Sandinismo
Encyclopedia
Carlos Fonseca
is considered the principal ideologue of the Sandinistas because he established the fundamental ideas of Sandinism. It was revolutionaries like David Nolan and Hugo Cancino Troncoso who provided the sophisticated proponents of Sandinista ideology: Sandinisimo, but it was Fonseca who popularized the Sandinista's political thought.
Many aspects of Sandinismo are similar to tendencies in other forms of political thought in Latin America like its appeal to the largest mass of the population and its anti-imperialist rhetoric. The most important attributes of the ideology make it solely a Nicaraguan creation. In Sandinismo there is an emphasis that revolution begins in rural regions among Nicaragua's oppressed peasantry, Sandinista ideas are rooted in the symbols of Augusto César Sandino
and there is an effort to develop conscious growth through education.
Carlos Fonseca adopted many of the Sandinista military goals from Che Guevara
in 1959. Just as Guevara had implemented his Guerrilla foco in the Sierra Maestra mountains of the Oriente province, Fonseca believed Nicaragua's Revolution would begin with mass insurgence in the countryside.
Fonseca's ideological tendency was entitled the "Prolonged Popular War" (GPP) because of its ideological commitment to creating an insurgency among the peasantry and its reliance on Maoist guerrilla strategy. The gradualist approach in the countryside involved isolating portions of the superiorly armed and trained National Guard into weaker portions, and eliminating these smaller segments one by one. The GPP desired popular support from the rural masses, a desire that remained illusive throughout the insurrectional years. The GPP believed that, in order to take part in guerrilla activities, peasants had to develop new 'revolutionary consciousness'.
There is a hiden part in the history of this and many other marxists movements in Latin America, most of them are the result of the Cuban Intelligence Agency, known as G-2, there is a Department in charge of that, it is the America Department in the Cuban Intelligence, they are in charge to recruit and infiltrate all these movements and impose the Castro agenda in all of them, such is the case of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, is said that Carlos Fonseca was betrayed by the Ortega's brothers following directions from the Cubans, who was considered to be "to much nationalist" that means that Fonseca was not in favor to align the eventual revolutionary government to la Habana, it was a stone in Castro's shoes to expand the revolution through Central America, which happened during the 80's, when the Ortega's brothers started supporting the guerrillas in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and even South America (assault in Argentina to the paratroopers garrison known as the house of the carapintadas).
This subordination to Castro cost to much to Nicaragua, the infrastructure of the country was devastated as a result of the USA policy to contain the communist expansion, the USA create the contras, peasants and regular Nicaraguan citizens who fought against the Sandinista government.
government in the 1930s under the Liberal Party banner.
When the Somoza dictatorship was in power they had failed to develop proper educational institutions. To the dismay of Sandinistas, in school classes Sandino was described as a bandit and an enemy of good government. In the 1970s, Fonseca brought a new interpretation of Sandino to the Sandinista party members which he wished to dispense upon the masses: his quest to attain the sovereign-independence of Nicaragua had not been accomplished generations after his assassination. Sandino wished to remove the foreign influences that were dominant in the country, and which prevented the government from conducting business for the well being of the Nicaraguan people. Fonseca wished to use his newly developed history of Nicaragua to unite the rural peasants in order to instill a greater sense of pride, to encourage men to take part in the anti-imperial struggle, and to increase revolutionary solidarity.
Unlike Fonseca, Sandino was not a Marxist
. The Nicaraguan people's struggle against William Walker and Sandino's struggle against the Somoza forces was not directed at a socialist telos. Like Sandino, Fonseca wished to ignite the consciousness of the peasantry, and they were a collective force that Fonseca showed could be in control of their own futures.(Zwerling; 67) Fonseca believed that the first liberty that the masses should have was the ownership of the land on which they laboured. Economic sovereignty in the majority of Nicaragua's economic sectors would allow growth to remain in the state, as well as reward the people who rightfully deserved some profit.
In some ways Sandino's mission had been a failure, since he did not remove the dictator who was in power, but Fonseca was able to retain the strong legacy of Sandino's spirit in his contemporary military approach. Sandino's guerrilla experience showed Fonseca that revolutionary processes could be developed among the peasantry. Fonseca also learned from Sandino's endeavors that revolutionaries had to learn from past errors, there was a need for theory to guide action, and the collective sharing of knowledge was essential.(Arnove; 7)
While rejecting teleological visions, Fonseca still believed that the formation of revolutionary consciousness was making peasants into "complete human beings." This should not be taken as Sandinista brainwashing. In truth, the idea of consciousness was borrowed from Sandino, and also from the Cuban revolutionaries. As the peasants were taught to read and write they developed conscious awareness of their reality, and were able to see the exploitation they endured under the Samoza regime.
The message Fonseca and Sandino left was to teach the peasants to read and write. This did not occur too often in the 1930s. But for Sandinistas, education was a major function of the movement. Conscious people were committed to the revolution, even with the fatal risks involved.
, Samoza stated: "I want oxen, not men in my country."(ibid)
Fonseca's Sandinistas were bent on "freeing the minds" of the peasantry by instilling in them an 'official' understanding of history which places the struggle against imperialism and the abundance of the national heroes the peasants gradually at the center of a Marxist historical interpretation of Nicaragua. Nationalism and class solidarity were developed through the growth of consciousness, and with time, the realization that the use arms would be required was also fostered.
In Sandinismo, nationalism and sovereign independence are key motivators. The sometimes mythic tales of Sandino tapped into the artistic imaginations of the peasants who needed to be convinced, and political passion was given a more concrete form.(Palmer,92) As with any populist movement, to go along with its abstract ideas an excellent leader was required to march in front of the masses.
). At the same time, his loyalty to the peasantry could not be questioned. Fonseca perceived himself as a patriot of the true indigenous Nicaragua; he was respected among his followers and was characterized by them as inspirational, imaginative, determined, and confident. Where Fonseca distinguished himself from Sandino was in his emphasis on education for the peasantry. When Sandino was assassinated, his revolutionary thought died with him. In the case of Fonseca; he put much work into constructing a revolutionary ideology within the party. By using his concepts, the Sandinista Revolution was able to survive and thrive after Fonseca's death in battle. The Sandinista political thought was deeply enshrined among party ideologues. After their victory, they attempted to instill this ideology among the peasants.
Carlos Fonseca
For the Brazilian boxer with the same name see Carlos Fonseca .Carlos Fonseca Amador was a Nicaraguan teacher and librarian who founded the Sandinista National Liberation Front...
is considered the principal ideologue of the Sandinistas because he established the fundamental ideas of Sandinism. It was revolutionaries like David Nolan and Hugo Cancino Troncoso who provided the sophisticated proponents of Sandinista ideology: Sandinisimo, but it was Fonseca who popularized the Sandinista's political thought.
Many aspects of Sandinismo are similar to tendencies in other forms of political thought in Latin America like its appeal to the largest mass of the population and its anti-imperialist rhetoric. The most important attributes of the ideology make it solely a Nicaraguan creation. In Sandinismo there is an emphasis that revolution begins in rural regions among Nicaragua's oppressed peasantry, Sandinista ideas are rooted in the symbols of Augusto César Sandino
Augusto César Sandino
Augusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino was a Nicaraguan revolutionary and leader of a rebellion against the U.S. military occupation of Nicaragua between 1927 and 1933...
and there is an effort to develop conscious growth through education.
Carlos Fonseca adopted many of the Sandinista military goals from Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
in 1959. Just as Guevara had implemented his Guerrilla foco in the Sierra Maestra mountains of the Oriente province, Fonseca believed Nicaragua's Revolution would begin with mass insurgence in the countryside.
Fonseca's ideological tendency was entitled the "Prolonged Popular War" (GPP) because of its ideological commitment to creating an insurgency among the peasantry and its reliance on Maoist guerrilla strategy. The gradualist approach in the countryside involved isolating portions of the superiorly armed and trained National Guard into weaker portions, and eliminating these smaller segments one by one. The GPP desired popular support from the rural masses, a desire that remained illusive throughout the insurrectional years. The GPP believed that, in order to take part in guerrilla activities, peasants had to develop new 'revolutionary consciousness'.
Formative Years
The formative years of Sandinismo are found in the origins of the interest of Sandino among Marxist revolutionary students and influence from revolutionary Cuba. Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Fidel Castro had studied Sandino's war against the American Marines in Nicaragua during the late 1950s. Fonseca's early experiences with student activism led him to declare himself a Marxist is 1954. In the 1950s at the National University of Nicaragua in Leon, Fonseca began developing his radical ideology by studying the Marxist classics As a student in the 1960s, Fonseca split from the Pro-Moscow Communist Party of which he was a member of due to their unwillingness to commit to armed warfare. This began Fonseca's ideological move toward scientific socialism and revolutionary nationalism following the foot steps of Che and Fidel. Fonseca's own writings began mentioning Sandino in 1959 and in the context of the Cuban Revolution during his stay in Havana [this is incorrect: the Front was founded in Honduras in 1961] where the Sandinista Front was created. In Cuba, where he found a biography called "Sandino: General of Free Men", Fonseca was able to study Sandino freely and to begin constructing what he saw as a uniquely Nicaraguan revolutionary ideology. Fonseca's biographer, Matilde Zimmermann, argues that the year 1958 to 1960 were crucial years in the development of Sandinismo as they marked a turning point in Fonseca's political thought, shifting from Stalin to Sandino as the banner of revolutionary struggle. In the 1961–1962 debates in Havana over the creation of a Nicaraguan revolutionary front, it was Fonseca who persuaded his Nicaraguan student counter-parts that Sandino's name should be incorporated in their party.There is a hiden part in the history of this and many other marxists movements in Latin America, most of them are the result of the Cuban Intelligence Agency, known as G-2, there is a Department in charge of that, it is the America Department in the Cuban Intelligence, they are in charge to recruit and infiltrate all these movements and impose the Castro agenda in all of them, such is the case of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, is said that Carlos Fonseca was betrayed by the Ortega's brothers following directions from the Cubans, who was considered to be "to much nationalist" that means that Fonseca was not in favor to align the eventual revolutionary government to la Habana, it was a stone in Castro's shoes to expand the revolution through Central America, which happened during the 80's, when the Ortega's brothers started supporting the guerrillas in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and even South America (assault in Argentina to the paratroopers garrison known as the house of the carapintadas).
This subordination to Castro cost to much to Nicaragua, the infrastructure of the country was devastated as a result of the USA policy to contain the communist expansion, the USA create the contras, peasants and regular Nicaraguan citizens who fought against the Sandinista government.
The Terceristas
Sandinismo had several doctrinary strands during the years of insurgency and throughout the revolutionary period. However, the Sandinismo of the Terceristas, led by Daniel and Humberto Ortega, gained preponderance over its more doctrinaire rivals during the revolutionary years. The Tercerista's identified capitalism as 'the main obstacle to social progress'. They believed in a gradual transformation of society toward socialism. The Terceristas believed Nicaragua would have to go through a transitional popular-democratic revolutionary phase which would not be explicitly Marxist-Leninist until it reached a socialist society. The Sandinismo of the Terceristas called for "Marxist ideological clarity" only among its top ranks and not among the "masses" in fear of Nicaraguans' reaction to such policies. What differentiates Tercerista ideology from other Sandinismo strains is their willingness to have tactical alliances with "bourgeoisie" sectors of society. Their appeals for "tactical and temporary broad alliances" were victorious within the party's National Directorate, however, not without controversy over the preservation of pure Marxist analysis.Symbolism
Fonseca was highly influenced by Nicaraguan hero Augusto Sandino, whose history he was introduced to by Cuban revolutionaries. Sandino led a peasant insurgence against the first SomozaAnastasio Somoza García
Anastasio Somoza García was officially the President of Nicaragua from 1 January 1937 to 1 May 1947 and from 21 May 1950 to 29 September 1956, but ruled effectively as dictator from 1936 until his assassination.-Biography:Somoza was born in San Marcos, Carazo Department in Nicaragua, the son of...
government in the 1930s under the Liberal Party banner.
When the Somoza dictatorship was in power they had failed to develop proper educational institutions. To the dismay of Sandinistas, in school classes Sandino was described as a bandit and an enemy of good government. In the 1970s, Fonseca brought a new interpretation of Sandino to the Sandinista party members which he wished to dispense upon the masses: his quest to attain the sovereign-independence of Nicaragua had not been accomplished generations after his assassination. Sandino wished to remove the foreign influences that were dominant in the country, and which prevented the government from conducting business for the well being of the Nicaraguan people. Fonseca wished to use his newly developed history of Nicaragua to unite the rural peasants in order to instill a greater sense of pride, to encourage men to take part in the anti-imperial struggle, and to increase revolutionary solidarity.
Unlike Fonseca, Sandino was not a Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
. The Nicaraguan people's struggle against William Walker and Sandino's struggle against the Somoza forces was not directed at a socialist telos. Like Sandino, Fonseca wished to ignite the consciousness of the peasantry, and they were a collective force that Fonseca showed could be in control of their own futures.(Zwerling; 67) Fonseca believed that the first liberty that the masses should have was the ownership of the land on which they laboured. Economic sovereignty in the majority of Nicaragua's economic sectors would allow growth to remain in the state, as well as reward the people who rightfully deserved some profit.
In some ways Sandino's mission had been a failure, since he did not remove the dictator who was in power, but Fonseca was able to retain the strong legacy of Sandino's spirit in his contemporary military approach. Sandino's guerrilla experience showed Fonseca that revolutionary processes could be developed among the peasantry. Fonseca also learned from Sandino's endeavors that revolutionaries had to learn from past errors, there was a need for theory to guide action, and the collective sharing of knowledge was essential.(Arnove; 7)
While rejecting teleological visions, Fonseca still believed that the formation of revolutionary consciousness was making peasants into "complete human beings." This should not be taken as Sandinista brainwashing. In truth, the idea of consciousness was borrowed from Sandino, and also from the Cuban revolutionaries. As the peasants were taught to read and write they developed conscious awareness of their reality, and were able to see the exploitation they endured under the Samoza regime.
The message Fonseca and Sandino left was to teach the peasants to read and write. This did not occur too often in the 1930s. But for Sandinistas, education was a major function of the movement. Conscious people were committed to the revolution, even with the fatal risks involved.
Education
Sandinistas, like many Marxists, believe that education is a manifestation of the beliefs of the ruling government, so the regime's ideological tendencies are passed down to the youth. Under the Samozas there was a lack of properly funded schools in the countryside. Most peasant children received no lessons, and their parents were illiterate as well. In Samoza's state, he wanted "… uneducated people, little more than beasts of burden."(Zwerling; 67) When assessing the democratic practices in Costa RicaCosta Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
, Samoza stated: "I want oxen, not men in my country."(ibid)
Fonseca's Sandinistas were bent on "freeing the minds" of the peasantry by instilling in them an 'official' understanding of history which places the struggle against imperialism and the abundance of the national heroes the peasants gradually at the center of a Marxist historical interpretation of Nicaragua. Nationalism and class solidarity were developed through the growth of consciousness, and with time, the realization that the use arms would be required was also fostered.
In Sandinismo, nationalism and sovereign independence are key motivators. The sometimes mythic tales of Sandino tapped into the artistic imaginations of the peasants who needed to be convinced, and political passion was given a more concrete form.(Palmer,92) As with any populist movement, to go along with its abstract ideas an excellent leader was required to march in front of the masses.
Modern Caudillo
To the Sandinistas, Fonseca was considered a "modern Sandino". At times he overlooked the importance of obtaining support from the urban revolutionaries (Humberto OrtegaHumberto Ortega
General Humberto Ortega Saavedra is a Nicaraguan military leader, often self-called leading Latin American revolutionary strategist, and published writer.-Biography:...
). At the same time, his loyalty to the peasantry could not be questioned. Fonseca perceived himself as a patriot of the true indigenous Nicaragua; he was respected among his followers and was characterized by them as inspirational, imaginative, determined, and confident. Where Fonseca distinguished himself from Sandino was in his emphasis on education for the peasantry. When Sandino was assassinated, his revolutionary thought died with him. In the case of Fonseca; he put much work into constructing a revolutionary ideology within the party. By using his concepts, the Sandinista Revolution was able to survive and thrive after Fonseca's death in battle. The Sandinista political thought was deeply enshrined among party ideologues. After their victory, they attempted to instill this ideology among the peasants.
See also
- Sandinista IdeologiesSandinista Ideologies-Historical Synopsis of the Implementation of Sandinism:Through the transformation of the Movement for a New Nicaragua to the Sandinista National Liberation Front in 1961, Carlos Fonseca and his fellow revolutionary leaders adopted the image of 1930s guerrilla fighter, Augusto César Sandino to...
- Sandinista National Liberation FrontSandinista National Liberation FrontThe Sandinista National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas in both English and Spanish...
- Sandinista Renovation MovementSandinista Renovation MovementThe Sandinista Renovation Movement is a Nicaraguan political party founded by dissidents of the Sandinista National Liberation Front on May 18, 1995, on Augusto César Sandino's 100th anniversary...