“Fatherland, socialism, or death.” With these words, Hugo Chavez just over a year ago took the oath as president of Venezuela following a triumphant re-election campaign.
By the logic of this oath, Chavez’s announcement last week that he was slowing the pace of his “Bolivarian revolution” is cause for alarm. “I’m forced to reduce the speed of march,” he said.
This move follows the government’s defeat in the referendum of 2 December on its proposed new constitution.
Chavez captured the imagination of all those around the world opposed to neoliberalism and imperialism with his defiance of George Bush’s administration and his championing of alternatives to capitalism. His call for “21st century socialism” seemed to mark the end of the period since the collapse of the Soviet Union when capitalism seemed to be the only game in town.
But Chavez’s position has always been based on a contradiction. It was the poor of Caracas who saved him from overthrow at the hands of the right wing in April 2002. They surrounded the presidential palace and forced the plotters to release him.
But Chavez remains the head of a bureaucratic state riddled with corruption and repression that presides over an economy in which capitalist social relations still predominate. So his policies pull in different directions.
He has sought to sustain his popular base by using Venezuela’s swollen oil revenues to push through social reforms. Institutions such as the Bolivarian circles and the social missions were intended to bind together grassroots activists and mobilise them in support of presidential initiatives.
But, faced with the hostility of Washington and the Venezuelan oligarchy, Chavez and his allies have also been tempted to concentrate on strengthening their control over the state apparatus.
Thus the creation of a mass pro-government party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), was a top-down initiative intended to channel popular support. The proposed constitution contained worthwhile reforms, but also allowed Chavez to stand for re-election indefinitely.
Corruption
The referendum result wasn’t really a triumph for the right. The No vote was only 200,000 votes more than those received by their defeated candidate in the last presidential election.
The real problem was that the Yes vote was three million lower than Chavez had won in those elections.
Stephanie Blankenburg, an adviser to the Venezuelan government, writes in the New Statesman, “The result of 2 December was essentially a protest vote by the ‘Chavista street’ against the ‘Chavista elite’.” Discontent at food shortages, inflation, and corruption led a large section of Chavez’s base to stay away from the polls.
His U-turn is intended to acknowledge this discontent. Chavez promised to address crime and food shortages. The trouble is that really dealing with these problems would involve, not slowing down the revolutionary process, but accelerating it – breaking the hold of private capital on the economy.
Corruption can only be rooted out by dismantling the existing state apparatus and replacing it with institutions of popular power.
But Chavez is moving in the opposite direction. He has amnestied the perpetrators of the 2002 coup and appointed as vice-president Ramon Carrizales, a military officer with links to big business.
This is dangerously reminiscent of what happened under the left wing Popular Unity Coalition in Chile in 1972-3. As the right, backed by president Richard Nixon’s US administration, became more open in its attacks, workers reacted by building their own defence organisations, the cordones.
But president Salvador Allende restrained these initiatives and sought to make a deal with the right. The resulting demobilisation gave the right the confidence to mount the military coup of 11 September 1973, in which Allende and thousands of other left wing militants perished.
This point hasn’t been reached yet in Venezuela, but Chavez’s retreat marks the most dangerous moment yet for the revolutionary process. Fred Fuentes on Chavez and "you lot" - the SWP and other left groups in the UK So now it is apparently a big shift to the right to want to win over theSo now it is apparently a big shift to the right to want to win over the middle class is it? And haven't you lot being pointing out for years that Chavez's whole project is an alliance with sections of the bourgeoisie (something he has said plenty of times before himself)? (For now, I will put aside the debate of the role of the national bourgeois and its role in the revolution, something I hope to take up in more depth later) I don't know who 'us lot' are, but I'd say: Well I would say "you lot" include the UK SWP and other left groups who for the last seven years have been warning us about all sorts of things regarding the Chavez government... 1) Chavez has said explicitly that he is making a shift to the right. This isn't a big secret. Im sorry as someone currently living in Caracas I certainly haven't been let in on this secret. Just were does Chavez say this explicitly (without using selective quotes or cutting a few words out of an entire paragraph and using them out of context). I mean Alex Callincos in the UK Socialist Worker has a whole month and half since the referendum to find such a quote and put in his article " Venezuela : the street vs the elite" http://www.socialistworker.org.uk/art.php?id=13919 yet all he has to go on is an article by an "advisor" in the New Statesman, which in turn has not quotes to back up this open secret. Such a great source is this article on Chavez's supposed u-turn that it says in the same article (!) "He had decided to abandon his socialist agenda "for now" in order to form stronger alliances with the country's middle classes, its private sector and the national bourgeoisie instead.....There also is little doubt, even amongst the most fervent socialists in Venezuela , that the agenda for "21st socialism", adopted in January 2007 as abruptly as it has now been abandoned, but rights at the same time "Socialism had not been abandoned, but postponed, although, by the sound of things, for quite some time to come." So it is both abandoned and not abandoned, but the only evidence is that he wants to make alliances with the middle class and national bourgeoisie. So again why does this mean a shift to the right? where is the proof? What is funny though is how leftist like to use some quotes from Chavez to prove a point (or in this case not even that) but others tend to find meaning in other quotes. The Economist article i referred to in the previous email did include quotes about putting the brakes on etc but also found this little quote nestled into Chavez's open secret, that no one except them seemed to notice "Mr Chavez announced that he was launching a fresh "socialist offensive". He promised that applying the brakes to the revolution........(wait for it) in no way implied "surrender, moderation or conservatism". Maybe the Economist arent in on the secret either. At least i try to quote widely and give as accurate a picture of what chavez says rather than picking and choosing... 2) Part of his explanation was that he would have to win over hitherto untouched segments of the middle class and bourgeoisie. The reason he is doing this is because he assumes that the recent referendum result was a rejection of socialism, which it was not. OK so the first part still implies winning over the middle class is right wing (again i will leave aside the issue of the national bourgeoisie but just add a small quote from a friend of mine about the attitude such a revolution should take to them "the revolution does not exclude the bourgeiosie, they exclude themselves") As to the result, sure it wasnt a rejection of socialism, i dont think anyone - except the opposition and undoubtably the right within chavismo but not publicly - says it is. BUt neither was it a resounding reaffirmation of the deep held desires of the masses to expropriate the bourgeois, overthrow capitalism and install the dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead there were a range of reasons some of which i outlined in the article posted here, from which the government has decided what is key in the next period is deepening popular organisation, cohering the political vanguard into the in formation PSUV and consolidating what they have built up to now which in some cases have deteriorated. In essence, the response has been this state continues to be inefficient and full of corruption lets focus on building popular power for now and preparing for the next battle, in doing so shoring up our support. Makes sense to me what do you propose they do instead 3) This is probably a big mistake. Everytime Chavez has given the Right an inch, they have taken him to the cleaners. If he can't mobilise the masses any more, and he's busy trying to woo the wrong audience, they will go on the attack. The moment they sense they have the slightest advantage, they will try to get rid of Chavez and expunge every trace of what he represented. At least you are willing to say "probably" meaning you could be wrong on your reading of the situation (so could i, i dont think the definite word can be written about were this will go, i just feel that facts should be an important part of determining this). I dont think Chavez needs to give the right an inch for them to try and take him to the cleaners, What i do think though is that it is far to say that the referendum did give them an inch, one they want to build on and which chavez has to respond to. Whilst i think it is fair to say that the level of mass street mobilisation is down from what is was several years ago, i dont think it is fair to say he is relying on wooing the wrong audience. The two key points of evidence to justify this are the amnesty decree and the removing of price controls (at least those are the ones pointed to by New Statesman, Callincos and Alan Woods). On the amnesty - from where im standing all Chavez has done is taken a banner away from the right behind which they were trying to mobilise in turn for releasing a few puppets from the right. These people are not the centre of conspiracy against Chavez (nor are they nice people) the real centre of the opposition is in Washington and they will continue plotting. Now the right wing are left arguing that it did not go far enough and should cover people such as Nixon Moreno, a 40 year old right wing student activist current charged accused of having raped a police officer, and a few police officers who killed people during the coup, hardly likely to mobilise sentiment against chavez. Price controls - they didnt work! That doesnt mean they will never work or are bad but it seems stupid to keep them based on prinicpals when most people blame them for the food shortages. The combination of increased consumption, big problems in developing industry in the food sector to cater for this and compete on the market, the price controls and the lack of any strategy to oppose moves by capital to sabotage the market through hoarding has meant problems. So how do you solve this? Im sorry but i dont think the response is just keep the price controls to send a message to the capitalist. The capitalist are laughing becuase they arent being implemented and they are making the money on the black market instead whilst the government would continue to look bad for pushing a policy that has already "failed" and therefore been seen to be doing nothing to solve the problem. But as i pointed out in the previous post with the stepped up campaign against speculation, the closure and threats of expropriations and a serious push to resolve the problems within the food state sector, it would seem that Chavez has chosen to tackle the problem in a way most capitalist governments wouldn't and one that most Venezuelan capitalist are certainly not going to be wooed to…..
