[Marxism] "Venezuela: The Myths of James Petras"

[Ernie & Jess <mackenzie.tate@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

An interesting critique of James Petras.

Ernest Tate

    VENEZUELA: THE MYTHS OF JAMES PETRAS

    David Raby

    University of Liverpool, UK

    <dlraby@xxxxxxxxx>

                    For many progressive people in Latin America, James
Petras is a respected figure of reference. As one of the few
representatives of the US Left who has always maintained a principled
position, Petras has accompanied Latin American popular struggles for
more than forty years. There is no just cause that Petras does not
defend, and his penetrating criticisms of the “renewed” Left are often
only too accurate.

                    But Petras also makes mistakes, and it is important
to criticise him precisely because of his reputation. Faithful to his
roots in the old Marxist tradition, he sometimes fails to understand the
new dynamics of popular and anti-imperialist struggles, and as he
strives to be more Catholic than the Pope, he loses sight of the true
revolutionary perspective in the specific conditions of our times.

                    In September 2004, after Chávez’ great triumph in
the recall referendum, Petras published an article in the “Rebelión”
website with the title “El presidente Chávez y el referéndum: mitos y
realidades” (“President Chávez and the referendum: myths and realities”,
03-09-2004, http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=4117). Attacking both
right and left, he lists seven “myths” which he wishes to destroy,
incorrect interpretations of the Right but also, he says, of the
chavista Left. It is worth taking the time to review these “myths” and
Petras’ comments to see whether the author does not fall victim of
certain myths of his own creation.

    “Myth No. 1 - Chávez is an unpopular President who can be defeated
in a referendum by the right-wing opposition”.[1]

    - Petras says this is a myth created by the Venezuelan and US Right
themselves and the media they control, and in this he is correct.

    “Myth No. 2 - According to right-wing analysts, the central issue
in the referendum was the ‘popularity’, the ‘charisma’ and the
‘autocratic style’ of Chávez”.

    - Petras says that in reality the referendum was based mainly on a
clear class and race division, and not on Chávez’ personality. Well, the
class and ethnic division is undeniable and fundamental, but at the same
time one cannot deny the crucial role of Chávez, of his leadership and
charisma. The Chávez-people dialectic has been central to the whole
process, and the people themselves say so: if one goes to the cerros of
Caracas or the small towns of the interior people insist that they have
no confidence in bureaucrats or politicians (even those from the
progressive parties), but only in Chávez and the revolutionary military.
They say that they respond to Chávez’ proposals and slogans because they
feel that Chávez gives them a say, that Chávez interprets their
feelings, that Chávez represents them. It is hard for the Left to accept
this, but if it were not for Chávez there would be no revolutionary
government in power; rather there would be a confusion of rival
tendencies, a fratricidal struggle of leftist parties, a powerful but
divided and frustrated popular movement, and the Right would either be
in power or would be in excellent conditions to neutralise and overthrow
a weak government of old-style left-wing politicians. Of course it is
not just Chávez’ personality; what has happened is that he has grown in
stature with the strength of the people with whom he has identified and
who inspire him; but at the same time the people know that it was Chávez
and the MBR-200 who gave them leadership when it was lacking (in 1992)
and who have successfully led the process for more than twelve years
since then.

    “Myth No. 3 - On both the Right and the Left there is a belief that
the mass media control people’s behaviour when the time comes to vote,
limit the political agenda and lead necessarily to the victory of the
Right and the domestication of the Left”.

    - This is true, and precisely one of the most impressive features
of the Venezuelan process has been the capacity demonstrated by the
people, ever since Chávez’ first electoral victory in 1998, to defeat
the ferocious media campaign against him. But Petras’ comment in
relation to this myth is that “The referendum results show that powerful
mass organisations organised around successful struggles for social
reforms can create a political and social consciousness in the masses
which makes it possible to defeat media manipulation easily”. Here one
has to point out that the first defeats of media manipulation occurred
in ‘98-99 when there had been no successful social struggles but only
the hope created by the leadership of Chávez and the MBR-200/MVR, and
that since then the successful reforms - decreed or promoted essentially
by Chávez - have consolidated the strength and unity of the popular
movement which has made possible the new defeat of the media in the
referendum. But once again, in the referendum campaign the defeat of the
media was due above all to the Chávez-people dialectic, manifested
principally in the intense campaign of the UBE (Units of Electoral
Struggle) organised by popular initiative from the grass roots but in
response to a public appeal by Chávez, and to the President’s
indefatigable speeches on television and in popular meetings throughout
the country. Of course the people organised and voted to defend the
achievements of the revolution (and not just the “social reforms” in
Petras’ words, but popular power expressed through participatory and
protagonistic democracy), but the mechanism of their mobilisation was
the dialectic between the people and the popular leader which Petras is
loath to recognise. This is also confirmed by the negative comparison of
the Brazilian case, where very powerful social movements have been
unable to achieve the desired social reforms and have begun to abandon
the Government at the ballot box precisely because of the lack of
leadership of Lula and the PT.

    “Myth No. 4 - According to many left-wing journalists, Chávez’
victory reflects a new wave of populist nationalisms in Latin America”.

    - Here one would have to discuss just what is meant by “populism”,
but without getting into that theoretical debate, what Petras means by
this is that many commentators now talk about the formation of a bloc of
progressive governments in Latin America
(Cuba-Venezuela-Brazil-Argentina-Paraguay, and now Uruguay and Panama)
which are beginning to contest Washington’s policies and seek to
consolidate a regional alternative. Petras refutes this interpretation,
citing concessions by several of these governments to multinational
capital, the dispatch of Brazilian troops to Haiti, and the fact that
“the other Andean countries” (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia) are
proposing to privatise their publicly-owned oil companies, that they
support the FTAA and Plan Colombia and religiously pay their foreign
debt, and also that “the Uruguayan Broad Front [Frente Amplio] intends
to follow Brazil’s neoliberal policies”. Finally he asserts that “there
is a bloc of neoliberal regimes opposed to Chávez” and that the
Venezuelan President’s main allies are the social mass movements and Cuba.

    - Here again Petras’ vision is too simplistic. First of all, the
Andean countries mentioned are precisely those which continue to be
vassals of Washington and do not support any alternative tendency. With
regard to Brazil, certainly its policies are disappointing, but at the
same time it does offer a diplomatic and tactical support to the
Venezuelan Government which is not to be sneezed at, and also at times
significant material support (for example by supplying Venezuela with
petrol during the bosses’ lockout). Neither can one dismiss Argentina’s
growing commercial alliance with Venezuela and its acceptance of the
Venezuelan proposal to create a regional oil company (“Petrosur” or
“Petroamérica”). It is a cliché to say that the most consistent support
for any revolutionary regime will come from the social movements and
Cuba, but fortunately Venezuela’s conjunctural alliances are not limited
to that. The governments of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay etc. are only
reformist and therefore inconsistent, but they cannot be simply
dismissed as “neoliberal” and it cannot be denied that they represent a
tendency - as yet weak, but real - of opposition to imperialist plans.

    “Myth No. 5 - The defeat in the referendum has been an important
tactical defeat for US imperialism and its local puppets”.

    - Petras denies this, quoting subsequent declarations by Chávez
favourable to foreign investment, and agreements with US oil companies
for the exploitation of the Orinoco oil and gas fields. “The Left’s
euphoria prevents it from seeing the oscillations of Chávez’ discourse
and the heterodox model of social assistance and neoliberal economic
policies which he constantly practises” - and Petras then asserts that
“Chávez is closer to the ‘New Deal’ of Franklin D. Roosevelt than to
Castro’s socialist revolution”.

    - Here one is tempted to ask our friend Petras if he has no
understanding at all of the tactical concessions necessary in
revolutionary processes, especially in the conditions of today’s
unipolar world. It is clear that Castro does not share Petras’ view,
otherwise he would not be offering the total support he does to
Venezuela, nor his constant personal dialogue with Chávez or the
exceptional bilateral agreement just signed between the two countries.

    - Petras falls into the same error as the US media when they talk
of Chávez’ “welfarism”, and do not see (or refuse to recognise) that the
essence of the “Missions”, more than mere social assistance (in itself
radically anti-neoliberal in its scale and impact), is the empowerment
of the poor, popular grass-roots organisation so that the people can
take into their own hands control of health, education, housing, the
local economy and community life in general.

    “Myth No. 6 - Neither the Right nor the Left has been able to
recognise the different tactics employed, on the one hand, by a
Washington dominated by ideology, and on the other hand, by a pragmatic
Wall Street”.

    - It is true that Wall Street, and also the European and Japanese
multinationals, etc., have recognised that it is perfectly possible to
continue doing business with Venezuela. But they also do so with Cuba.
What matters is that the agreements with international capital are no
longer made according to the rules of the IMF or the FTAA but according
to rules laid down by Venezuela, protecting the country’s sovereignty
and the model of endogenous development. There is still a lot to be done
and there are many sectors of the economy where the Bolivarian project
has not yet been implemented, but the direction of policy is clear. This
is why Washington does not like it, and neither do Wall Street investors
really, but the latter are indeed pragmatic and will adapt to do
business on the terms available.

    “Myth No. 7 - The main drive of the current phase of Chávez’
revolution is a moral crusade against government corruption and against
a highly politicised judicial system aligned with the discredited
political opposition”.

    - These are indeed two aspects (but not the only ones) of the
current phase of the revolution. But Petras says that anti-corruption
campaigns “are generally associated with middle-class policies aiming to
create ‘national unity’, and tend to weaken class solidarity...[and]
neither do they arouse much interest among the poor in Venezuela or
elesewhere”.

    - Well, this may be true in another context, but not within the
framework of a profound process of popular transformation. It is not a
matter - as Petras suggests - of petty-bourgeois moralism but of a very
real and indeed fundamental problem after forty years of puntofijismo;
and the fight against corruption does arouse the interest of the
Venezuelan poor today, indeed they mention it frequently and with great
indignation.

    - In another part of his comments on this “myth” Petras asserts
that “The Left’s belief that the grass-roots organisations mobilised for
the referendum will necessarily become the foundation of a ‘new popular
democracy’ has little basis if we look at the recent past (similar
mobilisations took place before the failed coup d’état and during the
executives’ lockout)...Moreover, the concern of the chavista political
leaders is with the coming parliamentary elections, not the creation of
alternative forms of government”.

    - But first of all, the grass-roots organisations are not only
mobilised at moments of crisis, although of course they are more active
then. The Units of Electoral Struggle created for the referendum are
being converted into Units of Endogenous Struggle, and the Urban Land
Committees, Water Committees, Local Urban Planning Councils, etc., are
being maintained and form a fundamental part of Chávez’ entire strategy.

    - Secondly, it is true that many politicians from the MVR and other
pro-government parties tend to think in electoral and opportunistic
terms, and this is still a serious defect of the process. But this is
not Chávez’ strategy nor that of the chavista hard core, above all the
most committed sectors of the military and the civilians who originated
in the MBR-200, whose aim is to strengthen particpatory democracy and
people’s power by all means possible.

    In his Conclusion Petras says that “If oil prices fall it will be
necessary to take important decisions: class-based decisions”.

    - No: those decisions have already to a large extent been taken,
and oil prices (and other conjunctural factors) can only influence the
tactical decisions about how and when to implement them.

    - In the end what Petras fails to understand is that the entire
chavista economic strategy is radically anti-neoliberal and moreover
that it has anti-capitalist implications in the long term. With the
recovery of control over PDVSA, the decision to halt the privatisation
of the electrical industry which was underway when Chávez came to power,
the huge investment in infrastructure (railways, metros in several
cities, renovation of ports), exchange controls, agrarian reform and the
projects of “endogenous development”, the Bolivarian Government is
reinforcing state control over the economy and laying the basis for a
popular alternative of enormous interest for Latin America and the
entire world. It is still too early to say whether it will be called
socialist, and anyway the debate on what socialism means today (after
the fall of the Soviet Bloc) is still open, but it is interesting to
note that in his closing speech at the International Meeting of
Intellectuals and Artists for the Defence of Humanity held in Caracas
(and in which I had the great honour to participate), on 5 December
last, Chávez declared that it was necessary to re-evaluate and reclaim
socialism.

  [1]I am responsible for the English translations of all quotations
since I have only seen the Spanish text of Petras’ article.

                          -- 30 --









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