General strike stands firm

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Nicaragua's extraordi lary "general strike" against the Somoza dictatorship has continued for a second full week.

In the capital Managua and most of the provincial towns virtually all production and commercial activities have come to a halt as shops, factories and petrol stations have closed down.

The National Guard has so far remained loyal to the Somoza family, which is not surprising since that is where its money comes from.

The National Guard has attacked a number of demonstrations and six deaths as well as dozens of injuries have been reported.

They have also tried to force some petrol distribution workers back to work at gunpoint.

But during the week the stoppage has spread rather shrunk.

It seems fairly certain, however, that its character changing.

To begin with the protest was sponsored by the bourgeois opposition to Somoza including the Higher Council of Private Enterprise (the bosses' organisation) and the class collaborationist alliance Democratic Liberation Union (UDEL).

Assassination

The origin of the protest was the assassination of the UDEL leader and newspaper editor Joaquin Chomorro.

The original demand was for no more than the bringing to justice of his assassins, assumed to be agents of Somoza.

Important as this issue was as a catalyst to the present strike it was only when the mass of the working class joined in that the most commonly raised slogan was for the resignation of Somoza.

But the leaders of UDEL and others who claim to lead this movement are simply rival capitalists to the vastly wealthy Somoza family.

For them, therefore, the continuation of the strike carries the danger that the workers will take it much further than these capitalist "strike leaders" intend.

That depends on whether the working ciass and peasantry can build a leadership based on a programme which represents their independent interests.

Reports give little sign of this development. Quite the contrary. The Communist Party is predictably in an unshakeable Somoza alliance with the bourgeois opposition of UDEL.

And it is also reported that the pro-Castro Sandinista Liberation Front, which staged dramatic attacks last week on pro-Somoza army posts, has also entered into an alliance with UDEL in order to get rid of the dictator.