Nicaragua 25 years later: a reply to Lee Sustar
posted
to www.marxmail.org on July 26, 2004
(This is an article that appeared in a slightly edited form
in "Revolution" magazine in New
Zealand.)
Twenty five years ago, the FSLN seized power in Nicaragua.
Although it is difficult to see this abjectly miserable country in these terms
today, back then it fueled the hopes of radicals worldwide that a new upsurge
in world revolution was imminent. Along with Grenada,
El Salvador and
Guatemala,
where rebel movements had already seized power or seemed on the verge of taking
power, Nicaragua
had the kind of allure that Moscow
had in the 1920s.
So what happened?
While nobody would gainsay the political collapse of the
FSLN after its ouster and troubling signs just before that point, it is worth
looking a bit deeper into its rise and fall. There are strong grounds to seeing
its defeat not so much in terms of its lacking revolutionary fiber, but being
outgunned by far superior forces. With all proportions guarded, a case might be
made that Sandinista Nicaragua had more in common with the Paris Commune than
the Spanish Popular Front, which was doomed to failure by the class
collaborationist policies of the ruling parties.
You can get a succinct presentation of this analysis from
Lee Sustar, an ISO leader who contributed an article
to Counterpunch titled "25 Years on: Revolution in Nicaragua."
He states:
"While the U.S.
and its contra butchers are to blame for the destruction of the Nicaraguan
economy, the contradiction at the heart of the FSLN’s
politics was instrumental in its downfall. FSLN leaders couldn’t escape the
centrality of class divisions in the 'revolutionary alliance'--the fact that
workers and 'nationalist' employers had contradictory interests.
"The conditions of workers had deteriorated throughout
the 1980s as runaway inflation wiped out wage gains. Workers participated in
Sandinista unions and mass organizations--but they didn’t hold political power,
and their right to strike was suspended for a year as early as 1981. This
allowed the opportunistic Nicaraguan Socialist Party--a longtime rival of the
FSLN--to give a left-wing cover to Chamorro’s
coalition, which in turn functioned as the respectable face of the
contras."
full: http://www.counterpunch.org/sustar07232004.html
With respect to the failure of the FSLN to align itself with
workers (and peasants, a significant omission in Sustar's
indictment), Washington seemed worried
all along that bourgeois class interests were being neglected and that Nicaragua
was in danger of becoming "another Cuba."
Of course, since Cuba
never really overthrew capitalism according to the ISO's ideological schema,
this might seem like a moot point. In any case, it is often more useful to pay
attention to the class analysis of the State Department and the NY Times than
it does to small Marxist groups. If the ruling class is worried that capitalism
is being threatened in a place like Nicaragua,
they generally know what they are talking about.
Virtually all the self-proclaimed
"Marxist-Leninist" formations, from the Spartacist
League to more influential groups like the ISO, believe that the revolution
collapsed because it was not radical enough. If the big farms had been
expropriated, it is assumed that the revolution would have been strengthened.
While individual peasant families might have benefited from a land award in
such instances, the nation as a whole would have suffered from diminished foreign
revenues. After all, it was cotton, cattle and coffee that was being produced
on such farms, not corn and beans. When you export cotton on the world market,
you receive payments that can be used to purchase manufactured goods, medicine
and arms. There is not such a market for corn and beans unfortunately. Even if
the big farms had continued to produce for the agro-export market under state
ownership, they would have been hampered by the flight of skilled personnel who
would have fled to Miami with the
owners. Such skills cannot be replicated overnight, especially in a country
that had suffered from generations of inadequate schooling.
While all leftwing groups that operate on the premise that
they are continuing with the legacy of Lenin, virtually none of them seem
comfortable with the implications of Lenin's writings on the NEP, which are
crucial for countries like Nicaragua in the 1980s or Cuba today, for that
matter. In his speech to the Eleventh Congress of the Communist Party in 1922,
Lenin made the following observations:
"The capitalist was able to supply things. He did it
inefficiently, charged exorbitant prices, insulted and robbed us. The ordinary
workers and peasants, who do not argue about communism because they do not know
what it is, are well aware of this.
"'But the capitalists were, after
all, able to supply things—are you? You are not able to do it.' That is
what we heard last spring; though not always clearly audible, it was the
undertone of the whole of last spring’s crisis. “As people you are splendid,
but you cannot cope with the economic task you have undertaken.” This is the
simple and withering criticism which the peasantry—and through the peasantry,
some sections of workers—levelled at the Communist
Party last year. That is why in the NEP question, this old point acquires such
significance.
"We need a real test. The capitalists are operating
along side us. They are operating like robbers; they make profit; but they know
how to do things. But you—you are trying to do it in a new way: you make no
profit, your principles are communist, your ideals are splendid; they are
written out so beautifully that you seem to be saints, that
you should go to heaven while you are still alive. But can you get things
done?"
If the Bolsheviks required a return to some elements of
capitalism in 1922 in order to "help get things done," why would
anybody expect the FSLN to do otherwise? In 1922, the Bolsheviks ruled over a
country that had wiped out their own contras decisively and secured its borders.
By comparison, Nicaragua
was like a sieve with armed terrorists backed by the USA
infiltrating freely from North and South. The Soviet Union
was also a major economic power, despite being ravaged by war. With an immense
population and an abundance of coal and iron ore, it had the ability to produce
its own heavy capital goods. Nicaragua,
by comparison, had a population about the size of the borough of Brooklyn
and no industry to speak of.
Despite all these relative advantages, the Bolshevik leaders
feared for the survival of the Soviet Union unless it
received help from victorious socialist revolutions in the more advanced
European countries. In "Results and Prospects," Trotsky wrote:
"But how far can the socialist policy of the working
class be applied in the economic conditions of Russia?
We can say one thing with certainty--that it will come up against obstacles
much sooner than it will stumble over the technical backwardness of the
country. Without the direct State support of the European proletariat the
working class of Russia
cannot remain in power and convert its temporary domination into a lasting
socialistic dictatorship."
With a GDP equal to the size of what US citizens spend on
blue jeans each year, how would Nicaragua
have managed to forestall the fate that Trotsky predicted for the USSR?
Indeed, whatever the faults of Stalinist Russia, it could always be relied on
after a fashion to provide material aid for postcapitalist
countries like Cuba
or Vietnam that
were under siege. It was Nicaragua's
misfortune to have come into existence at the very time that such protections
could no longer be guaranteed, even when doled out like from an eyedropper.
In October 1988, Soviet Foreign Ministry official Andrei Kozyrev wrote that the USSR no longer had any reason to be
in "a state of class confrontation with the United States or any other
country," and, with respect to the Third World, "the myth that the
class interests of socialist and developing countries coincide in resisting imperialism
does not hold up to criticism at all, first of all because the majority of
developing countries already adhere or tend toward the Western model of
development, and second, because they suffer not so much from capitalism as
from lack of it." It is safe to assume that high-level Soviet officials
must have been talking up these reactionary ideas to the Sandinista leadership
long before Kozyrev's article appeared.
These new ideas benefited US
foreign policy needs in a dramatic way. In early 1989, a high- level meeting
took place between Undersecretary of State Elliot Abrams and his Soviet
counterpart, Yuri Pavlov. Abrams made the case that relations between the US
and the USSR
would improve if the Nicaragua
problem somehow disappeared. Pavlov was noncommital
but gave Abrams a copy of Kozyrev's article. This
telling gesture convinced the Reagan administration that the USSR
would now be willing to sell out Nicaragua.
This meeting is described in Robert Kagan's
"A Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua
1977-1990." Kagan was a member of the State
Department's Policy Planning Staff in the Reagan years and helped to draft key
foreign policy statements, including the document that contained what has
become know as the "Reagan Doctrine". More recently, Kagan has gained attention as part of the gaggle of
neoconservatives pushing for war against Iraq
last year. His "Of Paradise and Power: America
and Europe in the New World Order" basically
provided an ideological justification for US
unilateralism since the Europeans were seen as epicene appeasers of Evil. Since
the reversals in Iraq
over the past year or so, Kagan has maintained a
lower profile.
Despite the expectations of the ordinary Nicaraguan who
voted for the removal of Daniel Ortega, the country was not the beneficiary of US
largesse. With the removal of the Soviet Union as a
countervailing hegemon, it was no longer necessary to
bribe restive populations. Instead of a Marshall Plan, the best that could be
hoped for were a few maquiladoras.
In a newly established free trade zone, a textile factory
owned by Chentex set up shop. In 2000, a delegation
from the United States
discovered women who were working 60 hours a week. One woman who was married to
another maquiladora employee suffered from conditions
that were far worse than those endured under FSLN rule. The December 3, 2000 NY
Times quoted one delegation member: "The couple had a 3-year-old daughter
with discolored tips of her hair, probably from a protein deficiency. These are
people who work 60, 70 hours a week, and their standard of living is just
abysmal." When these workers tried to organize themselves into a union,
the bosses attempted to fire them all. Contrary to Lee Sustar,
you can be assured that these working people knew the difference between the FSLN's attitude toward working people and the neoliberal
gang in charge right now. The FSLN acted as it did because it had no
alternative; the US
backed government and its maquila bourgeoisie act as it does because it is sees
workers as mules to generate superprofits.
Despite the best efforts of the FSLN to make itself
acceptable to US
imperialism, its hallowed past still condemns it. When Daniel Ortega ran for
president of Nicaragua
in 2001 on a tepid social democratic program, Jeb
Bush wrote an attack in the Miami Herald. Ortega supposedly "neither
understands nor embraces the basic concepts of freedom, democracy and free
enterprise". He added: "Daniel Ortega is an enemy of everything the United
States represents. Further, he is a friend
of our enemies. Ortega has a relationship of more than 30 years with states and
individuals who shelter and condone international terrorism." The article
was immediately reprinted in La Prensa under the
headline "The brother of the president of the United
States supports Enrique Bolanos"
by Ortega's rivals in the Liberal party. Both the Liberal Party and La Prensa enjoyed CIA funding in the 1980s. One presumes that
this is still the case.
If the nightmare of maquiladoras and declining economic
expectations is to be reversed, it will come as a result of more favorable
objective circumstances in Latin America and Central
America generally. With the rise of Hugo Chavez and the continuing
resilience of the Colombian guerrillas, that day may be coming sooner rather
than later.