Hager 1998

This article was downloaded by: [North Dakota State University]
On: 15 December 2014, At: 06:14

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number:
1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street,
London W1T 3JH, UK
Terrorism and Political

Violence
Publication details, including instructions for
authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ftpv20
The origins of the ‘contra

war’ in Nicaragua:
The results of a failed
development model
a
Robert P. Hager Jr.
a
Teaches at Citrus College
Published online: 21 Dec 2007.
To cite this article: Robert P. Hager Jr. (1998) The origins of the ‘contra war’ in
Nicaragua: The results of a failed development model, Terrorism and Political
Violence, 10:1, 133-164, DOI: 10.1080/09546559808427448
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09546559808427448
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all
the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our
platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors
make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy,
completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of
the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis.
The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be
independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and
Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings,
demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever
or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in
relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study
purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution,
reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any
form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access
and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-
conditions
Downloaded by [North Dakota State University] at 06:14 15 December 2014
The Origins of the 'Contra War' in
Nicaragua: The Results of a Failed
Development Model
ROBERT P. HAGER, JR
This article considers the causes of the 'Contra War' in Nicaragua during the 1980s.
This conflict has often been portrayed as an American 'proxy war' fought by
Somoza's former National Guard against a regime supported by most common
Nicaraguans. This article proposes an alternate view. The Managua regime, with the
advice and assistance of the Soviet bloc, pursued a model of political consolidation
and economic development followed by other Third World Marxist-Leninist states. As
in other 'states of socialist orientation' in the 1970s and 1980s, this one encountered
considerable popular resistance. The conflict in Nicaragua, thus, was a civil war
caused by Sandinista policies.
Introduction
Two books by American journalists Glenn Garvin and Sam Dillon indicate
that Nicaragua's 'Contra war', the anti-Sandinista insurgency of the 1980s,
often was portrayed inaccurately.1 Although they have been out for several
years, the conclusions to which they point have not been examined as
thoroughly as they should be.2 During the 1980s, the Sandinistas and their
foreign supporters argued that the 'counterrevolution' was created by the
United States, fought by mercenary former members of deposed dictator
Anastasio Somoza Debayle's National Guard, and resisted by the great
majority of Nicaraguans. Even the latest edition of a frequently used text on
the Cold War asserts that 'Reagan ... created' the Contras.3
Garvin and Dillon indicate that a rather different interpretation is in
order. They indicate that the origins of the Contra insurgency were in
popular resistance to Marxism. Admittedly, throughout the 1980s, many
journalists and scholars, some of whom this study cites, noted peasant
opposition to Sandinista policies and popular support for the Contras in
some parts of Nicaragua. But Garvin and Dillon have showed that armed
resistance to the Sandinistas emerged in 1980-81, earlier than many
recognize. What is more, these early rebellions seem to have emerged quite
This author wishes to thank the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation for funding part of
the research this article is based on during the 1991-92 academic year.
Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.10, No.l (Spring 1998), pp.133-164
PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON
134 TERRORISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
independently of the United States, organizations of former National

Guardsmen, or other Nicaraguan exiles."
Precisely because these journalistic works focused on what happened in
Nicaragua they missed part of the geopolitical context of the Nicaraguan
conflict's origins. As this study points out below, Nicaragua was not an
isolated case. It was only one of numerous Third World countries where
revolutionary elites sought to consolidate their rule by radical social
transformation along Marxist-Leninist lines and alliance with the Soviet
bloc. This was a process Moscow actively sought to encourage and

facilitate.
When the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) came to power
in July 1979, it pursued policies that were very much in line with those that
the Soviets were already encouraging and assisting radical regimes to
follow elsewhere. This study will cite numerous Soviet sources indicating
that Moscow encouraged these Sandinista programs. Even the analyses of
the often sympathetic Western observers noted in this essay often concluded
that the model of political and economic development followed by the
Sandinistas caused many Nicaraguans very real grievances. It is noteworthy
how often Contra soldiers cited these policies' effects as the reason for their
decision to take up arms when they talked to foreign journalists.
As the concluding section of this study briefly notes, later events in
Nicaragua also reflected a changed Soviet policy in the Third World. In
1987, Managua would reluctantly come to embrace the Central American
peace process, partly due to Moscow's pressure and definitely with its
blessing. The Sandinista regime would be compelled to hold elections, give
the opposition a chance to win, and accept electoral defeat in February
1990. This study highlights just how much the anti-Sandinista insurgency
was symptomatic of the global failure of communism. This international
aspect of the 'Contra war' is one on which the Sandinistas' foreign
sympathizers have often preferred not to dwell.
Public discussion of the Contras and their origins frequently reflected
more heat than light, and often still does. In 1985, actor Ed Asner dismissed
them as 'Somocista butchers and mercenaries'.5 As some have noted, the
Contras' image often suffered for activities in which they did not participate
such as the 1984 mining of Nicaraguan harbors by the United States Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the Iran-Contra affair.6 More recently, a
reporter from the San Jose Mercury News has announced his intention to
show that a conflict in which thousands died on both sides 'was not a real
war at all. It was à charade, a smoke screen ... to provide cover for a
massive drug operation.'7
Scholarly discussion has at times hardly been better informed. It has
often dismissed the Contras as if they were merely Washington's creation
ORIGINS OF THE 'CONTRA WAR' 135
without any motivation of their own. In 1986, Laurence Whitehead wrote:

... The 'new right' in Nicaragua owes its origins quite directly to
meetings of the US National Security Council held in 1981. To be
specific, it originated in November 1981 when President Reagan
authorized the CIA to launch its 'covert' war against the Sandinistas.
Without that decision in Washington it seems doubtful whether the
counter-revolutionaries would ever have amounted to a serious force
... . There would in any event have been some opposition to the
Sandinistas - including armed opposition ... [Nevertheless,] I assume

that any 'critical choices' concerning the Nicaraguan right were made
not by the Contras as such but by their paymasters in Florida and
Washington.8
Even after the Nicaraguan conflict was over, one American scholar still
described it as a 'proxy war' that 'the United States launched' beginning 'in
1981'. 9
It is a fact that the largest Nicaraguan rebel organization, the Nicaraguan
Democratic Force (FDN), contained former members of deposed dictator
Anastasio Somoza's National Guard. This often led to blanket allegations
that its members were Somocistas fighting to restore a Somoza-style
regime.10
Some sought to portray the Contra insurgency as the cause of 'the
polarization of Nicaraguan society'.11 Benign assessments of Sandinista
intentions and actions survived even their February 1990 electoral defeat.
Steven Van Evera credits Sandinista agrarian reforms and educational
programs for creating the 'conditions for democracy' in Nicaragua.12
A selective reading of the relevant evidence might support the pro-
Sandinista view of the Nicaraguan conflict. One must concede that former
members of the National Guard did play a role in the fight against the
Sandinista regime.
It is equally true that the rebellion could not have sustained operations
at the scale it did without American aid. The move toward consolidation of
a Soviet-aligned regime in Nicaragua had consequences for a number of
American security concerns in the eyes of some members of the American
elite.13 This would do a lot to explain why the country would remain a focus
of American attention during the last years of the Cold War, and why the
Reagan administration would provide aid to the Sandinistas' opponents.
More generally, Nicaragua was one of several Third World countries in
which the United States engaged in 'proxy war' tactics during the 1980s.
This policy, often known as the 'Reagan Doctrine', sought to reverse the
gains that Moscow had made in the 1970s by supporting 'freedom fighters'
against Soviet-aligned regimes in regions of the world as diverse as
Afghanistan, Angola, and Kampuchea. The desired end was to bring about
a Soviet withdrawal from the Third World by raising the costs of supporting
Moscow's far-flung clients.14
These facts do not change numerous reports of support for the Contras
in many rural areas of Nicaragua. They also fail to account for the large
number of former Sandinista supporters or those too young to have had any
connection to the Somoza regime serving in the Contra ranks. Scholars less
sympathetic to the Sandinistas than those cited above described the
insurgency in different terms. They noted that non-Somocista elements had

joined the FDN to oppose the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN),
and that the anti-Sandinista rebellion appeared to enjoy genuine indigenous
support.15 Nevertheless, they generally described the Nicaraguan
insurgency's origins as being the remnants of the National Guard. This
probably resulted from the fact that some of the first American journalists
who covered the Contras based their stories on interviews with FDN
officers who were ex-Guardsmen.16
Although this view of the Nicaraguan conflict was more balanced than
the excessively pro-Sandinista one described above, it also requires
revision. Most importantly, it was former Sandinistas that started the
insurgency at least a year before the United States extended any military aid
to anti-Sandinista forces. Indeed this was at a time when Washington was
aiding Managua.
This essay argues that the war resulted from the application of a
particular developmental paradigm to Nicaragua by the FSLN. This
program reflected the Marxist-Leninist ideology of the Sandinista Front. It
also was consistent with the model of political and economic development
that the USSR encouraged Third World 'states of socialist orientation' to
follow in the 1970s and early 1980s. Sandinista policies caused the
polarization of Nicaraguan society in the 1980s, and the subsequent civil
war. Consequently the Nicaraguan conflict, and the subsequent electoral
defeats of the FSLN, reflect the inapplicability of Marxist development
schemes to Third World societies.
'Socialist Orientation' in the Third World

In the 1970s, the USSR adopted new tactics in much of the Third World.
During the Khrushchev era, it relied on noncommunist nationalist leaders as
its chief allies in securing influence there. This policy, initiated in the mid-
1950s, had enabled the Soviets to come out of isolation by establishing good
state-to-state relations with countries such as India and Afghanistan.
Moscow had been confident that this approach would project its influence
throughout the Third World,17 convert nationalist leaders to full-fledged
alliance with the USSR, and also persuade them to adopt Soviet-style
socialism.18 However, the Khrushchev-era policy suffered from two
weaknesses. Firstly, it rested on the survival and whims of individual
leaders. Secondly, Moscow and its clients lacked a common ideological
agenda." Therefore, this policy failed to achieve its more ambitious goals.
A number of Soviet client regimes were overthrown or reversed their
foreign policy alignment in the 1960s and early 1970s.20
Moscow placed new emphasis on helping Marxist-Leninist movements
come to power and/or consolidate their rule.21 Ideologists of the Communist

Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) referred to the new generation of Soviet
clients as 'socialist oriented' rather then fully 'socialist.' However, these
regimes were not likely to pick a fight with Moscow just to show their
ideological independence.22 Analysts would later argue that a key lesson of
the 'Grenada Documents' was exactly how seriously Third World
communists took their Leninism. The utility of ideology as a Soviet foreign
policy instrument was its ability to manipulate distant states.23
The new Third World communist states would be reliable allies for
another reason: Many of the new elites coming to power would be
dependent on Soviet support for their survival. Embracing Marxism-
Leninism and loyally following a policy of alignment with the Soviet Union
gave regimes with an often narrow domestic political base a claim to
international backing.24
Soviet analysts thought it important to institutionalize Moscow's client
regimes, and their pro-Soviet policies.25 Among the various policies they
desired in revolutionary regimes, alliance with the socialist community was
considered the most necessary for consolidating the revolution. Otherwise,
the domestic nature of many Third World societies would prevent transition
to real socialism.
In order to carry out this transition, amorphous 'national liberation
fronts' had to be converted into Marxist-Leninist Vanguard Parties
(MLVPs). Creation of such parties required Soviet-bloc involvement in
training cadres and providing instructional materials. MLVP cadres were
trained by Soviet and East European instructors and frequently sent for
training in the USSR itself.
The strategic goal was to assure lasting Soviet influence by remaking
Third World societies along Marxist-Leninist lines. This required the
breaking down of traditional social structures and the subordination of the
state to the vanguard party. Because of the state of development of many of
the USSR's clients, this involved social engineering on the scale undertaken
in Central Asia and Outer Mongolia in the 1920s.
The matter of ensuring that the revolution was protected by reliable
military and police establishments received considerable attention.
Politically trustworthy armed forces were necessary to prevent anti-Soviet,

counter-revolutionary coups such as occurred in Chile. Additionally, state
security organs capable of penetrating society were desired.
The stated ideological motives for Soviet activities in the Third World in
the 1970s and early 1980s were plausible. Moscow was making a genuine
effort to promote the emergence and consolidation of Marxist-Leninist
regimes in the developing world at a time when the Third World was one of
the last places where communist ideology was taken seriously.26 Soviet aid
to select 'national liberation movements' increased after 1971. This

reaffirmed the USSR's position as their patron at the expense of China,27 and
generally enhanced Moscow's role in the world communist movement.28
Establishment of Soviet client regimes facilitated access to guerrilla groups
in neighboring countries.29 Sometimes a Soviet client tried to earn Soviet
appreciation and support by serving as Moscow's middleman in dealing
with revolutionary groups.30
Regarding the economic policies to be pursued by 'states of socialist
orientation', the Soviets advocated a good bit of tactical flexibility. Soviet
academics came to accept that most Third World states could not yet break
with the world capitalist system. Therefore, many Soviet scholars of
developing countries urged the pursuit of a development model similar to
the New Economic Policy (NEP) practiced by Soviet Russia in the 1920s:
the state should control the 'commanding heights' of foreign trade and
finance. However, a private sector, and even some foreign investment,
would be acceptable.31
'Socialist Orientation' in Nicaragua

In understanding the political course adopted by the Sandinista National
Liberation Front in power one must remember its roots in the orthodox
Marxist-Leninist, Moscow-oriented Socialist Party of Nicaragua (PSN).
The FSLN had been founded in 1961 by a faction that disagreed with the
PSN over the tactics to be employed in coming to power, not over the
strategic goal of creating a communist Nicaragua. During the final years of
its struggle against the Somoza regime, the Front had come to power as
leader of a broad-based alliance. In this respect, it differed considerably
from other movements that ruled various 'states of socialist orientation' in
the Third World.32
However, after its July 1979 seizure of power, the Front faced the fact
that it ruled a socially conservative, religious country many of whose people
had no affinity for its agenda. In truth, the Sandinista victory owed a lot to
a policy of hiding this agenda from members of the traditional elite -
clergymen, businessmen, and politicians - whose willingness to align with
the Front had contributed much to its domestic and international legitimacy.
The Nicaraguan masses also had no great affinity for Marxism-Leninism.33
In one key respect the situation in Nicaragua resembled that in other 'states
of socialist orientation': The FSLN would have to surmount considerable
domestic antagonism in making the 'New Nicaragua' that it wanted.
Concerning Nicaraguan foreign policy, the FSLN was eager to align
itself with the Soviet bloc.34 As its 1977 'Platform' made clear, the Front
considered itself very much a part of the world communist movement.35 The
large number of agreements it entered into with the Soviet and other
communist parties after July 1979 illustrate this. Equally important,
Managua entered into a number of security relationships with the Soviet-
bloc countries. The latter became involved in training and equipping
Nicaragua's military establishment and internal security forces. This
process began at a time when the Sandinistas did not yet perceive any
serious immediate threat from former members of Somoza's National
Guard or elsewhere. It resembled closely the relations that existed between
the Soviet bloc and other 'states of socialist orientation'.
Sandinista Nicaragua generally conformed very much to a model of
what the USSR hoped to achieve in its Third World clients. Analyzing the
policies actually pursued by the FSLN in power and examining the
evaluation of Sandinista policies printed in the Soviet scholarly literature,36
allows some insight into what private advice Moscow probably gave to
Managua, and the degree to which the latter's policies conformed to the
wishes of Soviet policy-makers.37 One can conclude that the foreign and
domestic policies of Sandinista Nicaragua adhered closely to what the
USSR would have hoped from a Third World 'state of socialist orientation'.
Latinskaya Amerika, the official journal of the Institute of Latin America
(ILA) of the USSR Academy of Sciences, favorably assessed Sandinista
foreign policy. Soviet and Nicaraguan commentary credited it, and the
'socialist camp', with enabling the FSLN to pursue its own policies. The
Front would be able to accept the 'solidarity' of a number of West European
and Latin American countries, while not being diverted from its anti-
American foreign policy or its radical domestic transformation.
Washington's attempts to 'subvert' the revolution would fail.38
As noted above, the Soviets desired the formation of a vanguard party to
ensure the final success of revolutionary transformation. Here again,
Sandinista policy was more or less in line with what Moscow would have
wanted. The differentiation between the 'vanguard' and the rest of the
Nicaraguan population had been spelled out as early as May 1977.39 In
February 1980, the FSLN began preliminary moves toward making itself
over into a 'revolutionary party of a new kind', as Interior Minister and
FSLN National Directorate member Tomas Borge termed it. Efforts were
concentrated on increasing the number of cadres, and imbuing them with

the proper ideological awareness.40
These labors apparently met with Soviet approval. Marina Chumakova
reported that efforts were underway to make the Sandinista Front into a
'revolutionary party ... enriched by lessons of the world revolutionary
movement'.41 Additionally, a number of CPSU organizations entered into
formal contact with their FSLN counterparts. For example, the former's
youth wing (Komsomol) established ties with the latter's 19 of July
Sandinista Youth Movement. The CPSU Central Committee's Institute of

Marxism-Leninism cooperated with the FSLN Institute for the Study of
Sandinism.42 The latter institute was founded in January 1981 for, among
other purposes, propagandizing the Front's ideology among the mass
public.43
In addition to measures to make itself into a vanguard party, the FSLN
made sure it established its political hegemony over the state. It gave
'bourgeois' parties no other option other than accepting this. By the end of
its first five months in power, major strains were already emerging between
the Sandinistas and the non-Marxist opposition.44 The break became quite
obvious after the resignations of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro and Alfonso
Róbelo Callejas from the Government of National Reconstruction in April
and May of 1980, respectively. Debate over who should hold power was not
acceptable.45 A Western enthusiast of the FSLN described the process of
consolidating its control as a rejection of attempts to establish 'the structures
of bourgeois democracy'.46 Defense Minister and National Directorate
member Humberto Ortega made it clear that the only elections
contemplated for Nicaragua were those 'to improve the power of the
revolution ... not a raffle to see who has power, because the people have the
power through their vanguard, the Sandinista National Liberation Front
and its National Directorate'."
Soviet Latin Americanists urged the FSLN to preserve its wartime
united front with the private sector.48 Sergo Mikoyan spoke of the virtues of
maintaining some degree of pluralism in Nicaragua:
[Pluralism in the economy and politics knocks out of the hands of
counterrevolutionary forces and their imperialist allies the favorite
propaganda weapon: the bogey of the 'red danger', of 'communist
dictatorship', etc.
... [I]t is possible to reckon that the concept of political, as well as
economic, pluralism is understood as one of the forms of class
struggle ...
Toleration of the private sector would make possible 'unity on a new
basis'.49
After strains began to appear between the Sandinistas and their

opponents, Soviet commentary hardened. Chumakova noted that the 'main
boundaries of conflict between the revolutionary and conservative forces'
were regarding economic policy, the conduct of elections, and the
conditions of political activity. She endorsed the FSLN's refusal to move in
the direction of 'bourgeois parliamentarism'.50
The FSLN also undertook the remaking of Nicaraguan society. George
Black described this enthusiastically:
[T]he Sandinistas' aim was to make the spirit of the revolutionary war
permanent ... It means that the new society cannot be a simple
reorganization of economic relations. That reorganization must,
through permanent education, through raising the cultural and
ideological level of the workers and peasants, be matched by a radical
transformation of the mental patterns of individuals."
The immediate problem that the FSLN encountered in pursuing such a
goal was that the bulk of the population did not share its ideological
commitment. A new mass consciousness was necessary. This was
especially true among the workers, peasants, and ethnic minorities who
were supposedly to be the beneficiaries of the revolution.52
A key step in creating the new society was the institution of a new
educational system. The most noteworthy aspect of this was the Literacy
Crusade. The content of the materials used in the Crusade was blatantly
political and provoked considerable protest by the opposition.53 Although
several democratic countries offered to provide teachers for the Literacy
Crusade, the Sandinistas showed a definite preference for using Cubans.54
Political courses were set up in universities and often taught by
'internationalists' from Cuba and other countries. Several professors were
fired for 'systemic opposition' to change.55
These efforts to mold a new Nicaraguan met with Soviet approval.
Chumakova described such measures as the Literacy Crusade and the
dispatch of young people to Cuba for education as 'mighty means of
ideological and political education of the masses'. She also praised the
FSLN committees for educating 'the people' in the 'spirit of
internationalism' .56
One of the major obstacles to the establishment of a Marxist-Leninist
regime in Nicaragua was the deep religious convictions of many of its
people.57 The FSLN attempted to neutralize potential opposition from the
Roman Catholic Church in several ways. Citing the experience of the
USSR, internal FSLN documents spoke of the need to avoid a direct conflict
with the Church by a premature attempt to suppress religion. Instead the
Front tried other means to neutralize potential Church opposition to its rule,
including using religious symbols in its ideological propaganda and

encouraging the emergence of a pro-Sandinista 'Popular Church'. The latter
tactic was a divide-and-rule technique used by the Soviet regime against the
Russian Orthodox Church in the 1920s and by the Czechoslovak and Polish
governments against the Catholic Church in the 1940s and 1950s.58
Another major issue facing the Sandinista regime was the question of
what policies to pursue toward the ethnic and racial groups along the
Atlantic Coast.59 The region, which had been occupied by Britain until the
1890s, is inhabited by native Miskito, Sumo, and Rama Indians who speak
mostly their native tongues or English, and English-speaking black Creoles.
Never assimilated into Hispanic Nicaragua, they were 'Nicaraguan' more
by political fiat than anything else.
There was a fundamental contradiction between the Indians' desire for
self-rule and control over the resources in their territory and the FSLN's
agenda of exerting state control over society and the economy. The Front
simply accused the Indians and Creoles of 'very large ideological
backwardness' when referring to a situation in which many people did not
have class consciousness or acknowledge class distinctions.
A tense political situation developed. MISURASATA, originally formed
as a pro-Sandinista Indian organization, was suppressed and a number of
Indian leaders arrested. A number of Miskito Indians began fleeing to
Honduras in early 1981. A large resettlement of Miskito villages began later
that year, after some Miskito had rebelled. Even more refugees fled to
Honduras. A somewhat smaller number fled to Costa Rica.
Latinskaya Amerika cited the Soviet Union as an appropriate model of
multiethnic development for Latin American states with a large Indian
population.60 It accepted that 'reactionary' elements were responsible for the
Sandinista regime's troubles with its ethnic minorities, and elements of the
Roman Catholic Church. The problem was not that the FSLN had adopted
a model of development that was inappropriate for Nicaragua.61
The FSLN was free to carry out its program because it maintained
effective control of the armed forces. Its decrees of 18 September 1979, and
15 February 1980, made official the partisan nature of the Sandinista
People's Army (EPS) and Sandinistas People's Militia (MPS),
respectively.62 Military personnel regularly received political education.63 A
21-23 September 1979 meeting of cadres set for the FSLN the tasks of
'strengthening] the political education section' of the EPS and, 'at all
levels, getting rid of elements who are not compatible with revolutionary
measures.'64
One of the FSLN's mass organizations, the Sandinista Defense
Committees (CDS), also played a key role in security. The CDS organized
block committees, among whose functions was providing low-level
'vigilance' against 'counterrevolution'.65 The National Director of the CDS

was Soviet-educated Leticia Herrera, who was appointed to the post after
service as field commander during the 1979 Final Offensive.66 The Cuban-
trained General Directorate of State Security (DGSE) supervised the work
of the CDS.67
Soviet scholars approvingly cited these measures to provide for defense
of Sandinista power. Unlike the earlier cases of Guatemala and Chile, the
Nicaraguan revolution would be able to defend itself.68 Kiva Maydanik
enthusiastically highlighted the importance of FSLN control of the armed

forces and the security organs:
In Nicaragua there is no other power, besides the Sandinistas'. Its
basic structures, command of the armed forces, leadership of the
Sandinista Defense Committees ... are located in the hands of the
revolutionary vanguard.69
Sandinista economic policy was entrusted to Commander of the Revolution
Henry Ruiz, who had, like CDS head Leticia Herrera, been educated in the
USSR. After serving on the Northern Front until 1978 and being named a
member of the National Directorate in March 1979, he was made Minister
of Planning.™ Soon after his appointment in December 1979, his Planning
Ministry had a team of Bulgarian advisers attached to it."
Ruiz explained FSLN economic plans in a 1980 interview with
Mikoyan. 'Proceeding from a realistic position ... [Nicaragua could] not
take on the task of autonomous development', or even think of it. Therefore,
it would seek foreign financing and the 'maintenance of traditional trade
ties'. Ruiz also argued that the 'private sector has been called on to play an
important role in the new Sandinista economy'; its own interests called it to
help revive the economy.72
The Sandinistas tolerated the private sector even while extending the
size of the state sector to forty-one per cent of the gross domestic product.
This was accomplished by nationalizing the assets of the Somoza family
and its real or alleged supporters. The state sector, the Area of People's
Property (APP), came to encompass most of Nicaragua's agro-industrial
complexes and large estates.73 The state assumed control of foreign trade,
finance, and natural resources, even though the means of production
remained mostly in private hands.74 Despite being tolerated, the private
sector did not like the FSLN's attitude. One observer described it as
expecting businessmen to produce in accordance with 'rules laid down by
Bulgarian economists who were advising the Planning Ministry', while not
having any say in policy-making.75
Ruiz's ministry also turned mostly to the West to meet its financial
needs. Nicaragua got a five-year grace period on its external debt. Most of
its credit came from multilateral lending agencies and Western

governments.76
Sandinista economic policy conformed to what the Soviets were urging;
Soviet scholars were specifically advising the Nicaraguan government to
follow an NEP-style of economic development. They endorsed the
toleration of a private sector. There was also no reason why the Sandinistas
could not make use of foreign financing and investment. The regime's
exercise of effective political control and a favorable international climate
meant that the Sandinistas could take these measures without risk of
compromising their ultimate agenda.77
Soviet academics also saw Nicaraguan events moving in a positive
direction. Emil Dabagyan claimed that, despite the Socialist International's
support for the Nicaraguan Revolution and the aid that many social
democratic governments were giving to Nicaragua, the FSLN was not
turning to social democracy but away from it.78 Managua was moving along
a course Moscow found ideologically pleasing.79
Some Westerners often noted Managua's willingness to accept foreign aid
from numerous foreign countries, the existence of a private economic sector,
and its toleration of a token opposition, as proof that the Sandinista regime
was essentially committed to a moderate course at home and a genuinely
'nonaligned' foreign policy abroad. The above analysis indicates that Soviet
observers saw these more as temporary tactical necessities. This was the
understanding of the Sandinistas as well.80 If one argues that the FSLN's
tactical flexibility meant that it was not really Marxist-Leninist, then one must
lay this charge at the feet of V. I. Lenin for adopting the NEP.81
It is true that the Nicaraguan Revolution was proceeding at a less radical
pace than the Cuban one had during its early years. During his first 18
months in power, Fidel Castro completely shut down the opposition press
and expropriated much more of the private sector than the Sandinistas had
by 1981.82 This might at first seem curious in light of the fact that often
Cuba's ideological impact had been much more direct than that of the USSR
before July 1979.83 However, at this time, Castro acknowledged that 'no two
revolutions can be the same'. Due to the state of Nicaragua's economy, it
was appropriate to solicit 'the participation of every sector of Nicaraguan
society' and economic assistance from any potential foreign donor.84 Neither
Moscow nor Havana considered Managua's much vaunted 'moderation' to
be an unacceptable deviation from ideological orthodoxy.
Sources of Dissatisfaction with the Sandinista Regime

By the mid-1980s, the Nicaraguan economy would face severe difficulties.
Some of these were definitely the result of American pressure.85 Others were
traceable to the regime's war with the Contras, which absorbed considerable
resources.86 A lot of resources were lost to sabotage, some of which was
carried out by the CIA.87
However, Forrest D. Colburn's studies point out that the war could only
partially explain Nicaragua's rural economic problems.88 The decline in
productivity by the privately owned portion of the agro-export sector can be
attributed to the ideologically inspired policies and attitudes of the
Sandinista Front. For example, the low prices paid to producers by the state,
the open hostility of the Sandinista leadership to the private sector, and the
fear of many producers that their farms would be arbitrarily confiscated,
like some already had been, led to a drop in coffee and cotton production.
There was less financial incentive to invest and produce.89
The state agricultural sector of the Nicaraguan economy was
mismanaged. Its administration was bloated and inefficient. By May of
1985, Agriculture Minister Wheelock had to admit that most state farms
were failing due to lack of incentives for profitability and productivity.90
The rural poor, who were supposedly part of the Sandinista Front's
constituency, often suffered from its policies. Although many of the larger
estates had been expropriated, the regime did not want to increase the
number of independent small and medium peasants. Therefore, many
peasants did not receive their own land and were pressured to join state-
sponsored co-operatives.91 The regime's decisions to squeeze the rural areas
to support the cities led to a drop in real income for many.92
Sandinista policies also adversely affected the interests of many urban
dwellers. Their agricultural policies led to a decline in food production and
consumption.93 The effects of government attempts to regulate the economy
in urban areas were harmful both for private businessmen and consumers.94
The economic model the Soviets encouraged the Sandinistas to follow
displayed key structural weaknesses and contradictions. It had led to
conflict with the private sector, caused falling production in many cases,
and, as the economy contracted, adversely affected the interests of the poor
and humble.
The Sandinistas were losing much of their initial wide base of support
for other reasons. Many Nicaraguans, including even the poorer ones, had
long been anticommunist. This was acknowledged even by Western
sympathizers with the FSLN, who usually dismissed this as a sign of
backwardness or the legacy of Somocismo." One example of this
disatisfaction was the way peasants resented Cuban teachers mixing
indoctrination into their curriculum.96
One of the most serious aspects of regime-society tension was escalating
church-state tensions.97 Despite early support for the establishment of the
Sandinista regime at the time of Somoza's overthrow, Catholic Church
relations with the Sandinista Front had been deteriorating steadily since
1980. After a number of civilian opponents of the Front were silenced or
went into exile, Archbishop (later Cardinal) Miguel Obando y Bravo
became in effect leader of the internal civil opposition. The FSLN attempts
to deal with Catholic Church opposition grew to include censorship of
Church media, and occasional mob violence against individual clergymen
and their property.98 Some of Nicaragua's Protestant churches also drew the
wrath of the FSLN. Protestant groups that were not pro-Sandinista were
labeled as linked to 'imperialism' and subjected to mob violence and

confiscation of property.
Another focal point of popular resentment against the regime was the
emergence of a privileged 'new class' common to Marxist-Leninist political
systems." In this atmosphere, many Nicaraguans often did not accept the
official explanation that shortages and other hardships were caused by the
United States.100
Key Elements Leading To Rebellion

The previous section notes that the Sandinista regime gave many of its
citizens reasons to feel aggrieved. Several factors seem to have been the
most important in contributing to the Contra rebellion.
Initially, political retribution against former members of the National
Guard ensured that many probably felt that they had no choice but to remain
at large and armed.101 Groups of former Guardsmen in Honduras and
Guatemala aligned themselves with other Nicaraguan exiles for the purpose
of carrying out various paramilitary operations against the Sandinista
regime.102
However there was purely internal, non-Somocista armed resistance to
the Sandinista regime at least as early as July 1980, before most of the exile
groups had really mounted any effective action. It was that month that an
anti-Sandinista uprising actually began at Quilali in Jinotega district,
organized and led by disillusioned members of the Popular Anti-Somocista
Militias (Milpas) who had fought with the FSLN against the Somoza regime
in the 1970s. Among reasons that surviving rebels later gave for the uprising
were the controls slapped on farmers' economic activities and the arbitrary
nature in which regime policies were made and then imposed. This was
exacerbated by the mentality of FSLN cadres from the cities who felt that
they knew the interests of rural dwellers better than the campesinos
themselves. The latter resented the controls placed on their lives. Some had
already been jailed. At least one small band of campesino guerrillas led by
a former Sandinista fighter was operating in the area around El Cua, also in
Jinotega, in 1980 and 1981. The rebellions could not pose a serious threat
to the Managua regime; already it had created a regular military

establishment with Soviet-bloc aid. By mid-1981, most of the rebels were
joining the large number of Nicaraguans trudging toward refugee camps in
Honduras. It was here that many campesinos, most of them formerly hostile
to the Somoza regime and its National Guard and a number of them ex-
Sandinistas, would be pushed by force of circumstances into an uneasy
alliance with the ex-Guardsmen in the FDN.103
These early rebellions indicate that the key factor in the growth of armed
resistance was the widespread discontent of much of rural Nicaragua with

the Sandinista regime policies. These early rebellions do not appear to have
had any connection to former Guard members or to the United States. In
reality, they began in 1980 at a time when Washington was still providing
economic aid to the Sandinista regime. There is no serious account that
indicates that the Central Intelligence Agency or any other branch of the
American government began military aid to anti-Sandinista Nicaraguans
before well into 1981.104
The reasons that the early rebels cited for their actions are also
important. Talking to foreign observers, rebel soldiers would cite such
Sandinista measures as government seizures of family farms and pressure to
join co-operatives as the reasons they desired to fight the Sandinistas.
Others cited their religious faith.105 Only a minority of the rank and file had
served in the National Guard.106 Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras were a
ready source of Contra manpower.107
As the war went on, one source of recruits for the Contras was the
increasing number of Nicaraguans seeking to evade conscription into the
government armed forces. The Sandinistas 'imposfed] universal military
conscription for the first time in Nicaraguan history' in 1983.108 Just as some
South Vietnamese youths originally joined the Viet Cong to avoid
conscription into the Saigon government's army, some Nicaraguan youths
joined the Contras to avoid the Sandinista draft.109 Conscription was one of
the most resented Sandinista policies. When the Sandinistas pushed
peasants into a war in which many did not want to participate, large
numbers joined the rebels.110
The insurgency in eastern Nicaragua rates separate discussion. Although
many of the region's Indian and black citizens' economic and religious
complaints against the Sandinistas were the same as those of Hispanic
Nicaraguans,111 others were peculiar to the region. The Marxist-Leninist
nature of the Sandinista regime exacerbated traditional tensions between the
region's inhabitants and Managua in two ways. One was that the Front's
ideology clashed with the strength of anticommunist sentiment among the
Coast's peoples."2 The other was that Sandinista cadres assigned to the
region combined traditional racial condescension with the arrogance of
being a self-appointed ideological vanguard."3 Marxist-Leninist states have

often exacerbated traditional ethnic tensions by the authoritarian nature of
their actions."4 This apparently happened in Nicaragua as well.
Evidence of Popular Support for the Anti-Sandinista Insurgency

Common sense indicates that without some support base the Contra
insurgency would have flopped as thoroughly as the Cuban attempt to create
a revolution in Bolivia in 1967."5 There are several indications that the

rebellion had considerable popular backing in some areas of Nicaragua, and
reflected opposition to regime policies. The first was the growth of the
rebellion in numbers. According to one CIA estimate, by February 1983,
rebel strength had grown to 5,500, including Miskito Indians and forces
now operating out of Costa Rica."6 The largest of the rebel organizations
was the Honduran-based Nicaraguan Democratic Force."7
Managua also faced opposition from the Costa Rica-based Revolutionary
Democratic Alliance (ARDE). Operating under the military command of
former Sandinista war hero Eden Pastora and the political leadership of
Alfonso Róbelo, who had gone into exile in May 1982, ARDE forces began
military operations in April 1983."8 By 1984, the Sandinistas also had to fight
two rebel organizations recruited mostly from Miskito Indians along the
Atlantic Coast. MISURA loosely aligned itself with the FDN and operated in
northeastern Nicaragua along the Honduran border. MISURASATA, one of
five groups associated with ARDE, operated along the coast of central-eastern
Nicaragua from bases in Costa Rica. Together the two groups fielded 6,000
guerrillas and occasionally fought major battles against Sandinista ground and
air forces. According to a leading Western scholar on the peoples of eastern
Nicaragua, only a shortage of available weapons limited the number of black
and Indian guerrillas. This indicates that popular backing for the rebels was
strong along the Atlantic Coast.119
Another sign of the rebellion's support was the growth of its geographic
extent. In 1981, rebel operations consisted of a few spontaneous internal
revolts and small forays by ex-Guardsman from southern Honduras to
assassinate Sandinista officials and rustle cattle. By early 1983, FDN units
were operating as far as 100 miles into Nicaragua.120 By 1985, FDN units
would be operating in Chontales and Boaco districts, 200 miles from the
Honduran border, with apparent peasant complicity.121
Resistance groups would suffer major defeats. ARDE would come
undone largely due to Pastora's incompetence as field commander.122 The
Indian resistance groups would often be rendered ineffective after 1984 due
to internal divisions.123 The FDN would have to withdraw troops from
within inside Nicaragua in 1985-86 in order to escape from the firepower of
Soviet-supplied helicopter gunships and artillery employed by the

Sandinistas.124 However, none of these factors necessarily imply a lack of
popular support for the rebel cause. The Contras' 1987 offensive illustrates
this. The FDN, renamed as the Nicaraguan Resistance, launched a number
of major operations deep into Nicaragua after the provision of surface-to-air
missiles and radio scanners largely nullified the effectiveness of the
Sandinista air force.125
Throughout the war numerous foreign observers reported peasant co-
operation with the Contras. The resentment of regime policies was the given
reason.126 These accounts are credible for several reasons. Even scholars
sympathetic to the supposed good intentions of the Sandinistas reported the
bitterness of the rural population in regions such as Jinotega district.
Accordingly, it should not surprise anyone that observers reported
considerable support in that district for the Contras.127
Reports from a country at war are often biased. However, some
journalists and scholars noted that they did not expect to find the extent of
support for they found for the rebels. This was especially so considering the
fact that numerous FDN field commanders were former members of the
National Guard. Some who dared to report popular sympathy for the
Contras were often vilified by Sandinista sympathizers.128 Additionally,
even newspapers that took an editorial position against American aid to the
Contras often carried reports of support for the rebels in many parts of rural
Nicaragua.129 Even journalists who never completely outgrew their
sympathy for the Sandinistas reported popular backing for the Contras.130
Much of the population refused to rally to the government war effort.
Military conscription was enacted in 1983. As noted above, some
prospective draftees joined the Contras. Even though many did not, draft
resistance was common in both urban and rural areas by 1985. m Sometimes
it definitely reflected the ideological distaste many Nicaraguans had for the
regime.132 Although the way the Sandinistas supposedly 'distribute[d] arms
broadly among the civil population' impressed some foreign observers,133
others noted that the weapons were actually kept under the control of FSLN
local organizations in order to prevent their winding up in the wrong
hands.134
The Catholic hierarchy continued its opposition to the regime and
refused support on the key issue of the war against the resistance. A pastoral
letter of August 1983 criticized the military draft and argued that
Nicaraguans had the right to refuse military service because the Sandinista
armed forces were partisan organizations, not a national army.135 The Easter
1984 pastoral letter was a major bombshell. The Nicaraguan bishops
refused to support the Sandinistas in the civil war, or condemn American aid
to the rebels. Instead, they blamed the FSLN for polarizing the country,
criticized Soviet-bloc assistance to the regime, and called for a 'dialogue'

among Nicaraguans of all ideologies 'inside and outside the country',
specifically including the armed rebels. This proposal provoked
considerable regime hostility.136
Another testament to the support of the insurgents is the measures taken
by the Sandinistas to defeat them. In the mid-1980s, many peasants would
be arrested as Contra sympathizers, much of the rural population of
Nicaragua would be involuntarily resettled, and large areas of the country
would be made into free fire zones.137 Although some scholars often praised
the Sandinistas for redistributing land to individual peasants,138 this did not
really begin until 1985. It was a counter-insurgency measure, an attempt to
win back peasant support from the resistance.139 Trying to defeat the
insurgency, the Sandinistas combined reform with repression, a tacit
admission that the 'counterrevolution' reflected peasant grievances.
In fact much that the Sandinistas wound up doing was a tacit admission
of the Contras' strength. Despite their disdain for electoral democracy, they
would stage demonstration elections in 1984 in no small part to undermine
the Reagan administration rationale for supporting the Contras.140
A final testimony to Contra strength was the success of the Central
American peace plan of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez. The
Nicaraguan Resistance's 1987 offensive pushed the Sandinistas to embrace
the process in order to undermine support for Contra aid in the United States
Congress. After consistently rejecting the very idea of negotiating with the
Contras, the Sandinistas would do so in 1988-89. Without the threat of
renewed aid to the Contras it is doubtful that the FSLN would have accepted
the democratization of Nicaragua.141
Alternative Explanations of the Insurgency's Scope and Persistence

Some explanations deny that there was any significant support for the
Contras, and attribute the rebellion's persistence to other factors. Some
attribute it to Contra use of terror. One needs to make several points on this
subject. The first is that some cases of alleged Contra atrocities were often
presented in a rather dishonest manner.142 Secondly, civilian casualty figures
supplied by the Sandinistas often did not support allegations of mass
terror.143
Use of selective terror by insurgents against an incumbent government's
supporters does not preclude outside support for the rebel cause.144 In
addition to maintaining a peasant support network in the Sierra Maestra,
Fidel Castro's Rebel Army meted out 'swift revolutionary justice' to those
it suspected of providing information to the Batista regime.145 The Algerian
National Liberation Front often terrorized European civilians, Muslim
political rivals, and suspected traitors in its own ranks and still enjoyed a
substantial degree of support from the civilian population,146 and something
similar might have been the case in parts of Nicaragua.147
The Sandinista human rights record may be much worse than was often
reported by human rights groups during the 1980s.148 It reportedly included
arbitrary arrests, 'disappearance', torture, and summary execution of real or
suspected Contra supporters.149 This study will not even try to deal with all
the charges and countercharges about human rights violations made during
the Nicaraguan conflict. It is sufficient to note that both sides used violence
against supporters of the other. Therefore, the Contras' use of terror hardly
suffices to explain why they continued to survive in the field until after the
FSLN was voted out of office.
Foreign backing is also not a sufficient explanation of the insurgency's
persistence. It began before American aid arrived, indeed even before the
Carter administration ended economic assistance to Managua in January
1981.150 Even after American aid began in 1981, it was often interrupted by
Congressional cutoffs. At other times, it was restricted in such a way as to
reduce its effectiveness.151
Nor did the insurgency begin magically, by fiat from the military
governments of Honduras and Argentina. Until 1981, Honduran authorities
had been reluctant to let their territory be used by Nicaraguan exiles for anti-
Sandinista activities.1" After finding evidence of Sandinista involvement
with terrorism in Honduras, the Honduran armed forces expanded their ties
with the United States and Argentina. These new security relationships led
to such measures as the toleration of base camps for anti-Sandinista
Nicaraguans on Honduran territory.153
Foreign assistance to an insurgency does not mean that it lacks a
domestic base.154 During the Nicaraguan revolution in 1979, the Sandinista
Front received weapons from Cuba that were airlifted to Costa Rican base
areas in Soviet-made aircraft. Foreigners serving in Sandinista ranks
included Cuban intelligence personnel and members of the Popular
Vanguard Party of Costa Rica, the Moscow-line communist party in that
country. Propaganda support came from such Soviet fronts as the World
Peace Council and the Soviet media itself.155 However, no serious study of
the Nicaraguan Revolution would try to write it off as an 'international
communist plot'. The fact that much of the United States State
Department's controversial 1981 'White Paper' on foreign aid to the
Salvadoran rebels appears to be true does not change the fact that the civil
war in El Salvador began as an internal conflict.156
Foreign aid was a means not a cause. There is no proof that most Contras
were mercenaries. By all accounts, life in Contra units was grim and
hazardous. Although many involved in the Contra base organization in
Honduras received at least some financial support from the United States,
'the foot soldiers doing the fighting' were exceptions.157 One Canadian
scholar, who voluntarily served in the ranks of the Sandinista militia finds
it ludicrous to dismiss the Contras as the 'beasts' and 'mercenaries' depicted
in wartime Sandinista propaganda. He sees them as peasants who had their
own reasons for fighting, and in some ways not too different from those
serving in the Sandinista armed forces.158
Admittedly, Dillon's account underlines that the Contra insurgency was
often not just aided by the United States. At times, CIA personnel played a
key role in actually directing operations, such as the 1987 offensive.159
However, even outside direction does not necessarily mean that an
insurgency lacks indigenous support. One work on revolutionary struggle in
a South Vietnamese province has confirmed that the Viet Cong insurgency
was always under the strategic direction of the Vietnamese Workers' Party
leadership in Hanoi. Nevertheless, local Viet Cong strength was often
greater than could be accounted for by North Vietnamese infiltration.160
Some observers have acknowledged peasant discontent with the
Sandinistas, but attributed it to defensive measures brought about by war,
especially the state of emergency declared after several spectacular acts of
sabotage in March 1982.161 One obvious weakness in this analysis is bad
chronology. The paragraphs above indicate that well before this time
government policies had already alienated much of rural Nicaragua, and
peasants were already willing to fight the Sandinistas.
Government repression can work against insurgents if the civilian
populace blames it on guerrilla provocation. One recent analysis of the
defeat of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP) in Guatemala argues that
this explains the EGP's demise after 1982. At first, the Guatemalan military
had lashed out indiscriminately at the civilian population in an attempt to
eliminate EGP supporters, driving a large part of the Mayan Indian
population into rebel arms. Beginning in 1982, however, the government
armed forces adopted a more discriminating approach that attempted to win
back the allegiance of Indians willing to break with the rebels. Many
Mayans co-operated with the Guatemalan government's counterinsurgency
effort precisely because eliminating the rebels would remove the reason for
government repression in the first place. Doing so would restore their life to
the relatively peaceful state it had been in before the EGP's activities had
provoked the military.162
Sometimes the Sandinistas and their foreign supporters acknowledged
peasant support for the rebels, but preferred to rationalize it as a sign of
backwardness. This was best symbolized by the claim, 'They don't
understand the Revolution'.163 This is convincing only if one believes that
Sandinista policies were so obviously beneficial to the peasants that they
were foolish to reject them. The admissions of some Sandinistas since 1990
undermine this interpretation.164
A double standard has often been used in judging insurgencies. For
decades Western intellectuals have romanticized Marxist ones as a response
to oppression. The violence of the insurgents was forced upon them by an
unjust social order and the United States. The supposedly good intentions of
the revolutionaries were enough to grant absolution to any revolutionary
who committed atrocities. Those who opposed Marxist regimes were not
granted any benefit of the doubt regarding either their ends or their means.165
Presumably this can help to explain why one American scholar can, in the
same sentence, describe the Salvadoran conflict as 'an authentic civil war'
and the Nicaraguan one as 'a proxy war fought on behalf of one of the
superpowers' in the same sentence.166 Whatever the help that the Contras
received from Washington, 'as critics always used to lecture the U.S.
government during the Indochina warf,] no such uprising could sustain
itself with such persistence without an indigenous base'.167 Counter-
revolutions might reflect legitimate grievances and popular aspirations as
much as revolutions do, even if it is distasteful for some to acknowledge.
Conclusions
The existence of a sustained insurgency against the Sandinistas cannot be
attributed solely to the United States. The first 'counter-revolutionary' uprisings
began in July 1980. The United States did not aid them. At the time they began,
Washington was still providing economic assistance to Managua, which
continued until January 1981. It was not until late that year that anti-Sandinista
Nicaraguan exiles received any serious American military assistance.
One can safely conclude that the roots of the Nicaraguan civil war were
in the model of'socialist orientation' that the FSLN adopted. Nicaragua was
hardly the only Marxist-Leninist regime to face a peasant insurgency;
communist regimes were often the target of rebellion by the very peasants
they ostensibly represented, even in the early years of Bolshevik rule in
Soviet Russia. The Bolsheviks faced peasant uprisings in Tambov and other
regions. The rebellion of the sailors and soldiers of the Kronstadt garrison
in 1921 in some ways seems similar to the rising of former members of the
Popular Anti-Somocista Militia in Quilali in 1980. In both cases, peasant
soldiers who had fought for a revolution rebelled against a regime that they
had helped to put in power.168 Castro's Cuba fought several thousand
'bandits' in the Escambray Mountains from 1960-66.169
Nicaragua was only one instance of anticommunist insurgency directed
at a Soviet client in the Third World during 1980s. As noted above, it was
one of a number of cases in which a Third World regime tried to mold a
society along Marxist-Leninist lines in alliance with the Soviet bloc. In

many 'states of socialist orientation', armed resistance was triggered by
aspects of the regimes' own social engineering: economic controls, the
attack on traditional society, and attempts to place political restrictions over
daily life.170 As one previous sympathizer with Third World revolutions has
noted, these regimes tried to fit their societies into a mold that was based on
a foreign ideology. Accordingly, they must accept their share of the blame
for the resulting conflicts.171
The Gorbachev-era Soviet critique of 'socialist orientation' found it

inapplicable to most Third World societies. Instead, Moscow would
encourage its clients to pursue policies based on 'national reconciliation',
including negotiations with insurgents and the holding of elections.172
Criticism of 'socialist orientation' was extended to Nicaragua. It helped lead
to pressure on Managua to embrace the Central American peace process.
After the Sandinistas were voted out of office, most Soviet commentators
were unsparing in their criticism of Sandinista performance.173 In the
passages cited above, Marina Chumakova praised Sandísimo. Now she
would describe how the Sandinistas' policies had led to civil war in terms
used by some of their North American critics.174
Although it still is asserted that the Contras 'were ... losers',175 they
arguably won a victory. It is true that they did not crush the Sandinista
military in battle,176 but this is irrelevant. As noted above, without the 1987
Nicaraguan Resistance offensive, it is doubtful that the Sandinistas would
have accepted the Central American peace plan.177 In view of the FSLN's
profound contempt for democracy, its willingness to accept the
democratization of Nicaragua is testimony to a profound defeat.
Although some have preferred to see the counterrevolution as an excuse
for Sandinista regime shortcomings,178 it was arguably an indictment of
FSLN policies. The rebels were often officered by ex-National Guardsmen
who in other circumstances would have been political nonentities in post-
Somoza Nicaragua. They were also tied to a foreign power with an imperial
past in the country. However, it is equally true that some of the rural poor
who were part of the Sandinista regime's ostensible social base were the
ones that fought for and supported the counter-revolution. Their grievances
appear to have been real, even if 'progressive' North Americans and West
Europeans hardened their hearts, shut their ears, and never heard the cries
of those people. Some of these same peasants had even fought with the
Sandinistas against the Somoza regime in the 1970s. This makes it all the
more ironic when one remembers that the Sandinista regime assumed power
with a much larger base of popular support than most 'states of socialist
orientation'. Its failure indicates that Third World Marxist elites never really
understood the peoples for which they claimed to speak.
NOTES
1. Glenn Garvin, Everybody Had His Own Gringo: The CIA and The Contras (Washington:
Brassey's [US] 1992); and Sam Dillon, Commandos: The CIA and Nicaragua's Contra
Rebels (New York: Henry Holt and Company 1991). The latter work is the better
documented.
2. Dillon (note 1) did receive a good bit of attention from reviewers, but it was cited
tendentiously at times. The most egregious example is probably RJ. McDonnell, 'The Dirty
War in Nicaragua', Los Angeles Times Book Review, 20 October 1991, pp.2 and 15, which
accepts any unfavorable information Dillon presents on the Contras and their American
backers. At the same time, McDonnell dismisses Dillon's evidence that the rebels had a
social base or the importance of the fact that many ex-Sandinistas served in the Contra
ranks.
3. Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War 1945-1996, 8th ed. (New York:
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1997) p.331
4. The Reagan administration cited several guerrilla operations by disaffected former
Sandinista militiamen in '1979-80' in 'Matagalpa, Nueva Segovia, Jinotega, and
elsewhere in northern Nicaragua' in one of its many reports on that country. U.S.,
Department of State, Nicaraguan Biographies: A Resource Book, Special Report No.174
(Washington, DC: Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs January 1988) p.5. This
seems to date these activities a little earlier than Dillon and Garvin do. However, they and
many other journalists confirm this publication's picture of the humble rural origins of
many Contra fighters.
5. This was at a public speech at the University of California, Davis campus in early 1985
which the current author attended.
6. Garvin (note 1) pp.126-8; and Dillon (note 1) p.210.
7. Gary Webb, quoted in 'For the Record', National Review, 25 November 1996, p.8.
8. L. Whitehead, 'The Prospects for a Political Settlement: Most Options Have Been
Foreclosed', in The Central American Impasse, ed. Laurence Whitehead and Giuseppe Di
Palma (New York: St. Martin's Press 1986) p.229 (emphasis added to 'assume').
9. T. Karl, 'Central America at the End of the Cold War', in Beyond the Cold War: Conflict
and Cooperation in the Third World, Research series 80, ed. George W. Breslauer, Harry
Kreisler, and Benjamin Ward, (Berkeley, CA: University of California at Berkeley, Institute
of International Studies 1991) pp.23 In and 244.
10. P. Gleijeses, 'Resist Romanticism', Foreign Policy 54 (Spring 1984) p.134.
11. M. Edelman, 'Soviet-Nicaraguan Relations and the Contra War', in Vital Interests: The
Soviet Issue in U.S. Central American Policy, ed. Bruce D. Larkin (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner Publishers 1988) p.365.
12. S. Van Evera, 'Why Europe Matters, Why the Third World Doesn't: American Grand
Strategy After the Cold War', Journal of Strategic Studies 13/2 (June 1990) pp.26-7.
13. Gordon McCormick, Edward Gonzalez, Brian Jenkins and David Ronfeldt, Nicaraguan
Security Policy: Trends and Projections, Report R-3532-PA&E (Santa Monica, CA:
RAND Corporation January 1988). Admittedly, most opponents of aid to the Contras
would have denied the validity of American security concerns.
14. Peter W. Rodman, More Precious Than Peace: The Cold War and the Struggle for the Third
World (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1994) Ch. 11 pp.259-88.
15. R. Leiken, 'The Battle for Nicaragua', New York Review of Books, 13 March 1986,
pp.43-52; and M. Radu, 'Nicaragua', in The New Insurgencies: Anticommunist Guerrillas
in the Third World, ed. Michael Radu (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers 1990)
pp.260-262.
16. J. LeMoyne, 'The Secret War Boils Over: The U.S.-backed guerrillas establish an anti-
Sandinista foothold in Nicaragua', Newsweek, 11 April 1983, pp.46-50; and Christopher
Dickey, With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua (New York: Simon and
Schuster 1985). Radu, 'Nicaragua' drew on this work for its description of the origins of
the insurgency. Leiken, 'Battle for Nicaragua' was based in part on Dickey's 1983 articles
for the Washington Post and LeMoyne.
17. Stephen T. Hosmer and Thomas W. Wolfe, Soviet Policy and Practice toward Third World
Conflicts (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books 1983) pp.9-16.
18. Alexander R. Alexiev, The New Soviet Strategy in the Third World, RAND, Note N-1995-
AF (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 1983) pp.5-9.
19. Francis Fukuyama, Moscow's Post-Brezhnev Reassessment of the Third World, RAND
Report R-337-USDP (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation February 1986) pp.29-30.
20. Hosmer and Wolfe (note 17) p.27; and Alexiev, New Soviet Strategy (note 18) pp.9-10
21. D. Zagoria, 'Into the Breach: New Soviet Alliances in the Third World', in The Conduct of
Soviet Foreign Policy, 2nd ed., ed. Eric p.Hoffman and Frederick J. Fleron, Jr. (New York:
Aldine Publishing Company 1980) p.500.
22. Fukuyama (note 19) pp.30-1.
23. C. Fairbanks, Jr., 'Notes on Grenada, Soviet Proxies, and U.S. Policy', in Grenada and
Soviet/Cuban Policy: Internal Crisis and U.S./OECS Intervention, ed. Jiri Valenta and
Herbert J. Ellison (Westview Press 1986) pp.228-9.
24. Alexiev, New Soviet Strategy (note 18) pp.30-1 ; and Zagoria, in Conduct of Soviet Foreign
Policy (note 21) pp.497-8
25. The measures summarized here are described in some detail in Alexiev, New Soviet
Strategy.
26. Francis Fukuyama, Scott Bruckner, and Sally Stoecker; Soviet Political Perspectives on
Power Projection, RAND Note N-2430-A (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation March
1987) pp.13-14.
27. Hosmer and Wolfe (note 17) pp.41 and 54.
28. K. Maxwell, 'A New Scramble for Africa?' in Conduct of Soviet Foreign Policy (note 20)
p.516.
29. Alexiev, New Soviet Strategy (note 18) pp.22-3.
30. One example was the New Jewel regime on Grenada. This is pointed out by V. Aspaturian,
'The Impact of the Grenada Events on the Soviet Alliance System', in Grenada and
Soviet/Cuban Policy (note 23) p.45. See the 11 July 1983 report of the Grenadian embassy
in Moscow. Reprinted as 'Document 6: Appendix A', in ibid. pp.305-14.
31. E. Valkenier, 'Development Issues in Recent Soviet Scholarship', World Politics 32 (1980)
pp.485-508.
32. In Ethiopia, for example, the 'revolution' that brought the Derg to power between 1974-77
was little more than infighting between various military cliques and student groups. Forrest
D. Colburn, The Vogue of Revolution in Poor Countries (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press 1994) pp.22-3 and 52.
33. For a good discussion of the development of FSLN ideology and tactics through the victory
of 1979, see David Nolan, The Ideology of the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Revolution
(Coral Gables, FL: Institute of Interamerican Studies, Graduate School of International
Studies, University of Miami 1984). The Front's ideological commitments were spelled out
in its 1969 'Historic Program' and its 1977 'General Political-Military Platform of the
FSLN for the Triumph of the Popular Sandinista Revolution'. These are reprinted as
Appendices A and B in Conflict in Nicaragua: A Multidimensional perspective, ed. Jiri
Valenta and Esperanza Duran (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1987) pp.285-329.
34. The discussion of Soviet relations with Sandinista Nicaragua in this section is based in
general on Robert P. Hager, Jr., 'Moscow and the Central American Crisis, 1979-1991',
(Doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1993) Ch. 3 pp.114-206.
35. 'General Political-Military Platform of the FSLN for the Triumph of the Popular Sandinista
Revolution', in Conflict in Nicaragua (note 33) especially pp.302-3.
36. There was considerable commentary on the new Nicaragua in the Soviet Latin Americanist
literature in 1979-80. The February and March 1980 issues of Latinskaya Amerika devoted
considerable space to the presentation of a 'round table' discussion at the Latin America
Institute of the Nicaraguan events. These, and other papers presented at the 'round table',
were published along with other Latinskaya Amerika articles in Nicaragua: Long Road to
Victory, Latin America: Studies by Soviet Scholars 1 (Moscow: Social Sciences Today
1981). (However, the translation often leaves out a lot of important detail.) The July 1980
issue of Latinskaya Amerika featured a section on 'Nicaragua: One Year of People's
Power'. Additionally, several other articles dealing with Nicaraguan affairs or interviews
with Sandinista leaders appeared in that journal during 1979-81.
37. As several well-informed Western scholars were able to determine on their trips to the
USSR, Soviet scholars frequently were commissioned to make analyses for responsible
decision-makers. Jerry Hough, The Struggle for the Third World: Soviet Debates and
American Options (Washington: Brookings Institution 1986) pp.262-4; and Robert 0.
Freedman, Moscow and the Middle East: Soviet Policy Since the Invasion of Afghanistan
(New York: Cambridge University Press 1991) p.14. Fukuyarna (note 19) pp.27-8 noted
that during the 1970s the writings of Soviet scholars regarding the necessity for
revolutionary regimes to create a vanguard party were reflected in actual practice; Moscow
did try to form such parties in a number of Third World clients.
38. M. Chumakova, 'Na slozhnom puti', Latinskaya Amerika 7 (July 1980) pp.48-56; V.
Dmitriyev, "Politicheskoye manevrirovaniye SShA," Latinskaya Amerika 7 (July 1980)
pp.56, 62-3, and 66; and Nicaraguan Planning Minister Henry Ruiz, interview with
Latinskaya Amerika editor S. Mikoyan, 'Khenri Ruiz: zadacha segodnyashnego dnyapridat
noviy impuls' nikaraguanskoy ekonomiki', Latinskaya Amerika 10 (October 1980) pp.5
and 98.
39. 'General Political-Military Platform of the FSLN for the Triumph of the Popular Sandinista
Revolution' in Conflict in Nicaragua (note 33) p.309.
40. George Black, Triumph of the People: The Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua (London:
Zed Press 1981) pp.257-9.
41. Chumakova, 'Na slozhnom puti' pp.44-5
42. J. Valenta and V. Valenta, 'The FSLN in Power', Conflict in Nicaragua (note 33) p.32.
43. E. Dabagyan provided a description of the Institute for the Study of Sandinism. 'Visiting
among Nicaraguan Scholars', Latinskaya Amerika 3 (March 1981), pp.126-8; in Joint
Publications Research Service (hereafter referred to as JPRS), 80755 (7 May 1982),
pp.67-70.
44. Black (note 40) pp. 185-96.
45. Shirley Christian, Nicaragua: Revolution in the Family 2nd ed. (New York Vintage Books
1986) pp.171-5. Ibid., pp.216-23 provides a description of the 'vanguard' mentality of the
FSLN leadership.
46. Black (note 40) pp.253-6.
47. Statement of 23 August 1980, reprinted in Central American Crisis Reader ed. Robert S.
Leiken and Barry Rubin (New York: Summit Books 1987) pp.227-9, (emphasis in the
original).
48. For example, K. Maydanik, 'Klyuchevoy vopros - yedintsvo', Latinskaya Amerika 2
(February 1980) p.48.
49. Mikoyan, 'Ob Osobonnostyakh Revolyutsii v Nikaragua I yeo Urokakh s Tochki Zreniya
Teorii i Praktiki Osvoboditel'nogo Dvizeniya (Zklyuchitel'noye Slovo)' (hereafter referred
to as 'Ob Osobonnostyakh Revolyutsii v Nikaragua'), Latinskaya Amerika 3 (1980) pp.42
and 44.
50. Chumakova, 'Na slozhnom puti' pp.46-7.
51. Black (note 40) p.185.
52. Ibid. pp.305-7.
53. Ibid. pp.311-16. Valenta and Valenta described the ideological, militaristic nature of the
texts they obtained in Managua in Conflict in Nicaragua (note 33) p.30. Passages from
other texts, trans. by Gladys Segal can be found in Central American Crisis Reader (note
47) pp.235-6.
54. By the time of the closing of the Crusade in August 1980, 1,200 Cubans had been
employed as opposed to 40 teachers from Costa Rica, 70 from Spain, and 39 from the
Dominican Republic. The American offer of Peace Corps volunteers had been rejected.
Robert A. Pastor, Condemned to Repetition: The United States and Nicaragua (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press 1987) p.215.
55. One of these was the leader of the Social Christian Party. Christian (note 45) p.146.
56. Chumakova, 'Na slozhnom puti' pp.41 and 44-5.
57. This analysis of Sandinista relations with Nicaragua's churches drew mostly on Humberto
Belli, Nicaragua: Christians Under Fire (Garden City, MI: Puebla Institute 1984); Stephen
Kinzer, Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons
1991) Ch. 13 pp.190-208; and Christian (note 45) Ch.15, pp.236-72.
58. For the experience of the 'Living Church' in Russia, see Richard Pipes, Russia Under the
Bolshevik Regime (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1994; New York Vintage Books 1995)
pp.359-62. The parallel between the Czechoslovak Pacem in Terris and the 'Popular
church' in Nicaragua was made by Belli (note 57), pp.31-2. For a discussion of the use of
'progressive' Catholic groups by the Polish regime, see Adam Bromke, Poland's Politics:
Idealism vs. Realism, Russian Research Center Studies 51 (Cambridge, MA Harvard
University Press 1967) pp.80-5 and Ch. 11 pp.213-31.
59. The discussion of the Atlantic Coast is based on Bernard Nietschmann. 'The Unreported
War Against the Sandinistas: 6,000 Indian Guerrillas Are Fighting for Their Land', Policy
Review, 29 (Summer 1984), pp.32-9; Kinzer, Blood of Brothers Ch 16 pp.251-88; Belli,
(note 57) Ch.5 pp.73-80; Christian (note 45) Ch.18 pp.295-309, and Janusz Bugajski,
Sandinista Communism and Rural Nicaragua, Washington Papers 143 (New York Praeger
with the Center for Strategic and International Studies 1990), Ch.4 pp.673-87.
60. A. Shul'govskiy, 'In the Search for National Uniqueness and Social Ideals (Latin America
and the Experience of Creating the Multinational Soviet State)', Latinskaya Amerika 12
(December 1982) pp.8-26, in JPRS, 83287 (19 April 1983) pp.3-19.
61. This was the assessment of Father Fernando Cardenal in a May 1982 interview. 'The
Revolution is Irreversible', Latinskaya Amerika 10 (October 1982), pp.69-84, in JPRS,
83022 (7 March 1983), pp.49-53. Cardenal was Nicaraguan Vice-Minister of Education
and National Co-ordinator of the 1980 Literacy Crusade before becoming a leader of
Sandinista Youth. Nolan (note 33) p.140.
62. A. Teran, 'Aspects of the Evolution of Law in Sandinista Nicaragua', in Conflict in
Nicaragua (note 33) p.76.
63. Black (note 40) p.225.
64. This was recorded in the '"Seventy-Two Hours" Document', reprinted in Central American
Crisis Reader (note 47) p.225.
65. Black (note 40) pp.239-44 provided an enthusiastic description. Christian (note 45) p.145
noted that some critics thought that the CDS resembled Somoza's system of informers.
66. Nolan (note 33) pp.145-6 provides biographical details on Herrera.
67. Interview with former DGSE counter-intelligence officer Miguel Bolanos Hunter by Oral
History Project International Studies Program, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy,
reprinted in Hydra of Carnage: The International Linkages of Terrorism and Other Low
Intensity Operations: The Witnesses Speak, ed. Uri Ra'nan, Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., R. H.
Schultz, Ernst Halperin, and Igor Lukes (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books 1986) p.310
68. N. Leonov, 'Massa, avangard, lider,' Latinskaya Amerika 2, (February 1980) p.37;
Mikoyan, 'Ob Osobonnostyakh Revolyutsii v Nikaragua' pp.41-2; and Chumakova, 'Na
slozhnom puti' pp.42-4.
69. Maydanik (note 48) p.41.
70. Nolan (note 28) p.151.
71. Christian (note 45) pp.157-8.
72. Mikoyan, 'Khenri Ruiz' pp.92-6.
73. Forrest D. Colburn, Managing the Commanding Heights: Nicaragua's State Enterprises
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp.42-3.
74. Black (note 40) pp.201-6.
75. Christian (note 45) p.214. The distrust between the state and private agricultural producers
is also described in Forrest D. Colburn, Post-Revolutionary Nicaragua: State, Class, and
the Dilemmas of Agrarian Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
76. Black (note 40) pp.218-19.
77. For explicit endorsement of the NEP model for Nicaragua, see Vladimir Davydov, 'The
Objective Basis of Socio-Economic Transformations', in Nicaragua: Long Road to Victory
(note 34) pp.208-11. For examples of praise of Sandinista policies toward the private
sector and foreign financing, see Mikoyan, 'Ob osobonnostyakh Revolyutsii v Nikaragua'
pp.42-4; and Chumakova, 'Na slozhnom puti' pp.39-40 and 56.
78. 'Social Democracy and Nicaragua', in Nicaragua: Long Road to Victory (note 34)
pp.208-14.
79. See the various Soviet sources cited by Hager, 'Moscow and the Central American Crisis'
pp.164-5.
80. The Sandinista leaders' claim that Nicaragua was moving toward a 'people's democracy'
seems to have been accepted by the Soviets. Even before July 1979, a claim by a ranking
Sandinista leader that this was the FSLN's goal was printed in the Soviet-line international
communist press. German Pomares, 'National Liberation Front of Nicaragua: "We Will
Continue the Struggle"'. International Bulletin 17/9 (1979): 51-4. Pomares was then
commander of the Sandinista Northern Front. This article was originally printed in a
February 1979 issue of the Cuban magazine Bohemia. Ruiz's assertion that Nicaragua was
moving in such a direction was printed in Latinskaya Amerika in 1980. See 'Khenri Ruiz'
p.94.
81. For the argument that the FSLN's commitment to Leninist orthodoxy should be taken quite
seriously, see also Phil Ryan, The Fall and Rise of the Market in Sandinista Nicaragua
(Buffalo: McGill-Queen's University Press 1995) Ch.2 pp.22-54.
82. Pastor (note 54) pp.228-9.
83. Many Sandinista leaders had spent some time and been trained in Cuba. Ryan (note 81)
pp.23-4.
84. See his speech of 26 July 1979, reprinted in Fidel Castro Speeches: Cuba's Internationalist
Foreign Policy 1975-8), ed. Michael Taber (New York: Pathfinder Press 1981)
pp.293-309.
85. The United States began trying to reduce Nicaragua's access to credit from multilateral
lending agencies such as the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank in late
1981. It also refused to sell Nicaragua certain needed repair parts for its computers and cut
its sugar quota by 40 per cent in 1983. This sort of action altered traditional Nicaraguan
trading patterns. R. Berrios and M. Edelman, 'Diversifying Dependence: Nicaragua's New
Economic Links', in Vital Interests (note 10) p.405.
86. Twenty-five per cent of the state budget would be officially devoted to defense in 1984.
Noted in Colburn, Managing the Commanding Heights, p.3.
87. For example, boats manned by the CIA's 'Latino assets' raided port facilities and destroyed
millions of gallons of fuel at Corinto in September and October 1983. Dickey (note 16)
p.259.
88. For one thing, most of the fighting took place in areas marginal to the economy. Colburn,
Post-Revolutionary Nicaragua (note 75) p.3. For another, most state enterprises were not
in the war zone. Colburn, Managing the Commanding Heights (note 73) p.82.
89. Colburn, Post-Revolutionary Nicaragua, ibid, especially pp.49, 51-9, 60 and 68-83. For a
good example of FSLN hostility toward the private sector, see Agricultural Minister
Wheelock quoted, in Colburn, Managing the Commanding Heights, ibid, p.35.
90. Colburn, Managing the Commanding Heights ibid, pp.111 and 134. Four out of 102 were
profitable, p.24.
91. Bugajski (note 57) pp.42-5 and 50-8.
92. Colburn, Post-Revolutionary Nicaragua (note 75) pp.86, 94-5, and pp.117-20; and
Colburn, Managing the Commanding Heights (note 73) p.90.
93. Price controls, which destroyed the incentive for farmers to produce, led to a drop in the
production of food grains. Colburn, Post-Revolutionary Nicaragua, ibid, pp.99-100, and
Bugajski (note 57) pp.47-8. See also the discussion by a former New York Times
correspondent Kinzer, Blood of Brothers, p.121. Meat consumption for the general
population also declined due to government regulations on the slaughter of cattle and price
controls on beef; the resultant cattle smuggling to Costa Rica and Honduras caused meat
supplies in Nicaragua to drop drastically. Ibid., p.157.
94. The foreign trade monopoly disrupted the supply network of small-scale entrepreneurs.
Businessmen found that hard currency was lacking to buy needed goods. Controls over
wages and other forms of payment led to a loss of labor. These controls reportedly led to
the same problems of absenteeism and labor shortages in state-owned factories. Ibid.,
pp.129 and 153-4. Government attempts to impose what market vendors in the towns
considered to be politically-motivated controls were a constant source of conflict. Christian

(note 45) pp.273-85.
95. See Black (note 40) pp.305-7.
96. LeMoyne (note 16) p.48.
97. Belli (note 57); Kinzer, Blood of Brothers (note 57) Ch. 13 pp.190-208; and Christian (note
45) Ch.15, pp.236-72.
98. Belli (note 57) pp.48-9. See Christian (note 45) pp.266-7 for a description of mob attacks
against Protestant sects.
99. The term was invented by the Yugoslav former communist Milovan Djilas, The New Class:
An Analysis of the Communist System (New York: Frederick A. Praeger 1957). Regarding
the Sandinista 'new class', see Kinzer, Blood of Brothers, pp.159-61.
100. This has been recounted by a number of American observers. See G. Russell, 'Nicaragua:
Gloom but Not yet Doom: Beset by war and weariness, the ruling Sandinistas are
struggling', Time (14 May 1984) pp.30-2; and Kinzer, Blood of Brothers, ibid, p.166.
Christian (note 45) p.280 records that market vendors felt that the government was playing
politics with the food supply.
101. Leiken, 'Battle for Nicaragua' (note 15) p.52 noted that Jorge Alaniz Pinell, Nicaraguan
representative to the UN Human Rights Commission for 1980-82 reported two massacres
in which 130 former Guardsmen were killed occurred before 1981. Belli (note 57) pp.61-2
recounted one case in which the defendant received a 23-year sentence even though it could
not be proved that he had ever performed any military duties except those of a cook. (Belli
served as defense counsel for several former Guardsmen.) Ibid., App 23, pp.134-7
reprinted the conclusions of the August 1980 report by the International Commission of
Jurists. This noted that many of these trials were blatantly partisan in nature and that
sentences were imposed on the basis of 'guilt by association' and often with 'lack of
proof'.
102. This is described in Dickey (note 16) and Garvin (note 1).
103. Garvin (note 1) pp.18-20; and Dillon (note 1) pp.39-59. Both of these works provide
numerous accounts of the tension between the ex-Guardsmen and former Sandinistas
within the ranks of the FDN.
104. Pastor (note 54) pp.233-7 notes that it was early in 1981 that the Reagan administration
decided to let Nicaraguan exiles use training camps in California and Florida. The
administration's original intent was to use the camps as bargaining chips in negotiations
with the Sandinista government. After a 'Presidential Finding' of 9 March 1981, authorized
covert action to interdict arms flowing to Marxist insurgents, CIA agents began contacting
Nicaraguan exile groups. Some of these groups were already receiving Argentine
assistance; this was retaliation for Sandinista support for Argentine terrorists. It appears
that some American financial assistance to anti-Sandinista Nicaraguans and private
commitments to aid them were given even before the failure of American-Sandinista
negotiations in the autumn of 1981. However, the Reagan administration finally decided to
commit itself wholeheartedly to anti-Sandinista military activities only in November.
105. Dillon (note 1) pp.39-59. See also LeMoyne (note 16) p.48. Kinzer, Blood of Brothers
(note 57) pp.295-6.
106. Garvin (note 1) p.63 notes that as early as June 1982 one FDN unit entering Nicaragua
from Honduras consisted of 14 former Guardsmen, six former Sandinista soldiers, and 48
campesinos. Ibid. p.68 notes that when the same unit made another foray into Nicaragua in
November it consisted of 120 personnel of which only 14 were ex-Guard. Garvin's account
is based in large part on interviews with former Contras.
107. Regarding the attitudes of Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras, also see Kinzer, Blood of
Brothers (note 57) pp.102 and 117.
108. Ibid. p.203.
109. Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province
(Berkeley: University of California Press 1972) pp.72-3.
110. Kinzer, Blood of Brothers, p.296; and Dillon (note 1) pp. 138-9.
111. Kinzer, Blood of Brothers, ibid, p.259 notes that Indian farmers had to join state
cooperatives and sell their produce to government agencies just as those in other regions.
Belli (note 57) p.46 points out that the first Protestant church to face open government
hostility was the Moravian, to which many Miskitos belong.
112. Kinzer, Blood of Brothers, ibid, p.258 notes that many people of the Coast were anti-
communist, anti-Cuban and pro-American.
113. Bugajski (note 59) pp.69-77
114. Hugh Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution, 3rd ed. (New York: Frederick A.
Praeger 1956) p.342 noted:
Ideological dictation and repression may breed nationalism. Even if Hungarian
peasants are no longer to be persecuted for being Hungarians, they are liable to be
persecuted for being kulaks, or for being Catholics, or for being 'reactionary'. Will
the average man distinguish the motives for which he is maltreated, or prefer one
form to another? When he is beaten by the police, the Croatian peasant is likely, as
in the past, to blame 'the damned Serbs', or the Hungarian 'the accursed
Rumanians'.
115. Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (New York: Grove Press 1997)
Ch.29 pp.701-39.
116. Cited by Roy Gutman, Banana Diplomacy: The Making of American Policy in Nicaragua
1981-1987 (New York: Simon & Schuster 1988) p.115.
117. The Honduran army estimated that the FDN had 4,000-5,000 troops operating inside
Nicaragua in February-March 1983, the time of its first major offensive. LeMoyne, cited
by ibid. p.149.
118. Pastora claimed that his forces grew from 500 to over 2,000 in several months. Gutman
(note 116) p.151.
119. Nietschmann (note 59) pp.32-6. See ibid. p.37 for a map of MISURA and MISURASATA
operations. Another account of the feelings of the Atlantic Coast population toward the
Sandinistas was provided by Joan Frawley of the National Catholic Register, 'Among the
Miskitos: Bluefields, Nicaragua under the Sandinista Harrow', Policy Review 28 (Spring
1984) pp.50-4.
120. Dillon (note l)pp.91-3.
121. Leiken, 'Battle for Nicaragua', p.50. Several ranchers in Chontales and Boaco districts
admitted to Kinzer, Blood of Brothers (note 57) pp.293-4 in 1985 that they provided food
and shelter to the Contras quite willingly.
122. Garvin (note 1) Ch.8 pp.99-110 and Ch 10 pp.135-45.
123. Kinzer, Blood of Brothers (note 57) pp.26-88; and Garvin (note 1) pp.209-12.
124. Dillon (note 1) pp.156-63; and Garvin (note 1 pp.156-159.
125. Dillon (note 1) Ch.7 pp.168-210; and Garvin (note 1) Ch.14 pp.196-220.
126. A number of Western journalists were reporting this from Neuva Segovia district by
1983-84. See LeMoyne (note 16) pp.47-8; and R. Chavira, 'Fighting the "Rabid Dogs":
On patrol with the Contras In Nicaraguan territory', Time (14 May 1984) pp.32-3. Other
accounts of peasant cooperation with the FDN can be found in Dillon (note 1), which was
written after the war was over.
127. A number of sayings recorded by Colburn, Post-Revolutionary Nicaragua (note 75) p.120
reflected the bitterness of peasants in Jinotega district. See also Kinzer, Blood of Brothers,
p.121 for his recollections of anti-Sandinista sentiment in Jinotega in April 1983. He also
reports meeting open Contra sympathizers in El Cua in 1986. Ibid. p.331. Dillon (note 1)
cites numerous instances of peasant support for the Contras in Jinotega district.
128. LeMoyne (note 16) p.46; and Leiken, 'Battle for Nicaragua' (note 15) p.51 both found the
degree of support for the rebels to be 'surprising' (as LeMoyne put it). Both were 'regularly
smear[ed]', as some observers phrased it, for their Nicaragua coverage in The Nation and
other left-wing journals. Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Destructive Generation:
Second Thoughts About the Sixties (New York: Summit Books 1989) p.170.
129. See S. Kinzer, 'Ambush by Contras Kills 5 As Truce Violation Grow', New York Times, 10
September 1988 p.5; and R. Boudreaux, 'Secret Rural Network Helps Sustain Contras:
Peasants Supply Food, Care', Los Angeles Times, 5 November 1987, pp.1 and 38.
130. Notable in this regard is Kinzer, Blood of Brothers.
131. Leiken, 'Battle for Nicaragua' (note 15) p.43; and Colburn, Managing the Commanding
Heights, pp.61 and 90.
132. Kinzer, Blood of Brothers (note 57) p. 133 noted one response to the announcement of the
1983 draft law: '"I've put up with a lot of abuse and stayed here while a lot of things
happened that I didn't like', one angry engineer told me. 'But with this law, I'm leaving for
good, because I don't want my sons to die fighting for a Communist regime".'
133. For example, T. Farer, 'At Sea in Central America: Can We Negotiate Our Way to Shore,'
in Central America: Anatomy of Conflict, ed. Robert S. Leiken (New York: Pergamon Press
in co-operation with the Carnegie Endowment For International Peace 1984) p.282.
134. Kinzer, Blood of Brothers, p.206 noted this during a visit to Ocotal in 1983.
135. Belli (note 57) p.54.

136. Reprinted in Central American Crisis Reader (note 47) pp.288-9. For the Sandinista
response to the bishops' call for negotiations with the Contras, see the FSLN leaders quoted
in Kinzer, Blood of Brothers, pp.206-7. See also Russell (note 100).
137. Dillon (note 1) pp.159-60.
138. For example, Van Evera (note 12) p.26.
139. Ryan (note 81) pp.200-4.
140. R. Leiken, 'The Nicaraguan Tangle', New York Review of Books (5 December 1985)
pp.55-64 Commander of the Revolution and FSLN National Directorate member Bayardo
Arce admitted to the Political Commission of the Socialist Party in May 1984, 'Of course,
if we did not have the war situation imposed on us by the United States, the electoral
problem would be totally out of place in terms of its usefulness'. The text of this speech is
reprinted in Central American Crisis Reader (note 47) pp.289-93.
141. Kinzer, Blood of Brothers (note 57) Ch.21 pp.341-75; and Linda Robinson, Intervention or
Neglect: The United States and Central America Beyond the 1980s (New York; Council of
Foreign Relations Press 1991) pp.29-34.
142. In 1984, Senator Ted Kennedy and some of the liberal American media presented events at
Sumubila as a wanton attack by Contra forces on a peaceful village. In reality, it had been
the site of a battle between MISURA forces on one side and Sandinista militia and police
on the other. Sumubila itself was a forcible internment camp for Miskito Indians.
Therefore, some of the Miskito allegedly 'kidnapped' by the Contras might have regarded
the attack as a liberation. J. Muravchik, 'Manipulating the Miskitos: The Sandinista
propaganda war comes to the Senate', New Republic, 6 August 1984 pp.23-6. In discussing
other Contra attacks on 'civilians' one confronts the fact that the line between who is or is
not a legitimate target easily becomes blurred in guerrilla warfare. For example, out of a
group of 10 lumberjacks working for a state-owned company, eight were killed and one
was wounded in what the Sandinista government described as a 'terrorist attack'. However,
one American journalist noted all were carrying rifles and some were in uniform at the time
they were killed. R. Boudreaux, 'Nicaraguan War Blurs Civilian, Military Roles: Armed
Workers Hit', Los Angeles Times, 28 March 1987, pp.1 and 10.
143 Christian (note 45) p.370 noted that Sandinista Defense Minister 'Humberto Ortega's
figure of 281 civilian deaths at rebel hands during 1985... was much lower than would have
been expected given the intensity of accusations against the FDN'.
144. Leiken, 'Battle for Nicaragua' (note 15) p.52 made this point in regards to Nicaragua.
145. Anderson (note 115) pp.238-41.
146. Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin
Books 1987).
147. During one of his visits to Jinotega district, Kinzer, Blood of Brothers (note 57) pp.204-6
noted evidence both of Contra human rights abuses and popular support for the Contras.
This was also reported from south-eastern Nicaragua by R. Boudreaux, 'Nicaragua War
Comes Home to Rural Areas', Los Angeles Times, 16 March 1987, Part I pp.1 and 12.
148. For a critique of the reporting of organizations such as Americas Watch and the Washington
Office on Latin America, see F. Barnes, 'The Sandinista Lobby: "Human Rights" groups
with a double standard', New Republic, 20 January 1996, pp.11-14. See also Muravchik
(note 142).
149. J. Gannon, 'Peasants tell of Sandinista abuse', Christian Science Monitor, 9 September
1988, pp.1 and 10; and Associated Press, '10 Bodies Reported Found in Unmarked Grave
Near Nicaragua Army Base', Los Angeles Times, 16 June 1990, A. 13.
150. This was in response to Sandinista aid to the Salvadoran rebels. Pastor (note 54) pp.223-8.
151. See especially Garvin (note 1).
152. A force of 270 former National Guardsmen was captured by Honduran soldiers when they
tried to launch an exile invasion of Nicaragua in February 1980. Edelman, 'Soviet-
Nicaraguan Relations', in Vital Interests (note 11) p.357. In May of that same year,
Honduran authorities announced that they had shut down a clandestine radio station
broadcasting in support of the 'Anti-Sandinista Guerrilla Special Forces'. Dickey (note 16)
p.95. Former Contras have recounted how even as late as 1981 they were disarmed and
interned when they fled from Nicaragua to Honduras. Dillon (note 1) pp.57-9.
153. R. Millett, 'Praetorians or Patriots? The Central American Military', in Central America
(note 133) p.82.
154. In that classic example of 'people's war', the Chinese Communists received covert
assistance from the Soviet Union that played a decisive role in some of the key campaigns
of the Chinese Civil War of 1946-49. Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai,
Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao and the Korean War (Stanford: Stanford University Press
1993) Ch.1 pp.1-35.
155. Hager, 'Moscow and the Central American Crisis' (note 34) pp.132-5.
156. R. Hager, Jr., 'Soviet Bloc Involvement in the Salvadoran Civil War: The US State
Department's 1981 "White Paper" Reconsidered', Communist and Post-Communist
Studies 28/4 (December 1995) pp.437-70.
157. Dillon (note 1) p.108.
158. Ryan (note 81) pp.4-5. Kinzer, Blood of Brothers (note 57) pp.295-6 also noted, 'Both
armies were made up of young boys from the poorest social classes'.
159. Dillon (note 1) p.207
160. Race (note 109) especially p.107, n. 5 and pp. 197-8. One study of American military
strategy in Vietnam argues that it failed precisely because it focused on the 'big unit war'
that the U.S. Army leadership preferred to fight. Consequently, it treated the war against
the indigenous Viet Cong as a secondary concern. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., The Army
and Vietnam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1986).
161. Dickey (note 16) p.142.
162. David Stoll, Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala (New York: Columbia
University Press 1993).
163. Saul Landau made this claim in the spring of 1984 at a speech given at the Cardinal
Newman Center, Davis, CA. He was responding to a question by the current author
referring to several recent journalistic accounts of popular support for the Contras.
164. In 1991 former foreign minister Alejandro Bendana published Una Tragedia Campesina:
Testimonios de la Resistencia in Spanish in Managua. Based on interviews by Zoilamerica
Ortega, daughter of Sandinista president Daniel Ortega, this book 'contends unequivocally
that while no government had ever promised the peasants of Nicaragua as much as the
Sandinistas did, no government proved as inimical to the peasants' own interests.' S.
Schwartz, 'Pro & Contra', Commentary 53, 4 (April 1992) pp.60-1.
165. This line of thinking is summarized by P. Hollander, 'The Appeals of Revolutionary
Violence: Latin American Guerrillas and American Intellectuals', in Violence and the Latin
American Revolutionaries, ed. Michael Radu (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books
1988) pp. 126-49.
166. Karl (note 9) p.244.
167. Rodman (note 14) p.265.
168. Pipes (note 58) pp.370-88; and Paul Avrich, Kronstadt 1921 (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, Inc. 1970)
169. Tad Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait (New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc. 1986;
New York: Avon Books 1987) pp.584-5 and 636-8.
170. There are a number of works on the phenomenon of anticommunist guerrilla warfare in the
Third World. One good brief study is Alexander Alexiev, Marxism and Resistance in the
Third World: Cause and Effect RAND Report R-3639 (Santa Monica RAND Corporation
July 1989). See also Radu, 'Introduction', in The New Insurgencies (note 15) pp.1-93. In
addition to Radu's 'Nicaragua', this work also contains case studies of the insurgencies
against Soviet client regimes in Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Kampuchea, and
Afghanistan.
171. Colburn, Vogue of Revolution (note 32) pp.87-8.
172. Hager, 'Moscow and the Central American Crisis' (note 34) pp.417-21 and 428-9.
173. Ibid. pp.460-510.
174. M. Chumakova, 'The Commanders Preferred to Ride in Mercedes', Literaturnatya Gazeta
45 (7 November 1990), p.14, in JPRS-UIA-90-019 (31 December 1990), pp.48-51.
175. LaFeber (note 3) p.331.
176. However, this might not have been farfetched if the Contras had received continuous
logistics support.
177. Van Evera (note 12) p.27 argues that 'it was the peace plan proposed by Costa Rican
President Oscar Arias in August 1987, which launched the process that led to the 1990
elections'. This is true, but it is equally true that the Sandinistas would have had no reason
to agree to any peace plan without the threat of continued Contra insurgency.
178. For example, Edelman, 'Soviet-Nicaraguan Relations', in Vital Interests (note 11) p.3.

Hager 1998

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hager 1998

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

This article was downloaded by: [North Dakota State University]

On: 15 December 2014, At: 06:14

Terrorism and Political

The origins of the ‘contra

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09546559808427448

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

independently of the United States, organizations of former National

bloc. This was a process Moscow actively sought to encourage and

without any motivation of their own. In 1986, Laurence Whitehead wrote:

Sandinistas - including armed opposition ... [Nevertheless,] I assume

insurgency in different terms. They noted that non-Somocista elements had

'Socialist Orientation' in the Third World

come to power and/or consolidate their rule.21 Ideologists of the Communist

Politically trustworthy armed forces were necessary to prevent anti-Soviet,

to select 'national liberation movements' increased after 1971. This

'Socialist Orientation' in Nicaragua

concentrated on increasing the number of cadres, and imbuing them with

Sandinista Youth Movement. The CPSU Central Committee's Institute of

After strains began to appear between the Sandinistas and their

including using religious symbols in its ideological propaganda and

'vigilance' against 'counterrevolution'.65 The National Director of the CDS

enthusiastically highlighted the importance of FSLN control of the armed

its credit came from multilateral lending agencies and Western

Sources of Dissatisfaction with the Sandinista Regime

labeled as linked to 'imperialism' and subjected to mob violence and

Key Elements Leading To Rebellion

to the Managua regime; already it had created a regular military

resistance was the widespread discontent of much of rural Nicaragua with

being a self-appointed ideological vanguard."3 Marxist-Leninist states have

Evidence of Popular Support for the Anti-Sandinista Insurgency

a revolution in Bolivia in 1967."5 There are several indications that the

Soviet-supplied helicopter gunships and artillery employed by the

criticized Soviet-bloc assistance to the regime, and called for a 'dialogue'

Alternative Explanations of the Insurgency's Scope and Persistence

society along Marxist-Leninist lines in alliance with the Soviet bloc. In

The Gorbachev-era Soviet critique of 'socialist orientation' found it

considered to be politically-motivated controls were a constant source of conflict. Christian

135. Belli (note 57) p.54.

You might also like