Nicaragua

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See also: 

On Nicaragua: to the left forces of the Sao Paulo Forum
Was Nicaragua’s November 7 general election fixed or fair?
Nicaragua: What have we learnt about the conflict of April-July 2018?  

By Dick Nichols

February 12, 2022 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — The articles that follow this preface deal with the background to and the conduct of the November 7 general election in Nicaragua. In addition to returning outgoing president Daniel Ortega and vice-president Rosario Murillo with over 75% of the vote, the election saw the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) increase its majority in the 90 elected seats of Nicaragua’s National Assembly from 71 to 74 and from 14 to 15 in its 20-seat contingent in the 126-seat Central American Parliament.

That result would seem to mark a gain for the whole Latin American left, to be ranked with recent advances like those of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) in Bolivia, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Libre in Honduras, and Apruebo Dignidad in Chile.

Was it? The Latin American left is divided on how to take Ortega’s and Murillo’s win. While welcomed by the Cuban, Venezuelan and Bolivian governments, Chilean presidential candidate Gabriel Boric, who was to win the second round of his country’s presidential poll on December 19, disowned the Nicaraguan election.

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See also: 

Nicaragua: Was Daniel Ortega’s re-election a gain for the left? Preface to three articles
Was Nicaragua’s November 7 general election fixed or fair?
Nicaragua: What have we learnt about the conflict of April-July 2018?  

By Iosu Perales[1]

San Sebastián, August 2021 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Shortly after learning of the departure into exile from Nicaragua of Mónica Baltodano[2] and her family I sat down at the computer and began to write, without a prepared script, without an organised plan for producing a document. A sort of improvisation with its thinking focused on the critical reaction that the left should have, but—with a few honourable exceptions—will not have.

I will be clear from the outset. I feel and believe that no small part of the Latin American left has—along with its political project—been disabled intellectually. Instead of the rule of critical, combative thinking, we find a conservatism that does not match the achievements of a heroic past.

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By Joyce McCracken

December 15, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — During October 1956 Soviet tanks rolled into the capital of the Hungarian People’s Republic, Budapest. Much has been written about the event. Discussions have ranged from Communist Party congresses, Fourth Internationalist gatherings, academic forums, and discussions in bars and over kitchen tables — essentially wherever lefties hang out in Europe and beyond.

A young English reporter, Peter Fryer, working for the Daily Worker, witnessed the event itself and the immediate aftermath. That paper was the forerunner of today’s Morning Star, which today proudly and justifiably claims to be the world’s only English language, socialist daily newspaper.

The story of what Fryer witnessed in Hungry can be read in his short book, Hungarian Tragedy. It makes harrowing reading.

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For more on Chile click HERE.

By Roger Burbach

September 11, 2013 -- Futuresocialism.org -- The coup d’etat by General Augusto Pinochet in Chile on September 11, 1973, transformed the history of socialism. Almost a thousand days before, Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity coalition had taken office promising a “Chilean Road to Socialism” based on democratic principles. The government launched an agrarian reform program, recognised the right of workers to take over factories and run them collectively, took control of most of the country’s banks and expropriated multinational corporations like Kennecott and ITT, all within the framework of the Chilean constitution.