[Marxism] Chavez distributes 3,000 titles to urban land

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Following is an article that appeared on the Green Left list.  The
comments in brackets, which seem appropriate to me with one reservation,
are  by Stuart Munckton.  

I think we should not underestimate the importance of Chavez to this
process, or the fear and hatred that the imperialists and local
capitalists have for him as an individual.  The fact is that without his
leadership initiative, it is highly unlikely that Venezuela would be
where it is today, despite the unrest and intense desire for change
among the people.

When Fidel Castro visited Venezuela (in 2001, I think) -- this was
before the attempted coup and the mass upsurge that followed -- he told
a rally: "Protect this man, because without him, there is no
revolution."  There is no doubt in my mind that Castro was dead right at
the time.  Without Chavez, there was no revolutionary process.  There
was nothing inevitable about the election of a "progressive" candidate
at a bourgeois election opening up a revolutionary process.
We've all seen plenty of situations where the mass energy burned out and
the process became counterrevolutionary.  The potential revolution
became a revolutionary process because the individual who led the
election campaign was Hugo Chavez.

While Castro's statement would no longer be categorically accurate
today, the loss of Chavez would be a big blow to the revolutionary
process today and could even turn out to bebe fatal (like the murder of
Maurice Bishop in Grenada). The US imperialists are not wrong to focus
their attacks on Venezuela on the question of getting rid of Chavez.
Despite the exaggerations of crackpot "Leninists" and "Trotskyists, the
question of leadership really is very important.
Fred Feldman






[It is very easy to miss the profundity of the revolution being made in 
Venezuela, as even some of Chavez's supporters internationally do. A 
lot of the reporting on it from the Left, even in Green Left which has 
some of the best coverage internationally, has a tendency to to 
overally focus on raw facts about the reforms, statistics and official 
statements. 

[What is missed is a sense and a picture of the dramatically deepening 
radicalisation amongst the Venezuelan working class. What is 
significant is not the reforms in and of themselves, it is the 
deepening radicalisation and increased confidence and organisation of 
the working class - which has been on the offensive now for some time - 
that has both been a product of the reforms and the crucial factor in 
actually carrying them out. Ironically it is often the capitalist press 
that provides a much better picture of this awakening of the working 
class in its articles where they give a sense of the mood of the 
working class areas and interview various people to paint a picture of 
what is happening on the ground.

[It is important to understand the context of Chavez's comments reported

in the article below. These are not comments made in a one on one 
interview hidden away in a building somewhere, they are not comments 
made via the medium of tv or radio or made in a written article 
(although Chavez expresses similar sentiments via these mediums too). 
Chavez's statements were made at a mass demonstration of the working 
class gathered to celebrate the implementation of one of the key 
pillars of the revolution in their area - the land reform whether rural 
or, in this case, urban.

[There is no specific indication of the mood at this rally, but we can 
probably fairly safely assume it is not dramatically different from 
other written accounts of mass Chavista rallies that have come out or 
the footage that can be seen on a growing number of films about the 
Venezuelan revolution - where the crowd jumps up and down with 
enthusiasm and regularly breaks into chanting revolutionary slogans 
during the speeches of Chavez -which often last for hours.

[This is a working class which, by all accounts, is one currently in a 
state of revolutionary fervour. It is to mass demonstrations of this 
working class that Chavez is saying capitalism must be broken with. 
What impact would statements like the ones reported here have on a 
crowd of such working people gathered to support and celebrate the 
revolution and its achievements? You would imagine it would deepen 
their collective sense of hope, sense of where the revolution is 
heading and which class it serves. 

[Chavez's comments are not the comments of a statesman speaking 
abstracted from the nation. They are an expression of the revolutionary 
will of a mobilised and aroused working class. And this is what is 
scaring the living day lights out of the ruling class and whipping them 
up into such a panicked state. They are not scared of Chavez - who, at 
the end of the day, could be silenced by one bullet. They are scared of 
the Venezuelan people who, led by Chavez, are making a revolution.

Stuart Munckton]

Chavez Presented Over 3,000 Titles as Part of Venezuela's Urban Land 
Reform

 

By:

Gregory Wilpert ? Venezuelanalysis.com

Caracas, October 25, 2004?Last Saturday, during a visit to the barrio 
of Petare, one of the poor neighborhoods of Caracas, President Chavez
gave out urban land titles to over 3,000 families. The transfer of land
titles took place in a major open-air public event that also served as 
a campaign rally for the major of Sucre, the Caracas district to which 
the neighborhood of Petare belongs.

Over 15,000 individuals will benefit from these land titles, which are
being given as part of Venezuela's urban land reform program, in which
the inhabitants of the country's barrios may obtain title to the land 
they have occupied, sometimes for decades, with their self-built homes. 

The Mayor of Sucre, José Vicente Rangel Avalos, the son of the vice-
president, said, "With these transfers we are fulfilling decree 1,666,
which regularizes the ownership of urban land and which recognizes
that the land belongs to those who live on it." Rangel Avalos also
explained that over 9,000 titles had already been passed out in his
municipality.

Saturday's land transfer is part of a larger urban land reform program
that is to benefit hundreds of thousands families living in Venezuela's
"barrios." The project intends to give inhabitants security that the 
land they have been living on for many years now is theirs and that 
with these titles economic activity, such as the taking out of bank 
loans, would be easier.

During the event, Chavez explained that the land titles would help 
fight poverty. We need to leave behind us the horrendous capitalist 
system that has been installed here, by those who attempted to dominate 
the people and to throw them into poverty. This is why we are here, to 
put an end to this," said Chavez.

In his recent public appearances Chavez has repeatedly emphasized the
importance of the government's land reform programs for fighting
poverty. Chavez again stressed that state governors should make an
all-out effort to apply the land reform law. 

Chavez said that he would wage "war against the large estates
(latifundios)." The landowners of such estates can choose between
giving up land of over 5,000 hectares or have it take away by force by
the army. He said he would prefer not to have to enter into a conflict
with the land owners, but they have to obey the law. Venezuela's land
reform law, which was passed in 2001, stipulates that land of over 
5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) can be turned over to the government, at
market value, for redistribution.

According to a land survey conducted in 1989, over 60% of the country's 
land is owned by less than 1% of the country's population. 






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