Thirty-five years ago, on July 19, 1979, in Nicaragua, as a result of a revolutionary uprising, the pro-American dictatorship of General A. Somoza was swept away. Since then, this day has traditionally been celebrated in this small country as a public holiday. This is not surprising, since during the years of his reign, Somoza so "got" the Nicaraguan people and undermined the already weak economy of this Central American state that the Sandinista revolutionaries, who brought the long-awaited liberation from his power, still not only enjoy the well-deserved respect of citizens countries, but also are in power in the republic.
[bCountry between oceans]
Nicaragua is a small country. Its population by 2013 only slightly exceeded 6 million people, and the territory located between two world oceans - the Pacific and Atlantic (Caribbean), is also small - 129 494 square kilometers - provides the country with a distant 95th place in terms of area among countries the world. The population of Nicaragua is, first of all, Indians and descendants of mixed Indian-Spanish marriages - mestizo.
Despite its small size, Nicaragua has an interesting history full of significant events. In many ways, the history of this small state is one big war for national liberation, interspersed with decades of dictatorial regimes with all their inherent disadvantages - political reaction, corruption, banditry, poverty of the vast majority of the population and economic enslavement of the country by foreign, primarily American, corporations …
The Nicaraguan coast was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1502, but its colonization by the Spanish conquistadors began only twenty years later. In 1523, the lands of the future Nicaragua were included in the Spanish possessions in America as the audience of Santo Domingo, later (in 1539) - reassigned to Panama, and then - to the Captaincy General of Guatemala.
It should be noted that, unlike many other Spanish colonies in Latin America, the fate of Nicaragua did not develop well. A significant Indian population lived here, which was not at all delighted with the actions of the colonialists and constantly raised anti-colonial uprisings. Secondly, the colonial governors themselves, using the low importance of Nicaragua for the Spanish crown and the associated inattention to the colony, periodically tried to secede from the metropolis.
Ultimately, in 1821, almost 300 years after Spanish colonization, Nicaragua declared independence from the Spanish crown - initially part of the Mexican Empire, and then as part of the United Provinces of Central America. This state existed from 1823 to 1840. and included the territory of present-day Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, as well as the disappeared state of Los Altos (which included part of the territory of modern Guatemala and the Mexican state of Chiapas). However, Spain officially recognized Nicaragua as an independent state only in 1850.
Over the nearly two hundred year history of its sovereignty, Nicaragua has repeatedly become the target of aggression by the United States of America. As a matter of fact, the United States was not going to annex the territory of a Central American state with a backward economy and a poor Indian population, but it was happy to exploit the natural resources of Nicaragua. So, in 1856-1857. the country was ruled by the American adventurer William Walker, who, with a detachment of mercenaries, captured Nicaragua and established a regime there that supported the southern slave states of the United States. Subsequently, Walker was shot in Honduras for his activities against the Central American states, but much more dangerous forces followed the adventurer to Central America.
From 1912 to 1933, for over twenty years, the territory of Nicaragua was under the occupation of the United States of America. By introducing its troops into the territory of a sovereign state, the American leadership pursued, as the main goal of the occupation, obstruction of the plans to build the Nicaraguan Canal by any other state except the United States. The American marines were introduced to the territory of Nicaragua, the units of which remained here until 1933, causing the outrage of the patriotic part of the population.
Sandino - Peasant General
The Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979 is often called the Sandinista, although Augusto Sandino himself had long been dead at the time. Sandino is to Nicaragua like Bolivar to Venezuela or Bolivia, like Jose Marti to Cuba. A national hero, whose name has long become a national symbol. Augusto Cesar Sandino came from a peasant family, a mestizo, and in his youth spent five years in exile in neighboring Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, hiding from police prosecution for an attempt on the life of a man who insulted his mother. Most likely, it was during his stay in Mexico that Sandino got acquainted with revolutionary ideas and was imbued with their liberating potential.
After the expiration of the statute of limitations for the crime he had committed, he returned to Nicaragua, worked in a mine and became interested in the political situation in his native country there. By this time, Nicaragua had been under American occupation for 13 years. Many Nicaraguan patriots did not like the current situation, especially since the pro-American regime directly impeded the country's economic development and doomed its population to poverty. Sandino, a young and active man, all the more interested in emigration with revolutionary ideas, gradually began to gather around him supporters who also shared his indignation at American rule in his native land.
Augusto Sandino was thirty-one years old when in 1926 he raised a rebellion against the pro-American government of Nicaragua. Leading a partisan detachment, Sandino embarked on a "guerrilla" - a guerrilla war against government forces and the American occupiers. Many peasants, intellectuals and even representatives of the wealthy segments of the population, dissatisfied with the American dominance in the political and economic life of the country, began to join the ranks of the Sandinista movement. The Sandino squad, numbering several hundred, inflicted several defeats on the illustrious American Marines.
It should be recalled that by this time the US Marine Expeditionary Corps, numbering 12 thousand people, was stationed on the territory of Nicaragua, in addition, at least eight thousand people numbered the country's armed forces loyal to the pro-American regime. However, despite its large numbers, the pro-American government was never able to cope with the peasant detachments of Augusto Sandino for several years. The uniqueness of the leadership talent and organizational skills of the young peasant, who did not have any military education and even the experience of serving in the army as an ordinary soldier, was emphasized by many of his contemporaries and researchers of the history of the Sandinista movement in subsequent years.
The Sandino rebel army was staffed, in the bulk, by peasants - volunteers, but among its commanders there were many "revolutionaries - internationalists" who arrived at Augusto's headquarters from all over Latin America. In this, Sandino's guerrilla war resembled a Cuban guerrilla, which also attracted numerous volunteers from all Latin American states. So, in the rebel army Sandino fought the Salvadoran revolutionary Farabundo Martí, the future leader of the Venezuelan communists Gustavo Machado, the Dominican Gregorio Gilbert, famous for organizing resistance to the landing of American marines in his homeland.
To improve the effectiveness of the Nicaraguan army in the fight against insurgents, the US military command decided to transform the country's traditional armed forces into the National Guard. The training of officers and soldiers of the National Guard was also carried out by American instructors. However, during 1927-1932. Sandino rebels managed to wage successful hostilities against the National Guard and by 1932 half of the country's territory was under the control of the rebels. In addition to the pro-American government and a contingent of American marines, Sandino also declared war on the American industrial companies that exploited the territory of Nicaragua. First of all, it was about such monsters as the United Fruit Company, which specialized in monopolizing agricultural land in Central America. During one of the operations, Sandino rebels captured and shot 17 American managers of the United Fruit Company.
The American leadership announced an award of 100 thousand dollars for the head of Augusto Sandino. However, the outbreak of the economic crisis in the United States and the growing guerrilla movement in Nicaragua itself forced the Americans on January 2, 1933, to withdraw their military units from Nicaraguan territory. Moreover, in the States themselves, massive anti-war demonstrations began, and many congressmen wondered about the legality of using units of the US armed forces for military operations outside the country without the proper permission of the legislature. Thus, in fact, Sandino became the liberator of the country from the American occupation. And the more tragic and unjust is his end - he was captured and shot by the leader of the National Guard, Anastasio Somoza, who became the sole ruler of Nicaragua for many years.
"Three Fat Men" in Nicaraguan style
The Somoza clan regime can be called one of the most controversial dictatorships in the history of mankind. However, unlike the same Hitler or Mussolini, the "three fat men" of Somoza, who alternately replaced each other in power in Nicaragua, were not even capable of creating a strong state. Their credo began and ended with the theft of any state funds, the monopolization of all spheres of economic activity capable of generating any income, as well as a demonstrative overconsumption of luxury goods.
Anastasio Somoza Sr. openly sympathized with the regime of Adolf Hitler, and tried to do so even when the "masters" of Somoza - the United States of America - entered the Second World War against Hitlerite Germany. The Americans, however, had no choice but to put up with the antics of their "puppet", since the latter was of interest to them, allowing them to plunder the national wealth of Nicaragua, freely use the country's territory in the interests of the United States, and besides, he fiercely hated communism and the Soviet A union in which the United States of those years saw for itself the main danger.
In 1956, Anastasio Somoza was mortally wounded by the poet Rigoberto Lopez Perez, a member of a youth circle that aimed to rid Nicaragua of the dictator. Despite the efforts of American doctors, Somoza died, but the dictatorial regime he created continued to exist. "By inheritance" power in the country passed to the eldest son of Anastasio Somoza Luis Somoza Debayle. The latter was not much different from his father, being no less a sadist and corrupt official.
The reign of the Somoza clan in Nicaragua lasted 45 years. During this time, Anastasio Somoza Garcia, his eldest son Luis Somoza Debayle and the youngest son - Anastasio Somoza Debayle replaced each other. During the reign of the Somoza clan, Nicaragua remained a puppet state in relation to the United States of America. Any political opposition in the country was suppressed, the regime carried out especially strong repressions against the communists.
When the revolution triumphed in Cuba and the revolutionaries headed by Fidel Castro came to power, training camps were set up in Nicaragua to train the Cuban "contras", which were supposed to be used in the fight against the Castro government. All Somoses were terribly afraid of the communist threat and therefore saw a danger in the victory of the Cuban revolution, first of all, for their political positions in Nicaragua, knowing full well that such an event could not but cause fermentation throughout Latin America.
The socio-economic situation in Nicaragua during the reign of the Somoza clan was impressive. A significant part of the country's population remained illiterate, there was a very high infant mortality rate, and all kinds of infectious diseases were widespread. Almost one in five Nicaraguans suffered from tuberculosis. Naturally, the general standard of living of the country's population was extremely low. Plasma became one of the main goods exported by Nicaragua during these decades. The Nicaraguans were forced to sell blood, since the Somoza regime did not provide them with any other opportunity to earn money.
Numerous humanitarian aid sent to Nicaragua by international organizations and even the United States was almost openly plundered by the Somoza clan and its trusted people from the leadership of the National Guard and the police. The only thing, besides his own enrichment, which Somoza paid attention to was strengthening the power potential of the National Guard and other paramilitary formations, with the help of which the clan was going to protect itself from possible popular unrest. Somoza's security forces functioned with direct support from American intelligence services, and their officers were trained in American training centers.
It is significant that even Catholic clergymen generally negatively perceived the dictatorship of Somoz. Many of them actively participated in the opposition movement. By the way, it was Nicaragua that became one of the centers of the spread of the so-called. "Theology of Liberation" - a trend in Catholic theology that advocated the combination of Christian values with the ideology of the struggle for social justice. In response to the activities of revolutionary-minded priests, the Somoza regime intensified political repression, including against representatives of the church, but the latter only angered the peasant masses of the Nicaraguan population, for whom the priest's authority always meant a lot. Naturally, the persecution of priests by the national guards inevitably entailed acts of revenge on the part of the peasants, pushing the latter into the ranks of the rebel detachments.
The Sandinista revolution and the collapse of the dictatorship
At the same time, the ideological heirs of Augusto Sandino, who hated American imperialism and its puppets from the Somoza clan, waged a guerrilla war against the regime for a long time. In 1961 g. In exile in Honduras, Nicaraguan patriots created the Sandinista National Liberation Front (SFLF), which played a key role in liberating the country from the pro-American regime. The Sandinistas included supporters of various directions of socialist and communist thought - from pro-Soviet communists to supporters of the ideas of Ernesto Che Guevara and Mao Zedong. The training of the SFLN founders was carried out by Cuban revolutionaries, who considered it their duty to provide ideological, organizational and financial support to all revolutionary socialist movements in Latin America, regardless of specific ideological differences.
FSLN leader Carlos Amador Fonseca has been imprisoned several times - not only in Nicaragua, but also in Costa Rica. He created his first revolutionary circle in 1956, uniting the then few young followers of Marxism (during the reign of Somoz, the works of K. Marx, F. Engels and other representatives of Marxist and, more broadly, any socialist thought, were banned in Nicaragua).
The intellectual Fonseca not only wrote books, setting out his own political views, but also personally participated in hostilities. He was arrested many times - in 1956, 1957, 1959, 1964. And each time after the release of Fonseca, he returns to his daily activities - organizing an anti-American underground in Nicaragua.
In August 1969, Fonseca and his comrade Daniel Ortega, now the current president of Nicaragua, were once again released from prison after the FSLN took US citizens hostage and demanded that political prisoners be exchanged for them. After visiting Cuba, Fonseca returned to Nicaragua in order to lead the guerrilla movement, but was captured by the National Guards and brutally killed on November 7, 1976. The severed hands and head of Carlos Fonseca were personally delivered to the dictator Anastasio Somoza.
However, the pro-American sadist general could not long revel in his own power and impunity. Less than three years after Fonseca's brutal assassination, the Sandinista National Liberation Front launched an offensive against regime positions across the country. First of all, the rebels organize attacks on the barracks and command posts of the National Guard throughout Nicaragua. At the same time, partisan detachments attack the land of the Somoza family, which attracts support from the peasants in a hurry to seize the land for use. The Sandinistas assassinate the Chief of Staff of the National Guard, Perez, and assassinate many other prominent National Guard officers and regime politicians. In the cities of Nicaragua, numerous uprisings of the urban lower classes break out, which seize entire neighborhoods over which the police are losing control. At the same time, the Sandino radio station is launched, broadcasting to the territory of Nicaragua. Thus, the Somoza regime loses its monopoly in the country's information space.
Even the introduction of martial law in Nicaragua could no longer save Somoza. On July 17, 1979, the dictator left the country with his entire family, stolen money and dug up the corpses of his father and elder brother, which he wanted to save from mockery from the people. However, only a year and two months after his hasty "evacuation", on September 17, 1980, Anastasio Somoza was killed in the Paraguayan capital Asuncion. The ex-dictator's car was fired upon from a grenade launcher, and then they "completed the matter" from automatic weapons. As it became known later, by order of the leadership of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, his execution was carried out by the militants of the Argentine Revolutionary Army of the People, a local left-wing radical rebel organization.
Thus, the Sandinista revolution won, becoming the second, after the Cuban revolution, an example of the successful coming of anti-imperialist forces to power in a Latin American country in a revolutionary way. In the United States of America, the victory of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua was perceived as a terrible geopolitical defeat comparable to the Cuban Revolution.
It should be noted that for seventeen years of a fierce partisan war, which from 1962 to 1979. led by the Sandinistas against the Somoza regime, more than 50 thousand Nicaraguans died, hundreds of thousands lost their homes over their heads, more than 150 thousand people were forced to leave Nicaragua. Many hundreds of representatives of the Nicaraguan intelligentsia, thousands of ordinary people were tortured to death in the prisons of the pro-American regime, or "disappeared", in reality, being killed by special services or pro-government armed formations of punitive forces.
But even after the victory, the Sandinistas faced a serious problem in the form of resistance from the Contras - armed detachments of mercenaries trained and sponsored by the United States of America and raiding Nicaraguan territory from neighboring Honduras and Costa Rica, where pro-American governments remained. Only by the 1990s did the Contras gradually cease their terrorist activities, which was associated, first of all, with the end of the Cold War and, as it seemed to American leaders then, the inevitable and imminent end of leftist ideas in Latin America (which, how we see from the analysis of the history of Latin American states in the 1990s - 2010s, by no means happened).
Thus, in fact, it is the United States that bears full responsibility for the many years of civil war in Nicaragua, the socio-economic problems of the country devastated by the consequences of the war, and the many thousands of victims of the dictatorial regime. From the first years of its post-revolutionary existence, the Sandinista government began to improve the socio-economic situation in the country, first of all, to solve the problems of medical provision, increase social protection of the population, and provide Nicaraguans with the right to receive education, including the elimination of illiteracy among broad strata of the population.
Nicaragua, Ortega and Russia
Realizing the true role of the United States in their history, the Nicaraguans are not distinguished by the idealization of the American state. In recent years, it is Nicaragua, along with Venezuela, that has acted as Russia's unconditional ally in Latin America. In particular, it was Nicaragua, among the few countries in the world, that officially recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, for which Daniel Ortega was awarded the highest awards of these states. And the point here is, most likely, not only in the importance of the economic ties of this Latin American country with the Russian Federation, but also in the anti-imperialist positions of President Ortega.
Daniel Ortega is one of the few active leaders of the countries of the world who emerged from the heroic era of wars and revolutions. He was born in 1945, and began to engage in revolutionary activities from the age of fifteen, when he was first arrested. During the pre-revolutionary period of his life, Ortega managed to fight and go to prisons, becoming one of the first leaders of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.
At the age of 21, he was already the commander of the Central Front of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, then spent eight years in prison and was released in exchange for the American hostages taken by his comrades. Starting from the first days of the revolution, he was among its key leaders, and later headed the government bodies.
However, in 1990, Daniel Ortega was re-elected from the presidency of the country and re-took him only in 2001, after the general election of the president. That is, even information warfare specialists from the American mass media cannot blame this professional revolutionary for the absence of a democratic principle.
Thus, the positive significance of the 1979 Sandinista revolution is obvious for modern Russia as well. First, thanks to the Sandinista Revolution, our country has found another small but valuable ally in Latin America, close to the United States. Secondly, she became an excellent example of how courage and perseverance help the "forces of good" crush the dictatorship, despite all its National Guards and multimillion-dollar aid from the United States. Finally, Nicaragua is counting on the help of Russia and China in the construction of the Nicaraguan Canal - the very one whose appearance by all means the Americans tried to prevent the Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century, even going for many years of military occupation of Nicaragua.
