Sandinismo

Sandinismo has its roots in the thinking and actions of Augusto “César” Sandino, and more recently served as the basis for the politics and ideology of the Frente Sandinista Liberacion Nacional (FSLN), which ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.

Nicaraguan patriot Augusto Sandino led a revolt against the U.S. occupation of his country from 1927 to 1933. His rebellion caught the imagination of nationalists and anti-imperialists throughout Latin America, and drew the U.S. military into an extended and bloody intervention. Sandino's anti-imperialist ideology emphasized nationalism over all else, reflected in his slogan “Patria libre o morir” (“free homeland or death”). As he interacted with, and dissented from, more doctrinaire Marxists from Mexico, El Salvador, and the Comintern, his thinking evolved to fuse socialist ideas with anarchism and spiritualism. The effectiveness, even brilliance, of his campaign forced the departure of the United States in 1933. The United States was successful, however, in installing Anastasio Somoza to power. He, and his sons, ruled Nicaragua until 1979. (The first Somoza has been implicated in the assassination of Sandino in 1934.) Relations between Somoza and the United States fluctuated from administration to administration. But the image of the Somoza dynasty as a satellite of the United States has more than a little truth to it, and Sandino's principled opposition to the dynasty remained a potent symbol to Nicaraguan nationalists.

Sandinismo once again assumed global importance when the FSLN overthrew the Somoza dynasty and took power in Nicaragua in 1979. The movement was founded in 1961 by Carlos Fonseca, but it evolved to include a wide variety of actors as it grew. The increasingly brutal response of Anastasio Somoza Debayle (the original dictator's second son) led many Nicaraguans to join the anti-Somoza struggle. It also [Page 1260]led various factions of the revolutionary struggle to unify. What emerged, then, was a heterodox group of Marxists, nationalists, Christians, intellectuals, social reformers, and even a few businessmen, united in their effort to remove Somoza and transform a dependent, unequal society. All involved in the struggle were inspired by the example and thinking of Sandino. His model proved tremendously relevant to the nationalist and anti-imperialist part of the revolution. It also provided a precedent of sorts for the FSLN's efforts to counter the brutal U.S.-sponsored “contra” insurgency in the 1980s. But it did little to clarify the post-Somoza political agenda. Sandino's populism and his rural roots bolstered advocates of land reform, for example. And his insistence on freedom from outside intervention inspired reformers intent on ridding Nicaragua of economic dependence. On a more general level, though, Sandino's vagueness about political and economic issues, and his spiritualist and anarchist tendencies, made his relevance to the mundane details of governing problematic. The continued presence of the contras in the countryside allowed the FSLN to closely associate its rule with the earlier efforts of a Nicaraguan patriot, contributing significantly to the Sandinistas' popularity in the early 1980s. It is no coincidence that the FSLN's political fortunes began to wane in the late 1980s as the contra war faded from public view. One could argue that the FSLN's political success was loosely linked to its ability to identify its movement with the nationalism and patriotism of Augusto Sandino. The FSLN was defeated by a coalition of groups in 1990, but remains among the largest political parties in Nicaragua.

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