Popular Democracy: Taking the First Steps
"We aren't birds that live in the air, nor fish that live in the sea. We are men who live off the land." 18 NACLA ReportMaylJune 1980 Carrying placards and machetes, 50,000 peasants from all...
...To date the workers have been upheld in each case...
...In late February, this culminated in strikes in 20 factories organized by CAUS...
...Nicaraguan Confederation of Workers (CTN): With a Social-Christian orientation, the CTN is an affiliate of the regional CLAT (Confederation of Latin American Workers) and its world organization, WCL (World Confederation of Labor...
...They viewed the bonus not as a sop to workers, but rather a small but hard-won victory over Somoza...
...One approach, taken up by Barricada, has been to promote public discussions about the problem and encourage communities to evaluate their elected CDS executives...
...Barricada, May 9, 1980...
...7. Barricada...
...military maneuvers (Solid Shield-80) in the Caribbean...
...At the same time, the salary of plant workers has risen an average of 24% while that of the higher paid administrative staff has dropped 15%, reducing administrative salaries to only twice that of the poorest paid workers...
...This culminated on April 13 with a mass rally of workers during which a detailed platform of common principles of action was made known...
...The FSLN, seeing the strikes as attempts by some union leaders to take advantage of the low level of working-class consciousness, has gone to the factories to appeal directly to the rank and file...
...The Council of State deals with major questions involving the overall direction of the revolution, both domestic and foreign...
...As one might expect, the collective spirit and willingness to make sacrifices is not total...
...Says Arce, "We are preparing our workers and peasants so that they can exercise political power, the power that they won with the arms of the Sandinista Army and the Popular Sandinista Militias...
...The Land In the countryside, the ATC has organized the workers on state farms into trade union committees which, like their urban counterparts, are gradually assuming a greater participation- along with INRA administrators-in all facets of agricultural production, from production schedules and crop allocation, to the incorporation of new capital equipment...
...Barricada, December 11, 1979...
...Delegates from each organization to the Council of State were also nominated and then elected through this chain of assemblies...
...AMNLAE has established special programs, ranging from training and educational programs to establishing daycare facilities and investigating women's health problems...
...Every Sandinista defends the independence and the moral authority of the mass organizations as the "transformers of history" in the new Nicaraguan society...
...s The Crusade is based on the pedagogy of Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator and author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and on the successful experiences of the Cuban literacy campaign two decades ago...
...Today AMNLAE continues to press for the full involvement of women in all aspects of revolutionary process-the factories, the fields, the Army and the Militia, the government - as a way of breaking out of their historic subjugation...
...Following the leadership of the FSLN," argues CST Secretary-General Ivan Garcia, "doesn't mean, for example, that the FSLN imposes its criteria over the workers in authoritarian fashion...
...8 Democracy: "A new experience...
...Where outright confiscation could not be justified, the government offered to compensate the old owners with state bonds...
...A disputed issue is the "thirteenth month," a yearly salary bonus instituted in Somoza's time...
...and try to involve everyone in political defense of the revolution...
...Through these organizations the exploited classes are being introduced to and incorporated into the decision-making process at all levels...
...Speaking to the National Constituent Assembly of the ATC, Comandante Jaime Wheelock, Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, pointed out that, "The ATC has a permanent position in INRA, on its Council...
...There's intercommunication between the two of them...
...It is quite unlike the earlier rent reductions, for example, which were simply decreed by the Junta...
...Barricada, March 15, 1980...
...Barricada, March 21, 1980...
...But this can't come about by decree...
...2 8 Thus, many different forms of popular participation are opening up, not only as the mass organizations evolve into stronger and more politically sophisticated entities, but also as the progressive socialization of the economy erodes the capitalist past...
...The ultimate direction of this dialectical growth of political consciousness, organizational forms and state transformation is the creation of "popular power...
...But we didn't have lines laid out...
...CGT-I is a member of the regional CPUSTAL (Permanent Workers Council of Latin America) and its world organization, WFTU (World Federation of Trade Unions), both with a Communist orientation...
...As part of official state holdings, it would be converted to collectively organized state farms, eligible for credit and technical assistance...
...FO has retained a belligerent attitude toward the government and the FSLN, although one small faction broke away and supported the Front...
...Aware that education, as an important ideological weapon is slipping from their hands, the bourgeoisie has reacted by bitterly attacking the Literacy Crusade-for its content, for the participation of foreigners (especially Cubans), and the involvement of "impressionable" young students...
...Speaking to the assembled crowd, Edgardo Garcia, Secretary General of the Association of Rural Workers (ATC), called for the legal transfer to the Area of People's Property of all land then under the administration of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA...
...3. Ibid...
...Admitting that wages should indeed be higher, FSLN leaders have pointed to the impossibility of indiscriminate wage hikes at this time, given the economic crisis, and have stressed the "social wage" that workers now receive...
...The Community Present in every neighborhood, from the city slums to rural towns, the Sandinista Defense Committees are the mass organizations with the flexibility to respond to the major social and economic problems facing the community...
...With variations then, the membership of each organization is holding local, regional and national assemblies...
...Ministerio de Planificacion, Plan de reactivacion economica en beneficio del pueblo, Managua, Nicaragua, p. 41...
...The ATC sees technical training programs as the key to more direct workers' control...
...How will the working class be unified...
...The central issue for all the mass organizations has been Plan 80, the program for economic reactivation...
...By its own account, it has tripled in size since July 1979.15) On the left, the political direction of the revolution has been rejected by the Workers' Front (FO) and by a section of the Action and Labor Unity Federation (CAUS...
...The CST now incorporates over 380 unions, organized nationally into 12 departments, with a membership exceeding 100,000...
...Asamblea Nacional Constitutiva, Memorias (Managua, Nicaragua, 1980), p. 38...
...Barricada, March 23, 29, 30, 1980...
...At the first Assembly, held at the 6300-worker San Antonio sugar mill (Nicaragua's largest, and fourth largest in Latin America), the workers' questions ranged from whether several fires had been accidents or sabotage, to requesting further information on the state of the international sugar market, to demanding to know why replacement machinery was slow in arriving.to Without waiting for a formal review, workers in over a dozen plants have taken over their factories in the past several months, after discovering that the owners had been draining away the profits...
...Their latest program is "Operation Quicho Barrilete," an educational and recreational project for working street kids (newspaper vendors, shoeshine boys, etc...
...Its steady growth has taken it past 100,000 members...
...Far from being crushed, the CTN has enjoyed all the new freedoms won by the revolution...
...Before the victory it numbered about 20,000 and today boasts 105 unions with 65,000 members...
...For specific membership preconditions, see Barricada, December 11, 1979...
...These workers have organized themselves to fulfill all ad2728 ministrative positions and make all decisions themselves, in some cases increasing production as much as 66...
...That relationship is partially attained by means of all the FSLN activists and militants who work within the mass organizations, one of the criteria in fact for joining the FSLN...
...If the CDS didn't exist, the FSLN wouldn't know what the people are thinking...
...An example is the Metasa metal fabricating plant, a state industry incorporated into the People's Industrial Corporation (COIP...
...The issue was resolved by leaving it ultimately up to individual workers, Everyone volunteers for coffee harvest...
...When the unity of the workers is a reality," he said on another occasion, "and the workers begin to have clarity regarding their strategic project, that is when the Revolution will have begun to march forward...
...Association of Sandinista Children (ANS): This national children's organization was organized by those juveniles who participated in the insurrection, with the idea that the defense of the revolution is to be the concern of all...
...Such slow erosion of the bourgeoisie's special prerogatives does not directly negate the class alliance established for this phase of the revolution...
...If yesterday, oriented and directed by their vanguard, they were the motor of the overthrow of the dictatorship, then today, directed by that o. 0 MaylJune 1980 29NACLA Report vanguard, they are the motor of the revolution...
...First is the day-to-day level, within the community and workplace...
...12 Important steps have been taken toward the unification of workers...
...4 (February 1980), Managua, p. 11...
...In the FO's case, the leadership has been implicated in both maintaining a MayIJune 1980 25NACLA Report clandestine armed group and publishing seditious statements in their paper, El Pueblo...
...Association of Nicaraguan Women "Luisa Amanda Espinosa" (AMNLAE): Named after the first woman FSLN member killed by the dictatorship, AMNLAE grew out of AMPRONAC (Association of Women Confronting the National Problems...
...This is occurring on three levels...
...28MaylJune 1980 Popular Power: "The people have conquered their full right to the exercise of power...
...At each level, the people are discussing current issues, reviewing organizational goals and planning projects such as demonstrations, internal study groups, and the like...
...What type of relationship should exist between the mass organizations and the FSLN, or the state...
...They deal with major social and economic problems of the community (health, housing, sanitation, etc...
...And you are a power there...
...But everyone understands what it means: that the dispossessed popular classes, the majority, will have the determinant voice in establishing the future direction in Nicaragua...
...CDS members are also activists in the broader tasks of the revolution: the Committees organize community participation in the Literacy Crusade, voluntary work brigades in the countryside and mass mobilizations for the political defense of the revolution...
...18 NACLA ReportMaylJune 1980 Carrying placards and machetes, 50,000 peasants from all over Nicaragua converged on Managua's Plaza of the Revolution in midFebruary to place a demand before the Government of National Reconstruction...
...Production councils, grouping together workers and administrators from several factories within the same manufacturing area, are now being set up to review the production goals of an entire sector, in furtherance of Plan 80...
...The ATC is now directing its major organizational thrust to this sector...
...Why wouldn't it be just as logical, he mused aloud, for the workers to achieve the same unity...
...Although workers' participation in these committees and councils implies only a preliminary form of workers' control (the final decisions still rest largely with the administrators), their influence is expected to grow as they gain experience.' 9 Workers at privately-owned plants, lacking such direct access to decision-making, do play the crucial role of guaranteeing that the productivity of the factory is maintained...
...In January 1980, two federations responded, CGT-I and CAUS, the Action and Labor Unity Federation...
...All aspects of the factory's operations are discussed, ranging from production goals to problems of health and safety...
...Workers Front (FO) Organized by Popular Action Movement (MAP), a small split from the FSLN in the early 70s, originally with a pro-China position...
...8. NACLA interview with Roberto Gutierrez...
...Since the victory, a major goal of the FSLN has been the political unification of the working class, since a divided workers' movement undermines its ability to defend its class interests and opens itself up to political manipulation by other classes...
...The FO, which is linked politically to the small People's Action Movement (MAP), refused to accept the FSLN as the legitimate vanguard, accusing it of having been coopted by both the national and international bourgeoisie...
...Some of the redistribution efforts which have already had an impact on the lower classes include the slashing of rent by up to 50%, the expansion of health and educational facilities in the slums and throughout the countryside, the literacy campaign, the introduction of daycare centers for working women, and the establishment of direct distribution centers in factories and communities to provide basic foodstuffs at subsidized prices...
...Taken together, such reforms are referred to as the new "social wage...
...CUS is also a beneficiary of aid from AIFLD (American Institute for Free Labor Development), an agency closely linked in the past to the CIA...
...The CST, which itself represents one third of the urban labor force, made repeated calls for unity talks with the other federations...
...Together the three established the National Inter-Union Commission to continue the talks...
...The State With the inauguration on May 4th of the Council of State, the mass organizations have moved toward direct participation in decision-making at the national level...
...They have become the main channel of communication for the Sandinista Front...
...ICFTU, with a Social-Democratic orientation, was created as an alternative to the WFTU...
...4. NACLA interview with Roberto Gutierrez...
...For us, what you say in INRA is practically law...
...All of the above organizations have seats on the Council of State and participate actively in the Programatic Coordinating Committees of the ministries...
...In the first nine months since the triumph, Metasa has created 139 new jobs, a 46% increase...
...Mass Organizations: "Today in Nicaragua we believe that everyone should be organized, even children...
...While the relationship Mayotga referred to is still being defined, a crucial element in the FSLN concept of a truly democratic socialist 19Mayljune 1980 21 Truckload of brigadistas leaving to begin five-month Literacy Crusade...
...ATC membership was very active during the insurrection, ambushing National Guardsmen and cutting their communications, and setting up supply lines for the guerrillas...
...The Association of Rural Workers, the first organization to hold a constituent assembly, brought together 250 delegates from 14 departments of the country to decide upon the Association's statutes and replace the appointed executive with an elected one...
...In many cases, this approach has won over the strikers...
...Thousands climb aboard buses on "Red & Black Saturdays" (the color of the FSLN banner) and "Proletarian Sundays," to help pick cotton or prepare long-fallow ground for planting on the newly collectivized farms...
...Guardian, February 13, 1980...
...Garcia demanded that "not one inch of land be returned" to the original large landowners.' Only half of the 2.1 million acres administered by INRA had come legally under state control as property abandoned by Somoza and his cohorts...
...The unions are responsible for seeing that their firms conform to the collective bargaining agreements, and every union has a representative to oversee safety and health conditions...
...At this point the direction the FSLN would like to move in is apparent, but they have not yet articulated a coherent plan...
...Demanding 100% wage increases, CAUS has opportunistically played on the desperately impoverished conditions of workers in Nicaragua and on the FSLN's commitment to improving those conditions as quickly as possible...
...Periodic reviews of all aspects of the ministries' operations give the delegates the chance to draw attention to bureaucratic failings or ineptitude...
...Composed of 47 delegates from 29 national political, professional and mass organizations, the Council has a joint legislative function with the Junta, with the important exception that the Junta has veto power, and the Council does not...
...Initially based largely among urban women, AMNLAE is directing special organizational efforts to involve the more isolated rural women...
...Several leaders within CAUS have adopted a similar hostility toward the FSLN...
...Neither is our vanguard thinking in terms of utopias, nor are our people making revolution independently of the vanguard...
...The extent of the problem was highlighted in a recent government survey which shows that fully 70% of the working population receive a salary equal to or less than the minimum wage...
...Plans are also underway for more advanced technical education, freeing the revolution from such dependency as now exists on the uncommitted technocratic sector...
...Identifying and then electing the best people for leadership positions has not been simple, especially given people's mere nodding acquaintance with democratic participation...
...INRA Vice-Minister Salvador Mayorga criticized the latter as an example of paternalism and commented that, "An important clarification has been the definition of the relationship between the revolutionary state at this juncture and the masses and their organizations...
...Action and Labor Union Federation (CAUS): Close to the Communist Party of Nicaragua (PSN), a pro-Moscow communist party, the CGT-I's unions reportedly has about 5,000 members, and its particular strength is in the textile sector...
...These groups have criticized the FSLN's program for moving too slowly toward expropriating the bourgeoisie...
...As the major youth organization, JS-19 has had a central role in mobilizing youth for the tasks of reconstruction, most importantly the Literacy Crusade which involves about 100,000 young people as volunteers...
...But since services such as credit remained in the hands of the wealthy farmers, many of the small producers quickly recognized the manipulation, and formed their own cooperative...
...The balance had been seized by landless peasants or occupied by INRA itself in cases where there was a long "EZ 0 history of peasant/owner conflict or current production boycotts.' The march was precipitated by the fact that the government attorney was returning some of this land to original owners who had charged the ATCled peasants with exceeding the mandate of the new agrarian reform...
...Ivan Garcia, "Papel de los trabajadores en el cumplimiento del Plan '80," Barricada...
...A major preoccupation expressed by FSLN members is that the mass organizations not become mere appendages of the FSLN, structured to carry out the tasks of a top-down revolution...
...NACLA interview with Carlos Huembes, official of the CTN...
...Small producers are defined by INRA as having an annual income for a family of six of not more than 18,000 cordobas (US$1,800), which historically reflects land ownership of between 10 and 20 manzanas (one manzana equals 1.75 acres), depending on the crop...
...The agitational tactics of FO and the CAUS faction are viewed by the FSLN as playing directly into the hands of counterrevolutionaries attempting to destabilize the revolutionary process.'" After failing to settle its differences with these groups through discussions and exchanges in their respective papers, the FSLN has used force, jailing members of both FO and CAUS...
...9. El Machete...
...Landholding peasants are encouraged through incentives to either pool their resources and work the land collectively in Sandinista Agricultural Communes (CAS) or take a less ambitious step and simply establish cooperatives eligible for credit and services...
...The CTN, which openly supports the political positions of the opposition bourgeoisie, has allowed itself to be used in the international campaign against Nicaragua by denouncing the creation of what it calls a "totalitarian" situation in Nicaragua, comparing the FSLN to Somoza, and accusing it of attempting to "crush the Confederation...
...Association of Rural Workers (ATC): With roots that go back to radical church activists, the FSLN first organized landless peasants into Committees of Agricultural Workers in 1976...
...Sandinista Defense Committees (CDS): Evolving out of the pre-victory Civil Defense Committees that were organized by block as clandestine defense structures, the CDS today are widely established in 22Mayljun, 1980 23 held, giving the entire membership the opportunity to discuss all the issues before they were raised at the National Assembly...
...Besides representing the interests of the rural proletariat and the landless peasants, the ATC has begun to organize the 100,000 or more impoverished, but productive, small producers,* who are responsible for a significant percentage of total agricultural output, especially in basic grains, coffee and beef.2 Since the political and economic importance of this group has also been recognized by some large landowners, the ATC is forced to compete for their support...
...How will the immediate needs of the masses be balanced with the long-term goals of the revolution...
...The FSLN," says Comandante Carlos Nunez, "came to be and is the vanguard of the Nicaraguan people not only for having defined the correct way of struggle, but also for having clearly defined that the masses were the forces capable of moving the wheel of history...
...In Nicaragua the people are not isolated from the vanguard or vice versa," argues Ricardo Wheelock, a long-time FSLN member and currently ambassador to the USSR...
...For five months they will be seeing, feeling and living the reality of Nicaragua's rural underdevelopment...
...As Comandante Dora Maria Tellez made clear to a meeting of the CDS, several months before the inauguration of the Council of State, ". . . The CDS permit us to communicate the preoccupations of the people to the state...
...This was true of many unions which joined the Sandinista Workers' Confederation (CST) as well as communities which organized themselves into local Sandinista Defense Committees (CDS...
...At a workers' rally, Comandante Tomas Borge recalled that all of Nicaragua's commercial, industrial and agricultural business groups had united in COSEP...
...The Sandinista Defense Committees are already reorganizing their both rural and urban communities...
...Furthermore, the government's acceptance of the ATC's demands has clearly validated the principle of direct class action and, by implication, encouraged further militancy...
...A cornerstone of Plan 80, given the economic factors already outlined, is that the chief means of effecting a social redistribution of income this year will be increased production...
...s3 But at the same time, opposition to the FSLN has come from both the left and the right within the trade union movement...
...This move to organize has the strongest possible support of the FSLN...
...The Nicaraguan revolution is nothing if it is not energy and motion, enthusiastic experimentation with creative new ways of doing things that have never been done before in five decades of dictatorship and U.S...
...Its largest affiliate, FETSALUD, however, a union of over 8,000 health workers, is in the process of moving away from the CTN...
...political content because these social sores are the product of imperialist domination and of the dictatorial exercise of bourgeois power...
...POPULAR DEMOCRACY 1. El Machete, No...
...second is in the transformation of the state...
...The major demands the ATC pushes for the small producers center around improving the support mechanisms offered by the state, including easier and cheaper credit, easier access to commercialization and more training and technical assistance...
...Confederation for Trade Union Unification (CUS): With only several thousand members, CUS is a member of ORIT (Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers) and its world organization, ICFTU (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions...
...The first is linked politically to the Nicaraguan Socialist Party and the second to the Communist Party of Nicaragua...
...NACLA interview with Angel Sevilla, small coffee producer and ATC activist...
...They MaylJune 1980 23NACLA Report also provide across-the-board means of combating any loss of real wages from the current 19% inflation...
...What is often needed, however, is for the Comandante Jaime Wheelock, head of INRA, listening as campesinos explain their views...
...Economic Reactivation Assemblies are being organized, where workers have the opportunity to grill management...
...6. Barricada, August 3, 1979...
...NICARAGUAN TRADE UNION CONFEDERATIONS Sandinista Workers Confederation (CST): (See description under listing of FSLN mass organizations...
...The major thrust of Plan 80 was hammered out by the Ministry of Economic Planning together with the FSLN and representatives of the mass organizations...
...That's an important dynamic...
...Ibid...
...By December 1979, the ATC had organized only 10%, while the large producers proceeded to draw the small producers into cooperatives under their control...
...18 The Workplace Within the nationalized sector of the economy, the APP, workers are involved in plant administration through the participation of elected delegates on committees at both the production unit and plant levels...
...Based on the pressing concern for economic reactivation, the government has declared it illegal to interfere with production...
...Membership in each CPC includes representatives from other appropriate ministries as well as delegates from the mass organizations...
...The ultimate character of the revolution will be determined by the way in which these questions are answered, not just in theory, but as real contradictions emerge that must be dealt with...
...2 6 That dynamic, says Carlos Nunez, requires a "permanent relationship" with the people through the mass organizations...
...CTN is probably the largest confederation after CST...
...it is the result of a social process that has its own rhythm, dependent on the development of the sectors themselves...
...We were working to give answers to problems as they presented themselves," pointed out Comandante Monica Baltodano, head of the FSLN's Secretariat for Mass Organizations...
...By representing the small producers, the ATC delegate would make sure that the institutions met their credit needs, answered questions thoroughly and patiently, etc...
...Barricada, March 3, 1980...
...Delegates, as well as local officers for the base committees, were selected by open elections throughout the organization...
...Barricada, March 6, 1980) NACLA Report This occurred in Matagalpa, for example, where the large producers managed to lure some 90% of the small producers into their coffee cooperative...
...The Vanguard An integral element in the advance toward "popular power" is the relationship between the masses and the FSLN...
...25 Although to be a vanguard is to fulfill a leadership function for the masses, the relationship is not defined by the Front as a static one...
...Affiliated with it is the major construction union, SCAAS...
...2 7 Maintaining the correct dynamic between the developed centralism of the FSLN and the more loosely organized mass groups is a major preoccupation of the organizations themselves...
...A banner draped across the pediment of the Cathedral by the CST reads, "Raising production is defending the revolution...
...In a number of cases people organized themselves spontaneously and then sought affiliation to the national organizations...
...o C., 0 0 0 24MaylJuns 1980 28 while unions in support of the proposal were free to push it...
...Also on the committees are administrators who stayed on the job after nationalization, and the plant manager, who is almost always a militant of the FSLN...
...In all, 24 seats have been designated to the FSLN and its organizations, including three each for the CST and ATC, one each for AMNLAE, the women's organization, and JS-19, the student organization, six for the FSLN itself and one for the Sandinista Army...
...Most plants now also have regular meetings of all the workers and administrators to further these discussions...
...Because the CDS are so much more allencompassing in their composition than the other organizations, they are often referred to as the primary, albeit embryonic, expressions of popular power...
...Barricada, April 14, 15, 1980...
...Class Unity: "When the workers understand their strategic project, the revolution will march forward...
...The first is the Nicaraguan Confederation of Workers (CTN), a member of CLAT, and the second is the Confederation for Trade Union Unity (CUS), a member of ORIT...
...24 One of the innovations that legitimizes this consultative role is the establishment of a Programmatic Coordinating Commission (CPC) for each ministry...
...Sandinista Youth- 19th of July (JS- 19): Following the victory, the JS-19 built itself out of the older pro-FSLN student movement...
...In the final analysis, rectification depends on the communities themselves...
...3 The five major organizations providing this impetus are the ATC, the Sandinista Workers' Confederation (CST), the Association of Nicaraguan Women (AMNLAE), the neighborhood-based - Sandinista Defense Committees (CDS), and the Sandinista Youth-July 19 (JS-19...
...Barricada, March 29, 1980...
...CUS was the least combative federation during the years of the dictatorship...
...21 The government recently enacted a decree allowing for nationalization of factories and a fine for the former owners once charges are proven by the workers...
...Now that the reactionary power has been broken into pieces, and we have...the right to enjoy all the political liberties extended by a democratic regime," reads a Barricada editorial only days after the victory, "one of the most important slogans should be this: Organization, organization and more organization.'"6 Yet major questions remain unresolved...
...But they have challenged the FSLN by appealing to the economic rather than the political impulses of workers...
...As Nora Navas, a member of the CDS National Executive, made clear, "Only the masses of the CDS are capable of removing those who have conducted themselves badly or might be incompetent...
...The ATC now takes in small producers as well as peasants and rural workers...
...El Brigadista (Nicaragua), March 1980...
...Another effort at social redistribution has been the government's wage policy...
...Though supportive of Plan 80, the CST, ATC and the General Confederation of Workers-Independent (CGT-I), a union federation sympathetic to the FSLN, are jointly pushing the government to do more to alleviate the special economic difficulties of the lowest paid urban and rural workers...
...Director of Planning, INRA...
...Many workers balked...
...Already the mass organizations have petitioned the Council of State to condemn the U.S...
...They hold weekly meetings to discuss outstanding problems and review their ongoing activities and projects...
...Jaime Wheelock labeled it a ploy by Somoza to coopt the workers, and recommended that the workforce donate it to the state to help create jobs for the 30-40% chronically unemployed...
...See box for fuller description...
...The evolution of smoothly functioning democratic structures is not without its problems...
...2. NACLA interview with Salvador Mayorga, ViceMinister of INRA, March 1980...
...1 0 Support for Plan 80: "Raising Production is Defending the Revolution...
...Commenting on the character of the Council of State, Angel Sevilla, a small coffee producer and ATC activist from Matagalpa, went straight to the point: "The installationMaylJune 1980 29 of the Council of State is no more than the participation of the people who already have power...
...mass organizations to work more directly with a particular ministry at the operational level...
...El Trabajador (Managua, Nicaragua), March 8, 1980...
...Some of its leadership has become hostile to the FSLN...
...Marine occupation...
...For all their lack of historical roots, the exponential growth of the mass organizations following the triumph is striking...
...7 The Sandinista Front has also suffered from a lack of politically experienced cadre able to guide the transformation of semi-autonomous, embryonic committees into full-blown national organizations...
...It is already clear, though, that the mass organizations were not conceived by the FSLN merely as agitational vehicles, nor as MaylJune 1980 21NACLA Report channels through which to communicate policy to various constituencies, though these functions are being served...
...How will the newly-introduced concept, "Popular Power," be put into practice...
...in others, further negotiations, including concessions by both sides, have always produced a return to work...
...To begin with, the various organizations are experimenting with internal democratic processes--the first such participation the masses have ever experienced in Nicaraguan history...
...This is particularly evident in the emergence of new mechanisms through which "the people" are exercising the power to determine the course of their own lives...
...In general the policy has been to freeze the salaries of the better paid workers while investing as much as possible in the creation of new jobs...
...Nevertheless, the government's stand was a stark indication that the state intends to favor the interests of the workers and peasants over those of the bourgeoisie...
...The Crusade is political education for the 100,000 young brigadistas as much as for those they teach...
...All this has not obviated the need for unions, which are being registered at the rate of 32 per month (still as single-plant unions, their organizational form under Somoza...
...To the contrary, the FSLN enriches its political conceptions and strengthens its position as vanguard by understanding the concerns of the workers and applying them to the real conditions in a way that aligns those concerns to the development of the revolutionary process...
...5. Barricada (Managua, Nicaragua), March 24, 1980...
...After two years of land invasions and protest marches, the committees in 1978 established the ATC...
...But in response to the massive demonstration, the government did indeed nationalize all the land in question...
...Others volunteer longer hours on their jobs, and still others construct their own housing settlements from state-supplied prefabricated units, much like the Cuban "mini-brigades...
...This is but one glimpse of an emerging new dynamic whereby the direction and tempo of revolutionary change is beginning to be propelled more by the demands of the new mass organizations and less by the direct initiative of the FSLN leadership...
...This will undoubtedly impart to them a better understanding of the potential of the revolutionary process and their role in it when they return to the cities...
...and the third is in the overall orientation of the revolutionary process, that is to say, in their relation to the FSLN...
...From the right, two federations, both affiliated with the regionals of worldwide anti-communist trade union confederations, have remained intransigent...
...The CST is named after Jose Benito Escobar, a construction worker and member of the FSLN national leadership who was assassinated by the dictatorship in July 1978...
...9 Preceding this, 660 local assemblies had been MASS ORGANIZATIONS OF THE FSLN Sandinista Workers' Confederation "Jose Benito Escobar" (CST): Established following the victory, initially incorporating the clandestine workers' committees and the National Union of Employees (UNE...
...Barricada, March 14, 21, 1980...
...In fact, the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) has loudly registered its opposition to FSLN proposals for such unification...
...The production increases that must underlie such social reforms are being tackled on every conceivable front, from in-plant discussions about more efficient production techniques to voluntary work brigades...
...Ignoring the government's call for support of the economic reactivation plan, their leaders have agitated the rank and file to go on strike for wage increases that they know cannot be granted without serious social cost...
...This move de facto makes strikes illegal, although it was aimed at the capitalists...
...Although usually based only on volunteer labor, the results of CDS projects can be seen everywhere, in the form of cleaner and safer living areas, new potable water systems, health clinics and now the introduction of food distribution centers...
...For example, small agricultural producers complained that they were having difficulties obtaining credit from the National Development Bank (BND) and INRA, each of which were authorized to dispense loans, and whose technocrats were accustomed to working with large landowners...
...departmental and national structures, since the initial one proved too bureaucratic and unwieldy...
...The Defense Committees have had particular problems with cases of elected CDS leaders using their positions for personal gain...
...Some 20 CAUS leaders have been charged with boycotting production...
...No one yet has a definitive vision of what popular power will look like...
...2 3 Even when their participation is consultative rather than direct, the mass organizations wield enormous moral authority within the various new state structures...
...The answer was to coordinate the credit institutions through a joint credit commission of both BND and INRA, together with a third member from ATC...
...As Roberto Gutierrez explained, they are "learning how to govern...
...General Confederation of Workers-Independent (CGT-I): Organized by the Socialist Party of Nicaragua (PSN), a pro-Moscow Communist Party, the CGT-I's unions cooperated with the FSLN during the insurrection, and belonged to the MPU...
Vol. 14 • May 1980 • No. 3
