What went wrong? : : the Nicaraguan Revolution : a Marxist analysis / / by Dan La Botz.

• Superior document: Historical Materialism Book Series, Volume 127
• VerfasserIn: La Botz, Dan,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, Netherlands : : Brill,, 2016.; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Historical materialism book series ; Volume 127.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (429 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

This volume is a valuable re-assessment of the Nicaraguan Revolution by a Marxist historian of Latin American political history. It shows that the FSLN (‘the Sandinistas’), with politics principally shaped by Soviet and Cuban Communism, never had a commitment to genuine democracy either within the revolutionary movement or within society at large; that the FSLN’s lack of commitment to democracy was a key factor in the way that revolution was betrayed from the 1970s to the 1990s; and that the FSLN’s lack of rank-and-file democracy left all decision-making to the National Directorate and ultimately placed that power in the hands of Daniel Ortega. Pursuing his narrative into the present, La Botz shows that, once their would-be bureaucratic ruling class project was defeated, Ortega and the FSLN leadership turned to an alliance with the capitalist class.

Table of Contents

Front Matter -- What Happened to the Nicaraguan Revolution? -- Nicaragua: A Nation but Not a State (from the Beginning to 1893) -- The Struggle to Construct a Sovereign State: Zelaya and Sandino (1893–1932) -- The Somoza Dynastic Dictatorship (1936–75) -- The Founding of the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (1962–78) -- The Sandinista Revolution (1975–79) -- The Sandinistas in Power (1979–84) -- The Sandinistas and the Contra War (1985–90) -- Violeta Chamorro: A New Ruling Class, a New State, a New Economy (1990–96) -- Alemán and Bolaños: Corruption in Power (1996–2006) -- The Ortega Government (2006–) -- Results and Prospects -- Bibliography -- Index.