Alan Woods. The Venezuela Revolution: A Marxist
Perspective London: Wellred Books (wellred.mar-xist.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.

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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@sympatico.ca