"El caso de Nicaragua y la actitud del Gral. Sandino," Grupo de Obreros y Estudiantes ("G.D.O.Y.E."), Managua, Mayo de 1932.

This fascinating document was recently found in the National Archives (RG127, Entry 38, Box 21)  —  authored by an anonymous “Group of Workers and Students” (Grupo de Obreros y Estudiantes, or “G.D.O.Y.E.”) in Managua in April 1932 and published in May by the Imprenta 'La Reinvindicación' near Tempisque, El Salvador on newspaper stock as an oversize (10 x 16 inch), small-text, image-free, two-sided flier. The authors express a host of perspectives & arguments on questions swirling around the streets of Managua, Chinandega, León, and Chichigalpa at the time — recall the Sandinista attack on the Guardia garrison & municipal buildings in Chichigalpa and movements toward Chinandega, Nicaragua's third-largest city, the previous November.  Across much of the Pacific Coast, these were hot-button issues.  (Photoshopped image of flier, above, by the author)

     The authors offer a stirring defense of Sandino’s nationalist cause and a scathing denunciation of the Moncada government, the Guardia Nacional, and US imperialism.  The flier offers a powerful piece of propaganda in both its ideological framework and its graphic specificity — we hear about Lt. Gladen burning people with cigarettes in Somotillo, Capt. MacDonald “sowing terror” (sembrando el terror) in Jinotega, Major Webb ordering Guardia to beat people up in the streets of León.  The case of Adolfo Cockburn’s death under highly suspicious circumstances at the hands of the Guardia (as extensively documented elsewhere on this website, in EAST COAST 1931B - PG. 3) is mentioned, as are many other specific cases, many of which can be corroborated by other sources. The authors acknowledge the EDSN “sackings” of towns & rural properties, but put them in the broader context of revolutionary armies needing to pay for war.  The flier decries the brutality & unconstitutionality of the Guardia Nacional — appeals to the patriotism of young men in the Guardia Nacional to truly serve their country by deserting and joining Sandino — calls on students & workers to unite in support of his cause — and concludes with a ringing defense of the “loyal & patriotic” (leales y patriotas) Sandinista soldiers.

      The sentiments expressed in this flier would have been received sympathetically by a substantial segment of urban artisans, workers & students across the Pacific Coast region of Nicaragua, and across much of Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean in this period.  If an inchoate sense of sympathy for Sandino rarely translated into direct action or organizational support for his movement, the views expressed here capture a significant slice of pan-Latin American urban public opinion on questions of the Marines, the Guardia, Sandino, and the Nicaraguan government in the late 1920s & early 1930s.  

     The flier's two sides are reproduced above, in two high-resolution (400 dpi) JPEG scans, each about 11 MB.  The third image is of a June 1932 letter from Managua's Chief of Police to the Jefe Director of the Guardia Nacional reporting that postal authorities in Tempisque, El Salvador confiscated 47 copies of this flier from a package addressed to Sr. Rodolfo Arguello Silva of Puerto Cabezas, and that the "it came from Salvador".  One copy remains in the archives.