The Sandinista National Liberation Front (Spanish: Frente Sandinista de la Liberacion Nacional) is a socialist revolutionary party and organization in Nicaragua. In the 1970s, it fought a guerrilla war against the brutal, right-wing, US-backed Somoza dictatorship. The Sandinistas successfully overthrew the Somoza regime in 1979 and embarked on massive social and economic reforms, greatly improving the quality of life for the vast majority of Nicaraguans. In only a few years, they smashed down the illiteracy rate, gave universal public health care and education to the people of Nicaragua, and redistributed land from being concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite of landlords and US corporations; they gave this land to the peasants of Nicaragua. In 1984, the Sandinistas, understanding, unli