III. Revolutionary Forces
The existence of an organized, revolutionary movement-with tremendous and acknowledged popular support-distinguishes the present situation in Nicaragua from all prior periods. The growing...
...The dictator had no choice but to accede to the principal demands...
...The ranks of the Sandinista army have been swelled by these witnesses, many of them forced to flee to neighboring countries...
...The regime has looked forward to harvest revenues to salvage its dire financial situation...
...What demands should be raised within the mass movement...
...Organizing also took place in indigenous communities, urban slums, secondary schools, and among other workers to extend unionization drives...
...Their program demanded the overthrow of Somoza followed by free elections, the disbanding of the National Guard, the nationalization of all Somoza's Forty-eight percent of the workforce, agricultural workers harvest the country's major export crops: cotton, coffee, tobacco...
...They placed new emphasis on military aspects, forming grass roots militias called the Revolutionary People's Commandos...
...5. New York Times, August 6, 1975 and August 16, 1977...
...In March, they formed the Rural Workers Association as a public organization...
...The FSLN presence has exploded the contradictions of U.S...
...the rightwing dictatorships of the region see their fate tied to the outcome of events in Nicaragua...
...In the final analysis, they argued, it was the rural guerrilla that had undermined the regime and its repressive capacity, thereby advancing the struggle in the cities...
...9 Under pressure from the United States, Somoza lifted martial law and censorship for the first time in three years...
...They distributed arms to a population that had already joined the insurrection with stones, hunting weapons or with no weapons at all...
...1978 2324 NACLA Report organization to wage a unified military and political battle...
...After 1973 the FSLN began temporarily occupying towns, bringing local officials to popular justice and ambushing Guard patrols...
...The task of building a vanguard party was never abandoned, but the crisis situation called for more immediate action on other fronts...
...Spokespeople for each of the tenden26Nov.lDec...
...Its feasibility depends on the degree of mass participation and organizational cohesiveness that the MPU can attain...
...By July, 1978, the Proletarian, GPP and Tercerista tendencies arrived at an agreement for tactical unity and established a general coordinating commission...
...Diario Las Americas (Miami), November 23...
...Somocismo would be replaced by a provisional popular-democratic government, with FSLN participation...
...9. " Nicaragua," Foreign Economic Trends and the Implication for the Unived States, U.S...
...Evidently this was more than Somoza and his henchmen could tolerate...
...its victories had produced a rapid influx of members...
...They all warn of the dangers of a somocismo without Somoza, whether it be under a military junta or civilian camouflage...
...The Terceristas remain peripheral, but it is not clear whether their low profile is due to different evaluations of the importance of mass organization or more to their preoccupation with the military tasks at hand...
...Each one recognized that important ideological differences remained, that reunification would be long and difficult, but that the revolutionary process depended on the unity of sandinsmo...
...NACLA interview in Managua, mid-October, 1978...
...The FSLN itself was not immune to contradictions and conflicts...
...New questions were raised by the changing political climate: what relationship should exist between the bourgeois opposition and the FSLN...
...While the traditionaly left continued to advocate an electoral course, the FSLN developed the nucleus of a revolutionary army and returned to the mountains...
...Having secured Managua (where the insurrection was rapidly contained), Somoza dispatched the special Guard unit commanded by his son to retake, one by one, each of the provincial cities in revolt...
...However, in conjunction with the fraudulent elections of 1967 and the impotency of the opposition, Pancasan was seen as a political victory that reasserted the primacy of armed struggle...
...Especially prominent in the bourgeois press has been the Terceristas' connections with the social democratic international movement and the governments of Venezuela and Panama...
...Additionally, there is the fundamental question of tactical alliances with other sectors...
...The Proletarios remained active in the cities, creating class-based organizations known as the Revolutionary Workers Committees...
...Much depends on the international picture...
...6 Adherents to the original GPP strategy held firm...
...In October 1975, elements of the leadership expelled the Proletarios, who thereafter operated independently but retained the name of the FSLN...
...1978 25 the FSLN program...
...Many believed him-until the FSLN struck suddenly and boldly in 1974...
...One group within the FSLN-later to be known as the Proletarian Tendency-held that the guerrilla army was acting in isolation from the urban working class...
...isolated uprisings had begun to coalesce and identify themselves as Sandinista...
...Somoza ordered the creation of a counterinsurgency unit and recruited mercenary specialists in guerrilla warfare...
...THREE TENDENCIES EMERGE Counterinsurgency could not forestall the ascendance of the mass movement against Somoza...
...The Tercerista attacks in October and February had escalated the struggle...
...As well, after an initial period of regrouping, mass work has recommenced...
...In the past, both tendencies had argued that an insurrection, in the absence of strong mass organizations, would only benefit the bourgeoisie and the United States, by then anxious to replace Somoza...
...Secondly, because those that remained behind and witnessed the atrocities of the Guard, have vowed to settle the score with Somoza...
...Richard R. Fagen, (Professor at Stanford University), "The Meaning of Nicaragua: The Hard but Necessary Choices," Testimony before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the U.S...
...Never before in Nicaraguan history," one organizer said, "has class consciousness advanced so rapidly...
...and Somozaowned properties were put to the torch...
...As the mass movement grew numerically and politically, infighting diminished considerably among the FSLN tendencies...
...The Guard responded in force with tanks, helicopter gunships and armored cars...
...By the early 70s Somoza boasted that the guerrilla threat had been eliminated...
...It had earned its position as vanguard of the mass movement...
...The military had to be subordinated to the political...
...press accounts...
...What was needed now was stronger Nov.IDec...
...anti-Somoza sentiment had become generalized and the masses were ready to act...
...Both the GPP and the Proletarios are actively encouraging its growth...
...On September 9, the FSLN launched coordinated attacks on garrisons in Managua, Masaya, Le6n, Chinandega and Esteli...
...9-10...
...Somoza's elite unit at Pe'ias Blancas, reinforced by air power, was able to withstand the Sandinsta attacks and block access to the Pan American Highway leading to Rivas...
...THE PALACE TAKE-OVER In July, Somoza was forced to allow the Twelve to return from exile...
...They pointed to the relative decline of the agricultural sector in the 60s, and to the rapid growth and concentration of the urban proletariat...
...Soon after entering the country they both died in combat...
...For four days, its inhabitants tried to expel the Guard with homemade bombs, clubs, machetes, 32-caliber rifles, handguns and boiling water...
...Immediately thereafter, the United People's Movement (MPU) was formed...
...It is also apparent that the United States will not now stand idly by, any more than it has in the past, and let the revolutionary forces gain the upper hand...
...1 Nonetheless, the prognosis for the revolutionary process remains unclear...
...On January 10, 1978, Chamorro was gunned down, but his death only heightened and generalized the popular struggle to new levels...
...the Sandinistas were national heroes...
...For all these reasons, we will proceed to examine more closely the evolution of the FSLN, the strategic and tactical questions it faces in leading the popular movement, the military and political challenges it must surmount, its insistence on the end to Somoza and somocismo, and its vision for the next stage in the transition to a socialist Nicaragua...
...Should the political or military aspect of its work be dominant...
...The GPP and the Proletarios continued to express misgivings about an insurrectional strategy, citing inadequate organization as an obstacle still to be overcome...
...As a result, the National Guard could move in the countryside only in heavy detachments and protected from the air...
...The major sources include: communiques and publications of all three FSLN tendencies...
...In the heat of Somoza's counteroffensive, communication broke down within the National Directorate, the leadership body of the FSLN...
...ORIGINS OF THE FSLN In the early 1960s, radicalized students, inspired by the Cuban experience, began to organize among sectors of the working class, the peasantry and the petty-bourgeoisie...
...As one refugee later reported, it was "a crime to be a male between the ages of 12 and 30 in Nicaragua...
...Still, differences over long-term strategy and tactics appear to persist...
...The analysis of the last year, especially since Septcmnber...
...intervention in Nicaragua...
...It delivered a humiliating blow to the dictatorship and demolished the myth of the Guard's invincibility...
...Their support for a coalition government, however, is more conditional than the Terceristas and is tied specifically to implementation of the MPU program...
...Second, there may be a labor shortage and slowdowns are threatened in the polarized situation.13 Clashes have already been reported in the mountains between campesinos and the Guard as the war of resistance continues...
...Until Somoza is ousted, his properties expropriated, his army and apparatus dismembered, the FSLN has pledged to continue the fight...
...the ouster of Somoza has become a non-negotiable demand...
...They were then bombed relentlessly, in an act of calculated genocide...
...strikes and demonstrations continued at unprecedented levels...
...7. Anonymous, "Dialogue in Nicaragua, A Short Analysis," (Nicaragua: October 1977, manuscript...
...the garrisons of four provincial cities, cutting off all access and establishing popular emergency administrations...
...From this evaluation emerged a new strategy known as prolonged popular war (guerra popular prolongada- GPP...
...In this liberated territory, a provisional government would be proclaimed...
...As a result of these relations, substantial resources have flowed to the Tercerista army...
...In the cities, new mobilizations, primarily led by students, demanded freedom for captured Sandinistas and punishment for Guardsmen responsible for the "disappearance" of 350 campesinos...
...A centralized, revolutionary force, capable of giving leadership to the diffuse and spontaneous struggle of the masses, was still lacking...
...While the GPP did not participate in the Tercerista campaign, it continued to wage a low-keyed offensive in the northern mountains, occupying small towns, destroying Somoza properties and ambushing military convoys...
...imperialism, reactionary Central American regimes and the local bourgeoisie), they argued that the struggle would necessarily take the form of a war of attrition...
...It soon became evident that incursionist operations were inadequate, in the absence of a political base inside Nicaragua...
...We now turn to examining the participation of the United States...
...But what promises have been extracted in exchange for this support, or from ties with sectors of the bourgeois opposition, remain to be seen...
...It is their responsibility, based on 16 years of rich experience, to transform the social upsurge to serve a revolutionary goal...
...They launched an offensive at Pancasan, resulting in another military defeat...
...The repression escalated to unprecedented levels...
...To divide his opponents, Somoza suggested a "dialogue" with the bourgeois opposition but failed to defuse the mass movement...
...9-11...
...Rather, they argued that conditions were already ripe...
...An attempted coup by hardliners inside the Guard testified to internal dissent and to Somoza's crumbling authority...
...Thus the third force, later known as the Terceristas, failing in reconciliation efforts, gradually evolved an "insurrectionist" strategy of its own...
...7 The Terceristas rejected the shared assumption of the Proletarios and the GPP concerning the protracted nature of the struggle and the need to gradually accumulate forces...
...But the Tercerista assault had set the process in motion, and all units of the FSLN were mobilized...
...Despite government harrassment, tens of thousands turned out to greet them at the airport-clear evidence of popular sympathy for both the Twelve and the FSLN...
...Finally, the existence of the FSLN has created the preconditions for more than the ouster of a tyrant...
...By late 1966, the relative liberalization of the Schick years was ending, with Tachito Somoza in line for the presidency...
...Its principal task, therefore, was to build a popular army in the countryside...
...The bourgeois opposition had been playing both sides of the fence: UDEL's Chamorro had cultivated links with the U.S...
...The bourgeoisie had lost control of the antiSomoza movement...
...First, because the FSLN emerged relatively unscathed from its battles, having ordered a strategic retreat before the cities were surrounded by the Guard...
...Entire villages were burned, the countryside was napalmed...
...New attacks from the mountains emphasized the growing strength of the Frente...
...Contacts were made in the labor movement: in the powerful construction union and among health workers, the FSLN helped promote the ousting of progovernment leaders...
...On the morning after the attack, the group known as the Twelve issued a statement from Costa Rica calling on the population to support the Sandinistas, praising their "political maturity" and warning,that the FSLN would have to participate in any solution to Nicaragua's problems.' 0 The Costa Rican government as well gave its tacit support to the Terceristas by allowing them to locate their bases over the Costa Rican border...
...PERSPECTIVES Although at a tremendous cost, the FSLN has evaluated the insurrection as a political victory...
...REVOLUTIONARY FORCES 1. Humberto Ortega S., 50 Anos de Lucha Sandinista (Nicaragua: FSLN, 1978), the author is a leader of the FSLN Tercerista tendency...
...The GPP, and to a lesser extent the Proletarios, agree that tactical alliances should be made...
...The massive uprisings had convinced the GPP that popular sentiment existed for insurrection, although popular organization was still judged inadequate...
...Nonetheless, the insurrection had been set in motion, and the FSLN had to provide it with revolutionary leadership...
...Within minutes of entering the building, they seized over a thousand hostages-key government officials with Somoza relatives among them...
...As the foundations of somocismo began to crumble, the FSLN was faced with fundamental questions of strategy and tactics...
...4. "Main Activities of the Sandinista Liberation Front," o!'.cial communication of the FSLN (mimeographed...
...Thousands of peasants were slaughtered, imprisoned or forced to flee the country...
...Between 1961 and 1963 the FSLN was forged, defining itself as an anti-imperialist, revolutionary organization dedicated to overthrowing Somoza and destroying the bureaucratic, military and economic structures that supported him.' The FSLN drew on the enduring legacy of Sandino: his uncompromising opposition to the U.S...
...Department of State and U.S...
...The GPP, for its part, moved to strengthen its urban organizations, particularly in the North...
...policy toward Nicaragua and intensified the search for an acceptable bourgeois alternative...
...1978 21NACLA Report any spokesperson in the National Directorate...
...8. Humberto Ortega Saavedra, interview, Newafront International, October, 1978, No...
...Foreign Service of U.S...
...The August operation was crucial...
...The perspectives hinge fundamentally on the ability of the FSLN to 1) forge political unity within its own ranks and the rest of the revolutionary movement, 2) transform popular consciousness to push beyond the eliminiation of one tyrant toward a fundamental restructuring of Nicaraguan society, and 3) counter the strategies of somocismo nationally and imperialism on the international plane...
...Tercerista tactics were not above criticism: they had underestimated the fighting capacity of the Guard, and its loyalty to Somoza...
...But the bourgeoisie remained too deeply divided to exploit the situation to its own advantage...
...Through clandestine and semi-legal activities, Sandinista cadres in the cities enlisted the support of labor unions and leaders of the Socialist Party of Nicaragua (PSN-which described itself as a traditional communist party...
...18, October-November, 1969...
...The lines of demarcation were becoming less severe, as each of them demonstrated a new strategic and tactical flexibility...
...the FSLN program calls for fundamental changes in the structure and character of Nicaraguan society...
...With the country under martial law, all constitutional guarantees suspended and strict press censorship, the government waged an indiscriminate campaign of terror against the guerrillas' base of support...
...The program of the MPU does offer an indication of the FSLN's political direction...
...Popular momentum was building once again...
...Overall, none of the tendencies are publicly detailing their immediate moves, other than to denounce the negotiations with Somoza and to escalate the battle militarily once again...
...These developments gave credence to the Tercerista position that the revolutionary forces would emerge as the strongest force within a broad, antiSomoza coalition...
...2. "Pancasan: Su Importancia Historica," Gaceta Sandinista (San Francisco), March, 1976...
...TACTICAL UNITY Popular demands for arms, leadership and organization provided a formidable impetus toward unity...
...the question became when and how to launch the general offensive...
...Far from reestablishing his authority, Somoza's counteroffensive accelerated the disintegration of the dynastic regime...
...The GPP strategy stressed the importance of the rural proletariat, the largest sector of the working class, as the main social base of the revolutionary movement...
...the collapse of the cotton boom in the late 50s had brought the economy to a standstill, with thousands out of work, strikes on the rise and somocista repression adding fuel to the flames of mass discontent...
...From what is now known of the Sandinista plan of action, the occupation of cities was to be complemented by a major attack by the FSLN army in Costa Rica...
...Much of the urban network provided logistical support for the guerrilla effort in the form of propaganda, intelligence and mobilizations for imprisoned combatants...
...Demonstrators were attacked by Guardsmen and paramilitary goon squads organized by Somoza's Liberal Party...
...What is clear is that the revolutionary movement as a whole is committed to more than overthrowing Somoza...
...The action exposed the vulnerability and isolation of the Somoza regime, and brought renewed support for FSLN organized at all levels...
...It was up to the FSLN to transform pre-revolutionary conditions into a revolutionary crisis...
...This makes it difficult to assess whether the political cohesion needed to propel tactical unity toward reunification exists...
...they had overestimated the strength of spontaneous insurrectionist forms...
...also interview with Jose Benito Escobar, Guardian, October 4, 1978...
...Its goal was to capture Peias Blancas on the border, Rivas and perhaps Granada, while the Guard was engaged in dispersed efforts to quell the rebellions in the North...
...Three tendencies ultimately emerged within the FSLN with different answers to questions of strategy and tactics...
...This was done primarily in the cities, through the Popular Civilian Committees and the Revolutionary Student Front...
...218, pp...
...Contradictions within the bourgeoisie sharpened, as an opposition began to coalesce...
...A new wave of strikes, increased student unrest, press revelations exposing official corruption and brutality, all combined to impel the Terceristas to act...
...Their strikes had forced the regime to strain its repressive might, fueling greater resistance and winning support for the Sandinistas as the only truly popular force...
...As a complicating factor, particularly in the two largest groups (Terceristas and GPP), the FSLN is composed of heterogeneous elements, including Christians, Marxists, anti-somocistas and undefined militants...
...1978 cies report that it has enabled them to obtain arms, money, recruits and valuable battle experience...
...That cautious move in October blew the lid off a pressurized situation...
...Neighborhoods where the guerrillas had received the most support were burned to the ground...
...In February, at the peak of popular outrage, Tercerista squads struck again from Costa- Rica, attacking Peiias Blancas and Rivas...
...Latin American newspapers and periodicals...
...In 1976, two members of the 10-person National Directorate--Carlos Fonseca Amador (General Secretary) and Eduardo Contreras Escobar- returned to Nicaragua to mediate the dispute...
...Each of the tendencies accepted the MPU program (see Appendix A) for the post-Somoza period...
...Within hours, the Sandinista and popular forces had surrounded or captured NovJDec.1978 25NACLA Report Refugees of Matagalpa and Monimb6 seek shelter during September uprising...
...The U.S...
...Without such a party, they argued, the workers' movement would stay within the narrow bounds of economism and anti-somocismo...
...occupation, his denunciation of local collaborators and his insistence on the necessity of armed struggle...
...Military confrontations in this period were centered in the mountainous north-central regions of Nicaragua, an area of more than 50,000 square kilometers, with a strong tradition of resistance...
...With respect to their emphasis on military action, the GPP maintained that the National Guard had to be neutralized militarily before effective political work could be conducted among the masses...
...Demands for an end to dynastic rule reached a fever pitch...
...Thousands turned out to give the guerrillas a glorious send-off to temporary refuge in Panama...
...Guard units were dispatched to the rural north, with road-building equipment, helicopter gunships and U.S...
...Latin America Economic Report, (LAER), London, September 29, 1978 and Latin American Commodities Report LACR), London, November 3, 1978...
...Labor militancy continues, with potentially significant consequences for the upcoming harvests of coffee and cotton...
...The FSLN turned its efforts to building a clandestine and semi-legal network to provide logistical and political support for the armed struggle...
...The most dramatic uprising in this period occurred in the Indian community of Monimb6...
...Sympathetic priests helped turn the parish system into a vehicle for agitation and mobilization...
...The three tendencies of the FSLN joined with the PSN, the traditional left, and more than 20 student, labor, women's and civic organizations to develop a concrete program for mass work, and to forge unity in the revolutionary movement as a whole...
...2 A NEW STRATEGY The FSLN drew several lessons from the 1962-67 experience...
...1978 2 ultimately exchanged for the freedom of 14 political prisoners...
...Embassy, the National Guard and the Terceristas...
...Massive nationwide demonstrations, supported by the Church and the traditional opposition parties, spanned the next few weeks...
...Mountain strongholds and a base in the rural proletariat would prevent the bourgeoisie from usurping the revolutionary impetus...
...But the morale of the mass movement continued to climb with its new-felt strength, while rumors of desertions within the'Guard began to circulate...
...military "advisors" to hunt down the FSLN...
...1978 23 holdings and of all private banks...
...But here Somoza is in trouble...
...4 Nonetheless, this emphasis on the rural sector was not all-exclusive...
...But different political and class perspectives were represented within the Frente...
...attention and that work in the countryside had received too little...
...Moreover, they criticized their overriding concern with short-term goals, and their failure to develop a long-term revolutionary strategy...
...In Granada, they managed to trap the Guard in its barracks and hold a popular assembly...
...And most importantly, What should come after somocismo...
...NACLA interviews with FSLN representatives and other Nicaraguans in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the United States...
...Similar confrontations were reported in the Subtiava Indian district of Le6n, in Jinotepe and Diriamba, accompanied by peasant land invasions in the Northwest...
...During 1976, the government inflicted heavy blows on the local guerrilla organization and now faces no serious threat from that quarter...
...a new general strike was underway, this time with labor as the dominant force...
...First, fumigation of the crops was late and the government has been unable to provide the financing necessary for the harvest...
...Military attacks on Guard outposts were launched from Honduras in 1963, but ended in military defeat...
...Until that was achieved, they pledged never to lay down their arms...
...Given the political backwardness of the peasantry and the strength of the enemy (in league with U.S...
...They concluded that legal political work had received too much NovJDec.1978 19NACLA Report General Augusto C. Sandino (center), leader of first guerrilla forces to fight U.S...
...The Guard entered what remained of these cities with orders to "take no prisoners...
...THE OFFENSIVE BEGINS In 1977, Somoza bragged once again that the FSLN had been effectively wiped out...
...Furthermore, it helped prepare the way for the insurrection by securing the release of key FSLN leaders, and by obtaining national and international dissemination of NACLA Report 24NovjDsc...
...GENOCIDE IN SEPTEMBER If indeed this was the plan, the FSLN fell short of its goal...
...The business community responded with a general strike, sending workers home on full or partial salaries...
...In this respect, the most recent reports indicate a convergence among all groups on the military tactics for the current phase...
...Attempts at armed revolts by the traditional parties ended in failure, limited by the ideological and political objectives of the bourgeois forces that led them...
...Otherwise, the military efforts of the FSLN would only rebound to the benefit of the bourgeoisie...
...3. Carlos Fonseca Amador, "Zero Hour," Tricontinental No...
...2 And the punishment was on-the-spot execution...
...On August 22, the Terceristas attacked the National Palace in Managua...
...At this point, the leadership abroad, acting as a "third force," attempted to reconcile the two positions...
...6. "La Crisis Interna v las Tendencias," Coleccion Cuatro de Mayo, (San Francisco: FSLN-Proletarian Tendency, mimeographed) 1977 (?), pp...
...In the same battle, Tomas Borge of the GPP was captured, depriving this faction of NovJDec...
...New York Times, October 20, 1 977...
...Finally, a well-publicized communique warned of a somocismo without Somoza, and called on the masses to prepare for the final offensive...
...The conditions were propitious: Somoza's assassination in 1956 had awakened student activism and left the traditional opposition in disarray...
...The offensive drew a frenzied response from the regime...
...Only political work among the masses, under the party's direction, could lead to the overthrow of Somoza and the transition to socialism...
...Positions hardened, turning bitter and polemical...
...Revolutionary movements throughout Central America are riding the wave of popular support for the FSLN...
...A pre-revolutionary situation had emerged...
...The Terceristas advocated a series of military strikes that would ignite a popular insurrection: "To make war in order to organize, to organize in order to make war until victory.' For the insurrection to succeed, the Terceristas argued that support must be garnered from all anti-Somoza sectors, including elements of the bourgeoisie whose economic pressure would complement armed actions...
...MPU organizers set up neighborhood committees to help direct the offensive against the dictatorship...
...Somocista repression in this period was extremely severe...
...relies on a variety of' sources too numerous to mention...
...Moreover, the Proletarios emphasized the need for a party of the proletariat to guide the revolutionary struggle...
...Commandos of the GPP went into action on the northern front, attacking several Guard outposts...
...The Proletarios, while continuing to focus on the urban proletariat, extended their orgganizing efforts to the rebellious farmworkers and dispossessed peasantry...
...Embassy confidently echoed his claim in March 1977: Nicaragua should continue to enjoy political stability for some time to come...
...1978...
...Nonetheless, their actions had propelled the mass movement forward, kept the initiative in revolutionary hands and expanded the mass base of all three tendencies...
...Hundreds were killed-yet only weeks later, Monimb6 erupted again with even greater fury...
...With the United States maneuvering to protect its regional hegemony, the FSLN must also build a network of support outside the country...
...Rather than risk his army in a frontal attack, Somoza had the cities surrounded...
...socialism would not come "overnight," but in stages...
...Old debates resurfaced: Should the Frente concentrate its efforts in the cities or the countryside...
...In what was heralded as the beginning of the final offensive, Terceristas attacked several towns at once, including Masaya, just 30 miles from the capital...
...Department of Commerce, March, 1977...
...The growing strength of the FSLN has had several important effects on the unfolding of the current crisis: * Popular support for the FSLN has narrowed the negotiating margin of the bourgeois oppostion...
...currently, it is in an incipient stage...
...22Nov JDec...
...Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, October 14, 1978, p. 12, (manuscript...
...Only a broad-based coalition, under FSLN hegemony, based on a program of progressive reforms, could isolate the dictatorship and bring about its downfall...
...The FSLN immediately proceeded to the formation of a guerrilla army...
...The Terceristas tempered their revolutionary rhetoric...
...They regarded the guerrilla units as the essential vanguard of the revolutionary process, while acknowledging the importance of work in the cities as well...
...The FSLN tendencies have made significant advances toward unity in the last six months...
...Twelve members of Somoza's inner circle were taken hostage at a Christmas party, and 20Novi~ec...
...Was the situation already ripe for revolution...
Vol. 12 • November 1978 • No. 6
