Anarkismo.net: Venezuela, The Bolivarian Revolution at the Crossroads by Facundo Guillen - Center for Libertarian Studies (ca)

Facundo Guill?n, member of the Center for Libertarian Studies (CEL) of Argentina sent from 
Caracas to Anarkismo.net the following note on the umpteenth attempt of the Venezuelan 
right, with the unfailing support of the European Union, the United States and its 
colonial agency ( OAS), to destabilize the country in order to restore its full ownership 
and roll it back to the darkest times. ---- Guillen emphasizes that it is above all an 
attack against the popular movement and its achievements against Latin American 
integration and against any reform to be counter to the interests of oligarchic and 
imperial dictates and says that the output to impasse in which is located the Bolivarian 
process is deepening. ---- To stop the coup in Latin America! Libertarian Students Front 
(FEL) in Chile

"This revolution can destroy them, but our faults and our inequalities."

On Sunday April 14, 2013 took place the last election of Chavez. Mature, successor 
appointed by him, won the presidential elections in Venezuela with more than 7 million and 
a half votes (representing nearly 51% of the total votes). Capriles, the 80 member of the 
sect Tradition Family and Property, representing the rancid right of the Bolivarian 
Republic of Venezuela, lost by just over 250 thousand votes. Before the end of the day, 
Bolivarian victory Capriles unknown and calls for recount all the votes. The White House 
supports the call for Capriles. The European Union (EU) and the Organization of American 
States (OAS) as well. Bush, or rather Mr. Danger, won the 2000 election with only 0.3% 
difference over its competitor Al Gore. So, quietly, ruled for eight years and declared 
two wars and killed thousands of innocents. Even Jimmy Carter, former U.S. president a few 
months ago said "Of the 92 elections that have monitored, I would say that the electoral 
process in Venezuela is the world's best." Obviously, in this case neither the OAS nor the 
EU chistaron. The same imperialist double standards and sadly it has become customary.

With the support of these powers Capriles, shouting "Maduro illegitimate", asks his 
supporters to take the streets and the police of the municipalities that supports the 
right rules. Result: PSUV activist killed after hit; popular community media communicators 
shot; headquarters PSUV Integral Diagnostic Center (CDI) and Mercales burned, the house of 
Campaign Command chief Hugo Chavez and the president of the CNE surrounded by "squalid", 
cars with people inside set on fire, Telesur and Venezolana de Television (VTV) attacked. 
There is already talk of at least 7 dead in recent hours. The smell of red joy that 
flooded last Thursday veins east of Caracas transmuted into the matter stench of 
adrenaline. Before starting, the feast of the seventeenth predicted electoral victory red 
rojitos canceled. Meanwhile, Capriles family brings their country. If already loaded 
deaths added new river of blood, people cry to imagine what would have happened if these 
murderers were government. No one wants to imagine.

The pit of the matter is the fear felt by the owners of all the people that has been 
activated and has become a political actor to be considered, whose views should be taken 
into account. In the capitalist periphery, especially in the backyard of the United 
States, the most lukewarm of reforms is seen as a social revolution. In the same way it 
fought. And although the capitalist mode of production is far from being overcome, the 
reforms are far from being too warm as the beautiful Caribbean Sea.

Some comrades here are wondering how is it possible that the end result has been so tight? 
How can you have both voted for unfair right? Made the question seems to know what they 
would have avoided this scenario. The tentative answers are obvious and I find that 
leadership is not won, is constructed, that Chavez Chavez and Maduro was far from it. 
Furthermore, it is difficult to win consistently in the preferred terrain of the 
bourgeoisie, especially when the opposition candidate is known for two years and own for 
days, overshadowed by the figure of Chavez. On the other hand, the marketing campaign 
supported Maduro singers and showbiz talk to Chavez has not been the best to question the 
movement. Reclaim socialism and fall into a form of commodification silly as this campaign 
does not work in a country where the dispute is merely symbolic key. Not when the right 
seeks to dispute the legacy of Chavez. We must add to this the large number of errors. 
Finally, some more risky, with which I dare to match, say members of the bureaucracy 
embedded in the process and the Armed Forces were bought and managed to get patronage 
practice like tens of thousands of votes to the opposition.

Nevertheless, in advance was common knowledge that the opposition would ignore the result 
if the ruling would have won by 10 points difference, as did Chavez on October 7. What I 
had in mind was not how deep was to be used the excuse of fraud for conspiring against the 
government. It was believed that would happen as happened all previous years, the 
opposition spoke of fraud and armed guarimbas, mess near their own homes. The qualitative 
change that has less to do with the difference of 8% extra votes expected to have, is that 
Chavez's death dramatically accelerated time. He tore the dynamic balance between state, 
government, grassroots movement, bureaucracy and opposition. The bourgeoisie was never 
willing to wait another six years and less to risk deepening the process. Therefore used 
this new moment of uncertainty created by the passing of their leader. With or without 
difference of votes this was and is one of the best moments in which the right could 
engage in battle and in the worst case force a compromise, a "white coup". Surely a 
greater distance in the electoral dispute legitimacy would have taken the right strategy 
and thus would have been more difficult to generate the crisis that exists at this time. 
But the point is that the conditions were ripe and between victory sung so beforehand, so 
survey and statistics on past elections, there was not sufficient preparation for this 
scenario.

Now, what's done is done and it is time to mourn, but not falling into facilismos. The 
idea that the worse better these days seems gallop part of Venezuelan popular militancy. 
For now, it seems true that the progress of the right to some extent helped to reorganize 
the popular field, as happened with the 2002 coup and the only electoral defeat, which 
happened in 2007. Knowing how expensive it cost the Argentine people that analysis of the 
worse better, keep some distance away with this idea. Similarly, ultimately what matters 
is that the people can win this new hard tug whose turn it is.

To defeat the conspiracy that exists right now in Venezuela, may not be enough to arrest 
the military maneuvers involved in coup, as happened yesterday. Nor will reach to imprison 
master builders who are orchestrating this operation. The dispute is not between political 
parties, but between social forces. That is why what is going to determine the outcome of 
this dispute is not so much what the government but how you respond popular movement, the 
working class and the people in general. The popular militants message is clear: "We do 
not want violence, we want peace, but if we seek we will find." In that sense, the search 
for unity is more than welcome, obligatory, necessary to beat the right. However, this can 
not imply censorship of criticism or persecute dissenters.'s top rank and the most 
consistent fighters - as expected-distrust of bureaucrats and opportunists who use the 
majority to suit your interests individuals, as does the bourgeoisie. Nobody in their 
right mind voluntarily risking his life, that of your friends, your family, your 
co-workers or your neighbors to meet a few. Those who violate the unit are those 
opportunists who stuck the process and stick to any government, not those seeking to 
isolate the revolutionary ranks. Criticism continuous devaluation, inflation, when 
sections of the bourgeoisie are enriched dollars buying price and selling official State 
to 3 or 4 times on the black market price is required. People clearly see that there are 
sectors of the bourgeoisie as bankers and importers to get rich while their incomes 
stagnate. Sooner or later, the revolution should touch the interests of banking if you 
plan forward. in that sense we must work to deepen the process steadily, to regain popular 
sectors that joined the ranks of the opposition.

You can not hold for long this state of equilibrium of forces. Or deepens the process of 
change, or the process dies, and with it thousands of people and among them the best sons 
of the people. In war, stop, stall, you start losing. This section imposes a question that 
goeth about what the military? For now the opacity is imposed. Few know anything of what 
is happening within it, and those who can not talk. So far most mature support the 
government, but it is known that there are internal divisions. For example, for all it is 
clear that the National Guard is a mafia and Diosdado Cabello plays both ends trying to 
get right with God and the Devil. At this turning point is where you see what the 
institutional sectors are those who fear the people more organized than the very right. 
Ultimately, political power grows out of the gun, and despite everything that has been 
said about the People's Militia, the guns the armed forces remain.

We all know that if the light goes off, a gigantic black cloak fall on Latin America, 
threatening to take us back to the darkest times of the 90s, and that he knows to lighter 
social democracy, but has neither the tools nor the political to avoid it. We precedents 
beats Paraguay, Honduras, and targeted killings of peasants, workers, journalists, leaders 
of the left, its restriction of freedom for the masses, but it's not enough to imagine the 
scene of hunting against militancy and leftist popular open a right-wing victory in 
Venezuela. The sharpening of social contradictions and the exponential increase grassroots 
organization that generated the Bolivarian process reforms would unfeasible "soft coup". 
Neither the effect on Latin American folk movement and strategic blow against the 
socialist project would be even remotely like, that we have to keep in mind.

In these days where history walks faster for these payments, while interviewing an organic 
intellectual of the process, a veteran of the battles of the past 30 years for socialism 
and freedom, naively asked specifically what we could do co the rest of Latin America to 
show solidarity with the Venezuelan people. He laughed, sent a warm greeting to all Latin 
American organizations and told me to wait with patience, soon we will touch us too. This 
fight is a fight that the people of Venezuela conscious and organized to win, not only for 
themselves but for all who strive to build a just and free society.
Facundo Guillen

Caracas, April 17, 2013