Nicaragua: A Revolution that Fell from Grace of the People

Abstract

The coincidence in time of the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas with the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe and the crisis in the Soviet Union allowed some to address the Nicaraguan events in terms of the same framework of meanings or at least as part of the same universal progress towards democracy - a view that was ultimately supported by the self-serving discourse of some Sandinista leaders. Nevertheless, any observer who has been able to rise above the waves of opportunism and crude thinking that course through the majority of analyses of the problems of the current period will see that the two situations are entirely different. Apart from attempts to establish commercial, diplomatic and cultural relations with the countries of Comecon, there is nothing in the present or the recent past of Nicaragua - whether in its socio-economic structure, its political processes, the configuration of its social classes or its popular culture - that bears any relation to "actually existing socialism". In any event, the notion that Nicaragua had embarked on a "transition to socialism" was always a questionable hypothesis.