Download e-book The revolution of Nicaragua and the United States

Free download. Book file PDF easily for everyone and every device. You can download and read online The revolution of Nicaragua and the United States file PDF Book only if you are registered here. And also you can download or read online all Book PDF file that related with The revolution of Nicaragua and the United States book. Happy reading The revolution of Nicaragua and the United States Bookeveryone. Download file Free Book PDF The revolution of Nicaragua and the United States at Complete PDF Library. This Book have some digital formats such us :paperbook, ebook, kindle, epub, fb2 and another formats. Here is The CompletePDF Book Library. It's free to register here to get Book file PDF The revolution of Nicaragua and the United States Pocket Guide.
The Revolution of Nicaragua and the United States [Jose Santos Zelaya] on leondumoulin.nl *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. This work has been selected by.
Table of contents

During the first two years following the revolutionary victory, several developments made the case of Nicaragua different from other cases in which the Left has come to power through elections in Latin America, including Chile in , Venezuela in , Brazil in , Bolivia in and Ecuador in Weapons were distributed to the population for their self-defense due to risks of outside aggression and an attempted coup coming from the Right. These are fundamental changes that did not take place in the aforementioned countries.


  • Sandinista Revolution.
  • The Master Key System.
  • The Five Orange Pips - Annotated Version (Focus on Sherlock Holmes Book 5)?
  • Nicaragua and the United States?
  • Good Riddance!
  • Hold Fast: A Jack and Shea LAPD Homicide Series?

They did take place in Cuba between and , and were extended during the s. In the s, major social progress was made in Nicaragua in the areas of health-care, education, improving housing conditions even if they remained rudimentary , fuller rights to organization and protest, access to credit for small producers thanks to nationalization of the banking system, and more. These represented undeniable progress. In fact, social revolt was rampant in the region, in particular in Salvador and Guatemala where revolutionary forces close to the Sandinistas had been active for decades.

In the s, as a result of disappointed hopes, there were those who were saying that what is needed is to try to change society without taking power. One aspect of their approach was quite pertinent: it is absolutely vital to promote processes of change that take place at the base of society and which presuppose self-organization by citizens, freedom of expression and freedom to demonstrate and organize. But the idea that power must not be taken is not valid, because it is not possible to really change society unless the people take power at the level of the State.

The question is rather: how to build an authentic democracy in the original sense of the word — that is, power exercised directly by the people for the purpose of emancipation? In other words, power of the people, by the people and for the people. We feel that it was necessary to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship through the combined action of a popular uprising and the intervention of a political-military organization.

And as such, the victory of July remains a popular triumph worthy of celebration. It must be stressed that without the ingenuity and tenacity of the people during the struggle, the FSLN would not have succeeded in striking the decisive blow against the Somoza dictatorship. The FSLN leadership did not go far enough in radicalization for the benefit of the people.

Several questions arise. Did the FSLN go too far in the changes it made in the society? Did it take the wrong direction? Or are the disappointing subsequent developments the result of aggression by North American imperialism and its allies — in Nicaragua and elsewhere in the region?

First, the FSLN leadership did not go far enough in taking radical measures in favor of the segments of the population who were most exploited and oppressed beginning with the poor rural population, but also factory workers and health-care and education workers, who were generally underpaid.

It made too many concessions to agrarian and urban capitalists. It placed limits that were highly detrimental to the revolutionary process. Of course, responsibility for the outbreak of the war lies exclusively with the enemies of the Sandinista government, the latter of which had no choice but to confront the aggression.

This, combined with the errors made in the area of agrarian reform, had damaging consequences. In a recent interview , Henry Ruiz, one of the nine members of the national leadership in the s, underlines the fact in these terms:.


  1. Navigation menu.
  2. SOME BODY.
  3. Nicaragua: Revolution and restoration.
  4. Related Content.
  5. The Garden of Cyrus.
  6. Central America, 1977–1980.
  7. Make It Happen: How to Choose a Direction, Set Goals and Achieve Targets?

    8. The war waged by the contra and the war waged by us. What errors were made?

    Interesting Times: Nicaragua In Revolution | NACLA

    Here is a summary presentation of a question that deserves long discussion. The agrarian question was not dealt with properly. Agrarian reform was seriously insufficient and the Contras took full advantage of that fact. Much more land should have been distributed to rural families giving them title to the property , because expectations were enormous among a large part of the population who needed land and were struggling to have the arable land in the large private estates — including but not only those belonging to the Somoza clan — distributed to those who wanted to work it.

    The orientation that won out among the Sandinista leadership was to target the major Somoza estates but to spare the interests of major capitalist groups and powerful families whom certain Sandinista leaders wanted to turn into allies or fellow travelers. Another error was made: the FSLN wanted to quickly create a State agrarian sector and cooperatives to replace the large Somocista estates, which was not in line with the attitudes of the rural population. Priority should have been given to small and medium private farms, distributing titles to the property and providing material and technical aid to the new campesino owners.

    Priority also should have been given to support for production for the domestic market which was already substantial but could have been improved and increased and the regional market, making maximum use of organic-agriculture methods. To sum up, the leadership of the FSLN combined two serious errors: on the one hand, it made too many concessions to the bourgeois who were considered allies in the change then in progress, and on the other hand it engaged in excessive statism or artificial cooperativism.

    The result was not long in coming: a part of the population, disappointed by the decisions of the Sandinista government, was attracted by the Contra. The latter had the intelligence to adopt a discourse that was aimed at the disillusioned campesinos , telling them that they would help them overthrow the FSLN, resulting in a truly fair distribution of land and true agrarian reform. This was deceitful propaganda, but it was widely disseminated.

    Certain entities within the Sandinista movement itself conducted very serious surveys on the ground and alerted the Sandinista leadership about what was happening. Work done by other entities independent of the government and related to Liberation Theology came to the same conclusions.

    And internationalist experts specialized in the rural world also sounded the alarm.

    Concerning self-organization and worker control, the FSLN inherited the Cuban tradition, which promotes popular organization, but within a very controlled and limited framework. Cuba, which at the start of the s had experienced a broad movement toward self-organization, gradually moved towards a model in which there is much greater control from above, starting with the increase in Soviet influence in the late ss.

    In short, the Sandinista leadership inherited a tradition that was strongly influenced by the bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet Union and its destructive impact on a large part of the Left internationally, including in Cuba. Similarly, the application, starting in , of a structural adjustment Structural Adjustment Economic policies imposed by the IMF in exchange of new loans or the rescheduling of old loans.

    Structural Adjustments policies were enforced in the early to qualify countries for new loans or for debt rescheduling by the IMF and the World Bank. The requested kind of adjustment aims at ensuring that the country can again service its external debt. These SAPs have not only substantially contributed to higher and higher levels of indebtedness in the affected countries ; they have simultaneously led to higher prices because of a high VAT rate and of the free market prices and to a dramatic fall in the income of local populations as a consequence of rising unemployment and of the dismantling of public services, among other factors.

    Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates. When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in , the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.

    As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. The other member countries are divided into groups led by one country. It financed public and private projects in Third World and East European countries.

    A Marxist History of the Nicaraguan Revolution

    It consists of several closely associated institutions, among which : 1. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development IBRD, members in , which provides loans in productive sectors such as farming or energy ; 2. The International Finance Corporation IFC , which provides both loan and equity finance for business ventures in developing countries. Regarding this question, Sandinista members have made their criticism of the orientation that was taken by their leadership very clear. They expressed their point of view both internally and publicly, but unfortunately no correction of the errors ensued.

    The government extended a policy that was leading the process straight into a wall and would result in popular rejection at the polls and a victory of the Right in the election of February It was not overly radical policies that weakened the Sandinista revolution. What prevented it from advancing sufficiently with the support of a majority of the population was its failure to put the people at the core of the transition that followed the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship. This was not doomed to happen — alternative policies could have been implemented.

    Sandinistas are defeated in Nicaraguan elections

    The government should have paid more attention to the needs and aspirations of the people, in rural as well as urban areas. The government should have promoted wage increases for workers, both in the private and public sectors.


    • 2 By Dickens: David Copperfield & Oliver Twist [Annotated].
    • Nicaragua: The other revolution betrayed!
    • The Sandinista Record on Human Rights in Nicaragua.
    • Whispers In The Dark?

    If the Sandinistas had really wanted to break away from the export-oriented extractivist model that depends on competitiveness on the international market, they should have gone against the interests of the capitalists that still dominated the export-oriented extractivist industry. They should have done more to gradually implement policies in favor of the small and medium-sized producers who supplied the domestic market, such as protectionist measures in order to limit importations. This would have allowed the peasants and small and medium enterprises not to have to make sacrifices for the sake of competitiveness on the international market.

    Instead of encouraging the masses to follow orders given from the top of the FSLN, self-organization by citizens should have been promoted at all levels, and citizens should have been given control over the public administration as well as over the accounts of private companies. The political institutions that were installed by the FSLN did not fundamentally differ from the ones of a parliamentary democracy with a strong presidential role, something which would impede the capacity of the masses to constitute a counter-power when the Right would be elected in Concessions were made to local big capital, which was wrongly perceived as being patriotic and an ally of the people: the increases in wages were limited, fiscal incentives in the form of lower taxation were given to the bosses.

    Any such alliance should have been rejected. At each important stage, criticism from within the FSLN emerged. Further, the four other members of the national leadership did not form a bloc to oppose the continuation and deepening of the errors that were made. It is very important to point out that proposals for alternative policies were formulated both inside the FSLN and from outside, from political groups who wanted to further the revolutionary process that was underway.

    Constructive critical voices did not wait for the electoral failure of February to propose new directions, but they received only a limited hearing and remained relatively isolated. While the loans were officially intended for development, they benefitted the strengthening of an authoritarian regime and the increase in wealth of Somoza and his clique.

    Site Index

    After the latter left the country with most of their assets, the new Sandinista rulers of Nicaragua were in dire need of funding in order to implement progressive policies and to encourage the industrialization of the country. The Sandinistas should have conducted an audit of the debt with broad citizen participation. This is a fundamental point. For the Sandinista government, this was also a way of avoiding a confrontation with the World Bank and the IMF, despite the fact that they had financed the dictatorship.