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\centerline{\bf Soviet Commentary on Nicaraguan Elections}
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\noindent The following commentary
was copied from Moscow News weekly, no. 10, 1990

\noindent Moscow News, founded in 1931 by an American friend of Stalin,
used to consist of the dullest sort of propaganda.  For the
last three years, it has taken Glasnost further than any other
Soviet paper.  It is published in eight languages.
\medskip
\noindent Commentary by Sergei Volovyets, Moscow News analyst
\bigskip
\noindent RETURNING TO THE NORM
\medskip
The elections in Nicaragua started almost simultaneously with
elections in several Soviet Republics.  It can be presumed that
one's own interests would come first and, such being the case,
the Nicaraguans' choice would be of secondary importance for us.
But the circumstances were unusual.  And Nicaragua's elections
were in fact even more important for us than they were for the
Americans who, over the past ten years, had been drawn up to
their ears in Nicaraguan politics.

	The confrontation of many years between the USSR and the
USA, which used to find an open outlet in Nicaragua, had caused
many of us to see that country's elections as a melee between
Soviet and American teams.  It would be a tempting (but now
almost absurd) simplification to ask who won and to reply: the
Americans.  Victory went to a definite position which, by the
Spring of 1990, had been adopted by the majority of Nicaraguans.
And therein lies the second reason of our interest: the problems
around which the struggle was waged were in many respects similar
to our own.

	In politics, as also in the natural sciences, recurrent
results in an experiment point to the existence of a law.  For
about a decade that country kind of confirmed the ``law''
discovered in the Soviet ideological laboratory: right before our
eyes a moribund social system---capitalism---was being replaced
with a new and progressive one, which was victoriously marching
across the planet and had reached out as far as the American
continent.  The fact that the system in Nicaragua had not been
tested by elections was declared to be immaterial.  My generation
had to understand that the fetishism of the ballot box was simply
ridiculous, that there existed more perfect forms of democracy,
doing without it or allowing voting on the ``one person---one
seat'' principle.  This was the order of things.

	It is dishonest today to gloat over the Sandinistas'
defeat.  It would be equally dishonest to try and explain it
solely by the actions over many years of the ``contras'', the
economic difficulties, the food shortages and the nine million
dollars received by the victorious opposition from the United
States.  Although all this really happened and probably had some
effect.

	On the day when the Nicaraguans went to the polls, V.
Golikov, a spokesman for the Kuzbas miners, said at a meeting in
Moscow: ``It is slander when they say that the workers on strike
demand sausage.  What we are demanding is freedom!''

	As I see it, this comes as an echo across ten thousand
kilometres.

	What kind of freedom did voters demand during the
elections in Nicaragua?  After all, in contrast to East European
nations, the Stalinist totalitarian system was never introduced
there.  In 1984 there were elections that not everyone recognized
as honest, but which, nevertheless, gave the opposition a voice
in parliament.  But there was no forced collectivization, no
extreme excesses of nationalization, and not all private property
was taken over by the state.

	But even in this model the state's intervention in the
lives of citizens reached a level unacceptable for the majority
of that country's society.  It told them how long they ought to
work, how much they ought to get, where to buy and at what
prices.  The results are now being described everywhere, and it's
not worth talking about them, for all of this is well familiar to
us.

	In these conditions the people were given, at last, the
possibility to make their choice---and they made it.  Possibly
not so much in favour of capitalism as in favor of the right to
decide---with reasonable regularity and with the help of the
ballot box---how they should live further on.

	With the authenticity of electrolysis separating only
hydrogen and oxygen and nothing else out of water, it has been
confirmed in Nicaragua: there can be no democracy without free
elections.  This conclusion is as obvious as two times two is
four for the majority, but still questionable for us.

	The second conclusion is that everywhere, organized
political opposition ensures, as a rule, a smoooth transition to
changes, to a continuation of life without bloodshed.  Something
the ``contras'' were unable to do over many years by resorting to
violence.

	It can well be imagined that after some time, and for
some period, the Nicaraguans will again decide: the time has come
to put socialist ideals to the test in practice once again.  Then
possibly the Sandinistas (and maybe Daniel Ortega who deserved
the respect of all democrats by his decision to hold elections
even though armed struggle was still going on in the country)
will again return to power---yet one received not ``out of the
barrel of a gun'', but from electors.

	We may like or dislike the results of the elections in
Nicaragua.  But, as with the results of our own electiions, we
can only recognize them and earnestly ponder their significance.

\bye