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What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution, A Marxist Analysis. Leiden & Boston: Brill, xxii + 407 pp., isbn 978-9004291300, €155.00/$185.00 (hb)What destroys a revolution after its auspicious and justifiable beginnings? What factors undermine its potential? The answers to these questions, Dan La Botz argues, can be found in the ideological predispositions of its revolutionaries. In the case of Nicaragua, the Sandinista revolution failed to live up to its promise because, despite the lip service paid to democratic ideals, the Sandinista leadership was fundamentally incapable of establishing democracy. The Sandinistas ‘had no conception of the relationship between representative democracy and participatory democracy, no conception of the role of independent labour unions, no commitment to worker’s control’ (p. 361). What accounts for this undemocratic orientation? Their ideology. The Sandinista leadership was defined by Marxist-Leninism and Marxist-Leninism explains both the lack of democracy within their ranks and present day caudillismo in Nicaragua.In What Went Wrong? La Botz traces the undemocratic practices of the Sandinistas. They came to power in the context of a political crisis and a socio-political vacuum: a weak economic and political elite failed to confront the Somoza dictatorship head on. The early leaders, including Carlos Fonseca Amador, had Stalinist
Comparative Sociology – Brill
Published: Nov 23, 2017
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