Workers World, Vol. 23, No. 6
February 1, 1981: The Reagan administration has let it be known that it is considering cutting off the balance of the $75 million which the U.S. government had pledged to Nicaragua as a form of “aid.”
It has also dropped hints of reprisals against the Sandinist government if it finds evidence that it is secretly transporting military equipment to the El Salvador revolutionary opposition.
This, once again, brings to the fore for discussion the very nature of aid from an imperialist government.
To begin with, the very word “aid” in this context is a complete misnomer.
The bourgeoisie, in its effort to secure and defend its class interests, employs terminology to suit its ends. Terminology is always a weapon in the class struggle. It can serve class interests by either obscuring or clarifying the antagonistic relationship of exploitation by the bourgeoisie against the proletariat and the oppressed people.
The term “foreign aid” obscures the real relationship. It implies that the imperialist government is a gratuitous benevolent grantor of financial or economic assistance. Nothing less than generosity, if not humanitarianism, is frequently deduced from this relationship on the part of the U.S. This, however, is altogether a misreading of the real relationship between, for instance, the U.S. and the revolutionary government of Nicaragua.
The true relationship between the U.S. and Nicaragua, of course, is that of an imperialist oppressor and an oppressed people.
If the real relationship between the U.S. and Nicaragua were put in monetary terms, the U.S. would rightfully be regarded as a debtor nation and Nicaragua as a creditor. For the fact of the matter is that the Somoza puppet regime has left a $2.5 billion indebtedness, which should rightfully be assumed by the U.S. It was the U.S. which supported the Somoza dynasty for all those many years and milked the country of untold billions of dollars. The $2.5 billion debt, mostly to U.S. and other imperialist banks, should have been assumed by the U.S. government, which should have cancelled the debt incurred by the Somoza regime.
As matters stand, the revolutionary government of Nicaragua has been unable to get the debt cancelled, and has been obligated to engage in renegotiating it so as not to be in default to the banks, which in turn could carry out economic reprisals against Nicaragua.
The question, therefore, is really not whether the U.S. should “aid” the Nicaraguan government, but whether the U.S. should be charged with the obligation of paying reparations for all the economic, social, and political damage it has inflicted upon the Nicaraguan people.
The term “aid” therefore is not only inadequate but covers up the true relationship between the imperialist oppressor and the oppressed.
Reparations, on the other hand, clarifies the relationship. It puts an obligation on the part of the imperialist government to make restitution for the havoc it has caused. It makes clear that a financial obligation on the part of the imperialist government arises not as an act of generosity, but as a debt which it has incurred in the course of subjugating an oppressed country.
Raising the slogan of reparations in the anti-imperialist movement at the same time calls the attention of the masses of people in this country to the urgent need of the Nicaraguan government to reconstruct economically, industrially, and socially the war-torn country which the U.S. puppet regime left as a legacy.
In raising the slogan of reparations, as against aid, the anti-imperialist movement must differentiate its position from that of the liberal bourgeoisie. The latter is primarily concerned with the effectiveness of U.S. aid for purposes of strengthening the position of U.S. imperialism in the oppressed country.
The debate in the ruling class always rotates around the axis of what is a sound policy for them, whether the methods are appropriate, and so on. Frequently, such high-sounding words as “moral,” “compassionate,” and “humane,” are used to sugar-coat, and make more acceptable, a liberal bourgeois policy, the aims of which do not differ from that of the most reactionary except in words.
The policy of the anti-imperialist movement, on the other hand, must be aimed at weakening and undermining the imperialist position in the oppressed country.
Can it best effectuate working-class internationalism, for instance, by demanding of the U.S. government that it extend aid to the Nicaraguan government? Or would it best serve both the interests of the working class in this country as well as the Nicaraguan people by demanding reparations?
The difference is not at all of a semantic character. The first slogan implies that the imperialist government is a gratuitous donor, that it actually assists a revolutionary government, and that its imperialist interests are consistent with disinterested aid to a revolutionary government. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Imperialist aid is a cover for imperialist penetration. Reparations is a from of repayment for damage done.
It should be understood, however, that even a most revolutionary government of an oppressed country is frequently forced, by virtue of circumstances, to accept aid from an imperialist country. It is also frequently impossible for a besieged revolutionary government in an oppressed country to obtain the aid without conditions imposed by the imperialist government. Occasionally, some naïve revolutionary militants in the metropolitan imperialist country, in frustration, tend to turn against the revolutionary government. This is wrong.
What is necessary is for the working class in the metropolitan imperialist countries to expose the avaricious and predatory character of the so-called strings, which are a means for recouping the lost imperialist position. In carrying out such necessary exposure, the working class in the metropolitan imperialist country is at one with the revolutionary position of the oppressed country in their common perspective of intransigent struggle against imperialism.
Naturally, the revolutionary Nicaraguan government would have preferred for the U.S. imperialist government to have assumed the $2.5 billion debt on behalf of the banks and canceled it. That would have freed the Sandinist government to obtain credit in the world market and would have obviated the need to accept U.S. aid in the form in which the U.S. Congress conditioned it.
Nicaragua is only one example of where the U.S. government owes reparations for damage done. The case for Vietnam, Kampuchea, Laos, Angola, Mozambique, and others is clear once the U.S. role is fully exposed. The damage done to Vietnam is so enormous that even with the full assistance of the USSR and other socialist countries it will take years to recover.
All the more necessary is it for the anti-imperialist movement in the U.S., and for the working-class vanguard in particular, to clarify the difference between imperialist aid, which is an imposition by the imperialist government, and reparations, which are an imposition upon an imperialist government. The difference is fundamental.
Last updated: 11 May 2026