>Michael Perelman wrote:
>>In what way is Petras ultraleft?
>
>In 1990 Daniel Ortega ran unsuccessfully against Violeta Chamorro under
>conditions of total isolation internationally. The USA had just cut a deal
>with the USSR to dump Nicaragua. The country had been devastated by over 5
>years of contra war, earthquake, hurricanes and civil war with Somoza. In
>the aftermath of Ortega's loss, the left tried to figure out "what went
>wrong". Petras wrote a well-publicized attack on the FSLN for not calling
>off the elections and declaring war on the internal bourgeois opposition,
>suspending La Prensa and nationalizing the large estates. In other words,
>Nicaragua should have transformed itself into Cuba. If this position is not
>ultraleft, I don't know what is. In reality, there was little that could
>have been done to defend the revolution since the USSR had already decided
>to move toward capitalism. Nicaragua was not an island like Cuba, nor was
>the Cuban revolution organized when the USSR was an accomplice of US
>foreign policy. To not see these differences is foolish.
>
>Louis Proyect
So what is to be done, now that the USSR is no more? If there was
"little that could have been done" then, does it mean nothing doing
now?
Yoshie
