Article originally written in Spanish for the latest issue of the Chilean anarchist paper
Solidaridad - The recent events that have shaken Venezuela reflect not only the level of
interference that the USA maintains in the region or the pervasive coup-mongering trend in
the Venezuelan elite which knows by heart the manual of the Chilean coup strategy. It
primarily reflects the latent tensions in the Venezuelan model which should start to work
themselves out from below, through struggle. Today more than ever we need critiques to be
the essential tool of revolutionaries, rather than the attitude of passive approval of
everything the Bolivarian leadership does. ---- Venezuela at the crossroads ---- The
recent events that have shaken Venezuela reflect not only the level of interference that
the USA maintains in the region or the pervasive coup-mongering trend in the Venezuelan
elite which knows by heart the manual of the Chilean coup strategy. It primarily reflects
the latent tensions in the Venezuelan model which should start to work themselves out from
below, through struggle. Today more than ever we need critiques to be the essential tool
of revolutionaries, rather than the attitude of passive approval of everything the
Bolivarian leadership does.
The genesis of Bolivarianism
An event that marked the recent history of Venezuela was the Caracazo, that gigantic,
spontaneous popular mobilization the structural adjustment measures decreed by the
Social-Democratic government of Carlos Andr?s P?rez in 1989, which was drowned in the
blood of between 500 and 2,000 Venezuelans. It is surprising to note that to date there
are no reliable figures on the number of dead, which to some extent reflects their status
as "nobodies", "disposable", "marginal". After earning a reputation for his coup attempt
in 1992 - in direct response to a government widely seen as illegitimate by the working
classes - the retired officer Hugo Ch?vez Fr?as stood in the 1999 elections, an outsider
in the circles of power which, during the so-called Punto Fijo period, divided up
bureaucratic quotas between two parties. His populist, direct speeches, his denunciation
of a status quo increasingly tired out by the oil crisis which eroded the corrupt networks
of clientelism, immediately captured the fascination of the majority, alienated by the
political-economic system.
Although his first redistributive measures were timid, Ch?vez immediately alienated the
elite because for the first time in the history of the republic they were displaced from
the circles of power. This abrupt change was ratified in 1999 by the constituent assembly,
where the old parties ended up disappearing. The new Constitution, which even the Right
led today by Capriles lays claim to, has established certain social guarantees and rights
that have benefited sectors previously excluded from access to health or education,
counter to the neoliberal trends that dominate throughout the world. Principles of
participatory forms of democracy are also experimented with through the
institutionalization of Poder Ciudadano (Citizen Power). From the point of view of
guarantees, this Constitution is almost unique in recognizing the right of civil
disobedience in cases where the government violates the Constitution.
The years that followed the Constitution were turning points in the leftist turn of the
Chavista political project; at each attempt to remove him from power, the masses at the
grassroots of the Bolivarian project responded with increased demands. Some of these
measures included the April 2002 coup and then came the bosses' lockout from December 2002
to February 2003, both decisively defeated by popular mobilization and support from the
Army for the process. The lockout, which was centred on a shutdown of oil production, saw
workers self-manage sectors of that industry so as to keep the economy running. In this
process, the rentier capitalist class became worn out and important areas of it were
ousted from a significant centre of power when Ch?vez fired 19,000 technicians, directors
and middle managers. The Bolivarian project thus took control of oil revenues and set
about a series of social programmes called "missions", through which the newly conquered
social rights were extended to the most marginalized areas of the country. But even in
this process, the experience of self-management came to an end and albeit with new faces,
there was a return to the same labour dynamics as before.
But it was only after the victory in the recall referendum of 2004 and his overwhelming
victory in the presidential elections of December 2006, that he dared publicly to describe
his project as "Socialism of the 21st Century".
Socialism of the 21st Century
Ch?vez now defined the five motors of the construction of socialism: the nationalization
of telecommunications and electricity; control of 60% of Petr?leos de Venezuela S.A.
(PDVSA, state-owned oil and gas company) of the multinational oil operations;
constitutional reform to declare Venezuela a Bolivarian, Socialist republic; political
education and ideological struggle to overcome capitalist prejudice, a new system of
territorial administration of the country in line with the people's needs; and the
development of organisms of community power. It was intended with these measures to move
from developmentalism to poder popular (people's power).
The first measures to promote people's power, such as urban land committees, invariably
came from above, while the main emphasis continued to be redistribution through the
missions, which were skillfully created by-passing the structures of the State's
administrative bureaucracy, mixing social mobilization with Army participation. These
bodies provided perhaps the most spectacular achievements of the Bolivarian project, such
as the virtual elimination of illiteracy.
Other initiatives yielded more mixed results due to distortions caused by the oil-rentier
economy and Dutch Disease, together with the persistence of the clientelist, bloated
State. Land reform is a good case in point. Venezuela imports 70% of its foodstuffs, 12%
of its population is rural and 5% of landowners in 1997 controlled 80% of the land. Since
2005, various farmers have received land and migration from urban areas to rural ones has
been stimulated; however, it has not been easy to achieve the goal of food sovereignty
because the distortion of the oil economy makes food production more expensive than that
of Venezuela's neighbours. Paradoxically, Mercal, the subsidized stores, sell most of the
imported food because its cheaper price. And to the slow expansion of food production
(lower than demand), the problem of sabotage and stockpiling must be added.
Workers' control too is contradictory. The first expropriations by Ch?vez came about up to
2005, when some companies went under the control of the workers, alone or together with
the State. But radicalized workers who were demanding the abandoning of old-style
management patterns, consideration of not only profit but the need and sustainability as
productive criteria or an end to the division between manual and intellectual workers,
found their bitterest enemies in the Labour Ministry itself, while Ch?vez distanced
himself from the "radicals" until in 2009 his interest in them was reborn with the need to
fight against the "corrupt". Many companies were left isolated in the swindle that was
"socialism in one factory", while sectors of the left denounced this adventurism, opting
for purely statist schemes. But beyond the existing industries, the dream of economic
diversification remained elusive: the economy continued to be dominated by oil revenues
and the creation of initiatives such as cooperatives fell into a vicious circle - the
exchange rate distorted by the rentier economy did not help competitiveness in the market
in accordance with the capitalist laws in force in Venezuela and the region, and the
subsidies and support for these diversification initiatives depended on oil revenues,
which reinforced the structural weakness of the productive economy.
Communal State?
An important aspect of how the Bolivarian project understood people's power is the
development of community councils, which would be the basis of what Ch?vez called the
transition from the Bourgeois State to the Communal State. Inspired by the participatory
experience of Porto Alegre, these councils are community mechanisms for the development
and implementation of community projects. But they faced opposition from local caciques
(political bosses), State agencies and even the banking system which was supposed to fund
these projects. Clientelistic structures of traditional politics and bureaucrats were wary
of communal experiences that became too independent.
Although poverty has been reduced and malnutrition and illiteracy have been eradicated,
the question of power continues to be the driving aspect on which not only the furthering
of the "process" depends but also the maintainance of what has been achieved so far in
this decade through social experiments. Despite the interaction of initiatives from below
with those from above, the contradictions between the State and the communities remains
the defining element of the political dynamics of the process. Particularly because the
State, starting with the removal of the old Punto-Fijistas from power, has become the
niche of the traditional ruling class, while those who have newly arrived into State
circles have quickly acquired the corrupt, vertical and clientelistic practices that have
been a feature of it for decades. From these niches they boycott change and get rich,
while wearing their nice little red shirts. Most of the time, Chavism has granted
privileges to the obedient bureaucrats, corrupt as they are, and has turned a blind eye to
the kickbacks that they take. Closing one's eyes to this strengthens the Right, even
though it means silencing the popular sectors that have denounced this. The worst thing
about a clique is not being a part of it. So goes a well-known saying in Colombia and
Venezuela.
The absence of collective leadership, caudillismo (strongman politics) and verticality,
represented in the logic of the State, have been the main enemies of this process of
social change. This was evidenced at the death of the "comandante" in March 2013.
The current situation: go on with the "process" or end it?
After the local elections in December, which the rentier Right used as a kind of
referendum and which the Chavists came out of with flying colours, the latest devaluation
has given an opportunity to those sectors to take back the streets after a decade of
keeping their heads down. Those who have profited with the flight of capital through the
diversion of oil revenues worth millions into private accounts abroad by means of the
Commission for the Administration of Currency Exchange (CADIVI) have sounded the alarm
with the announcement that this system is to be replaced by a new one (National Centre for
Foreign Trade - CENCOEX), and squeal about inflation and shortages that have been created
largely by them. Let us not forget that in this economic war more than 50,000 tons of
stockpiled food staples have been requisitioned need since early 2013, while entrepreneurs
of all sorts have been speculating with international trade, as is the case with household
appliances, with profit rates of 1,000%.
The problem is not that they are raising their heads - it is that their privileges have
not been touched and from their strongholds they still have the resources and organization
to defend their absolute privilege. The problem is that the popular sectors who want to
increase their power, their control and their autonomy are contained, even repressed,
while the usual suspects see their privileges threatened but not touched, in a situation
that will eventually have to be sorted out. The problem is that control of the bank for
foreign trade has not been taken away from financial capitalism, that there is no popular
control over trade, nor sanctions for the hoarding that threatens the people with hunger.
The problem, in the words of Roland Denis, is this:
"model of rentier, parasitic State capitalism, which under its policies of control,
concentration of power and replacement of social control by technocratic or bureaucratic
functionaries; it has not only made the rich richer, despite the charity and the social
justice policies, but it has crushed the productive forces, the creators of a workers'
society and one of small, private and cooperative producers (...) It reduces the
productive middle classes to despair, it drives increasingly unsatisfied consumer demand
crazy, it makes all too evident its inability to respond via the State economy (whether
they import or produce, State enterprises are being bankrupted because of this useless
mentality which is bent on destroying social productivity). It is reactivating the
impoverishment curve through inflation and increasing unemployment, because of economic
non-productivity, thus diminishing the labour value day by day, regardless of the nominal
wage"[1].
There are only two ways to deal with the current situation: one is through repression of
those who have mobilized while calling the organizers of the protests to dialogue. That is
the path Maduro has taken so far. The other is to unleash the force of the people and
further the social transformations in a socialist, libertarian perspective to remove the
parasitic rentier elite that is bleeding the country and will not be happy until it sees
the more imaginary than real threat of the abolition of that privilege definitively dissipate.
Apart from the immediate measures (such as harmonizing the price of petrol, curbing the
flight of capital, speculation and hoarding), it is essential to understand the real
nature of the social contradictions facing the "process". It is not enough to recognize
that it is not perfect or that it naturally has contradictions. These contradictions and
limitations must be identified, discussed, critiqued and corrected. We cannot just close
ranks around them, justify them, nor even less so make a virtue of them and close our eyes
to the impeccable "leadership" of the leaders.
The people today cannot be a passive agent nor nothing more than government shock troops:
they must take back their capacity for political action, for acting themselves, with their
own agenda, because socialism will not be built by the State. Decentralization, the
autonomous development of the organs of people's power and social control is an essential
task in the present moment. There must be a transfer of power from the State apparatus to
the popular movements and their organization. The old power class survives in the State
and the newcomers are developing the same bad habits. It will not be from there that the
egalitarian society will be built, since by definition the State actively reproduces
inequality and asymmetry in power. As journalist Iain Bruce puts it, analyzing the
Bolivarian process, "how do you get around the existing apparatus, when you first came to
power through it (?)? (?) it has also become increasingly clear that a number of those
inhabiting the old edifice (?) are very happy with their new home and are quietly inclined
to thwart anyone who suggests it should be torn down and replaced with a wholly different
kind of construction"[2].
Today, the discussion cannot be reduced to smashing coup tendencies. We also have to crush
inertia, bureaucratism and the cult of the State. They mutually reinforce each other. We
must struggle for a socialist, libertarian alternative, because half-victories are nothing
more than eventual defeats.
Jos? Antonio Guti?rrez D.
26 February 2014
Translation by FdCA International Relations Office
Notes:
[1] "Desactivar el Fascismo", 22 February 2014
[2] Iain Bruce, "The Real Venezuela", 2008, p. 184
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» Chilean anarchist paper Solidaridad: Venezuela at the crossroads (ca) by Jos? Antonio Guti?rrez D.