transformation the economic and social structures to build a new society free of all exploitation, was taken on l9 July 1979, with the conquest of political power.
It is within this framework FSLN state power that one of the most misunderstood aspects of the Sandinistas policies is carried out the economic policies of the FSLN and the well known continued existence CaDILalsI tions in Nicaragua. It is the political framework that determines, as Tomas Borge puts it, that 'a mixed economy in Nicaragua is not the same thing as a mixed economv in Costa Rica or in Uruguay and other countries of Latin America. This is a mixed economy within the revolution.
Popular Unity resides in the fact that Allende barely had one part of the LOverneR didn't really have power, the power was in the hands of the rightist parliaNicaragua, in turn, the destruction of the somocista guard ... is one of the basic conditions of our ascendance to Fi heretore our most basıc task in the face of North American aggression is to aciena Inis power .. Sandinista front has the power here.
armed state power that determines the nature of the situation and process in Nicaragua. As Jaime Wheelock states Nicaragua ... it is the working people that hold power here.
stale power Nicaragua is a workers state — but that the state has not yet expropriated confusion among sections of the left in Britain and leads to ultra-left and reality the process taking place Nicaragua is perfectly coherent and from capitalism to socialism in the mediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the power by the working class is clear: 'The proletariat will use its political tralise all instruments of production un the hands or the state, le or tne proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.' Wheelock in the given circumstances aren't more than 120 plants with more than fifty workers. At the same time, more shops with fewer than five workers...
'We have to combine two things in the process of change. First, the formation of a sector of state production that brings LUCIACT developed and strategic areas of the presence of an artisan economy, on which we are trying to impress a cer'Although we may have socialist society does not lie in expropriating wouldn't lead to socialism but rather to its opposite. It could even lead to the destruction and dismantling of way to combine. on the one hand. a plan in which the starting point will be the strategic and developed sectors of and on the other. organisation of a social plan in shich cooperative forms of work -== WOrKeTS businessmen exists in our country. Bu: it is the new relations of production dominate the process of economic foreign trade, natural resources, sualegit maustna sectors, ano lne a system of production and managewe would call LILC Development although naturally in a unique form Nicaragua is the first phase of the dictatorship of the proletariat: the conquest of state power by the working gressively used to transformation of the economy and gressively and without sharp breaks. However these economic considerasubordinate to the political considera20ts which are dominant, and which the Sandinista's being ill thought out, or not radical enough, they are undoubtedly correct in the given cirthe alliances of the FSLN also become: clear. In Nicaragua, in order to carry through the democratic tasks of the revolution, it was necessary for the - but that also co-exists to an appreciably degree with forms that Victor capitalist and with various sectors: state property; large, revolution medium and small private property:
toward having state and cooperative property predominate but at the same Nicaraguan time coexist with medium, small, and even large scale private production.
become secondary, subordinate. This is our conception of how we must march forward. The pace, however, is country. determined not only by technological questions but also by political ques- the moment signified - is as seen by Marx. What exists in Borge put it, in July This state power is being procarry through the opposed to the alternative, somocismo...' Links struggle agars: 19205 against notion When this primacy of politics is working class to take state power. As Tirado It necessary to make a revolution to be apply basic precepts that already reigned in capitalist countries not ruled by tyrannical governments.
The bourgeois democratic tasks of had to be carried through against the bourgeoisie itself however — due to, as Borge puts it, 'the congential helplessness of the woul geoisic more precisely, the absence of the antisomocista movement.' The result of development that 'the leap. boureoisie really did not have a party of their own.. No modern party of (Nicaraguan Democratic Movement) was born at when the bourgeois regime was in total agony.' The formation of the FSLN itself, struggle Somoza, the outflanking of the bourgeois alternative to the dictatorship - the fact that the FSLN could place itself at the head of the nation in the struggle against Somoza. Again as "The Sandinista National Liberation Front was founded 1961. This historic signified the people's alternative, as bourgeois reformist in the struggle against char are capable i: s=-see: the end tain.
local representatives With this Sandino's intuition grasped above all the ilass character of the revolutionary movement.
Or in Jaime Wheelock's formula 'The axis of our policy of alliances was not the bourgeoisie but the peo ple. Our assessment of the relationto the contrary are simply ultra-left.
The development of the revolution in Nicaragua is a striking confir mation of Trotsky's theory of perma nent revolution - that in a semi-colonial country solve the democratic tasks of the revolution it is necessary for the working class to Lake slale power Into Its owll nanos There is no doubt that the overall policies of the FSLN in Nicaragua are correct. We are faced in Nicaragua with a situation where not merely is the revolution 'in general' to be sup ported but where the specific politica course being pursued by the FSLN should be supported.
Is there a contradiction between this reality and the evident fact that there is evidently not a common inter. national programme between the views of, say Socialist Action many on the left in Britain and the FSLN — that the Sandinistas for example supported the bureaucracy and not Solidarnosc in Poland? That contradiction exists for those who cannot see history as a process, who do not understand that the break of the working Social Democracy and Stalinism cannot, and will not, take place in a single Programme The point about the FSLN - in addition the much more fun. damental question of its achievements in Nicaragua — is that it is a tremen dous step towards the programme of revolutionary Marxism. Thai Nicaragua, the freest country in the world, shows that as the revolution develops in the world it progressivels moves towards the socialist, humanitarian and liberating ideals first proclaimed by Karl Marx 140 years ago The FLN - as, at a very different level, the forces symbolised by Gerry Adams and Arthur Scargill -is a touchstone for the left in Britain.
is a mortal threat ait sei "ananism. Because politica a = he morld are no longer sTing D tees ai Marxism in books. They are appiying parts of its idea: : - and ir the case of the FSLN whole parts of its ideas — in practice. It is the height of sectarian mania to believe this is some sort of threat — as does much of the ultra left and sectarian left in BriThe most advanced of these currents on a world scale, the FSLN, has conquered state power in Nicaragua That is a gigantic step forward fo humanity.
If you want to know how the at it read this book Nicaragua: The Sandinisia Pricet. Revolution, Pathfinder Press. it ::
Socialist Action 14 June 1985