[Marxism] Some thoughts on the outcome of the Venezuelan referendum

[Néstor Gorojovsky]

I think that Stuart´s is a very accurate analysis. I would only add
that any tactical weakness the Chávez camp will suffer is a good price
to pay for two or three strategic leaps (the most important of them
already mentioned by Chávez himself in his masterpiece speech):

a) the opposition will have to stop it with their blah blah on the
"undemocratic" regime ruling Venezuela; either they accept their own
victory, or they reject "democracy"

b) the Chávez camp will have to cleanse itself of those elements that
have made the most faithful strata of the Venezuelan population
politically "neutral" (a mandatory vote proviso, like in Argentina
after 1916, would have done marvels, BTW)

c) the constitutional reform will have to be achieved step by step

d) the above requires that the Armed Forces keep faithful to the
project. It would not be the first time for a national revolutionary
movement in power to lose crucial elections in L.America. Two
examples: Vargas, 1945, and Perón most probably in 1958. In these
cases, the Armed Forces eventually changed sides (in Argentina, 1955;
in Brazil, among other reasons because of the spectacular suicide of
Vargas, in 1964 only).

These defeats can be surmounted, as Vargas showed in 1954 and Perón in
1973 (in this case, it was however not exactly Perón but the Arg
people as such who got the right to put him in power for a third time)

2007/12/3, Stuart Munckton <stuartmunckton en gmail.com>:
> I should stress these are just initial thoughts, people may have
> different takes on all aspects of this. More than anything, the people
> who will have the clearest view on it will be those who are there on
> the ground. Some of my impressions are based on conversations with
> comrades in Venezuela, but obviously they will be able to give the
> best feel by a long way for not just why the result was what it was,
> but what is much much harder to get a sense of especially if you are
> not there, which is what does it mean now.
>
> While corporate media will be triumphant, there is already a slightly
> surreal aspect to their spin - dictator defeated in an fair election
> whbo immediately acepts the vote  doesn't really quite add up.
>
> A few things to think about in relation to it: These are some of my
> initial thoughts, although obviously people on the ground will be able
> to give the clearest explanations. The actual figures show the story
> very clearly.
>
> No: 4.504.354, 50,70 %
> Yes: 4.379.392, 49.29 %
> Votes counted: 8.883.746
> Nullified: 118.693
> Total votes: 9.002.439
> Abstention 44,39 %
>
> B Block, second part of reform
>
> No: 4.522.332, 51,05 %
> Yes: 4.335.136, 48.94 %
>
>
> If you compare this to the December 06 presidential elections, the
> vote for Chavez was around 7.1 million and for the opposition I think
> 4.4 million. So what has happened is not that the opposition
> neccesarily won anyone over, as there is vote is only 100,000 or so
> more. They held solid. What has happened is the revolutionary camp
> lost 2.8 million votes. There are 2.8 million people they were able to
> convince to cast a ballot for Chavez one year ago, who they could not
> convince to participate and cast a vote in favour of the
> constitutional reforms this time.
>
> Given a number of factors this is not so hard to understand, and
> indicate some of the very serious problems that the revolution needs
> to overcome. Clearly the revolution was unable to properly explain the
> reforms and convicne people of their neccesity. The reforms incldued
> some quite radical components - power to communal and workers councils
> etc etc, cdeepening road to socialism. Support for the reforms
> requires a much higher level of consciousness than to simply back the
> social missions and liking Chavez. It required a leap forward in
> ideology and consciousness. Clearly this happened has happened in an
> uneven way - it is no mean feat to convinve 4.3 million people to vote
> for the type of radical measures in the constitutional reform
> proposals. But it has hasnlt happened on a large enough scale by a
> long way.
>
> However it was also not a straight forward fair fight between
> competing ideologies. The capitalists don't fight fair. A major factor
> from the sounds of it is the role of the capitalist media which
> remains dominant in Venezuela (again making a mockery of the
> "dictatorship with no free press" claims). And they lied and spread
> all kinds of posions. It was said the state would be able to take you
> children and your home,m that small shops would be nationalised etc
> etc, and of course the standard ones about chavez seizing power etc.
>
> This clearly had an impact in confusing people, causing people to
> abstain as they were either confused or bought the lies or just didn't
> understand what the reforms are really about - hence abstention from
> the less conscious layers of the Chavista support base who didn;t
> caast a vote for the opposition, but didnlt cast a vote for the
> reforms either but abstained.
>
>
> This gets to the key problem of the serious weaknesses in the Chavista
> camp, clearly they failed to run a succesful campaign that was able to
> counter the lies of the opposition and convince a whole layer of
> people on why the reforms were neccesary. Partly they were at a severe
> disadvantage against the corporate media, but that can't explain it
> alone. Comrades on the ground there will be able to give the clearest
> picture about this factor - what the problems were.etc. But it sounds
> like the propaganda wasn't that convincing or well done, it was too
> legalistic and hard to follow. So people were confronted with 69
> leaglistic dense reforms on the one hand, and the opposition
> propaganda blaring on the other.
>
>
> It would seem to also be a problem of disorganisation within the
> Chavistas - the fact the PSUV is still being formed. The PSUV was made
> the key body to drive the "Yes" campaign, which was done to give
> impetus to the PSUV in order to allow to form properly, but this was
> obviously a gamble because it left the Yes campaign in the hands on
> sometehing still forming, not neccesarily up to the job. One other
> factor that may come into play and would be interesting to hear about,
> is the sort of problems that have been raised with past election
> campaigns of them being dominated by bureacrats who tend to runt hem
> inefficiently from the top down, and undemocratically - various party
> heads running the show etc. I don't know how much this was the case,
> but perhaps this time the problems caused by this couldn;t be overcome
> by the sheer momentum from below as i the past.
>
> One other thing to consider is the actual size of  the task the
> revolution set itself to achieve. This was the first battle since 2002
> not waged under the cover of defence against right-wing attacks. It
> was not about defending the democrac y, the new constitution people
> believed in, defending the gains being made for the working people and
> poor from the old forces wanting to take it all back. This was the
> case in April 2002, the bosses lock-out, the recall referendum in
> 2004.
>
> Even the presidntial election last year seemed to have a fair element
> of that, even though it included an attempt to go on the offensive
> around sociailism. There was a strong comonent of "don't let those
> bastards back in" and support for the gains that existied around the
> missions etc. Rosales was a coup plotter and they used ads of him
> shaking Carmona's hand etc etc. As Chavez has quoted Trotsky repeatedy
> as saying "the revolution advances under the whip of the
> counterrevolution"
>
> But this was an attempt to go beyond that, and go on the offensive.
> This was the first battle to be waged under the steam of hte
> revolution alone. This was not waged as an act of self defence, but
> this time it was the revolution that started the battle. And it
> required a much higher level of consciouseness etc.
>
> So in a sense, it also plays the role of giving an account of the real
> situation. What is the real support out there for the project of
> socialism, as oppsed to merely supprting Chavez and the missions etc?
> How deep is the consciousness? Obviously it is not good to lose a
> battle like this, but at least it reveals what the actual state of
> play is. The revolution can see exactly how many put up their hands to
> significantly deepen the process, and it shows the size of the task
> for the vanguard organised in the PSUV - the ideological battle that
> must be waged. It shows how succesful that battle has been and what
> the clearly very real weakneesses are.
>
>
> There is a further question, that is bit more complicated in Venezuela
> because of how the revolution has developed, which is the inherient
> problems with bourgeois democracy. It is rigged to favour the
> bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie have a huge advantage in this kind of
> referendum thorugh their control of hte media especially. That isn't
> to say the process shouldn't have happened like this, or that this is
> an excuse for hte defeat. It just states the truth - it wasn't a fair
> fight.
>
> There is also an element that this type of atmosied, individualised
> voting inheriantly gives weight to the layers with the weakest
> consciousness, who are the less clear etc. You have two solid blocks
> on either side, then a big layer who it seems back Chavez but wose
> consciiousness is more limited, not neccesarily understanding or
> supprting socialism - and it this vacilating layer that determines
> such votes.
>
>
> Direct democracy, organised democracy of the working people taking
> control in their communites and worklaces, has a very diffrent
> dynamic. It puts the weight on the vanguard, the most conscious, who
> can help lead others. The most conscious will be the most active in
> the councils and most able to give a lead on what to do, will most
> likley be elected to the next layer up in the inverted pyramid built
> from the ground up. This way those four million people who understand
> what is at stake and agree with the way to advance the revolutionary
> course, are able to help lead in their areas in the actual governing
> of society.
>
> Of course, this type of democracy is exaclty what they are trying to
> construct - and would have been given a mandate and institutional
> framework had the reforms passed. But there is still a "parallelism"
> that has contradictions - the developing of a new revolutionary state
> based on direct democracy that empowers the working people, and the
> existing old structures that are based on representative democracy .
> That isn't to say it is wrong to try and advance the way they have,
> there may well be no other road bu thte one they are on, or at least,
> having takien this road, they ared not in ap osition to suddenly jump
> to another track. It just sets out the challenges.
>
> Obviously, no one knows what will happen next. But it sounds like
> Chavez gave a very good speech that was pitched right, fully accetping
> the result, but with the famour "For now" indicating the battle
> continues. Losing a battle does not mean losing a war. The revolution
> still exists, the revolutionary government still exists, the communal
> counils, the missions, etc etc all still exist. Sometimes you lose
> battles. The revolution has won every battle since 2002 - its winning
> streak has been ended, and this indicates things are not just going to
> continue sailing smothly into the socialist future, but that the
> problems beneath the surface, that have been much talked about -
> ideology, bureacracy, divisions among revolutionaries etc, must be
> overcome.
>
> The counterrevolution is obviously strengthened, although by how much
> remains to be seen, as is the damage this defeat will do to the
> revolutionary camp - whether serious demooralisation, or whether they
> can rebound reasonab ly quickly. It may embolden the
> cvounterrevolution to greater efforts to destroy the revolution based
> on gaining mometum - and we should keep eyes wide open for need for
> solidarity against fresh attempts to overthrow the government. Of
> course wining a vote on the reforms is one thig, it is another to
> confront the organised and increasignly armed working people in an all
> out battle for power. But if this causes widespread democraisation,
> confusion and disorganisation among Chaivstas then that could be an
> opening for counterrevolution.
>
>
> The corporate media will gloat. But this defeat is far from total,
> there are plently of battles ahead it is just for now, the
> institutionalising of a dramatic step forward (which would have had to
> be fought out on the ground anyway) has been stopped "for now"
>
>
> Stuart
>
>
>
>
> --
> "The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind
> of dummy?" - Jarvis Cocker
>
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-- 
Néstor