[Marxism] Venezuela: Revolution, party and a new international

["Fred Fuentes" <fred.fuentes@xxxxxxxxx>]

Venezuela: Revolution, party and a new international

By Luis Bilbao, translated exclusively for Links by Federico Fuentes

[This is an updated version of an article first written for the
November 2007 edition of Crítica de Nuestro Tiempo N° 36
http://www.geocities.com/nuestrotiempo/ultima/home.htm, just prior to
the December 2 referendum. The author updated it at the end of
February 2008. Critica de Nuestro Tiempo, International Journal of
Theory and Practice, was founded in 1991, since which it has regularly
defended the cause of socialism. This article was translated
exclusively for Links – International Journal of Socialist Renewal
(http://www.links.org.au) by Federico Fuentes. Luis Bilbao is a
journalist, founder and director of Critica de Nuestro Tiempo, and
member of the Union of Militants for Socialism (Argentina). Since the
end of 2006 Bilbao has temporarily resided in Venezuela, as director
of the Latin America-wide magazine America XXI, where he has
collaborated in the creation of the United Socialist Party of
Venezuela and the process of building UNASUR, the Union of South
American Nations. Among numerous books, he has published two long
interviews with President Hugo Chavez through Le Monde Diplomatique.]

Full article at http://www.links.org.au/node/317

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<snip>

.....Inversely to all other previous examples, the revolution in
Venezuela began via the institutional road. Chavez won the December
1998 elections, since which he has advanced, step by step, in the
partial solution of social problems, raising the consciousness of
society, recuperating national sovereignty and finally, clashing
against the foundations of the capitalist system. That was the path
taken in order to accumulate forces, with methods and with individuals
buried within bourgeois state apparatus, barely offset in some cases
by the will of the revolutionary cadres in government functions.

With the eruption of the new government, this power entrenched itself
in the state as it was composed – or, better said, decomposed.
Throughout this period the inherent contradictions were expressed
through the figure of the head of state and government, Hugo Chavez,
in a never before seen situation in the history of social struggles.
The reforms as a whole -- often made through pragmatic paths that led
in a direction contrary to that sought after – were only foundations
on which to raise this revolutionary project.

In different latitudes, individuals prone to developing concepts
elaborated and stated by others for different circumstances, but
incapable of taking as their starting point living phenomena,
understanding them and responding to them, saw this situation as a
repetition of ``dual power''. A repetition sui generis of the
situation that Russia lived through between February and October 1917,
with the government of the bourgeois state on one side and the
workers' and social movement on the other. Chavez was only
``infiltrated'' in there, an ally who could be counted on, whilst the
workers' movement and the popular masses were organised into a
revolutionary party. This jovial expression was transformed into a
category, a pseudo-theoretical interpretation that inverted reality:
it placed tiny groups and charlatans in the role of the vanguard and
Chavez as a prisoner of the bourgeois state.

It might seem like the tiniest of differences on the theoretical
level, but this crucial error (that takes the appearance of a
theoretical elaboration, but in almost all cases had as its
foundations an unfortunate combination of myopia and cowardice),
created a sectarian dynamic that rapidly transformed itself into
counterrevolutionary positions, manifested in calls to vote against
the constitutional reform, or the height of inconsistency entering as
secret fractions, gnashing their teeth, the United Socialist Party of
Venezuela (PSUV), the party organised under the impulse and initiative
of Chavez. In the least grave cases of this mortal deviation, vanguard
groups and cadres stood firmly in the rearguard, playing the role of a
deadweight, acting against the revolutionary impulse.

No matter how you look at it, the fact is, that the political
phenomenon underway in Venezuela is a revolution, without a doubt,
whose social roots lie in the Caracazo of 1989, but which, due to the
combination of the actual social formation of the country and the
historic international moment in which it is situated, has developed
within the bourgeois institutional system; with a powerful but
atomised social movement, where the workers' movement is not present
in an organic manner; without a party in a strict sense of the word
and with the unusual gravitation around an individual figure to
provide definition of sense and rhythm with which the class struggle
advances.

It is no coincidence that those groups and individuals who, with
irresponsible superficiality, condemn a supposed cult of personality
on the part of Chavez, are the same ones who refuse to commit
themselves to constructing a revolutionary force in the given
circumstances, facilitating the intervention of groups and individuals
with social and/or political interests contrary to a revolution ...
within official political militancy, as well as in the government
itself. Considering all differences, an analogy can be made with the
conduct of infantile leftists in Argentina who, when the possibility
existed to construct a political instrument of the masses out of the
Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina (CTA, Argentine Workers
Centre), refused to commit themselves to this process, only to
afterwards condemn the outcome of that attempt, where the absence of
those who call themselves revolutionaries contributed to tipping the
balance of forces in favour of the reformist and conciliatory
individuals and structures.

But the same did not occur in Venezuela: due to the gravitational pull
of Hugo Chavez, the forces of revolution have imposed themselves and
now the world is witness to the transition of this country towards
socialism, via unprecedented paths.....

<snip>

.......In his August 25 intervention, in front of the promoters of the
PSUV, President Hugo Chavez said that 2008 would be the moment to
``convoke a meeting of left parties of Latin America and organise a
type of International, an organisation of parties and movements of the
left in Latin American and the Caribbean''. Chavez explained: ``There
is a resurgence of the consciousness of the peoples; the movements,
leaders and leaderships of this new left, of this new project, need to
continue to grow.''

The last experience of this type was the Foro de Sao Paulo (FSP, Sao
Paulo Forum), originally convoked in this Brazilian city, in 1990, by
the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, Workers Party, Brazil) and the
Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC, Communist Party of Cuba), as an
``Encounter of Parties and Organisations of the Left in Latin America
and the Caribbean''.

>From the beginning, a strong ideological debate existed within this
organisation. At the first encounter a condemnation of capitalism and
a correct characterisation regarding the structural crisis won out.
The following year, in Mexico, held in the midst of the collapse of
the Soviet Union, a shift towards adaptation began, with the FSP taken
to the verge of splitting. Two principal blocs formed: those that,
faced with this new situation, looked towards finding their place in
what at the time was called the ``new world order'', and those who
held revolutionary socialist positions.

The principal forces of the more than 100 organisations that made up
the FSP were the PT, PCC, Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación
Nacional (FMLN,Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, El
Salvador), Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN, Sandinista
National Liberation Front, Nicaragua), Partido de la Revolución
Democrática (PRD, Party of the Democratic Revolution, Mexico), Frente
Amplio (FA, Broad Front, Uruguay) and the Partido Socialista de Chile
(PSCh, Socialist Party of Chile).

Despite the fact that a split did not occur in Mexico, and that the
resolution of the second encounter did not adopt the position proposed
by the rightwing, ever since then the FSP has been systematically
pushed towards reformism.

The ideological battle was fought out basically between four currents:

a) PCC

b) social democracy

c) social christianism

d) diverse organisations who called themselves Trotskyists, each of
them very different in regards to each other.

As is known, at that time Cuba entered into the ``Special period''.
The PT had come out of a defeat in the 1989 elections. The FSLN had
already incorporated itself into the [social democratic] Socialist
International. The FMLN had confirmed that it had reached a strategic
military deadlock and began peace negotiations. Meanwhile, the world,
and in particular Latin America, entered into the ``neoliberal''
decade.

In the ensuing encounters of the FSP, beyond the speeches made and
declarations approved, it became clear that the position of two of the
four currents had converged: social democracy and social christianism.
The Trotskyist tendencies withdrew from the FSP (and became
debilitated to the point of extinction). The revolutionary current
headed by the PCC (made up of a big majority of the organisations of
the whole hemisphere) did not cohere itself, with its role diluted to
the point of being limited to a few good speeches at each encounter,
without generating any consequences.

Today, the FSP is an empty shell in the hands of those most opposed to
any revolutionary ideas, and specifically to the Bolivarian
Revolution. Beyond individual positions, within the leadership
structures of the PT, PRD, FA and PSCh, Chavez is a synonym for
Lucifer. It should be specifically pointed out that in November 2001,
in the encounter in La Habana, it was not possible to reach an
agreement to send a delegation in solidarity with Chavez in the face
of the evidence of an escalating coup plot. Recently, the PRD delegate
who habitually represents this party in the FSP participated in the
congress of the Venezuelan Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS, Movement
Towards Socialism) [which is part of the opposition].

This drift of the FSP contributed in a significant manner to the
destruction and/or neutralisation of tens of thousands of cadres and
middle cadres in Latin America.

Conjuncture

The dispersal of forces who define themselves as favouring a
revolutionary solution – and are willing to fight for it – is today
the principal point that imperialism and the national bourgeoisies
count in their favour.

Out of those militant sectors dragged towards reformism by their
leaderships, we can presume that a percentage is willing to join an
alternative that once again proposes what it was that convinced them
to enter into political activity. Another contingent coming from that
period is dispersed in innumerable organisations, a good part of which
should also be in a position to incorporate themselves into an
international movement that contributes to the creation, orientation
and development of national organisations of important political
weight. But it is highly probable that the most important contingent
of militants for a new Latin American revolutionary alternative will
be unorganised youth who today are politically active, but whose
forces are dispersed in social organisations, small newspapers,
community radio stations and other expressions of militancy without a
strategy to struggle for power.

If it is left solely up to the existing political-organisational
relations and definitions at the national level, we cannot expect to
see, at least for a long time, the recomposition of these militant
contingents.

The permanence of tens of thousands of cadres and activists in this
current state, despite the fact that this immense force today sees
itself compelled towards the perspective of Latin American revolution,
will assure, in a relative short timeframe, the destruction in high
proportions of this revolutionary force.

On the contrary, the existence of a general political orientation, of
a recognised leadership, could put into action a powerful
revolutionary human force that is today inert, saving from degradation
and subsequent destruction, hundreds of thousands of militants across
Latin America.

This capacity for orientation and leadership can only be based on
revolutionary leaderships with deep roots, prestige and sufficient
energy in front of this collection of revolutionary militants. Fidel
Castro and Hugo Chavez, as symbols and representatives of the
revolutions in Cuba and Venezuela, are today the only possible centre
that could play this role.

Moreover, the long-term attack already put in train by imperialism,
with the resolute collaboration of social democracy and social
christianism, urgently requires defining positions, marking out a
general strategic line of action and organising grand human
contingents to impede the counterrevolutionary pincer advancing
forward, drowning in blood the growing revolutionary process in Latin
America.

At the Ibero-American summit in Santiago, this alignment became
graphically clear: the social democratic [president of Spain] Jose
Rodriguez Zapatero defended the neoliberal strategy and ``social
cohesion'' under capitalism. He even tried to impose this on the
meeting, with a blatant manoeuvre in this closing speech, violating
the methodology of the summit. Faced with the response by Chavez, the
Spanish president Zapatero did not hesitate to come out in defence of
the fascist Jose Maria Aznar, ex-president of Spain. The social
democracy-social christianism-fascism convergence was clear for
millions to see during this episode, topped off by the sharp remarks
of the king and his later abandonment of the meeting during the
denunciation made by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

At the trade union level, this convergence has already taken an
organic form over the last few years, with the coming together of the
union confederations of the Vatican and social democracy in the
International Trade Union Confederation, that is now beginning to
articulate itself in Latin America, where in Argentina it counts on
the support of some wings of the CTA.

The first step in advancing towards the organisation of a Latin
American-Caribbean political structure that, despite the fact that it
depends on the decision of Chavez and Fidel to undertake the task,
will from the beginning have an international projection.....

<snip>

......The organisation of a revolutionary international with these
characteristics, far from being a distant perspective is an immediate
necessity. Defence of the revolutionary processes underway in
Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador cannot be postponed, nor can
effort towards the recomposition of revolutionary social forces in the
rest of the countries in the region. Both tasks are beyond the
possibilities of the dispersed and confused militants in Argentina,
the country that most needs this Latin American anchor in order to
lift, rise up and recuperate its powerful revolutionary force.

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