ABSTRACT
The powerful instruments of the Somoza regime and its broad institutional backing, once considered virtually invulnerable, a coalition of Nicaraguan social forces under the military leadership of the Sandinista National Liberation Front had found the means to shatter the despotic dynasty. The appearance in Nicaragua of mass violence in the form of a great sociopolitical conflagration signifies great human problems drastically confronted. Revolutionary leaders have tended to come more from the same social strata as the incumbent elite whom they challenge than from among the ranks of the classes in whose name they make revolution. Other students of revolution have attempted theory building based upon stages and revolutionary typologies. Efforts to identify the fundamental causes or preconditions of revolution have achieved greater progress than any other aspect of the theory of revolution. In this area, explanations for the outbreak of sociopolitical violence, and of revolution as a subset of violence, have taken three basic theoretical tacks.
