NCJ Number
138880
Journal
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism Volume: 15 Issue: 3 Dated: (July- September 1992) Pages: 201-223
Date Published
1992
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This article shows how the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua met the definition of totalitarianism as manifested primarily under Nazi Germany and Stalinism in the Soviet Union.
Abstract
From its inception in July 1979, a debate raged in policy and academic circles over the fundamental political, ideological, and structural nature of the Sandinista regime. One camp held that the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) showed signs of traditional Latin American authoritarianism but had a strain of social democracy within its ranks. This same intellectual camp argued that if the United States had not sponsored a "counterrevolution," the latent pluralism within the Sandinistas would have emerged. The other intellectual camp in the debate held that the FSLN was a Marxist-Leninist regime, the leadership of which had a blueprint for taking and holding power so as to construct a Communist utopia. This article argues that this latter view more accurately profiled the nature of the Sandinista state, although it proposes a broader understanding of the nature and structure of that state by using the "totalitarian" model of analysis first developed by Hannah Arendt in her "Origins of Totalitarianism." This model recognizes numerous similarities between the regimes of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, such as a utopian ideology, a secret political police, a single dictatorial party (and leader), and a compulsion to control all areas of civil society. This article concludes that the Sandinistas, by adhering to a utopian ideology, by constructing an elaborate part-army- police nexus, and by seeking to penetrate every aspect of life in Nicaragua, met the definition of totalitarianism as manifested in a number of 20th-century experiments. 88 notes