What Went Wrong The Nicaraguan Revolution

This volume is a valuable re-assessment of the Nicaraguan Revolution by a Marxist historian of Latin American political history. It shows that the FSLN’s lack of commitment to democracy was a key factor in the way that the revolution went awry.

First published in 1986, Nicaragua, written from an insider's point of view breaks the barrier of disinformation which has surrounded the Sandinista revolution. To accomplish this task the author discusses the major forces that have shaped Nicaragua’s development during the past decade as well as all pertinent events leading to and following the revolution. It is the author's contention that the Sandinista revolution is an unusual combination of armed struggle to reach power and democratic procedures to build a new society. This makes the revolution a very dangerous example for the stability of a hegemonic state that tries to pacify the needs of the masses by means of repression and spurious applications of democratic principles. This book's main thesis is that socialism and democracy are not contradictory but are part of the same process. Thus, any attempt to think in terms of necessary stages is misreading the classics of Marx and Lenin. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of political science, Latin American studies, Latin American history and politics.

The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua inspired many North Americans, including the author of this moving and informative book. John Brentlinger made six trips to Nicaragua, both before and after the defeat of the Sandinista Party. Combining the insights of a philosopher with the experiences of a participant-observer, he interprets the Sandinista period as a people's struggle for self-realization in work, culture, politics, and community. The book alternates between journal and essay chapters, weaving descriptions of personal experiences together with interviews and analysis. Whether telling the story of the last day of a young teacher's life, describing new forms of poetry and art, examining representations of Nicaragua in the U.S. media, or discussing the government's successes and failures, Brentlinger vividly captures the spirit and enduring significance of the Sandinista revolution.

In this critical study of the thought of Augusto Cesar Sandino and his followers, Donald C. Hodges has discovered a coherent ideological thread and political program, which he succeeds in tracing to Mexican and Spanish sources. Sandino's strong religious inclination in combination with his anarchosyndicalist political ideology established him as a religious seer and moral reformer as well as a political thinker and is the prototype of the curious blend of Marxism and Christianity of the late twentieth-century Nicaraguan government, the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional.

“A must-read for anyone interested in Nicaragua—or in the overall issue of social change.”—Margaret Randall, author of SANDINO'S DAUGHTERS and SANDINO'S DAUGHTERS REVISITED Sandinista is the first English-language biography of Carlos Fonseca Amador, the legendary leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua (the FSLN) and the most important and influential figure of the post–1959 revolutionary generation in Latin America. Fonseca, killed in battle in 1976, was the undisputed intellectual and strategic leader of the FSLN. In a groundbreaking and fast-paced narrative that draws on a rich archive of previously unpublished Fonseca writings, Matilde Zimmermann sheds new light on central themes in his ideology as well as on internal disputes, ideological shifts, and personalities of the FSLN. The first researcher ever to be allowed access to Fonseca’s unpublished writings (collected by the Institute for the Study of Sandinism in the early 1980s and now in the hands of the Nicaraguan Army), Zimmermann also obtained personal interviews with Fonseca’s friends, family members, fellow combatants, and political enemies. Unlike previous scholars, Zimmermann sees the Cuban revolution as the crucial turning point in Fonseca’s political evolution. Furthermore, while others have argued that he rejected Marxism in favor of a more pragmatic nationalism, Zimmermann shows how Fonseca’s political writings remained committed to both socialist revolution and national liberation from U.S. imperialism and followed the ideas of both Che Guevara and the earlier Nicaraguan leader Augusto César Sandino. She further argues that his philosophy embracing the experiences of the nation’s workers and peasants was central to the FSLN’s initial platform and charismatic appeal.

Journalist Christian's masterful, evenhanded account of Nicaragua's Sandinistas derives from years of interviews and on-the-scene observations. Beginning with the last days of the Somoza regime, she details the morass of political intrigue through November 1984. The problem is, she argues, that the success of ``sandinismo'' turned the people from instigators of change into objects of change, both in the eyes of the church and of the state. As the center of the struggle flew out of control onto the battlefields of Havana, Washington, Rome, and Panama, democratic principles were subordinated to other peoples' needs, a no-win situation for the peasants. To draw conclusions about Nicaragua, Christian emphasizes, is a lot more difficult than superficial U.S. policy would imply.