4. On Sandinista ideas of past connections to the Soviet Union and Nicaraguan exceptionalism*

Johannes Wilm

Nicaraguan views on relations between Nicaragua and Eastern Europe/ the former Soviet Union in the 1980s, is the focus of this chapter. Much has been written about the nature of these relations,¹ but little about Nicaraguan and Sandinista perceptions of that situation and how these have informed Nicaraguan actions. The hypothesis presented here is that the seemingly contradictory behaviour and relations between Nicaragua and the Soviet Union during that period in the 1980s can be explained by the tendency of many key Nicaraguan Sandinistas to place historical agency for events that happen in country in their Nicaraguan hands. While Sandinistas are quick to point to Nicaragua’s relationship of economic dependence with the United States during Somoza’s time and liberal opposition rule between 1990 and 2007, they do not view the country’s relationship with the Soviet Union as having had the same dependence. Nicaragua is thought of as acting independently of its economic circumstances, acting on the world stage as if it were a major power, which makes it an exception when compared to its neighbours. It is likely that Sandinistas’ support for this view has permitted the most powerful Nicaraguan leaders, including President Daniel Ortega, to act as they do and to gain support throughout the country for their actions.

* My thanks to Mark Jamieson and Dennis Rodgers, who initially pointed out that the collected material on Nicaraguan students in Eastern Europe was significant; to Stephen Nugent and Casey High for their many comments on a chapter on a similar theme in my PhD thesis, which influenced the final outcome of this chapter; to Michael Böhner who spent much time explaining the structures of solidarity with Nicaragua as viewed by GDR-solidarity activists; to the many Sandinista informants of all ages who gave up their time to be interviewed and, in many cases, also hosted me; to the participants of the Central America research conference at the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) in London in spring 2015, whose feedback was of great importance; to Sarah Zurhellen who helped with the final wording of this contribution; and to Hilary Francis for her work editing this collection.

1 P. Shearman, ‘The Soviet challenge in Central America’; E. Dominguez Reyes, ‘Soviet relations with Central America, the Caribbean, and members of the Contadora group’; J. Suchlicki, ‘Soviet policy in Latin America: implications for the United States’; R. Berrios, ‘Relations between Nicaragua and the socialist countries’.

The Nicaraguan concept of ‘agency’, or protagonismo, differs sharply from the understanding of the term that is prevalent among some academics. Historians in particular tend to think of agency as the effort expended by people who have dreams and try to achieve things, but are ultimately limited by structures. For example, Tanya Harmer argues that Chilean agency in the run-up to the 1973 coup has been underestimated – but she makes it clear that for it ‘does not equal power’. An emphasis on Latin Americans’ agency does not, she believes, imply a belief that Latin Americans had the power then to ‘radically remake the world and their place in it’.²

The term ‘agency’, as it is used here, is much more expansive and closer to anthropologist David Graeber’s understanding of ‘historical agency’: the capacity of a subject to make history or to change the course of history.³ In other words, having historical agency does not simply mean acting or being able to pressure others to act: it requires having the power to change things. Historical agency. Understood this way, it is the ability to diverge from the ‘normal’ path of events conditioned by external circumstances. Graeber’s approach has much in common with the idea of protagonismo used in Nicaraguan popular discourse. Declarations about the existence of protagonismo are found throughout Nicaraguan society. It is not uncommon to hear younger Sandinista leaders discuss the ‘protagonismo’ of young people in the revolutionary process, because – so the argument goes – young people are less bound by existing rules and customs, and are therefore more willing to try something new. In this chapter, the Nicaraguan understanding of the concept is favoured because it offers an overview of Nicaraguan perceptions about where historical agency lies, rather than an analysis of where agency can objectively said to be found.

This emphasis on agency in Sandinista discourse might seem surprising. Sandinista political thought is fully grounded in dependency theory and the idea that Nicaragua’s poverty was the result of an exploitative, unequal relationship with the United States. In a sense, it is precisely this consciousness of structural constraints that drove Nicaraguans’ expansive understanding of agency. This connection is clear in Stephen Henighan’s discussion of the work of Sergio Ramírez, the Sandinista politician and author. Henighan shows how Ramírez’ belief, grounded in dependency theory (Nicaragua is a ‘backward, dominated nation’), leads directly to his conviction that ‘“it is necessary to consolidate national identity” in a project of national liberation’.⁴

2 T. Harmer, ‘Tanya Harmer, Allende’s Chile and the Inter-American Cold War’, H-Diplo Roundtable Review, 14 (1) (n.d.), D. Walcher and D. Labrosse (eds.), https://issforum.org/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XIV-2.pdf. (accessed 27 Apr. 2019).

3 D. Graeber, ‘Epilogue to the disastrous ordeal of 1987’, 1996.

4 S. Henighan, Sandino’s Nation: Ernesto Cardenal and Sergio Ramírez Writing Nicaragua, 1940–2012, 450.

Nicaragua’s relationship with the Eastern bloc

The Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), the radical element in the opposition to the US-sponsored Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua since the early 1960s, succeeded in taking power on 19 July 1979, after a final revolutionary insurrection that had started in 1978 and led to about 30,000 deaths.⁵ During the 1980s and until the FSLN lost power in 1990, Nicaragua was an ally of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. However, the origins of the connection between Nicaragua and Eastern Europe, as well as Cuba, in the 1980s are not entirely clear. On the one hand, some early FSLN leaders had previously been part of the Moscow-allied Partido Socialista Nicaragüense (PSN). The most well-known among these was Carlos Fonseca Amador, who wrote a book about his 1957 experience in Moscow.⁶ On the other, according to currently available evidence, the Nicaraguan revolutionaries did not have connections with Moscow during the 1970s. Even after taking power, the future President Daniel Ortega’s initial conversations were with US President Jimmy Carter in September 1979. The talks led to a loan of US$2 million. Furthermore, relations between the US embassy and the Sandinistas were friendly in the first months after the takeover.⁷ Some US political commentators even argued that this was an opportunity for the United States to take on the role of supporting a revolutionary government, which, until then, had been one occupied exclusively by the Soviet Union and Cuba.⁸

At the same time as the connection to the Soviet Union expanded gradually during the first year of Sandinista government, the United States was replaced as Nicaragua’s main trading partner. It is not entirely clear which of these was the cause and which the effect. By October 1979, US analysts claimed they had seen evidence that Cuba had 50 advisers in Nicaragua.⁹ In February 1980, after several months of delay, a narrow majority in the US House of Representatives approved a meagre US$75 million in aid to Nicaragua. This had been promised earlier, but 60 per cent of it was earmarked to go to private businesses, and any expenditure on education projects involving Cuban teachers was prohibited.¹⁰ The amount was much less than the Sandinistas had hoped for and tiny when compared with US$1.5 billion debt that the Sandinistas had been asked to accept from the Somoza regime in 1979.¹¹ At this stage, it seemed clear that Nicaragua would have to find funding from an alternative source, and in March 1980, a Nicaraguan delegation led by Moisés Hassan, a member of the interim governing junta, signed a range of agreements with the Soviet Union.¹² This placed the country firmly in the camp of the Warsaw Pact countries, which also meant a freeze in their relations with the United States. Starting in the period 1981–3, Nicaragua received measurable military and economic aid from the Soviet Union, including tanks, wheat and credit for purchases.¹³

5 L.H. Gelb, ‘On arms for Nicaragua’, New York Times, 29 Aug. 1979.

6 C. Fonseca Amador, Un Nicaragüense en Moscú.

7 A. Riding, ‘Foreign policy set by Managua called realistic; U.S. seeks regime’s confidence’, New York Times, 9 Oct. 1979.

8 Gelb, ‘On arms for Nicaragua’; A. Riding, ‘Nicaragua after Somoza; after Somoza’, New York Times, 3 Feb. 1980.

9 ‘U.S. analysts say Cuba is keeping forces abroad; Cubans poorly paid’, New York Times, 21 Oct. 1979.

10 G. Hovey, ‘House, by 5-vote margin, passes Bill on assistance for Nicaragua’, New York Times, 28 Feb. 1980.

The change in Nicaragua’s relationship with the United States during that first year can also be understood in terms of political differences and shifts in the later. Under President Jimmy Carter, the US had first tried to support a moderate opposition, without Sandinista participation, in the months prior to the taking of power in 1979. Once the Sandinistas were in power, however, the Carter administration did try to work with them. It was only when the promised aid package had to go through Congress, where it met the opposition of conservative Republicans, that restrictions were added to prevent the Sandinistas from aiding other armed groups. When they did so anyway, Carter suspended the aid (instead of cancelling it). It was only after President Reagan took office that the United States changed its strategy and began funding a war against the Sandinistas.¹⁴

Relations with the Soviet Union and its allies grew rapidly. Nicaragua’s trade with the countries belonging to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), the economic organisation that united the Soviet Union’s closer allies, was only 1.1 per cent in 1980, but by 1987 this figure had risen to 48.6 per cent. By 1985, after Mexico stopped sending oil to Nicaragua due to its failure to pay, 90 per cent of petrol imports came from the Soviet Union.¹⁵ In addition to such aid, advisers from these countries stayed in Nicaragua for extended periods, and in 1979–90, many Nicaraguan students pursued their education in allied socialist countries (although the total number of students who went abroad is not fully known). According to estimates, 20,000 students followed courses in Cuba,¹⁶ 4,500–5,500 in East Germany¹⁷ and 8,200 in the Soviet Union (approximately 7,000 civilian¹⁸ and 1,183 military).¹⁹

11 A. Riding, ‘Nicaragua tries economic cure; concern among bankers’, New York Times, 27 Nov. 1979.

12 ‘Nicaragua leaders sign pacts with Soviet Union’, New York Times, 23 Mar. 1980.

13 Reyes, ‘Soviet relations with Central America, the Caribbean, and members of the Contadora Group’, 149–50.

14 W.M. Leogrande, ‘Making the economy scream: US economic sanctions against Sandinista Nicaragua’.

15 F. Harto de Vera, ‘La U.R.S.S. y la revolución sandinista: los estrechos límites de la solidaridad soviética’, 89.

16 R. Zúñiga interview with Marlén Villavicencio: ‘Ser internacionalista, para nosotros es un principio inalienable’, 23 Nov. 2011.

International and Nicaraguan perceptions of Nicaraguan-Soviet relations

The confrontation with the United States and the cooperation with Cuba and Eastern Europe ended up as a major part of the Sandinista reality of the 1980s, so it is not strange that many Nicaraguans who lived during that time have developed an opinion about it. Additionally, events in Nicaragua became world news during much of the 1980s. Nicaraguan understandings of cooperation between Sandinista Nicaragua and the communist bloc differed substantially from the views that prevailed elsewhere. For US President Ronald Reagan, the Soviet Union had obtained ‘a beachhead in North America’. Reagan feared that ‘[u]sing Nicaragua as a base, the Soviets and Cubans can become the dominant power in the crucial corridor between North and South America’.²⁰ While many outside Nicaragua disputed Reagan’s assessment of the threat that Nicaragua posed, most people would probably accept the general idea that this was yet another manifestation of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Most scholarship on the relationship between Nicaragua and the Soviet Union dates from the 1980s. Unsurprisingly, given the immediate stakes, this work is extremely polarised. Some scholars argued that Nicaragua was heavily reliant on the Soviet Union, while others saw a much looser relationship. Jiri Valenta described the Sandinistas and the Soviet Union as long-time allies: ‘[F]rom the beginning the FSLN has been led by dedicated, Leninist-oriented revolutionaries with long-standing ties to the Cuban and (to a lesser degree) Soviet communist parties’.²¹ Valenta also guessed that ‘the KGB probably assisted in efforts to train, finance, and arm the FSLN through Cuban intermediaries’,²² though he failed to present any meaningful evidence to back up his claim. Among those who discerned less Soviet planning behind events, Peter Shearman argued that the revolution itself was regionally developed and financed through other local powers, such as Costa Rica and Mexico, and that it was only once the revolution had triumphed that ‘the Soviet Union enter[ed] the picture as a major actor’. However, he went on to explain, Nicaragua was not likely to become part of the CMEA and, in that sense, was more distant from the central powers.²³ Similarly, Edmé Dominguez Reyes described the events of 1979 as having been a ‘surprise’ for the Soviet Union, and although it became a major source of aid for Nicaragua in subsequent years, he said the Soviet attitude toward Nicaragua was cautious and mindful of the possibility that the United States could become directly involved in a war with Nicaragua.²⁴ This diversity of views is partly a reflection of the academics’ political differences, but it is also indicative of an ambiguity in the Sandinistas’ position. Nicaragua’s leaders seemed to be committed Marxists, possibly even Leninists, with views compatible with the Soviet Union’s. They even abstained from voting against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan at the United Nations.²⁵ At the same time, the country continued to have a mixed economy and maintained good relations with western European social democratic parties. In other words, the Sandinistas did not behave as if they were managed from Moscow.

17 M. Böhner to J. Wilm, ‘Answer to the question “How many Nicaraguans studied in the GDR in the 1980s”’, 24 Jan. 2016. Böhner is a former GDR-Nicaragua Solidarity activist and expert on GDR-Nicaragua relations. The question was posed by the author during personal correspondence with Böhner.

18 M. Espinoza to J. Leiva, ‘Cantidad de estudiantes en la URSS, respuesta a la pregunta al Director del Centro Regional de Estudios Internacionales (CREI)’, 23 Jan. 2016. Interview conducted in person.

19 Ejército de Nicaragua, ‘Profesionalización del Ejército de Nicaragua’, 91.

20 R. Reagan, ‘Address to the nation on the situation in Nicaragua’, 1986, mp3, Presidential Audio Recordings, 1/20/1981–1/20/1989, US National Archives, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7450184 (accessed 26 Apr. 2019).

21 J. Valenta, ‘Nicaragua: Soviet-Cuban pawn or non-aligned country?’, 165.

22 Ibid., 167.

This ambiguity was not present in the discourse about the relationship developed by Nicaraguan leaders in the 1980s, one that is still prevalent among Sandinistas today. Rather, Sandinista leaders asserted that Nicaragua was completely free of foreign influence. In 1981, Sergio Ramírez, at the time a member of the government junta and vice-president from 1985, said the following about the concerns of the United States:

This statement is in line with the Sandinista discourse of the time and the majority of views expressed by Sandinistas in the current period of Sandinismo. It was Nicaragua which had a conflict with the United States, it was Nicaraguans who contacted the Soviet Union; their relationship was one of equals, one in which their country was an independent actor; and it was not a relationship between colony and empire, as Reagan seemed to portray it.

23 Shearman, ‘The Soviet challenge in Central America’.

24 Reyes, ‘Soviet relations with Central America, the Caribbean, and members of the Contadora Group’.

25 Shearman, ‘The Soviet challenge in Central America’, 214.

26 Envío, ‘Continuing tensions between Nicaragua and the United States’, no. 7, Dec. 1981.

It must be noted that Ramírez spoke somewhat differently about the relationship with the Soviet Union after he left the FSLN. In 2007, writing about the 1987 peace negotiations, he commented that the Soviet Union had urged the Nicaraguan government at that time to agree to a negotiated solution because it could not see a military one. As Nicaragua depended on Soviet arms to continue the war, the Soviets’ attitude was therefore a significant factor in the Sandinistas’ decision to pursue the peace process.²⁷ Whether this represents a rare insight into the real, seldom-expressed thinking of a Sandinista elite, or whether Ramírez has reinterpreted past events, is hard to know. No matter what the case may be, such views are not in line with the arguments of rank-and-file Sandinistas or the public speeches of Sandinista leaders now or during the 1980s.

Treatment of former connections to the Soviet bloc after 2007

The extent to which Sandinista leaders had not forgotten their past connections to the Soviet bloc, and remembered the time when the Unites States was considered an enemy rather than an ally, became clear in the first years after their return to power in early 2007. At the annual celebration of the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution on 19 July 2008, President Daniel Ortega presented the Rubén Dario medal for cultural independence to Margot Honecker, the former education minister for East Germany and widow of Erich Honecker, the former general secretary of East Germany’s old Socialist Unity Party.²⁸ Honecker had not appeared in public since going into exile in Chile in the early 1990s, and she was awarded the medal, given specifically for the help East Germany had given Nicaragua in the past. Discussing the former Soviet Union in 2007, Daniel Ortega repeated the position held in the 1980s – that it was Nicaraguans who made the decisions about Nicaragua and that the Soviet Union had respected these decisions.²⁹ Ortega views Russia as the continuation of the Soviet Union: in 2007 he said: ‘[W]hen we speak of cooperation with Russia, we are speaking of taking into account the relation that we had with the Soviet Union, when Russia was one of our supporters.’³⁰ In 2008, Ortega declared that Russia was ‘illuminating the planet’ with its ‘struggle for peace and justice’, while ‘the Empire’ (the United States) was threatening it militarily.³¹ Further down the FSLN party hierarchy, one also found admiration for their former allies in the period after 2007. This section presents evidence from anthropological fieldwork undertaken in this context.

27 Sergio Ramírez, ‘Lo que nos tocó de guerra fría’, El País, 29 Aug. 2007.

28 AFP, ‘Ortega condecora a viuda de Honecker con orden Rubén Darío’, El Universo, 19 July 2008.

29 D. Ortega, ‘No había tal conflicto Este-Oeste’, 22 Aug. 2007.

30 US Embassy in Managua, ‘Ortega administration at six months’, Wikileaks Public Library of US Diplomacy (Nicaragua Managua, 2 July 2007), https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07MANAGUA1622_a.html (accessed 27 Apr. 2019).

31 La Prensa, ‘Ortega: “Rusia está iluminando el planeta”’, 18 Sept. 2008.

At around the time that Honecker received the Rubén Dario medal, I had been interviewing spokespeople at the FSLN municipal headquarters in León over a period of several months about current political affairs. The secretary and several others who regularly passed through the office therefore recognised me as a regular visitor. When I announced I wished to ask about the circumstances leading to the decision to give the medal to Honecker, commenting that this was rather unusual as German media reports about her were generally unfavourable, the reaction was a combination of annoyance and surprise. I was told that the medal was something the ‘entire German working class’ should be proud of. Then, instead of finding an official to speak to me, I was asked to interview another person who was standing in line and had been to East Germany (that person had apparently experienced now for the first time and had a wonderful stay all in all). Over the next year criticism of Eastern Europe regimes, in that first interview and most others I conducted with Nicaraguans who had studied in Eastern Europe, was almost non-existent. This was the case, I noticed, even among Sandinistas I met who had not been to Eastern Europe. Their descriptions of socialism in either region were similarly optimistic.

There were some exceptions to this rule. One former student described how everyone in East Germany had read Das Kapital: the bus driver, the person checking the ticket on the bus, the person sitting next to you. He ended his explanation by saying ‘They had read the book while the other Germany had the money.’ This could be interpreted as a criticism of the East German state, implying it had not been able to provide the same level of welfare for its citizens as had West Germany. Another informant, who presented himself as a supporter of the opposition party Movimiento Renovador Sandinista (MRS) and a critic of President Daniel Ortega, spoke about cases of rape, where Sandinista men had had sex with girls without their consent while studying in East Germany, and how he felt this had been brushed under the carpet. During the interview, it also became clear that the East Germans he had encountered were unaccustomed to what he saw as the Nicaraguan tradition of openly expressing different opinions during discussions. It is possible that some of my Nicaraguan informants chose not to tell me about less positive aspects of Eastern European socialism, as some may have assumed that I would identify with East Germany and not be too accepting of any criticism.

However, even if some Nicaraguans consciously filtered what they told me, this does not seem to counterbalance the number of positive stories. And while those who had been to East Germany were aware that living standards in Moscow and East Berlin were significantly higher than in Nicaragua at the time, they generally portrayed their relationship with the places they had visited as having been one of equality, not of an empire trying to influence Nicaraguan thinking. Also, the newfound relationship with Russia seemed to be generally understood as a revival of the connection with the Soviet Union, much as Ortega seems to have portrayed it. For example, Freddy, a gardener in León when I interviewed him in 2008, was trying to convince a younger Nicaraguan to ‘go study in the Soviet Union’ – a place he had been as a student and which he believed to be a great country and partner of the Nicaraguan Revolution.

Younger Sandinistas generally had a more distant relationship with the Soviet Union, although an awareness of that country still remained in Nicaragua. Jessica, a 23-year-old Sandinista who is part of the national directorate of communication workers of the Sandinista Youth (Sandinistas aged around 16– 25 who work in TV and radio), explained that she first encountered the Soviet Union when talking with her Sandinista father during the opposition years: ‘He told me there had been this country that had stood with the Nicaraguan Revolution during the 1980s.’ On another occasion, one of the younger communicators said during a meeting: ‘in a certain way we have been part of it’, to which a more knowledgeable youth leader responded that Nicaragua had actually been a very distant ally of the Soviet Union, and that its connection to the Soviet Union had played out mainly in Nicaragua’s political proximity and friendship with Cuba, an official ally of the Soviet Union. As in most such conversations, an emphasis was put on the egalitarian nature of the relationship.

Egalitarian connections and Nicaraguan exceptionalism

If Nicaraguans were on a par with their Eastern European and Cuban colleagues, in what sense did they define themselves as exceptional? This element was most apparent in discussions of the difference between Nicaragua and its Central American neighbours. Nicaragua was considered exceptional because it was the only Central American nation that had had a successful revolution. Although there were some revolutionary movements in El Salvador and Guatemala, the participants had not won state power. Interviewees also perceived that the other Central American nations were much more dependent on foreign powers. I asked Sandinista informants how they would describe relations between Costa Rica, Nicaragua’s southern neighbour, and the United States. The answer was uniformly that Costa Rica was clearly a sort of colony of the United States. Comparisons between Nicaragua and the other Central American nations were particularly common in the summer of 2009, when a military coup against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya caused political confusion in the region. Manuel Zelaya had allied himself with the Sandinista government and Nicaragua just a year earlier. The country was set to implement some of the social programmes that Nicaragua had introduced shortly before, but the process was much slower. Prior to that, in the spring of 2009, I first heard the term ‘the Sandinista countries’, referring to the countries of Central America, and the idea seemed to be that Nicaragua would lead these other countries towards greater understanding. A professor at the UNAN-León portrayed the connection this way: ‘It is only Nicaragua that is free to express itself. That does not mean that the other countries would not like to do so, but for various reasons it is Nicaragua that is the only country that can truly speak freely.’

When the coup happened, I went to Honduras and came back with a documentary about the Hondurans who were trying to combat what was happening. Members of the Sandinista Youth helped me show the documentary in the national theatre and they presented parts of it on national TV and radio. I was surprised that the main questions the various Sandinistas asked me when the microphones were off centred on the degree to which the Hondurans seemed less organised, and whether they had less understanding of international politics than Nicaraguans. These perceptions were repeated whenever Nicaragua’s neighbours were brought up: even though Nicaragua had lower living standards, it was widely believed that their neighbours were the ones who lacked political development and were, therefore, forced to follow the plans of the ‘empire’. In the generalised Sandinista view, historical agency was reserved for Nicaraguans.

Are Nicaraguan relations with Venezuela and Eastern Europe similar?

Through the portrayal of the former Soviet Union and Nicaragua as equal partners, the Sandinistas have built up a national discourse that somewhat obscures the fact that the Sandinistas, throughout most of their years in power, have had to rely on help from abroad. At the same time, along with the widespread belief in the country that Nicaraguan leaders act independently, Nicaragua has shown a certain level of divergence from the Soviet bloc’s main political line.

When the Sandinistas returned to power in early 2007, the country again started to function somewhat independently, even though it was financed to a large degree by another country, this time Venezuela. Relations with Russia were re-established, but during the conflict between Georgia and Russia in 2008, it was Nicaragua who first – and rapidly – recognised the independence of the Georgian breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia,³² more than a year before Venezuela did so.³³

In 2013, when former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee Edward Snowden was asking a range of countries for asylum, Ortega made a conditional offer (‘If circumstances permit it...’) that was made public a few hours before Venezuela offered asylum, seemingly unconditionally.³⁴ It is likely that the offers from Venezuela, Nicaragua and, a day later, Bolivia were coordinated to some degree, but the fact that Nicaragua made the first offer did not go unnoticed by the Sandinistas. Among the young communication workers of the Juventud Sandinista, the exact order of who had offered asylum was mentioned frequently and it was taken as a sign that Nicaragua was playing a leading role.

Between 2007 and 2010 the United States changed its understanding of the relationship between the Sandinista government and Venezuela. In 2007, the US embassy wrote in a confidential cable that ‘[a]lthough “national sovereignty” is a favorite leitmotif of Ortega’s, he continues deferring to his Venezuelan counterpart’.³⁵ By 2009, after Nicaragua’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the US embassy changed its wording, thereby acknowledging that Ortega had some level of historic agency, even though this role was restricted to recreating a situation in which Nicaragua would be a client state: ‘We believe that Ortega wants to recreate the bipolar conflict and clientelism that once existed between Russia and the West in Central America.’³⁶ In 2010, a secret cable discussed why Ortega had made recent friendly overtures to the US ambassador. One of the possible reasons, it was speculated, could be that the efforts of the Nicaraguan government to establish relations with, and obtain funding from, countries other than Venezuela, such as Iran and Russia, had not yet produced the expected economic results.³⁷ While the tone regarding everything about Ortega and the Nicaraguan government was consistently negative, and at times accusatory, by 2010 it was tacitly accepted that the Sandinistas and/or Ortega were acting somewhat independently of the country that was financing their activities.

32 DPA, ‘Nicaragua reconoce independencia de Abjasia Y Osetia Del Sur’, Emol, 3 Sept. 2008.

33 Red Voltaire, ‘Venezuela reconoce a Abjasia y Osetia Del Sur’, Red Voltaire, 20 Sept. 2009.

34 Clarín, ‘Venezuela le otorgó asilo a Snowden, el topo de la CIA’, Clarin.com, 5 July 2013.

Older Sandinista informants who were politically active during the 1970s and 1980s tended to have a somewhat cautious view of Venezuela. They perceived Nicaragua as an independent actor, just as able as Venezuela, at times ideologically more educated, and with a greater experience of having government power. Those Sandinistas who were active during the 1980s almost seemed to think of Venezuela as a liability and that the concept of 21st-century socialism, which arrived in Nicaragua through Venezuela, was merely a less-thought-through alternative to the original principles of Sandinismo (without clearly defining what these were).

Conclusion

As we have seen, past and present understandings of Sandinismo are dominated by a sense of historical agency. The actions of Sandinistas and Nicaraguans are interpreted in this light, while the populations of neighbouring countries where revolutions were not successful are portrayed as being trapped in structures of dependency. The tendency to see local politics as the outcome of the actions of local actors is not unique to Nicaragua. For example, after the 1973 coup the Chilean dictatorial regime saw itself as taking a lead in fighting communism because the United States was not playing the role it ought to.³⁸ Until recently, international scholars have put too much emphasis on the United States when considering US–Latin American relations, leaving little-to-no room for Latin American agency.³⁹

35 US Embassy in Managua, ‘Ortega administration at six months’.

36 US Embassy in Managua, ‘Nicaragua and Abkhazia establish formal diplomatic ties’, Wikileaks Public Library of US Diplomacy (Nicaragua Managua, 18 Sept. 2009), https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09MANAGUA913_a.html (accessed 26 Apr. 2019).

37 US Embassy in Managua, ‘(U) Ortega and the U.S.: new-found true love or another still-born charm offensive?’, Wikileaks Public Library of US Diplomacy (Nicaragua Managua, 25 Feb. 2010), https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10MANAGUA115_a.html (accessed 26 Apr. 2019).

Nevertheless, the Sandinista emphasis on Nicaragua’s historic agency continues to be emphasised. However, the view that Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere,⁴⁰ is somehow more able to exert historic agency than other larger Latin American countries which are less dependent on foreign aid, seems to lack a material basis. Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío wrote, ‘If the nation is small, one dreams it large.’⁴¹ In a sense, the problems that Nicaragua face are so overwhelming that an exaggerated sense of the country’s power is necessary to face these enormous challenges.

Yet somehow, Sandinista leaders and the Nicaraguan people have been able to put the country on the map and make Nicaragua one of the few Latin American countries capable of upsetting the president of the United States. Nicaragua has maintained international alliances and continued on its own very particular road to development. Even the World Bank emphasises that Nicaragua stands out in achieving ‘shared growth’ and notes that it is performing better than the Central American and the Caribbean averages.⁴²

Parallels between the Soviet–Nicaraguan relationship in the 1980s and current links between Russia and Nicaragua are especially noteworthy. In one sense Ortega’s efforts to renew Nicaragua’s alliance with its former partner from the 1980s suggest a blinkered approach which ignores several changes that have taken place in world politics since then. Equally though, it points to the positive effects of Nicaraguan confidence. In 2010 US diplomats felt, according to US embassy cables released by Wikileaks, that Ortega’s attempts to reconnect with former allies had failed, but these links have solidified in subsequent years. Nicaragua, simply by insisting on an alliance has obtained something that at first seemed impossible. Of course, these new links are being forged in a completely different world, and while the alliances of the 1980s were brokered on ideological terms, Nicaragua is now simply opting for capitalist Russia instead of the capitalist West. In this uncertain climate, the future of Nicaragua’s international relations is precarious. But whatever the future holds, it is likely that Nicaraguans will continue to believe in their country’s ability to defy structural constraints and act as a force to be reckoned with in the wider world.

38 T. Harmer, ‘Fractious allies: Chile, the United States, and the Cold War, 1973–76’.

39 M.P. Friedman, ‘Retiring the puppets, bringing Latin America back in: recent scholarship on United States–Latin American relations.’, 621.

40 C. León, ‘Nicaragua and IDA: an enduring partnership’.

41 R. Darío, El viaje a Nicaragua e intermezzo tropical.

42 León, ‘Nicaragua and IDA’.

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