[Marxism] Socialist Voice reviews Alan Woods book on Venezuela

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

**************************************************
SOCIALIST VOICE
Marxist Perspectives for the Workers' Movement #56 ­
November 11, 2005
**************************************************

MARXISM AND THE VENEZUELAN REVOLUTION A BOOK REVIEW

Alan Woods. The Venezuela Revolution: A Marxist Perspective London: Wellred 
Books (wellred.marxist.com), 2005.

Reviewed by John Riddell

TORONTO, CANADA - Can a small Marxist current hope to influence the course 
of events in times of a revolutionary uprising, or are they condemned to an 
existence of sideline critics, never to influence the broader working class 
movement?

A new book by British Marxist Alan Woods puts that question to the test in 
a most challenging way -- in the midst of the unfolding Bolivarian 
Revolution in Venezuela. The Venezuelan Revolution: A Marxist Perspective 
consists of 14 articles written by Woods between the failed pro-imperialist 
coup of April 2002 and the Bolivarians' turn to socialism in early 2005. 
Published earlier this year, the book has much to teach us about the role 
of Marxists in a revolutionary upsurge.

Many revolutionary-minded groups or parties in the world have been 
skeptical and standoffish toward Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution. It 
confounds their self-conceived truths: much of the Bolivarian leadership 
came unexpectedly from the officer corps; the Bolivarian program was not 
openly socialist in its beginning stages; its course of action corresponded 
to no one's blueprint. President Hugo Chávez was pegged by most of them as 
a radical bourgeois figure.

By contrast, the current led by Alan Woods, the International Marxist 
Tendency (IMT) (www.marxist.com), grasped the importance of the Venezuelan 
uprising soon after the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998. It has devoted 
considerable resources to building an international solidarity campaign, 
Hands Off Venezuela (www.handsoffvenezuela.org).

The IMT understood early that Marxists in Venezuela should support the 
Bolivarian movement and be part of it, rather than stand back and criticize 
it from the sidelines. They have worked with energy and some success to 
influence the Bolivarians, gaining favorable mentions from Chávez himself.

Expropriate capitalist property

Alan Woods' main point, reflected in each of his articles, is that the 
Venezuelan revolution cannot stop half way, leaving the U.S.- backed 
right-wing oligarchy in control of decisive sectors of the economy and 
state apparatus. "The counterrevolutionary forces are not reconciled to 
defeat," Woods states. "They are increasingly desperate ... determined and 
violent."

Venezuelan working people must expropriate capitalist property and lay the 
basis for socialism, he argues. "Either the greatest of victories or the 
most terrible of defeats." (Pages 110, 133)

This basic premise of Marxism, confirmed at each stage of the Venezuelan 
struggle, has won an increasing hearing among the Bolivarians. Chávez now 
ridicules the notion that Venezuela can find liberation within capitalism.

Learning from Chávez

Another key lesson is not stated explicitly, and may be unintended. Woods 
articles show how Marxists can learn from a living revolution.

In the opening chapters, written from London and Buenos Aires just after 
the 2002 coup attempt, Woods is close to dismissive of Bolivarian leader 
Hugo Chávez. At that time, Woods wrote that Chávez is "inclined to be 
inconsistent" and has "often displayed indecision." He "temporized and 
attempted to conciliate the counter- revolutionaries" which was "a fatal 
mistake." (Pages 16, 20, 43)

The book then breaks off: there is a gap of 16 months before the next article.

Then, in April 2004, Woods attended an international conference in Caracas 
in which Chávez, displaying his characteristic cordial generosity, set out 
to forge a link with Woods, one of the most prominent international 
solidarity activists. Woods learned that Chávez was not only keenly 
interested in Marxism but was familiar with the British Marxist's own 
writings. "He told me he was not a Marxist because he had not read enough 
Marxist books," Woods commented. "But he is reading them now." (Page 62)

The next part of the book is a treasure: two slashing polemics against 
sectarian attitudes toward the Venezuelan movement.

"For the sectarian mentality, a revolution must conform to a pre- 
established scheme," Woods writes. The sectarian "establishes an ideal norm 
and rejects anything ... that does not conform."

Woods ridicules those who would build the revolutionary party by 
proclamation. "Three men and ... a drunken parrot gather in a café in 
Caracas and proclaim the Revolutionary Party." And if the masses do not 
join, the sectarian says, "Well, that's their problem." (Pages 65, 83) 
These ideas are not new, but coming to us from the battlefields of a living 
revolution, they ring with great authority.

In the pages that follow, Woods writes with warm respect of Chávez, "the 
man who inspired this magnificent movement and provided it with a 
leadership and a banner." (Page 162)

Crucial omissions

Nevertheless, the Marxism advanced in Alan Woods' book remains incomplete.

CUBA: The Venezuelan Revolution condemns U.S. attacks on Cuba, but not a 
word can be found in this book of Cuba's role in the Venezuelan revolution. 
Yet Cuba's revolutionary leaders have had a much stronger influence on 
Venezuela's Bolivarians than all the smaller Marxist currents put together.

The political alliance of Hugo Chávez with the Cuban Marxists began a few 
months after Chávez was released from prison in 1994, when he went to Cuba 
for discussions with Fidel Castro. Since Chávez' first election to 
president in 1998, Cuba has contributed tens of thousands of volunteers to 
deliver health, educational, and recreational services to Venezuelan 
working people. The two governments have a close diplomatic, economic, and 
political alliance. The book's silence on this important alliance creates a 
highly misleading picture of the Bolvarian revolutionary process. It raises 
a crucial question: does the author view Cuba's role in Venezuela as 
positive or negative?

ANTI-MPERIALIST ALLIANCE: And what about ALBA? The Bolivarian Agreement for 
the Americas (ALBA) is the Venezuelan government's proposal for 
non-exploitative economic cooperation among Latin American countries. It 
was advanced in 2003 as an alternative to imperialist-directed "Free Trade 
of the Americas" fraud. Cuba endorsed ALBA in its December 2004 treaty with 
Venezuela.

ALBA's appeal and relevance was made astonishingly clear at the recent 
summit meeting in Argentina of political leaders of the Americas. The 
imperialist "free trade" proposition was proclaimed dead on arrival by the 
masses who rallied there and, not coincidentally, gave Chávez a hero's welcome.

Woods does not mention ALBA. Does he perhaps have it in mind when he warns 
Venezuela against relying on "friendly relations" with Argentina, Brazil, 
and Cuba. (Page 119) The international, anti- imperialist dimension of the 
Venezuelan revolution is simply disregarded throughout the book

DEMOCRATIC TASKS: Woods does not take up the ongoing democratic tasks of 
the Venezuelan process. Such struggles as that of Venezuela's people of 
color for equality; that of women pressing into political life and 
demanding their rights; that of workers in the "informal sector" striving 
for a secure livelihood; that of the oppressed indigenous peoples to which 
the Bolivarians have given such close attention -- all are neglected. Nor 
does Woods acknowledge Chávez's role as a defender of the world's ecology 
against capitalist devastation.

Woods also fails to give clear support to the struggles of peasants who 
wish to divide up the great estates, arguing instead that the estates 
should operate as collective farms. (Page 172)

All these questions are crucial to forging the revolutionary alliance 
necessary to overturning capitalism in Venezuela. By omitting them, the 
book displays a limited understanding of the complex dynamics of the 
Venezuelan revolution.

NATIONALIZING CAPITALIST PROPERTY: Woods presents the need to nationalize 
capitalist property in a purely administrative way. "For the immediate 
expropriation of the property of the imperialists and the Venezuelan 
bourgeoisie.... An emergency decree to this effect must be put to the 
National Assembly," Woods wrote soon after the failed coup in 2002. (Page 17)

But working-class nationalization -- as opposed to a capitalist transfer of 
formal ownership -- can only be carried out by a mass movement of working 
people who have become convinced through experience that there is no 
alternative and who are ready to assume management responsibility. Provided 
the workers are not forced into premature action, they must prepare for the 
challenge of managing production. Otherwise, for example, their 
expropriation of foreign- owned companies may lead to their immediate 
shutdown for lack of raw materials, technical inputs, and customers.

There is a sameness in The Venezuelan Revolution: the articles span three 
years but advocate an identical course of action -- immediate expropriation 
-- at every turn. The book displays no sense of tactics, no sense of when 
to advance, when to pause, when to sound out the enemy's willingness to 
compromise, when to form alliances.

On all these points, The Venezuelan Revolution fails to convey key lessons 
of the Bolshevik-led revolution in Russia, lessons that are well understood 
by Cuba's revolutionary leadership.

Woods sees in Venezuela a dichotomy between two currents: on the one hand, 
petty-bourgeois revolutionary democracy, led by Chávez; and on the other, 
Marxism, represented in his view above all by the IMT's own Revolutionary 
Marxist Current. (Page 93)

But on the key challenges facing the Venezuela revolution, the record of 
the Chávez leadership is stronger than the course proposed by The 
Venezuelan Revolution. The Bolivarians' course has led not to defeat, as 
Woods warned, but to victory after victory.

Toward a revolutionary party

Judging by this book alone, the political line of Alan Woods and the 
International Marxist Tendency is inflexible, one-sided, and veers off 
course. Yet the IMT, as Chávez himself has acknowledged, has made an 
undeniable contribution to the broader Bolviarian movement of which it is part.

Surely there is a lesson here for all of us in the splintered and 
fragmented international socialist movement.

The revolutionary party for which we strive will be built through living 
processes like those we see in Venezuela today or in Cuba before it. Under 
the impact of an upsurge of struggles, new leadership forces will converge 
with the best forces in existing currents to form a unified movement. All 
existing currents will be challenged to subordinate their prized 
separateness to a broader purpose.

It is to the credit of Alan Woods that he and his current have been able to 
travel at least a part of that road together with Venezuela's revolutionary 
Bolivarians.

**************************************************

SOCIALIST VOICE is edited by Roger Annis and John Riddell. Readers are 
encouraged to forward or distribute issues of Socialist Voice. Comments, 
criticisms and suggestions are always welcome: write to 
socialistvoice@xxxxxxxxxxxx

All issues of Socialist Voice are available at www.socialistvoice.com

To subscribe, send a blank email to  Socialist-Voice-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To unsubscribe, send a blank email to  Socialist-Voice- 
unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

**************************************************


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism