Hugo Chavez: I Am A Trotskyist

[fa2991]

This is very old news, but I'm just now hearing about it: Chavez identifies with Trotsky.


Among the new ministers to be incorporated into the government Chavez also pointed to the new Minister of Labour, José Ramón Rivero, which he described as "young and a workers' leader". "When I called him" Chavez explained, "he said to me: 'president I want to tell you something before someone else tells you... I am a Trotskyist', and I said, 'well, what is the problem? I am also a Trotskyist! I follow Trotsky's line, that of permanent revolution."

http://www.marxist.com/chavez-trotskyist-president120107.htm

[The Vegan Marxist]

He's clearly not saying he follows Trotsky of the entirety, rather along the lines of "Permanent Revolution". This doesn't necessarily mean he's a Trotskyist. Though, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most of the Trotskyist's on this site oppose Chavez?

[fa2991]

He's clearly not saying he follows Trotsky of the entirety, rather along the lines of "Permanent Revolution". This doesn't necessarily mean he's a Trotskyist.

Well, of course. A real Trotskyist probably would've used different methods, etc., but I like that he identifies with figures like Trotsky and Luxemburg over, say, Stalin. It's more than Castro's ever done.


Though, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most of the Trotskyist's on this site oppose Chavez?That would be news to me.

[Adil3tr]

I'm a Trotskyist but I like him, even though I would do things a bit differently. but who wouldn't? Everyone has their own view of how exactly things should go down.
Anyway, this guy is really funny and does some smart shit sometimes. That's why hes still alive.

[#FF0000]

He says he's p. much everything. I remember he was repping maoism too.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Trotskyists don't "oppose" Chavez, we would certainly defend him and his government against imperialism. Trotskyists see the need to continue the revolutionary process towards "workers democracy", democratic working class control of the economy. Chavez isn't a socialist, although he has obviously moved in a progressive direction. Most people from the Trotskyist tradition would point out that a society like Venezuela cannot remain halfway for long.The Bolivarian Revolution is in a precarious position.Trotskyists would also echo Marx's call for the independence of the working class, not tied to bourgeois parties or institutions. A Trot would not join the PSUV, for example.

Chavez isn't a Trotskyist. He's not even a socialist exactly but a progressive national bourgeois leader.

Interestingly there's a Venezuelan Trotskyist labor leader with the name of Stalin Pérez

[Ocean Seal]

A Trot named Stalin, that made me happy :laugh::rolleyes:.
Cheers friends

[bailey_187]

looks like things are finaly looking up for the Trots. First Chavez, then the Nepal Maoists and now little articles on Russia Today about Trotsky. World Revolution is just around the corner.

[Fietsketting]

He's clearly not saying he follows Trotsky of the entirety, rather along the lines of "Permanent Revolution". This doesn't necessarily mean he's a Trotskyist.

Another bubble burst, Comrade? :laugh:

[REDSOX]

Hugo chavez is clearly a socialist. The woods faction in venezuela call him comrade even, but he is not a marxist more a liberation theologist socialist. I am sure he sympathises with elements of marxism, trotskyism, even maoism. He is certainly not anti those things but not pro either.

[Prairie Fire]

That is an old article. You should look into what he is calling himself this week.

He was a Maoist on a visit to China, was recommending Chomsky at a UN speech a few years ago, and apparently the whole basis of the PSUV's 'Bolivarian' socialism, are the ideas of land-owning bourgeois democrat Simon Bolivar (who was responsible for dismantling indegenous modes of collective property ownership,), Che Guevera, and Jesus Christ, plus a lot of vague rhetoric about 'socialism from below', blah blah blah.

[Blackscare]

OH NOES Chavez and the rest of the Bolivarian movement are piecing a progressive program out of a near endless font of leftist ideas as these concepts display merit given their particular, unique situations.

How un-leftist of them. Any good armchair ideologue can tell you that you have to explicitly declare allegiance to a certain sect and follow it's ideas verbatim.


This is a progressive, perhaps even socialist, movement rooted in present-day south america. As such it would be foolish to declare one set historical position as one's guiding light. Of course Chavez is all over the place, I expect that of him. You have to take what is relevant to present struggle and leave the rest of the baggage behind.


I, for one, applaud him for being so eclectic. Any proper movement will evolve organically and innovate, while borrowing ideas.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Its not a matter of Chavez's gestures or press statements but the class relations to the means of production that are important.

I believe Chavez recently had Simon Bolivar dug up, autopsied, and then reburied. This seems a bit loopy.I like Chavez personally but he seems more than a little eccentric at times.

Chavez is an intelligent, well read guy. As others have said he's quoted Mao, Gramsci, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, and lots of other Marxists. Talk is talk, a lot of people say a lot of things.

Again, I would defend Chavez from imperialism and imperialist propaganda in the US.We have to clearly understand the internal class dynamics going on though.

[Prairie Fire]

I, for one, applaud him for being so eclectic. Any proper movement will evolve organically and innovate, while borrowing ideas.

Is eclecticism a virtue?

I agree with you that dogma doesn't trump material realities, but you have yet to convince me that the material realities of Venezuela demand the mutant hybrid "isms" and contradictory goals and actions of the PSUV.

I have said it before and I will say it again, that the "theory" of the PSUV/Hugo Chavez is pure numbers games.

Bolivarian "Socialism", as it was articulated to me, is a prime example.

Bolivarian "Socialism", as presented to me by a Venezuelan "Marxist" commander, is an amalgamation of the ideas of Simon Bolivar, Che Guevara and Jesus Christ.

This is what I'm talking about, playing the numbers.

Simon Bolivar is a national historical hero in Venezuela, and perhaps in other countries of Latin America as well.

Che Guevara has revolutionary street cred with the masses of Latin America, and across the world.

Jesus Christ appeals not only to the highly Christian/Catholic culture of Venezuela/Latin America, but to a billion people across the globe.

Dropping the right names to the right audiences has become a staple of Chavez's rhetoric.

It is not necessarilly a matter of tactics, because often the tactics are the exact opposites of those practiced by their alleged inspirations.

Bolivar was not a socialist in any sense of the term; he was a land owning freemason, and and according to Ronald Wright in his book Stolen Continents, Bolivar was responsible for deliberately dismantling the modes of indigenous collective ownership of land and property in many parts of South America.

Che Guevara was in favour of the abolition of private property in land ownership (which Chavez/the PSUV are not). Guevara was also an athiest (or at least, secular):

"In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm”- Che Guevara

When Chavez claims that he is a "Maoist" on a trip to China, the logical question that follows should revolve around which of his policies are Maoist (although it is possible that Venezuela could perhaps be considered a textbook example of a "New Democracy".).

Now, he is playing the numbers again as a "Trotskyist". The Troskyist left in Canada, with the exception of the Spartacus League, generally love Chavez (When I came back from Caracas, the entire "Hands off Venezuela" comittee was run by Trotskysists, and basically used as a recruiting pool by them. Myself and another ML comrade were quietly purged from the comittee for these reasons.). I'm certain that most Trotskyists world wide (specifically those who practice entryism, or are close to social democracy) also feel similar about Chavez.

For these reasons, Chavez (and the Nepalese Maoists, for that matter,) sees an unwaivering base of support over-seas, so long as he drops the right names, and praises Leon.

While you present the situation as responding to the realities of the situation in Venezuela, in reality it is merely a clever name game that is generally not attached to policy directions.

Chavez would invoke the names of Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald if he thought that he could get any international support bases out of it.

All of this said, I will defend Venezuela against imperialism, and their nation building project has yielded many successes, but having been there, I see that they have a ways to go, and this opportunistic lip-service isn't helping.

[Ismail]

"I don't believe in the dogmatic postulates of Marxist revolution. I don't accept that we are living in a period of proletarian revolutions. All that must be revised. Reality is telling us that every day. Are we aiming in Venezuela today for the abolition of private property or a classless society? I don't think so." - Chávez, 2004 (http://isla.igc.org/Features/Venezuela/TariqAli.html).

Simón Bolívar wasn't exactly admired by Marx, either.

[Wanted Man]

Hugo will be whatever you want him to be, as long as you give him some love. :wub:


Another bubble burst, Comrade? :laugh:

It's not really news, is it now? He already quoted Trotsky half a decade ago. At the World Festival of Youth and Students no less. :lol: Of course, the next day, he was a Christian socialist and a Bolivarian again. The week after, he was in China, so he was a Maoist. :)

[Roach]

I'm certain that most Trotskyists world wide (specifically those who practice entryism, or are close to social democracy) also feel similar about Chavez.

This might be a coincidence,but your descripition of Chavez-loving trotskyist fits like a glove on the Esquerda Marxista, an Brazilian Trotskyist group affiliated to the IMT.They practice entrysm on the rulling party of Brazil,PT,an originally social democrat,now completely neo-liberal organization.

Actually I think the entire IMT is very friendly to Hugo Chavez there is even a picture on the internet that is an very friedly shake of hands betweem Hugo Chavez and Alan Woods,one of International Marxist Tendency main leader's.I would post it if I had 25 posts.:mad:

[DaringMehring]

It only make sense that an ardent 3rd world communist would accept Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, as all the stagist theories say they have to fight to make capitalism.

[Wanted Man]

This might be a coincidence,but your descripition of Chavez-loving trotskyist fits like a glove on the Esquerda Marxista, an Brazilian Trotskyist group affiliated to the IMT.They practice entrysm on the rulling party of Brazil,PT,an originally social democrat,now completely neo-liberal organization.

Actually I think the entire IMT is very friendly to Hugo Chavez there is even a picture on the internet that is an very friedly shake of hands betweem Hugo Chavez and Alan Woods,one of International Marxist Tendency main leader's.I would post it if I had 25 posts.:mad:

It's not quite directly what you're asking for, but in relation to the World Festival that I mentioned, this rather self-congratulatory IMT article (http://www.marxist.com/marxists-world-youth-festival230905.htm) is kind of funny. As you can see from the article, true Marxism is about to engulf the world with dual leadership; Woods and Chávez. But who is the Great Leader and who is the Dear Leader, I wonder?

[The Grey Blur]

if you have a mechanical interpretation of things, or a utopian one then it's easy to reject chavez. if you're genuinely supportive of the international worker's struggle then you have to understand the relationship between the venezuelan masses and chavez as a leader of that movement. the truth is chavez is not a trotskyist in the sense we use the term on this site but neither is he a 'bourgeois figurehead' or whatever rubbish the user a few post above me spouts- the truth is that there is a revolutionary process going on in venezuela, and like with any revolution there are contradictions- between chavez's words and his actions (for example his flirtation with ahmenejad), within the psuv itself, and most importantly between the steps the workers and chavez have taken so far and the reaction of the capitalist class inside and outside venezuela. chavez is at the end of the day a pragmatist, the pressure needs to be brought from below and that necessitates that the venezuelan working class understand their historical role and appeal to the working class in the rest of latin america. the banks and industry have to be nationalised, so far there is half a revolution in venezuela and half-way revolutionaries dig their own graves.

that's my own understanding of the situation anyway, but i'm no expert. i think if you're sane and a genuine marxist then you can't respond with a knee-jerk reaction, whether that is to unconditionally support or reject chavez. as marxists we understand that it is the masses who make history, not individual 'great men', but that there is also an important (dialectical?) relationship between leadership and the class. i'm sympathetic to the imt analysis of venezuela.

[Saorsa]

For these reasons, Chavez (and the Nepalese Maoists, for that matter,) sees an unwaivering base of support over-seas, so long as he drops the right names, and praises Leon.

Chavez doesn't have universal support overseas at all, and it certainly isn't unwavering. That's ridiculous.

As for Nepal, I wish that were true! Most of the Western left has simply ignored what's taking place in Nepal, and the majority of commentary about it has been sectarian dismissal.

[Prairie Fire]

Chavez doesn't have universal support overseas at all, and it certainly isn't unwavering. That's ridiculous.

I read and re-read the sentence that you are apparently responding to, looking for the word "Universal", or any synonym for it, or anything to imply that I meant that Chavez's international support was unanimous.

As I suspected, I didn't say anything of the kind in the sentence that you are allegedly quoting.

As far as his bases of support being unwaivering, I was not refering to the entire political left on the world stage, but rather to the Trotskyist groups that he has been appealing to, who run all of the Venezuela solidarity stuff in my country, and have been unshakable in their faith in Chavez and uncritical in their assesment of the PSUV.

While you were hallucinating that I was talking about Chavez's support being universal, you obviously didn't read these parts:


Now, he is playing the numbers again as a "Trotskyist". The Troskyist left in Canada, with the exception of the Spartacus League, generally love Chavez (When I came back from Caracas, the entire "Hands off Venezuela" comittee was run by Trotskysists, and basically used as a recruiting pool by them. Myself and another ML comrade were quietly purged from the comittee for these reasons.). I'm certain that most Trotskyists world wide (specifically those who practice entryism, or are close to social democracy) also feel similar about Chavez.


For these reasons, Chavez (and the Nepalese Maoists, for that matter,) sees an unwaivering base of support over-seas, so long as he drops the right names, and praises Leon.


You dodged my point like the Matrix, and even inserted a word that completely changed the context of my whole quotation.

Don't reply to my posts if you are attributing fictional positions to me/ you didn't understand my position to begin with.

[Dimentio]

Whatever the purity of your theories, at the end of the day what is mattering are your accomplishments.

Ideology is a numbers game, created to conceal the struggle of power within and between social classes and regional groups in any society.

[Prairie Fire]

Ideology is a numbers game, created to conceal the struggle of power within and between social classes and regional groups in any society.

Ideology, in the realm of politics, is an action plan, a way of reacting to the current situation. In politics, it is an identification of what the problems are, and what needs to be done to solve them.

If you simply reduce ideology to being a "numbers game", then you must believe that one ideology is as good as another in terms of practice and application?

The reasons that 'numbers' become necesarry, is because an action plan is only as good as the forces available to implement it.

[Dimentio]

Ideology, in the realm of politics, is an action plan, a way of reacting to the current situation. In politics, it is an identification of what the problems are, and what needs to be done to solve them.

If you simply reduce ideology to being a "numbers game", then you must believe that one ideology is as good as another in terms of practice and application?

The reasons that 'numbers' become necesarry, is because an action plan is only as good as the forces available to implement it.

I simply think there is no need to mystify ideology. I view it as a product of the society around it and its contradictions, like the tail of a dog. That means that when an ideology is applied on society, its performance and its very consistence will be changed in accordance to the ground realities of the society its emerging in.

Ideologies with no basis in any economic or political interests would be small until they either develop themselves or society evolves into a state where their ideas suddenly are needed or at least are appealing to broad segments of the population or at least one social class.

Ultimately, society is like water, and all attempts to have a "one-size-fits-all-unshakeable-rock-ideology" would either lead to failure and the abolishment of the state ideology, or into the slowing down of the social development of society into a snail pace.

Ultimately, ideology in the western world today is more like a mean to easily address concerns of a segment of the population which a party or a movement is attempting to attract and to present it in a nice-looking package, than anything escatological.

Your ideology is the product of what you are seeing around you, about your mental capabilities to filter the information and your experiences, your education, your background and your class. I sincerely doubt that every hoxhaist is having the same exact interpretation of what hoxhaism is in their hearts and minds.

I must admit I was a bit dissappointed with the latest entry in The Red Phoenix. It doesn't explain what marxism is as much as elevating marxism to the skies as some sort of revolutionising new world religion.

[scarletghoul]

He was a Maoist on a visit to China, was recommending Chomsky at a UN speech a few years ago, and apparently the whole basis of the PSUV's 'Bolivarian' socialism, are the ideas of land-owning bourgeois democrat Simon Bolivar (who was responsible for dismantling indegenous modes of collective property ownership,), Che Guevera, and Jesus Christ, plus a lot of vague rhetoric about 'socialism from below', blah blah blah.
Ohh god forbid some acknowledge political influences from someone other than Marx Engels Lenin Stalin Hoxha :rolleyes: I forgot how you guys see all history and ideas as a collection of a few pure and correct people vs impure counterrevolutionaries..

For these reasons, Chavez (and the Nepalese Maoists, for that matter,) sees an unwaivering base of support over-seas, so long as he drops the right names, and praises Leon.yeah because everyone know trotskyists are the most reliable international support to have, how calculated of him.. srsly, if he wanted to pretend to be something he's not in order to get international support it would be more profitable to say he is a capitalist, dengist, etc

[Dimentio]

Its obvious that Guevara, Jesus and Bólivar all are mutually exclusive. But its possible to mixture the popular image of those three and gain enormous support, at least in a Latin American context.

Most historical characters who have inspired millions of human beings - the so-called national heroes - have in the real world, if they have existed, been clearly evident psychopaths, often with delusions of grandeur.

That Jesus if he had lived today would have been considered somewhat of a schizophrenic and that Muhammed would have been considered a terrorist is not important.

The important thing is that the idea of those individuals have gained an own life outside of what they actually were, and that people are attaching their own values to those individuals.

And I prefer that instead of a personality cult around Chàvez.

[NecroCommie]

He says "permanent revolution" as if marxist-leninist theory would have abandoned internationalism.

As an offtopic notion, has anyone ever noticed that for some people trotskyism seems to be just a cheap way of saying: "Yeah I'm a communist, but because I don't like Stalin it's OK" Not saying that Chavez or anyone on this forum would be so naive, but as a general observation on certain individuals.

[scarletghoul]

As an offtopic notion, has anyone ever noticed that for some people trotskyism seems to be just a cheap way of saying: "Yeah I'm a communist, but because I don't like Stalin it's OK" Not saying that Chavez or anyone on this forum would be so naive, but as a general observation on certain individuals.Yes totally. They don't like the awkwardness of having to explain their support for the official bad guys. In fact the 'third campists' even do away with Trotsky's idea of 'degenerated workers state' so that they can not only disown Stalin, but the whole of the USSR as 'state capitalist'. They can therefore do the ultraleftist "yeah im communist but the ussr wasnt communism i dont like it therefore im pure" thing. Trotsky of course regarded the USSR as a workers' state to be defended, but many of these third camp types can't take that and want to shed all the genuinely socialist content of trotsky, keeping only the hollow opportunist shell, the only thing they really like about trotsky being that he was 'not stalin'

[Crux]

Not that I am saying anyone on this website is doing that but I think many people, especially western student types, claim to support the stalinist ideology to be contrarian and edgy. Of course the nazbols take it even further. See what i did there?

[Prairie Fire]

Okay, most of the replies that I have received have revolved around rejecting all encompassing ideologies(generously interspersed with 2-dimensional characterizations of Marxist-Leninists).

My thoughts on this:

1. Any exceptionalism in material conditions on a country to country basis is very limited; Capitalism is capitalism.

Venezuela is not on another planet. It is a capitalist country, and therefore it operates with the same mechanisms as any other capitalist country.

While the particularities are different ( level of development of productive forces, class composition of society,wether or not they are an imperialist country or on the recieving end of imperialism, etc), the over-all system is the same.

I've been to Venezuela. I've seen what there is to see. I haven't seen anything there that gave me the impression that Venezuela was a "special case", and that all of the theory and practice of scientific socialism to this day was invalidated by their remarkable exceptionalism.

No one is suggesting that the Venezuelans be dogmatic in their application (let alone venerate certain persynalities,), but at the same time those that are applauding and encouraging ecclecticism are the ones who are actually being the least materialist.

The thing to understand about Marxism is that it is not the whimsical musings of an old man; it is a scientific analysis of the mechanisms of a capitalist society, how they function, and what must be done definatively to turn this situation around and keep it from coming back.

Marxism is not based on how things should be; it is based on how things are.

For this reason, the dialectical materialist method of analysis and scientific socialism is applicable to every class society on the planet Earth.

This is not dogma, or rigid mechanical approaches; this is a fact, based on the analysis that every capitalist society has the same mechanisms and foundations.

To say that it is even possible for Venezuela to pick little bits of theory from here and there, take "Good ideas" from various sources, is a complete rejection of materialism, because you are placing Venezuelas path to development in the realm of whim.

If you think that it is feasible for Venezuela to "pick and choose" bits of theory, you are also saying that it is possible for Venezuela to pick and choose what their empirical reality surrounding them is.

Venezuela is a capitalist society. They are divided along the exact same modes of exploitation as the rest of the planet Earth in the 21st century, they are tied into the global system of capitalism that permeats all countries...

While their particular national situation will determine tactics and problems in immediate need of resolutions, ultimately in order to truly escape the clutches of capitalism, they will need to follow the general blueprint that has won victories against capitalism.

"Venezuelan" capitalism is not that Venezuelan. I ate at McDonalds in Caracas, so it is not exactly another dimension subject to it's own unique laws, allright (especially in the age of globalization)?

2. Your characterizations of Marxist-Leninsists are hackneyed and cartoony.

I'm really getting sick of the inevitable huffy responses everytime that we criticize "I'm okay, you're okay" Kasama bullshit that keeps popping up on revleft.

Every time, the response is always along the lines of " You're just dissing him because he doesn't worship Stalin/Hoxha!"

:rolleyes:

The issue is that some methods yield fruit, and others don't.

We don't care wether or not Chavez/the PSUV exhalt persynalities. I've said it before, that we wouldn't care about Marx, Engels,Lenin,Stalin and Enver Hoxha if they didn't take the political stances and make the theoretical analysis that they did.

It's a matter of politics, and it is a matter of what is definatively going to turn the situation around.

Chavez refuses to abolish private property in land ownership, seize all of the means of production, and completely expropriate and scatter the propertied classes in Venezuela. Because he has taken none of these measures, the Venezuelan oligarchy is still present,powerful,organized,hostile,still able to hold the economy hostage and still continuing to bite Venezuela in the heel every step of the way.

How many more times does he need to be overthrown (the next one he may not come back from)?

How much longer is this tenuous calm before the storm going to last?

In the end, there can be only one class on top in a class society.

Either the exploiters or the exploited will triumph; it can't be both simultaneously, and victory for one comes at the expense of the other.

So, the question is whether or not the tactics being employed in Venezuela are what are needed, are what are going to build socialism, and what are going to cement the rule of the producers over the propertied parasites.

That is the issue. It isn't about aesthetics, terminology or stated allegiances, it is about what needs to be done in sharp contrast to what is being done.

Surely you don't find Socialism to be too dogmatic, do you?

[Kotze]

Any exceptionalism in material conditions on a country to country basis is very limited (...) I ate at McDonalds in Caracas That's a stunning analysis, but on the other hand petroleum constitutes 80% of Venezuela's exports.

[Prairie Fire]

(Câlice) I knew that people were going to jump on the McDonalds comment.

Okay, so 80% of Venezuelas exports are petroleum.... and?

Point?

[Dimentio]

Either the exploited or the exploiters or a new group of exploiters will be on the top.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

I also belive that he uses Simon Bolivar as a propaganda tool, but when it comes to what he might have ore might not have called himselfe isnt it veri likely that the Media (as usual) havnt quoted him right. Besides does all this matter wen you look on what has been achived during his time at the power, nationalization of the oil, workers and peasents-militias.

[Volcanicity]

The day Chavez starts recommending Hitler or glorifying the US is when we should be worrying,not when hes talking of Trotsky,Che Guevara,Mao or Jesus.

[NecroCommie]

Not that I am saying anyone on this website is doing that but I think many people, especially western student types, claim to support the stalinist ideology to be contrarian and edgy. Of course the nazbols take it even further. See what i did there?
I acknowledge this phenomenon completely, and absolutely judge those kinds of people. I see no problem with the actual serious marxist-leninist ideology however.

[Nolan]

No he isn't.

[manic expression]

He was a Maoist on a visit to China, was recommending Chomsky at a UN speech a few years ago, and apparently the whole basis of the PSUV's 'Bolivarian' socialism, are the ideas of land-owning bourgeois democrat Simon Bolivar (who was responsible for dismantling indegenous modes of collective property ownership,), Che Guevera, and Jesus Christ, plus a lot of vague rhetoric about 'socialism from below', blah blah blah.
Stalin signed off on the Abraham Lincoln and George Washington Brigades. Stalin also appealed to the legacy of Alexander Nevsky during WWII. There's nothing contradictory about being a revolutionary and upholding the contributions of non-communists to the march of progress.

[Saorsa]

I'm really getting sick of the inevitable huffy responses everytime that we criticize "I'm okay, you're okay" Kasama bullshit that keeps popping up on revleft.

Why are you obsessed with Kasama? And what defines 'Kasama bullshit' to you?

[Prairie Fire]

Note to people replying to my posts: If you are going to reply to one of my posts in a thread, you had better read all of them. I'm not saying that none of you have been doing this, but I am seeing tell-tale signs that many of you are not (when you ask me questions that I answered in a previous post). If you ignore my posts, I'll generally ignore yours.
-Prairie Fire



Stalin signed off on the Abraham Lincoln and George Washington Brigades. Stalin also appealed to the legacy of Alexander Nevsky during WWII. There's nothing contradictory about being a revolutionary and upholding the contributions of non-communists to the march of progress.


But, did Stalin ever claim to be a 'Nevskyist'? Did they try and somehow work the historical persynality of Alexander Nevsky into the framework of policy direction in the USSR?

As you probably also know, revolutionary Albania had a fondness for Skanderbeg; But did they declare that Skanderbeg was the theoretical and political basis for the revolutionary construction that took place in Albania?

Signing off on an international brigade who's name happened to be based on bourgeois revolutionaries/statesmen ( As most of them were; Canada's international brigade was called "Mackenzie-Papineau" after the leaders of failed bourgeois revolutions in upper and lower Canada) is not the same thing as claiming that these same historical figures are guiding your policy directions.

I'm not hating on the PSUV for upholding non-communist figures; most communist parties do. In my country, Louis Riel is upheld by both major communist parties. Even though Riel was a bourgeois revolutionary, a member( supporter?) of the American Republican party at one point, and a religious zealot that would make America's John Brown look athiestic in comparrison, we do recognize and uphold Riel for the historical role that he played.

That said, niether one of these same two communist parties claims to base any of thier policy direction on Louis Riel.

Do you understand the difference?

Among the Marx and Lenin on my bookshelf, you will also find Ward Churchill, Tim wise, Malcolm X, Ronald Wright, Michael Moore, Louis Riel, Frederick Douglas, Anna Baltzer, Splitting the Sky, etc, etc. (Generally I uphold Non-Marxists who take stands that any Marxist would take anyways, so there really is nothing ecclectic about it.)

I uphold all of these figures for what they are. That said, I realistically can only uphold them so far, precisely because of what they are.

It is one thing to uphold non-communists of progressive and revolutionary persuasions; it is another to recoginze that, because they are not communist,ultimately none of them have the solution.

When reading works on racism by Tim Wise and Ward Churchill, you can see that they can see what the problems are, but have very little idea how to solve them.

Malcolm X, although he occasionally dropped vague anti-capitalist rhetoric, generally saw Islam as the solution to humynkind, after being inspired by seeing the solidarity that he saw in Mecca on the Hajj. If he had lived a little longer, perhaps he would have got to see the disparity between the goat herders of Afghanistan, and the Saudi Prince's living on oil that others extract from the Earth.

Even if my people had established a soveriegn state at Red River in 1869, had established independence and self determination for all of the people of the plains, that would have been preferable for many than annexation into Canada, but ultimately would have developed into another class society. Most of Reils cabinet in the Metis provisional government where the propertied and buisness owners.

You see the difference?

If Chavez had kept it real with Bolivar, it would be a different story. If he had simply said that Bolivar was a national liberation fighter who won independence from Spain, and had some ideas about Uniting Latin America, that would have been fine.

Instead, he declared the "Bolivarian Revolution" (perhaps depriving Venezuela of an actual revolution in the process,), and now claims to be basing their state policies on the persynality of a bourgeois democrat from their past independence struggle.

Luckily, generally they do things that are the exact opposite of what Bolivar did (in his name, no less,), but you can see how some of the influence of a bourgeois democrat on their political process is blocking them, notably the opposition to abolition of private property and class society.

Tell me that you understand the difference.


Why are you obsessed with Kasama? And what defines 'Kasama bullshit' to you?

"Frustrated" is a better word than "obsessed". What I am frustrated with, is the general proliferation of Liberal ecclecticism (On revleft, and in the real world).
Kasama is simply the best known example of this.

[manic expression]

Prairie Fire, first of all, I appreciate the thoughtful response. Let me start by saying there's a distinct difference here, because the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela is ongoing and an uneven one (very much unlike a vanguard party already in power in 1941 USSR). Expecting ideological uniformity is unrealistic and counterproductive to the cause of the working class. Communists need to work with various elements, even if they're not communists. Further, the most progressive and visionary goals of Bolivar were never fulfilled, so I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to use that as a starting point in some ways.

On the other hand, I admit I'm not sure I see how big a difference it is between using Nevsky or George Washington as inspirational figures and using Bolivar as a uniting figure for the various elements of the ongoing revolution in Venezuela. Stalin saw that a uniting figure was needed in the Great Patriotic War, and I think the party chose a suitable one (along with others, most notably Lenin). In the same vein, I think Chavez and more importantly the masses of Venezuela have chosen a suitable figure of inspiration in Bolivar.

And I think your point about the Bolivarian Revolution going in opposite ways from Bolivar's policies is an important one, because it shows that Bolivar isn't setting the platform. I agree that elements of the Bolivarian Revolution are limiting it...no doubt about that, actually. But, as we learn from Marx and Lenin, revolutions demand the utmost flexibility.

[Prairie Fire]

Expecting ideological uniformity is unrealistic and counterproductive to the cause of the working class. Communists need to work with various elements, even if they're not communists.


Can you expect ideological uniformity of the working class and their allies? No, never.

But can you expect ideological uniformity in the policies of the vanguard party?

Should the ideological basis of the political leadership of any revolution be all over the place?

Now, admittedly, I don't think that the PSUV is the Vanguard of the Venezuelan working class, so I can't really criticize them for having an inconsistent, incoherent basis of unity.

That said, I'm not really sure which political force is. The Venezuelan PCV has a very nice ... rooster, but they are even worse than the PSUV in regards to their presentation of Bolivar. The PSUV presents Bolivar as "socialist"; the PCV ,while I was down there, painted murals of the busts of the founders of Marxism-Leninism, and Bolivar was featured as the last of them, right beside Lenin. :rolleyes:

The point that I was trying to make was not that any struggle for socialist emancipation should discount revolutionary nationalists and other forces that become politicized in a revolutionary situation.

My point is that the political leadership of a true working class political party can not be taking their lead from bourgeois sources, because ultimately this is going to rot them from the inside like a worm in an apple.

While the Soviets and Albanians upheld past historical figures who made progressive achievements, they didn't take policy direction from them.

The Venezuelans have taken a couple of pages out of Bolivars playbook, to their detriment.

The PSUV has refused to truly abolish private ownership of land and the means of production ( they have nationalized a work place here and there, but I have yet to see an official national policy come out of this,), or truly liquidate their national bourgeoisie and expropriate the property of foriegn exploiters.

To be fair, I can't blame Bolivar completely for this; Bourgeois politicians will act like bourgeois politicians , historical influences not with-standing. I'm just saying, that Bolivar's influence certainly isn't helping in this regard.

In the case of a foriegn invasion (like the Soviet Union and Albania found themselves in, during WWII), maybe the Bolivar comparisson would be fitting (as it was for the USSR, drawing the comparrison between the Wermacht and the Golden Horde). In terms of a class war, of a social program for Venezuela, what positive contributions does Bolivar bring to the table?

The class forces and ideological composition of any given revolutionary situation are going to be a mixed bag, and I've spoken about this many times before. However, in order for any given situation to result in socialism, a staunchly working class political outlook must be taken. Historical bourgeois revolutionaries and folk heros can be given their dues, but upon inspection, they really have very little to contribute to a contemporary class struggle.

[∞]

why complain about the guy guy who is trying to help the poor?
Ok hes deluded but shit...