Comment
On Nicaragua The analysis of your Nicaragua issue is a welcome relief from a polarized debate. On few topics has the lack of critical thinking of the U.S. Left been so apparent as on the...
...Most of my disappointment comes from the tone, which is something like this: Yeah, the Sandinistas faced impossible odds, but they blew it by driving new cars and running a fancy campaign...
...Mine has been with peasant co-ops, rural workers, Indian communities and mass organizations...
...In this regard, we would take issue with Carlos Vilas, perhaps less for what he says than for what he fails to say...
...Thomas W. Walker University of Ohio The writer is the author of several books on Nicaragua...
...Precisely "what went wrong" is that Nicaragua was forced into the boxing ring with an opponent many times its material and military strength...
...He argues that faulty FSLN policies and practices led the revolution to cave in on itself, notwithstanding external pressure...
...Either it is an obstacle that lowers the intensity of social and economic change, reduces the level and extent of people's participation, and encourages leaders' selfindulgence...
...Duncan Green Latin America Bureau, London The FSLN's chances for rebuilding in the wake of its electoral defeat are clearly linked to a thoroughgoing and accurate analysis of the factors which brought it about, including mistakes committed by the Sandinistas...
...The war and the economic crisis exhausted cadres and ordinary people alike, leading to a dropoff in popular organization that sapped the vitality of the revolution...
...What the Sandinistas did affected the level of international isolation and pressure they experienced...
...domination in the region, is descriptively accurate...
...Vilas' search for "What Went Wrong...
...The substantial issue here, as Vickers mentions, is the constraints imposed on revolutionary processes by imperiCONTINUED ON PAGE 3 alism and international conjunctures...
...In addition, recent events would seem to undermine Vilas' assertion that "Ortega's position in the party seems quite precarious...
...Their analyses of the causes of the FSLN defeat and prospects for the future are very sound...
...The division into external and internal elements is to some extent misleading...
...Hence, we applaud NACLA's contribution to this debate...
...Such growing verticalism further discredited the mass organizations...
...First, the FSLN and the Nicaraguan revolution were the victims in an unequal battle with the United States...
...essentially boils down to a "blame the victim" argument...
...But I must correct his sources regarding the agreement that ended the July strikes...
...The only significant criticism I would offer concerns one factual error which appears in the Vilas article (p...
...It was Ortega who negotiated the accord with the UNO government which ended the July strikes...
...Being from, and in, the Third World, I recognize a strong "First World bias" in the argument...
...Oquist confirmed my understanding that Ortega is the coordinator of the FSLN Executive Committee, Luis Carri6n is his chief of staff, and the other two members are Arce and Rufz in the positions indicated by Vilas...
...Green's final statement, that in order to survive Central American governments must come to terms with U.S...
...The question is not just war (history teaches us that social revolutions have always faced counterrevolution and imperialist aggression) but the way a revolution confronts war...
...Robinson and Norsworthy's work was mostly with solidarity networks, independent agencies and the international community...
...War Against Nicaragua (Monthly Review Press, 1987...
...Even if, as a political scientist, I don't consider signatures on documents a reliable indicator of popularity, Ortega's signature does not appear on the accord (Barricada, July 13, 1990, p. 3...
...The economic crisis forced the FSLN to prevent the trade unions from fighting for what their members really neededwage increases and food...
...Michael Wyman Maryland I must say that I was disappointed in the Nicaragua report...
...This very approach indirectly contributed to increased popular frustration, strengthened the arguments of the opposition, and-like it or not-nurtured anti-Sandinista voting...
...or it is an extremely painful but unavoidable means to advance political and economic transformation and to ensure people's direct involvement in the process...
...Given this and his superbly graceful handling of the electoral defeat, I would not count him out quite yet...
...I will not dispute Tom's interpretation of this...
...Left been so apparent as on the subject of Nicaragua...
...But more importantly for understanding the election result, it was precisely the unceasing military and economic attack from Washington which undermined the FSLN from within...
...I start my analysis by asserting that the voting was conditioned by a decade of counterrevolutionary war (p...
...11), although apparently they jumped over it...
...But the task of deciphering the lessons of the last eleven years suffers when it becomes an open invitation to "Sandinista-bashing," where any and all criticisms are seen as valid...
...As valid as many of the concrete observations and punctual criticisms in Vilas' article may be, they are put forward in a fallacious framework which attempts to separate out "internal" from '"external" factors...
...Your issue was excellent...
...I salute your courage in embarking upon the task of opening discussion in the face of what are likely to be many objections...
...Kent Norsworthy Bill Robinson Texas The writers are co-authors of David and Goliath: The U.S...
...We believe the internal and external factors are inextricably linked and attempts to treat them independently distort, rather than clarify, the analysis...
...Ortega is the undisputed head of the party...
...In predicting that "a rapid decline of Daniel Ortega is...likely," Vilas states that "Already he has been removed from the party leadership, replaced by a triumvirate made up of Commanders Lufs Carri6n as coordinator, Bayardo Arce as treasurer, and Henry Ruiz in charge of foreign relations...
...I suppose much of our disagreement stems from a different relationship to the Sandinista Revolution...
...But my article goes beyond this, exploring additional factors, such as economic policies, cultural traits, party politics, mass demobilization, "spite voting," uneven distribution of gains and losses, and other elements recognized by the FSLN (Barricada, June 26-29, 1990...
...My commentators take a one-sided approach that has been useful in generating U.S...
...As the political and economic options narrowed, the FSLN twisted and turned (often up to 180 degrees...
...For us, the most practical way to fight imperialism starts at home...
...The policies and tactics employed by the FSLN to assure the revolution's survival should not be evaluated as issues of "what went wrong," but as the terms under.which the contest unfolded...
...Since early April, changes in some aspects of the FSLN dynamic reinforce my position: the May and July strikes, the relative autonomy achieved by the Sandinista labor leadership, the celebration of the "Asamblea de Militantes Sandinistas" with intense internal debate, the municipal and departmental elections of new party cadres, and the preparations for the first FSLN congress...
...Steve Slade California The post mortem over the electoral defeat of the FSLN, reflected in your June issue, has largely revolved around two rather sterile dichotomies...
...It is hard to imagine a better informed triumvirate than Carlos Vilas, George Vickers and Trish O'Kane...
...Tefel and his former vice minister, Ricardo Chavarrfa, when read the NACLA phraseology, gave essentially the same response and information as Oquist...
...In Oquist's words, "The four of them make up the top echelon of the National Directorate office...
...I expected better from NACLA, and I think the Sandinistas deserve better...
...17) and is echoed by the editor in his introduction (p.9...
...In the process, they made mistakes, alienating key sectors of the population, but these were generally minor errors compared to the damage caused from outside...
...Carlos M. Vilas...
...The FSLN's best cadres went into the army, leaving a higher proportion of time-servers and party bureaucrats in government to irritate the public and undermine support for the revolution...
...And it was Ortega who gave the principal speech before the crowd of 60,000 that gathered on July 19 (in spite of the UNO government's suspension that day of all public transportation) to commemorate the eleventh anniversary of the revolution...
...and Western European grassroots solidarity, but has made it very difficult for revolutionaries to confront their own contradictions and distortions...
...A second discussion is over the balance between internal and external factors (specifically U.S...
...Hopefully, the contribution NACLA has made will inspire the critical perspective that seems so lacking...
...Yes, Ortega gave the July 19 anniversary speech, as he has done every year since 1980...
...But what about the people's survival...
...Vilas Replies Certainly, Daniel Ortega is the head of the FSLN, but many high-level Sandinistas, as well as rank-and-file members and observers, interpreted the appointment of Carri6n, Arce and Ruiz as I did...
...Robinson and Norsworthy's, and to a certain extent Green's, argument on "internal" and "external" factors is more formal than substantial...
...Opportunities to agree with Robinson and Norsworthy are so infrequent that I am happy to have the chance to stress our basic concurrence on the impact of war upon the elections...
...Military defense can be based on the political protagonism of the masses...
...First, did the revolution move too fast, thereby leaving the population trailing in its wake, or was the process of change too slow, frustrating and disillusioning its supporters as the FSLN tried to placate the U.S...
...That is not an analysis, but an implication wrapped in what sounds like personal irritation...
...I checked with Paul Oquist, a Sandinista advisor and head of the new Institute for Nicaraguan Studies, and with Reinaldo Tefel, the former Minister of Social Welfare and a current FSLN deputy in the National Assembly...
...government and the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie...
...This debate has busied the Left since the days of Allende...
...The unpalatable lesson of Nicaragua (and increasingly of El Salvador) is that the United States has the power to frustrate a revolutionary political project in Central America...
...pressure) in causing the Sandinistas' downfall...
Vol. 24 • August 1990 • No. 2
