Venezuela; Moving towards Soviet system?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

According to the text of the law of Venezuela, communal councils will “represent the means through which the organised masses can take over the direct administration of policies and projects that are created in response to the needs and aspirations of the communities, in the construction of a fair and just society”

In 2006 Venezuela had 4,000 communal councils, "By March 2007, 19,500 Communal Council’s had been formed and the goal of 30,000 has been set for the end of (2007) . . . The budget for financing projects is $5 billion for 2007. Communal Council’s are given $14,000 each to finance their initial projects."

30,000 community councils that were formed in 2007 cover 70% of the population. It is estimated that another 10,000 community councils have been established since, and that these currently cover over 90% of the population of Venezuela.

The Chavez government has on top of these developments, plans and preparations to developing a "guerrilla" people's army with 1 Million members ready by 2013. While Venezuela has 70% of its GDP in the private sector (compared to 50% in the EU countries), the new party program of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela has cited Antonio Gramsci in "the old must die so that the new can live" while Chavez leads the polls by 10 points ahead of the elections on October 7th.

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[Grenzer]

How could Venezuela be moving towards the Soviet system? This makes no sense. It would be extremely unfavorable to the Venezuelan bourgeoisie to self-liquidate. Venezuela is just an ordinary social-democratic state.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

When the Venezuelan workers abolish the Venezuelan bourgeoisie as a class and take power for themselves, let me know.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

How could Venezuela be moving towards the Soviet system? This makes no sense. It would be extremely unfavorable to the Venezuelan bourgeoisie to self-liquidate. Venezuela is just an ordinary social-democratic state.

I disagree that it is an "ordinary" Social-Democratic State. If Chavez wins this election, there is a a very large chance that there will be a global economic crisis under his term within the next five years (making nationalisation of a significantly larger part of the economy likely/logical). There are increasingly urban militia groups taking over police duties while the Police department is about to be "reformed" while the army officials have been replaced after the coup, and having a standing guerrilla army of 1 Million soldiers with the next 12 months is no small thing in my opinion.

I do not of course agree with Hugo Chavez's reformist politics, but you cannot deny that this Venezuela now (and the one that is forming; where the neo-liberal opposition is forced by these developments to act as if it wants to give more money to the communal councils) is significantly different than the "Populist 'Socialist'" Venezuela of 2002-2006 or even last year which gave a few social programs and extended human rights to the poor.

[Grenzer]

I disagree that it is an "ordinary" Social-Democratic State. If Chavez wins this election, there is a a very large chance that there will be a global economic crisis under his term within the next five years (making nationalisation of a significantly larger part of the economy likely/logical). There are increasingly urban militia groups taking over police duties while the Police department is about to be "reformed" while the army officials have been replaced after the coup, and having a standing guerrilla army of 1 Million soldiers with the next 12 months is no small thing in my opinion.

I do not of course agree with Hugo Chavez's reformist politics, but you cannot deny that this Venezuela now (and the one that is forming; where the neo-liberal opposition is forced by these developments to act as if it wants to give more money to the communal councils) is significantly different than the "Populist 'Socialist'" Venezuela of 2002-2006 or even last year which gave a few social programs and extended human rights to the poor.

The problem is that there is absolutely no evidence there is going to be a major crisis in capitalism. The left has already been basing itself on crisis theory for the past six decades and it's completely destroyed our political agency. You cannot base a political strategy around vague and unreliable predictions. Furthermore, crisis does not mean that the proletariat will turn to revolution. You first have to have a viable proletarian political alternative.

Also, Venezuela is an ordinary social-democratic state. For some reason I'm not surprised that you are actually trying to argue that a bourgeois state would deliberately liquidate capitalism and private ownership willingly. Such a position is so absurd that it does not really warrant a serious response.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

the problem is that there is absolutely no evidence there is going to be a major crisis in capitalism. The left has already been basing itself on crisis theory for the past six decades and it's completely destroyed our political agency. You cannot base a political strategy around vague and unreliable predictions. Furthermore, crisis does not mean that the proletariat will turn to revolution. You first have to have a viable proletarian political alternative.

Also, venezuela is an ordinary social-democratic state. For some reason i'm not surprised that you are actually trying to argue that a bourgeois state would deliberately liquidate capitalism and private ownership willingly. Such a position is so absurd that it does not really warrant a serious response.

lol.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Ok, I'm not going to go into the reasons why a capitalist crisis is necessitated because there is ample evidence on it and enough has been written about that.

You say
Venezuela is an ordinary social-democratic state. For some reason I'm not surprised that you are actually trying to argue that a bourgeois state would deliberately liquidate capitalism and private ownership willingly

do you know what "the State" is? It is the armed body of men. If you have not been following the events in Venezuela, i can tell you that the former bourgeois officers have been replaced with ones loyal to the "USPV". I am not claiming that the "revolutionary wing" or actual communists is strong within the USPV, but the thing that has been constantly happening in Venezuela is precisely what Allende failed to do, he never purged anticommunist Officers like Pinochet. I am pointing out that it seems to me (thousands of miles away) that since the police have been replaced by local militias in many urban areas, the army reformed after the coup, and now the guerrilla army formed; this change of the former reactionary state under the rhetoric of "Socialism" is certainly an interesting development.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Btw. Ghost Bebel, if you think that with "Soviet system" i was implying "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" you would be wrong, i was not so much focused on the question of the State rather than decision making system; with "Soviet system" i was meaning the council system which is very large in Venezuela. In retrospect, i of course do not think that the USPV will ever turn Venezuela into a one-party-socialist workers state. But it is a very interesting development.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Councils are compatible with bourgeois rule, as demonstrated by the Swiss system and especially the American town hall meeting, and in fact are bourgeois constructs themselves: http://www.revleft.com/vb/ad-hoc-popular-t174039/index.html

The better question is the potential for a Third World Caesarean Socialist political and social overhaul in Venezuela, which is long overdue.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Councils are compatible with bourgeois rule, as demonstrated by the Swiss system and especially the American town hall meeting, and in fact are bourgeois constructs themselves: http://www.revleft.com/vb/ad-hoc-popular-t174039/index.html

The better question is the potential for a Third World Caesarean Socialist political and social overhaul in Venezuela, which is long overdue.

I wanted to change it to "council" system before for that reason.

[Raúl Duke]

Hmm...
while Venezuela is seemingly undergoing interesting political changes...
one shouldn't have their hopes up, after all all these changes are occuring under a bourgeois state.
Perhaps it's via radical posturing and social-democratic reforms that the Venezuelan state aims to survive the current world-wide economic crisis and continue.
(meanwhile, in the first world, the preference is towards austerity and use of force in case of upheaval, while also heavy "propaganda," etc, as a means to stay in power.)
After all, these 'soviets' weren't created during a revolutionary time and/or "organically"/via grassroots it seems so I'm skeptical.

nevertheless, I advise people keep an eye on political/etc developments in Venezuela...

[Yuppie Grinder]

Councils are compatible with bourgeois rule, as demonstrated by the Swiss system and especially the American town hall meeting, and in fact are bourgeois constructs themselves: http://www.revleft.com/vb/ad-hoc-popular-t174039/index.html

The better question is the potential for a Third World Caesarean Socialist political and social overhaul in Venezuela, which is long overdue.

Obviously the class character of town halls and soviets are different.

[The Jay]

How could Venezuela be moving towards the Soviet system? This makes no sense. It would be extremely unfavorable to the Venezuelan bourgeoisie to self-liquidate. Venezuela is just an ordinary social-democratic state.

That isn't quite right. It is heading in a few directions but hasn't shown which way it will net towards in the long run. There has been some transfer of power towards community councils and some nationalized businesses have been turned into workers' cooperatives. This does in fact indicate a push towards a council system. There are examples of other trends, like I said, but let us call a spade a spade.

[Raúl Duke]

That isn't quite right. It is heading in a few directions but hasn't shown which way it will net towards in the long one. There has been some transfer of power towards community councils and some nationalized businesses have been turned into workers' cooperatives. This does in fact indicate a push towards a council system. There are examples of other trends, like I said, but let us call a spade a spade.

good observation

although the question remains, are these co-ops independent or does the state have some connection/role with them that may abrogate independence?

I personally feel it's just an experiment in which the social-democratic Chavista state can maintain power at this point of time and whether through the global economic crisis.

[The Jay]

That may be true. I tried to look into the autonomous nature - or lack thereof - of the workers' coops but I'm not done researching. I suspect that there will be a mix of autonomous enterprises and ones in which the government appoints part of the board of directors. Either way, giving the people a taste of this kind of thing is a good way to make them want to take it, if you catch my drift.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

That isn't quite right. It is heading in a few directions but hasn't shown which way it will net towards in the long run. There has been some transfer of power towards community councils and some nationalized businesses have been turned into workers' cooperatives. This does in fact indicate a push towards a council system. There are examples of other trends, like I said, but let us call a spade a spade.

The thing is, that Venezuela has its public sector control a mere 30% of the economy, so that leaves capital with a lot of resources to corrupt politicians and the party itself. But the interesting thing is that about a third of public spending is now going through direct democratic worker councils where the bourgeoisie have no say, where the money is being used to finance projects in working class areas. Changing the public sector of Venezuela from a state capitalist one to working class controlled institutions like this is imo worth sharing on revleft...

[Raúl Duke]

Whatever the case, this development towards worker co-ops is interesting and should be followed to see what the end-result may be.

In a personal level, I agree with Goldstein, those co-ops may give workers a "taste of self-management" and while imperfect/not revolutionary per se in and of themselves might provide the kind of consciousness-altering experience which would make them desire maintaining control and maybe even demanding more control and perhaps even power (against the rest of society, the capitalist economics/state control.

[Le Socialiste]

The problem is that there is absolutely no evidence there is going to be a major crisis in capitalism.

Historical precedence(s) would suggest otherwise. The very infrastructure of private capital, the methods by which it is produced and extracted, renders it irrefutably prone to crises. It may be manifested via an increasingly volatile ecological situation, the anarchic fluctuations of the market, overproduction, inter imperialist conflict, or any combination of the above. This doesn't even take into account the sociohistorical role of those antagonisms inherent in the relationship between the reigning class and subordinated labor. Capitalism produces crisis - to even assert otherwise is ridiculous given our current global predicament.


The left has already been basing itself on crisis theory for the past six decades and it's completely destroyed our political agency.

You really think crisis theory's to blame? Whew, and all this time I thought it was because of the left's degeneracy into petty dogmatism and sectarian-fueled rigidity. Today's left is all too willing to engage in adventurist tactics that are often unsuitable given the present climate; a lack of theoretical and organizational maturity is partly to blame, compounded by a profound misunderstanding of history and what it means in relation to the present day. It also doesn't help when socialists are all too willing to argue - with total certainty and lacking clear evidence - that capitalism is beyond major crises, if not crises in their entirety. Crisis theory remains an important analytical tool - though to assert that the left's "political agency"(?) has been destroyed by staking its credibility on it is odd.


You cannot base a political strategy around vague and unreliable predictions. Furthermore, crisis does not mean that the proletariat will turn to revolution. You first have to have a viable proletarian political alternative.

Certainly, that's why the bulk of our role is based in analysis - not predictions of what might be. We must be capable of merging analytical theory with action, a reciprocal relationship based on continuous overlap and exchange. Sometimes one must make connections that are regrettably vague given the hand that's dealt them. However, we must always work to base these in the concrete if possible (and it often is).

Your last point isn't entirely correct either. One could certainly venture to say that there were no viable political alternatives confronting the working-class in the midst of the Arab Spring, yet it entered into an upheaval against the existing infrastructure, pushing it without significantly altering it. Was there an alternative evident at the time? Most certainly. Was it immediately attainable? Given the condition of the proletariat, no. It must learn through trial and tribulation, through experience, in order for a viable alternative to become not only evident to the mass consciousness of the proletariat, but within reach given its readiness and experience as a class. Workers come to understand this through their relationship to capital and the inherent fluctuations of the market, albeit beginning at a crude developmental level.

[maskerade]

I am continuously disappointed in the analysis of Venezuela on these forums. A lot of posters continuously fall into the trap of solely looking at Hugo Chavez without taking into consideration the movement upon which his support is founded. First of all, Hugo Chavez, for all his faults, is trying to shift the state apparatus away from the capitalist class. You can't deny this; if he wasn't, why would there be such violent opposition to him from both the domestic and international bourgeoisie? But let's be serious now, can one man really accomplish this? of course not, and the fact that some users criticize Hugo Chavez with a great-man of history fallacy and then criticize that very same fallacy in other debates shows a disturbing lack of critical thinking.

There is a large and vibrant social movement that has been formed in the discursive and social space that has opened up thanks to Chavez's initial election. This movement has continuously challenged the state and swung it more and more to the left. Yet the Chavista ideology isn't dictated by the state, nor is it the pure articulation of the movement's demands. Rather, it is formed by a continuous exchange between the state and the movement. The state's role under Chavez has been to articulate and institutionalize certain demands that the movement proposes, and the movement's role thus becomes to continuously challenge and radicalize the state.

I think there is some implicit arrogance in a lot of these challenges to Chavez here on revleft. How does a socialist society come about? We pretend we know the answers to questions like this but we don't. We need to stop daydreaming about Bolsheviks and bayonets and realize that what is happening in Venezuela is much more complicated than 'oh Chavez is just a social democrat' and 'it is still a capitalist economy'. If he had tried to nationalize everything, do you think he'd still be alive? Do you think the rest of the world would look on and say 'oh let them have their little experiment' or do you think they'd send in the tanks and fuck shit up?

[Tim Cornelis]

The better question is the potential for a Third World Caesarean Socialist political and social overhaul in Venezuela, which is long overdue.

You actually believe in this nonsense? It's so unbelievably ridiculous, not to mention inhumane, as well as a chimera that will never find practical fruition in the real world. It is, of course, additionally in complete contrast with the emancipation of the proletariat by the proletariat. But who cares, as long as you can have some abstract intellectual masturbation with no practical value whatsoever!

[l'Enfermé]

I am continuously disappointed in the analysis of Venezuela on these forums. A lot of posters continuously fall into the trap of solely looking at Hugo Chavez without taking into consideration the movement upon which his support is founded. First of all, Hugo Chavez, for all his faults, is trying to shift the state apparatus away from the capitalist class. You can't deny this; if he wasn't, why would there be such violent opposition to him from both the domestic and international bourgeoisie? But let's be serious now, can one man really accomplish this? of course not, and the fact that some users criticize Hugo Chavez with a great-man of history fallacy and then criticize that very same fallacy in other debates shows a disturbing lack of critical thinking.

There is a large and vibrant social movement that has been formed in the discursive and social space that has opened up thanks to Chavez's initial election. This movement has continuously challenged the state and swung it more and more to the left. Yet the Chavista ideology isn't dictated by the state, nor is it the pure articulation of the movement's demands. Rather, it is formed by a continuous exchange between the state and the movement. The state's role under Chavez has been to articulate and institutionalize certain demands that the movement proposes, and the movement's role thus becomes to continuously challenge and radicalize the state.

I think there is some implicit arrogance in a lot of these challenges to Chavez here on revleft. How does a socialist society come about? We pretend we know the answers to questions like this but we don't. We need to stop daydreaming about Bolsheviks and bayonets and realize that what is happening in Venezuela is much more complicated than 'oh Chavez is just a social democrat' and 'it is still a capitalist economy'. If he had tried to nationalize everything, do you think he'd still be alive? Do you think the rest of the world would look on and say 'oh let them have their little experiment' or do you think they'd send in the tanks and fuck shit up?
This comrade has it right. :thumbup1:

And Tim, please, enough with this hysterical anarchist crap...

[Tim Cornelis]

This comrade has it right. :thumbup1:

And Tim, please, enough with this hysterical anarchist crap...

How 'bout enough with this avowedly anti-socialist nonsense?
Or how about enough with this infantile Age-of-Empirization of human relations?

[Die Neue Zeit]

That may be true. I tried to look into the autonomous nature - or lack thereof - of the workers' coops but I'm not done researching. I suspect that there will be a mix of autonomous enterprises and ones in which the government appoints part of the board of directors. Either way, giving the people a taste of this kind of thing is a good way to make them want to take it, if you catch my drift.

Co-management is a better model than "workers control," though. :confused:


You actually believe in this nonsense? It's so unbelievably ridiculous, not to mention inhumane, as well as a chimera that will never find practical fruition in the real world. It is, of course, additionally in complete contrast with the emancipation of the proletariat by the proletariat. But who cares, as long as you can have some abstract intellectual masturbation with no practical value whatsoever!

I suppose you're just all for the bourgeois two-stages crap in any of its variants, then. Either that, or a scenario where the working class butts heads with a larger peasantry.

[Raúl Duke]

Co-management is a better model than "workers control," though.

What you mean, DNZ?

[Tim Cornelis]

Co-management is a better model than "workers control," though. :confused:

So you're just going to drop the pretense of socialism altogether and advocate class collaboration between workers and capitalists?


I suppose you're just all for the bourgeois two-stages crap in any of its variants, then. Either that, or a scenario where the working class butts heads with a larger peasantry.

I'd rather have a liberal democracy as a necessity than your bizarre totalitarian nightmare, yes. But are you saying that your theory is not a two-stage theory?

On top of that only 13% of Venezuela works in agriculture—the majority presumably for a landowner (i.e. they are workers), the rest works in industry or service. Additionally, peasants and proletarian are by no means by definition opposed and therefore "head butting" between the two is no inevitability.

The Zapatista peasants are more revolutionary than many industrial workers and there is no reason to assume that proletarians and peasants are diametrically opposed by class nature.

[Die Neue Zeit]

So you're just going to drop the pretense of socialism altogether and advocate class collaboration between workers and capitalists?

Individual private capitalists nor the private capitalists as a class don't figure into the co-management model in Venezuela. :rolleyes:


I'd rather have a liberal democracy as a necessity than your bizarre totalitarian nightmare, yes.

It's not a totalitarian model at all. :confused:

However, at least you've admitted your sympathies towards bourgeois liberalism. For folks like you, the sensational word "authoritarian" is certainly more appropriate.


But are you saying that your theory is not a two-stage theory?

"Bourgeois" was used as an adjective to describe various kinds of two-stage positions. TWCS is two-stage, but not bourgeois.


On top of that only 13% of Venezuela works in agriculture—the majority presumably for a landowner (i.e. they are workers)

Sharecroppers and small tenant farmers aren't farm workers!


Additionally, peasants and proletarian are by no means by definition opposed and therefore "head butting" between the two is no inevitability.

Check out this article: http://www.revleft.com/vb/trotskys-permanent-revolution-t149111/index.html

And this video by an ex-Trot comrade: http://vimeo.com/14808875


The Zapatista peasants are more revolutionary than many industrial workers and there is no reason to assume that proletarians and peasants are diametrically opposed by class nature.

To which I respond with a quote from the video:

It's true that the peasantry is forced to decide between the fundamental classes. But it's not true that, because the peasantry is forced to decide between the fundamental classes, it cannot find political representation or act in support of autonomous peasant goals, that is to say, patriarchalism, the setting up of an absolute ruler, a cult of personality whether it's of Lenin or Saddam Hussein or Robert Mugabe.

[The Jay]

Co-management is a better model than "workers control," though. :confused:

No, but it is better than the standard corporate model. I would rather work in a german corporation than an american one. I would rather work in a workers' cooperative than a german corporation. I said that co-management with the state is better than bureaucratic state-based management, not that such was the goal.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

No, but it is better than the standard corporate model. I would rather work in a german corporation than an american one. I would rather work in a workers' cooperative than a german corporation. I said that co-management with the state is better than bureaucratic state-based management, not that such was the goal.

Sure a workers cooperative would be more "fun" to work in, but before fun-time communism comes the struggle for annihilation of the class enemy and building of a functioning and stable socialist society. What is meant here with DNZ's tricky vocabulary is simply that in the transition to our fun cooperative world, there will be struggles of different stakeholders (The Revolutionaries, the Consumers, the Workers etc.).

[The Jay]

You don't know that there are plenty of workers' cooperatives existing already do you?

[Crux]

The better question is the potential for a Third World Caesarean Socialist political and social overhaul in Venezuela, which is long overdue.
Is it really? Because to me that sounds like your usual reformist and fantasist nonsense. I mean, are you sure the present situation in Venezuela isn't more interesting than your peculiar brain childs and abuse of terminology?

[Die Neue Zeit]

No, but it is better than the standard corporate model. I would rather work in a german corporation than an american one. I would rather work in a workers' cooperative than a german corporation. I said that co-management with the state is better than bureaucratic state-based management, not that such was the goal.

Co-management isn't the same as co-determination, though. :confused:

All this Venezuelan policy is, really, is an acknowledgement that broader state involvement is necessary as a party to the management of state enterprises, as opposed to just having "red directors." Just like parochial "workers control" ending up producing only for immediate employees' interests, the "red director" managers might be looking out only for the financial positions of their immediate enterprises (and their own personal compensation), so state involvement from outside the enterprise representing the broader society and aggregate demand is seen as necessary.


Sure a workers cooperative would be more "fun" to work in, but before fun-time communism comes the struggle for annihilation of the class enemy and building of a functioning and stable socialist society. What is meant here with DNZ's tricky vocabulary is simply that in the transition to our fun cooperative world, there will be struggles of different stakeholders (The Revolutionaries, the Consumers, the Workers etc.).

As you already know, I don't agree with having just a single third party in the form of outside state representatives. However, someone or a group of individuals has to represent consumer interests if the consumer "market discipline" regarding supply and demand is cast aside. Other means of dis-incentivizing parochial employees and managers looking to cook the books need to exist. By the way, it should read "The Activists" and not "The Revolutionaries."

[The Jay]

Co-management isn't the same as co-determination, though. :confused:

All this Venezuelan policy is, really, is an acknowledgement that broader state involvement is necessary as a party to the management of state enterprises, as opposed to just having "red directors." Just like parochial "workers control" ending up producing only for immediate employees' interests, the "red director" managers might be looking out only for the financial positions of their immediate enterprises (and their own personal compensation), so state involvement from outside the enterprise representing the broader society and aggregate demand is seen as necessary.


Stop trying to misrepresent me, it doesn't look good on you. I don't see the direct relevance to what I was saying. All that is only tangential or conjecture.

If you have a criticism for workers' cooperatives within a market, great I do too. Make a thread about it.

If you have a problem with central planning, great I do too. Make a thread about it.

What I would ask you not to do is to bring up these things as though I am opposed to reasonable criticisms that I hold myself.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I do know that workers coops exist, but if I'm not mistaken, they have co-management as well, since there is "State Aid" (Lassalle) provided to these. In exchange for this financial assistance, the state-as-regulator is represented at the co-management table.

[Tim Cornelis]

Individual private capitalists nor the private capitalists as a class don't figure into the co-management model in Venezuela. :rolleyes:

What?


It's not a totalitarian model at all. :confused:

However, at least you've admitted your sympathies towards bourgeois liberalism. For folks like you, the sensational word "authoritarian" is certainly more appropriate.

Fine, authoritarian then.


"Bourgeois" was used as an adjective to describe various kinds of two-stage positions. TWCS is two-stage, but not bourgeois.

You have class collaboration with the petite-bourgeois, but it's not a bourgeois theory.


Sharecroppers and small tenant farmers aren't farm workers!

So? Are you saying that only a country with no peasantry at all is not third world?

Venezuela has roughly the same size working class as any Western country.


Check out this article: http://www.revleft.com/vb/trotskys-permanent-revolution-t149111/index.html

And this video by an ex-Trot comrade: http://vimeo.com/14808875



To which I respond with a quote from the video:

It's true that the peasantry is forced to decide between the fundamental classes. But it's not true that, because the peasantry is forced to decide between the fundamental classes, it cannot find political representation or act in support of autonomous peasant goals, that is to say, patriarchalism, the setting up of an absolute ruler, a cult of personality whether it's of Lenin or Saddam Hussein or Robert Mugabe.

What evidence is there to show Lenin, Mugabe, or Hussein were representative of the peasantry?

Instead of advocating socialism, you advocate state-capitalism for the vast majority of the world population?

[Die Neue Zeit]

What?

You said that "co-management" was class collaboration between workers and capitalists. I countered with facts about the legal parties involved.


You have class collaboration with the petite-bourgeois, but it's not a bourgeois theory.

It is consistent with the democratic principle of equal suffrage, unlike Soviet worker-peasant voter relations before 1936. Beyond Jacobinism, however, it isn't universal because, as discussed above, it excludes the bourgeoisie.


So? Are you saying that only a country with no peasantry at all is not third world?

No. I am saying that only countries where urban and rural workers, including farm workers proper, are the demographic majority in country are not "Third World" countries.


Venezuela has roughly the same size working class as any Western country.

There's a lot of evidence that suggests otherwise. Don't count highly indebted "urban peasants" (http://www.revleft.com/vb/urban-peasantry-developing-t154763/index.html) or the sharecroppers and small tenant farmers as among the "proletariat."


What evidence is there to show Lenin, Mugabe, or Hussein were representative of the peasantry?

I didn't say that. What Macnair said (whom I quoted) is that peasant and rural petit-bourgeois interests in general include personality cults around the leader. This goes back to ancient history, to the beginning of agricultural civilization, when the central authority provided protection to farmers against marauders, shepherds, and foreign invaders.


Instead of advocating socialism, you advocate state-capitalism for the vast majority of the world population?

Getting past state capitalism is only appropriate for proletarian demographic majorities.

[The Jay]

I do know that workers coops exist, but if I'm not mistaken, they have co-management as well, since there is "State Aid" (Lassalle) provided to these. In exchange for this financial assistance, the state-as-regulator is represented at the co-management table.

That may be true for some of the coops where you live, but that is not the case for them where I live, nor Spain, nor Italy, nor Greece, nor Argentina. You are making assumptions that are not true. I have done a lot of research in this area, so I'm saying no, you do not know.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

What evidence is there to show Lenin, Mugabe, or Hussein were representative of the peasantry?



The fact that the peasantry represented the majority in those societies.

[Guayaco]

I am continuously disappointed in the analysis of Venezuela on these forums. A lot of posters continuously fall into the trap of solely looking at Hugo Chavez without taking into consideration the movement upon which his support is founded. First of all, Hugo Chavez, for all his faults, is trying to shift the state apparatus away from the capitalist class. You can't deny this; if he wasn't, why would there be such violent opposition to him from both the domestic and international bourgeoisie? But let's be serious now, can one man really accomplish this? of course not, and the fact that some users criticize Hugo Chavez with a great-man of history fallacy and then criticize that very same fallacy in other debates shows a disturbing lack of critical thinking.

There is a large and vibrant social movement that has been formed in the discursive and social space that has opened up thanks to Chavez's initial election. This movement has continuously challenged the state and swung it more and more to the left. Yet the Chavista ideology isn't dictated by the state, nor is it the pure articulation of the movement's demands. Rather, it is formed by a continuous exchange between the state and the movement. The state's role under Chavez has been to articulate and institutionalize certain demands that the movement proposes, and the movement's role thus becomes to continuously challenge and radicalize the state.

I think there is some implicit arrogance in a lot of these challenges to Chavez here on revleft. How does a socialist society come about? We pretend we know the answers to questions like this but we don't. We need to stop daydreaming about Bolsheviks and bayonets and realize that what is happening in Venezuela is much more complicated than 'oh Chavez is just a social democrat' and 'it is still a capitalist economy'. If he had tried to nationalize everything, do you think he'd still be alive? Do you think the rest of the world would look on and say 'oh let them have their little experiment' or do you think they'd send in the tanks and fuck shit up?

The existance of internal and international opposition to Chávez does not support your claim that Chávez is attempting to shift the state apparatus away from the capitalist class. After all, Noriega of Panama was arrested and Panama invaded simply because the former CIA asset was too independent for the master's liking.

Chávez came to power on a wave of public discontent with the two major parties Copey and AD. Chávez, in the early years in office, claimed that Tony Blair was his political idol and had a typical mild reformist program. The two established "puntofijista" parties, nevertheless, were furious that Chávez was using oil revenues to fund social programs that were undermining their clientelism/political machines (the lifeblood of Latin American politics). The prospect of their perpetual displacement/marginalization from the lucrative corruption of the Venezuelan State turned them murderously, rabidly anti-Chávez, culminating in the coup de etat and the "paro" oil company lockout. (Many people will kill and take great risks for easy money, particularly in Latin America).

It was only in response to the pressure from the above-mentioned elements that the impetus was created for Chávez to lean on the more radical sectors, using the imagery and rhetoric of revolution- and a large helping of clientelistic social programs- to mobilize a base of support. Since this was a pragmatic, tactical, and contingent policy, Chávez abandonded the progessive aspects of his program when the corrupt AD/COPEY mafia-party elements finally reconcilied themselves with the new order and their loss of future "earnings" from the incestuous insider contracts that derived from the oil rents.

[SEKT]

I think that if what is considered as "moving towards a soviet system" means a control of the working class of the economy and the State by means of the worker's councils then Venezuela is in a transitory stage where the main obstacle is the State and USPV bureaucrats.

While the working class does not control the fundamental branches of the economy and the state (even if the bureaucrats claim to control those branches in the name of the working class) then it cannot be characterized as "soviet system".

The main problem of Venezuela is that Chavez himself has tried to conserve a sort of equilibrium between the working class, the venezuelan bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy of the state and the party, the reformist measures he has taken have distorted the economy and unless nationalization under the working class control takes place then Venezuela would be in danger of a counterrevolutionary regression.

[thriller]

How could Venezuela be moving towards the Soviet system? This makes no sense. It would be extremely unfavorable to the Venezuelan bourgeoisie to self-liquidate. Venezuela is just an ordinary social-democratic state.

I think the OP means small "s" soviet, not Soviet like the former government of Russia. Reading from the OP's data, it looks and smells like council systems for running the economy. But I'd like to know how the councils are set up and organized. One could call a board of directors of a company a council, but that doesn't mean it's a genuine workers council that has taken control over the means of production.