Ten years of Nicaraguan Revolution critically examined in new book

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Nicaraguan workers and peasants will celebrate their victorious revolution at a time when economic and political conditions are at their lowest point. The survival of the revolution will hinge largely on which road the Sandinistas follow.

July 19, 1989, marks the 10th anniversary of the Nicaraguan Revolution. Socialist Action editor Alan Benjamin has just published a new book on the 10 years of the revolution titled "Nicaragua: Dynamics of an Unfinished Revolution" (San Francisco: Walnut Publishing Co., Inc., 192 pp.). We are reprinting below, with permission, the introduction by Rod Holt and Jeff Mackler. Subtitles have been added by Socialist Action.

July 19, 1979, was a day of great victory as the Sandinista Army, assisted by untold thousands of youth, routed the last of Somoza's National Guard and took possession of Managua--and with it, the entire country.

The mood was euphoric, tempered only by the mourning for those who did not live to see the triumph. The future of Nicaragua seemed to be in the hands of its revolutionary people. They were resolved that a new society could be constructed, a society where reason prevailed, where the needs and aspirations of the majority were no longer subordinate to the greed of the few.

Today, a decade later, the initial euphoria seems a distant memory. The beleaguered Nicaraguan Revolution has survived, but the Sandinista government faces a series of grave crises. The gains of the revolution and the existence of the Sandinista government itself are in jeopardy.

The effects of the eight-year-long U.S.contra war, the U.S. economic blockade, massive decapitalization and sabotage by the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie, and the international isolation of the Nicaraguan Revolution have combined to create an unprecedented economic crisis. And Hurricane Joan, which staggered the country in late 1988, added nature's destruction to that of Nicaragua's implacable enemies. Nicaragua's economy, in fact, has all but collapsed.

In the face of a 25,000 percent annual inflation rate, virtually every official wage scale is incapable of providing even the minimum level of subsistence. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from productive labor to the "informal," street-peddler sector of the economy. Thousands more-including many who had enthusiastically supported the revolution and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)-have left Nicaragua in search of a better livelihood. Political idealism is giving way to hunger.

Unrelenting reactionary pressure The unrelenting pressure of the U.S. government has reduced the minimum level of trade, loans, and even short-term credits from the world's capitalist nations to virtually nothing. From Washington's point of view, the Nicaraguan Revolution and Sandinista power, even in their most weakened and conciliatory forms, represent a threat to imperialist interests in Central America that must be crushed at all costs. U.S. policy from 1979 to the present has been to return Nicaragua to its previous state of semi-colonial dependency.

The Soviet Union and the other so-called socialist states have provided little comfort to embattled Nicaragua. They have reduced their support to below the level required for even a subsistence economy.

For Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviet bureaucracy, Nicaragua is but a card in the Soviet Union's hand, to be played or discarded in cynical negotiations with the United States over the world's future. In the name of peaceful coexistenceor détente-the revolutionary struggles of the world's people are sacrificed to preserve the system of bureaucratic rule of Soviet Stalinism.

Gorbachev has conceded to U.S. policymakers that the Nicaraguan Revolution is expendable; that it, and the rest of Latin America, can remain in the U.S. "backyard."

Sandinista policy choices

What choices have been made in Managua? Economic activity is the cornerstone of society. There must be production-food, tion." Using a wealth of primary sources, Benjamin offers us one of the most concise guides yet available to understanding the phenomenon of the Nicaraguan Revolution.

Defending gains of the revolution The author's point of departure is a deep sense of solidarity with the revolution. The agrarian reform, albeit still incomplete, the nationalization of sectors of the economy, and the arming of the masses represent important gains that must be defended against all the enemies of the revolution.

Many of the essential tasks of the revolution, however, remain unresolved. The large majority of the land producing Nicaragua's cash crops remains in the hands of a tiny capitalist elite, while close to 50,000 peasant families have still not benefited from the agrarian reform program. The FSLN leadership has rejected the socialist option for Nicaragua and has instead proceeded to confine Nicaragua's development to the framework of a mixed—or capitalist-economy.

The FSLN is a party of "revolutionists of action," a term that has been applied to the leaders of the Cuban Revolution, who won political power without a clear understanding of the program of Marxism.

The Cuban leadership's commitment to the abolition of the social injustice inherent in imperialist-dominated countries pressed them to move beyond their original programn.

They broke from their nationalist goals including the belief that it was essential to preserve a capitalist economy-and proceeded on a socialist course of development. This involved the most far-reaching land reform the world had seen since the 1917 Russian Revolution and the nationalization of almost every capitalist enterprise in Cuba. It also involved the mobilization of virtually the entire population, arms in hand, to attain their objectives.

But today, for many reasons—not the least of which is their material dependence on Soviet aid—the Fidelista leaders of the Cuban Revolution deny the lessons of their own rich experience. Thus, throughout Latin America and the Caribbean-the areas in the world most vital to their immediate interests and highly susceptible to their influence-they practice a variety of peaceful coexistence no less harmful to the cause of extending the socialist revolution.

The Cuban revolutionaries today incorrectly advise their Nicaraguan comrades to contain their revolution at the democratic, capitalist stage.

The Sandinista leaders, mindful of the Cu(continued on next page)