An expert on Nicaragua?

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis:

Mike Gonzales, a cothinker of our own Adam Rose, wrote a pamphlet
called "Nicaragua: Revolution Under Siege" in 1985. I took a late
lunch break, went over to Lehman Library and sat down and read this
gem.

In an 85 page pamphlet, 2 and 1/2 paragraphs are devoted to the
agrarian reform which was one of the most sweeping in the Western
Hemisphere since the Cuban Revolution. Instead of praising it,
Gonzales describes it in the most neutral terms as a way of "bringing
more land into production." What a bloodless way to describe a
measure that yielded land to tens of thousands of land-starved
campesinos.

In a 85 page pamphlet, there is just a single sentence that refers to the
literacy campaign.

With respect to the expanded health-care and nutrition programs that
the revolution produced, there is not a single sentence.

What there is plenty of is descriptions of clashes between the
Sandinistas and some of the trade unions which enjoyed legality prior
to overthrow of Somoza and which comprised 16,000 members, some
4% of a working-class numbering in the millions.

One of these unions was led by the PSN (Socialist Party of Nicaragua),
a pro-Moscow party despite its name. This group shared the antipathy
that several of our more r-r-r-revolutionary list members have toward the
Sandinistas.

This group was not anti-FSLN enough for some members whose hatred for
the "petit bourgeois adventurists" knew no bounds. They broke away and formed
the PCN (Communist Party of Nicaragua) whose super-Stalnist
ideology would have frightened even Shawgi Tell. They assumed
leadership of a union called the CAUS. A final splitoff was the Frente
Obrero, a pro-Chinese outfit. It had a newspaper called "El Pueblo",
which according to Mike Gonzales, was "directed toward the working-
class". How uplifting. Just what Nicaragua needed, another sectarian
newspaper oriented toward the working-class.

These ultraleft outfits led strikes of workers under their influence from
the very day the FSLN took power. Sugar refinery workers led by the
Maoists demanded a 100 per cent wage rise practically the day the FSLN
assumed governmental power. The horrible Sandinistas closed down El Pueblo
and arrested some of the Maoists.

Anybody with an ounce of political understanding knows exactly what was
going on here. The Maoists were just like Hugh Rodwell's pitiful Simon Bolivar
Brigade. They thought they were the Bolsheviks and the FSLN were
Mensheviks who deserved to be overthrown. This was in 1979, the first
year of Sandinista power. The Sandinistas had enough sense to defend
the revolution from such ultraleft assaults.

I am glad that Jorn recommended Mike Gonzales's pamphlet. I had a
suspicion that the English SWP was just as out to lunch on Nicaragua
as the Morenoites. Unlike Adam, I am not satisfied by mere
suspicions. I have a relentless drive to figure things out for myself.
Now, having read Gonzales's pamphlet, I can rest assured that even
their resident expert was clueless.




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