all classes and backgrounds comprised 30 percent of the Sandinista army. For many of these women, politics became one with the personal. Hindsight perhaps offers the greatest irony of the women's alliance with the FSLN in the fact that it was a woman, Violeta Chamorro, who challenged and defeated the Sandinis