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The Sandinista Legacy: Lessons from a Political Economy in Transition. By Ilja A. Luciak. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995. 258p. $49.95.
Theory in the Practice of the Nicaraguan Revolution. By Bruce E. Wright. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995. 272p. $23.00 paper.
Gary Prevost, St. John's University
What is the meaning of the Sandinista revolutionary experience for Nicaragua and for students of Latin American politics and revolutionary change? These works by Luciak and Wright add significantly to our understanding of a revolution that has received considerable attention from both scholars and political leaders over the twenty years since the Sandinista National Liberation Front came to power in a popular uprising in 1979 and then ceded power peacefully following a surprising electoral defeat in 1990.
A theme that unites both works is the belief that the Nicaraguan revolutionary process, while significantly damaged by the electoral defeat and the subsequent counterreform of the administration of Violeta Chamorro, has not been eradicated from Nicaraguan history. Referring to the revolutionary process, Wright says "initial reports of its death were premature, failing to take into account the extent to which the Nicaraguan population has come to be a force of its own" (p. 27). Both writers cite the 1990 elections as a victory for the democratic process. Luciak states: "Many observers have argued that the Nicaraguan revolution failed. I would maintain the opposite. The fact that the revolutionary regime was prepared to accept the verdict of the people in an electoral process legitimizes the Sandinista project" (p. 183). Wright adds that the democracy establishes a safe political space in which the FSLN can operate in an attempt to regain political power in the future.
Both authors praise the Sandinista commitment to electoral democracy, but they acknowledge that such change was not the primary goal of the young revolutionaries who launched a guerrilla struggle in the early 1960s. Luciak poses the most important question: "The Sandinistas came to power with the promise to establish social and economic democracy.... Did the revolution fulfill its promise to the Nicaraguan people?" (p. 184). Luciak and Wright do not offer a definitive answer to this question, arguing plausibly that the changes set in motion during the Sandinista years in power have yet to run their...