February 28--Probably one of the most important questions connected to the election in Nicaragua concerns the so-called UNO coalition headed by Violeta Chamorro. It would be one thing if it were secretly financed by the U.S. But this is not the case. The U.S. government has openly boasted about financing the UNO campaign lock, stock and barrel, without obstruction of any type.Is there any historical analogy to this most outlandish, cynical and outright reactionary form of parliamentarism?
There have been elections in Western Europe, say, where the U.S. CIA funneled in money secretly, to what extent no one knows even to this day. But in Nicaragua it has made no effort to conceal its intervention. The U.S. imperialist government, which has conducted a most merciless, ruthless and predatory war against the people since the triumph of the revolution, suddenly decided it would carry on the same level of warfare by a different method. The object remained the same: the domination of the country by U.S. finance capital.
Of course many workers and peasants wanted an end to the war, which like every war brings devastation, hunger and inflation. All the imperialist-Chamorro coalition had to do was feed on this.
A fair election under conditions of blockade and war?
We have to pause for a minute and ask: Can an election be really and truly representative under such conditions? Has there ever before been a government so arrogant as to actually carry out a ten-year war against a small country and then openly finance its collaborators in what is called an election?
Should an election be permitted by a revolutionary government at a time when it has sustained the most barbarous blockade, sabotage, plunder and outright attempts to starve the population to death? Can that be a fair election?
Would George Washington have called for an election between the Loyalists and the Revolutionary Army during the bleak days of Valley Forge?
Can any population sustain itself indefinitely that is subjected to continued bombardment, not merely by helicopter gunships and missiles, but by a quarantine of the country that has made it impossible to conduct regular commercial and economic intercourse with the rest of the world? Should an election have taken place without there first being a lifting of the blockade, the cruelty of which has been unanimously condemned by world public opinion?
Shouldn't one of the principal conditions of an election have been compensation from the U.S. so that, after the incalculable damage it has done to the country, there could be reconstruction and the restoration of a modicum of normality?
The problem lies not so much in having agreed to an election as in characterizing the election as a free and fair one. This means accepting lock, stock and barrel the imperialist version of the election. It agrees with imperialism on the role of bourgeois parliamentarism and subjects the masses to this ideological banality.
But these matters are so well known. Need we go over them again and again? Merely to do that is to avoid the central question that faces the Nicaraguan government and people. It is the relation of bourgeois parliamentarism to state power. This is what the leading cadres of the revolution, what all militant, class-conscious workers and peasants are now thinking about.
Parliamentarism and the state
What is the significance of a parliamentary system in relation to state power? We now have a new governing group whose leaders proclaim themselves head of the state. This in turn really raises the crux of the issue that the Sandinista leadership has to face. What is the state? It is not an academic question.
"An army is a state on wheels." This superb generalization was made by one of the truly great military strategists who himself led a revolutionary army--Napoleon Bonaparte. He knew what the essence of the state is. It is an army. The army could be on foot or on wheels, but it is the very quintessence of the state.
Napoleon knew this from experience. He led a revolutionary army composed of basically peasant masses on behalf of the new bourgeois order, and they defeated the feudal armies of Eastern Europe. In his day, the heyday of the bourgeoisie, his army was a people's army.
"An army is a state on wheels." This is also the basis of Frederick Engels's great classic, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Engels dwelt in considerable detail on the origin of the state, specifically emphasizing that it is in essence a body of armed men, the skeletal form of all class society, and that it arises in social evolution only when class antagonisms have developed.
Do all societies have a state? No. There have been societies with governing groups but no state. Lewis Henry Morgan, who observed Native societies in North America in the mid-19th century, showed that they had no state but did have democratic bodies that governed the nation or confederation of nations. Since then anthropologists have written of similar societies in all parts of the world. The distinction between governing groups and the state is a very clear one, but is blurred by bourgeois sociology.
In some modern capitalist countries like Italy, France or England, there have been a considerable number of governing groups. In Italy, for instance, there have been as many as 35 different governments and coalitions in the post-war period. But there has been only one state, the state of the bourgeoisie. Its essence is the body of armed men and women--the police, the secret services, the army and other repressive services--that hold the masses in tow.
Regardless of what parliamentary group is in charge, the same is true of England. For instance, after many Conservative governments, a popular majority of workers elected a Labor Party government in 1945. But the state remained fundamentally the same: the state of the bourgeoisie, propped up by a most powerful army, police and secret service which reach out to the four corners of the globe. This armed body of men and women has the power to suppress any opposition coming from the oppressed peoples and the workers, be it in Ireland, the Indian subcontinent or South America.
Somoza and the state
It is this very clear demarcation between the state and the parliamentary governing group, the product of bourgeois parliamentarism, that is the central issue facing Nicaragua today. Before the revolution, the ruling group in Nicaragua was the Somoza family. They ruled over the country with blood and iron. How were they able to do so? Because this governing family clique was based on a body of armed men whose essence was the suppression of the peasants and workers. In turn, it was completely supported by U.S. imperialism.
The Somoza grouping could not have lasted in power unless the state in its skeleton form was a body for the ruthless, merciless repression and destruction of human life. That body of armed men, supported not only by wheels but by aircraft and even missiles, was called the National Guard, but was in reality a military prop indispensable to state rule at home and supported financially and militarily from abroad.
Such a situation could have continued, but the revolution intervened. How was the Somoza governing clique overthrown? Was it a peaceful takeover of the state regime and the National Guard, subjecting them to the orders of the new revolutionary grouping? Or was the revolution the product of the development of a people's army, of the armed might of the people, of the mass of the workers and peasants?
No parliamentary election could possibly have subjected the hated, brutal National Guard to the will of the people. That is not what dissolved its reactionary essence; that is not how a democratic people's army was established. It hasn't happened that way anywhere.
Destruction of the National Guard
What happened was the violent overthrow of the governing clique and the virtual destruction of the National Guard. As Engels, Marx and later Lenin formulate it, it was the destruction of the old state apparatus and its replacement by an army based on the popular masses, the workers and the peasants.
Was this an accidental phenomenon? A fortuitous combination of unusual circumstances away from the high road of historic development? No, it was not. Bearing in mind modifications in each historical circumstance, the establishment of a people's army with its own governing group is what happened in Cuba, Vietnam, Korea, and certainly of course in China and in the great classical proletarian revolution in Russia.
The driving forces culminating in the victory of the Nicaraguan Revolution were a variation of what the 20th century has been all about--the destruction of the old, repressive states, based upon exploitation and oppression by bourgeois-landlord property-owning classes, and the passage of power to the propertyless. This new phenomenon has galled the imperialist bourgeoisie worldwide.
Despite both victories and defeats over the decades, the revolutionary struggle has again and again proven its viability as destructive, outmoded, capitalist private property relationships become more and more untenable in a world where the collective labor of the masses seeks to assert itself over the idlers, those who appropriate what the masses produce.
None of the great revolutions of this century could possibly have succeeded without the destruction of the old state apparatus, the military apparatus of the landlords and the industrialists, especially the foreign-owned transnational corporations. And none of them could have lasted for longer than a few weeks or months had they not erected and developed over a period of time a people's armed force to, in Marx's classic terminology, destroy the old state apparatus and erect one on a new foundation.
Political institutions of the state
It would of course be a crude error to assume that the state is only a body of armed men and women. It was not so even during Napoleon's time. The state is also a complex of social and political institutions which not only buttress the armed might of the state but in a hundred and one ways serve the state and enable it to rule over society as a whole.
But to get back to Nicaragua. The revolutionary state is not only the people's army; it is also a complex of progressive social and political institutions built up under the most trying circumstances amidst war, ruin and destruction. However brutally it has been attacked, damaged and in part destroyed, it has survived and is the very essence of the revolution. The armed forces and the progressive social and political institutions that the revolution has created may only be rudimentary, but they have shown great promise of what they could do if allowed to develop without ruin and devastation, hunger and blockade.
And what do we face now? A new and utterly contradictory phenomenon as a result of an electoral process that is in reality a parliamentary trick. A new governing group, wholly financed by the U.S., militarily supported by the Pentagon, now seeks to lay hands on the greatest achievement of the revolution--not only the armed forces as such but also the progressive institutions that have been part and parcel of the people's social and political achievements. True, they were in their infancy and had only begun to develop. But they showed promise of movement in a progressive direction, away from the old, outmoded social and property relations.
Can mercenaries be allowed to take over the state?
The question now is, should the revolutionary state allow this mercenary grouping to take it over and make it conform over a period of time to the new state form? It is in essence the state of the peasants and workers. Should they allow their institutions to be liquidated, subverted and destroyed in the interest of greedy imperialist monopolies?
One may ask, would an exploiting class like the bourgeoisie or the feudal lords or the slaveowners of ancient as well as modern times ever allow a new ruling group to win an electoral victory and take over their state, liquidate it and set up a new state of the oppressed, of peasants, of freed slaves, of workers? Where in history has there ever been even one single, solitary example of this having occurred?
But the question also goes beyond the theoretical sphere. To say that the forces of reaction in Nicaragua can do this because they won a fair election that expresses the will of the people is to do violence to fact. What is the meaning of fairness? Fairness is a vague generalization. It covers over a multitude of contradictions and misconceptions. But what is involved here is politics, what is involved is the political condition of the masses, worn and weary, battered but not beaten. To talk of fairness under these conditions is altogether out of the sphere of reality.
Was not the Allende election a fair one, to use the current terminology? Did the imperialist bourgeoisie allow that fair election to run its course? The Popular Unity had merely set itself the task of democratic reform and social progress. It had not even addressed the question of dissolving or liquidating the old state apparatus. It had not set up even the embryo of its own people's army. And yet the imperialist bourgeoisie were so terrified that they opened a reign of terror to destroy the Allende regime that was way out of proportion, considering it had merely sought the democratic reform of bourgeois institutions.
Do we really have to go into all this at the end of the 20th century, after so much rich and varied experience of the relationship between bourgeois parliamentarism and state power? Do we need yet another tragic and costly experience in the destruction of human life and material resources to confirm the difference between a governing group and state power? Is that not the prospect in Nicaragua?
Most of the advanced workers and peasants, the popular masses who worked and sacrificed in the interest of the revolution, clearly recognize the danger to which all are now exposed. They must be saying to themselves, "We have allowed a group of wolves into our den who will surely devour us."
A retreat vs. a surrender
It was one thing for the Sandinista leadership to allow the enemy to wrest one concession after another in the course of a long and cruel war. That can easily be understood in a common-sense way by every worker and every peasant who has lived and suffered through the revolution and the war and understands the nature of the enemy. But all these concessions, and they are numerous, were allowed because it held out the hope of securing and ultimately strengthening the revolution.
Lenin in his time made many such concessions, most notably the ceding of much territory and material resources as well as people to the imperialist brigands of Germany during the First World War. But he called this very serious concession a retreat, said it was forced upon us by robbers who had a gun in their hand pointed at our heads. And he along with the Bolsheviks hoped that in the course of time this concession would fortify and strengthen the revolution so that finally the concessions would be reversed.
He called things by their right name, not confusing what must be given away with a gain. He did not call a retreat an advance; that would deceive and disorient the workers.
In the course of a long war mistakes can be made with respect to one or even a multitude of concessions. But it is altogether a different matter to surrender a revolution that was "won in blood," as President Ortega so well put it in his address on Feb. 26. To surrender the revolution in the interest of an electoral gimmick is the height of folly.
The U.S. may replace for a time the open, unconcealed colonialism that prevailed earlier with a neocolonial imperialism which is just as brutal and just as destructive. The difference is one of form, for the essence of it is undisguised colonial oppression and exploitation.
To surrender the revolution in the name of the democratic electoral process is the height of what Marx called bourgeois parliamentary cretinism. It is to sell one's birthright for a mess of pottage. This is what has to be pondered now.
Surely there will be a flow of funds from the U.S. Surely the pockets of the new ruling group will be filled and the coffers of the various cliques will get the payments due from their masters in Washington and in Wall Street.
This is the time of decision for the revolutionary cadre. It will take a great deal of tactical and strategic thinking, especially when one considers the enormous task at hand.
The `kiss and make up' transition
Everyone has seen the photograph of President Ortega embracing and congratulating Chamorro on the UNO victory. Difficult as it is for revolutionary workers, peasants and even leaders to watch this, its significance should not in and of itself be overdrawn. There are historical precedents, times when what appeared to be idyllic reconciliations between opposing class camps took place. But the irreconcilable class antagonisms overrode them.
A relevant example took place on the vast political landscape of China in 1946. Immediately after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. felt it had laid the basis for the pacification of Asia, that is, for it to assert its domination not only as against Japan but also as against Britain, France, Holland and the other colonial powers. U.S. imperialism also felt its hands were freed in Europe with the defeat of the Nazis, and that a large section of U.S. troops could now be transferred to the Asian theater.
China, where the revolutionary forces under the leadership of the Communist Party and the Peoples Liberation Army had been growing since the 1930s, was seen as the last obstacle to a Pax Americana in the Pacific. So the Truman administration dispatched its soldier-statesman of the time, General George C. Marshall, to make a last-ditch effort to unite what they called the two warring factions into one Chinese government and army.
Thus a friendly negotiating session was set up between the PLA and the CP leaders on one side, and the leaders of the pro-imperialist Kuomintang, including Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek himself. The issue was how to combine the two armies into one under civilian leadership (Kuomintang and CP).
It appeared for a while, especially when judged by the communiques and the friendly, fraternal atmosphere prevailing--each side referring to the other as brothers and discussing their common desire to at last end the fratricidal struggle and establish a united China--that the wide chasm between the two camps, which were sociologically based on antagonistic class forces, was now being bridged by careful diplomacy.
But what happened? After a number of fruitless sessions of trying to bridge the class camps, the meetings were adjourned with a vague reference to resuming at a later date. The whole world knows what followed. Notwithstanding the bulldozing and atomic brinkmanship of U.S. imperialism, the Chinese Red Army launched a mighty offensive and swept the Chiang Kai-shek forces into the sea, where they took refuge in the island province of Taiwan.
There is, however, one fundamental difference between this situation and the current events in Nicaragua. With all the talk in the Chinese discussions about democracy and having elections for a single parliament, that never took place. The Chinese Communist leaders never agreed to hold any such elections. When the time was ripe, notwithstanding the threatening international stance of the U.S., the Kuomintang was swept off the mainland.
In Nicaragua the revolutionary government agreed to conduct an election. Moreover, it agreed with the imperialist version of the elections as fair and free. But has this closed the yawning gap between the two class camps? Is there any real possibility that the class struggle and the anti-imperialist struggle can be liquidated under these circumstances without a revolutionary offensive against the pro-imperialist bourgeoisie?
Unlike the Chinese CP leadership, the Sandinista leaders have bound themselves, at least in legal and technical terms, to subject the armed forces and the progressive social and political institutions to the direction of the bourgeoisie. The massive demonstration held Feb. 27 in Managua, where the leadership pledged to retain the revolutionary gains and received the applause of the masses, seems more calculated to lay the basis for a legal opposition to the pro-imperialist ruling clique than to prepare resistance to it.
Of course, it is quite understandable that, in what is being called the transition period, when the government has pledged itself to legality at any cost, it is necessary to carefully maneuver to some extent. But it has to be made crystal clear to the masses that UNO is not a legitimate government. It is propped up, supported, financed and controlled by a foreign imperialist power. It has no legitimacy, no legality, no constitutional basis for governing, precisely because it is an entity controlled by foreign finance capital.
This transition period can be utilized best of all by clarifying the position of the two class camps and vigorously defending the revolutionary gains. These U.S. gauleiters must not be allowed to dismantle or in any way change the status and critical autonomy of the armed forces or the complex of political and social institutions won by the revolution.
The bourgeoisie says it will not carry out acts of war or sabotage in the country. The next important question is, if funds from U.S. imperialism come in as promised, they cannot be utilized by a Chamorro regime without the consent of the Sandinista leadership.
Are there any bourgeois democracies where the party in office can accept funds from a foreign power without the approval of the opposition? Even if the revolutionary leadership assumes the role merely of an opposition party, it must participate in deciding how to spend the money and how this will affect the economy.
Unfortunately, the revolutionary government bound itself to a mixed economy, which means capitalist commodity production as well as government-controlled and -owned institutions. The existence of many bourgeois economic and social institutions all along has been the basis for a variety of strikes and grievances of the workers and peasants. But the bourgeois aspects of the economy were tolerated by the government with the hope that its eventual triumph over the counterrevolution would enable it to begin the task of socialist construction in earnest. This was never spelled out, but was understood by the masses as well as the imperialist bourgeoisie. That's the basis for the bitter ten-year war. The war was not launched by the masses just for abstract bourgeois democracy, abstract independence.
The issue now is whether the leaders will accommodate themselves to the new bourgeois imperialist puppets and hand over the power of the state or whether they will resist. The power is still in the hands of the revolutionary government. The Bush administration understands this. It has always acted on the premise that power comes out of the barrel of a gun, as Mao correctly formulated it.
Historic world context
We are only too keenly aware of the historic world context in which the Nicaraguan Revolution takes place. We have seen how the imperialist bourgeoisie becomes delirious with joy at the worldwide setbacks for socialism, and no doubt this has affected the thinking of others. But the Roman carnival that the bourgeoisie is having will be of a short-lived character. What lies on the horizon is the grim prospect of capitalist chaos, heightened by feverish competition for booty and profits. It can only lead to the inevitable collapse which has been such a familiar phenomenon during the entire tenure of capitalist development and from which no capitalist country can escape.
When a boulder is unloosed from a faraway mountain top, an avalanche sometimes threatens the existence of everything in its path. But it will in no way help to use this as an excuse for capitulation and surrender.
Whoever wills the objective, that is, the revolutionary victory of the popular masses, will also find the means to bring it about.