[Marxism] Paula's questions re: Venezuelan revolution

[Stuart Munckton]

Sorry it has taken so long to reply to this



>
> Stuart said:
>
> The DSP NE report that I refered to, with a link, argued that the struggle
> for a national revolution had opened the road to socialist revolution and
> that measures such as bering the strategic sectors of the economy under
> the
> control of the Venezuelan people was both part of solving the national
> oppression of Venezuela and concrete steps in the direction of socialism.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1) Does this mean Venezuela has not actually had a revolution yet, but is
> still only struggling to have one, or is on the road to having one?


I wouldn't say a revolution HAS occurred, but that it is occurring.
Venezuela is in the middle of battle to carry out a social revolution. It is
an extremely difficult battle, and cannot be resolved, no a measure of it be
taken, simply by looking at Chavez. The revolution requires the organisation
of the working people, understood here broadly, I don't simply mean
industrial workers in hard hats but mass of urban poor as well as the
campesinos etc, into institutions of power to create a new social order, to
create socialism. The role of Chavez needs to be understood in this context,
in the inter-reationship between Chavez and the working people and whether
or not it is advancing or holding back the struggle to this end.

Too often those on the international left look in on the revolution and see
only Chavez, without putting him in this context. They then proceed to judge
Chavez by an entirely abstract, or rather arbitrary, set of criterior
determined not by the reality in Venezuela - where that broad mass of people
are at, what is required to take it forward and advance towards that end
gaol, but according a predetermined schema. There seems to be an assumption
that the working people are forever revolutionary. They are just WAITING to
rise up and smash the state, take the economy and create the new system. The
only thing missing is the leadership. If only Chavez had the right set of
policies, then the question would be resolved. The masses are always being
misled.

But this isn't the case in Venezuela. The more you look at it, the greater
the task you realise there is more than one side to this story. It is a very
difficult task to take a decimated working people in a country disorganised
and   There are increasingly significant moves in this direction. The
various attempts at mass organisation, the experiments in workers
management.

the level of consciousness and organisation started in Venezuela from a very
low level. There was a widespread rejection of the status quo, hatred of the
existing politicians etc among the poor majority, but not a very high
political level around the time Chavez was elected. Socialism was not in
anyway a mass concept. The level of organisation was very low, although
growing. People tended to look to above to solve problems, there was a lot
fo passivity. This is not a working class capable, without a series of
battles to transform this, in any position to start building socialism. You
can't blame Chavez for this. It didn't matter what he said or did, it isn't
up to him.

Only the working people can build socialism, it can't be issued by decree.
And for the working people to make a socialist revolution they have to WANT
to make a socialist revolution. They have to understand the need for one,
and organise themselves to make it happen. This was not the Venezuelan
working class in 1999. This situation had dramatically changed, as even the
casual observer can see.  From early no discussion or identification with
socialism, it is now common place. The level of conciousness and mass
organisation has dramatically deepened. The social level of the poorest has
been raised into a situation where they are able, and the space is provided,
to engage with politics.



And let's be clear, there was NO pressure from below" that forced Chavez to
raise the concept of socialism, which is a dramatic advance not just for the
Venezuela revolution, but for the planet - to have the leader of a fresh
revolution heading the millions of people come out and say actually there is
no other road but socialism, not just for Venezuela but the planet, when
socialism was supposedly dead and buried, is incredibly important. It has
raised socialism from the dead for many people across the world. Chavez
didn't have to do that, there was no pressure from below. Or raise a whole
lot of things, like increasingly quoting Marxists. These things are now
widespread in Venezuela as *a result* of Chavez's actions. And he has done
an incredible favour to the revolution by going out of his way to quote form
and praise Leon Trotsky. Now that doesn't answer any decisive question about
the Venezuelan revolution, but it is worth noting, and noting that it wasn't
any mass movement that forced him to do it, but a conscious intervention by
Chavez into the Venezuelan mass movement (and internationally).





But it still uneven, the question of how to deepen it is the crucial one.
There is a widespread recognition of the need to over comet he remanents of
the old state but how? How do you overcome corruption that is very deep
seated in the society, and not simply among a handful of oligarchs but
entrenched in population?


So how the question is what will advance this? And this is the criterior the
leadership of Chavez should be judged by. It is only through struggle that
this will, and has, advanced.

In Venezuela the struggle has been very much centred on the need to overcome
imperialism's ravaging, and the associated abandonment of the mass of
people. This has dictated its course. It is through this struggle that the
class divisions have opened up. Because who in Venezuela has a vested
interest in and is willing to struggle for such a thing? Who is forming
cooperatives in areas previous abandoned in Venezuela? The capitalists? Of
course not, the urban poor are doing that. What about all the factories
being left idle by the bosses, badly needed to develop the economy? Workers,
in an ad hoc way, still far too limited (and not because of Chavez who has
called for all factories closed down to be taken over but the low level of
organisation of the workers movement). But workers are, even in too small
numbers, taking these factories over are restarting production.  Who is
working to try and overcome food dependency? The latifundists? No, the
agricultural cooperatives - the campesinos given land, or often urban poor
who have moved to work on cooperatives.

It is through this struggle as much as anything that the class nature has
revealed itself, by which section of Venezuelan people are part of the
Bolivarian project and who are hostile to it. It isn't determined by a
schema that says a "workers and peasants alliance WILL go and do this". It
is how the process has developed naturally according to its own internal
logic. This development has put socialism on the table. It has revealed to
the leadership and the mass of working people that capitalism can not be
progressive, that it cannot solve Venezuela's problems.

This intersection of the role of Chavez in leading the mass of people, in
intervening to raise the political level, with the actual experience of the
masses themselves that have greatly deepened the level of concsiousness and
organisation of working people, which is the basis of both the gains won so
far and the potential to will dramatically deeper ones.

The missions are crucial, because they take the most abandoned and raise
their social level up, and in the process build their confidence but also
facilitate organisation in the community to run the missions. But let's take
just one aspect, the mass formation of cooperatives. The cooperatives are
crucial. This is a new phenomenon, at least  on this scale, as far as I know
compared to previous revolutions. It doesn't fit into anyone's schema. Is it
really a crucial part of the Venezuelan revolution to have over 150,000
cooperatives formed? Well in Venezuela yes. Was it the only path? Maybe not,
I don't know, but it is the path they are going on. Why is it crucial?
Because the majority of the workforce are in what they call the "informal
sector" - the great mass of urban poor that made up the originally and
strongest base for the revolution. they are not organised into collective
production, they have been abandoned.

This is how the struggle against imperialism ties in, because the
cooperatives are a weapon to develop the nation. The imperialists and local
capitalists wont do it. But the struggle to economically empower the urban
poor connects with the need to develop Venezuelan economy along pro-people
lines. So it is tied to the struggle for food sovereignty, to develop
agriculture when the latifundists wont, when they just export for profit
(and then attempt to sabotage food production within Venezuela). it enables
an expansion of the economy into those areas. But of course this requires
more than just cooperatives, it also requires the interrelated expansion of
state industry. There is a need for credit, for equipment, for markets for
cooperatives products.

The cooperatives are also a crucial part of empowering the urban poor. It is
an  way to attempt organise them into collective production in a way that
also gives them control. They have huge contradictions, the key is are these
going to be organised along capitalist lines - to compete in that way, or
will they be integrated into an increasingly socialised and planned economy?
This can not simply be resolved by government policy - which pushed in the
latter direction. It is about how do you transform these working people into
active asocial agents both conscious of the need to do this and willing and
able to carry it out. That is *mass mobilsiation*, *mass organisation* and
*mass decision making*, to draw in the broadest elements possible, is the
basis by which the revolution is seeking to advance, has advanced, and will
continue to advance. What forms of organisation, politically and
economically,  are going to facilitate this and through this process
revolutionise the working people and create a people committed to socialism?

Corruption is rife within the cooperatives, according to the government,
which has acknowleged it doesn't know how bad the problem is. This is a
product of how ad hoc everything is, as well as the strong hold of
corruption in Venezuelan society. Some of it is unscrupolous businesspeople
pretending to be cooperatives. Another problem is the consciousness of those
forming the cooperatives, they try and run them as capitalist enterprises.
This is to do not with government policy or intentions but the actual level
of consciousness of those workers involved. You have to give them that power
despite limitations of concoiusness because it is only through having real
power the limitations can be overcome. That is the essence of the mass
action approach, people's consciousness can only be transformed through
actively engaging in the struggle. There are many ways this can occur -
through the communal councils takes up one aspect, the attempt to builds a
mass revolutionary party based n widespread ideological discussion is
another, decision making at the point of production is aonther again.

And how this occurs will depend on the nature of the situation. You don't
want to take major industry and form cooperatives obviously, but
cooperatives can, and are, being important in taking the urban poor and
giving them both something useful in terms of developing the economy and
handing them decision making power at the same time. How this plays out will
depend on the ability to get real control over the main levers of the
economy and incorpate the cooperatives into a planned economy - the
nucleuses being formed that group cooperatives together in related
industries that can then draw up a collective plan to advance are one way
they are trying to do this.

There is no formula to resolve the problem of consciousness among the
working people. It is a very difficult task that the government has put at
the centre. The mass education, the mass campaign against corruption, for
new values, the mass discussion on socialism. Out of this struggle the
conditions to advance much more decisively towards socialism are created,
you have a workforce no longer atomised, but organised collectively.

Now this is only one aspect of the struggle the revolution faces - the part
that deals with "what the hell do you do with 8 million atomised urban poor
not currently organised in either a collective or even very productive
fashion?" It doesn't answer what you do with the minority of the working
class that are already in collective production, either for a private
capitalist or the state.

(Although according to government figures, through the expansion of state
industry and the cooperatives this is now a majority! This is an important
victory, a victory not registered when trying to measure Venezuela according
to a criterior drawn from a schema and not Venezuela's reality.

In Venezuela this is a BIG victory. So is the fact that the first railways
hare being constructed for 70 years. So devastating the stranglehold of
imperialism, which twists Venezuela's economy into basically being an oil
supplier and not much else, leaving the majority abandoned, that it takes a
goddamn revolution just to get a railway built. I am sorry if it doesn't
seem that radical to you, but i t is pretty important in Venezuela. As is
the fact  that for the first time ever, a Latin American country is
producing its own tractors. And now computers.)

But the key question this reveals is the revolutionary dynamic of the
struggle to make this happen. You have to fight the oligarchy, you have to
fight the old state, and you have to create new institutions based directly
on working people. This is the lesson every day in Venezuela hooked, not on
abstract schemas, but on the living reality in Venezuela and the actual
needs and struggles of the mass of poor people. The old state has proven
useful, ridden through with corruption and bureaucracy. This is why Chavez
says you need to dismantle it and build a new revolutionary one. This is the
assimilation of mass struggle, this si the message coming out of the
barrios, from the campesinos, from workers in the existing state industries
- the old is a block, the degree of change has occurred according to whether
this clock has been overcome by mass organisation AGAINST it.

This is the revolution underway now. Has there BEEN a revolution? No, but a
revolution is not a visit from Santa Claus where the workers wake up one
morning with a lot of socialist presents to unwrap;. It is a long and drawn
out battle. In Venezuela, for a range of reasons, the battle for power has
been especially drawn out. I think this is because on the one hand, the old
order could not continue governing, they stood completely exposed. This
opening the way for the rise of Chavez and the Bolviarian movement, an
attempt by the Venezuelan working people to find a way out. However you have
had a certain deadlock where the old elite are too weak to govern, but the
working people not yet strong enough, organised enough and conscious enough
to descively break their remaining power. This is the real meaning of the
"revolution within the revolution", it means fighting corruption and
bureaucracy in the old state as well as within the Chavista camp - where
MANY of the old forces have jumped ship to. The push post the December
elections by Chavez has been to harnass the enormous enthusiasm among the
ranks, among the working people, for this sort of decisive deepening to
drive it forward.

The way it has been described, repeatedly, by those on the ground in
Venezuela, in a range of areas, is that between the revolutionary leadership
of Chavez and the national government, and the revolutionary enthusiasm at
the ground, there is the a strong, powerful bureaucratic block, not just
within the state institutions but the Chavista forces, strongly reflected
within the main pro-Chavez parties - leading to strong anti-party sentiments
among a lot of the activists on the ground. This resulted in a contradictory
situation - and you can't only see one side of the contradiction. One the
one hand, the bureaucratic, reformist, corrupt, opportunist (whatever fits
best, varying combinations of those labels probably applies to different
forces) have very strong institutional hold. This gives them a lot of
weight.

However they are POLTICALLY weak. Their position and authority is dependent
on their association with Chavez. They don't have the political initiative,
but are forced to tail behind the increasing radicalisation going "yes, of
course, socialism of the 21st century, but...".

On the other hand, the revolutionary forces in favour of pushing decisively
ahead have enormous political strengths, Chavez (who I think by his actions
repeatedly has proven he is attempting to use his position to help lead a
thorough going social revolution) has the authority and unique dialogue with
the mass of people and uses it to constantly deepen the rhetoric and
radicalise the situation. The political discussion has increasingly
radicalised and favours the revolutionary forces, the basic discussion is
"how do we build socialism?", "how do we create a revolutionary state?",
"how do we overcome the resistance of the old forces?" etc. etc.

But these forces are organisationally weak. It is a mood in many cases.
There has been a massive explosion in popular organsiation, but it is often
localised, in a hold range of different sorts of committees and groups,
heaps of new organsiaitons have sprung up. But it isn't united from the
ground up into a weapon to take advantage of the political initiative and
strengths in favour pf decisively pushing the revolution forward. And just
like nature despites a vacuum, so does politics, as Trotsky noted. If the
working people are not strong enough to defeat the counterrevolutionary
forces in the old state or even in the Chavista camp, then by default they
cling on to their power, despite all other weaknesses.

THIS is key tot he formation of the new party, this is how Chavez has
explained it - to create a weapon to unite the militants from the ground up
- those currently dispersed across countless organisations, often  localised
in scope. Unite them into a weapon so that their key weakness can be
overcome and a serious challenge can be made to the bureaucrats. Whether or
not this happens is another story, but that is the battle.




2) Are the strategic sectors of the economy really under the control of the
> people, or only under the control of the state? Is the state under the
> control of the people?


Well that is the battle underway. It is happening simultaneously, There is a
simultaneous struggle to take control of the strategic sectors of the
economy and break the old state and create a new one. This is the essence of
the "five motors" Chavez announced, and the essence of the areas in the
enabling law. They cover a struggle for "new economic forms" - this is still
experimental, they are trying to figure out what works and what doesn't, the
state ensuring control over the key sectors and the revolutionasing of the
state.

But if you look at what they are doing, and what the discussion is, the LAST
thing it is, is an attempt to simply have the state run the economy. This is
repeatedly attacked as  "old 20th century socialism". My own feelings, or
perhaps prejudices, tend to be a bit alarmed at this discussion and I worry,
but surely the state should be mainly in control. Of course the key question
is what sort of state, but I worry some of the discussion neglects that and
pushes too far in the opposite direction to the one suggested by this
question. But that is not for me to decide, and I can't really judge it
easily either, just a feeling I get.

The problem is partly I think that so much of the state is still controlled
by corrupt counter-revolutionary forces, so it becomes clear very quickly
that it isn't enough to simply have the state run it in order for it to
belong and be run for the "people". This is both the lesson they KEEP
harping on about in Venezuela from history (that is what you tend to get
from Venezuela, I think it is little more complicated but that is a whole
other story) and their own experiences.

So you have an ongoing process of experimentation and improvisation. They
are trying to see where the communal councils might fit in. Can the communal
councils oversee the production that goes on in their area/ There are some
obvious problems and limitations here that are striking, but this is what
that are trying. Because they know you can't just have the "state", as it
currently exists, deal with it. They are trying to see what role workers
councils might have. On the ground, many different sections and different
currents are trying and experimenting with different things.

They are trying United of Socialist Production, which I would love to know
more about. Chavez emphasises that the telecommuncations cannot be run like
it was when previously state-owned - it can't be the industry of a
capitalist state. It must be run in a socialist way. This requires a new
model and a new state. They are attempting to find a way forward through
experiments like the communal councils, workers councils, Unites of
Socialist Production - which I would like to know a lot more about, but are
state-funded experiments.

The whole thing is integrated in together and is driven by a conscious need
to actually *socialise* the means of production, this drives the discussion
on socialism in Venezuela. This can't be won by government policy, or
intentions or anything else. Only by the people themselves. What is
extremely positive is the role government, especially Chavez, are playing in
using laws, policies, speeches etc that encourage and help facilitate this.
Education is a high priority for a reason.  There is an attempt for a
genuinely mass and very deep ideological discussion, The new party is one
weapon - they aren't just joining people, but telling those who want to join
they must go away and organise assemblies and have a wide-ranging discussion
and debate on ideology, on socialism, on program. And there are organised
tens of thousands of militants to be responsible for organising and
facilitating this.

Is there really any way to construct a mass revolutionary party in
Venezuelaexcept through this procedure? It might not work, but there
is no other
course.

Then there is that wonderful decree that means workers have four hours  PAID
off their work week to organise socialist education. Then there is the mass
distribution of socialist literature etc, the mass discussion of Marx, the
mass distribution of Che's writings, such as Against Bureaucracy, as well as
other great revolutionaries and thinkers other traditions, especially
Venezuelan liberation heroes. Then there is the role played by Chavez
himself in constantly radicalising his discourse, in using his unique
dialogue with the mass of people to inject revolutionary ideas and concepts.

So "are they really under control of the people or the state?" is a living
question currently up in the air. It is the live struggle. It really would
have been much cleaner, and easier to label and recognise, if instead of
going about things in the long and torturous way they are the Venezuelan
working people 8 years ago had just risen up and formed soviets and smashed
the old state and socialised the means of production creating a healthy,
functional democratically planned economy. Instead we get this mess of
partial victories and gains, dean ends in some directions, massive problems
and blockages, and, above all, the awakening of the people on a massive
scale, roused form the deepest corners of the country, to take part on the
mammoth battle to build a different sort of Venezuela.

If you want to judge all this according to whether or not the words Chavez
mouths match up to an abstracted revolutionary criteriors you are not going
to understand it. Or even measures at a certain point in time. These are
dependent on and related to the level of organisation and consciousness of
the masses to make a reality. Chavez has to be judged by his relationship
with the masses in motion - the Venezuelan mass of working people as they
actually exist and not as they are idealised by others.

-- 
"The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?" - Jarvis Cocker