never demonstrated openly against The SOMOCALS pointed up the congenital helplessness of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie, more precisely, the absence of a national bourgeoisie able leadership of the movement.
The armed struggle was initiated with the Coco River and Bocay guerrilla front in 1963. The Coco River and Bocay experience constituted a defeat not precisely from the military standpoint, since the main problems did not arise from armed engagements but rather absence of the minimal conditions on the ground necessary for the guerrillas' survival.
The vanguard turned the military defeat of 1963 into a source of lessons. The correction of its errors had allowed it to survive ala bul together a clandestine apparatus in the cities.
The military defeat of 1963 coinrided with, and contributed to, a temdownturi tonnese movemen. economic upswing ¡somocismo's best period in that sense). The most i: namic sectors of the bourgeoisie took full advantage of this. They were able to combine their agro export and commercial interests with the new phara of industrialisaspurred by the government's economic policy, make before the but also ferment For, assume anti-somocista water, electricity, and so on, making these themselves.
the must organise was ended on Maria Castillo.
demands struggle antiA period of unaelway ractionaries. rganised sort of FSLN, distributed Certai Masaya, gie, result would services, ends 'Free the taking 1974, end of FSLN continued but Not an June militants commentary after the fact that the movement of history unfolds through contradictions, only those who do not grasp the fact that a political organisation is nothing more than an instrument in the class strugcould have concluded that as a of the tendencies dissolve into factions would disperse the popular struggles in isolated actions without any major impact on the dictatorship. n tact. the three tendencies continued uphold the name of the Sandinista front. The people always recognised but a single Sandinista front, and all the companeros know that fighters from the three tendencies all shouted homeland death!' fought in the same trenches and shed their blood together. So why should it be strange that we united? Unity on a higher level was required in order to synthesise the different experiences The first stone was laid toward this with the continuation of popular movement.
The relative downturn that affected the vanguard on the military level after 1974 was brought to an end in October 1977 with a Sandinista offensive that began with the seizure of the San Carlos barracks and continued with the taking of the village of Mozonte, the attack on the main barracks in Masaya, and the seizure of the San Fernando barracks.
October 1977 was the result of a shift to an offensive mode of operations in the armed struggle at a moment when the crisis of somocismo was becoming acute. This crisis began the earthquake deepened after 1974.
tain adjustments in system without touching in anv war the system's fundamental bases: its economic might Guard. Somoza was forced to lift the front state of siege and martial law and to call municipal elections. measures, prove lls public opinion and play along with the imperialists' manoeuvers. to Error The FSLN's October 1977 offenThey sive was historic because disrupted plans, strengthened the vanguard's hegemony among the fortified All this led the somocistas to commit of their gravest the murdered Pedro Joaquin Chamorro (on 10 January, 1978).
Chamorro had become the leader of the incipient national bourgeoisie. Through journalistic many years, he had also managed to gain the sympathy of broad sectors in masses to take to the streets -saw this better than I did, since 1 was still a prisoner. They expressed their repudiation with violence. In those demonstrations ine masses openly identified with the Sandinista The people reiterated that the Sandinista front was the only possibility for confronting the Somoza dictatorship.
the somocista waits it and the National With these the regime sought to im- historicalv discredited image betore achievement, the enemy's masses, the masses' self-confidence errors: they activity The crime caused the revolutionary victories, Front.
Sandinista £6.95 strike, which played a complementary The final insurrection began in May 1979. The general strike called by the FSLN combined with the uprising of the masses to give to the people the rightly belonged to them. All the fac tors had been brought together exactly at the opportune mement and in the possible because of struggle our people had carried out against the somocisto mintary dic tatorship. It was possible owing to the emergence of a revolutionary vanThis was possible because at a crucial moment or mistonicai maluril; we set aside the search for personal power in the spirit of revolutionary unity, putting the interests of the nation above all. The 19 July was only the us along the road. The powerful immachine to turn back the course of history and, meanwhile, and biting us with the ferocity of a We have confidence in the toilers, in this people that was born to make history and is expert at forging new Free hoteland or death!"
• The fult text of Thomas Borge's speech is reprinted in Nicaragua: The People's Révolution, Pathfinder Press, The Cut, London SEI 8LL.
Socialist Action 19 July 1985