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The Michigan Socialist | News |
World News
Revolution or counterrevolution?
Venezuela's Bolivarian
Republic at the crossroads
By MARTIN SCHREADER
Editor, the Michigan Socialist
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| A sea of
red: Hundreds of thousands of supporters of Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution rally in Caracas. |
THE MOST RECENT events in the South American
country of Venezuela have brought its ongoing democratic revolution
to a critical stage.
This democratic movement, called the “Bolivarian
Revolution,” swept into power in December 1998 with the election of
Hugo Chavez Frias as president.
The Bolivarians went right to work. Within a year
of being elected, the Bolivarian movement called a national
referendum to adopt a new, democratic constitution, which passed
overwhelmingly.
Chavez won re-election under the new constitution
in 2000.
A year later, in December 2001, he proposed close
to 50 new laws meant to codify the aims of the democratic
revolution, including regulations on land reform, railroad
construction and the oil industry.
The combination of a new constitution and the
reforms proposed by Chavez outraged the Venezuelan capitalists and
their imperialist paymasters — particularly the U.S. Even though the
state apparatus was still quite capitalist in character, the
capitalists had lost control of its administration.
The capitalists vowed to regain control ... by any
means necessary.
In April 2002, the capitalists conspired with the
military and police forces to provoke a coup d’état.
In response, the Bolivarians called a massive
march in the capital, Caracas, as well as organized loyal soldiers
to retake the presidential palace and return Chavez to office.
Eight months later, the capitalists tried again to
force the ouster of Chavez.
Working this time with their lieutenants in the
official labor union federation, the bosses organized a massive
lockout of workers and sought to get the military to once again
depose Chavez.
This time, the workers of Venezuela took matters
into their own hands.
Workers in the oil industry broke through the
capitalists’ lines and occupied the refineries.
The union movement split, with militant
pro-Bolivarian workers organizing their own union federation and
leaving the old pro-capitalist union bureaucracy to their own
devices.
Millions of workers took to the streets to stop
the coup plotters from succeeding.
The second attempt to crush the Bolivarian
revolution collapsed and Chavez was still president.
THROUGHOUT 2003, the capitalists have attempted to
reorganize and take another crack at forcing Chavez out and
reversing the Bolivarian Revolution.
Their current tactic has been taking advantage of
a provision in the new constitution that allows for the recall of
the president.
The two main capitalist parties, AD (“Democratic
Action”) and Copei (“Christian Socialists”), have poured millions of
dollars into funding a petitioning drive to gather the signatures
necessary for a referendum.
As of this writing, the National Electoral Council
(an independent body established by the new constitution) has
declared that the capitalist opposition has just barely achieved the
necessary number of signatures.
This means that there will be a national
referendum in August to decide whether to recall Chavez.
The petitioning drive has severely polarized the
Venezuelan people, mainly along class lines.
The workers and poor peasants of Venezuela are
solidly supporting Chavez and the Bolivarians.
The capitalists and their “middle class”
appendages, along with the labor aristocracy, are backing the old
parties and the recall.
Even though the capitalists are in a minority in
Venezuela, they have a powerful ally that could tip the scales in
their favor: American capitalism.
Ever since Chavez came to power, the U.S.
government has done everything it can short of full-scale invasion
to aid the overthrow of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Washington has provided money, equipment,
logistical support and even the occasional mercenary unit to help
crush the democratic movement.
In this election year, both of the main capitalist
candidates — George W. Bush and John F. Kerry — have decidedly
thrown their support behind the Venezuelan capitalists, and have
even went so far as to threaten “regime change” if Chavez does not
give in.
Both Bush and Kerry have called Chavez a
“dictator” (or, wishing to be more equivocal, have said he was
“becoming a dictator”).
This is rich coming from a pair of billionaire
capitalist plutocrats, one of whom was illegally installed in the
White House by family friends sitting on the Supreme Court of the
United States.
Both Bush and Kerry would hope to ever receive the
proportionate level of mass support Chavez has — over 60 percent of
the near 80 percent of the population who voted in the last
election.
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| Making
the links: Bolivarian supporter uses the example of the war
crimes committed by the U.S. at Abu Gh’raib prison in Iraq to
demonstrate what will happen to Venezuelans if the pro-U.S.
capitalist opposition succeeds. |
THIS COMING AUGUST, the people of Venezuela will
once again have to affirm their support for the Bolivarian
Revolution by going to the polls and voting against the recall of
Chavez.
Should this happen, then it should be taken as a
mandate by the Bolivarians to take the decisive steps forward.
After the defeat of the coups of April and
December 2002, the capitalists were severely weakened and
discredited.
In both cases, the situation was ripe for taking
the Revolution to the next level and advancing toward a democratic
socialist society.
But the Bolivarian leadership, limited by their
left-populist political viewpoint, hesitated in both instances,
allowing the capitalists to regroup and reorganize.
At the same time, the rank and file of the
Bolivarian movement has been pushing to move the revolution forward.
However, it appears that Chavez and a significant
section of the democratic movement are beginning to see that the
only way to deepen and extend the Bolivarian Revolution is to go
beyond capitalism.
Recently, Chavez declared that the revolution was
now in its “anti-imperialist” stage, and he and his Bolivarian
movement have taken steps to that effect.
Last month, Chavez called for a general arming of
the people and the organization of “workers’ and people’s militia”
to defend the resources of the country from sabotage and plunder by
the capitalists.
As well, he has been purging large sections of the
state apparatus, removing certain “disloyal” military brass and
police chiefs from their posts.
This purging process has also included removing
hesitating and ineffective elements from his own movement’s
leadership.
However, he has not touched the main levers of
power that the capitalists hold over the Bolivarians — the banking
institutions and the petroleum industry — and has not taken on the
bulk of the armed state apparatus, including local police allied
with the capitalist opposition.
If the referendum fails, and Chavez remains in
power, there is little doubt that the capitalists will cry “fraud”
and appeal to the Great Power imperialists (most notably the U.S.)
to back them in a “regime change.”
The capitalists will have to appeal to the
imperialists because they will be far too weak at that stage to take
any decisive action on their own.
Should such a situation begin to develop, it is
necessary for the Bolivarians to seize the initiative and take the
first decisive steps toward the overthrow of Venezuelan capitalism.
THERE IS LITTLE doubt that the capitalists will
stage a series of provocations across Venezuela to provide an excuse
for imperialist intervention.
The Bolivarians, through the workers’ and people’s
militias, could keep these individual provocations in check.
However, this is not enough.
At this stage, it would be entirely justified for
Chavez to invoke Articles 115 and 116 of the constitution, and
expropriate the private property of those capitalists provoking
violence, placing it under public ownership.
As well, it would be justified to extend the
decree on expropriation and place all the banking institutions in
Venezuela under public ownership, since the capitalists have used
their control of the banks as a means to strangle the economy and
people.
But public ownership, as a means to deprive the
capitalists of a chief source of their power, is only a partial
step.
In order for such nationalization to be a
genuinely progressive act, control of these newly seized means of
production needs to be placed in the hands of the workers
themselves.
The embryonic workers’ control practiced by the
oil workers in December 2002 provides a guide for implementing it
across the entire economy.
The local Bolivarian circles in factories and
workplaces can be the launching point for democratic assemblies of
working people throughout the country.
Aided by the workers’ and people’s militias, these
new workplace assemblies could begin reorganizing and reorienting
the economy of Venezuela to meet the needs of the people.
In those states and cities where capitalist
politicians and their state confront them, these workers’ assemblies
can also serve as the basis for a new municipal and state power —
the democratic socialist republic in birth.
Finally, it will be necessary to codify this
revolutionary transformation from below.
The most efficient means of doing this is through
the convening of the National Constituent Assembly to codify the
power of the revolutionary assemblies in the Bolivarian
constitution.
If Chavez survives the recall, he should use the
occasion of his victory speech as a call for open revolutionary
transformation and call the National Constituent Assembly into
session immediately.
At this stage, there is no room for hesitation or
compromise. The capitalists are looking to drown the Bolivarian
democratic revolution in blood.
The only way out — the only way forward — is for
the Bolivarians to recognize that it will take the overthrow of the
capitalist order to succeed.
They have already begun that process. We can only
encourage them and double our efforts here in the U.S. to stop any
imperialist interference.
An abridged version of this article appears in the
inaugural issue of the re-launched Appeal to Reason.
On the Internet:
www.appealtoreason.org. |
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