T HE main gain of the recent
congress of the Nicaraguan Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) was the preservation and reinforcement of the organization's unity, and the development of internal democracy. However, a reading of the conference documents leaves one unclear as to the Front's present policy. The Intense debate that took place in the runup to the congress was not repeated at the conference itself.
Both the programme and the statutes, already discussed for many months by the rank-and-file, were again dealt with in the commissions in order that the documents should arrive in finished form at the congress. Even so, the sessions were very long; there was a desire to discuss everything down to the last detail, which was not in my opinion entirely satisfied.
The maintenance of the FSLN's internal unity has been essential for us; it was the backbone of the revolution's survival. Continued from previous page would face political choices such as the issue of the "autonomous territories" conquered by the Serbs.
• Calls for the withdrawal of the army from all the areas of conflict and supports the refusal of officers and soldiers to intervene in these conflicts; supports the fight to break up the Great Serb alliance; calls for the desertion of Serbian soldiers and for the defence of deserters; and for the political mobilization of the Croatian population for the defence of their territory - as well as for a fight to win the Serb minority strongest party in Nicaragua. This leads to a strange situation; while the FSLN has the necessary social support, it cannot allow itself to take power. Is this not frustrating for its social base which is suffering every day the social and economic attacks of the rightwing UNO government?
On the contrary, I believe that it is inspiring to know that one has the means to decide; the political strength of the FSLN and its big possibilities are being used to defend popular interests and the gains of the revolution. Besides, the government (I mean the government and not the UNO as a party) is not now trying to dismantle the gains of the revolution; for example, the government has vetoed property laws passed by the Assembly, thus defending the gains. The government does this because it understands the relationship of forces. • To return to the balance-sheet of the revolution that you began to draw at the congress; in 1979 the FSLN could count on the wider revolutionary upsurge in the region, and this was before the collapse of the so-called socialist camp.
The Panamanian president Omar Torrijos said that the Nicaraguan revolution in Croatia to the cause of Croatian sovereignty.
• Calls on all forces in the republics that are really interested in sovereignty to unite and use their positions in Federal institutions, to stop the war and defend all national minorities - whatever their position on the future of Yugoslavia. For this reason we support the anti-war movement in all the republics who oppose the chauvinist manipulations of the media and who are trying to promote citizens' initiatives against the war. *
Furthermore, the Nicaraguan revolution had an influence on revolutionaries throughout the world, and above all in Latin America.
It was impossible to repeat our victory in other countries. The United States made a huge effort to avoid change in El Salvador, without succeeding in wiping out the revolutionaries. For us El Salvador was essential; now the changes in the international situation and Central America have made it necessary to seek a political solution there.
Reagan, representing a violent and expansionist option, came to power at the same moment as the victory of our revolution and this complicated the prospects for change in Central America.
The events in the East did not have a big ideological impact in Nicaragua. Howerer they did have an economic effect, and they have had political implications for most of the international left. The FSLN's electoral defeat coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall only at the level of the date. We did not lose the election as a result of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Personally I am overjoyed at what has happened in the East. We have won the right to start again, but this time we will start from correct positions and will avoid taking false paths. Revolutionaries have no incentive to adopt a false strategic outlook as they did in the past. We will be the winners from the events in the East, where the time of bureaucracy, authoritarianism and the absence of freedom of expression is over. Socialism can wash off the colour grey; the time has come to weave lovelier clothes for our ideas, starting with the nappies! Socialism must undergo a rebirth.
Imperialism is evidently more aggressive, and believes it has won. It does not realize that the fall of the Berlin Wall does not represent its victory but, in the longer term, a defeat. The fall of the Berlin Wall ushers in the stage of the destruction of imperialism, even if it seems crazy to say edifice fell along with the Berlin Wall. *