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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Totalitarian Nicaragua
Message-ID: <343@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Feb-86 21:02:37 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.343
Posted: Sun Feb 16 21:02:37 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Feb-86 21:08:58 EST
References: <7801001@inmet.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 100
Summary: 

In article <7801001@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes:
>
>[michael@ucbjade]
>/* ---------- "Re: (Fellow-)Travelers" ---------- */
>>I disagree.  Nicaragua is different.
>>	1) Nicaragua has had pluralistic democratic elections (certified by
>>independent international organizations).
>
>Credible organizations ? 

Yes.  The information is publicly available.

>Nicaragua is *totalitarian* in the sense that its  political  ar-
>chitecture  is. That is, the system of institutions in which real
>power resides is built on the totalitarian model: 
>--the  monolithic militant ruling Party;  
   [etc. -- long list]

That is NOT what "totalitarian" means, as ordinarily understood in
discourse on political theory -- although such terms will always have
fuzzy boundaries.  A well-known definition is that of Carl Friedrich:
A totalitarian regime is an autocracy with all of the following
characteristics:

--a totalist ideology
--a single party committed to this ideology
--a fully developed secret police
--monopolistic control of mass communications
--monopolistic control of operational weapons
--monopolistic control of all organizations (including economic ones)

[See Friedrich, Curtis & Barber, *Totalitarianism in Perspective*,
and Friedrich's article therein, "The Evolving Theory and Practice of
Totalitarian Regimes".]  In general, then, a totalitarian state is
one in which all voices of criticism are silenced as a matter of
government policy, or at least all criticism aimed at the legitimacy
of the state and its leaders and ruling party.  All tolerance for
dissent disappears when the state is threatened.  All organizations
-- universities, unions, churches, professional associations, etc. --
are forced to become subservient to the state.  

Nicaragua does not at all fit this description.  Nicaraguans are not
afraid to speak out against the government without concealing their
identities, and this at a time when the government is under attack
from the contras and in serious economic difficulties.  This says a
lot to me, and should say something to Jan.

>--the omnipresent  surveillance; 

I thought "omnipresent" meant "present everywhere".  

>--the task of transforming society declared a national goal;

Shocking.  Any decent government in Central America wants to
transform the society.  Did you mean something more specific?

>--official manicheism: the nation declared an armed camp besieged
>  by forces of darkness;

If this is true, which I'm not sure about, how does it make Nicaragua
totalitarian?  A famous British Prime Minister spoke about Britain in
similar terms, during WWII.

>--not merely obedience, but active  political  participation  ex-
>  pected from the populace;

Could you be more specific, and also explain how this implies
totalitarianism.

Perhaps Jan believes that Nicaragua is bound to *become*
totalitarian, barring an overthrow by the contras.  If so, let him
present his reasons.  The following does not count as an argument:

>In this sense, totalitarianism is *binary*. It's a package  deal.
>E.g., political architecture of Mussolini's Italy and of Hitler's
>Germany was essentially the same. *All* the above  features  were
>there,  and others I could name; and so they were in Russia, Chi-
>na, Yugoslavia, Cuba, Albania, Vietnam. There's a *pattern*, easy
>to recognize once you've learned it. Noticing a few features, you
>can *predict* the others, and not be mistaken.

Such generalizations are dangerous.  What set of similar
characteristics would enable one to conclude that country X will
follow the path taken by e.g., Cuba?  All you can claim is that there
is a correlation among several countries, which in itself proves
nothing about causality.  The task of historical analysis, as opposed
to ideology, is to figure out just what caused what in each specific
situation.  Then, using what has been learned, we can apply it to
Nicaragua, which differs from the above-named countries in numerous
respects, as well as being similar to them.

I guess I should expect to read next that Daniel Ortega is really a
dictator, that the government's relocation of civilians is really
Stalinism, and that Nicaragua is in reality fascist -- suggestions
are welcome.  But such label-mongering advances no one's
understanding of a historical reality which, like all
post-revolutionary societies, is exceedingly complex and difficult to
analyze.  
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes