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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re:Nicaraguan parallel
Message-ID: <7800464@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 15:03:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800464
Posted: Thu Sep 26 15:03:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Oct-85 05:49:49 EDT
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Nf-From: inmet!janw    Sep 26 15:03:00 1985


/* Written  6:33 pm  Sep 23, 1985 by carnes@gargoyle in inmet:net.politics */
> >[my general observations on totalitarianism as a political invention]
> >Once perfected, it is imported by country after country.

> [Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes]
> This is fine; but one must be disinformed to regard Nicaragua as
> totalitarian, in my opinion.  The reasonably open and democratic
> elections held last fall have no parallel in Soviet history since
> 1917, and are sufficient to draw a sharp distinction between the two
> political systems.  Not to mention other differences.  If this is
> totalitarianism, it is a strange variety indeed.  

My understanding of the Nicaraguan situation is that the totalitarian
machinery of power has been imported, is in place, but is not working
at full capacity, due to external constraints. I defended this position
in an argument with Larry Kolodney on net.politics. To save you search,
I'll attach an excerpt here. Larry did not, however,
make your argument about the elections, so I'll answer it now.

There are really two questions: 

(1) were they "reasonably open and democratic" ?
I deny that. The cards were stacked enough so that the party in 
power *could not lose*. Given that, they were willing (which is,
I agree, unusual for a full-fledged totalitarian society) to
tolerate opposition. But the opposition is impotent. It would
be dangerous only if it could ally itself (on some issues, at least)
with groups within the Sandinista party. So, to me , the
crucial question is NOT the existence of opposition outside
the Party, but *toleration of factionalism inside the party*.
I've never heard of open discord within it. I read newspapers
(it's one of my vices), and their focus on Nicaragua seems 
sufficient for them  to report such events.
Your information on Nicaragua may come partially from different
sourses than mine. Without blindly undertaking to trust these sourses
(but not fully closing my mind), I would appreciate any clari-
fication of the above criterion.

(2) Such as they were, are the elections and opposition parties
unprecedented in a Soviet model of government ? 

Not quite, at a certain stage. For a year or so, after the Soviet
revolution, Socialist opposition was tolerated within what
corresponded to parliament in their system (but its freedom
of speech there was curbed).

 Did you ever hear of the Far Eastern
Republic , a huge independent state spanning the eastern third
of Siberia? It existed for two years as a  buffer  state  between
Russia and Japan (which had juicy economic concessions there).
The state was (as Soviet historians put it) "bourgeois-democratic
in form, but led by Bolsheviks". I suppose that includes elections.
In due time, its Moscow-selected leaders duly liquidated it.

Nearer to our time, post-war elections in both Hungary and Czechoslovakia
were *not phony* (as they now are). But the cards were sufficiently
stacked to ensure the Soviet-favored composition of parliaments.
I agree with you that, to the totalitarian mind, this is not
a normal situation. It does not last forever. But for a time,
in the presence of external constraints, it can be endured.

What follows is is the polemical excerpt I promised.

/* Written  9:51 pm  Sep 20, 1985 by janw@inmet.UUCP in inmet:net.politics */
[responding to Larry Kolodney's response]
 Larry: thank you for actually reading before responding.
This is not always true on the net, and I am pleasantly
impressed. I did not expect to answer any more responses
on this sequence, but I'll answer yours.

I agree with you to the extent that repression in Nicaragua is not 
(for now) on the Soviet, or Chinese, or Cuban scale.
 What I was arguing was that the *machinery* of repression
is in place; so that, there being no checks or balances,
it is merely a matter of *policy* when this
machinery starts working full speed.
 I was also arguing that this mechanism forms a recognizable
whole, copied from a master copy. If so, all of its
parts need not be visible for it to be recognized.
Just a little feature might be sufficient:
if it quacks like a duck, etc. ...
 True, a glaring contradiction might (in principle) be discovered
that would disprove my assumptions: my duck might
turn out to be a platipus, after all.
 However, these assumptions are based on a long
historical perspective. Other regimes with similar
attributes had also their spells of relative
mildness, and high hopes were raised, inside
and abroad; however, the "mechanisms of power" 
	      [should be "technology of power" --JW]
(the term belongs to A. Avtorkhanov  whose
book under the same title I recommend) kept
being perfected and strengthened. It could not
be any different: totalitarian model of governmernt
is the most perfect way, so far invented,
for a group in power to stay in power. So the
people who had it would not have it dismantled.
For a time they kept adding improvements,
Mussolini borrowing from Lenin, and Hitler from
Mussolini, and Stalin from Hitler. By now it
is perfect and frozen. 

 Before I turn to your specific points (my main
objection will always be that you are talking
policy while I am talking political structure),
let me discuss your final conclusion.
You are saying, basically, that Nicaraguan state
is now half-Leninist, and external pressures would
only give them an excuse to go the whole hog.
My objection is three-fold. First, I believe (as stated above)
that totalitarianism (like pregnancy) is binary.
Second objection is empirical: pressures (including 
military ones) appear to have made the Sandinistas 
much more restrained. If it works, why fix it?
Thirdly, this "excuse" argument seems to me surprisingly
naive. Is anyone, are, especially, dictators, ever
short of excuses ? Hitler had excuses for attacking Poland,
Stalin for attacking Finland. It is not excuses Ortega 
is lacking. 

Now for some detail:

> > - no dissent within the ruling Party;

> Please provide evidence of no dissent within Sandanista party.

I meant, of course, *open* dissent. I think the onus is on you.
Proving the absence of something is kind of hard.
I believe this item very important. If you could demonstrate
significant factionalism, spilling out into general public,
in Sandinista Party (as there was in Russia till mid-twenties,
and in Germany till summer 1934), I would revise my 
estimate of Nicaragua from "totalitarian" to "incipient
totalitarian".

> > - secret police unchecked by any other institution
> >   but the Party;

> This is a problem in Nicaragua.  However, you never hear of any evidence of
> torture, and little evidence of other major abuses that you might expect from
> a KGB-like organization.

True or false, it's a matter of policy, changeable at whim.

> > - a net of informers sufficient to report on every citizen;

> There are informers in Nicaragua, but I know of no evidence that that 
> are as omnipresent as you claim.  There are also informers in this country.

I've read of at least one informer per every block.

> > - Propaganda a major item of budget;

> Sad, but true.  However, propoganda is a major item in the budget of
> any nation under attack. 

Nations like this are always under attack. Like Oceania in 1984.
This started long before any real attack, or threat of attack, existed.

> > - armed forces politicized;

> True.  But given the circumstances of their rise to power, not surprising.

I agree, but this does not change the significance of it. Again,
I am not discussing their intentions, but the tools at their disposal.

> > - a network of Party-affiliated organizations covering all
> >   areas of life, cradle to grave;

> Evidence?

Sketchy, but non-contradictory. 
The kindergarten picture I started with, peasant cooperatives,
unions, illiteracy elimination groups, militia, all this wonderful
stuff - it is all under party leadership, isn't it ?

> > - anti-government demonstrations (of course) made impossible,
> >   but also pro-government ones made compulsory;

> Untrue.  There was just recently a major protest by the leading business
> group in Nicaragua.

Come on, leading businessmen (as long as they exist) can get away
with a lot (as they recently did in South Africa).

Show me anti-Sandinista  mass rallies like they have even in
South Africa, even in Chile. True, they are dispersed there, but
they assemble first. Not in Nicaragua. That net of informers
must be thicker, and work better, than you give them credit for.

> > - censorship (of course) suppressing anti-regime information;
> >   but also *insufficiently pro-regime* information;

> Censorship exists, but it is not nearly on the level of Soviet or
> Chinese censorship.  Many anti-government articles DO get printed (although
> others don't).

The examples of censored articles I saw were innocent news that 
La Prensa could not predict would be censored. Real
anti-government stuff, they don't even try.

> > - the country declared a military camp;

> Untrue.  Only those areas that are actually in the war zone are such.  There
> is freedom of movement in the rest of the country.

I didn't mean martial law. I meant that "nation under attack",
"them vs. us"  mentality .  In Russia they always speak
of "Socialist Camp" and "Capitalist Camp",
in Nicaragua it's "Yankees, the enemies of humanity",
and all their neighbors are accomplices, too.

> > - foreign connections made difficult; and so on. 

> Untrue.  Foreigners are welcomed to travel freely in Nicaragua.

*Foreigners*, maybe. What about Nicaraguans ? Foreigners are
relatively free to come to East Germany. East Germans are
shot as they scale that wall.

I've read of a woman who admitted how she had snitched with
extra zeal on the people in her block, for several months,
so they would let her visit her relatives in Guatemala.

Do you know how much a phone call costs from there to here ?
I forgot the exact figure, but it is hundreds of dollars.

		Jan Wasilewsky


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