A lengthy Times obituary of a left-wing filmmaker reports, "In the 1980s, he wrote essays berating the administration of Ronald Reagan for trying to depose the leftist government in Nicaragua."
"Leftist" is a euphemistic way of putting it. Here is how one Times article back in the 1980s described it: "The Sandinistas, who openly acknowledge their ideological debt to Marxism and who maintain close ties to Communist governments around the world, seem vaguely uncomfortable at having an opposition party that calls itself Communist."