Who can Latin Americans rely on? [was: RE: (Nestor) Re:What is Lüko looking for?]

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

El Domingo 28 de Septiembre de 2003 a las 8:57,
Jose G. Perez dijo sobre RE: (Nestor) Re:What is Lüko lookin que:

> 
> The cause of the defeat of the Nicaraguan Revolution was the imperialist
> aggression. The revolution was drowned in blood militarily and
> suffocated economically. It really is as simple as that.

[...]

> The central factor is this: there was an insufficient material basis for
> resistance to the imperialist onslaught within Nicaragua. However it
> would be wrong to say the material basis for the revolution in Nicaragua
> did not exist -- but it was not inside the country. It existed in the
> socialist camp, first and foremost the Soviet Union.

[José's notes go ahead with a description of the way in which the 
Soviet Union never fulfilled that role, either in Nicaragua or 
elsewhere.] 

>From a Latin American point of view, the record of the Soviet Union 
is not precisely what one would call brilliant. And this could not be 
otherwise. On a recent posting, I have taken the defense of the the 
bureaucrats as against imperialists, so that I feel I have a right to 
state that their dark side glowed the most in their policies towards 
Latin America.  Harsh as it sounds, so it was.

Ever after 1945, the USA enjoyed a free hand in Latin America against 
any form of resistence to their grip. The leadership of the Soviet 
Union accepted the _fait accompli_ that we are the backyard of the 
Empire, and cannot be blamed for inconsequence with their 
conceptions.

They did not consider Latin America a central issue for Soviet 
security and international policies, which is quite understandable if 
one thinks in terms of "Soviet patriotism". There was even a 
Communist Party leader in Argentina who screamed at an international 
Congress during the 30s that "good it would be if these 20 republics 
disappeared, if this helps to keep the Great Soviet Fatherland 
alive!"  

This was quite brutal, but in the end shows the gist of the 
bureaucrats' policies towards L.A. (I hasten to state, however, that 
the Argentinean CP was particularly stolid, since they did not 
support Peronism even against sound advice from Moscow during the 40s 
and 50s... such was their reactionary cast of mind!)

During the crisis of the missiles, Fidel himself felt the limits of 
Soviet support. And not only then. During the Bettelheim-Guevara 
economic debate, the heavy hand from the East appeared again. And in 
a sense, the Cubans were cornered by the necessities of international 
politics into supporting _both_ ultra-reformist Communist Parties and 
ultra-leftist guerrilla/terrorist groups in Latin America as a whole. 
These were two sides of a single policy.

I am not attempting a dispute on something that is gone with the wind 
and won't come back (although it still exists under the form of 
former "apparatchniks" who tend to capture the Latin American 
political relations of victorious revolutions, such as unfortunately 
is happening with the Venezuelan revolution --not that we are not 
fighting back, but it won't be easy!).

What I want to state is that the destinies of the Nicaraguan 
revolution may have _tactically_ been linked with the socialist camp 
as a result of a particular set of international conditions. But 
_strategically_ they were linked to the destiny of revolution in 
Latin America as a whole. And I sometimes think that Nicas, as well 
as Allende's Chile, did not grasp the full consequences of this 
conception. Nicaragua could simply not defend herself, because 
Nicaragua was not large enough to develop a Nicaraguan "national 
revolution" in absence of a Latin American National Revolution.

They were prey of isolation, an isolation that somehow oozed from 
their original theses and Nicaraguan "nationalism", which is as 
ridiculous as Argentinean, Chilean, Mexican and even Brazilian 
"nationalisms". The only support for a Latin American country is 
Latin America as a whole and a political vision of the local 
revolution as an act in the larger drama of the Latin American 
revolution. 

Of course, this seems to mean little if you are under permanent 
attack from the USA (and I agree with José on this), but I humbly 
(_really_ humbly) believe that one of the difficulties of the 
Nicaraguan revolution was that they were not able (would they have 
had an opportunity?) to follow a quieter pace, with a more 
"patriotic" and less "socialistic" discourse.  This pace would have 
set synthonized them better with their Latin American environment, 
thus making it more difficult for the US to bloodbathe and strangle 
the Revolution.

Such a piece of advice may sound ridiculous, coming from Argentina. 
Weren't we under the yoke of the 1976 Proceso? Weren't the Proceso 
"specialists" actively working in Nicaragua (against the deepest 
feelings of our people, but what can you expect)? Yes, we were. But 
history has many corners, and unexpected corners for that. The self 
and same criminals of 76 friendly hugged Fidel in 1982. Politics in 
Latin America is not a clear-cut thing because our societies are not 
clear-cut themselves. 

The Sandinista Revolution had been targeted to doom by the USA, this 
is true and it is the starting point. But, also, its excessive 
reliance on a socialist bloc which either couldn't (Cuba) or did not 
want (fSU,. etc.) to put its own destiny at stake by seriously 
confronting the Empire of Evil in its backyard made the imperialist's 
effort much more effective.

Methinks, with the highest respect for all those cdes. who not only 
supported Nicaragua by word but actually _went there to help_.

Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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"Sí, una sola debe ser la patria de los sudamericanos".
Simón Bolívar al gobierno secesionista y disgregador de 
Buenos Aires, 1822
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