Re: Venezuela coup analysis

[Stewart Sinclair <stewsinc@xxxxxx>]

The contribution by José on the analysis of the coup is not wrong but 
illustrates a terrible habit among many Marxists.  This is the habit of 
ungrounded abstraction.  All the distinctions of national and socialist 
phases etc. come after the single most important historical question.

Who has the guns?

In Cuba the July 26 army was the sole coherent armed force on the island 
after 1959.  With that, the revolutionary national leadership could do what 
ever they thought necessary.  In Venezuela the army is split.  That split 
is the only thing that kept Chávez in office if not in unalloyed 
power.  This is a step forward from the Chilean, Brazilian, Uruguayan, El 
Salvadoran, etc.  situations where the armed forces have been united in 
under the most reactionary command.

The Russian situation is illustrative in this light also.  The Petrograd 
army garrison, the Kronstadt Naval infantry garrison, and the bulk of the 
crews on the main Baltic Fleet battle ships all came over to the 
Revolution.  After some wobbling during Kornilov coup attempt the reaction 
and imperialism had no forces "on the ground" so to speak.

This revolution also had it's national bourgeois aspect in the land reform 
proposal originally put forward by Lenin.  In fact "Bread, Peace and Land" 
in case you hadn't noticed, is not a socialist program.  It is a program 
for "national (or 'all Russian' in this case) POWER."  It should also be 
noted here that the building of the Red Army during the civil war required 
the services of over 30,000 officers who had been officers in the Tzarist 
army most of whom served very well.  As Trotsky pointed out the Red Army 
could not have been build and gone on to victory without them.  It is a 
reasonable idea that no small part of the motivation of these men was 
patriotism.

The popular movement can carry out national, bourgeois democratic, social 
democratic, socialist or any policy mix required in the balance of class 
forces so long as you've got the guns - so long as the forces of progress 
are buttressed by a body of soldiers who know what they want, know how to 
get it and are prepared to die for it.  And so long as this force is able 
to dominate the situation on the ground.

The leaders of any serious ruling class in history have known this.  They 
understand that sufficient fire power and the ability terrorize their 
opponents are at the bottom of all political power.  Hence we have that 
boot camp for torturers in the School of the Americas (or what ever it's 
called now).  Along with all the other military apparatus that imperialism 
and it's retainers maintain this kind of machinery is not an excess, it is 
essential to the maintenance of a power that is increasingly challenged by 
social and economic reality.

The main reason the working class has so little success consolidating power 
is that so many of it's erstwhile leaders ignore this central fact in 
history and instead fill their heads with abstractions.

Stew S.
******

At 08:44 AM 18/06/02 -0400, you wrote:
> Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 20:21:34 -0400
> From: "Jose G. Perez" <jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: Venezuela coup analysis
>
> Thanks to Louis for the pointer to this article, which is a useful recap of
> much of the evidence surrounding US involvement in the campaign against
> President Hugo Chávez that led to the now-you-see-it, now-you-don't 48-hour
> April junta.
>
> Nevertheless, it is important for comrades to supplement the information in
> this article with a Marxist approach to the unfolding Venezuelan
> revolutionary process.
>
> For the moment, the thing to understand is that a key turning point came
> last fall, when the Bolivarian government adopted a series of
> long-anticipated economic decree-laws, chief among them and agrarian reform
> law and the petroleum law. The importance of these laws for us do not lie in
> their on these laws are not terribly important; what is notable is that the
> bourgeoisie, the Venezuelan capitalist class as a whole, as a class,
> immediately reacted to them with all the affection that the vampire holds
> for the wooden stake being pressed into its chest.
.....
> José
>
> - ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Louis Proyect" <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 8:49 AM
> Subject: Venezuela coup analysis
>
> Coup-making in Venezuela: the Bush and oil factors
> by Karen Talbot

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/TAL206A.html
Louis Proyect




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