The Impact of American Political Thought

on Historical Analysis:

A Case Study of the Nicaraguan Revolution

John-Paul Wilson

St. John’s University, Queens, NY

One need not read many accounts of events related to the late twentieth century Nicaraguan revolution to realize that there are great differences in the analyses of those events.  Upon further examination, however, one might suspect that these differences have more to do with the analysis process than some myopic view of actual occurrences.  The North American historiography of the Sandinista Revolution is a wide assortment of texts composed from a variety of different standpoints and techniques.  Thus, in order to arrive at a more objective historical account, one must first have a better understanding of the analysis process before he/she can begin to critique prior analysis.  In the present paper, I first review the multiple factors of the historical analysis process with regard to personal and political bias followed by discussion of some analytical differences impacting the various accounts of the Nicaraguan revolution.  I then discuss examples of divergence among thirty papers by twenty-seven authors distributed uniformly across three ideological schools and published in the decade beginning with the rise of the Sandinistas to power followed by their ultimate defeat at the end of the decade.  Although personal bias resulting from extreme interest in the revolution seems to be in play among all the authors, it is ideologically driven bias that seems to play a dominant role in the analysis.   Furthermore, frank bias is identified among conservative and liberal analysts who are mainly driven to support or detract from operative foreign policy decisions made early in the decade by the Carter administration and later decisions within the Reagan administration.  Radicals were less affected by frank bias but, readily used world systems theory in their analysis leading to biased results contrived to further the aims of an anti-imperialist agenda.  I will provide specific data to support these conclusions during the course of this paper.

Perspective and Historical Fact

                In the act of transcribing events, historians work with what they believe to be a set of historical facts.  Having been identified as fact, it is widely maintained that a particular piece of knowledge is true.  Historical facts, however, are much more elusive than one would assume. According to Carl L. Becker, the facts of history are not “concrete portions of reality but rather aspects of them.”^[1]  Experience helps to supply images from the sources in which the historian is working, and it is the extent of the historian’s experience that determines the quality of his testimony.^[2]  The historian can in no way account for all of the facts surrounding an event. ^[3]  The work of the historian is often limited by the quality and availability of relevant sources.  In which case, historians have relied upon inference and imagination to help create a more complete record of the facts.^[4]   As a result, the history of an event is never written by two individuals in precisely the same way.  The mind will select and discriminate every detail of information that is put before it.  As new facts become available, old concepts are “modified, distinguished and even destroyed,” whereas new ideas often become “the new centers of attention.”^[5]  For this reason, only through a “scientific” detachment from his/her own passions and predilections can the historian hope to provide an objective treatment of the subject at hand.^[6]

                Despite attempts to reduce personal factors within the writing process, history is still affected by individual experiences and the “relative texture of time and place.” [7]  Historians will always be influenced by what they know about human society as well as their own experiences as men (or women) themselves.^[8] As noted by Harvard philosopher, Donald C. Williams, historical propositions are assumptions established in collaboration with other approaches toward the same subject.  Even in the historical analysis of primary sources, past approaches serve as a framework for outlining current research activity.  Each historian, when examining a particular event, uses his or her own personal capabilities to imagine the circumstances surrounding that event.^[9]  When embarking on research, the historian looks for what is personally important rather than that which he or she does not care about.  The intentions, hypotheses, and facts that one selects to support them represent the interest that a historian has toward a particular subject.^[10]   This favoritism or bias is “an uncontrollable form of interest” that can prevent a historian from making a lasting contribution to the body of historical knowledge.^[11]  In this light, historiography becomes not so much a chronicle of the historical truths recorded by others but rather “a history of history subjectively understood.”^[12]  As a result, a historian may have to consider a variety of viewpoints for any hope of achieving mastery of the truth.

                Whereas it may be difficult to recognize certain preferences and motivations, frank bias can be easily detected by the seeming lack of pretense on the part of its practitioner.  They may have leaned heavily upon their own hypotheses or, in some cases, simply refused to entertain any opposing viewpoints.^[13]  Preferences need not blind the individual to the probable truth.  In fact, preference can be an active incentive for accuracy.  But once an author has allowed one’s own convictions to supersede any reasonable interpretation of the facts, the author’s writings become contrived in that they only serve to further his or her own beliefs.^[14]

                As the historical profession entered the modern age, historians gradually advanced from the mere chronicle or narrative to a more analytical form of writing.  The creation and use of effective models have taken historians to the height of their craft.  However, in their effort to find meaning within groups of otherwise disconnected facts, historians have run the risk of becoming systematic by attempting to find one meaning to all the facts.^[15]  This type of speculation has lent itself to bias in that historians are prone to use their own ideology to find the single cause of world events.  Systematic historians believe that one can discover universal truths through the application of certain social and scientific methods.^[16]

                Whereas politics was once a more concise and dispassionate pursuit, ideological preferences transformed it into a struggle between rivals for the control of ideas.^[17]  In a world where ideology has become a powerful tool that can shape the course of human events, one must have a solid historical framework of various ideologies before he or she can adequately determine how certain ideas have come to reach such a position of power.  Historical context is essential to political understanding.  For this reason, I have set up an abbreviated framework of principal North American ideologies so that the reader might be able to better understand the role that ideology plays in North American historical analysis.

Brief Overview of North American Ideologies

As is clear in the prior discussion, historical analysis tends to be dominated by the worldview and experiences of the analyst.  Whether it involves the promotion of individual development and welfare, the protection of Western values, or the propagation of class struggle, the scholar’s view of how the world works and how it should work can influence how he/she writes about world events.  In the case of the Nicaraguan Revolution led by the Frente Sandinista Liberación Nacional (FSLN), the log of North American publications, mainly limited to the beginning of the Sandinista rule and ending soon after the ascendancy of the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO) in the 1990 elections, reveal three distinct worldviews in relation to these historical events.[18]

                 Radicals had come to believe that the United States and other developed nations were growing wealthy at the expense of poorer, less developed countries.  Such notions of economic exploitation were based on the larger assumption that developing nations were trapped in an unequal relationship with the Western world.  Since the end of the colonial era, imperialist nations have relinquished direct political control over most of their colonies, yet they have retained many of their economic investments through their support of indigenous elites.^[19]  By overthrowing the ruling classes, the workers would not only break free from the structure of oppression that had bound them, but also separate from the foreign capitalists that had created the system in the first place.^[20]  To radicals, the Sandinistas represented a real challenge to the fulfillment of US hegemonic interests in Central America.[21]  Radicals criticized US counter-revolutionary programs attempting to isolate and overthrow the Sandinista regime.

                As opposed to the egalitarian and socialist tendencies of the radical critique, the liberal and conservative worldviews have been shaped by their concern for authoritarian politics and their endorsement of democratic principles.  North American liberals and conservatives both believe in the superiority of Western values, institutions, and ideas, but they differ in their approach to marketing these virtues to the rest of the world.^[22]  Whereas conservatives sought to defeat communism as a way to secure capitalism and democracy for the rest of the world, liberals looked for ways to engage communists as a means of creating international peace and prosperity through free trade, developmental assistance, and arms control.  Liberals believe in the power of international relations to convince wayward nations that their best interests lie with the majority.  For this reason, North American liberals were largely opposed to the US covert war against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas.  To the liberal community, the Sandinista vanguard were not so much a military force to be confronted as they were a political movement to be persuaded.

Unlike the political optimism of the liberals, North American conservatives did not share in their buoyant assessment of Sandinista capabilities.  In their view, the Sandinistas represented Marxism, not some burgeoning movement for social justice.  The Sandinista triumph in Nicaragua was seen as a Soviet victory in the “strategic rear” of the United States.  To which extent, conservatives advocated the use of direct and indirect military pressure in the subsequent US effort to destabilize and ultimately overthrow the Sandinista regime.^[23]  The ensuing regional conflict seemed destined to become more than just a matter of national security as the US ability to effectively deal with Marxist liberation movements around the world was seemingly at stake.  For this reason, conservatives reluctantly supported the involvement of certain authoritarian forces, as they seemed to be in the best interest of a strong anti-communist defense.  Such positions could be seen as a paradox to their democratic advocacy, but from a conservative macro global context they made perfect sense.  

The Somoza dynasty of Nicaragua was allied to the US in the Second World War and the ensuing Cold War.  But in recent times, liberals, conservatives, and radicals alike have all agreed that Somoza was a ruthless dictator that had completely lost legitimacy.  Both the Cuban inspired Sandinistas (FSLN) through an armed insurrection and a Nicaraguan conservative/liberal coalition through strikes and protest were unable to dislodge the dictator.   It was the Sandinista document entitled “General Political Military Platform of the Struggle of the FSLN” promising a future policy of “political pluralism, the ‘mixed economy’ of state and private enterprises, and international non-alignment” that received cautious support from the Church and allowed a broad-based coalition to form and overthrow the dictator.[24]  Clearly, a successful Marxist-led revolution over this US supported dictatorship followed by the subsequent rise of a US supported democracy in the context of the Cold War was bound to make interesting history in that the central US ideological differences were all in play.

Historiography of Revolutionary Nicaragua

                As seen from the prior discussion, bias can enter the analysis process at several levels, some resulting from the experience and interest of the analyst which are not under their control, other levels that result from strongly held views that the analyst can guard against.  The historiographic analysis process used by the present author required content analysis over forty subject areas of thirty separate contributions by twenty-seven authors distributed over the three ideological schools discussed above.[25]  The results of that content analysis are used herein to generate understanding of how bias has impacted the works of these ideological schools on understanding of various groups and actors.  An interpretation of these results is given in a subsequent section.

In the case of the Marxist rhetoric that often permeated Sandinista speeches and writing, conservatives (Timothy Ashby, Margaret Daly Hayes, Joshua Muravchik, Roger W. Fontaine, and Nestor Sanchez) and radicals (Roger Burbach, Richard R. Fagen, Susanne Jonas, and Eldon Kenworthy) took such language literally as evidence of their true nature.[26]  Burbach, Fagen, Jonas, and Nancy Stein (radicals) and Cole Blasier, John A. Booth, Thomas W. Walker, and Lars Schoultz (liberals) downplayed this rhetoric, which had a distinctly anti-American quality, and insisted they should be judged according to their moderate actions as a show of good faith.[27]  Conservatives Ashby and Douglas W. Payne, however, thought that the Sandinistas were trying to cultivate an image of political pragmatism, and thus every attempt at moderation was greeted with a certain degree of skepticism.[28]  Conservatives like Ashby, Payne and Leiken had come to believe that the Sandinistas were practicing a form of deception known as El Manto, meaning “a mask or disguise” or egano meaning “a hoax.”[29]  In the tradition of Fidel Castro and other Marxist revolutionaries before him, the perpetrator would make an audience think that a person is doing one thing, while he or she was actually working behind the scenes to accomplish something else.[30]  In contrast, liberals rarely discussed the ideological roots of the Sandinistas or the notions of El Manto or egano. Radicals (Burbach, Fagen, Jonas, and Kenworthy), on the other hand, sometimes described the Sandinista regime in terms of a “revolutionary experiment” of democracy and socialism, often betraying its Marxist influence.[31] 

Conservatives Muravchik, Fontaine, Radosh, Michael S. Radu, and Sanchez claimed that the Sandinistas attacked La Prensa and the Church hierarchy because they represented a real threat to their [FSLN] authority.^[32]  Conservatives Radosh and Muravchik further charged that regular Sandinista harassment with organized mobs known as turbas and censorship of Catholic bishops and the opposition press was representative of the Sandinista attitude towards opposition groups in general.[33]  Alternatively, the liberals (Booth and Walker) and radical Noam Chomsky accused La Prensa and members of the traditional clergy of being organs and operatives of the CIA and point to the Sandinista toleration of non-affiliated opponents.^[34]  The left (radical Walter LaFeber and liberal Blasier) pointed to the Sandinista crackdown on the Nicaraguan Communist Party as evidence of their moderate credentials.[35]  But conservatives (Ashby, Muravchik, and Fontaine) saw this attempt as nothing more than a calculated effort on the part of the FSLN to appear less radical in the eyes of the world.[36]  Clearly, conservatives thought that the Sandinistas had no interest in political freedom, whereas liberals believed that the Sandinistas were taking active steps to protect such freedoms.  Radicals and liberals saw an active debate and criticism of FSLN policies among those opposed to them, while conservatives dismissed such allowances as efforts to further the appearance of plurality while serious opposition was thwarted.  To conservatives, Sandinista moderation was all an act, whereas liberals and radicals saw it as genuine and to be taken at face value.

It was the Sandinistas’ attempt to reorganize the culturally distinct Atlantic Coast peoples according to revolutionary principles that would play the largest role in the Sandinista loss of power.  The arrest of the Atlantic Coast Indian leadership led to bloodshed, resulting in thousands of men joining counter-revolutionary encampments in Honduras and Costa Rica.  Under suspicion of aiding the counter-revolution, the Indian populations of the Río Coco were relocated under what conservatives (Muravchik, Radu, and Sanchez) described as forced marches to isolated and desolate wilderness regions, accompanied by rapes, murders, burning of their homes and villages, destruction of their crops and animals.[37]  To radicals (Phillipe Bourgois, Jonas, and Stein) and liberals (Booth, Martin Diskin, and Schoultz), the Sandinistas did “error” but the US exploited the situation and made it worse.[38] 

It is clear from the above analysis that vast differences exist in understanding the nature of the primary groups of actors in revolutionary Nicaragua.  While conservatives focus on FSLN misdeeds with underlying geopolitical concerns, radical and liberal interpretation would be to defuse those concerns with opposing responses placed within the context of what they saw as bad US policy. 

Bias and US Policy: An Interpretation

Looking to the relation of publication rate to US foreign policy decisions and internal events in both Nicaragua and the US indicates, at a minimum, extreme interest, possibly leading to uncontrollable forms of bias in analysis results.  Most notable is the peak publication rates after the establishment of the Reagan Doctrine (7), after the first attack of the Contras in the Red Christmas raids (12), again after the Iran-Contra scandal (19), and a rapid decline of interest after the 1990 electoral defeat of the Sandinistas (1).  Whereas conservative and radical analysis results are readily understood within their specific ideologies, the liberal results are more subtley related.  This is best understood by a typical liberal position with respect to the Carter and Reagan administrations: “Standing in the rubble, President Carter attempted to build a new, more mature relationship with the leaders of revolutionary Nicaragua…  In stark contrast, during the Reagan administration relations with Nicaragua have deteriorated to the point of open hostility, with the United States conducting a much-publicized “secret war” that threatened to inflame the entire region.”^[39]  To garner public and congressional support for these positions, the liberals had to argue that the Sandinistas were misunderstood as indicated in this apologetic liberal position: “One threat from Nicaragua consists of the “Marxist” Sandinistas who dominate the Nicaraguan government… in today’s Latin America the term “Marxist” often describes politicians who in Europe would be called “Socialists” - the evolutionary Socialists [i.e., democratic] who currently play leading roles in politics in most of Western Europe.”^[40]  However, the Kremlin and Fidel Castro believed the Sandinista had solid Marxist-Leninist credentials.^[41]

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