On January 1, 1959, the Batista dictatorship was swept away by the military offensive of the Rebel Army and the mobilization of the Cuban masses led by the July 26 Movement. On July 19, 1979, the bloody Somoza regime in Nicaragua, installed and maintained by American imperialism for more than forty years, was overthrown by a massive nationwide popular insurrection that capped a coordinated offensive by the rebel armed forces of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).
The popular insurrection led not only to the overthrow of the dictatorship but to the dismantlement of the old regime. The mobilization of the masses in popular committees as well as the revolutionary measures already taken in the short time since the overthrow of the hated regime, indicate the proletarian and plebeian dynamic of the process now unfolding.
The toilers of the entire world could not have hoped for a more magnificent cele bration of the twentieth anniversary of the Cuban revolution! The road has been opened that can lead to the victory of the second socialist revolution of the Americas.
But imperialism will be doing everything possible to try to prevent the toiling masses of Nicaragua from moving forward on this road.
With the same cold-blooded brutality with which they propped up Somoza to the bitter end, the imperialists are now bringing into play diplomatic, economic, and military resources to try to stop the revolutionary upsurge.
There is no more urgent task for the world workers movement than to mobilize in opposition to them.
The American people demonstrated during the Vietnam War that Washington no longer had a free hand to use its murderous military machine. Today the American working people can play a decisive role in staying the hand of the Pentagon in Central America. This would weaken the impe rialists and strengthen the working class of the United States. It would be the greatest possible aid to the Nicaraguan people.
Devastation by Civil War
Nicaragua has been devastated by the civil war. In his ruthless attempt to main- 802 tain power, Somoza ordered the bombing of neighborhoods and factories. He plundered the monetary resources of the coun- More than 1 million people are in need of food. More than 300 tons of food are required per day. Tens of thousands of Washington Post refugees are seeking to return to the country, and will have to be cared for.
Agriculture has been totally disrupted by the months of civil war. Industrial investments were blocked. Hundreds of factories stopped production.
To defend the revolution and solve this crisis is an enormous task.
The American imperialists have been weakened by their defeat in Vietnam and by the blow they received by the downfall of the shah’s regime in Iran. But they are attempting to take advantage of every weak spot in the Nicaraguan revolution to try to prevent a new Cuba. They will intensify threats against revolutionary Cuba itself for its support to the Nicaraguan revolution.
Imperialism’s goal is to try to restore the weight and decision-making capacity of the bourgeois elements in the “Junta of the Government of National Reconstruction” and other points of support for the bourgeoisie.
It is trying to utilize the European Social Democrats and some of the bourgeois democrats of Latin America as intermediaries for this policy. It seeks to pressure the FSLN leadership to renounce the economic inroads on capitalist property necessary to satisfy the elementary needs of the masses, and to stop the arming and mobilization of the masses, in return for economic aid,
The imperialist bourgeoisie, supposed defender of human rights, is using dribbles of the needed economic and food aid as blackmail. These imperialists—who have made famine into one of the most lucrative businesses for the agribusiness food trust—have refused to send the 300 tons of food a day necessary to feed a people that they have helped plunder.
But imperialism depends above all on its own military striking force and those that it closely controls. It demonstrated this by organizing the retreat of well-armed units of Somoza’s National Guard into Honduras and E] Salvador. It is currently preparing for a possible military intervention along the lines of Guatemala in 1954, the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961, or Santo Domingo in 1965.
Fidel Castro’s government raised a warning even before the victory against Somoza: “The intervention of the United States would create a Vietnam in the very heart of Latin America. The Nicaraguan people and those of Central America would undoubtedly rise up against such foreign intervention, and their other brothers in Latin America and the Caribbean could not remain indifferent to such genocide.” On July 26, in front of representatives of the FSLN and the Cuban people, Fidel Castro pointed to the road that must be taken by all the workers states, in the framework of a call for aid from all countries:
“We invite the United States, we invite all the countries of Latin America, we invite all the countries of Europe, the countries of the Third World, our sister socialist nations, everybody, to take part in an emulation campaign to help Nicaragua. This is our position, in order to make a really human, really constructive effort, based on a spirit of emulation.”
This kind of massive aid—which has Intercontinental Press already begun from Cuba—combined with the construction of a massive international solidarity movement with the Nicaraguan revolution, would be a powerful weapon against the criminal maneuvers of imperialism.
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Following the Cuban road outlined by the Second Declaration of Havana, the road of permanent revolution, is the way for the Nicaraguan toilers to consolidate their victory.
In order to resist the pressures of Washington, to assert its complete independence of the imperialists, to press forward the agrarian reform, to expropriate all imperialist property and the big holdings of the national bourgeoisie, to assure control by the workers over industry and over domestic and foreign trade—to do these things the Cuban revolution had to break with the bourgeoisie, put an end to the coalition government installed in 1959, and set out on the course charted by the new workers and peasants government based on the armed and mobilized masses and organized by the July 26 Movement. In this way the Cubans were able to carry the revolution through to the end—the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of a workers state.
Road to Revolution
The road to socialist revolution in Nicaragua is mined with obstacles. Imperialist pressures and attacks will oblige the FSLN leadership to maneuver. The difficulties created by the lack of food and goods of all kinds will compel this leadership to try to gain time.
But these obstacles can be overcome, as the example of Cuba has shown, if the tremendous power and energy of the masses is organized.
The example of the Cuban revolution showed the close relationship between the upsurge and mobilization of the exploited and oppressed classes, the development of their consciousness according to the rhythms imposed by the revolution, and the evolution of consciousness of the leadership of the mass movement itself.
This will also be the factor that determines the future of the Nicaraguan revolution.
The Fourth International calls on the mass parties and organizations of the workers movement to build the broadest possible international movement—united and nonexclusionary—in support of the struggle of the Nicaraguan people and the fighters of the FSLN, whose courage has become a most precious heritage of the world proletariat.
Immediate aid to Nicaragua! Imperialist hands off! No threats against Cuba! Solidarity with the Nicaraguan Revolution!