Re: [Marxism] Nicaragua: The Revolution in 1985

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tom O'Lincoln wrote:
> OK, I've finished keying in sections of my old pamphlet and put it on
> the web;  and I hope there aren't too many typos. If you find them,
> especially misplaced accents on the Spanish words, please let me know.


Some cursory reactions:

1. You write, "Nevertheless, the growth of a small-holding peasantry, 
even where it is organised into co-operatives, cannot promote a 
socialist dynamic in agriculture or a socialist consciousness among the 
peasants."

But Lenin wrote in 1923:

"With most of the population organizing cooperatives, the socialism 
which in the past was legitimately treated with ridicule, scorn and 
contempt by those who were rightly convinced that it was necessary to 
wage the class struggle, the struggle for political power, etc., will 
achieve its aim automatically. But not all comrades realize how vastly, 
how infinitely important it is now to organize the population of Russia 
in cooperative societies. By adopting NEP we made a concession to the 
peasant as a trader, to the principal of private trade; it is precisely 
for this reason (contrary to what some people think) that the 
cooperative movement is of such immense importance. All we actually need 
under NEP is to organize the population of Russia in cooperative 
societies on a sufficiently large-scale, for we have now found the 
degree of combination of private interest, of private commercial 
interest, with state supervision and control of this interest, that 
degree of its subordination to the common interests which was formerly 
the stumbling block for very many socialists."

full: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm

In any case, all comparisons with the Soviet Union must be extremely 
guarded. Just to repeat. Nicaragua's population was equal to Brooklyn's. 
It lacked manufacturing and the raw materials that could be used to make 
capital goods. There was one elevator in the entire country. Donkeys and 
goats roamed the streets of Managua. A huge portion of the country was 
involved with the informal sector, selling ices or chewing gum on the 
street. Lenin and Trotsky said that without outside help, the USSR would 
collapse. With the Soviet Union cutting deals with the USA in the late 
1980s to abandon Nicaragua, how could one expect this country devasted 
by civil war, earthquake and low-intensity warfare to "build socialism".

2. You write:

"Certainly the present temporary governmental structures are compatible 
not only with political pluralism, but with all the traditions of 
capitalist democracy.

"The National Assembly was elected under universal suffrage. Its 
delegates serve for set terms and are not subject to immediate recall. 
In the electoral process, the bourgeoisie with its great resources had a 
considerably greater weight than the proletariat as a class (though of 
course the FSLN claims to speak in the proletariat’s name). Unlike the 
Soviet regime established at the end of 1917, there are no workers’ 
councils through which the proletariat exercises class power."

This is a bad mistake, to hold up the USSR in 1917 as a kind of 
yardstick for judging whether socialism is being constructed. This is 
especially true for Nicaragua where only 73 thousand people could be 
described as working-class in 1980, according to "The Economic 
Transformation and Industrial Development of Nicaragua", an article by 
Richard Harris and Carlos Vilas that is found in "Nicaragua: A 
Revolution Under Siege". It is highly likely that workers councils in 
Nicaragua did not arise because the main engines of struggle were in the 
informal sector, small ranchers, etc. Marxism flows from objective 
reality, not fantasy. I wish that Nicaragua had been an island of 50 
million people filled with militant coal miners and that Gorbachev had 
the consciousness of Tariq Ali, but unfortunately wishes are not fishes.

3. Tom dredges up charges made by the Morenoites who hoped to liberate 
Nicaragua from Menshevik FSLN rule:

>>At Fanatex, strike action forced management to review the matter, 
though in the end abolition of the practice went ahead. In the aftermath 
an indeterminate number of militants were sacked and Daniel Ortega 
visited the factory along with an array of other top officials. When the 
workers challenged him on the issue, Ortega responded by attacking 
"ultra-left parties" calling themselves "Marxists or Trotskyists" who he 
said were allied to the right, and were "strengthening the forces of 
imperialism". (26) <<

(Footnote 26 reads: El Socialista, 2nd fortnight of June 1985. This was 
the paper of the Trotskyist "Morenoite" current, which had been much 
criticised for its armed intervention during the insurrection. Since 
that has coloured all subsequent perceptions, I should mention that when 
I talked to them, they said without prompting that they had been 
ultra-left in earlier years.)

I am glad that you extracted this confession from them, since I never 
heard a whisper of this when we debated Nicaragua on the list. I think 
that the Morenoite comrades in the USA are making very good progress in 
finding themselves in the post-USSR framework, but I would not look at 
their intervention in Nicaragua as their best work. Neither should you.



--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org



_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism