According to Dennis Gilbert, the history of the Sandinista Party is a succession of confrontations between its Marxist ideological principles and the conditions of life in Nicaragua that have continually challenged and diluted the party's political orthodoxy. By the time they came to power in 1979, the Sandinistas had adopted an insurrectionary strategy with little resemblance to its putative Marxist origins and had absorbed into their ranks large numbers of Catholic radicals, many into leadership positions, a state of affairs unimaginable among established Marxist-Leninist regimes. Turning on the continuing tension between ideology and circumstances, this book aims to provide the reader with an interpretive account of perhaps the most influential revolutionary movement of the recent past. Gilbert examines five key topics in depth, each selected to reveal essential insights about the revolution; the Sandinista Party, agrarian reform, the national bourgeoisie, the Catholic Church and the United States. At the centre of the analysis resides the FSLN, driven by ideology and moulded by history, in its vanguard role as an important contemporary revolutionary movement.