Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan Revolution, part one

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Some observers see in Dr. Castro a tropical 
Kerensky, a democratically-minded but naïve man 
who is unwittingly preparing the path for a 
Communist take-over. But this judgment appears to be greatly exaggerated.

Tad Szulc, N.Y. Times, July 26, 1959

?

Doug Henwood: So this is what he [Hugo Chavez] means by 21st century socialism?

Tariq Ali: Yeah, that?s what he means. It is left 
social democratic reforms. And he has said that 
to me a number of times that we are not living in 
an epoch of proletarian revolution. It is just 
crazy to think you can just jump over everything and do that.

?

What was also new was that Chavez was reading 
deeply about socialism. Indeed, in that same 
Paraguay speech, he revealed (as he had on Alo 
Presidente a week earlier) that he was studying 
Istvan Meszaros?s Beyond Capital (?a book of 
thousand and hundred and so many pages?) and that 
Fidel Castro was reading a copy he had sent him. 
The immediate result would soon be clear. On the 
Alo Presidente program of July 17, Chavez read 
his nocturnal notes on the book from May 18, two 
months earlier. There, under the heading 
?Transition to socialism, heading for socialism,? 
appeared a phrase that triggered Chavez?s 
imagination: ?The Point of Archimedes, this 
expression taken from the wonderful book of 
Istvan Meszaros, a communal system of production 
and of consumption?that is what we are creating, 
we know we are building this. We have to create a 
communal system of production and consumption, a 
new system?. Let us remember that Archimedes 
said: ?You give me an intervention point and I 
will move the world.? This is the point from which to move the world today.?

Michael Lebowitz, ?Build it Now: Socialism for the 21st Century?, pp. 107-108

* * * * *

This begins three concluding entries in a series 
of articles titled ?Does Socialism have a 
future?? (View past articles in this series.) It 
is more than appropriate to focus on contemporary 
Venezuela since it represents the most open bid 
for a socialist transformation since Sandinista 
Nicaragua. As has been the case since Karl Marx 
wrote about the Paris Commune, it is always 
easier to understand the problems of socialist 
revolution by looking at a living struggle rather 
than wrangling over abstractions.

I had originally intended to base the article on 
a review of Michael Lebowitz?s ?Build it Now,? 
but decided to include Richard Gott?s ?In the 
Shadow of the Liberator: Hugo Chavez and the 
Transformation of Venezuela,? since the two books 
complement each other, with Gott?s emphasis on 
the historical background and Lebowitz?s on 
broader theoretical questions. After discussing 
both works, I want to offer my own thoughts on 
how to theorize the current situation in 
Venezuela, particularly from the standpoint of 
whether the process is ?from above or below,? to 
use the terminology associated with the state 
capitalist movement. Not to give too much away, 
it would seem that both Cuba and Venezuela today 
compel one to think more dialectically about terms such as ?above? and ?below.?

full: 
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/04/15/hugo-chavez-and-the-venezuelan-revolution/