An open letter to the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador and the Nicaragua Solidarity Network

From Dave Silver <dmsilver@earthlink.net>, 16 October 1997

Companeros, Sisters and Brothers;

Since the triumph of the counterrevolution in the former U.S.S.R. a new thinking virus has infected many of the world s parties, national liberation movements and organizations. The underpinning of this new ideology is that universal human values have replaced class struggle and the treacherous convergence theory; that capitalism is becoming more like socialism and vice-versa.

This has lead many former Marxists and revolutionaries to reject orthodox Marxism as no longer providing the best analysis for struggle in todays complex and global economy. While still professing an anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist perspective their new pronouncements and actions expose an opportunist, revisionist philosophy and praxis. Thus we witness the leadership of the F.S.L.N. in Nicaragua not only abandoning its anti-imperialist vision, but in addition expresses its w illingness to adapt to the requirements of imperialism's I.M.F. and World Bank. So we see Humberto Ortega, former leader of a revolutionary movement and Defense Minister in the Chamorro government going to the Pentagon asking for money since he assures the imperialists that they the FSLN are no longer anti-imperialist.(1990)

At the 7th National convention of CISPES in August new mission statements, strategy and programs were formulated. Many laudable positions and statements were adopted not the least of which was solidarity with the struggle for freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, its anti-neo-liberal and anti-capitalist resolutions on exploitation, and immigrant rights although a major weakness was the lack of a plank specifically recognizing the centrality of institutionalized racism and the Black Liberation struggle.

However there is a contradiction between support for an alternative based upon democratic AND SOCIALIST ideals and giving unqualified support to the FMLN because of its central role in building a new, egalitarian society. When a former FMLN/FDR representative, Arnaldo Ramos states in his Introduction to the book Salvador that with the triumph of the counterrevolution in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, and with changes in FMLN STRATEGY demonstrates an honest disposition to collaborate toward the construction of an economic and political model acceptable to the U.S. we should sit up and take notice.(p.28 of El Salvador WW Norton) When confronted at a conference a year later and asked whether any model acceptable to US imperialism could possibly be good for the people of any country he shouted we are not Cuba. So much for anti-communism in a Left disguise. What kind of egalitarian society can be built on such a-historical and opportunist thinking?

The FMLN and the FSLN no longer represent a national liberation movement and a revolutionary PROCESS as it once did. The defense of and solidarity with socialist Cuba should be somewhere on the agenda of all anti-imperialists and progressive people.