Training Nicaraguan government cadres and with leaders of the Bandinista National Front (FSLN).
Besides giving several lectures to cachers at the Central American University, Mandel also gave a public entitled 'The World Crisis of sponsored by icaraguan Association for the Social ences. Several hundred people ataded the talk, which was announced day before in the daily Nuevo Diario.
On his return from Nicaragua, Ernest Mandel was interviewed by La Gauche — the French-language paper of the Belgian section of the Fourth ternational. The interview great interest in showing the relation dramatic methods, wilding socialism in Nicaragua, and defending the country from attack by United States.
hat was the class nature of the elecas in Nicaragua?
It's wrong to talk about bourgeois parliamentary elections, sons for a bourgeois parliament. My stay in the country fully confirmed that state power icaragua represents the workers and poor peasants. Some 450,000 armed orking people their guns i homes. It is in the context of ch a regime that you have to define : class nature of the Assembly, and ot on the basis of formal criteria.
much do the arations of support for political alism mean?
here is no way to assess individual sotivations. It is still harder to make ay predictions about future changes attitudes. But one thing is clear -* Sandinista leaders are now saying sa: political pluralism is neither a actical maneouvre with regard to the Iban and rural petty bourgeoisie nor • concession to international public pinion, whether this be directed at ocial democrats, left Latin-American bourgeois forces or ne imperialist countries themselves.
They saying that duralism is useful and essential for * revolutionary process, useful and assential for bullding socialsin Nicaragua. It is, in particular, essenal for raising the class consciousness nd level of activity of the toiling asses, to get them involved increasgly in the real administration of the conomy and the state, in the struggle bureaucratic Ine revo to ESLN.
These more and more numerous declarations represent a notable conribution to the development of interational revolutionary consciousness, return to the original thought of farx, of the Lenin or 1917, of Rosa Lutembourg and of Trotsky. I see it as confirmation of what we have hen reiterating for decades.
Inasmuch as these positions are ated to the reality in Nicaragua, the tire international workers' , the entire world working class, 1i derive immense advantages trom Can you give some practical examples of the fruits of political pluralism for toiling masses?
You can't dissociate political pluralsm from the self-organisation of-management of the masses. conditions the other. A combination of the iwo is beginning to take hold in caragua. far chieved its fullest development. But he fact that things are beginning to ove in this direction represents a SECU forward, bv self-management the is about elec in than half the enterprises.
Sandinistas' Wing to increase.
With respect the councils (sometimes including Christians, strive in particular the prote proces. the same Every dav.
Diario answer La Prensa, the leaders deformations camp and airport Another democrane manEs.
ICVICSSUI.
Are The move- ing to start drawing up?
what an extent. discussion underway, tivity of the masses, and above all, the counterrevolution.
should be pointed up.
from having of political parties the other, ward recognising Yugoslavia, which has been partially smothered by the single-party system.
With respect to workers' control and mass participation in the manage- Loat ment of the enterorises. production operating The real extent of self-management differs considerably, to be sure, but it is continuterritorial organisation, the Sandinista Defense Committees (CDS) are the bodies in the neighbourhoods that represent great mass of the population.
They take charge of a series of state functions, such as distributing ration coupons, supervising the distribution of basic necessities and education.
As regards education in the rural areas, there are parents' consultative DOLI parents and high school students) that to coordinate education and the preparation of high school students for integration into Hume, vigorous fensive. arguments are going on in the press.
Barricada and Nuevo
exposing the lies and half-truths of the opposition. For example, when La Prensa claimed that the government had kept of the opposition from crease travelling abroad, Barricada published a list of their many trips, based on exit stamps collected at the Managua sion. important fact, if you want to talk about pluralism and is that there are presently strikes going on, and they have not been subjected to any sort of TOWNA CRESI democracy going to be reflected in the constitution that the Assembly is goI think so, obviously I can't predict to That depends on the north the extent of the involvement and the political acthe outcome of tims of socia sunusue in unc comme monus the outcome of the WCIC confrontation with imperialism and the During So far, there are two gains that On the one hand, democratic rights, a pluralism the right to strike, and freedom of thè press and associa tion seem to have been coditied. On the Sandinista leadership has just made an important step forthe right to regional autonomy for the Miskito Indian ethnic minority.
The big question left pending is institutionalisation, alongside the National Assembly, of people's power, either in an assembly or in another form — it does not matter what the form is as long as it is real and not purely a formal 'rubber stamp' body.
other words, people's power should be established not just at the local level, in the neighbourhoods, villages and enterprises but also at the level of municipalities, regions and of the country as a whole.
This rise of socialist democracy is taking place in the context of continual aggression Nicaraguan revolution. Isn't there a contradiction in all this!
Not at all. The Sandinista regime in Nicaragua is facing the cruellest sort of imperialist military and economic ofdrawn from the Nicaraguan revolutionary process itself and the lessons from other countries, this imperialist offensive is a stimulus for the FSLN to seek to continually broaden popularity among the masses and inthe effective support it gets them able mobilize the entire people should there be a massive American aggresThis orientation has crowned with success.
I think that against imperialism and its contra mercenaries, the support of the masses for the FSLN is almost total.
of a cruel revolutionary offensive. Could you give some examplesi During my stay in Nicaragua, a gang ot 200 counterrevolutionaries staged an ambush outside El Pericon, to the city Esteli, massacred 28 workers who were going to pick coffee beans. Most of the victhe unspeakable slaughter telecommunications workers. Several of them were burned alive b counterrevolutionaries, others were finished off with bayonets.
the funeral, the whole city of Esteli was in the streets shouting its grief and its determination to avenge its brothers and sisters.
What are the counterrevolutionaries trying to gain by such massacres?
The imperialists are perfectly aware that international public opinion is becoming more sensitive every day to the threat of massive aggression, of the US air force bombing For of vading.
If such hundreds of would protest in the streets, not just in Western Europe but also in Mexico, in Latin America, ticular in the United Canada. Washington would have to pay a very high political price. In fact, it is necessary to make every effort to ¿make this political price higher and higher, to make it too high.
In these conditions, for the moment, the imperialists have chosen a • war of attrition as their line of attack against the Nicaraguan revolution They are combining the incursions of armed tionaries with a growing blockade and economic sabotage.
The gangs are operating basically Honduras. comouncil. even helicopter support. It is obviously the imperialists who are providing this logistical aid, termediary of the CIA.
Does the counterrevolution have a social base in Nicaragua itself.
You can't talk about civil war in the real meaning social base of the contras is a very narrOW OlIC Somoza's old National Guard, their families and their retainers, and the whole thing depends established outside the country. This base is clearly being eroded. They're starting to replace recruiting mercenaries of other nationalities rather than Nicaraguans.
Is this war of attrition effective from view?
It obviously cannot overthrow the Sandinista regime or even undermine it. But it can place the regime in more more cumstances. It has forced the government to devote 35 per cent of the national budget to military spending Imports of spare parts, raw materials its and consumer goods are dropping. What is more, it has caused damage amounting to one-fourth of the na. tional budget.
Moreover, this war of attrition is forcing the people's government to been mobilise a great mass of workers continually in the army and the militia, thereby causing grave in production and in the circulation OI goods. The mount a struggle at the same time to defend the country militarily and to bring in the coffee harvest. very heavy burden for the popular masses.
Has the economic Nicaragua deteriorated as a result?
During the first years after the Sandinista victory, the material situation improved for which is something we have not seer often in the revolutions of the twentieth century. In 1983 Nicaragua had while the highest rate of growth in all Latin America.
The year 1984, by contrast, was a difficult one, a year of war economy, as the Sandinista comrades say. costs and the destruction caused by the aggressors resources bv nearly 15%. The masses understand this and accept it, but that well doesn't mean that they suffer any less from its consequences.
the Marines incrimes were committed, thousands of •people Wing into clothing, and in par- pliances, States counterrevoluThey have ultraand sometime.
through the inof the term, since the is made up essentially of on camps their losses by counterrevolutionary point of inbalance CULICE economic CIT1labsOs cooperative. interruptions It's government has of what That is a situation in Russia).
The the toiling Illasses collectivisation maintain the War necessar reduced available Wing, reasonable growth.
education, health, public which, moreover, is inadequate — and water, gas and elecwhere there are also proThe wages of blue- and white-collar workers are ample for paying tor these goods and services. But the! are not sufficient to enable them to get waal ney nee on the nee marke in dollars (the dollar goes for 20 times the official rate on the black market), more and more commodities are flowthe free market, putting lUys electrical ap in particular, out of the reach of those that have no other means than their wages.
Except for some products, there is no real scarcity. There is, however, an between price. that's producing an economic reaction on the part of the More and more people, including workers and members of their households, are preferring to take up intermediary jobs. In this way, they can earn four or five times more than they could working in a factory or a Unemployment has disappeared. There is a shortage of labour.
Does that represent the failure of the mixed economy?
complicated than that.
When people talk about the mixed economy, they are generally thinking remains of capitalist enterprise in the strict sense in Nicaragua. That is not where the main problems come from, because the production and exports of this sector are strictly monitored by the state (the situation is comparable to that of the NEP in difficulties alise the uneasy coexistence of a nationalised industrial sector that is too weak to provide for the entire population and a sector of small peasant producers that cannot be eliminated by forced For political and social reasons, as well as economic ones, it Is essential i alliance between the workers and the and the peasants that this sure that this uneasy coexistence of the two sectors does not lead to imposing sacrifices on the workers, and blocking plann• industrialisation degree of economic
THE DEVELOPING split in the Communist Party has opened up a decisive fight over the future of the Labour left. The Star is attempting to forge close links with the 'Bennite' left of the JOHN looks at the stakes involved.
THE development of the Labour left around Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone Arthur Scargill is the positive development in politics for 60 years. The first truly mass class struggle socialist development since the defeat of the General Strike and the Stalinisation oł the Communist Party.
The reasons for the mass support of this current are not simply that it increasingly bases itself on militant class struggle but that it addresses Morning ROSS British Socialist Action pro-capitalist parties how vital 1 blockage capitalist Europe, the called tions conclusions democracy of 1 February 1985 break down the barriers both of the socialist parties and the impact of the Stalinist communist In this framework can be seen just the emergence of the 'Benn-Scargill-Livingstone' . The historical represented by pro Western combined with socialist deformation in Eastern Europe can only be broken down by a combined international process.
The first element in overcoming blockage represented b the bureaucracy is showing how the sc of Western Europe rests on imperialist founda— and drawing all the practica this. That the Western Europe and the United States is propped up by the