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Abstract
This article considers the causes of the ‘Contra War’ in Nicaragua during the 1980s. This conflict has often been portrayed as an American ‘proxy war’ fought by Somoza's former National Guard against a regime supported by most common Nicaraguans. This article proposes an alternate view. The Managua regime, with the advice and assistance of the Soviet bloc, pursued a model of political consolidation and economic development followed by other Third World Marxist‐Leninist states. As in other ‘states of socialist orientation’ in the 1970s and 1980s, this one encountered considerable popular resistance. The conflict in Nicaragua, thus, was a civil war caused by Sandinista policies.