No easy
remedies for
Nicaraguan
crisis
Nicaragua - Dynamics of an Unfinished Revolution by Alan Benjamin (Walnut Publishing, San Francisco, 1989). Available from Socialist Outlook at £5.50 including p&p.
Reviewed by Patrick
Baker This book is a welcome contributtion to the debate among socialists around the development of the Nicaraguan revolution. Largely based on primary research and extensive contacts with indigenous social research bodies - particularly the Managua-based ITZTANI institute - the book analyses some of the key aspects of Nicaraguas development since the 1979 revolution.
The author, a leader of the US marxist organisation Socialist Action, is neither an uncritical cheerleader nor a simple commentarist. His critical approach has led to unusually sharp polemics from some other US marxists - such as Paul LeBlanc, a leader of the Fourth Interationalist Tendency - who claims, among other things, that *Socialist Action comrades appear to believe (in contradiction to Trotsky) that a socialist economy can be brought to Nicaragua and solve the country's most pressing problems without the spread of socialist revolution... '(1).
Such a comment is difficult to reconcile with the key concluding passage of the book 'Extending the revolution: Key to Survival', in which the author • surveys the other Central
REVIEW
American revolutionary struggles, and concludes that "The fate of the
Nicaraguan revolution is inextricably tied to the outcome of these struggles' (2).
LeBlanc's critique also ignores the main strength of Benjamin's analysis: his detailed account of the Sandinistas' policy of class alliance in their attempt to shore up the ailing Nicaraguan economy, and the political and economic consequences of this policy.
From the beginning, Benjamin recognises the incredible strains and pressures that have faced this tiny, underdeveloped country: the Contra war, financed by the world's strongest imperialist power; the crippling economic consequences of this war, combined with the effects of the economic blockade, and minimal aid from the USSR.
Benjamin's does not argue that all these adverse circumstances could be reversed simply through a voluntaristic turn by the FSLN leadership. However, he does argue that in such circumstances the Sandinistas' policy of reliance on, and therefore extensive concessions to, the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie, often at the expense of the working class and poor peasantry, has not and will not improve the dire political and economic situation that the Nicaraguan people face.
In addition, it has led to some friction between the Sandinistas' base in the rural and urban unions and the leadership.
Benjamin catalogues the various circumstances in which the Sandinistas have turned to such policies: in relation to the
Nicaragua
Dynamics
of an
Unfinished
Revolution by Alan Benjamin agrarian reform; in response to pressure not only from the USA, but also such 'allies' as the USSR and European Social Democracy; and in relation to the Arias/Esquipulas 'peace plans'.
On each occasion, the Sandinistas' pleas for investment in the Nicaraguan economy on the part of the 'patriotic bourgeoisie' have fallen on deaf ears, and been met instead by decapitalisation and the flight of billions of dollars of capital to Miami.
Yet it is not only on a domes tic level that the Sandinistas have, on occasion, chosen some strange friends: they have hailed the re-election of the PRI in Mexico, despite their cancellation of vital oil supplies to Nicaragua; and the crushing of Solidarnosc, though they may have reconsidered when the Kremlin bureaucracy cut their aid programme.
The point of such criticisms is not to wave the Trotskyist Transitional Programme at the Sandinistas, but to point out that the bourgeoisie as a class cannot be relied upon - concessions notwithstanding - to shore up an anti-imperialist revolution such
LOS DanEROs CANPESMOS RASTAEL FIN LIRAN as that in Nicaragua.
Though the use of the market (to one degree or another) is by no means excluded as a tactic, particularly in an underdeveloped country such as Nicaragua, this is not the same as a strategic alliance with the bour-
Benjamin's work is informed by the marxist notion that, particularly in such circumstances, it is only the working class, in alliance with the poor peasantry, that can be relied upon to free such a country from the hold of imperialism as a part of the strug gle for socialism.
As such this book, though fairly short and thus not entirely comprehensive, contains a wealth of information as well as marxist analysis, and will prove very useful to all those in solidarity with the Nicaraguan
NOTES
1) Understanding the Nicaragua revolution - P.LeBlanc, BIDON по.67, р. 15.
(2) Dynamics pp169-170
Just some
reformist
rubbish?
Livingstone's Labour By Ken Livingstone, Published by Unwin Hyman, £12.95 hardback
Reviewed by Mick Woods The title of this review is Ken's inscription in my copy. Reformist - yes: