Re: [A-List] Venezuela: Chávez, Gramsci and Poulantzas

[<james.irldaly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A relevant and good article from Venezuelanalysis -- James

> From: "Michael Keaney" <michael011@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 2007/06/08 Fri AM 11:58:01 GMT
> To: a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> CC: lpanitch@xxxxxxxx,  Kees Van Der Pijl <K.Van-Der-Pijl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, 
> 	r.jessop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [A-List] Venezuela: Chávez, Gramsci and Poulantzas
> 
> James wrote:
> 
> Thank you Charles for this vitally important post, which deserves and
> needs close study.  Chavez turns the tables on Soros-type exploitation
> of the concept of civil society by returning to Marx's original meaning,
> with its class analysis.  It is a masterly response to Venezuelan's
> situation, in which US attempts at destabilisation through financial
> support for colour (counter)-revolution-style "civil society" are
> obviously ongoing, and the "tyrannical, totalitarian" state they are
> trying to overthrow is one which is beginning to take the steps to
> empower the people to liberate themselves from the "civil society" (in
> Marx's sense) of the oligarchy, dominated by the US.
> 
> ****
> 
> I've been going through the work of Nicos Poulantzas again and have been
> struck at how Chávez seems to have been reading from "State, Power,
> Socialism", which was NP's last great work before he committed suicide
> in October 1979. SPS was published in the UK in 1978 having been quickly
> translated from the original French. So, unlike Political Power and
> Social Classes which took 5 years to cross the Channel the reception was
> far more immediate. This made it even more remarkable, because it
> anticipated so many of the events that transpired during the 1980s, as
> the drift towards authoritarianism intensified and the capitalist state
> stepped up its attacks against organised labour, reflecting the changing
> balance of class forces in Western society, and especially in the
> English-speaking "Lockean heartland". NP had already drawn from
> Gramsci's treatment of the state (political society plus civil society)
> in writing PPSC ten years earlier. In his famous debate with Ralph
> Miliband, while most of their attention focused on problems of method,
> Poulantzas also rejected Miliband's separation of civil society from the
> state. This key difference at the outset of NP's reign as the foremost
> state theorist of the 1970s informed NP's evolution away from rigorous
> Althusserian structuralism (which drew several wounding charges from
> Miliband) and orthodox Leninist strategy (the vanguard party outside the
> boundaries of the state working to overthrow the state) towards a
> greater appreciation of how the state permeates "civil society" and
> increasingly so. Althusser had ended up reducing the state to
> ideological and repressive apparatuses, whereas NP was viewing the state
> as an expanding site of class struggle. Given the state's condensation
> of the contradictory forces at work in any class-divided society, simply
> replacing personnel was an often futile gesture, as legions of social
> democrats were to discover over and over again, until many of them
> realised they were better managers than their conservative counterparts,
> and that the personal rewards were really rather good. The separation of
> ever-larger segments of the state from formal democratic accountability
> which culminated in the 1980s/90s monetarist enshrinement of central
> banks as supposedly impartial arbiters of monetary policy free from
> political interference (aka democratic accountability) meant that
> capturing power means a lot more than simply achieving a majority in the
> legislature, or even capturing the executive (ask Harold Wilson).
> Without a properly sized and organised mass base any reforming or
> revolutionary party would be unable to conquer sufficient parts of the
> state in order to prevent a successful reaction. A vital element of the
> mass base's organisation is ideological, for this is where the
> capitalist state operates most effectively in framing the boundaries of
> the acceptable, the possible, and the desirable. Thus Gramsci's
> delineation of the wars of position and movement.
> 
> Chávez's 21st century socialism may just have been prefigured in the
> last writings of Nicos Poulantzas. Thanks to the post forwarded by
> Charles from Greg Wilpert via Michael Lebowitz we do know that he has
> been studying Gramsci.
> 
> Michael Keaney
> 
> 
> 
> Chavez Dismisses International Disapproval of Venezuela's Media Policy
> 
> Hundreds of Thousands March in Support of Chavez
> 
> By Gregory Wilpert - Venezuelanalysis.com
> Jun 05, 2007
> 
> As several hundred thousand Chavez supporters rallied in Venezuela's
> largest avenue on Saturday, President Chavez rejected all international
> interference with his decision not to renew a television station's
> broadcast license. Referring to the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci,
> Chavez also spoke at length about how private media maintains a cultural
> hegemony that must be broken.
> 
> "Go to hell, representatives of the global oligarchy, we are a free
> country!" said Chavez to wild applause, once marchers reached the
> Avenida Bolivar in the center of Caracas. The demonstration converged on
> the avenue from two starting points, one in the east of the city and the
> other towards the city's south. Unofficial estimates of the number of
> demonstrators ranged from 300,000 to 500,000.
> 
> Chavez said he did not care that the world media was presenting him as a
> new Hitler or Mussolini. "What I do care about," said Chavez, "is the
> sovereignty of the Venezuelan homeland."
> 
> "The international elite are worried, they fear that the example of
> Venezuela will extend to other countries where they believe that they
> are the masters of everything," continued Chavez during his relatively
> short one and a half hour speech. Every destabilization plan, warned
> Chavez, will be "responded with a new revolutionary offensive."
> 
> Chavez also said it was sad that university students have been
> demonstrating in support of RCTV. "It continues to be sad that some
> students take to the streets - to defend what? ... On whose side will
> they place themselves, on the side of the people or of the oligarchy, of
> the homeland or of the North American empire?" adding that the vast
> majority of students are on the side of the people. The images of
> student protests are just part of a "giant manipulation, a gross media
> spectacle."
> 
> For Chavez, what is happening in Venezuela is very similar to what the
> U.S. has helped organize in eastern European countries, in the so-called
> "colored revolutions," such as in Ukraine, where demonstrators succeeded
> in overthrowing the government.
> 
> Chavez also reminded his supporters that his reelection on December 3rd
> was merely the beginning of a new phase in his presidency, of creating
> socialism and that so far much had been achieved. Chavez mentioned that
> the "re-nationalization" of the oil industry had been finalized and that
> the new Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has been launched
> and announced that until now 4,735,000 Venezuelans have been registered
> as applicants to be activists in the new party.
> 
> Antonio Gramsci as Key for Understanding Events in Venezuela
> 
> The thought of the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci is fundamental,
> according to Chavez, for making sense of what is happening in Venezuela
> today. "I want to refer to the thought of Gramsci, to use his ideas,
> using the light of his thought, every day we understand better what is
> happening here today in Venezuela."
> 
> Thus Chavez launched into one his longest and most detailed talks on the
> thought of Gramsci, explaining Gamsci's concept of "historical blocs,"
> in which a particular class manages to acquire hegemony that is
> expressed in structures and super-structures. The super-structure,
> explained Chavez, consists of two levels, of the institutions of the
> state and of the civil society. The civil society, according to Chavez's
> explanation of Gramsci, consists of economic and private institutions,
> through which the dominant class spreads its ideology.
> 
> The conflict in Venezuela can thus be understood as one between the
> institutions of the state, which used to be controlled by this civil
> society, but no longer is, and the old civil society. To this old civil
> society, according to Gramsci, belong the Catholic Church hierarchy, the
> mass media, and the education system as the principal institutions. The
> dominant classes use these institutions to disseminate their ideologies,
> explained Chavez.
> 
> This ideology of the dominant classes is disseminated in a variety of
> levels of abstraction, with philosophy being the most abstract. Below
> this level are belief systems such a neo-liberalism, the free market,
> the thesis of freedom of expression, of bourgeois democracy, of division
> of powers, representation as foundation of democracy. These are "Big
> lies!" exclaimed Chavez, with which for over a 100 years hegemony has
> been exercised.
> 
> On a third level is common sense, which is "the product of being bathed
> in the dominant philosophy and of the ideology in different forms, via
> soap operas, movies, songs, propaganda, billboards..." said Chavez.
> 
> The fourth level is "folklore," whereby people simply express a
> preference as a result of manipulation, without knowing why.
> 
> According to Chavez, the Bolivarian movement has been "liberating" the
> state, including the judiciary, the legislature, the state-owned
> enterprises, from the control of this hegemonic "bourgeois civil
> society."
> 
> Now this civil society is using its last remaining resources to fight
> for power, the Church, the mass media, and the universities. "From there
> is the importance of understanding the layout of the battle," said
> Chavez.
> 
> Chavez also clarified that Venezuela's oligarchy could live with the
> Bolivarian Revolution, because "we have no plan to eliminate the
> oligarchy, Venezuela's bourgeoisie. We have demonstrated this
> sufficiently in over eight years," said Chavez.
> 
> "But, if the oligarchy does not understand this, if it does not accept
> the call to peace, to live with us, that the great revolutionary
> majority is making, if the Venezuelan bourgeoisie continues to
> desperately assault, using the refuges it has remaining, well then the
> Venezuelan bourgeoisie will continue to lose, one by one, the refuges it
> has remaining," declared Chavez.
> 
> Directed to Venezuela's bourgeoisie, Chavez said, "We respect you as
> Venezuelans, you [should] respect Venezuela, respect the homeland,
> respect our constitution, respect our laws. If you do not, you will
> regret it, if you do not, we will make you obey Venezuela's laws."
> 
> The gathered crowd chanted, "This is how one governs!"
> 
> Reprinted from:
> www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2317
> 
> 
> -- 
> http://www.fastmail.fm - And now for something completely different?
> 
> 

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