People's Power under fire
NICARAGUA collective leadership that is striving to prevent the development of any personality cults. Despite the election of a president, no particular name comes up when you ask who runs the country. All the comandantes are mentioned. And each of them is popular in his or her own right. On the other hand, the people don't make any bones about criticizing what doesn't work.
There are a lot of complaints about
A Fourth International delegation has just returned from a fortnight's stay in Nicaragua where they went on the occasion of the November 4 elections. The delegation was made up of Jakob Moneta, an ex-editor of the
IG Metall's union journal and a member of the Gruppe Internationale
Marxisten (GIM) of West Germany; Pedro Penalosa, a leader of the far tido Revolucionaria de los Trabajadores (PRT) of Mexico; Hugo Blanco, a member of the Peruvian PRT; and Alain Krivine of the French Ligue
Communiste Revolutionnaire.
On arrival in Nicaragua these comrades were given the status of invited observers' as well as being representatives of their particular party. This allowed them to link up with the 250 other invited observers from several
In the course of their stay the comrades had dozen other countries.
several meetings, mainly with leaders of the FSLN; with the Sandinista
(JS-19); with the Sandinista Workers Confederation (CST); the women's organisation, AMNLAE; the Sandinista Defence Committees
(CDS) and with the Nicaraguan Peoples Solidarity Committee (CNSP).
Apart from these discussions our delegates were able to observe the conduct of the elections in the region of Ocotal, near the Honduran
They also visited several agricultural cooperatives around Managua and stayed on a self-defence cooperative north of Esteli. The delegation was warmly welcomed everywhere it went.
The comrades of the Sandinista leadership made it clear on every occasion that they had decided, within the framework of political prura..
ism, which they intend to stick to, to enter into fraternal relations with all those organisations which support them at an international level, without
Our comrades reaffirmed the commitment of the Fourth International to the solidarity campaign and their willingness to build a united front of all those opposed to aggression against the Nicaraguan revolution.
As well as being interviewed on several occasions by the daily Nuevo
Dario, which published their statements (see especially the November 8,
1984 edition), they were also able to meet the editors of the FSLN paper,
Barricada, and the independent review. Pensamiento Proprio. At the end of November, comrade Ernest Mandel will also be going to Managua at the invitation of the Institute of Agrarian Reform. In the following article
Alain Krivine gives his impressions.
Alain KRIVINE
To understand the situation in Nicaragua, the measures taken by the government, and the way the revolutionary organizations function, you have to start by recognizing a fact that today overshadows everything - the country is at war.
Nicaragua's frontiers are under constant threat from American troops.
est pretext might be used to unleash an intervention or at least bombing.
these frontiers, ten thousand heavily armed commandos, the contras, aged to create a climate of insecurity throughout the country keeping three quarters of the population on continual
Therefore, the FSLN leadership has been obliged to redirect all its policy toward a single goal - making sure that the revolution is able to defend itself.
All the economic plans and projects for establishing people's power are put in question by this central preoccupation.
"Safeguarding the revolution is more important than the coffee harvest,"
International Viewpoint 10 December 1984 andante Jaime Wheelock said recently to twenty thousand high school students ready to leave for the harvest.
Although intervention is possible at any moment, the imperialists are concentrating now on strangling the country economically, hoping in time to be able to base themselves on a current of demoralization and discontent generated by the tremendous difficulties of assuring an adequate supply of food and consumer
For the moment, however, what is happening is rather the opposite of that. In the face of the imperialist threats, the Front has been able to rally behind it nearly all the youth, a large part of the peasantry, and so-called patriotic section of the bourgeoisie. authority and popularity, which remain
The bond between the FSLN, its mass organizations, and the people is striking. The great mass of people feel that they are defending their revolution and their government. This is political support, which is by no means uncritical, for a the growth of red tape, the proliferation of incompetent petty bureaucrats whose only talent is putting stamps on papers. "When there is a new problem *o solve, they start by creating a ministry, dinista youth leader remarked ironically
While privileges connected to office do clearly exist, it should be noted that all the leaders have to do tours of duty on the war front, as attested by the recent death in battle of the minister of tele-
The fundamental guarantees of democracy today are the existence of a real political pluralism, total freedom of expres sion, and the education and arming of the which are rather exceptional conditions in the midst of a war. There is a gulag in Russia but not in Nicaragua. "It's because you criticize us that you are
" Daniel Ortega shouted at the election windup rally.
Nonetheless, it is clear that the present mobilization for defense is creating obstacles to consolidating people's power. For the moment, all the decisions are made by the FSLN, and no one disputes this. Conceived of as a "vanguard party for working people," the Front selects its
You have to go through three stages before you become a full member So, today the FSLN has hardly more than 12,000 members. But all of them are devoted to the revolution body and soul, ready to assume any task.
The Sandinista youth is the spearhead of the revolution. Half of the population is not yet twenty years old. All the military and economic mobilizations go through the Sandinista Youth, which has about 56,000 members and can mobilize 300,000 youth without any problem. Based essentially in the school youth, it is starting in some places to organize youth peasants.
At present, about 30 percent of the leadership of the Sandinista Youth are members of the FSLN. And it is not a mere transmission belt. Recently, the Sandinista Youth won the right to vote for sixteen-year-olds by collecting 90,000
Today, debates are going on over the role of grades in school. A lot of the youth volunteer to go off to fight and complain that they are at a disadvantage when they return relative to those who stayed as regards grades. The debates are generally settled amicably with the FLN, which has just raised a new slogan in Managua, "Build socialism with the Front."
The basic mass organizations are the Sandinista Defense Committees, can mobilize the population. about a half a million members organized
SOUTH AFRICA-
in nine thousand committees. They are generally structured by elected collectives but not always. At the neighborhood zonal and regional level, they organize all aspects of daily life (conducting censuses, distributing ration cards, taking care of the schools and health services, and so on.)
Finally, these committees organize popular defense with an impressive efficiency. They recruit for the militia, dig trenches and shelters, organize firstaid teams, and teams to clear the rubble in the event of bombing. They set up vigilance teams that patrol every night in the neighborhoods. How regular the participation in meetings is depends on the political situation and the social character of the neighborhood involved.
The Sandinista Defense Committees are now projecting a national congress. They act on the political level more as a pressure group than an organ of power. Discussions are underway about what role "people's power" will have in the new constitution. But at the moment these committees enjoy a certain auton-
They have not hesitated, for exomy.
ample, to criticize the opening of supermarkets that sell at free, and therefore exhorbitant, prices the goods that generally