REVOLUTIONARY ATTEMPTS IN LATE COLD WAR SETTINGS: NICARAGUA … · 2014-04-26 · REVOLUTIONARY ATTEMPTS IN LATE COLD WAR SETTINGS: NICARAGUA IN THE 1980s By Carlos M. Vilas* INTRODUCTION

REVOLUTIONARY ATTEMPTS IN LATE COLD WARSETTINGS: NICARAGUA IN THE 1980s

By Carlos M. Vilas*

INTRODUCTION

A revolution, most of all a social revolution, is a specific strategy forseizing political power and advancing social change, to which some actorsresort when institutional channels are closed down. Revolutions then usuallyinvolve some kind of political violence, including armed struggle between for-mal (i.e. govemment) security and military forces, and informal ones (be theyrural guerrillas, worker or student militias, urban insurgencies, or any other).Consequently revolutionary efforts, as well counterrevolutionary ones, mayinvolve some kind of civil war—as distinct from or opposed to conventional,international war—as both armed bodies belong to the same country and not todifferent ones.' Yet reducing revolutions to armed violence and civil warswould be misleading, with the risk of overlooking the specific sociopoliticalscope and content of the former. Civil wars have been waged for a broad varietyof purposes not necessarily addressed at systemic change, which is, on the con-trary, the goal of revolutions. When they succeed, revolutions involve profoundchanges in class relations in socioeconomic, political and institutional terrains,as well in the material and symbolic dimensions of individual and collectivelife, which is not necessarily the case in civil wars.

Not all 20''' century Latin American revolutions made use of armedstruggle. Certainly there was plenty of it in the peasant wars of the Mexican rev-olution, or in guerrilla warfare in Cuba and Central America. Others, such as the1944 Guatemalan revolution, as well the 1952 Bolivian one, were supported andpushed forward through huge and persistent mass mobilizations that eventually

gathered support from the armed forces. In turn, in 1979 Grenada's revolution-

aries seized power through mass mobilizations supported by armed militias.

*An Argentine political scientist at Universidad Nacional de Lands, Argentina,the author lived and worked in Central America from 1978 to 1990. From 1980 to 1988he worked for several Sandinista govemment agencies. An earlier version of this paperwas presented at the workshop "Civil War and Cold War: 1975-1990. Comparative per-spectives on Southern Africa, Central America, and Central Asia" at Columbia Universi-ty, November 2002.

Journal of Third World Studies, Vol. XXI, No. 2© 2004 by Association of Third World Studies, Inc.

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JOURNAL OF THIRD WORLD STUDIES, FALL 2004

Latin American revolutions started as collective attempts to overthrowgovernments considered to be dictatorial, abusive, or in some other way illegiti-mate. Global capitalism and superpower foreign policies were crucialcatalysts for revolutionary upheavals; dictatorial rule was confronted not just

because of its oppressive character but also because of its actual or alleged sub-servience to alien powers. Nationalism and anti-impedalism were central ingre-dients of revolutionary ideologies, as reactions to what was considered to be anexploitative and oppressive submission to foreign rule. Cuba's revolutionarywatchword Patria o Muerte.' or the Sandinista Patria Libre o Morir! bear wit-ness to the presence of nationalism even in processes where Marxist theorieswere openly addressed as tools for socioeconomic and political restructuring. InGuatemala U.S. governments were perceived as one of the foundations of JorgeUbico's military dictatorship, just as external articulations were identified ascentral ingredients of la rosca oligarchic rule in Bolivia.

The late Cold War provided the global setting for the Nicaraguan revo-lution and the subsequent Central American crisis, and regional and domesticforces had to accommodate to it. While this is a traditional feature in CentralAmerican history, the Nicaraguan attempt at social change and an enhancedspace for foreign relations faced additional obstacles as the USSR's role inglobal affairs receded and the U.S. reinforced its powerful hold in most of thedeveloping world.

U.S. GOVERNMENTS AND LATIN AMERICAN REVOLUTIONS

All through the IQfi^ century the U.S. was the hegemonic foreign powerin Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Due to this fact it is not infre-quent to link Latin American revolutions and their anti-imperialist dimensions,as well U.S. govemment reactions, to the East-West confrontation. U.S. govern-ments approached revolutionary struggles and regimes as dimensions of theirown confrontations with third, non-hemispheric parties, be they Germany orGreat Britain during the Mexican revolution, or the USSR in post-Second WorldWar revolutions. Policy actions with regard to these processes were extremelydependent on the U.S. government perceptions of the challenges to nationalsecurity effectively or supposedly posed by revolutions, perceptions which inturn were decisively influenced by the third parties' policies towards revolution-ary processes and regimes. The traditional support afforded by most U.S. gov-ernments to oligarchic or dictatorial rule in Latin America well before the 1950sconvinced U.S. policy-makers that threats to their Latin American allies couldonly be the product of some kind of overseas intrusion in Washington's national

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Vilas/Revolutionary Attempts in Late Cold War Settings:Nicaragua in the 1980s

affairs. Against this backdrop, U.S. reactions were also shaped by the particulartraits of each revolutionary process, as well by the ability of specific actors toexert influence on Washington's foreign policy-making - either U.S. actors orthose belonging to the country in revolution.

Yet both lO'h century Latin American revolutions, and the U.S. strate-gic approach to them, predate the Cold War, whereas during the Cold War theU.S. displayed a variety of policies in their regard. As a matter of fact, LatinAmerican revolutions developed in a wide range of regional and intemationalsettings, interacting in a number of ways with external actors and processes.Mexico's revolution made its road in a time when the U.S. was still building itshegemony in the Westem Hemisphere; Guatemala's and Bolivia's revolutionsbelong to the beginning and early years of the Cold War, whereas revolutionstriumphed in Cuba, Grenada and Nicaragua during the peak of the Cold Warsystem in areas of uncontested U.S. regional supremacy.

The Taft administration opposed the Mexican revolution to the point ofsupporting General Huerta's military coup, which overthrew President Francis-co L Madero's constitutional govemment and eventually assassinated him. Onthe other hand. President Wilson sympathized with the anti-Huerta opposition,his preferences going to Venustiano Carranza's rather conservative fraction,thus indirectly contributing to the military and subsequent political defeat ofVilla's and Zapata's radical program. However, in the 1930s U.S. govemmentscould not withstand either oil nationalization or the deepening of agrarianreform; bilateral relations only improved well after the Second World War.Opposition to agrarian reform from Guatemala's landed elites gathered crucialsupport from the Eisenhower govemment in 1954. Agrarian reform expropriat-ed the United Fmit Company of about two-thirds of its land holdings; some ofits transport subsidiaries were also affected by a number of govemmental infras-tmcture development projects.^ The fear of the U.S. and the Guatemalan upperclasses of a Communist takeover of Jacobo Arbenz's govemment was fueledwhen the small, recently founded Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo provided anumber of professionals and technicians in the most conflictive areas of eco-nomic and labor reforms. After a partially successful attempt at condemning therevolutionary regime at the Organization of American States, the U.S. resortedto providing funding and logistic support for a military invasion from Honduras.

The fierce U.S. clash with the Guatemalan revolution was in open con-trast to its benevolence toward the Bolivian one. Once in power the MNR(Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario) implemented the largest agrarianreform program after the Mexican Revolution, which afforded the regime withenduring, active peasant support.^ However, some years later the MNR commit-ted itself to attracting foreign capital, protecting private property and tightly

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controlling mine workers' demands and mobilizations, a tumaround promptedby the overall disarray of Bolivia's economy as an initial byproduct of stmcturalchange and political conflict. Policy shifts were supported by open-ended U.S.official aid to social programs, including shipments of food which eased thetransition from the hacienda system to the reformed one; in the early 1960sBolivia became the largest single recipient of U.S. foreign aid in Latin America.While sustaining both agrarian reform and state-ownership of mining, oil andgas production and refinery, Bolivia's diplomacy actively joined the U.S. side inthe Cold War, which involved repression of the Communist Party as well ofmost of left-wing political, labor and social organizations.

U.S. opposition to the Cuban revolution was a reaction to Cuba's initialeconomic nationalizations and subsequent diplomatic, military and economicintegration into the Soviet bloc. Human rights and democratic concems werelatecomers to the inventory of U.S. complaints. Cuba's socialist transition was abyproduct of its increasing defensive articulation to the Soviet bloc, a dimen-sion of Cold War power politics much more than an ingredient of the originalrevolutionary design. Soviet support was vital to overcoming U.S. pressures.However, the dismembering of the USSR and the Soviet bloc in the 1990s didnot improve the U.S.'s chances to regain political control over the island.Havana's economic and military support to both Grenada and Nicaragua was anadditional argument for persistent U.S. confrontation against all three revolu-tions. U.S. opposition to Grenada climaxed in the 1983 invasion amid the inter-nal conflicts that cracked the New Jewell govemment. Nicaragua was able towithstand the Reagan govemment's manifold actions at the cost of increasingeconomic hardships, social setbacks and militarization. All of this paved theway to the 1990 electoral victory of an anti-Sandinista coalition, which enjoyedthe explicit sympathies of the George Bush Sr. administration.

U.S. reaction to the Cuban revolution involved reinforcing and evenestablishing friendly political regimes - i.e. regimes joining Washington's anti-Cuban policies—in the Westem Hemisphere, without too much concern fortheir commitment to democracy or their records with regard to human rights.More frequently than not this meant supporting quite conservative and repres-sive govemments, including military ones. As a matter of fact, renewed supportto anticommunist regimes could be understood as the updating of a long-termU.S. policy towards Central America, its previous chapter written in Guatemalawith Washington's contribution to the anticommunist crusade that overthrewJacobo Arbenz's government in 1954. In 1963 Secretary of Defense RobertMcNamara stated that domestic security was the fundamental task of LatinAmerican army officers trained in the special military academies in the PanamaCanal Zone and the United States. Many of them eventually became govem-

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ment and army leaders in their own countries after graduation. The overallresult was what Jonas branded as a "counterinsurgency state'"* and Stanley a"protection racket state,"^ with anticommunism as the ideological shortcut forthe repression of any kind of democratic or progressive challenge to oligarchicrule.6

Neighboring countries behaved as middlemen for U.S. counterrevolu-tionary policies: Honduras with regard to the 1954 invasion of Guatemala;Nicaragua in the 1961 invasion of Cuba; Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Ricain U.S. support for anti-Sandinista contras; the Eastem Caribbean states in theimmediate aftermath of Grenada's invasion. On the other hand, Costa Rica andPanama were strategic rearguards for the Sandinista insurrection. Argentina'sPeronist government was openly supportive of both Guatemala'srevolution—which included arms shipments to the Arbenz regime—and theBolivian one; MNR exiles moved and acted in Buenos Aires in the open sun, asdid, in the late 1970s, the Sandinistas in San Jose, Panama City or Mexico City.Several Latin American govemments launched successful diplomatic initiativesaddressed at a peaceful resolution of the Central American crisis which the Rea-gan administration was unable to countervail. European and Latin Americaninvolvement was effective in reducing Nicaraguan dependence on Soviet devel-opment aid, as it has been to complement current economic restructuring inCuba. In all, the Latin American governments' stances towards revolutionswere as much an outcome of domestic power relations and political traditions asa product of their own insertion into specific regional or global environments.

Westem European and Latin American and Caribbean countries playeda variety of roles vis-a-vis revolutions and U.S. policies towards them. Whilestrategically siding with the U.S. in the Cold War alignment, Westem Europeancountries pursued their own foreign policies in this particular respect. Most ofthem sympathized with the anti-dictatorial struggles waged in Central Americafrom the 1960s on, providing the revolutionaries and subsequent govemmentswith assistance ranging from full diplomatic and commercial relations to devel-opment aid and soft financial assistance. In the 1980s Westem European coun-tries were active sponsors of regional approaches to the Central American crisis,pushing for negotiation processes and peace talks. They also opposed U.S. eco-nomic embargoes against Cuba and later, Nicaragua, and even reaped benefitsfrom them as reciprocal trade relations increased at the same pace as those ofthe U.S.-based firms receded. Their friendly relations with revolutionaryregimes or organizations were conducted in such a way as to keep away fromthe most aggressive variants of Washington's foreign policies, yet without chal-lenging U.S. hegemony in the region.

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NICARAGUA AND THE CENTRAL AMERICAN CRISIS

The FLSN (Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacionai) triumphed overthe U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship in July 1979 after nearly two decades ofguerrilla warfare combined with massive urban insurrections and successfuldiplomatic strategies. Stressing the anti-dictatorial, democratic and nationalistdimensions of their revolutionary program enabled the Sandinistas to win thesupport, or at least the sympathies, of fractions of the business elites.Nicaraguan capitalists ended up opposing Somoza's rule because of its over-whelming corruption, mishandling of foreign aid, tricky politicking and, finally,its direct responsibility in the assassination of the moderate oppositionist leaderPedro Joaquin Chamorro. They were nonetheless concemed because of the radi-calism of the FSLN program for social and economic restructuring, as well asCuba's support to the revolution. In tum this Sandinista-led national allianceenabled the promotion of diplomatic initiatives towards several Latin Americanand Westem European countries that proved successful in order to block U.S.initiatives to launch an OAS-backed "peace force" invasion of Nicaragua. As inthe Dominican Republic crisis in 1965, the OAS military presence, under theleadership of U.S. Marines, would have prevented a military defeat of a strate-gic ally for Washington's anti Cuban policy, as well forced some kind of dealwith the oppositionist business elites, thus breaking down the Sandinista nation-al/democratic strategy.'

At the very beginning the Sandinista govemment enjoyed some reluc-tant acceptance from President James Carter's Democratic administration.Carter's govemment provided Nicaragua almost $ 100 million in aid. It wasintended to upgrade the U.S. profile in post-insurrection settings after thealready-mentioned failed attempts to prevent the FSLN victory. While aid wasoriented towards reconstmction and development, most of it was addressed atstrengthening private business and the most moderate associates of Sandinismo.In Carter's view, economic aid should provide Washington with some stake inthe subsequent evolution of Nicaraguan affairs. Carter's basic concem was notto leave a free zone to Cuban or Soviet involvement. In a way, he envisioned thechances for a certain diplomatic competition between the U.S. and the Sovietbloc. It was also in the U.S. interest to prevent Nicaraguan intervention in itsneighbors' domestic affairs, and economic aid was thought to be a good coun-tervailing argument. However, ideological and political affinities proved to bestronger, at least for a while. After the FSLN triumph, Nicaragua became some-thing like a haven for the Salvadoran guerrillas, and allegations of active sup-port from the Sandinista govemment poured from the U.S. media, which werein tum reinforced by some Sandinista rhetoric. Despite the lack of enough evi-

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dence of actual intervention Carter ordered the suspension of aid. His decisionwas formally motivated by Nicaragua's signature of a trade and cooperationtreaty with the Soviet Union, as well by the Sandinistas' postponement of elec-tions followed by the resignation of two moderate leaders from top positions inNicaragua's govemment. U.S. party politics also played a role in Carter's deci-sion, as the November 1980 presidential elections approached in a hostiledomestic environment due to govemment failures in the U.S. embassy hostageaffair in Tehran along with the Cuban refugee crisis.

Ronald Reagan's policy approach stressed the East-West confrontation.Revolutions were perceived as evidence of the alleged Soviet plot to strengthenits hold in the area. More nuanced analyses from other political actors such asthe Democratic Party and an increasing number of churches and human rightsorganizations, which emphasized non-ideological issues such as underdevelop-ment, poverty and social inequalities, were deprived of any meaningful policyinfluence. Throughout his two-term administration Reagan was convinced thatSandinista Nicaragua was the beachhead of "the evil empire" of Soviet andCuban Communism in the isthmus, with the subsequent threats it posed to U.S.national security (Texas was closer to Managua than to Washington DC, he stat-ed in a public speech at the peak of Washington's open support to counterrevo-lutionary armies.)* In addition, this belief was nurtured by the complaints ofmembers of the Nicaraguan business elites affected by the agrarian reform orother revolutionary policies. Particularly active in affording ideological argu-ments to the anti-Sandinista rhetoric was the Catholic Church's hierarchy, whichrapidly turned into the most important ally of the U.S. counterrevolutionarystrategy. School reform, literacy campaigns, youth organization, and most of allsupport to liberation theology and Christian comunidades de base were criti-cized by conservative bishops as threats to traditional church authority and con-sequently as evidence of communist penetration. This interpretation was rapidlyshared and additionally fostered by Pope John Paul II, involved as he was inthose days in fierce ideological combat with the Communist regimes in EastemEurope.

The Sandinistas' closer relations with the Soviet bloc and most of allwith Cuba contributed to adding leverage to this Cold War reading of the revo-lutionary regime, despite the obvious fact that Soviet involvement in theNicaraguan revolution never reached the relevance it did in Cuba.^ It was evi-dent that for a number of reasons—which ranged from political pragmatism totransportation costs—it was not Moscow's intent to challenge the traditionalhegemony of the U.S. over that part of the world. Yet the arrival of Soviet andEast German aid and advisors to Managua heavily contrasted with the previousabsence of any type of diplomatic, military or other links to the Soviet bloc. By

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the same token, the Cuban-Nicaraguan relationship (which included Cubanteachers, doctors and military advisors) was presented by most U.S. govemmentforeign policy-makers as an instmment of Soviet penetration.'^

From the very beginning of his administration President Reagan can-celed assistance to Nicaragua and pressured U.S. firms to stop selling goods(both consumer goods and industrial spare parts, machinery and inputs) andbuying staples (such as cotton, sugar, beef or coffee) from Nicaragua. In thesame vein Nicaragua was excluded together with Cuba from the CaribbeanBasin Initiative, a set of trade preferences afforded to friendly Caribbean andCentral American countries which also embraced, geography notwithstanding.El Salvador. As a result Nicaraguan foreign trade (exports + imports) with theU.S. fell from 30 percent to 0, whereas trade with Westem Europe more thandoubled from 18 percent to almost 38 percent. Economic assistance fromCOMECON countries included preferential trade agreements, loans, coopera-tive projects, donations and enhanced commercial relations, which skyrocketedfrom I to 27%."

Throughout the decade the Sandinista govemment was able to remainloyal to the strategy of broad intemational coalitions that proved to be so con-ducive to the defeat of the Somoza dynasty. By the end of the 1980s foreign aidto Nicaragua from Westem European and Latin American countries was almostthree times higher than that arriving from the Soviet bloc. Assistance fromEurope came from both individual govemments and the European Community,together with an array of social movements, labor unions, churches and NGOsengaged in an enthusiastic solidarity with the Sandinista regime. However aspressures from the U.S. govemment were reinforced after the November 1984Nicaraguan general elections (presidential as well congressional), military andoil supplies from the Soviet area reached strategic relevance. The polls provedthat in spite of increasing economic hardships and climbing counterrevolution-ary warfare, the FSLN govemment was able to keep broad popular support.'2From 1985 on counterrevolutionary military operations mounted to new levels,as southem Honduras and northem Costa Rica became launching platforms forU.S. support. The Reagan administration put all its bets into so-called low inten-sity warfare: protracted military operations not comprising direct involvementof U.S. troops, aimed at undermining the social bases of the revolutionary gov-emment through hardships inflicted on civilians. In addition Washington inten-sified diplomatic pressures against both Mexico and Venezuela, which up to thatmoment had been providing oil to Nicaragua under preferential terms.

When the Reagan govemment launched an economic embargo againstNicaragua, Westem European allies of the U.S. almost unanimously refused tojoin it. Intemational opposition was reflected in 1984 in the UN World Court

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ruling condemning the CIA mining of Nicaraguan ports early that year. In 1986the World Court again found Reagan's government support to the contras inviolation to intemational law and mled that the U.S. should cease its assaultsand pay reparations to Nicaragua for the loss of lives, property damage, andother costs of the contra war.'3 This notwithstanding in June 1986, Reaganpushed through a bill providing the contras with $ 100 million: $70 million inmilitary assistance and $30 in non-military aid. For lack of sufficient parliamen-tary backing, the government had been forced up to then to funnel financialassistance to the contras as undercover aid, including several millions comingfrom Colombian drug traffickers and illegal arms trade to Iran. ̂ ^

Cooperation from Cuba and the Soviet bloc, both in military and eco-nomic terms, gained strategic value in the new regional and international set-tings. Soviet assistance provided the Sandinista army with material supplies,which made a major contribution to the military neutralization of the counter-revolutionary forces by mid-1988. When, due to U.S. pressures, Mexico andVenezuela stopped supplying Nicaragua with oil, the USSR filled the void. Upto 1988 the total amount of socialist (COMECON) economic cooperation wasestimated as U.S. $2 billion, or something less than 30 percent of all foreign aidto Nicaragua during the 1980s.'5 Moscow's economic and military support, andnot just ideological commitment, affords an explanation for Nicaragua's chang-ing voting record in multilateral organizations such as those of the UN system,moving from a disciplined acceptance of U.S. foreign policies to open alle-giance to those of the Soviet Union.

Things changed from 1988 onward. The mounting economic difficul-ties of COMECON countries, together with ongoing diplomatic negotiationsbetween the USSR and the U.S. with regard to nuclear weapons and disarma-ment reduced the flow of COMECON cooperation to Nicaragua, including mili-tary aid and oil supplies. By then, the U.S. govemment realized that a militarydefeat of the Sandinistas was out of reach. However, the impact of war sacri-fices upon people's enthusiasm towards Sandinismo convinced Washington thatthe time had come to adhere to the regional, negotiated solution that WestemEuropean and Latin American countries had been promoting for years. Reaganreluctantly joined the initiative, insisting on the entry of the contras to theNicaraguan political scene, together with an end to the military operations of theSalvadoran FMLN guerrillas. At the same time Soviet diplomacy progressivelyjoined in efforts for a peaceful resolution which would enable a discrete retreatfrom an apparent unending predicament.

Moscow's policy shift was part and parcel of Mikhail Gorbachov'sstrategy of stepping aside from Third World conflicts. It was a consequence ofthe renewed priority given to improving talks on nuclear weapons and other

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JOURNAL OF THIRD WORLD STUDIES. FALL 2004

bilateral issues. During Reagan's last year as president an agreement wasreached between conflicting actors in Afghanistan, with the USSR withdrawingits military forces in the following twelve months. Soviet diplomacy was alsoable to convince Vietnam to move half of its troops (around 50,000 men) out ofCambodia before that year's end. A Soviet Union-U.S. diplomatic joint effortdrove the Angolan conflict to an end, including total retreat of Cuban troops.With its economy lagging well behind that of the U.S. it was evident to anyonethat it would not be possible for the USSR to sustain even in the short run themounting military spending it would need in order to neutralize the threatsposed by the Strategic Defense Initiative launched by the Reagan administra-tion, without risking a further deepening of domestic tensions stemming fromdeteriorating living conditions and bureaucratic mismanagement. Ronald Rea-gan's trip to Moscow a couple of months before leaving office was additionalevidence that the Cold War was ending.

Facing renewed pressures for a political settlement coming now notjust from its Westem European and Latin American friends but also from theUSSR, and ruling over a war-tom country, the FSLN govemment had no optionbut to agree. 16 It was not an easy step, for a regional agreement such as thatbeing sponsored by the Esquipulas process involved dealing with quite differentnational settings and questions as if they were one and the same thing.•' On theone hand there was Nicaragua, with a revolutionary govemment subsequentlylegitimized by elections, facing a counterrevolutionary war openly supported bythe U.S. govemment. On the other, there were El Salvador and Guatemala,where revolutionary insurgencies had been waging a decade-and-a-half-longguerrilla war against govemment forces. The contrast between Nicaragua and ElSalvador could not be sharper, as the Salvadoran mling party, ARENA, made nosecret of its far-right ideological preferences, including open support forparamilitary and right-wing death squads. Under the generic term "civil wars"quite different situations were fused together as if they were the same. Theregional approach was also supported by Moscow. On his October 1989 visit toNicaragua the Soviet minister for foreign affairs stressed the USSR interest incarrying out a joint monitoring of the Central American crisis together with theUnited States.

Consequently, on 12* December 1989 the Central American presidentssigned, at the San Isidro Coronado (Costa Rica) VI Presidential Summit, anaccord to put a definitive end to the regional conflict. Nicaraguan PresidentDaniel Ortega joined his colleagues in backing Salvadoran President AlfredoCristiani and condemning the FMLN (Frente Farabundo Marti de LiberacionNacionai) guerrillas and its November military offensive, as well any operationby "irregular forces," an elliptical reference embracing both the Salvadoran

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death squads and the Guatemalan guerrillas. In exchange the other CentralAmerican presidents backed Nicaragua's demand that the contras completetheir demobilization by February 5''̂ 1990 at the latest—when presidential andparliamentary elections were to be held in Nicaragua—and that all contra basesin Honduran territory be dismantled. ̂ ^ The demand received no response eitherfrom neither the contras nor the U.S. govemment; it was only after the FSLN'selectoral defeat that disarmament of the contras effectively started.

Repudiation of the FMLN linked Nicaragua with the most conservativeapproaches on the Salvadoran question. The FMLN rejected the document "inindignation" while the Guatemalan URNG (Unidad Revolucionaria NacionaiGuatemalteca) evinced its "dissatisfaction, concern, and surprise.''^^ As forNicaraguan domestic politics, large segments of public opinion and certainlymost of FSLN's rank-and-file were left disoriented by Ortega's signature. Soli-darity with Salvadoran revolutionaries had been a matter of principle all overthe 1980s and a persistent ingredient of Nicaragua's diplomacy as well as one ofthe conflictive issues with the U.S. govemment.20

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Almost twenty years ago Walter LaFeber argued that the CentralAmerica conflicts were "inevitable revolutions."^i Was the defeat of theNicaraguan one also inevitable? Did the Cold War doom it to failure? Couldthings have been different in Central America, or in Nicaragua, even if the East-West confrontation evolved as it did? Answering these questions is still a matterof dispute, involving as they do a broad scope of connected issues. Some ofthem have to do with the more general features of intemational power relations,such as the permanent interplay between global and national situations and pro-cesses; the need for substantial foreign assistance for revolutionary regimes toadvance social transformation; the willingness of would-be intemational part-ners to supply assistance, and to what extent and under what conditions; and thepower (in)balances between a superpower and a small, backward neighboringcountry looking for larger external autonomy. Other issues relate in a moredirect manner to the specificities of the Sandinista revolution: the tensionsbetween national appeals to broaden political alliances, and class biases inherentto economic and social change; the difficult trade-offs between ideological com-mitments and political maneuvering; the ability to combine democratic plural-ism and strong political leadership in war-tom settings.

The late Cold War provided the general setting for the development ofthe Nicaraguan revolution and its electoral defeat ten years afterwards. As the

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1980s went on domestic factors such as FSLN's govemment policies or peo-ple's reactions to counterrevolutionary actions became imprisoned in East-Westdynamics, not in the sense that domestic decisions were just feathers in the windof the Cold War, but in that every domestic decision or ingredient was submit-ted by both superpowers to a Cold War reading. Those decisions impacted uponthe Nicaraguan people's perceptions with regard to what they could gain or losefrom a revolutionary victory or defeat.

Despite the relative independence of the origins and initial develop-ment of the Sandinista revolution from the Cold War, the revolutionary govem-ment became increasingly entangled in Cold War dynamics, which eventuallydrove the experience to an end. This result had to do with specific decisionsmade by the Sandinista regime, such as those already referred to, as well withU.S. perceptions of them and of their impact on the U.S. power competitionwith an increasingly weakened Soviet bloc.

The U.S. perceptions of the Soviet and Cuban presence in Nicaraguavaried sharply with the govemment shift from Democratic Carter to RepublicanReagan. Carter's foreign policy commitments to human rights, democracy anddevelopment were abandoned during the Reagan presidency. Reagan conceivedof confrontation with the Nicaraguan revolution and the Cuban and Sovietinvolvement therein as a cmsade, while Carter approached them as challengesto deal with in diplomatic ways. Where Carter was looking for a compromise,the Reagan govemment was stmggling for an overall victory. In tum Reagan'sconvictions were reinforced by his successful experience with Grenada in 1983when U.S. marines, taking advantage of intemal divisions in the New Jewellgovemment, smashed the revolutionary experiment after a few skirmishes withloyal forces. While in the final months of his presidential term Carter did tight-en U.S. stance toward the Sandinista regime, it seems clear that the Republicanvictory in the November 1980 elections—even though Nicaragua was not a rel-evant issue in the electoral campaign—produced a decisive change in U.S.-Nicaraguan relations.

Domestic issues also influenced USSR's retreat from Central America.Soon after the beginning of his govemment Mikhail Gorbachov realized themagnitude of Soviet weaknesses with regard to the United States in every ter-rain of competition. Deployment of troops or active political involvement inThird World countries could not be sustained by an increasingly inefficient eco-nomic stmcture and bureaucratic administrative system. Moreover, nuclear armscontrol would hardly be achieved if Soviet diplomacy persisted in political ormilitary involvement in areas of traditionally undisputed U.S. hegemony suchas Central America. Neither political and economic domestic reforms, nor Gor-bachov's own permanence in power, could gather people's support as long as

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living conditions were not substantially improved, a situation that called forsevere reductions in military spending. To make things worse, military defeat inAfghanistan at the hands of the U.S.-backed fundamentalist Islamic guerrillasadded domestic tensions and conflicts within the Communist Party that theSoviet regime would eventually prove unable to overcome. Soviet retreat fromNicaragua was easier and made no significant impact on Soviet public opinion,since involvement therein never reached the magnitude registered in CentralAsia.

Yet the definitive, final strike against the revolution came from theNicaraguan people. In the February 1990 general elections the FSLN wasdefeated by a 6 to 4 ratio by a broad coalition of oppositionist parties runningwith the open sponsorship of the U.S. govemment. While war and subsequenteconomic and social disarray heavily influenced voter opinion, the way theFSLN govemment approached economic crisis and the war effort contributedno less to the electoral tumout. As I have discussed elsewhere22 there was notrade-off between the severe hardships war imposed on the people, and govem-ment economic and social policies, particularly during the initial years of thecounterrevolutionary military offensive. State-centered, export-biased agrarianpolicies oriented to eam much-needed foreign currency superseded deeply root-ed peasant and small farmer expectations and demands. Strategies to broadenpolitical alliances with the middle sectors and the bourgeoisie frequently dis-couraged mass mobilizations which could have been of strategic relevance inorder to advance revolutionary socioeconomic transformations (but at the costof getting rid of the Sandinista strategy of national unity). The initial ignoranceand subsequent mishandling of ethnic demands on the Atlantic Coast alienatedindigenous populations and pushed not a few villages to join U.S.-backed anti-Sandinista guerrillas.

The question of how much of the Sandinista downfall has to beattached to domestic factors such as govemment misperceptions, errors or mis-management, and how much has to be blamed on foreign or extemal ones suchas the U.S.-USSR confrontation, U.S. interventionism or Moscow's policyshifts, is an open one. Search for a reliable answer has to do not just with factsbut also with each author's perception of them. Without counterrevolutionarywar and the tremendous toll it imposed on the people could the Sandinistas'agrarian or Atlantic Coast policies have triggered such an electoral responsefrom their rank and file? Could altemative socioeconomic and ethnic policies(and which ones?) have been sufficient to neutralize or even to block the U.S.govemment's anti-Sandinista commitment? If the Democratic Party had wonrather than the Republicans in the 1980 presidential elections, or in those of1984, or even in those of 1988, what would have been the impact upon the U.S.-

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Sandinistas relations? Attempting to answer these or related questions risksmoving from academic or political inquiry based on facts to endless speculationof what could have happened had different decisions been made by the pluralityof actors involved in each hypothetical scenario. Moreover, lacking sufficientsupport from evidence, answers to these questions frequently rely on the politi-cal or ideological preferences of each author. While literature supportive of, orsympathetic with, the revolution tends to blame the U.S. govemment and exter-nal factors at large for the final result, critics of the revolution emphasizedomestic decisions and errors.

Yet if one factor had to be singled out of this complex array of factsand interpretations, it has to do with the way the contra war was politicallyapproached by the Sandinista government. Counterrevolutionary war wasviewed by the Sandinista leadership as an obstacle to advancing socioeconomicchanges, not as the setting where revolutionary transformations had to bepushed forward as the comparative experience of most IQfi^ century social revo-lutions shows. The political content of the armed confrontation, which shouldhave imprinted specific meaning to people's involvement in it, graduallybecame diluted in standard, institutional appeals. Defense of the country, muchmore than defense of the revolution, was the Sandinista watchword as militaryoperations increased, whereas for many both in and out of the FSLN's ranksdefending the country was needed because a social revolution was taking place.Thus at a certain point military defense became some kind of civic constitution-al obligation and no longer a political commitment, as it appealed to and recruit-ed Nicaraguan youth at large, both the FSLN's rank and file and those political-ly neutral or even opposed to the revolution. In that particular setting, domesticas well as U.S. oppositionist discourse—arguing that war and scarcities were aconsequence of Sandinistas' errors, sectarianism, mismanagement or provoca-tions, and that no peace was going to be achieved as long as they remained inpower—gathered predictable acceptance.23

NOTES

1. To what extent or under what circumstances guerrillas can be equated to anarmy is a question open to discussion, which I will not deal with at thismoment.

2. John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen, key policy-makers of the Eisenhoweradministration, were important UFCO stockholders, which increased the U.S.political conitontation to the revolution.

3. Harris points to the impact of agrarian reform on the political isolation of Che

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Guevara's guerrilla in Bolivia in the 1960s. See Richard L. Harris, Death of aRevolutionary. Che Guevara's Last Mission (New York: W.W. Nortoti, 2000,2nd printing): 167 ff.

4. Susan Jonas, The Battle for Guatemala CBoulder, Co.: Westview Press,1991).5. Williatn Stanley, The Protection Racket State (Philadelphia: Temple University

Press, 1996).6. See also Michael McClintock, The Ameriean Connection: State Terror and

Popular Resistance in El Salvador and Guatemala (London: Zed Books,1985); Carlos M. Vilas, Between Earthquakes and Volcanoes. Market, State,and the Revolutions in Central America (New York: Monthly Review Press,1995).

7. See Carlos M. Vilas, "Nicaraguan Revolution," The Encyclopedia of PoliticalRevolutions, Jack A. Goldstone, ed. (Washington D.C.: Congressional Quarter-ly, Inc., 1998): 369-372. For a more detailed analysis of the final years of theSandinista insurrection, see Carlos M. Vilas, The Sandinista Revolution:National Liberation and Social Transformation in Central America (NewYork: Monthly Review Press, 1986): 128ff.

8. See Robert H. Holden & Eric Zolov, Latin America and the United States: ADocumentary History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000): 292ff for asurvey of government and non-government documents on the U.S.-CentralAmerican relationship in the 1980s.

9. Cuba's support to Nicaraguan revolutionaries predates the founding of FSLNin 1963. It can be traced back to the early role played by the Somoza dictator-ship as a tool for U.S. anti-Cuban policy after 1959. The failed April 1961CIA-sponsored invasion of Cuba departed from Puerto Cabezas, on the EasternCoast of Nicaragua. It was openly cheered by Anastasio Somoza in an infor-mal ceremony of farewell, when he asked the expeditionaries to bring himback as a souvenir "a piece of Fidel Castro's beard". On Cuba's support toCentral American revolutions in the 1960s and early 1970s see Jos6 Moreno &Nicholas O. Lardas, "Integrating Intemational Revolution and Detente: TheCuban Case," Latin American Perspectives 21 (1979): 36-60.

10. Carlos M. Vilas, "Intemational Constraints on Progressive Change in Periph-eral Societies: The Case of Nicaragua", in Instability and Change in the WorldEconomy, Arthur MacEwan & William K. Tabb, eds. (New York: MonthlyReview Press, 1989): 316-330, and "Imperfect Competition: The Superpowersin Latin America" in Beyond Superpower Rivalry. Latin America and theThird World. John E. Weeks, ed. (New York: New York University Press1991): 83-93.

11. Trade with Japan tripled from 3 percent to 9 percent: Vilas, "Intemational Con-straints on Progressive Change...".

12. The FSLN obtained 62.9 percent of votes for president and vice-president, and63.5 percent for members of the National Assembly (Parliament). Seventy fivepercent of the registered voters participated, which contrasts with 50 percent inthe presidential elections in El Salvador (1984), 66 percent in presidential elec-tions in Honduras (December 1981) or 70 percent in Costa Rica (February

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1982).13. U.S. govemments never accepted the Court's rule; after her inauguration as

Nicaragua's president Mrs. Violeta Chamorro decided to relinquish her coun-try's legal rights, thus driving the issue to an end and shielding the U.S. fromany subsequent demand.

14. See Cynthia J. Amson, Crossroads: Congress, the Reagan Administration andCentral America (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), for an insightful analysisof the roles played by both Congress and the White House with regard to U.S.funding of counterrevolutionary operations in Central America. On the role ofdrug trafficking as a tool for funding the contras, see Peter Dale Scott,"Cocaine, the Contras and the United States: How the U.S. Govemment hasaugmented America's drug crisis" in Crime, Law and Social Change 16 (1991)97-131, and Peter Dale Scott & Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs,Armies and The CIA in Central America (Berkeley, Ca: Califomia UniversityPress, 1991). Christopher Dickey, With the Contras (New York: Simon andSchuster, 1985), and James DeFronzo, Revolutions and Revolutionary Move-ments (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1991): 21 Iff conduct insightful analysisof the contras. For overall discussions on Reagan's opposition to Nicaraguaand Mexico's involvement, see Lilia Bermudez, Guerra de baja intensidad.Reagan contra Centroameriea (Mexico City: Siglo XXI Editores, 1987); HollySklar, Washington's War on Nicaragua (Boston: South End Press, 1987); SaraGordon Rapoport, Mexico Frente a Centroamerica (Mexico City: Instituto deInvestigaciones Sociales, Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de Mexico, 1993).

15. Vilas, "Intemational Constraints on Progressive Change..."16. According to a report by an economic team sponsored by the Swedish Govem-

ment, by 1989 15% of Nicaragua's adult population was under arms; the deathtoll amounted to 30,(X)0 and one third of the countryside was directly involvedin military operations. The economy was in total disarray, with production anddomestic trade bottlenecks, food shortages and prices climbing towards hyper-inflationary records. See Lance Taylor et al., Nicaragua: The Transition fromEconomic Chaos to Sustainable Growth (Stockholm: Swedish InternationalDevelopment Agency, 1989).

17. The "Esquipuias Process" refers to two meetings held by the presidents ofCentral America in the Guatemalan town of Esquipuias, on May 1986 (Esquip-uias I) and August 1987 (Esquipuias II). Texts of the Esquipuias Accordsin www.parlacen.org.gt/documentosparlacen/esquipulas.htm

18. Text of the accord in www.sieca.org.gt/Reuniones_Presidentes/vi/declarac.htm.

19. Carlos M. Vilas, "Nicaragua: A revolution that fell from the grace of the peo-ple," Communist Regimes: The Aftermath. The Socialist Register. RalphMiliband and Leo Panitch, eds. (London: Merlin Press, 1991): 302-321.

20. To make things worse for the Sandinistas' intemational image, the accord wassigned just a few weeks after a Salvadoran military death squad massacred sev-eral Jesuit priests who were on the directive board of the Central AmericanUniversity, together with two female employees

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21. Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America(New York: Norton, 1984.)

22. Carlos M. Vilas, "War and revolution in Nicaragua. The impact of the U.S.counterrevolutionary war on the Sandinista strategies of revolutionary transi-tion," Problems of Socialist Renewal: East & West. The Socialist Register,Ralph Miliband, Leo Panitch and John Saville, eds. (London: Merlin Press,1988): 182-219; State, Class, and Ethnicity in Nicaragua. Capitalist Modern-ization and Revolutionary Change on the Atlantic Coast (Boulder, Co.: LynneRienner, 1988). See also Laura J. Enriquez, Harvesting Change. Labor andAgrarian Reform in Nicaragua, 1979-1990 (Chapel Hill: University of NorthCarolina Press 1991), and Agrarian Reform and Class Consciousness inNicaragua (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1997); EduardoBaumeister, Estructura y reforma agraria en Nicaragua (1979-1989) (Man-agua: CDR-ULA, 1998).

23. For further developments of this line of argument see Carlos M. Vilas,"Nicaragua: What Went Wrong," NACLA Report on the Americas, vol.XXXIV (1), (June 1990): 10-18, and "Nicaragua: A revolution that fell fromthe grace of the people."

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REVOLUTIONARY ATTEMPTS IN LATE COLD WAR SETTINGS: NICARAGUA … · 2014-04-26 · REVOLUTIONARY ATTEMPTS IN LATE COLD WAR SETTINGS: NICARAGUA IN THE 1980s By Carlos M. Vilas* INTRODUCTION