Re: [CubaNews] Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua: revolutionary movements for national salvation, by Jose G. Perez

["Jose G. Perez" <jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

[I wrote the post below originally in response to a very brief note from
Walter asking what I thought about the theses that it was the failure of the
FSLN leadership to push through a socialist transformation of society that
led to the revolution's downfall, and only upon completing the draft did I
see Fred's comments.

[Because it started as a private note to Walter, who of course understands
and agrees with this, my comments below do not explicitly make clear, as I
would normally stress, that the Nicaraguan revolution did not die a natural
death, but was murdered by U.S. imperialism, asphyxiated. The comments below
are more in the context of, what could forces on the anti-imperialist side
of the barricades do to counter that murderous offensive?

[In addition, seeing Fred's comments I would add the following:

[I did not mean to imply that the Sandinistas conditioned or limited the
sweep of the agrarian reform or other revolutionary measures because of
Soviet aid or the lack thereof. They carried out the agrarian policies they
believed were correct. This involved, in my opinion, giving too much weight
to "technocratic" considerations of the economic efficiency of large scale
production and so on, factors which, I believe, should have been
subordinated to social and political considerations, namely, the cementing
of the campesinos to the revolutionary project by giving these toilers what
they have always wanted, an unquestioned *right* to their own plot in their
own name to work as they themselves saw fit. If that had been clearly
established, then in *that* context, impelementing all sorts of programs and
incentives to promote and encourage *strictly voluntary* collectivization
would have made perfect sense, and provided a firmer basis, I believe, for
state farms and cooperatives.]

[In addition, I would add that I believe the Nicaraguan FSLN comrades could
and would have improved their approach to agrarian reform, overcoming its
one-sided emphasis on technological/economic considerations as opposed to
political ones, if they had had a chance. They did correct what was probably
in many ways a much harder to understand policy issue in their approach to
the Miskitu people.

[But once the conflagration of the civil war had spread throughout the
"agricultural frontier," and the demoralizing and demobilizing effect of the
economic crisis begun to take its toll, it tremendously complicated making
such a change. Given the eventual outcome, it isn't particularly insightful
to say it should have been tried even in mid-1985 or later, assuming the
FSLN leadership even understood the  need for a change at that point, which
is not clear to me.]

[On Fred's other points, about Chile and the process underway in Venezuela,
I agree with him, and especially on Chávez. I haven't quite figured out how
to explain just *why*, but I *like* the guy, I think he's the real thing.
I've listened to him speak quite a few times, thanks to the access my work
gives me to direct feeds from Venezuelan media, and I believe more is going
on there than comes across in press reports, even ones not hostile to the
revolution.

[Che, in his letter on "Socialism and Man in Cuba" talks about the
dialectical symbiosis, for lack of a better term, between Fidel and the
masses. Looking at some of these televised protests, congressional hearings
and presidential interventions in Venezuela, I very much get the feeling
that something like this is at work. Chávez is one with the mass movement in
a way that even someone like Chilean President Salvador Allende, or even
Daniel Ortega and Sergio Ramírez, were not. That's my impression and gut
reaction.

[Still, having lived several years in Nicaragua in the midst of the process
in the 80s, and studied Cuba very closely, I am very conscious of the
reality that these things are extremely difficult to judge from a distance.
For example, just like Louis, I am quite concerned about the contraction in
the Venezuelan economy. However, I hesitate to draw broad conclusions from
it, because we do not know what is going on in the distribution end of the
economy, nor how it is playing politically. And given the structure of the
Venezuelan economy, a few percent drop in GDP could *easily* be absorbed by
the top few percent of the population and imported goods becoming dearer.
Yet the *majority* of the population, even if their diet is a little more
monotonous and have to put off plans for getting a TV, might well feel they
are now better off because their children are now guaranteed a place in
school, or because the Cuban doctor in the neighborhood health center has
helped the parents better manage a kids childhood asthma.

[We actually *do not know* what difference the revolutionary process is
making in the lives of rank-and-file human beings in Venezuela, though we
see some hints in the article about afro-venezuelans that Walter posted to
the list. But judging from the way people in the hills surrounding Caracas
responded to the April coup, I believe there must have been at least good
beginnings of significant social economic advances.

[And this goes back to the Nica discussion, and the agrarian reform issue.
Because my impression is, from talking to campesinos in Nicaragua, that one
of the decisions that the Frente made that really was felt as a hurt by poor
farmers and farmworkers in the countryside was the withdrawal of the Cuban
teachers. This decision, adopted in the wake of the Grenada invasion, led ot
the closing of numerous schools and contributed to the degradation or
disintegration of providing other services, especially medical care, for the
teacher in a hamlet often played the role of encouraging people and guiding
people in how to obtain services and in confronting public health issues.

[Some people in the Frente, and this explanation gained a fair bit of
currency in solidarity movement circles, explained that there had been
frictions between the Cubans and the traditional, conservative Nicaraguan
peasantry, around religious and similar issues, and this is what led to the
Cuban being pulled out.

[I, at least, never saw it, never saw any evidence that this was the case.
But a very real problem was that the Cuban teachers were singled out as
targets by the contra, and about 20 were killed. It was judged impolitic
under Nicaraguan conditions for the teachers to be armed, but even if they
had been, peasants may well have judged that the presence of a teacher from
Cuba created a huge risk for their children and their community.

[At any rate, whatever the reasons and modalities, I suspect that if the
FSLN had been able to see its way clear to maintain or even expand
educational and health services in the countryside once the war started,
instead of taking steps that let to their being cut back or disappearing
altogether, this may have prvioded, at least for a time, just as strong a
tie with the campesinos as a more fully thought through agrarian reform
policy, or at least enough of a tie to largely compensate.

[This kind of very nitty-gritty, on the ground, "how it plays in Peoria"
information from Venezuela is what we lack, and without it, I think we're
just not in a good position to judge what the precise impact on the masses
and their combativity will be of things like unfavorable trends in
macro-economic indicators.]

[My note in response to Walter's question follows.]

*  *  *

There were many factors that contributed to the defeat of the Nicaraguan
revolution, including mistakes by its leadership which were capitalized on
by the enemy (Miskitus, agrarian reform) but there should be no question as
to the overriding one: the betrayal by the USSR.

[Again, this is in the context of what progressive, anti-imperialist forces
could & should have done to counter the U.S. assault.]

The Soviets REFUSED to give them even museum-piece Korean-War vintage
fighters and radars, AFTER they had led the FSLN to believe they would have
them. They *refused* to give the FSLN more than about a dozen MI-24
helicopter gunships and a similar number, or perhaps a few more, MI-8
helicopter troop transports. They *refused* to give Nicaragua sufficient
economic aid to counteract the effects of the economic crisis. They
*refused* to provide Nicaragua minesweepers (eventually, it was the Cuban
and Vietnamese on the q.t that cleared the harbor), or even better, to send
a Soviet naval detachment on a peace-and-friendship junket to Corinto,
making clear that OF COURSE the USSR did not fear that someone might mine
Nicaragua's harbors, because blowing up of a Soviet vessel with a mine would
be an ACT OF WAR against the SOVIET UNION, and the red army would send the
aggressor to hell on a rocket ship, just like they did to Hitler and the
huns.

This has now been thoroughly *documented* in, among other places, CNN's (in
reality, Ted Turner's) documentary series, cold war.

>From Episode 18:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/18/script.html

*  *  *

In the United States, the new Reagan administration blamed Cuba and Moscow.

Archival Footage: U.S. Secretary of State, March 22, 1981

Gen. Alexander Haig: "What we're watching is a four-phased operation. Phase
one has been completed -- the seizure of Nicaragua. Next is El Salvador, to
be followed by Honduras and Guatemala -- it's clear and explicit."

Other: "There is a Caribbean domino theory that's unfolding?"

Gen. Haig: "Of course. I wouldn't call it necessarily a domino theory. I
would call it a priority target list -- a hit list if you will -- for the
ultimate takeover of Central America."

Interview: President Fidel Castro, Cuba

"Look, if a Soviet-Cuban master plan actually existed we would have won the
Cold War. (Laughs) If there had been a master plan. But unfortunately there
was no such plan, quite the opposite. Cuba's actions conflicted with Soviet
interests at that time."

[...]

In Nicaragua, Reagan's crusade against the Sandinistas was stepped up.

Interview: Duane Clarridge, CIA chief, Latin America

"The Sandinistas desperately needed to get hard currency for their exports
to pay off their bank loans. So this was a time to put the mines into
Corinto -- they've only got one harbor that counts -- and at the same time
make sure we notified Lloyds of London the mines have gone in, so hopefully
they put pressure on the shipping companies ... to stay out of there. Well
it worked."

Narration: Nicaragua's precious stock of oil went up in smoke; the economy
was reeling. And, all the while, ways had to be found to contain the U.S.
backed Contra invasion.

The Sandinistas asked the Soviets for help.

Interview: Yuri Pavlov, Soviet Foreign Ministry

"The leaders in Moscow did not want to provoke the United States into giving
more military aid to the Contras and to the Honduran government. Therefore
these requests were politely denied every time the Sandinistas brought it up
in Moscow."

*  *  *

Ultimately, I believe history passed the Soviet Working Class "la cuenta"
(the bill) for this and many other betrayals. The dismemberment of the
Soviet Union and the holocaust for Russian working people that has followed
it has been history's way of saying, "next time you seize power, be a little
more careful on how it gets used."

BTW, I believe this bit of history shows that the Trotskyist movement had
even then outlived its usefulness and lost its bearings. At the time, we [in
the SWP, USA] were greatly concerned with Solidarnosc in Poland and
dissidents in the USSR. The *line* we projected for Eastern Europe was
wrong. The main enemy was *not* the caste, just as in the unions the main
enemy is not the bureaucracy.

It should have been the *same* line as we had *world wide* 15 years earlier
in relation to Vietnam, i.e., communists in the USSR should have been
encouraged to build a movement to support the Nicaraguan revolutionaries,
carried out campaigns to collect donations for the Nicaraguan comrades,
promoted "red Saturdays" of voluntary labor the proceeds of which were to go
to the Nicas, demanded that hard currency earnings from the sale of Soviet
caviar and Vodka be used to feed the Nicaraguan people, whatever forms and
demands were most appropriate.

That wasn't just the only way to save Nicaragua: it would have been the only
way to save the Soviet Union itself, as history would soon show. "Really
existing" socialism did not collapse from having too few of the formalities
of workers democracy, by having too little of its *content*, which is to
fight capitalism and imperialism.

José


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