An insider's view of agrarian reform: Joe Collins was an adviser to the Nicaraguan government. Originally published in 1982, this is an updated edition. The book is about agriculture. But, just as interestingly, it shows the experimental (or `seat of the pants' ) nature of the Sandinista approach: they are prepared to try almost anything that might combine equity and efficiency. It also gives instructive explanations of the mistakes they made. --The New Internationalist, Feb. 1986
Of the many pro-Sandinista books published in the 1980's, Joseph Collins's book on revolutionary agricultural policy is one of the better and more candid contributions. He and his associates from Food First Institute document, sometime inadvertently, the often inane policies of Agriculture Minister Jaime Wheelock up to 1985. Pursuing an eclectic blend of policies that tried to simultaneously be anti-bourgeois, pro-cash crop and food self-sufficient, by the late 1980's the FSLN had gutted Nicaragua's export agriculture sector, brought on mass hunger, instigated a general revolt among the highland campesinos, and laid the ground-work for electoral defeat in 1990.
Together with Forrest Colburn's "Post-Revolutionary Nicaragua: State, Class, and the Dilemmas of Agrarian Policy" (1986), "What Difference Could a Revolution Make?" is essential reading for those seeking to understand the failures of the Sandinista Revolution.
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