Carlos Fonseca Amador

Carlos Fonseca Amador (23 June 1936 – 8 November 1976) was a Nicaraguan teacher, librarian and revolutionary who founded the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). Fonseca was later killed in the mountains of the Zelaya Department, Nicaragua, three years before the FSLN took power. Early years Fonseca was born in a "corner house" his aunt (Isaura) acquired at the south-end of Matagalpa. His mother lived in a back room. Fonseca was the son of Augustina Fonseca Úbeda, an unmarried rural woman. His father, Fausto Amador Alemán, a member of a coffee-growing family, did not acknowledge Fonseca until his elementary school years. Fonseca's father was part of a wealthy family, while his mother was a peasant. Although his father later helped him go to school and educate himself, Fonseca held greater admiration for his mother because of her work ethic and strength. Because of this, Fonseca inverted the usual naming convention in Latin America and used her surname first, and was consequently known as Carlos Fonseca Amador. In 1950, Fonseca entered secondary school and slowly became involved with political groups. In the early 1950s, he attended meetings for a Conservative Party youth group and joined the Unión Nacional de Acción Popular (UNAP, National Union of Popular Action). Fonseca became increasingly interested in Marxism and joined the Partido Socialista Nicaragüense (PSN, Nicaraguan Socialist Party). He left the UNAP in 1953 or 1954, complaining they were too "bourgeoisified" on social issues, and not active enough against the Somoza government. In 1954, he and several school friends founded and began to publish a cultural journal called Segovia. Early political activity In 1957, Fonseca traveled to the Soviet Union as a PSN delegate to the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth. Fonseca later wrote a book chronicling his visit to the USSR entitled Un Nicaragüense en Moscú ("A Nicaraguan in Moscow"). The book featured uncritical praise of the accomplishments of the Soviet government, including its "free press, complete freedom of religion and the efficiency of its worker-run industries."