It is perhaps useful to compare these events to those happening at the same moment (1979) in Iran: in both armed powers wellSUDDULLCU by US - had been defeated b vast popular insurrections in whick the proletariat urban forces played a decisive role. Soon after, however, their trajectories diverged, two radically distinct projects: Sandinism Islamic fundamentalism. The Iranian nationalists executed organised force (the Pasdaran) but they did not destroy the Shah's old Imperial army. Today, this tradimilitary apparatus "rehabilitated' by the war with Iraq, is Khomeini and his regime (with the support of the Pasdaran) to break workers' combativity, oppress the Kurdish people, and massacre leftist organisations. In Nicaragua the contrarv, there were no execution (the Sandinistas abolished the death penalty) but the Somozoist army, the Guard, was entirely replaced by the
revolutionary forces and the armed people (in militias).
As for social measures, the first great nitiative revolution was the agrarian reform. Even UNIS Somoza his accomplices estates comprising more than 20 per cent of the arable land in the country! - it was soon extended, especially atter 1983, OWLICIS productive latifundias' propriated. Whereas before revolution, 37 per cent of the land was part of large landed property (more than 350 hectares), this percentage fell TO' 12 per cent in 1984. respects, the collectivised sector made up of state farms and cooperatives reached 37 per cent of the land that Certainly, the majority of the land remained in private hands, but the peasants union (UNAG) and agricultural workers? (ATC) severely limited the power of the rural bourgeoisie.
Other economic measures led to 810 Li inconsequential incursions capitalist property: from 1979, revolutionary power numerous enterprises belonging to Somoza and his gang — which made up the nucleus of the first Public Property Sector (APP) - the banks and ute sire natural resources; foreign gradually nauonalised. and the first moves toward national planning begun. In 1980, violations of the laws against decapitalisation and economic sabotage allowed for the The urban and rural workers' unions (CST Sandinista Workers' federation and the ATC - Association of Rural Workers) acquired a very important role in the application of this legislation, leading to a continuous chain of expropriations of counterrevolutionary capitalists.
It was in order to araw tie lessons of this contradiction between political nature of state power and its economic structure that a document on Nicaragua, issued by the Fourth International, considered July 1979 as the first stage in which the construction of a new workers' state, in which the expropriation of bourgeois and imperialist property would signify its consolidation. The contradiction bet. ween the socio-economic content of the property forms and the class content of the revolutionary state is 'contained in the straightjacket of the newly installed power.' Tensions In not less than seven years after the victory of the Sandinista insurrection, tne largest Nicaraguan private hands. In previous revolutions (Russia, China, Cuba, etc) there was always a period of several years between ine conquest of revolutionary power and the transformation of the economy, but this transitional period was never as long as in the Nicaraguan case. Elsewhere. leadership has underlined on several occasions that, until the new order, it wanted to maintain a mixed economic system and that it did not intend to collectivise production In future. These politics flow from objective conditions: the impossibility of the revolutionaries management factories their own hands, the necessity scious struggle Sandinista forces ATC) to control SLUCK economic of the republic since 1984, of "un- 'LaC Sandinista were exthe ment, the fabourable project. We SUE. other mechanisms of implacable reproduction intact.
private into responsibility the seized Jurisdiction trade was economic form: though bourgeoisie propriated, and land.
ConCOCONS • banks. all . the the prietor, time the Nicaraguan private Sandinista the COSEP remains tion plans.
Marchetti, in the First Amanal Kelorill Perspectives, spring 1981, pp: 2 Orlando Nunez, Sandinista Revolution in the near published Gerard de by Sede, menace' October-November 1983, p. 131. taking 4 Carlos heure of October-November 1969, pp. labour between the public and private sectors. It si a question nere or a conof the Sandinista (including the CST limit the power of the bourgeoisie, and submit the entire economy to a new logic, the logic of the people's interests. Sergio Ramirez, vice president explains the following terms: 'At the present morevolution remains to the mixed caullully don't mean this as a ¡ustification of two economic modes. in which one stands for the same old Capilalisi if the popular revolution allows a '"free zone"" for a private capitalist system, archaic and It is rather that the mixed must begin with the har monous and limited insertion of the into overal strategic framework of the public property sector. To the latter the political back leading the national economic system towards change and towards the production and distribution of wealth."
The process of transition toward socialism therefore takes an extended the mass has not been excontrol over the economy has steadily declined since 1979. John Vincour, a journalist for the New York Times, has offered the following sombre reflections on the "free enterprise Nicaragua: 'It is estimated that nearly 60 per cent of the economy remains, at least nominally, in private hands. But as the government controls all the of foreign trade, and has total jurisdiction over imports, and that it fixes production quotas and designates priorities, the entrepreneurs are hardly agents of the crown which the government can con trol with the payment of salaries. The spokesmen of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie utter regrets similar to Enrique Bolanos, a rich landed pro-capitalist and president of COSEP: "The State tells me what I must do, what I must produce and controls all the routes of distribution. Is that a mixed economy? What does that mean in these circumstances.'"
It is difficult to say for how much sector will accept the rules imposed by the revolution; the bourgeoisie is more and more divided among those who are disposed to collaborate and those — represented by — wno put all tell nopes I the contras and in Reagan's interven1 See Carmen Diana Deere and Peter "The Worker-Peasant Alliance Year of the Nicaraguan Latin 4Z-4>. "The Third Force ir National Liberation Movements', American Perspectives, spring 1981, p. 7.
termanen York: the 1984, p.7, and Politique Aujourd'hui, Paris:
Fonseca Amador, 'Nicaragua ricontinen ale INO 40-47.
including crisis local and foreign the President Eric del Valle most US decided to General Noriega by Noriega after which he underground of the to Noriega blocking of held in taken by the Security - which includes Colin defence has also Noriega and Reagan. But really lole term consideration on the part of US imperialism.
key cause of the confrontation is based on the importance that US imperialism taches to developments in Central America, especially regarding its policies vis-a-vis Panama would provide one of the strategic military points which to launch an invasion. bul Noriega alu the decisive sectors of the aria welche forces for their own reasons prepared along with such a policy. It this relative independence is acceptable to US imperialism.
Noriega descends from a somewilal unusual in of populist Panamanian generals who have tried to made some improvement to the humiliating position they find themselves in in relation to the US. Their authority ritten Panama seriously impeutu by the presence of 10,000 American troops garrisoned bases within the country, The US have been busiIncling politicians to engage in Call paigns which would create the conditions tor ousting Noriega drastically A Noriega has come the church, whose leader, Archbishop Panama, Marcos McGrath, tral issued a communique on behal of the Panamaniar Catholic church, demanding that the armed forces subordinate themselves to civilian power and proposing the formation of government of 'national reconciliation led by deposed President Eric Arturo del Valle.
The church's position has been endorsed by the main right wing political parties, the Christian Democracy, the Authentic Panamanian Party and the The latest nail in the coffin peel put bi Felipe Gonzalez, leader of the Spanish Socialist Part!
Spain's Minister, whose ad ministration Has gracke ly offered General | Manuel Noriega asylum in Spain 'as soon as its is requested formally:
Us claim to b defending 'civilian mule Panama is a straightforThe British labour movement should Wall for US hands off Panama an end economic sanctions against that country ease with which a crisis ha been provoked in Panama simply reveals what the I'S should be doing to over throw the apartheid regime in South Africa.
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*police of. number of generals and
Socialist Action April 1988 m