President Hugo Chávez has died after a long battle with cancer

[B5C]

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez has died after a long battle with cancer, the government announced Tuesday, leaving behind a bitterly divided nation in the grip of a deepening political crisis that grew more acute as he languished for weeks, silent and out of sight in hospitals in Havana and Caracas.

His departure from a country he dominated for 14 years casts into doubt the future of his socialist revolution. It alters the political balance in Venezuela, the fourth-largest foreign oil supplier to the United States, and in Latin America, where Mr. Chávez led a group of nations intent on reducing American influence in the region.

Mr. Chávez changed Venezuela in fundamental ways, empowering and energizing millions of poor people who had felt marginalized and excluded.

But Mr. Chávez’s rule also widened society’s divisions. His death is sure to bring more changes and vast uncertainty as the nation tries to find its way without its central figure.

With the president’s death, the Constitution says that the nation should “proceed to a new election” within 30 days, and that the vice president should take over in the meantime. The election is likely to pit Vice President Nicolás Maduro, whom Mr. Chávez designated as his political successor, against Henrique Capriles Radonski, a young state governor who ran against Mr. Chávez in a presidential election in October.

But there has been heated debate in recent months over clashing interpretations of the constitution, in light of Mr. Chávez’s illness, and it is impossible to predict how the post-Chávez transition will proceed.

Mr. Chávez’s supporters wept and flowed into the streets in paroxysms of mourning.

Mr. Chávez was given a diagnosis of cancer in June 2011, but throughout his treatment he kept many details about his illness secret, refusing to say what kind of cancer he had or where in his body it occurred. He had three operations from June 2011 to February 2012, as well as chemotherapy and radiation treatment, but the cancer kept coming back. The surgery and most other treatments were done in Cuba.

Then on Dec. 8, just two months after winning re-election, Mr. Chávez stunned the nation by announcing in a somber televised address that he needed yet another surgery.

That operation, his fourth, took place in Havana on Dec. 11. In the aftermath, grim-faced aides described the procedure as complex and said his condition was delicate. They eventually notified the country of complications, first bleeding and then a severe lung infection and difficulty breathing.

After previous operations, Mr. Chávez often appeared on television while recuperating in Havana, posted messages on Twitter or was heard on telephone calls made to television programs on a government station. But after his December surgery, he was not seen again in public, and his voice fell silent.

Mr. Chávez’s aides eventually announced that a tube had been inserted in his trachea to help his breathing, and that as a result he had difficulty speaking. It was the ultimate paradox for a man who seemed never at a loss for words, often improvising for hours at a time on television, haranguing, singing, lecturing, reciting poetry and orating.

As the weeks dragged on, tensions rose in Venezuela, and the situation turned increasingly bizarre. Officials in Mr. Chávez’s government strove to project an image of business as usual and deflected inevitable questions about a vacuum at the top. At the same time, the country struggled with an out-of-balance economy, troubled by soaring prices and escalating shortages of basic goods.

The opposition, weakened after defeats in the presidential election in October and elections for governor in December, in which its candidates lost in 20 of 23 states, sought to keep pressure on the government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/world/americas/as-chavez-worsens-venezuela-expels-two-us-diplomats.html?_r=0


I just hope the revolution continues.

[ElCubano]

Very upsetting news.... one of the few leaders that stood up to America. R.I.P

[Ismail]

Hugo Chávez was a populist. His politics were inconsistent, his "socialism" nothing like the Marxian conception, and his foreign policy nationalist (which obviously brought him into some antagonism with the USA.)

That being said, Venezuelan politics will obviously shift rightwards now that the pillar of the country's "left" is gone.

[RedAnarchist]

My condolences to the Venezuelan people. What a shame to die so young. He wasn't revolutionary in the way we would want him to have been, but he was a far better choice than the vultures of the Venezuelan right.

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

Just saw it on tv.

That's bad bad news, fuck

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Whatever anyone thinks of the socialist/social democrat (whatever you want to call it) revolution in Venezuela, cancer is a terrible way to die.

I hope that the Venezuelan people can continue forward despite this - the left is powerful there but it is obviously divided between those who want a real revolution and those who are using revolutionary politics to make themselves and their friends rich.

[rednordman]

RIP. He had more balls than anyone in the whole history of western mainstream politicians could ever even contemplate. * mainstream refers to 1980 onwards*

[#FF0000]

we lost a great troll.

rip

[Ostrinski]

Will be interesting to see how the US reacts.

[Brutus]

RIP commandante

[Ismail]

Will be interesting to see how the US reacts.It'll hope the new leadership is more "realistic," "pragmatic," etc. like in any other similar situation and thus hope it will reverse most any of the reforms made under Chávez.

[RedAnarchist]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkf_2pc2Wgk

[Os Cangaceiros]

Will be interesting to see how the US reacts.

Probably in the manner of a concerned parent addressing a troubled child.

[Mackenzie_Blanc]

I unfortunately believe that the Chavistas aren't going to be able to maintain power for long. It's essence was Chavez, and Maduro doesn't seem to maintain the relationship with the working class that Chavez had. And be certain that the bastards in the U.S. are going to try and set up a "ally of democracy" to obtain the valuable oil resources.

[B5C]

Will be interesting to see how the US reacts.

By using it's fingers to influence and control the neo-liberal parties.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

RIP Hugo Chavez

[Let's Get Free]

I think it's somewhat ironic that he was outlived by his friend Fidel Castro.

[Existence]

R.I.P Chavez.
Although he was not a Marxist, he was better than the right which is a capitalist puppet.

[TheEmancipator]

Hugo Chávez was a populist. His politics were inconsistent, his "socialism" nothing like the Marxian conception, and his foreign policy nationalist (which obviously brought him into some antagonism with the USA.)

That being said, Venezuelan politics will obviously shift rightwards now that the pillar of the country's "left" is gone.


Forget your Stalinist-Hoxhaism a sec and try to realise that someone who actually stood for something similar to what we stand for without massacring thousands has just died.

Disgusting, old fashioned, "comintern" politics.

[Red Commissar]

Anyone see how the VP expelled two Americans? He seems to have accused them of doing something to undermine the country's stability, some outlets are interpreting his speech on the matter as accusing two Americans of either giving Chavez cancer or worsening it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-21674950

[Ismail]

Forget your Stalinist-Hoxhaism a sec and try to realise that someone who actually stood for something similar to what we stand for without massacring thousands has just died.

Disgusting, old fashioned, "comintern" politics."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 to Tariq Ali, 2004.

No one here is praising Chávez's death, but no one should deify him either. He was not a Marxist.

[IrishWorker]

Really sad to hear Comrade Chavez has died but the Bolivarian Revolution carries on he has laid the foundation of a progressive nation in transition to real Socialism.

[Q]

Well, that was one iconic figure alright.

But, as others have said, his politics led nowhere in the end and it is highly likely that the country will drop into more uncertain times. I don't rule out a civil war even. The right will not allow the chance of another "lost decade".

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

"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 to Tariq Ali, 2004.

No one here is praising Chávez's death, but no one should deify him either. He was not a Marxist.

No one is saying that either. What I fear is that all things accomplished during his years in government are ended. A precedent has been opened; the opposition (Caprilles) already claimed that Chavez' possession was not legitimate.

We've seen it all happen before, with Zelaya for example.

[l'Enfermé]

Forget your Stalinist-Hoxhaism a sec and try to realise that someone who actually stood for something similar to what we stand for without massacring thousands has just died.

Disgusting, old fashioned, "comintern" politics.
Hahahaha, we should be sad that Olaf Palme with a beret died?

[Questionable]

Besides Chavez, what is the status of the rest of South America? I remember watching on Oliver Stone documentary on Chavez where it showed that a lot of South American leaders had leftist tendencies. They weren't Marxists or anything but I'm still curious about what happened to them.

[Futility Personified]

Other people have expressed this sentiment already but i'm pretty surprised by this too and this is a box to write in so...

fuck! he was more of a populist than a socialist, but he's better than what's likely to fill the void. Maybe a more legit socialist direction will occur? Hopefully anyway.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Hahahaha, we should be sad that Olaf Palme with a beret died?

Well, I mean, it's sad that he died, nevertheless, as it is sad that most people die. Particularly if it is in a terrible manner. It will also most likely lead to worsening for the people of Venezuela overall. The few things that have been done well will most likely be undone quite soon. But aside from that... Olof Palme, come on, Chávez wasn't that bad, for all his faults and whatwith being a social-democrat, at least Chávez didn't appoint Kjell Olof-Feldt as Minister of Finance.

[Ismail]

No one is saying that either. What I fear is that all things accomplished during his years in government are ended. A precedent has been opened; the opposition (Caprilles) already claimed that Chavez' possession was not legitimate.

We've seen it all happen before, with Zelaya for example.Opposing US imperialism and its allies in Latin America does not mean tailing left-wing populists like Chávez or liberals like Zelaya nor prettifying their politics.

The fact is that Chávez created a situation where he, the "strong man," was unilaterally creating "socialism" in Venezuela. Now that the "strong man" is gone many people are going to look to the rest of the PSUV for advice on what to do next, and it's highly likely that the PSUV leadership's replies will be increasingly against the actual interests of the working-class.


Besides Chavez, what is the status of the rest of South America? I remember watching on Oliver Stone documentary on Chavez where it showed that a lot of South American leaders had leftist tendencies. They weren't Marxists or anything but I'm still curious about what happened to them.Correa in Ecuador, Morales in Bolivia and Ortega in Nicaragua (although that's Central America) are still in power. Fernando Lugo of Paraguay lost power through less than respectable means last year. They are to the right of Chávez.

[Lord Hargreaves]

Anyone who dismisses Chavez for not being sufficiently "Marxist", and doesn't see the good that has come about for Venezuela in the last few years, automatically qualifies as a moron.

Let's hope that if Chavez death leads to repaired relations with the US, then that doesn't mean the country goes backward in its drive for a more equitable society for its people.

[Ismail]

Anyone who dismisses Chavez for not being sufficiently "Marxist", and doesn't see the good that has come about for Venezuela in the last few years, automatically qualifies as a moron.Good thing no one in this thread has yet made this mistake unless, of course, one is required to consider Chávez a Marxist and that Venezuela is actually building a "socialist" society without a revolution, without the leading role of the working-class, without a proletarian vanguard and without any actual industry or agriculture operating on socialist lines.

[Astarte]

Forget your Stalinist-Hoxhaism a sec and try to realise that someone who actually stood for something similar to what we stand for without massacring thousands has just died.

Disgusting, old fashioned, "comintern" politics.

Nah man, when Hoxha died it was a much bigger blow to socialism world-wide and especially the Western Hemisphere than losing Chavez ...

[Ismail]

Nah man, when Hoxha died it was a much bigger blow to socialism world-wide and especially the Western Hemisphere than losing Chavez ...For what it's worth, Latin America had the strongest pro-Albanian parties (like the PCdoB, PCMLE, etc.) which all had fraternal relations with the Party of Labour of Albania.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Okay, he wasn't a communist. Still, if I see one more article in the news all but blatantly cheering about his illness & death...ugh. :(

I hope that whatever is in store for Venezuela next is not a backward move.

[Astarte]

For what it's worth, Latin America had the strongest pro-Albanian parties (like the PCdoB, PCMLE, etc.) which all had fraternal relations with the Party of Labour of Albania.

Yeah, the Latin American socialists were definitely lost after losing this, I agree - a huge impact on the left the man(?) was.
2DW-U6rXVO0

[Ismail]

Yeah, the Latin American socialists were definitely lost after losing this, I agree - a huge impact on the left the man(?) was.Yes, in a sea of pro-Soviet revisionism, Castroism and Maoism in Latin America, the pro-Albanian line tended to stand out. It is not surprising that so many of the former groupings have been praising Chávez and give him more than he is due.

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

Besides Chavez, what is the status of the rest of South America? I remember watching on Oliver Stone documentary on Chavez where it showed that a lot of South American leaders had leftist tendencies. They weren't Marxists or anything but I'm still curious about what happened to them.

Paraguay's president Lugo was deposed through a questionable but according to constitution parliamentary decision. He had been ruling through decrees for some time, isolated. A confront between the police and landless workers who invaded a 2hec property ended with 11 workers and 6 policemen dead. Because of the massacre, Lugo fired his Interior Ministry and put a conservative in his place. The Partido Colorado (conservatives) blamed it on Lugo, as well as the liberals.

Lugo had less than 24 hours to elaborate his defense and was deposed in 48 hours.

Nevertheless, campesinos and the left wing in general were against the impeachment.

Ecuadorian president Rafael Corrêa accused of attempt of coup some policemen/army men who revolted a few years back. The tension lowered however.

Among South-American leftists, Chávez was the best, yes. Great loos, principally for Venezuelan people.

Not much to say about Evo Morales (Bolivia) and Lula (Brazil) got his sucessor elected.

[RedSonRising]

Chavez's most significant accomplishment, aside from providing all-time high access to vaccinations for yellow fever and other basic health services in poor communities, is creating a space in which the left can dialogue in mainstream politics. Unions, workers, the dispossessed, etc. were no longer conceptually marginalized by the exclusive rhetoric of politicians. Although he served as a barrier at times to real working class empowerment over production, I hope that the space he created doesn't evaporate.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

RIP comrade Chavez. Your policies may not have been the most revolutionary but they were far above that of any nearest competitor.

I will be following what happens next quite closely. It is sure to be quite the seismic event in one way or another in the coming years.

[Tenka]

Sidenote: Didn't Stalin die exactly 60 years ago?


Personal details
Born 18 December 1878
Gori, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire
Died 5 March 1953 (aged 74)
Kuntsevo Dacha near Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union

To the fucking day! This is creepy and suggestive....

RIP Chávez.

[Hit The North]

Chavez. Loved by the poor; hated by the rich. This tells you what you need to know about the man and his government. RIP.

And can the ridiculous Hoxha idiots stop trolling this thread? And can a moderator trash the offending posts, please?

[Ismail]

I'll just conclude by noting that one of the obvious consequences of the passing of Chávez will be the fact that his administration's personality-driven basis is gone, and the fact his administration had such a basis was bound to bring all sorts of pitfalls. This reminded me of Hoxha speaking of Guevara's death to a delegation of Ecuadorian Marxist-Leninists:

With the killing of Guevara, the masses of common people, contaminated by the influences of these anarchist views [of his], will think: "Now there is no one else to lead us, to liberate us!" Or perhaps a group of people with another Guevara will be set up again to take to the mountains to make the "revolution," and the masses, who expect a great deal from these individuals and are burning to fight the bourgeoisie, may be deceived into following them. And what will happen? Something that is clear to us. Since [Guevara's guerrillas] are not the vanguard of the working class, since they are not guided by the enlightening principles of Marxism-Leninism, they will encounter misunderstanding among the broad masses and sooner or later they will fail, but at the same time the genuine struggle will be discredited, because the masses will regard armed struggle with distrust. We must prepare the masses politically and ideologically, and convince them through their own practical experience. That is why we say that this inhibiting, reactionary theory about the revolution that is being spread in Latin America is the offspring of modern revisionism and must be unmasked by the Marxist-Leninists.Chávez, of course, drew heavily on the whole guerrilla image.

[ElCubano]

It'll hope the new leadership is more "realistic," "pragmatic," etc. like in any other similar situation and thus hope it will reverse most any of the reforms made under Chávez.


WHAT! and be a puppet of america, I hope not

[~Spectre]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/03/06/world/americas/06chavezspan2/06chavezspan2-articleLarge-v2.jpg

[pastradamus]

I actually cried.

RIP Commandante.

This guy is my next tattoo.

Pastra.

[brigadista]

Reposar en paz...

From Dec 2012

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/14/the-achievements-of-hugo-chavez/

While Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez is fighting for his life in Cuba, the liberal press of both sides of the Atlantic (e.g., El Pais”) has not stopped trashing his government. The significance of his victory (12 points ahead of his contender) has yet to be analysed properly, with evidence. It is remarkable that Chávez would win, sick with cancer, outgunned by the local and international media (think of Syriza’s Greece election) and, rarely acknowledged, an electoral map extremely biased towards the middle and upper classes, with geographical barriers and difficult access to Ids for members of the working classes.

One of the main factors for the popularity of the Chávez Government and its landslide victory in this re-election results of October 2012, is the reduction of poverty, made possible because the government took back control of the national petroleum company PDVSA, and has used the abundant oil revenues, not for benefit of a small class of renters as previous governments had done, but to build needed infrastructure and invest in the social services that Venezuelans so sorely needed. During the last ten years, the government has increased social spending by 60.6%, a total of $772 billion [i].

Poverty is not defined solely by lack of income nor is health defined as the lack of illness. Both are correlated and both are multi-factorial, that is, determined by a series of social processes. To make a more objective assessment of the real progress achieved by the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela during the last 13 years it is essential to review some of the key available data on the social determinants of health and poverty: education, inequality, jobs and income, health care, food security and social support and services.

With regard to these social determinants of health indicators, Venezuela is now the country in the region with the lowest inequality level (measured by the Gini Coefficient) having reduced inequality by 54%, poverty by 44%. Poverty has been reduced from 70.8% (1996) to 21% (2010). And extreme poverty reduced from 40% (1996) to a very low level of 7.3% (2010). About 20 million people have benefited from anti-poverty programs, called “Misiones” (Up to now, 2.1 million elderly people have received old-age pensions – that is 66% of the population while only 387,000 received pensions before the current government.

Education is a key determinant of both health and poverty and the Bolivarian government has placed a particular emphasis on education allotting it more than 6% of GDP. UNESCO has recognized that illiteracy been eliminated furthermore, Venezuela is the 3rd county in the region whose population reads the most. There is tuition free education from daycare to university; 72% of children attend public daycares and 85% of school age children attend school. There are thousands of new or refurbished schools, including 10 new universities. The country places 2nd in Latin America and 5th in the world with the greatest proportions of university students. In fact, 1 out of every 3 Venezuelans are enrolled in some educational program.[ii] . It is also a great achievement that Venezuela is now tied with Finland as the 5th country with the happiest population in the world.[iii] .

Before the Chavez government in 1998, 21% of the population was malnourished. Venezuela now has established a network of subsidized food distribution including grocery stores and supermarkets. While 90% of the food was imported in 1980, today this is less than 30%. Misión Agro-Venezuela has given out 454,238 credits to rural producers and 39,000 rural producers have received credit in 2012 alone. Five million Venezuelan receive free food, four million of them are children in schools and 6,000 food kitchens feed 900,000 people. The agrarian reform and policies to help agricultural producers have increased domestic food supply. The results of all these food security measures is that today malnourishment is only 5%, and child malnutrition which was 7.7% in 1990 today is at 2.9%. This is an impressive health achievement by any standards.

Some of the most important available data on health care and public health are as following [iv],[v],[vi]:

*infant mortality dropped from 25 per 1000 (1990) to only 13/1000 (2010);

*An outstanding 96% of the population has now access to clean water (one of the goals of the revolution);

*In 1998, there were 18 doctors per 10,000 inhabitants, currently there are 58, and the public health system has about 95,000 physicians;

*It took four decades for previous governments to build 5,081 clinics, but in just 13 years the Bolivarian government built 13,721 (a 169.6% increase);

*Barrio Adentro (i.e., primary care program with the help of more than 8,300 Cuban doctors) has approximately saved 1,4 million lives in 7,000 clinics and has given 500 million consultations;

*In 2011 alone, 67,000 Venezuelans received free high cost medicines for 139 pathologies conditions including cancer, hepatitis, osteoporosis, schizophrenia, and others; there are now 34 centres for addictions,

*In 6 years 19,840 homeless have been attended through a special program; and there are practically no children living on the streets.

*Venezuela now has the largest intensive care unit in the region.

*A network of public drugstores sell subsidized medicines in 127 stores with savings of 34-40%.

*51,000 people have been treated in Cuba for specialized eye treatment and the eye care program “Mision Milagro”; has restored sight to 1.5 million Venezuelans

An example of how the government has tried to respond in a timely fashion to the real needs of its people is the situation that occurred in 2011 when heavy tropical rains left 100,000 people homeless. They were right away sheltered temporarily in all manner of public buildings and hotels and, in one and a half years, the government built 250,000 houses. The government has obviously not eradicated all social ills, but its people do recognize that, despite any shortcomings and mistakes, it is a government that is on their side, trying to use its resources to meet their needs. Part of this equation is the intense political participation that the Venezuelan democracy stands for, that includes 30,000 communal councils, which determine local social needs and oversee their satisfaction and allows the people to be protagonists of the changes they demand.[vii]

The Venezuelan economy has low debts, high petroleum reserves and high savings, yet Western economists that oppose President Chávez repeat ad nauseam that the Venezuelan economy is not “sustainable” and predict its demise when the oil revenues stop. Ironically they do not hurl these dire predictions to other oil economies such as Canada or Saudi Arabia. They conveniently ignore that Venezuela’s oil reservoir of 500 billion barrels of oil is the largest in the world and consider the social investment of oil revenues a waste or futile endeavour. However these past 13 years, the Bolivarian government has been building up an industrial and agricultural infrastructure that 40 years of previous governments had neglected and its economy continues to get stronger even in the face of a global financial crisis.

An indication of the increasing diversification of the economy is the fact that the State now obtains almost as much revenue from tax collection as from the sale of oil, since it strengthened its capacity for tax collection and wealth redistribution. In just one decade, the State obtained US$ 251,694 million in taxes, more than its petroleum income per annum. Economic milestones these last ten years include reduction in unemployment from 11.3% to 7.7%; doubling the amount of people receiving social insurance benefits, and the public debt has been reduced from 20.7% to 14.3% of GNP and the flourishing of cooperatives has strengthen local endogenous economies. In general, the Venezuelan economy has grown 47.4% in ten years, that is, 4.3% per annum. [viii]. Today many European countries would look jealously at these figures. Economists who studied in detail the Venezuelan economy for years indicate that, “The predictions of economic collapse, balance of payments or debt crises and other gloomy prognostications, as well as many economic forecasts along the way, have repeatedly proven wrong… Venezuela’s current economic growth is sustainable and could continue at the current pace or higher for many years.”[ix] .

According to Global Finance and the CIA World Factbook ,the Venezuelan economy presents the following indicators.[x]: unemployment rate of 8%; 45,5% government (public) debt as a percent of GDP (by contrast the European Union debt/GDP is 82.5%); and a real GDP growth: GDP per capita is $13,070. In 2011, the Venezuelan economy defied most forecasts by growing 4.2 percent, and was up 5.6 percent in the first half of 2012. It has a debt-to-GDP ratio comfortably below the U.S. and the UK, and stronger than European countries; an inflation rate, an endemic problem during many decades, that has fallen to a four-year low, or 13.7%, over the most recent 2012 quarter. Even The Wall Street Journal reports that Venezuela’s stock exchange is by far the best-performing stock market in the world, reaching an all-time high in October 2012, and Venezuela’s bonds are some of the best performers in emerging markets.

Hugo Chavez’s victory had an impact around the world as he is recognized as having spearheaded radical change not only in his own country but in all Latin America where progressive governments have also been elected, thereby reshaping the global order. The victory was even more significant considering the enormous financial and strategic help that the USA agencies and allies gave to the opposition parties and media. Since 2002, Washington channeled $100 million to opposition groups in Venezuela and this election year alone, distributed US$ 40-50 million there. [xi] But the Venezuelan people disregarded the barrage of propaganda unleashed against the president by the media that is 95% privately owned and anti-Chavez. [xii]. The tide of progressive change in the region has started to build the infrastructure for the first truly independent South America with political integration organizations such as Bank of the South, CELAC, ALBA, PETROSUR, PETROCARIBE, UNASUR, MERCOSUR, TELESUR and thus have demonstrated to the rest of the world that there are, after all, economic and social alternatives in the 21st century.[xiii] . Following a different model of development from that of global capitalism in sharp contrast to Europe, debt levels across Latin America are low and falling.

The changes in Venezuela are not abstract. The government of President Chávez has significantly improved the living conditions of Venezuelans and engaged them in dynamic political participation to achieve it [xiv]. This new model of socialist development has had a phenomenal impact all over Latin America, including Colombia of late, and the progressive left of centre governments that are now the majority in the region see in Venezuela the catalyst that that has brought more democracy, national sovereignty and economic and social progress to the region.[xv] . No amount of neoliberal rhetoric can dispute these facts. Dozens of opinionated experts can go on forever on whether the Bolivarian Revolution is or is not socialist, whether it is revolutionary or reformist (it is likely to be both ), yet at the end of the day these substantial achievements remain. This is what infuriates its opponents the most both inside Venezuela and most notable, from neocolonialist countries. The “objective” and “empiricist” The Economist will not publicize this data, preferring to predict once again the imminent collapse of the Venezuelan economy and El Pais, in Spain, would rather have one of the architects of the Caracazo (the slaughter of 3000 people in Caracas protesting the austerity measures of 1989), the minister of finance of the former government Moises Naim, go on with his anti-Chávez obsession. But none of them can dispute that the UN Human Development Index situates Venezuela in place #61 out of 176 countries having increased 7 places in 10 years.

And that is one more reason why Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution will survive Venezuela’s Socialist leader.

[Thirsty Crow]

Chavez. Loved by the poor; hated by the rich. This tells you what you need to know about the man and his government. RIP.
This is such an absurdity, along with "RIP" posts online from thousands of miles afar while employing that buzzword "comrade" and timidly recognizing that hey he was not that revolutionary, but still - it's kinda hard to even begin describing it.

To try and conclude, if redistribution policies carried out by a bourgeois state, alongside rhetorical flurishes and an inevitable conflict with US hegmony are there, all else can go to hell, right?


And can the ridiculous Hoxha idiots stop trolling this thread? And can a moderator trash the offending posts, please?
I really can't believe that the day when I'm forced to conclude that Ismail is completely right has actually arrived. It's unsettling as all hell, but hey, it's not like people set the bar high here.

Now excuse me while I go cry into my pillow.

[KurtFF8]

RIP Chavez

[pastradamus]

I'll just conclude by noting that one of the obvious consequences of the passing of Chávez will be the fact that his administration's personality-driven basis is gone, and the fact his administration had such a basis was bound to bring all sorts of pitfalls. This reminded me of Hoxha speaking of Guevara's death to a delegation of Ecuadorian Marxist-Leninists:
Chávez, of course, drew heavily on the whole guerrilla image.


Are you comparing Chavez and Guevara with a mad man who decided to build over 700,000 pillboxes in a small country?
Or rather giving this person the Moral authority over the two?

Are you on acid or something? That quote is completely irrelevant.

[Rafiq]

The last thing I'd want to do here is insult anyone, but the fact that Hugo Chavez was somewhat of a relevant figure doesn't mean he should be entailed with support or sympathy. This man was no "comrade", he was a bourgeois-populist and our only concerns should be whether this signifies the destruction of the Venezuelan left that developed under his administration, a prospect I highly doubt. All I ask here is for users to remain consistent. If you want to praise Chavez, fine. But if you were among those that attacked and criticized him (and most of the time besides the Chomskyan liberal rhetoric, rightfully so) then don't do away with your positions in his regards because some kind of interesting development in his regards, whether it be his death or something else. Chavez consistently allied himself with reactionaries and anti-communists throughout his reign. He never represented a viable alternative for the left, he never represented the revival of the Communist movement, none the less the countless anti-imperialist movements in Latin America.

[Lord Hargreaves]

This is such an absurdity, along with "RIP" posts online from thousands of miles afar while employing that buzzword "comrade" and timidly recognizing that hey he was not that revolutionary, but still - it's kinda hard to even begin describing it.

To try and conclude, if redistribution policies carried out by a bourgeois state, alongside rhetorical flurishes and an inevitable conflict with US hegmony are there, all else can go to hell, right?

It gets very tiring having to qualify any positive statement ever made about any politician or person in the public eye with something like "...but he wasn't as much of a state-hating revolutionary communist militant as I would ideally like"

[Rafiq]

It saddens me, how people are willing to compromise everything for the chance to identify with something relavent. I don't want to see any more of these bullshit "Hey, he wasn't my utopia, but meh" posts. You will never have an ideological champion, you are never going to have a figure or an organization which is a direct reflection of your 'convictions' or whatever. The point is, as Marxists, hell, even for anarchists, is to formulate a class analysis: Does Chavez represent the interests of the proletariat, do his "reforms" weaken the social hegemony of the bourgeois class and so on. I think we all know what the answer is.

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

He did arm popular militias and establish popular local councils. The Bolivarian Revolution did pave the way for something bigger and better.


EDIT: One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen is a scene from The Revolution will not be Televised where the people, outside the presidential palace, claim for Chavez; and soldiers, loyal to the people and to the comandante, rush and regain the control of the palace. Chávez would get there later on.

[Ismail]

Are you comparing Chavez and Guevara with a mad man who decided to build over 700,000 pillboxes in a small country?
Or rather giving this person the Moral authority over the two?Does Hoxha building pillboxes to defend Albania from foreign invasion (recall this was during the time of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Albania's own withdrawal from the Warsaw Treaty) have anything to do with Guevara and Chávez having un-Marxist politics and those workers who uphold them suffering as a result? What's morally worse: building a pillbox or conflating present-day Venezuela with socialism?

[Thirsty Crow]

It gets very tiring having to qualify any positive statement ever made about any politician or person in the public eye with something like "...but he wasn't as much of a state-hating revolutionary communist militant as I would ideally like"
I'm very sorry that is is tiring to practice the communist critique. Maybe it would be best if this were left to people who are not so easily tired. You can always write eulogies for statesmen, I bet that wouldn't be tiring.


It saddens me, how people are willing to compromise everything for the chance to identify with something relavent.That's what perpetual irrelevance makes of people. Relevence hungry freaks, that is.

[tachosomoza]

Chavez. Loved by the poor; hated by the rich. This tells you what you need to know about the man and his government. RIP.

And can the ridiculous Hoxha idiots stop trolling this thread? And can a moderator trash the offending posts, please?

This is good enough for me. Nitpicking, annoying, over-read morons and idiots, shut the fuck up and piss off. This is why the left loses, people. We're too caught up in silly bullshit and bickering about long dead men and long broken apart countries to actually get shit done. Chavez got shit done and is a hero to the brown, black, and working-class/poor majority population of Latin and North America, the PEOPLE WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE SUPPORTING.

[pastradamus]

Does Hoxha building pillboxes to defend Albania from foreign invasion (recall this was during the time of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Albania's own withdrawal from the Warsaw Treaty) have anything to do with Guevara and Chávez having un-Marxist politics and those workers who uphold them suffering as a result? What's morally worse: building a pillbox or conflating present-day Venezuela with socialism?

How about wasting a HUGE proportion of the national budget building something that would be almost militarily obsolete in the 1980's? Whereas another guy decides to fund schools and hospitals with the income they recieve? Marxist? What is your definition of Marxist?

[Ismail]

How about wasting a HUGE proportion of the national budget building something that would be almost militarily obsolete in the 1980's? Whereas another guy decides to fund schools and hospitals with the income they recieve? Marxist? What is your definition of Marxist?There are two issues here:

1. Hoxha, presumably like most people in the 60's, did not possess a time machine, nor did Albania have a massive army. Those pillboxes weren't meant to be occupied by soldiers, they were meant to be occupied by ordinary citizens, all of whom were trained in how to use weapons.
2. Albania's life expectancy went from 38 in 1945 to 71 by 1985. Its illiteracy rate went from 80-90% in 1945 to being virtually eliminated by the mid-50's. Albania's first University came into existence in 1957 (Albania having been the only prewar East European country without one.)

This being said, improvements in education and/or healthcare do not constitute socialism. Chávez, like most populists, obviously promoted social welfare for his countrymen.

[Geiseric]

I think Chavez is what they would of called a "bonapartist" as in a guy who wavers back and forth between supporting the bourgeois and working class. He has done some good things, such as nationalizing part of the oil industry, but he is hardly responsible for the strides Venezuela has made. There is still private property and wage exploitation in venezuela after all.

[tachosomoza]

The 21st century proletariat doesn't know who the fuck Hoxha is, and I don't know how to pronounce his name. Shut the fuck up about him, he's dead and irrelevant.

[Ismail]

The 21st century proletariat doesn't know who the fuck Hoxha is, and I don't know how to pronounce his name. Shut the fuck up about him, he's dead and irrelevant.I'm sure most African and Asian proletarians have only passing knowledge (if at that) of Hugo Chávez. Arab proletarians might have some more knowledge due to his opposition to Zionism doubtlessly being mentioned in the media of those countries. I fail to see your point, as if Marxism is gauged by popularity contests.

Also xh in Albanian is j, so you pronounce it En-ver Ho-ja.

[pastradamus]

There are two issues here:

1. Hoxha, presumably like most people in the 60's, did not possess a time machine, nor did Albania have a massive army. Those pillboxes weren't meant to be occupied by soldiers, they were meant to be occupied by ordinary citizens, all of whom were trained in how to use weapons.
2. Albania's life expectancy went from 38 in 1945 to 71 by 1985. Its illiteracy rate went from 80-90% in 1945 to being virtually eliminated by the mid-50's. Albania's first University came into existence in 1957 (Albania having been the only prewar East European country without one.)

This being said, improvements in education and/or healthcare do not constitute socialism. Chávez, like most populists, obviously promoted social welfare for his countrymen.


All well and good. But couldn't he have set up.....another university or another hospital or spent this money on eradicating illiteracy further? Why waste money on this shite? Which is what it is incidentally. Never used, useless paranoia. At least most military historians can understand Stalins scorched earth policy but Hoxha's pillboxes are just brainless and a massive waste of a budget for a poor country.

[Questionable]

The 21st century proletariat doesn't know who the fuck Hoxha is, and I don't know how to pronounce his name. Shut the fuck up about him, he's dead and irrelevant.

If we define our stance by which communist figures the 21st century recognizes, we pretty much lose everybody except the big figures like Marx and Lenin (And their opinions of these two usually aren't very good).

[Thirsty Crow]

This is good enough for me. Nitpicking, annoying, over-read morons and idiots, shut the fuck up and piss off. This is why the left loses, people. We're too caught up in silly bullshit and bickering about long dead men and long broken apart countries to actually get shit done. Chavez got shit done and is a hero to the brown, black, and working-class/poor majority population of Latin and North America, the PEOPLE WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE SUPPORTING.
Chavez got shit done. That's real neat, isn't it. I know that the debates within the left can be depressing as hell, but c'mon, the solution isn't to latch onto a moderately successful socialdemocracy employing radical rhetoric in a panicked way, with only relevance in mind.

Or we should really start to believe that Chavez got shit done. No more capitalism - oil is nationalized, better conditions, wages and so on. Maybe we should get pragmatic and drop this juvenile stress that we put on social revolution. Yeah, that should do the trick.

[tachosomoza]

I'm sure most African and Asian proletarians have only passing knowledge (if at that) of Hugo Chávez. Arab proletarians might have some more knowledge due to his opposition to Zionism. I fail to see your point.

Also xh in Albanian is j, so you pronounce it En-ver Ho-ja.

Chavez was a modern day leader of an oil rich, populous nation who worked the fuck out of a television and radio. Hoo-hah is rotting in the ground of Albania, has been since before the internet was invented, and nobody gave a shit about him when he was alive.

[RadioRaheem84]

Hahahaha, we should be sad that Olaf Palme with a beret died?


Olaf Palme? If Chavez was Olaf Palme then the world has gone completely right wing bonkers considering Chavez was flailed as a dictator the likes of Saddam Hussein during the Bush years. In this day and age a fucking hardcore Soc Dem is akin to a Bolshevik.

The Yahoo News obiturary is filled with hateful seething disgusting right wing praises to the angel of death who took Chavez. Let's not be just as spiteful because Chavez wasn't a full blown reincarnation of Hoxha or Tito.

The man was for the most part solid, a populist nonetheless, but a good leftist. RIP COMRADE!

[Ismail]

Chavez was a modern day leader of an oil rich, populous nation who worked the fuck out of a television and radio.Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Mao and the Kims likewise had much experience in media. I still don't see your point.


and nobody gave a shit about him when he was alive.I don't know what criteria you're basing this on. Albania's independent foreign policy had many admirers, while its defense of Marxism-Leninism attracted many communists to its line. Allies of Chávez have included Ahmadinejad and Putin.

[soso17]

I was saddened to hear this news. I feel like Chavez did inspire those on the left in Venezuela who ARE revolutionary to feel like they DO have reason to rise up. His policies definitely raised people's consciousness. No, he wasn't a Marxist revolutionary. But at the very least, his government's popularity signals that material conditions in South America are at least moving toward the left.

RIP Chavez.

(Please don't jump all over me about this. I know you all will anyways.)

Oh, and Long Live the Great Helmsman of the Glorious October Revolution. 60 years ago, the world lost a great revolutionary.

(Now you can attack me :cool:)

[tachosomoza]

Chavez got shit done. That's real neat, isn't it. I know that the debates within the left can be depressing as hell, but c'mon, the result isn't to latch onto a moderately successful socialdemocracy employing radical rhetoric.

Or we should really start to believe that Chavez got shit done. No more capitalism - oil is nationalized, better conditions, wages and so on. Maybe we should get pragmatic and drop this juvenile stress that we put on social revolution. Yeah, that should do the trick.

Yeah, it fucking is. Conditions increased for the working class under Chavez. He built hospitals, roads, pretty much smashed illiteracy in Venezuela. He supported poor communities of color in the United States and offered aid to the victims of Hurricane Katrina since nobody else gave a shit, not even the government. No, he didn't get rid of fucking capitalism and build a perfect socialist society from 1999-2013. Guess what? Neither has anybody else! Was he better than the lily-white, bourgeois, Spanish-educated, caste-system following assholes that led Venezuela before him? Yes.

[Krano]

RIP Comrade Chavez.

[RadioRaheem84]

I also want to ask to anyone who's been keeping up with Venezuela as to why they're so pessimistic about Chavez's death and the Bolivarian Revolution? How are we sure that this will mobilize the right wing into action? How do we know this won't empower the PSUV to go full on with a socialist revolution?

[Delenda Carthago]

A true leader and a tough guy. He puted Venezuela on the map.


Still, the achievements of his are only minimum on a real scale. Poverty is not beaten, crime is all time high, the economy goes from infiltration to infiltration, and he took the country with one of the biggest amounts of oil worldwide on 20$/barrel and now its like 100$/barrel and still not everyone in Venezuela is settled. All these are not to be swooped under the rug to worship the new hero.

I guess this (http://www.iccr.gr/site/el/issue3/the-communist-party-and-the-venezuelan-working-class-in-the-dilemma-of-the-bolivarian-revolution.html)has a lot more interest now.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Chavez was obviously an exceptional orator, with a pretty good grasp on what masses of poor Venezuelans wanted to hear. Hopefully those same masses of poor people will continue to struggle, and continue on a path toward radical and liberatory anticapitalist transformation. I feel for the mourners who lost a figure that inspired them.




(And that's how to tactfully avoid trash talking a leftist politician on the occasion of their passing)

[Rafiq]

This is good enough for me. Nitpicking, annoying, over-read morons and idiots, shut the fuck up and piss off. This is why the left loses, people. We're too caught up in silly bullshit and bickering about long dead men and long broken apart countries to actually get shit done. Chavez got shit done and is a hero to the brown, black, and working-class/poor majority population of Latin and North America, the PEOPLE WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE SUPPORTING.

Chavez did what he did to sustain capitalist social relations in Venezuela, you shit flailing imbecile. Will we sacrifice class analysis in the midst of baseless rhetoric and romanticized heroism?

[Rafiq]

The 21st century proletariat doesn't know who the fuck Hoxha is, and I don't know how to pronounce his name. Shut the fuck up about him, he's dead and irrelevant.

And soon, we will be privileged to say the same about Chavez.

[Sasha]

Meh, one dead leader replaced by the next.
Sucks for the poorest proles that benefitted from his need/choice to buy them off instead of the rich with oil pesos but neither his rule nor its financial foundation was sustainable.
But one shouldn't pretend he was anything but the slightly more left wing of capital. His cronies assassinated another indigenous activist opposing the destruction of their land for short sighted profit only yesterday.

[tachosomoza]

Chavez did what he did to sustain capitalist social relations in Venezuela, you shit flailing imbecile. Will we sacrifice class analysis in the midst of baseless rhetoric and romanticized heroism?

Yeah, nattering ninny, he nationalized oil and did things to make the capitalist elite loathe and despise him because he wanted to maintain the capitalist social relations. I support the proletariat, this guy improved the basic position of the proletariat, so I support him. No, he didn't destroy capitalism, but to shit on him is folly.

[Fourth Internationalist]

RIP :crying:

[Sasha]

Obama relatively improves the basic situation of the proletariat as well, so what?

[Geiseric]

He was a bonapartist, like Peron and Anwar Sadat. There's still wage labor and exploitation in venezuela, regardless of his partial nationalizations.

[hatzel]

The only Venezuelan I know is currently...ah...celebrating quite vocally over Facebook...

I think I'd do better to take a less vitriolic approach to the matter, rather than letting that sway me: a thing happened, so let's all just see what things happen next! Eyes on the prize, people, eyes on the prize :)

[Fourth Internationalist]

obama relatively improves the basic situation of the proletariat as well, so what?

since when?!?!

[tachosomoza]

Obama relatively improves the basic situation of the proletariat as well, so what?

Would you prefer Venezuela under the bourgeois, racist Spanish or Venezuela under Chávez? Appreciate what you have, like your mommy told you.

[Questionable]

People, what is so hard about recognizing that for whatever reforms Chavez may have instituted, his rule was ultimately capitalist? It doesn't mean he was evil, but he was undoubtedly another bourgeois-liberal like the rest of them.

[tachosomoza]

People, what is so hard about recognizing that for whatever reforms Chavez may have instituted, his rule was ultimately capitalist? It doesn't mean he was evil, but he was undoubtedly another bourgeois-liberal like the rest of them.

I'm not saying that his rule wasn't. I'm not saying that we should be hating on him either. Leave that to the right wing Americans and rich Venezuelans.

[Sasha]

Would you prefer Venezuela under the bourgeois, racist Spanish or Venezuela under Chávez? Appreciate what you have, like your mommy told you.


that was my point, anyone who argued that obama was a lesser evil than mccain or romney got burned at the stake here.
so i just wondered about the double standards. but anti-imps will be anti-imping i guess

[Engels]

Yeah, nattering ninny, he nationalized oil and did things to make the capitalist elite loathe and despise him because he wanted to maintain the capitalist social relations. I support the proletariat, this guy improved the basic position of the proletariat, so I support him. No, he didn't destroy capitalism, but to shit on him is folly.

Fuck yeah! Nationalisation, annihilating capitalist social relations since the 19th century!

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

A true leader and a tough guy. He puted Venezuela on the map.


Still, the achievements of his are only minimum on a real scale. Poverty is not beaten, crime is all time high, the economy goes from infiltration to infiltration, and he took the country with one of the biggest amounts of oil worldwide on 20$/barrel and now its like 100$/barrel and still not everyone in Venezuela is settled. All these are not to be swooped under the rug to worship the new hero.

I guess this (http://www.iccr.gr/site/el/issue3/the-communist-party-and-the-venezuelan-working-class-in-the-dilemma-of-the-bolivarian-revolution.html)has a lot more interest now.

It, poverty, has been significantly reduced. The issue though is not abolishing poverty, the life of Capital, but abolishing the Capitalist economic system. This can not be done by a Hero, or sympathetic people, but only by the Dictatorship of a Proletarian-Class-and-no-other-classes democratic Party.

[tachosomoza]

that was my point, anyone who argued that obama was a lesser evil than mccain or romney got burned at the stake here.
so i just wondered about the double standards. but anti-imps will be anti-imping i guess

Yeah, that's why leftists have trouble networking with the people we're supposed to support. Relate to these people, for a second. This man gave them schools, hospitals, jobs, rights they didn't have before. These people, our people, love him. The colonialists, the white elite, loathe and despise this man.Why would you attack him? For what? Because he didn't expropriate EVERYTHING and ban wage labor? That's silly, people. Yeah, he was a social democrat. Guess what? So were the people who lead the US Civil Rights movement.

[Philosophos]

couldn't it be Samaras and the rest of his capital crew?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I'll just conclude by noting that one of the obvious consequences of the passing of Chávez will be the fact that his administration's personality-driven basis is gone, and the fact his administration had such a basis was bound to bring all sorts of pitfalls. This reminded me of Hoxha speaking of Guevara's death to a delegation of Ecuadorian Marxist-Leninists:
Chávez, of course, drew heavily on the whole guerrilla image.

I also immediately thought of that quote. Hoxha was correct in that respect, and what is needed now that the workers of Venezuela have lost their gracious "Commandante" (who certainly did a lot of good, RIP) is the building of a mass Marxist Proletarian movement in the next years.

[Sam_b]

A condolence thread is slightly ridiculous. I don't base my politics on the fact someone is better than the right wing. The questions we should be asking is how the class will react now that a space has been made by the likes of Chavez and the popular movement and what is needed for real change.

[tachosomoza]

I base my politics on practicality, reality, and what's best for the workers and oppressed. Chavez was good for the oppressed and workers, and against the neo-imperialists (the king of Spain himself told him to shut up), so I can't in all good conscience oppose him because he wasn't as radical as I would have liked.

[Thirsty Crow]

Was he better than the lily-white, bourgeois, Spanish-educated, caste-system following assholes that led Venezuela before him? Yes.
And? Does this excuse the serious lapse of judgement by communists with regard to the nature of the said regime? Does every gain for a working class necessitate progressive abandonment of communist critique?

The answer is implied:


Yeah, that's why leftists have trouble networking with the people we're supposed to support. Relate to these people, for a second. This man gave them schools, hospitals, jobs, rights they didn't have before. These people, our people, love him. Leftists have trouble relating to workers since they don't adore Chavez and instead criticize that bourgeois regime? It's clear that this actually amounts to an advocacy of total subordination to socialdemocracy as the only way to relate to workers.


Why would you attack him? For what? Because he didn't expropriate EVERYTHING and ban wage labor? That's silly, people. I agree, it would be silly to attack a socialdemocrat for failing to uphold a communist program.

But is it silly to uphold this program in the first place? I guess it is, according to you, in the immediate.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

Oh god, I just read the coments on the Yahoo article about this.:laugh:

It was all stuff about "Obama will fly the flags at half-mast" and "Sean Penn and Danny Glover lost their best friend" type stuff. And of course a throw in about how, "that evil dictator Fidel will get whats coming to him next!"

[Zealot]

I'll just conclude by noting that one of the obvious consequences of the passing of Chávez will be the fact that his administration's personality-driven basis is gone, and the fact his administration had such a basis was bound to bring all sorts of pitfalls. This reminded me of Hoxha speaking of Guevara's death to a delegation of Ecuadorian Marxist-Leninists:
Chávez, of course, drew heavily on the whole guerrilla image.

Which is ironic since the administration in socialist Albania was heavily reliant on Hoxha's personality cult and arguably was one of the leading factors in its collapse.

[tachosomoza]

Leftists have trouble relating to workers because we are too busy reading books, arguing, and nitpicking/stressing over intellectuals from two centuries ago that we have lost touch with reality.

[Thirsty Crow]

Leftists have trouble relating to workers because we are too busy reading books, arguing, and nitpicking/stressing over intellectuals from two centuries ago that we have lost touch with reality.
And somehow this means that one shouldn't criticize the Venezuelan regime as this merely confirms that we are too busy reading old books and are out of touch with reality.
Obviously.

[tachosomoza]

And somehow this means that one shouldn't criticize the Venezuelan regime as this merely confirms that we are too busy reading old books and are out of touch with reality.
Obviously.

We shouldn't be criticizing it because it was good for the oppressed peoples and the poor. In practice. End of story. We should be concerned with what has worked best for and what has advanced the condition of the people. Chavez did. No, he wasn't as radical as I would have liked, but he gave the Venezuelan masses a platform.

[Let's Get Free]

Well, now that the great socialist leader has died, let's hope the revisionists don't come slithering out to restore capitalism.

[Sam_b]

We shouldn't be criticizing it because it was good for the oppressed peoples and the poor. In practice. End of story.


he wasn't as radical as I would have liked

You've just contradicted yourself in the space of four sentences.

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

It's not that we should not criticize Chávez' government. Of course we must recognize its limits and errors. At the same time, however, every leftist who deserves to be labelled as left, may recognize its accomplishments.

Revlefter brigadista posted a good article few pages back.



With regard to these social determinants of health indicators, Venezuela is now the country in the region with the lowest inequality level (measured by the Gini Coefficient) having reduced inequality by 54%, poverty by 44%. Poverty has been reduced from 70.8% (1996) to 21% (2010). And extreme poverty reduced from 40% (1996) to a very low level of 7.3% (2010). About 20 million people have benefited from anti-poverty programs, called “Misiones” (Up to now, 2.1 million elderly people have received old-age pensions – that is 66% of the population while only 387,000 received pensions before the current government.
Education is a key determinant of both health and poverty and the Bolivarian government has placed a particular emphasis on education allotting it more than 6% of GDP. UNESCO has recognized that illiteracy been eliminated furthermore, Venezuela is the 3rd county in the region whose population reads the most. There is tuition free education from daycare to university; 72% of children attend public daycares and 85% of school age children attend school.


I don't know about you, but, to me, these are fucking big deal.


Being repetitive, bolivarian revolution paved the way for a greater participation of the oppressed people of Venezuela, making them a little more proud and educated. And this is something not easily breakable. Now, without Chávez and probably with new elections, is the time to a step forward for the working class. Because we cannot ignore class struggle, can we? With a more organized working class, changes are made.

[sixdollarchampagne]

Very upsetting news.... one of the few leaders that stood up to America. R.I.P

Yeah, right. He "stood up" to the #1 imperialist power by selling it over a million barrels of oil daily for years. Just the kind of "opposition" the imperialists dream about, I bet.

[Thirsty Crow]

We shouldn't be criticizing it because it was good for the oppressed peoples and the poor. In practice. End of story. We should be concerned with what has worked best for and what has advanced the condition of the people. Chavez did. No, he wasn't as radical as I would have liked, but he gave the Venezuelan masses a platform.
Selective myopia takes another victim.

In practice, the redistribution measures did have effect. In practice, the conditions of wage labour, characteristic to capitalist society anywhere on the planet, remained. In practice, these policies depend on capital accumulation. In practice, this accumulation is not a smooth and undisturbed process. In practice, the gains of socialdemocracy can be, and probably will be, overturned without help from direct military intervention, since for capital the working class is mere variable capital - an expenditure of money, a cost which needs to be reduced. It has already happened and is happening each day.

This is the end of the story, that such fantasies about the permanent solution to social conseqences of capital on a reformist basis remain fantasies. And worse, as is evident in your case, they mask the real state of affairs.

[tachosomoza]

You've just contradicted yourself in the space of four sentences.

Well, fucking excuse me.

End of this stupid argument: Chavez was good for the Venezuelan proletariat. Thus, any leftist worth their salt would support him, not join enemies in attacking him, or attack other leftists because they support what's good for the proletariat as opposed to silly ideological bullshit that workers could care less about. People like you are the reason we're seen as a bunch of ivory tower jokes who want to manage the worker, but at the same time, remain disconnected from him or her.

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

Yeah, right. He "stood up" to the #1 imperialist power by selling it over a million barrels of oil daily for years. Just the kind of "opposition" the imperialists dream about, I bet.

Imperialists loved him so much they even attempted a coup.

[Ismail]

Which is ironic since the administration in socialist Albania was heavily reliant on Hoxha's personality cult and arguably was one of the leading factors in its collapse.No it wasn't. Hoxha was a popular leader independent of the cult built around him, as various bourgeois historians and commentators have noted. Likewise Chávez is also popular in Venezuela independent of any personality cult.

The difference is that the politics Chávez pursued were those of a personality cult. There was no Party, only the comandante, just as in China there was not so much the CCP (at least not after 1966) as Chairman Mao and his "Thoughts." Again, this fixation on one single individual as the initiator of everything and who alone leads the people is a common trait amongst populist leaders in Latin American, African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries.

[RadioRaheem84]

Obama relatively improves the basic situation of the proletariat as well, so what?

By a piss poor margin compared to the GOP. A piss poor one.

Nothing in comparison to Chavez. If Obama were to even suggest nationalizing an oil company it would be like he was announcing the end of liberty to many Americans, especially those in power.

Apples and oranges but if you want to still be punk rawk, by all means.....

[Red Commissar]

Question- is Maduro supposed to fill out the rest of Chavez's term or do they have to do another election?

[Paul Pott]

Question- is Maduro supposed to fill out the rest of Chavez's term or do they have to do another election?

There will be another election. Chavez was never even sworn in for his new term.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Personal condolences to the people and to the Chavez family, and RIP to the man.


Well, that was one iconic figure alright.

But, as others have said, his politics led nowhere in the end and it is highly likely that the country will drop into more uncertain times. I don't rule out a civil war even. The right will not allow the chance of another "lost decade".

I didn't expect Maduro to grab the lead so quickly, but he surprisingly has in the polls.

[Sam_b]

End of this stupid argument

You've said that twice now.

Why, on a discussion forum, are you getting so upset about the critical examination of a state leader? As has been said, Marxists should always criticise and evaluate everything, for the strength of theory, for lessons for the future, and the advancement of the class. Your problem is you seem to be holding Chavez up as some sort of monolith, that is free from exemption because he is objectively 'good' and somehow flawless. Nobody is flawless.

[RadioRaheem84]

You've said that twice now.

Why, on a discussion forum, are you getting so upset about the critical examination of a state leader? As has been said, Marxists should always criticise and evaluate everything, for the strength of theory, for lessons for the future, and the advancement of the class. Your problem is you seem to be holding Chavez up as some sort of monolith, that is free from exemption because he is objectively 'good' and somehow flawless. Nobody is flawless.

But I don't think people are saying he is flawless. I don't know where the anti-Chavists are getting this from. People are literally saying, "aw damn, there goes a pretty good dude, RIP comrade, and "I hope the right wing doesn't take over".

That's mostly it.

[Yuppie Grinder]

I sincerely have trouble caring a whole lot, and if Venezuela didn't have a populist hardman who enjoyed the color red and payed lip-service to braindead state-socialist ideology, neither would any of you. Call me insensitive, but I wouldn't care if any other bourgeois head of state died.
inb4 everyone is pissed off by this post

[Sam_b]

I think they're getting this from the fact that users above keep saying it is "end of story".

[Ismail]

I sincerely have trouble caring a whole lot, and if Venezuela didn't have a populist hardman who enjoyed the color red and payed lip-service to braindead state-socialist ideology, neither would any of you. Call me insensitive, but I wouldn't care if any other bourgeois head of state died."State-socialist"? The liberal terms you use make you sound to the right of Chávez.

Also showing off how much you don't care by announcing it doesn't convince anyone. I think a lot of people would care about Chávez's death, not because he was a Marxist, but because of the instability Venezuela is liable to get into and what this means for the organization of the working-class in that country.

[RadioRaheem84]

"State-socialist"? The liberal terms you use make you sound to the right of Chávez.

Also showing off how much you don't care by announcing it doesn't convince anyone.

My thoughts exactly.

[RadioRaheem84]

I sincerely have trouble caring a whole lot, and if Venezuela didn't have a populist hardman who enjoyed the color red and payed lip-service to braindead state-socialist ideology, neither would any of you. Call me insensitive, but I wouldn't care if any other bourgeois head of state died.
inb4 everyone is pissed off by this post

I wonder if you would be saying the same thing had we in the US ever even had the choice to elect a "populist hardman". I highly doubt any of you would would wince at thought of a candidate proposing strong social democracy. I know I would be ecstatic at a stronger labor movement and the chance for the right wing to take a huge hit. Ecstatic. A candidate like that would bring some semblance of dignity back to workers.

Things have shifted so far to the right since the fall of the FSU that a soc dem can look good.

[Lord Hargreaves]

I'm very sorry that is is tiring to practice the communist critique. Maybe it would be best if this were left to people who are not so easily tired. You can always write eulogies for statesmen, I bet that wouldn't be tiring.

That's what perpetual irrelevance makes of people. Relevence hungry freaks, that is.

I get that this is Revleft, and here we are all leftists debating leftists, etc.

But it seems strange to me that you will put all your effort into distancing yourself from a leader you deem insufficiently socialist, rather than into acknowledging his achievements in the face of the almost universally hostile reception he receives from everyone who isn't a radical (especially in the US, as we know, where he is deemed a vicious dictator). I think the latter option is actually the braver.

Anyone can sit here complaining that Chavez didn't overthrow the system of wage labour, even though he never claimed he was going to do so, and that anyway such reforms are impossible in one country. It takes no brains, no principles, to state the bleeding obvious.

And explain to me - if the left isn't even trying to be "relevant", what is the point of it exactly?

[Yuppie Grinder]

"State-socialist"? The liberal terms you use make you sound to the right of Chávez.

Also showing off how much you don't care by announcing it doesn't convince anyone. I think a lot of people would care about Chávez's death, not because he was a Marxist, but because of the instability Venezuela is liable to get into and what this means for the organization of the working-class in that country.

You've got me wholly misconstrued. Nice language comprehension ability.

[Ismail]

You've got me wholly misconstrued. Nice language comprehension ability.Feel free to point out where I misunderstood you, since I doubt anyone else "really" understood what you meant.

[Yuppie Grinder]

I think that "socialists" like Chavez who equate socialism with the nationalization of major industries are far from actual socialists.

[RadioRaheem84]

I think that "socialists" like Chavez who equate socialism with the nationalization of major industries are far from actual socialists.

He was a social democratic populist President, yes we get it, it's true. But the working class favored under him and was mobilized and empowered. The PSUV base is radical and can provide a vehicle to take the revolution further.

Again, I do not see how someone living in the US, Eastern Europe or a third world nation could not want to see some semblance of worker empowerment.

[Paul Pott]

I think that "socialists" like Chavez who equate socialism with the nationalization of major industries are far from actual socialists.

Well no shit.

[Lord Hargreaves]

Obama relatively improves the basic situation of the proletariat as well, so what?

Well, if Obama had issued major reforms that improved the lot of the majority, and the US had seen the same huge gains in literacy, health etc amongst the poorest as have been seen in Venezuela, then surely that would make a difference to how you saw him? You'd probably vote for him too, to keep the GOP out of office, wouldn't you? I don't see how any of that would amount to a grave betrayal of your communist principles.

It would also be a huge error to see Chavez as just a US style Democrat, or as just a "social democrat" (you haven't, but other people in this thread have), as if he was Tony Blair or something. I would agree that such political trends have nothing to do with Leftism, but then such trends have little in common with chavismo

[RadioRaheem84]

Well, if Obama had issued major reforms that improved the lot of the majority, and the US had seen the same huge gains in literacy, health etc amongst the poorest as have been seen in Venezuela, then surely that would make a difference to how you saw him? You'd probably vote for him too, to keep the GOP out of office, wouldn't you? I don't see how any of that would amount to a grave betrayal of your communist principles.

It would also be a huge error to see Chavez as just a US style Democrat, or as just a "social democrat" (you haven't, but other people in this thread have), as if he was Tony Blair or something. I would agree that such political trends have nothing to do with Leftism, but then such trends have little in common with chavismo

Exactly my fucking point. To even fathom a candidate like that in the States is wild. Makes me think we're really the suppressed country if Chavez could rise to power there but never here.

[sixdollarchampagne]

He was a social democratic populist President, yes we get it, it's true. But the working class favored under him and was mobilized and empowered. The PSUV base is radical and can provide a vehicle to take the revolution further.....

Please tell us, what "revolution" was that? Chávez left Venezuela much as he found it, a bourgeois republic with a market economy. Some revolution! And that's the problem – none of the historic tasks that the proletariat faces, in order to change society, was ever undertaken, in the 14 years that the comandante was President.

Real worker empowerment, real reconstruction of a society in the interests of its vast toiling majorities, takes place only after bourgeois rule has been crushed, through what Lenin described as a "violent revolution." Anything else is just a waste of people's time, a meaningless distraction.

[Astarte]

Please tell us, what "revolution" was that? Chávez left Venezuela much as he found it, a bourgeois republic with a market economy. Some revolution! And that's the problem – none of the historic tasks that the proletariat faces, in order to change society, was ever undertaken, in the 14 years that the comandante was President.

Real worker empowerment, real reconstruction of a society in the interests of its vast toiling majorities, takes place only after bourgeois rule has been crushed, through what Lenin described as a "violent revolution." Anything else is just a waste of people's time, a meaningless distraction.

Raising of the living standards of the toiling majority of the population is absolutely always a waste of people's time. Everyone got that?

[Lord Hargreaves]

Exactly my fucking point. To even fathom a candidate like that in the States is wild. Makes me think we're really the suppressed country if Chavez could rise to power there but never here.

Such an electoral movement is inconceivable in the US, I agree.

And lets not forget that Chavez himself represented the moderate, establishment wing of his party. The movement includes many activists that are well to the left of the party leadership, and were pushing Chavez to go much further in his reforms.

Many people on this forum seem to feel themselves personally compromised if they even acknowledge any political difference between, say, Berlusconi or Chavez, or between Fidel Castro and the Saudi royal family. They are all "bourgeois capitalists" or whatever. It is all maddeningly stupid.

[sixdollarchampagne]

Raising of the living standards of the toiling majority of the population is absolutely always a waste of people's time. Everyone got that?

In other words, capitalism can be reformed, and the bourgeois state can be wielded in the interests of workers and the poor. That is, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, etc., were all mistaken: workers' revolution is completely unnecessary. Totally BS populism is preferable!

Thank you, Ms. Astarte, for that [social democratic] news flash! :)

[Ostrinski]

The troubling implication in the perspective that some people in this thread are expressing is the supposed vacuum that all the policies and actions of the regime in Venezuela have enacted. The idea seems to be: the state thinks, the state wants, the state does , the state just arbitrarily institutes whatever actions it wishes and applies its own image to broader Venezuelan society. "He gave them schools, hospitals, and infrastructure!" What, he just pulled them out of his ass?

[Lord Hargreaves]

In other words, capitalism can be reformed, and the bourgeois state can be wielded in the interests of workers and the poor. That is, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, etc., were all mistaken: workers' revolution is completely unnecessary. Totally BS populism is better!

Thank you, Ms. Astarte, for that [social democratic] news flash! :)

Believing in the value of reform is not the same as "reformism". That's just a strawman. No, you can't vote to get rid of capitalism, but you can vote in favour of the government building more schools and improving healthcare standards.

The reform/revolution dichotomy is overblown anyway, since people are more likely to revolt if they see the material results of progress. They are less likely to be receptive to your revolutionary message if they are hungry, homeless and illiterate, since they have more pressing immediate concerns

[tachosomoza]

Raising of the living standards of the toiling majority of the population is absolutely always a waste of people's time. Everyone got that?

Like I said, these people are the reason the left is seen as a joke. Come down to earth, people. Mao, Lenin and Trotsky would be shocked at how pitiful we are.

[Ostrinski]

The left is a joke.

[MP5]

Forget your Stalinist-Hoxhaism a sec and try to realise that someone who actually stood for something similar to what we stand for without massacring thousands has just died.

Disgusting, old fashioned, "comintern" politics.

What did he stand for? Tyranny of the masses, populism and absolute rule all under the guise of Socialism and standing up to the big bad USA? Saddam was against the US (for abit anyway) but i don't think many Socialists cried when he died.

Chavez was just one of the last despots left. He was certainly no better then Assad and Putin in terms of Democracy and was no more of a Socialist then either of those. I could care less about the politics of a country that collapsed when i was so young i can barely remember it happening but Chavez did nothing to advance the cause of Socialism.

S besides the fact that i think cancer is a horrible way to die i could care less.

[Orange Juche]

No one here is praising Chávez's death, but no one should deify him either. He was not a Marxist.

So we should deify Marxists?

[tachosomoza]

The left is a joke.

You are a joke. An unfunny one, at that.

[REDSOX]

The death of Commandate Hugo chavez frias is a tragedy, not only for venezuelans but for the rest of the world. We have lost a good man who did a hell of a lot for his people especially the poor and the working class.

some highlights include

A new constitution enshrining rights for the first time to the poor and indigenous

Free health care and education

Nationalisation of most of the commanding heights of the economy

Land reform redistributing millions of hectares of private land to the poor

A massive house building programme

An independent foreign policy



No wonder he got elected 4 times

[Ostrinski]

You are a joke. An unfunny one, at that.You know what's funny? Bourgeois-populists biting the dust.

The only unfortunate aspect of this whole event is that he didn't take his whole lefty fan club with him! :D

[tachosomoza]

Nah, it's better watching annoying overread disconnected brats get owned.:thumbup1:

[Decolonize The Left]

Well, at least we got one page of RIPs before the thread devolved...

[Astarte]

In other words, capitalism can be reformed, and the bourgeois state can be wielded in the interests of workers and the poor. That is, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, etc., were all mistaken: workers' revolution is completely unnecessary. Totally BS populism is preferable!

Thank you, Ms. Astarte, for that [social democratic] news flash! :)

I never said anything close to that, all I did was point out that you naively think that the raising of living standards of the working class and oppressed classes is a waste of time because it doesn't immediately socialize property like the Bolsheviks did almost 100 years ago now... At times the 'Bolivarian revolution' relied heavily on "Bolivarian Circles" (Chavez especially relied on this kind of popular support from below to secure/maintain power, particularly after the attempted 2002 coup). When Chavez did this, granted in a Caesarist sense, the movement which his personality provided the impetus for was indeed a reform movement, but it was a reform movement which rested on the political actions of the oppressed classes, and in this sense had revolutionary potential. With Chavez as the instrument of state, the oppressed classes, albeit unable to change much at the base level were able to raise their living standards via the manipulation of the super-structure - the rich in Venezuela clearly were and still are fearful of the potential of where this proverbial 'Sword of Damocles' over them could very well wind up - that is at the revolutionary ends which indeed do cut loose the social bindings of private property over society.

[Engels]

Well, at least we got one page of RIPs before the thread devolved...

One page of RIP commandante, RIP comrade, RIP blah blah was itself far too much leftist wankery to begin with.

[Decolonize The Left]

One page of RIP commandante, RIP comrade, RIP blah blah was itself far too much leftist wankery to begin with.

Welcome to revleft? I'd rather read that than the back-and-forth circular arguments which inevitably result from most state-specific threads, or threads on any major public figure for that matter.

[Ostrinski]

Nah, it's better watching annoying overread disconnected brats get owned.:thumbup1:By who? Liberals who's sensibilities are so offended by communists opting out of class treason that they feel inclined to kick, yell, and scream in the most pitiful display of complete inability to defend their own god-awful anti-working class politics?

I think not.

[Paul Pott]

One page of RIP commandante, RIP comrade, RIP blah blah was itself far too much leftist wankery to begin with.

What should we say? This is the kind of thread where that is appropriate.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Hugo Chávez was a populist. His politics were inconsistent, his "socialism" nothing like the Marxian conception, and his foreign policy nationalist (which obviously brought him into some antagonism with the USA.)

That being said, Venezuelan politics will obviously shift rightwards now that the pillar of the country's "left" is gone.

Have some humanity you massive, massive asshole.

This was a man who, right or wrong politics, was doing his best. And he's barely hours dead. Have some fucking respect you arrogant little adolescent.

RIP a del commandante. You will be missed by a great many people :(

[Althusser]

Why so much hate here? You just killed my mood, and I was feeling choked up and inspired after watching this documentary: 3ZajyVas4Jg

[tachosomoza]

Have some humanity you massive, massive asshole.

This was a man who, right or wrong politics, was doing his best. And he's barely hours dead. Have some fucking respect you arrogant little adolescent.

RIP a del commandante. You will be missed by a great many people :(

This. Fucking hipster assholes these.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Except for the Jews.

Sorry?

[Ismail]

This was a man who, right or wrong politics, was doing his best.No one disputes that. In his own mind he most likely really did think he was leading a "Bolivarian revolution." The problem is that he unfortunately brought hundreds of thousands along with him in thinking this. His policies present a dead-end to the working-class, he was not a Marxist, and his domestic and foreign stands did not in any way express the interests of socialism.

It's going to really suck when Chávez's fellow "socialist" friend Fidel Castro dies. I anticipate many RevLefters mourning in front of their keyboards à la North Koreans vis-à-vis the Kims.


So we should deify Marxists?No?


Many people on this forum seem to feel themselves personally compromised if they even acknowledge any political difference between, say, Berlusconi or Chavez, or between Fidel Castro and the Saudi royal family. They are all "bourgeois capitalists" or whatever. It is all maddeningly stupid.This is a ridiculous strawman. Outside of a tiny minority, everyone in this thread has noted that Chávez was a popular leader whose policies generally conflicted with US imperialism and who was seen as embodying progress for many disadvantaged yet unconscious segments of Venezuelan society.

They just don't conflate that with socialism or try to portray Chávez as a proletarian revolutionary, and in fact note the danger that his populist rhetoric and personalist political style brings in the wake of his death.

[Lord Hargreaves]

What did he stand for? Tyranny of the masses, populism and absolute rule all under the guise of Socialism and standing up to the big bad USA? Saddam was against the US (for abit anyway) but i don't think many Socialists cried when he died.

Chavez was just one of the last despots left. He was certainly no better then Assad and Putin in terms of Democracy and was no more of a Socialist then either of those. I could care less about the politics of a country that collapsed when i was so young i can barely remember it happening but Chavez did nothing to advance the cause of Socialism.

S besides the fact that i think cancer is a horrible way to die i could care less.

Pretty much what I meant. This post could have been written by Rush Limbaugh.

[Lord Hargreaves]

Sorry?

Probably something to do with Chavez meeting Ahmadinejad, but otherwise your guess is as good as mine :confused:

[Ismail]

Probably something to do with Chavez meeting Ahmadinejad, but otherwise your guess is as good as mine :confused:It was a joke.

But seriously, what's wrong with noting that Chávez was a bourgeois nationalist? What sort of "Marxist" calls the doctrine of proletarian revolution "dogmatic" and wrong? What sort of "Marxist" allies with Russia and Iran? What sort of "Marxist" speaks of laws passed in his own country by bourgeois legislators as "strengthening socialism," as Chávez routinely did?

[cclark501]

What Chavez did was begin to raise some inkling of class consciousness in the lower and middle class citizens. Hopefully the people will not allow the bourgeois and imperialist put them back in the dark and they will continue forward at an accelerated pace.

[Lord Hargreaves]

This is a ridiculous strawman. Outside of a tiny minority, everyone in this thread has noted that Chávez was a popular leader whose policies generally conflicted with US imperialism and who was seen as embodying progress for many disadvantaged yet unconscious segments of Venezuelan society.

Actually no, the trend has been a very reluctant admission of his good side, overshadowed by a kind of neurotic need to shout about how he was only a state happy capitalist and one shouldn't really care too much.

I don't know what "unconscious segements of Venezuelan society" means, they all seemed pretty conscious of what they were campaigning for

[Ismail]

I don't know what "unconscious segements of Venezuelan society" means, they all seemed pretty conscious of what they were campaigning forJust as Democrats seem conscious of defeating the "far-right," "Christian fundamentalists," etc. when voting against the Republicans. You're confusing commitment for actual consciousness.

Many people who supported Chávez believed in all sorts of things. They believed he was carrying forward Christ's words (he was, after all, a Christian), they believed he was going to end poverty, they believed he was going to get rid of big businesses and give the "little man" room to develop, etc. It was all about him and his magical plans to fix all the problems of the proletarians, lumpen-proletarians and petty-bourgeoisie.

In fact it's worth bringing up something noted (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14351508) by the BBC two years ago:

The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, says he wants to open up his socialist political project to the middle classes and private sector...

The Venezuelan leader made his comments a day after he celebrated his 57th birthday, when - appearing in yellow rather than his characteristic red shirt - he told a rally of cheering supporters that he was in no mood to leave office in the near future.

In Friday's telephone interview, Mr Chavez said the treatment to remove a tumour had led him to radically change his life towards a "more diverse, more reflective and multi-faceted" period.

He told his supporters to eliminate divisions and dogma, and end what he called the abuse of symbols such as the term "socialist".

"Why do we have to always have to wear a red shirt?" said Mr Chavez. "And the same goes for the word 'socialism'." ...

Mr Chavez, who came to power in 1999, said the private sector and the middle classes were "vital" to his political project.

He said it was a shame that attempts to be more inclusive of these groups in society had been criticised by some in official circles in Venezuela.

"Raul Castro is leading a process of self-criticism," said Mr Chavez, hinting that Venezuela could learn from the reforms being undertaken by the president of Cuba, who has made some concessions to the private sector since taking over from Fidel Castro in 2006.

Mr Chavez said his government needed to correct the perception that small businesses would be taken over by the state.

"We have to make sure no-one believes that," he said. "We have to convince them about our real project, that we need this sector and that we want to acknowledge their contribution."

[Die Neue Zeit]

Real worker empowerment, real reconstruction of a society in the interests of its vast toiling majorities, takes place only after bourgeois rule has been crushed, through what Lenin described as a "violent revolution." Anything else is just a waste of people's time, a meaningless distraction.


The troubling implication in the perspective that some people in this thread are expressing is the supposed vacuum that all the policies and actions of the regime in Venezuela have enacted. The idea seems to be: the state thinks, the state wants, the state does , the state just arbitrarily institutes whatever actions it wishes and applies its own image to broader Venezuelan society. "He gave them schools, hospitals, and infrastructure!" What, he just pulled them out of his ass?

Communal councils and communes are huge empowerment steps forward, and they aren't "the state thinks, the state wants, the state does," given tensions between them and anti-Chavez legislatures and governors.

Anyways, the biggest let-down is that he was not Venezuela's much-needed adaptation of Julius Caesar from people's history. He didn't follow up on some of his rhetoric.

[Lord Hargreaves]

It was a joke.

I missed it. People have been accused of anti-Semitism for far crazier things.


But seriously, what's wrong with noting that Chávez was a bourgeois nationalist? What sort of "Marxist" calls the doctrine of proletarian revolution "dogmatic" and wrong? What sort of "Marxist" allies with Russia and Iran? What sort of "Marxist" speaks of laws passed in his own country by bourgeois legislators as "strengthening socialism," as Chávez routinely did?

Chavez wasn't a Marxist, so making most of those criticisms are fairly moot, in my opinion.

There isn't anything wrong in criticising his nationalism and anti-imperialism or use of executive power or whatever, I didn't mean to give that impression. But I find it strange that these are the first things that spring to mind when he dies.

His nationalism was a kind of Latin American nationalism, based on his early Bolivarianism. It was a continent-wide nationalism based on regional economic autonomy and rejection of US interference (real or perceived). I think it is wrong to paint all nationalism with the exact same brush. We don't have to be nationalists ourselves to recognise differences.

[Ismail]

His nationalism was a kind of Latin American nationalism, based on his early Bolivarianism. It was a continent-wide nationalism based on regional economic autonomy and rejection of US interference (real or perceived). I think it is wrong to paint see all nationalism with the exact same brush. We don't have to be nationalists ourselves to recognise differences.A lot of Latin American "nationalism" in the 1970's and 80's was contrived by otherwise unpopular and corrupt leaders, including Venezuela's own Pérez, Portillo in Mexico, and so on. Of course Lenin pointed out that nationalism could have progressive content when used against imperialism and colonialism, but it is and always will be a bourgeois phenomenon which the working-class and its vanguard must never succumb towards.

It is also worth noting that Marx held a dim view of Bolívar.

[MP5]

The only sad thing about this day was watching pseudo leftists cry in their latte's over a despot tyrant. Is this what the left is reduced to supporting populist tyrants who claim they are Socialist? If it is it's a sorry state of affairs indeed. Chavez supported the likes of Iran who's counterrevolutionaries killed off all the Communists of any type when the Islamic militants won out. How the hell does that make him some great socialist? Being anti-American does not equal Socialism! For that matter what kind of Socialist aligns himself with Tsar Putin? I suppose these same lefties will be mourning his death when he finally croaks or atleast the ones who aren't dedicated Tories, Liberals or equivalent there of by that point.

Fuck i need some anti-nausea tablets after reading through all this because seeing all these pseudo leftists weep over a dictator is making me want to puke :cursing:

[Goblin]

One of the few good leaders in the world. RIP

[Flying Purple People Eater]

This is good enough for me. Nitpicking, annoying, over-read morons and idiots, shut the fuck up and piss off. This is why the left loses, people. We're too caught up in silly bullshit and bickering about long dead men and long broken apart countries to actually get shit done[/B]

Hahaha, so it's nitpicking that we recognise that Chavez himself was actively involved in supressing workers' strikes throughout the country during his time in office?

Go and fuck yourself, reformist dog. It's sellouts like you that really hurt the left.

[sixdollarchampagne]

Hahaha, so it's nitpicking that we recognise that Chavez himself was actively involved in supressing workers' strikes throughout the country during his time in office? ...

That is a very important point. It is true that, while Chávez was President, the Guardia Nacional, of which Chávez was commander in chief, according to the chavista Constitution of Venezuela, was used to attack class-conscious workers.

The most blatant example of the Venezuelan bourgeois state attacking advanced workers while Chávez was in office, that I remember, was the Guardia Nacional (without any provocation from the workers at all) viciously attacking the workers of Sanitarios Maracay, a plant that had been abandoned by the capitalist boss, which the workers then recovered and began production again, under workers' self-management.

A group of the Sanitarios Maracay workers was preparing to go to Caracas, to give a report to a government committee, when the Guardia Nacional (commander-in-chief, Hugo Rafael Chávez) attacked them in broad daylight. That one fact tells anyone all he needs to know about the "progressive," "leftist" Chávez regime. It was opposed to class-conscious workers, obviously.

And congratulations to the Stalinist, for pointing out the truth about the Chávez regime!

[REDSOX]

Hahaha, so it's nitpicking that we recognise that Chavez himself was actively involved in supressing workers' strikes throughout the country during his time in office?

Go and fuck yourself, reformist dog. It's sellouts like you that really hurt the left.

Give me concrete examples of hugo chavez repressing workers strikes. Chavez was a friend of the workers and did more for the working classes than any fucking leader in venezuelas history going back to Simon bolivar

Check out venezuelas new labor law for proof on this

By the way if you and others keep giving examples of the national guard attacking workers in certain factories like sidor and sanitarios maracay then it is worth pointing out that these national guard were not ordered by chavez to attack the workers, they were corrupt governors who dont have the interest of the workers at heart. Indeed when chavez found out about these abuses such as sidor then he acted decisevely such as nationalising Sidor and Sanitarios maracay and sacking thoses responsible for repression

[sixdollarchampagne]

Give me concrete examples of hugo chavez repressing workers strikes. Chavez was a friend of the workers and did more for the working classes than any fucking leader in venezuelas history going back to Simon bolivar ...

In fact, during a strike at SIDOR, that giant steel mill on the Orinoco River, the workers were attacked by the Guardia Nacional (GN), commander-in-chief, Hugo Chávez. The Guardia Nacional successfully broke the strike; as far as I can tell, the "revolutionary," "socialist" Chávez, commander of the GN, did nothing to prevent or halt that strike-breaking attack. So, yeah, the Chávez regime obviously had a big problem with class-conscious workers.

[Devrim]

Sad, really sad, not the death of a single bourgeois politician, but the way that so called revolutionaries are fawning over his corpse. The near complete abscence of class understanding is tragic.

Devrim

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Feel bad for his family, but that's all really. Agree with posts pointing out that he was no more a truly socialist / communist revolutionary than any social democrat with a huge ego and lots of bad things to say about the USA. So yeah, condolences to loved ones, otherwise not bothered.

[Sasha]

Except for the Jews.

Excuse me? You better give us some context there asap...

[hatzel]

Except for the Jews.


Sorry?


Probably something to do with Chavez meeting Ahmadinejad, but otherwise your guess is as good as mine :confused:

If anybody's interested in my guess, I would assume it's linked to one (or more) of the following:

1. The recent claim that the Venezuelan intelligence agency has been spying on the Jewish community as a national security issue.
2. The accusation that Chavez's last election campaign contained elements of antisemitism against Capriles, who is of Jewish ancestry.
3. The belief amongst some Venezuelan Jews that the mob attack on the synagogue last year (amongst other popular manifestations of antisemitism) was somewhat encouraged by the government, or at least was not adequately opposed.
4. The fact that Chavez himself met with the Jewish community not so long ago to discuss the problem of antisemitism in the state-run media, including (if I remember rightly) the claim that 'Semitic banks' are trying to undermine Venezuela's economy and a very clearly worded headline: 'We're fucked if the Jews take power' (I may be getting confused about the exact details here, but the meeting certainly took place, of that I'm sure).

All I know for certain is that over two-thirds of Venezuela's Jewish community has left the country since Chavez's rise to power, which could be for any number of reasons. But it's maybe fair to assume that the Venezuelan Jewish community probably wouldn't be the first in line to declare their admiration for the legacy of Chavez's government, for purely domestic reasons.

(Not that I'm endorsing any of the above mentioned claims or that they're necessarily anything to do with Chavez, just pointing out that the Venezuelan Jewish community is sometimes seen to have had a pretty rocky relationship with the government in recent years, and this may have been what Drosphila was alluding to, I dunno...)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

But seriously, what's wrong with noting that Chávez was a bourgeois nationalist?

Just shows you don't have much class, or humanity.

The bloke's just died and yeah okay, we know he wasn't a communist, but that doesn't mean he didn't genuinely try his best to do a little bit to help the Venezuelan working class. He wasn't a theoretician and he probably didn't have an intricate understanding of every different denomination of the term 'value', and wasn't implementing everything under the masthead of Leninist orthodoxy, but the guy has just died before his time in probably a very painful way; even if we don't consider him a fellow communist, he was certainly on our side (at least trying to be).

It's just bloody dis-respectful to totally ignore the human element of this and start analysing the poor dead guy as a political tool straight away. In fact, borrowing from the tactic you often use, I note that it's what the more right-wing, reactionary news media have tended to do.

[Münchhausen]

I think it's beyond my knowledge to claim wether he genuinely wanted to aid the working class, or wether he just did what he did to stay in power, but i think denouncing everything he did because he wasn't a communist (and i think everybody here knows he wasn't, right?) isn't very productive. I don't think anybody here is arguing in favor of reformism...

Also i think the real merit of his policies will be shown in the years to come. He did lay the base for a rising sense of independence from the USA throughout latin america. And while nationalism is obviously counterproductive, the abolition of the US-interventionism is probably necessary in order for any latin american revolution to be successful (as the experiences of the second half of the 20th century show).

Also his policies might have given the working class a sense of entitlement. So when the bourgeois-parties take over the country again and start to roll back his policies, the working class might not sit idly by, but rather fight back.

[Hit The North]

This is such an absurdity, along with "RIP" posts online from thousands of miles afar while employing that buzzword "comrade" and timidly recognizing that hey he was not that revolutionary, but still - it's kinda hard to even begin describing it.


Well we all understand that the only people left communists approve of is other left communists so your "Marxist critique" tells us nothing we didn't already know, comrade.

[Sasha]

Worthwhile article by an Venezuelan anarchist newspaper; http://www.revleft.com/vb/ch-vez-dea....html?t=179194

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Worthwhile article by an Venezuelan anarchist newspaper; http://www.revleft.com/vb/ch-vez-dea....html?t=179194

link doesn't work.

[Drosophila]

Excuse me? You better give us some context there asap...

There is this quote:

“Don’t let yourselves be poisoned by those wandering Jews. Don’t let them lead you to the place they want you to be led. There are some people saying that those 40 percent [who supported his recall] are all enemies of Chavez.” - http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2004/venezuela.htm


Plus there are numerous cases of anti-Semitic propaganda and even attacks on Venezuelan Jews from his support base, which he didn't seem to care about.

[l'Enfermé]

This is a blanket verbal warning for everyone that has been flaming in this thread. Stop it right now.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I really find this debate between whether or not Hugo Chavez was a true revolutionary or some kind of bourgeois electoral despot to be really, really tiresome and simplistic. What's worse, here we have simplistic analysis being delivered with vitriol.

Let's at least look at a few more facts which have been ignored ... the man took power at a time when social revolution was commonly looked at as an impossibility under a leftwing capitalist program. After this, the coup and the popular movement to put him back in power pushed the policies, propaganda and stated goal of the party closer towards a socialist overhaul of the country, but without any real program to make it possible. Since that, there has been a struggle between those seeking to move society in a more radical direction, those seeking to protect their wealth and status, and those seeking to become wealthy. There was an emergence on of a group of class conscious workers who supported the State, and on there was also the emergence of the "Bolibourgeoisie" which used the revolution to grow their Capital. Thus it seems more that the country and ruling party is divided, which is a much more complicated story than what people here have been presenting.

Venezuela is obviously not a socialist economy, but does that mean that his whole presidency had no role in strengthening the Leftist political base in his country as well as others. I also think that people on this forum are forgetting why real socialism is for all intensive purposes impossible in Venezuela. It is an import dependent country, and imports from capitalist countries require exchangeable currency, so as such the Venezuelan government needs to sell things in the world market (particularly oil) to be able to maintain a basic standard of living. Venezuela imports a LOT of its food, so how would it feed its people without selling goods on the world market? How could it do that without participating in capitalist economic relations? That is why internationalism is so important - and Mr Chavez was an internationalist of sorts, though his allies outside of Latin America were more than a little dubious.


So why are the only options regarding our historical interpretation of Hugo Chavez either:

A. Lenin 2.0
B. Tony Blair/Peron/Mitterrand with a red beret.


There is this quote:

“Don’t let yourselves be poisoned by those wandering Jews. Don’t let them lead you to the place they want you to be led. There are some people saying that those 40 percent [who supported his recall] are all enemies of Chavez.” - http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2004/venezuela.htm


Plus there are numerous cases of anti-Semitic propaganda and even attacks on Venezuelan Jews from his support base, which he didn't seem to care about.

A lot of the things on that link are inexcusable (although only one of them is directly attributable to Chavez in any way). It is true that too little was done to combat antisemitism and other reactionary tendencies among the base. However a substantial portion of the things mentioned in that link is just anti-Israel politics, like calling Ariel Sharon a murderer and accusing Mossad of intervening in his country. Last I checked, Ariel Sharon killed a lot of innocent people and Mossad is linked to numerous interventions in countries across the globe. The Venezuelan government called Bush a murderer and said that the CIA intervened in the country, does that make them anti-White? Of course not. The fact that the link seems to think that calling Sharon a murderer in a protest is a case of "antisemitism" is just absurd and damages its credibility as a neutral source of information on the issue.

It is true that anti-Israel politics can become antisemitism among people with an uncritical political consciousness but that does not so much discredit the whole movement as indicate that more needs to be done to combat racism.

[Ismail]

I also think that people on this forum are forgetting why real socialism is for all intensive purposes impossible in Venezuela. It is an import dependent country, and imports from capitalist countries require exchangeable currency, so as such the Venezuelan government needs to sell things in the world market (particularly oil) to be able to maintain a basic standard of living.This is the same argument used about Cuba and is a cop-out. Albania maintained no diplomatic or trade relations whatsoever with the USA or USSR, and its 1976 Constitution forbade seeking foreign credits and investments. In fact the Albanian currency was considered unchangeable in foreign exchange. Nor did Albania have the advantage of oil that Venezuela, Libya, and other self-described "socialist" states had.

Rather than stay an "import dependent country" as the West and the Soviet revisionists wanted it to be, Albania aspired to become a country which created as many of its own industrial and consumer goods as was possible, the same "autarkic" policy Stalin promoted in Eastern Europe (and which the Soviet revisionists denounced and replaced with the "international socialist division of labor.") Such a foreign policy line, among other things, meant that Albania accrued no debts.

Albania in 1944 was in every way poorer than Venezuela in 1999 and yet the economics and societies are as different as night from day.


That is why internationalism is so important - and Mr Chavez was an internationalist of sorts, though his allies outside of Latin America were more than a little dubious.What "internationalist" actions did he carry out besides meeting with some Trots and enticing them to support him further by fruitless talk of a "Fifth International"?

[Lord Hargreaves]

Sad, really sad, not the death of a single bourgeois politician, but the way that so called revolutionaries are fawning over his corpse. The near complete abscence of class understanding is tragic.

Devrim

If by "class understanding" you mean - acceptance of a dogmatic, petulant, black-and-white world that contains only proletariat vs bourgeois, left communist vs The Enemy (everyone else), where all greyscale and nuance and distinction is prohibited and regarded as treason - then yeah, I guess I'm somewhat lacking.

[Ismail]

If by "class understanding" you mean - acceptance of a dogmatic, petulant, black-and-white world that contains only proletariat vs bourgeois...Us Marxists also have in mind the petty-bourgeoisie, of which Chávez and his "socialism" ultimately belonged.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

This is the same argument used about Cuba and is a cop-out. Albania maintained no diplomatic or trade relations whatsoever with the USA or USSR, and its 1976 Constitution forbade seeking foreign credits and investments. In fact the Albanian currency was considered unchangeable in foreign exchange. Nor did Albania have the advantage of oil that Venezuela, Libya, and other self-described "socialist" states had.

Rather than stay an "import dependent country" as the West and the Soviet revisionists wanted it to be, Albania aspired to become a country which created as many of its own industrial and consumer goods as was possible, the same "autarkic" policy Stalin promoted in Eastern Europe, and which the Soviet revisionists attacked. Such a foreign policy line, among other things, meant that Albania accrued no debts.


Well, Albania didn't last long after Hoxha's death, and neither did economic autarky. I guess Hoxha was a wiser leader than Ceaușescu and Tito in the fact that his country did not become dependent on American debt but clearly autarky can be very problematic too, especially for a small country. Autarky creates all sorts of significant economic inefficiencies, because productivity in certain sectors within your borders is going to be so low that its unable to efficiently provide certain goods. It inhibits the improving living standards of people at all levels of the economy. Some economies like that of the USSR could pull it off due to their sheer size, but small ones like Venezuela (and I'd argue Albania too, but you're obviously the expert on that country) will just struggle to raise living standards the way which people expect.

Autarky is also something which cannot be built overnight. If Venezuela is importing more than half of its foodstuffs, how on earth could it ever hope to compensate for those lost imports with domestic production overnight?


What "internationalist" actions did he carry out besides meeting with some Trots and enticing them to support him further by fruitless talk of a "Fifth International"?

ALBA, etc created an economic and political power block independent of US control. It also supported Iran and various other less scrupulous regimes, hence my skepticism about the quality of his internationalism outside of Latin America

[Ismail]

ALBA, etc created an economic and political power block independent of US control.ALBA consists of Venezuela, Ecuador (whose President is a neo-liberal on more or less friendly terms with the USA, as noted by the PCMLE), Bolivia (friction with USA over coca, but otherwise Morales breaks workers' strikes and whatnot), and Nicaragua (whose leader was the Chávez of the 80's but after he banned abortion a few years back and showed himself as a corrupt opportunist everyone has forgotten he exists.) Not very inspiring.

To quote Hoxha, "The slogan of 'non-aligned countries' gives the false impression that a group of states which have the possibility of 'opposing' the superpower blocs is being created. It gives the impression that these countries, all of them, are anti-imperialist, opposed to war, opposed to the dictate of others, that they are 'democratic', and even 'socialist'. This helps to strengthen the pseudo-democratic and anti-popular positions of the leading groups of some states which are participating among the 'non-aligned', and creates the impression among the peoples of these countries that when their chiefs establish or dissolve relations of any kind and nature, with the imperialists and the social-imperialists, openly or in secret, they do this not only in the capacity of 'popular governments', but also in the capacity of a group of states 'with which even the superpowers must reckon'." - Report Submitted to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania, 1977, p. 175.

[Ostrinski]

Well we all understand that the only people left communists approve of is other left communists so your "Marxist critique" tells us nothing we didn't already know, comrade.So do Trots, and anarchists, and everyone else, though.

[Os Cangaceiros]

As far as bourgeois politicians who help maintain the rule of capital go, I guess he could've been worse! ;)

One thing he did that was a nice gesture was provide heating oil for disadvantaged communities where I live, which was needed & appreciated at the time.

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2009/01/hugo-chavez-provides-for-alaska-natives.html

That and he said some funny things. I don't agree with those who say he was anything other than a populist/capitalist figure, though.

[Delenda Carthago]

The only sad thing about this day was watching pseudo leftists cry in their latte's over a despot tyrant. Is this what the left is reduced to supporting populist tyrants who claim they are Socialist? If it is it's a sorry state of affairs indeed. Chavez supported the likes of Iran who's counterrevolutionaries killed off all the Communists of any type when the Islamic militants won out. How the hell does that make him some great socialist? Being anti-American does not equal Socialism! For that matter what kind of Socialist aligns himself with Tsar Putin? I suppose these same lefties will be mourning his death when he finally croaks or atleast the ones who aren't dedicated Tories, Liberals or equivalent there of by that point.

Fuck i need some anti-nausea tablets after reading through all this because seeing all these pseudo leftists weep over a dictator is making me want to puke :cursing:


Not saying this to support Chavez, but having affairs with other countries is a nessesity for every socialist country. I know that it doesnt seem so good, but life itself has proven that as long you dont infiltrate in a imperialist chain, having economical relationships with other countries is the only way to go if you want to survive.

Or you become like Hoxha's Albania, isolated from the rest of the world on terrible economic conditions in order to maintain your ideological purity.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

ALBA consists of Venezuela, Ecuador (whose President is a neo-liberal on more or less friendly terms with the USA, as noted by the PCMLE), Bolivia (friction with USA over coca, but otherwise Morales breaks workers' strikes and whatnot), and Nicaragua (whose leader was the Chávez of the 80's but after he banned abortion a few years back and showed himself as a corrupt opportunist everyone has forgotten he exists.) Not very inspiring.

To quote Hoxha, "The slogan of 'non-aligned countries' gives the false impression that a group of states which have the possibility of 'opposing' the superpower blocs is being created. It gives the impression that these countries, all of them, are anti-imperialist, opposed to war, opposed to the dictate of others, that they are 'democratic', and even 'socialist'. This helps to strengthen the pseudo-democratic and anti-popular positions of the leading groups of some states which are participating among the 'non-aligned', and creates the impression among the peoples of these countries that when their chiefs establish or dissolve relations of any kind and nature, with the imperialists and the social-imperialists, openly or in secret, they do this not only in the capacity of 'popular governments', but also in the capacity of a group of states 'with which even the superpowers must reckon'." - Report Submitted to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania, 1977, p. 175.

Can you not provide some analysis on the subject of ALBA, instead of providing a quote from a rather insignificant dead guy from 36 years ago; Chavez, Correa, Ortega and Morales weren't even around when Hoxha was speaking (at least Ortega not in his current guise) so I don't know how that quote could possibly be relevant; it's about a world in which there are two superpowers. Now one of those superpowers has gone and foreign relations/realpolitik has taken on a totally different guise, particularly with China's evolution into a full-blown free market economy.

[sixdollarchampagne]

Someone originally wrote:
Well we all understand that the only people left communists approve of is other left communists so your "Marxist critique" tells us nothing we didn't already know, comrade And then a comrade replied:
So do Trots, and anarchists, and everyone else, though.

I would like to point out that, in the course of this discussion/thread, I applauded a revleft poster whose handle is something like, "Stalin is my saviour," when s/he wrote that Chávez' government, in fact, was responsible for sending troops against workers, and that Stalinist was the first to refer to that significant fact (which puts all the posthumous adulation of Chávez in a real, factual, class context). So when I see an admirer of Stalin doing something admirable, I try to call attention to it. And I'm a Trotskyist. And I would bet that supporters of other tendencies do the same thing.

[Brutus]

I think the stalinist you refer to is not actually Stalinist

[sixdollarchampagne]

I think the stalinist you refer to is not actually Stalinist

Yeah, I thought about that, too. If you look at the picture by the person's name, I guess that picture is called an avatar, the picture of Stalin has been altered, to give him a *big* smile. So I am guessing that "Stalin is my saviour" is there, just to be provocative. Thanks for lines from Bobby Burns, BTW, and, now that I think about it, that may invalidate my previous post completely. Never mind. If I may comment further, the juxtaposition of Fred and Karl and Baader-Meinhof is pretty funny, too.

[Rafiq]

If by "class understanding" you mean - acceptance of a dogmatic, petulant, black-and-white world that contains only proletariat vs bourgeois,

As far as the superstructure goes, as far as the state and their symbolic figures: There is only class. And we know where your support lies. We know that you are not a Communist because your interests are identical with that of the proletariat, you trot around calling yourself a communist because you're a moralist who wants to fight "injustice" or what have you. The real simplicity lies with this notion that support for Chavez is warranted because he "helped the poor" or because he was "better than the former", and so on, or even that "the rich hated him". Even if the entirety of the bourgeois class hates a bourgeois politician, he is still a bourgeois politician. Even if the bourgeois state makes decisions in the interests of the bourgeois class that, like the child who wants more sugary treats before dinner, the actual bourgeois class is resilient in accepting or approving, this does not change the class nature of the state. Capitalism is not a big conspiracy, the point of materialism is that the actual material processes which sustain life precede conscious will, i.e. The bourgeois class is in a position of class dictatorship only insofar as that they retain social and most of the time, superstructural (political, cultural, etc.) hegemony. The fact that after the rise of neoliberalism, it has become apparent that the state is literally and quite directly controlled by the bourgeoisie (or the "corporations" or whatever) is just a systemic embaressment.

[Rafiq]

Well we all understand that the only people left communists approve of is other left communists so your "Marxist critique" tells us nothing we didn't already know, comrade.

What a load of garbage. I know of many Left Communists who are supportive of anarchists, who talk of them as genuine proponents of proletarian struggle and the likes. Even if Chavez was a left communist, even if he identified with the left communist movement, for whatever bizarre reason, I highly doubt they would be supportive of him.

here's something that you've yet to wrap your head around: The reason Stalinists are so frustrated by the fact that "ultra-leftists" are so knit-picky or what have you is simply because those "ultra leftists" operate in a framework external from yours, free from the constraints of bourgeois ideology. When in your mind, you say "Come on, what will it take to satisfy these ultras!?" you pre-suppose not that we have different answers, different solutions, but that we have the same questions. What I mean by this is that actual Marxists are capable of forming a class analysis, if we are Communists, our support is warranted only through recognizing that the class which substantiates communism's interests are manifested.

[Paul Pott]

Chavez was a bourgeois democratic politician whose basis for rule was in a faction of the ruling class. It's a given that Venezuela was not a worker's state. However, his electoral support came from the working class, which was allowed and encouraged to organize and demand concessions by this part of the ruling class in order to politically weaken the traditional comprador elite aligned with American imperialism. Since even before Chavez first came to power, this mass movement of the working class has been defined by "Bolivarianism" a populist ideology of Chavez's own making, which centered around his charismatic personality as the new liberator within Venezuela's bourgeois democracy. Now that Chavez is dead, the movement of the working class in Venezuela is without real leadership, and it will feel more than ever that its concessions and democratic rights are under threat. The PSUV without Chavez will be unable to lead and contain the resulting militant movements.

Our analysis should start here.

[MarxArchist]

My condolences to the Venezuelan people. What a shame to die so young. He wasn't revolutionary in the way we would want him to have been
I wouldnt want him to facilitate some 'communist' revolution which would be even more economically isolated than Cuba was which would lead to even worse material conditions that capitalists would point to as 'the failure of communism'. Even if he did facilitate expropriation the US (Obama and previous administrations) have pretty well surrounded Venezuela with military bases in case such an event took place. People like Chavez are all we can hope for in smaller nations, especially on the western hemisphere. The US still has a policy of 'containment' you know. With the world as it is today I'd rather see a Chavez type in power than a Lenin (in smaller non economic power house nations). All the little Lenin's we've had that pushed 'communism' in places not ready for it or in isolated pockets have fudged things up pretty bad.

[Aurora]

Christ this thread is embarrassing, this is why we need a giant facepalm smiley.

Who will be the next glorious socialist president of a capitalist state? Gaddafi and Chavez are gone, Saddam's been gone awhile now, maybe Assad? or Hollande? he is spreading the French Revolution to Mali, to bad Bismarck isn't still around to set us an example. :rolleyes:

[Per Levy]

Christ this thread is embarrassing, this is why we need a giant facepalm smiley.

Who will be the next glorious socialist president of a capitalist state? Gaddafi and Chavez are gone, Saddam's been gone awhile now, maybe Assad? or Hollande? :rolleyes:

assad is possible, hollande not though, he is to white and to rich and gouverns a first world country, "socialists" like these dont count. im pretty sure there are a few presidents in south america and africa that can become "socialist heros" though.

[MarxArchist]

Christ this thread is embarrassing, this is why we need a giant facepalm smiley.

Who will be the next glorious socialist president of a capitalist state? Gaddafi and Chavez are gone, Saddam's been gone awhile now, maybe Assad? or Hollande? :rolleyes:
Spreading 'socialism' around the globe in non large industrial power house nations is pointless. Especially with the goal of repeating the cold war era. China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, India, most of Western Europe and the USA are the type of nations/areas we need to worry about. Chavez was doing what could be done with present material conditions. I don't think there's any need to shit on his 'legacy' or life's work. It is what it is.

[Paul Pott]

It's not "shitting" on him to point out that reformism cannot bring about a change in the mode of production.

[MarxArchist]

It's not "shitting" on him to point out that reformism cannot bring about a change in the mode of production.

What would have happened if Chavez did facilitate expropriation? Communist wonderland? The nation would've been squished under the thumb of US containment policy and all manner of authoritarian tripe would have resulted because (x) 'communist' Russia and China would have stayed out of it as Venezuela is on the western hemisphere and such provocation would lead to a rekindling of the cold war so Chavez hands were tied and bound into reformist strategy. We already know what isolated attempts at 'socialism' with the full on attack from capitalists on all sides results in. Take North Korea for instance, besides the absurdity that is Juche theory the material conditions make authoritarianism the only possible way to maintain their 'socialist' republic. Repeating that path, the post Lenin path to communism isn't something we should advocate. It already brought humanity to the brink of destruction once, we know the outcome. Capital needs to be dealt with at it's heart, as in, the nations I listed above in a prior post. Anyhow, even US containment policy when Russia and China were 'communist' was stepped up ten fold in South America. Chavez would've been killed and US troops would have re-instated private property within a matter of days or weeks if Chavez actually lead a socialist revolution. This is the world we live in now.

[Paul Pott]

That's not a meaningful question. Like I said, Chavez's government was based on a faction of capital tolerant of working class organization for its own purposes.

[Red Commissar]

As far as bourgeois politicians who help maintain the rule of capital go, I guess he could've been worse! ;)

One thing he did that was a nice gesture was provide heating oil for disadvantaged communities where I live, which was needed & appreciated at the time.

http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2009/01/hugo-chavez-provides-for-alaska-natives.html

That and he said some funny things. I don't agree with those who say he was anything other than a populist/capitalist figure, though.

Heh, I never heard of that. I remember when he offered aid after Hurricane Katrina to gulf coast communities along similar lines, though the state department turned it down.

[CyM]

Chavez was not a Marxist, but he was a revolutionary. He may not have had a conscious revolutionary programme, but he was a revolutionary by instinct and acted as such.

He may have been contradictory at times, and he may have made mistakes, like not arresting every politician involved in that coup and nationalizing their property, but they came from wanting to be more human than the capitalists rather than betrayal of the movement.

The revolution lost a great man either way, and the masses will smash any attempt by the counterrevolution to take advantage.

As Marx said, sometimes the revolution needs the whip of the counterrevolution to advance, and I suspect the Venezuelan revolution will prove that once again to be true.

[Hit The North]

What a load of garbage. I know of many Left Communists who are supportive of anarchists, who talk of them as genuine proponents of proletarian struggle and the likes. Even if Chavez was a left communist, even if he identified with the left communist movement, for whatever bizarre reason, I highly doubt they would be supportive of him.

here's something that you've yet to wrap your head around: The reason Stalinists are so frustrated by the fact that "ultra-leftists" are so knit-picky or what have you is simply because those "ultra leftists" operate in a framework external from yours, free from the constraints of bourgeois ideology. When in your mind, you say "Come on, what will it take to satisfy these ultras!?" you pre-suppose not that we have different answers, different solutions, but that we have the same questions. What I mean by this is that actual Marxists are capable of forming a class analysis, if we are Communists, our support is warranted only through recognizing that the class which substantiates communism's interests are manifested.

Are you fucking drunk? Nothing you've written above makes any sense.

[Hit The North]

Christ this thread is embarrassing, this is why we need a giant facepalm smiley.

Who will be the next glorious socialist president of a capitalist state? Gaddafi and Chavez are gone, Saddam's been gone awhile now, maybe Assad? or Hollande? he is spreading the French Revolution to Mali, to bad Bismarck isn't still around to set us an example. :rolleyes:

What's embarrassing is your poor comprehension skills. Who, in this thread, has called Chavez a "glorious socialist president"?

[Rafiq]

Are you fucking drunk? Nothing you've written above makes any sense.

You're a trotskyist, not a stalinist. It makes little difference.

[Sam_b]

Hey guys, wanna stop this back-and-forth? It adds nothing to the thread. Consider this a verbal warning.

[MP5]

Not saying this to support Chavez, but having affairs with other countries is a nessesity for every socialist country. I know that it doesnt seem so good, but life itself has proven that as long you dont infiltrate in a imperialist chain, having economical relationships with other countries is the only way to go if you want to survive.

Or you become like Hoxha's Albania, isolated from the rest of the world on terrible economic conditions in order to maintain your ideological purity.

I agree with you and i think it's foolish to cut off all economic ties in some paranoid attempt to preserve the proletariat revolution. That's not why i don't think that Chavez was any Socialist or revolutionary at all.

[Questionable]

Alan Woods of the IMT is apparently on Newsnight on BBC2 at 22:30 (UK GMT) tonight regarding the death of Chavez

http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/bbctwo/live

So did anyone catch this? What did he say?

I like some of Alan Woods' historical works but he has some pretty lame opinions, like thinking the USSR only needed a political revolution as late as 1991.

[Aurora]

What's embarrassing is your poor comprehension skills. Who, in this thread, has called Chavez a "glorious socialist president"?
I'm not going to wade through this dump of a thread again but post 6 refers to Venezuela as undergoing a socialist revolution, post 22 refers to comrade Chavez leading Venezuela in the transition to socialism etc etc
He was the president i'm sure you'll concede and some seem to think he is a socialist, although they hastily declare he wasn't a revolutionary only leading a revolution, hence socialist president. The glorious comes from those who look to Chavez for socialism rather than to the proletariat.

Btw i was surprised to see your post earlier where you say "Loved by the poor; hated by the rich. This tells you what you need to know about the man and his government"
This is the sort of woeful analysis that might come from Ken Livingstone but seeing as you're both Chavez fans perhaps you're a fan of his too?

Two of the most disappointing posts in this thread are yours and CyM's, both of you generally make excellent and informative posts but then you go and line up behind the bourgeois state and it's leaders. I can understand CyM he's just tailing Alan Woods tailing Chavez but what's your excuse?

[sixdollarchampagne]

What's embarrassing is your poor comprehension skills. Who, in this thread, has called Chavez a "glorious socialist president"?

Actually Alan Woods, a British social democrat, wrote somewhere that Chávez had "infallibly revolutionary instincts" or words to that effect (I am not exaggerating). I will always regret not having copied down that quotation. The time, the nineties, was characterized by leftists really being infatuated with Chávez' rhetoric, and, for years, it was not done to bounce all that flatulent "revolutionary" rhetoric, coming from Venezuela, against what the Chávez regime failed to accomplish.

Even today, when one points out that 14 years of Chávez in power represents nearly a decade and a half of missed opportunities to make fundamental changes, there is a reaction against that simple statement of the truth. In contrast, Trotsky was pretty clear that one requirement for revolutionaries is the ability to look reality square in the face. Why should Venezuela be an exception to that standard?

[Ismail]

Can you not provide some analysis on the subject of ALBA, instead of providing a quote from a rather insignificant dead guy from 36 years ago; Chavez, Correa, Ortega and Morales weren't even around when Hoxha was speaking (at least Ortega not in his current guise) so I don't know how that quote could possibly be relevantI was unaware these men were such epochal figures that their mere existence on the political scene renders Marxist analysis (and Hoxha, apparently) irrelevant.

The point Hoxha makes is as sound as ever. Under the cover of ALBA you have various "left-wing" leaders who are to the right of Chávez concluding all sorts of agreements with China and the like, while occasionally they break bread with US imperialism as well, all under the cover of advancing "Latin American interests" against "Yankee imperialism."


it's about a world in which there are two superpowers. Now one of those superpowers has gone and foreign relations/realpolitik has taken on a totally different guise, particularly with China's evolution into a full-blown free market economy.Except Marxists are not into "realpolitik." Chinese imperialism is looking for markets and is investing accordingly, particularly in the "third world" countries, many of whom have leaders willing to ally with China against the USA. As Hoxha pointed out, "While supporting the liberation struggles of the peoples and the revolution, we can by no means rely on one imperialism to fight the other, we cannot support one capitalist world power to fight another capitalist world power. The Marxist-Leninist theses of our Party on the current world development have been and are being vindicated by time. On the other hand, each day is proving more and more clearly that the theory of 'three worlds' is anti-Marxist, reactionary, a theory in the service of imperialism and of the strategy of China itself as a superpower, the aim of which is to redivide the world, and not to combat imperialism and its aggressive designs." (Albania is Forging Ahead Confidently and Unafraid, 1978, p. 12.)

China has taken the role the Soviet Union once played of being the "alternative" to US imperialism among oppressed countries. Unless, of course, you want to deny that China is becoming an imperialist superpower (and is certainly pursuing imperialist interests today.)

[bcbm]

Chavez invested Venezuela's oil wealth into social programs including state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health clinics and education programs. But those gains were meager compared with the spectacular construction projects that oil riches spurred in glittering Middle Eastern cities, including the world's tallest building in Dubai and plans for branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums in Abu Dhabi.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=173521347

what wasted priorities for a politician with such resources and charisma

[Revy]

What has often bothered me is the name of the "Bolivarian Revolution", despite the fact that Simon Bolivar was not a socialist or radical of any value to leftists. It seems more like something to tie the movement to patriotism. Imagine if leftists in the US hailed George Washington or Thomas Jefferson the same way Simon Bolivar has been praised.

[Ismail]

What has often bothered me is the name of the "Bolivarian Revolution", despite the fact that Simon Bolivar was not a socialist or radical of any value to leftists. It seems more like something to tie the movement to patriotism. Imagine if leftists in the US hailed George Washington or Thomas Jefferson the same way Simon Bolivar has been praised.It's a lame appeal to nationalism and another indicator of Chávez's petty-bourgeois conception of "socialism." It'd be like if Lenin constantly invoked the Decembrists or if Hoxha invoked Ismail Qemali or Fan Noli or other bourgeois democrats who opposed feudalism. Besides the fact that Marx criticized Bolívar even as a bourgeois figure, it is quite harmful to mix up the basically metaphysical and ultimately reactionary (in the grand scope of history) views of bourgeois revolutionaries with the scientific tenets of Marxism and its call for the emancipation of the working-class and abolition of all class societies.

[Questionable]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=173521347

what wasted priorities for a politician with such resources and charisma

I'm with the bourgeois-populist crowd here, but even I have to laugh at how fucking lame NPR sounds with this.

Were they being serious with this? How the fuck could any sane human say "Yeah, he helped out a lot of poor families, but this other country had the tallest building in the world!"

[Ismail]

Were they being serious with this? How the fuck could any sane human say "Yeah, he helped out a lot of poor families, but this other country had the tallest building in the world!"Because the tall buildings help hide the fact that they were built with modern-day slave labor and thus make capitalism look glorious, whereas you look at Venezuela or the vast majority of other countries and think "capitalism sucks."

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I was unaware these men were such epochal figures that their mere existence on the political scene renders Marxist analysis (and Hoxha, apparently) irrelevant.

Stop obfuscating the point. That's the exact opposite of what I was saying. Hoxha is a Marxist-Leninist, not a Marxist, anyway, and so has a distinctly national/one country view of Socialism. He's not qualified to speak on proletarian internationalism.


China has taken the role the Soviet Union once played of being the "alternative" to US imperialism among oppressed countries. Unless, of course, you want to deny that China is becoming an imperialist superpower (and is certainly pursuing imperialist interests today.)

Becoming. In 1998 or thereabouts, China most certainly was not. Even 6 or 7 years ago, it probably was not. And besides, it is qualitatively different, because the openly Capitalist nature (mixed in with a dash of dictatorship) of China's political system compared to the secretly Capitalist nature of the USSRs system means that China is rival to the US not even in the words of ideology like the USSR was, and so is no rallying point for smaller 'left-wing' governments. It's a qualitatively different situation, because capital (if it's rational) has no preference for US profits or Chinese profits, the only differences are rhetorical and of national interests; between governments, not between capital, since capital is international. I'd have thought you'd be able to grasp this basic feature of capital by now.

[Ismail]

Stop obfuscating the point. That's the exact opposite of what I was saying. Hoxha is a Marxist-Leninist, not a Marxist, anyway, and so has a distinctly national/one country view of Socialism. He's not qualified to speak on proletarian internationalism.Actually, it is because he is a Marxist-Leninist that he was qualified to speak on all countries, on all revolutions. Unlike the "everyone can do whatever they please because it's their country and not ours" anti-Marxist logic of the likes of Hua and Deng, Tito and Ceaușescu, Kim Il Sung and Castro, Hoxha noted that "the basic principles and the universal laws of socialism remain unshakeable and are essential for all countries." (Selected Works Vol. VI, 1987, p. 447.) Hoxha repeatedly affirmed that Socialist Albania would speak its mind on all international affairs as was its obligation to the international communist movement. It is a duty for Communists to critically evaluate any self-described "revolutionary process," not to sit on the sidelines and hope for the best.

As Stalin pointed out, "Some say that Leninism is the application of Marxism to the conditions that are peculiar to the situation in Russia. This definition contains a particle of truth, but not the whole truth by any means. Lenin, indeed, applied Marxism to Russian conditions, and applied it in a masterly way. But if Leninism were only the application of Marxism to the conditions that are peculiar to Russia it would be a purely national and only a national, a purely Russian and only a Russian, phenomenon. We know, however, that Leninism is not merely a Russian, but an international phenomenon rooted in the whole of international development." (Works Vol. 6, 1953, p. 72.)

The working-class should not adhere to "Bolivarianism" anymore than it should adhere to Juche, "Mao Zedong Thought," the foco theory pushed by the Cubans, or any other nationalist deviations from scientific socialism (of which Marxism-Leninism is its banner.) What kind of "proletarian internationalism" can one expect from a man like Chávez who said that proletarian revolutions are not on the agenda? Is that not the same "internationalism" as Gorbachev and other avowed reformists, who replaced nominal commitment to it with the "struggle" for bourgeois humanism and against "inequality" in relations between states? It's also amusing you attack Hoxha for being a Marxist-Leninist and thus supposedly a "nationalist," while your hero Fidel Castro also identifies as a "Marxist-Leninist" and was probably the most pro-Soviet leader in the world outside of Karmal of Afghanistan, Tsedenbal of Mongolia and Zhivkov of Bulgaria. I guess Castro praising the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia was a great internationalist act, right? How about when he told the working-class of the world that it'd be "delusional" to think Gorbachev would allow for multiple bourgeois parties in the USSR a whole year before it actually happened? Or when he told this same working-class in 1992 that Gorbachev struggled to "perfect" socialism?


Becoming. In 1998 or thereabouts, China most certainly was not. Even 6 or 7 years ago, it probably was not. And besides, it is qualitatively different, because the openly Capitalist nature (mixed in with a dash of dictatorship) of China's political system compared to the secretly Capitalist nature of the USSRs system means that China is rival to the US not even in the words of ideology like the USSR was, and so is no rallying point for smaller 'left-wing' governments. It's a qualitatively different situation, because capital (if it's rational) has no preference for US profits or Chinese profits, the only differences are rhetorical and of national interests; between governments, not between capital, since capital is international. I'd have thought you'd be able to grasp this basic feature of capital by now.This is an ineffective attempt to justify Cuba, Venezuela and other "socialist" regimes allying with China and praising it.

As Hoxha noted,

"To become a superpower it is absolutely essential to have a developed economy, an army equipped with atomic bombs, to ensure markets and spheres of influence, investment of capital in foreign countries, etc. China is bent on ensuring these conditions as quickly as possible. This was expressed in Chou En-lai's speech in the People's Assembly in 1975 and was repeated at the 11th Congress of the Communist Party of China, where it was proclaimed that, before the end of this century, China will become a powerful modern country, with the objective of catching up with the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Now this whole plan has been extended and set out in precise detail in what is called the policy of the 'four modernizations'. But what road has China chosen so that it, too, will become a superpower?

At present, the colonies and markets in the world are occupied by others. The creation of an economic and military potential equal to that of the Americans and Soviets, within 20 years, and with their own forces, as the Chinese leaders claim they will do, is impossible.

In these conditions, in order to become a superpower, China will have to go through two main phases: first, it must seek credits and investments from US imperialism and the other developed capitalist countries, purchase new technology in order to exploit its local wealth, a great part of which will go as dividends for the creditors. Second, it will invest the surplus value extracted at the expense of the Chinese people in states of various continents, just as the US imperialists and Soviet social-imperialists are doing today."
(Enver Hoxha. Imperialism and the Revolution. 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1979. pp. 341-342.)

And,

"To penetrate the 'third world', to capture markets, requires capital. The ruling classes in power in the countries of the 'third world' want investments, credits and 'aid'. However, China is not in a position to give them 'aid' on a large scale, because it does not have the necessary economic potential. It is precisely this potential that it is now trying to build up with the aid of American imperialism. In these conditions, the bourgeoisie ruling in the countries of the 'third world' is well aware that, for the time being, it cannot gain much from China economically, technologically, or militarily. It can gain more from American imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism which have great economic, technical and military potential.

However, like every country with imperialist aims, China is fighting and will fight harder still for markets in the world. It is striving and will strive harder still to spread its influence and extend its domination. These plans are apparent even now. China is opening its own banks, not only in Hong Kong, where it has had them for a long time, but also in Europe and elsewhere. It will strive especially to open banks in and export capital to the countries of 'the third' world. For the present it is doing very little in this field. China's 'aid' amounts to the building of some cement factory, railway, or hospital, for its possibilities are limited. Only when the American, Japanese and other investments in China begin to yield the fruits it desires, that is, when its economy, trade and military technology are developed, will China be able to embark on a venture of real large-scale economic and military expansion. But to achieve this, time is needed.

Until that time it will have to manoeuvre, as it has begun doing already, by means of a policy of aid. and credits either interest-free or at low rates of interest, at a time when the Soviets and Americans are demanding much higher interest rates. As long as Chinese capital cannot flow out of its country, the revisionist Chinese leadership will focus its attention on the propaganda aspect of the small amount of 'aid' and credits it accords the 'developing countries', extolling its 'internationalist character' and 'disinterested aims', accompanying this with the motto of 'self-reliance' for the liberation and construction of one's country.

The more China develops economically and militarily, the more it will want to penetrate into and dominate the small and less developed countries by means of its exports of capital, and then it will no longer charge a 1-2 percent interest for its credits, but will act like all the others.

But all these plans and efforts cannot be carried out easily. The developed imperialist and capitalist countries, which have influence in the countries of the so-called third world, will not allow China to capture the markets they conquered long ago through predatory wars, so easily. Not only are they strongly defending their old positions but they are also trying in every way to capture new ones, and are not allowing China to lay its hand on these countries."
(Ibid. pp. 356-359.)

Already in the 70's and 80's China intervened alongside US imperialism in Vietnam, Angola and Afghanistan. It sought and today continues to seek to invest in various "third world" countries and to subordinate them to China's geopolitical and economic ambitions.

You're already of the view that it's a-okay for Venezuela to maintain a dependency on the USA, so even if China did qualify as an imperialist superpower in your eyes you'd still find an excuse for the Cubans and Venezuelans to praise its "socialism" and partner with it.

[La Guaneña]

Some users here don't get the magnitude of what's going on in Venezuela and the rest of ALBA and CELAC.

You have to really dump materialism out the window and hug some great man theory real hard to believe that the last 12 years of the Venezuelan process is something that depended so much only on Chavez, and now will die without him in office.

The Venezuelan workers and campesinos are fully mobilized all around, and any agression the the gains that they made will not be taken lightly. Chavez had a shitload of limitations since he was governing inside the mainframe of the bourgeois state, but failing to see how the level of conciousness has increased in the country is choosing to be blind.

The workers in Venezuela have never been more educated, agitated and organized than now, and from what I can feel, are ready to stand their ground. The venezuelans are ready to move on the process without the comandante, making the haters bite their tongues.

[KurtFF8]

This is a pretty great interview http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/06/opinion/chavez-golinger/ (at the top of the page) with a Monthly Review author on CNN

[Red Commissar]

A pretty packed street in Caracas

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[Per Levy]

chavez is unimportent now, i do think he meant well and tryed but thats not importent, what is importent though is what will the workers and the poor of venezuela do now. they cant rely on the party of chavez, they can only rely on themselfs.
it remains to be seen if they'll be deceived by the people who will invoke chavez to get elected and will only enrich themselfs, and it remains to be seen if they will be demoralized by something like this.

[Ismail]

WSWS has a good article: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/03/08/pers-m08.html

Among other things it notes:

The painting of chavismo in socialist colors by today’s pseudo-lefts is a matter not merely of failing to learn these historical lessons, but rather of deep-rooted class interests. They are drawn to Chavez’s “21st Century socialism” precisely because of their hostility to the Marxist conception that a socialist transformation can be carried out only through the independent and conscious struggle of the working class to put an end to capitalism and take power into its own hands. These petty-bourgeois political elements are instead attracted to a policy designed to save capitalism from revolution, imposed from above by a charismatic comandante. These layers have moved far to the right since the hey-day of their adaptation to Castroism in the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, before his death, some of them who had lauded Chavez turned against him because of his opposition to the US wars for regime change in Libya and Syria, which they themselves have embraced along with imperialism.

[DoCt SPARTAN]

R.I.P Chavez .....21st century socialism