124 SOCIAL SCIENTIST the Gospel's message. They've preached an alienating faith that works against the people's interests." Referring to the accusation ofSomoza's men that she was being paid by the international communist movement, she says: "Imagine-1 don't even know what the international communist movement might be, I really don't.... If the church is communist because it struggles for justice, well I guess that makes me a communist." The struggle threw up many issues. Describing domestic work as one of the obstacles which prevented the full participation of women in the past, Gloria Carrion says: Our women assume that work individually but we believe that it is a social responsibility. It is a part of the work of the society as a whole. It must be performed not only by women. Men must also take responsibility for this work. The case of 18-year old Lesbia Lopez provoke much discussion. Caught while putting up posters, she was imprisoned, tortured and raped. From this rape she conceived her first daughter. At the (Tme other pregnancy two views were expressed, one that she should abort the child, as if paternity were the only issue, and the other, that the child would be the mother's and the baby a symbol of struggle and resistance... The experiences of the struggle challenged and ruptured many aspects of the old value system. Nicaragua is a traditionally Catholic country whose people—and in particular, its women—are even today terribly believing. Especially for those young women who took up arms and got married in the guerrilla camps by taking the oath in front of their comrades, without even the presence of a priest, the prospect of a return to the old way of life is horrifying. It is these women who took the initiative to form all-women companies within the army. Such are the 'women in olive green', most of them forced by poverty and the terrible repression to join the armed struggle, today proud of their contribution to the liberation of their people and determined to keep alive the new tradition of fighting women. The victory of the Nicaraguan Revolution owes much to the intensity of feeling of its women for their children, for their people, for the Revolution. This intensity of feeling which, converted into revolutionary spirit and energy gave the revolution such a powerful impetus, has been most vividly expressed in the letter of a mother to her daughter. 24-year old Idania Fer-nandez was assassinated alongwith five other comrades by the National Guard on April 16, 1979. A month earlier, in a letter to her daughter, she wrote: "This is an important time for people everywhere, today in Nicaragua, and later in other countries of Latin America and throughout the world. The Revolution demands all each of us has to give, and our own consciousness demands that as individuals we act in an exemplary way, to be as useful as possible to this process. I hope that someday, not too far off, you may be able 10 live in a free society where you can grow and develop as human beings should, where people are brothers and sisters, not enemies .... You must learn the value of the paradise of peace and freedom vou are