Chavez's Venezuala [Archive]

Faceless

9th January 2007, 23:25

My question is, does the success of Chavez's socialism-isation™ mean that reformism is a viable route of socialism?

Obviously I am making a major assumption regarding the success of Chavez's measures, which I'm sure is and will be debated for a long time to come. But for a long while my mantra has been "Reformism Doesn't Work", which has largely been proven (IMO). The implications of Venezuala's progress for that school of thought could be pretty big.
There is no reformist road to socialism, and Chavez is realising this and beginning to express this fact. The bourgeois government, with all reactionary, undemocratic functionaries that involves, is largely still in place. However, notice that in his recent swearing in ceremony stated that they need to "dismantle the bourgeois state". This is hardly reformist language.

In action it may seem that the Chavez government has tried to use the bourgeois government to make reforms, thus making Chavez a "reformist". However, even the smallest reforms have met with indignant cries of "communism" and "Castroism" from the bourgeois media, opposition from certain parts of the army and even by resistance from a pernicious yet officially "bolivarian" bureaucracy. That however has only put into sharper relief the need for the complete expropriation of Venezuelan capitalism and the complete dismantling of the capitalist state.

What is needed now is to build elected councils in every work place which should form the units of a new national government. And much responsibility also lies upon the UNT trade union federation to begin a real discussion of how the issues raised by Chavez can be implemented.

We don't oppose reformism because we oppose reforms. We oppose reformism because it can not deliver reforms! (If anyone can tell me who I'm quoting I'll give them 10 bucks)

Lamanov

10th January 2007, 00:08

Fuck! No! Aaaaah!

It's just a change of ownership over industry, and a change of fucking name! This will only mean more bureaucracy, less bourgeoisie. More "real-socialist", less liberal culture.

Nothing changes in essence.

:mellow: Mkay?

LuÃs Henrique

10th January 2007, 01:11

Sometimes analysis here seem the sociological equivalent of brain surgery performed with axes and chainsaws.

It's just a change of ownership over industry, and a change of fucking name! This will only mean more bureaucracy, less bourgeoisie. More "real-socialist", less liberal culture.

Nothing changes in essence.

So, if a coup like that attempted in 2002 succeeds, there should be no reason to lament? Much less to defend the government against the golpistas?

I think it's important to remeber that at one time Chavez was a revolutionary, not a succeful one but still a revolutionary.

He staged a coup. That's not the same as being a revolutionary.

My question is, does the success of Chavez's socialism-isation™ mean that reformism is a viable route of socialism?

For the moment, we are seeing (limited) nationalisation of corporations, and measures to allow Chavez to perpetuate himself in power.

What can be interesting in Venezuela is not what Chavez is doing, but what the Venezolan workers are doing - organising and struggling for power in the base of the society. If they will succeed, nobody knows, but their success, if it happens, can only be revolutionary: the transformation of the Venezolan capitalist system into a socialist one. Even if this is made with no violent struggle (which is, obviously, not a huge possibility), it is not reformism at all - reformism is the idea that capitalism transforms itself into socialism, with no need to change the class in power.

Luís Henrique

Severian

10th January 2007, 01:52

I might point out that Chavez just announced the re-nationalization of some public utilities which were apparently publicly owned, then privatized at some time in the past. So obviously we're nowhere near talking about "socialism" in Venezuela by almost any definition of that word.

So at this point nobody can say "Look! They got to socialism in Venezuela by peaceful reform."

We'll see what develops. I agree with Luis that the most important thing in Venezuela is what workers are doing.

Nothing Human Is Alien

10th January 2007, 03:07

What comrade Luis says is correct.. I'd also point out that there has already been violence in the Venezuela, since some of these processes started occuring there. For example, there were the snipers who shot at the Chavistas in the lead up to the coup. There was also a bomb set on an oil pipeline during the 2005 legislative elections, and more explosive material found.

The more the workers come in conflict with the local bourgeoisie and imperialists.. and the more Chavez comes in conflict with sections of the local bourgeoisie and imperialists.. the larger the chance for violence. If socialism is going to be built in Venezuela, it's going to require some sort of violence, or a serious threat of violence (i.e. workers' and farmers' militias)..

Let's look back at Allende in Chile and draw some lessons..

I might point out that Chavez just announced the re-nationalization of some public utilities which were apparently publicly owned, then privatized at some time in the past.

That seems to be the case with CANTV, and maybe some others.. but I'm pretty sure some companies that were never nationalized are being seized. I need to do some more research though.. I'm not positive.

RGacky3

10th January 2007, 06:17

Chavez is essencially a Reformist Socialist Vanguardist. Like Lenninists he's believes in a strong Socialist party and a strong state, unlike Lenninists he thinks he can achieve State Socialism through electoral means.

Do I think he can do it? I think he can, it will be hard but I think he can. The more important question is, is it desirable? No not really, in achieving State Socialism, he's done very un-democratic things, and centralized power, which is'nt good in my estimation.

I'm also very worried about his foreign Policy, he wants to become a world player.

I'm very sceptical about from Above movements, very rarely do they actually lead to a genuine communist movement, generally its vanguardist crap. Evo Morales looks a little bit more hopeful, just because he seams more humble and does'nt seam like a power-hungry person, but thats just basing it on his persona.

10th January 2007, 07:07

Uh, the Chavez administration isn't a vanguard. They're not even working class.

Leo

10th January 2007, 11:58

Chavez is a bourgeois to the core, so are other left-nationalists who got into power in Latin America.

The real reason for the wave of anti-US electoral victories are the consequences of the capitalist crisis in Latin America. In social terms Latin America remains the area of the world with the greatest disparity of wealth. Basically despite all the hyperbole about “revolution” (used to describe the literally hundreds of military coups that have occurred since the criollos won independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century) little has changed in wealth distribution. Towards the end of the post war boom in the 1960s a new middle class was beginning to emerge but in the face of the world capitalist crisis since 1973 it has all but disappeared. Today Latin America as a whole has an estimated population of 500 millions of which 240 millions live below the poverty line (i.e. have less than $1 a day to live on). In (which is fairly representative of the continent) in 1990 a quarter of the population did not reach the linea de indigencia. That means they are literally starving.

In, despite high oil prices for most of the period 1970-98, the actual per capita income fell 35%. Given that its distribution of income was typical of Latin America where the top 20% of the population possess 78 times more wealth than the bottom 80% it is not surprising that a populist movement should arise. Hugo Chavez had tried to take power in 1992 in a military coup and his televised speech denouncing neo-liberalism at his trial launched his political career. He was eventually elected by a landslide on a populist platform. He took office in February, 1999. As Venezuela is the richest oil-producer in Latin America, which supplies the US with 15% of its crude oil, it is a key state for the US. Chavez could not nationalise the oil industry as the previous regime did it in 1975. In fact he has changed the state’s relationship with the oil companies. He encouraged foreign oil companies to invest more in Venezuela without having to go through a state intermediary. This is more “liberal” than Mexico or Saudi Arabia. He also has the US over a barrel (pun intended). Unless investment in new sources is carried through the already high price of oil will become astronomical and world economic activity would become even more arthritic than it is now. Chavez knows they need Venezuela’s reserves (280 billion barrels of untapped heavy crude are said to lie to the north of the Orinoco River) and so he has taken the opportunity to scrutinise the oil companies and to increase their taxes from 1% to 30% with coordinated work of the government and the opposition. A crippling oil strike by those who worked in the industry was seen down in 2002-3 and, despite its effect, Chavez clung on to power. The failure of the strike allowed Chavez to sack 18,000 oil workers and thus made him more reliant on foreign firms but the increased revenue has allowed him to set up ambitious social programmes which have encouraged the development of cooperatives and the nationalisation of firms where the owners have gone bankrupt. The Iraq War has also helped since it has helped to put the oil price up to $60 a barrel (when Chavez had long argued that $20 to $28 would be a good level). Venezuela stills produces about half a billion barrels less than its OPEC quota.

The bourgeoisie’s attacks on the proletariat in Venezuela don’t stop there. The attacks on wages and decreases in the social wages of workers, supplemented by new state taxes, have led to an economic and fiscal policy that has given rise a level of inflation that is the highest in the region (23% on average for 2003 and 2004), which erodes wages month after month, all of which is in the process of forcing millions of workers and their families into an alarming degree of pauperisation: according to unofficial statistics, 83% of workers (of a total workforce of 12 million) are paid the minimum wage of 405,000 bolivars (about £105) whilst the basic ‘basket’ of foodstuffs, according to the government itself , now costs 380,000 and about 600,000 bolivars according to other authorities. This is without speaking of the levels of malnutrition, epidemics etc which can only increase. The government does everything possible to doctor the figures on poverty in order to be able to be coherent with its lie about the ‘struggle against poverty’, but it is impossible to conceal the evidence.

Every Right wing commentator in the US agrees with every old Stalinist, and nearly-as-old Trotskyist, that Castro, Chavez, Morales etc are “socialist”. Every move of social mobilisation from on high is greeted as if it was a genuine mass movement from below instead of as a social mobilisation by a regime. Socialism has nothing to do with state ownership of the means of production. Socialism can only come about through a movement which first overthrows the capitalist state, then establishes its own semi-state which withers away with the last vestiges of class rule, and then the way is open for a truly new mode of production to arise based on the common and free association of all producers. Socialism is neither a state in which the secret police is everywhere as with the G2 in Cuba, nor is it one which does deals with multinationals.

Some Trotskyists pour scorn on this position (which was that of Marx and Engels and even Lenin). They argue that what is happening in, e.g Venezuela, is a real step forward, and that inevitably the contradictions of the situation of someone like Chavez will dialectically lead to the revolution. This only shows that they have learned nothing from the past. They once fawned over Tito, Ben Bella in Algeria even, in some cases Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran as real anti-imperialists and all were the gods that failed. Anti-imperialism which is only anti-americanism is not socialism. And socialism cannot be created from above. It can only be the result of genuine mass movement which is not based on “the people” but on the self-conscious activity of the one class which is globally exploited, the working class.

bloody_capitalist_sham

10th January 2007, 18:13

interesting article on chaves (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6246219.stm)

Swearing in his cabinet two days before his own inauguration, Mr Chavez explained that the new era would be backed by "five engines", which would:

* allow him to rule by decree

* lead to socialist constitutional reforms

* reinforce popular education

* change the geometry of power (a point which he has yet to explain)

* lead to the "explosion of communal councils"

In the same address, Mr Chavez also announced he would nationalise key businesses, declared himself a Trotskyist and cited the ideas of Marx and Lenin.

Woot Woot!

So he's a trotskyist.

This maybe is a trotskyist revolution. Finally one comes along. Hope its a success.

Guerrilla22

10th January 2007, 19:50

allow him to rule by decree

The US media and other reactionaries are always attacking this aspect of the Venezuelan constitution. However, in reality the aspects that Chavez can make policy on by decree are limited and this can only happen in enacted by congress.

LuÃs Henrique

10th January 2007, 21:36

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 10, 2007 11:58 am
A crippling oil strike by those who worked in the industry was seen down in 2002-3 and, despite its effect, Chavez clung on to power.
Most of your analysis is completely uninformed, (where did you take these ideas from?), but it is the part about the "strike" that it is more flawed.

Such strike was not "by those who worked in the industry"; it was rather a lock-out by the bosses, aimed, economically, at maintaining the rulling bureocracy of the State oil company, PEDEVESA, and, politically, at creating the proper atmosphere for a military coup and/or American intervention. Yes, the Venezolan Federation of unions, CNTV, supported such lock-out, which, naturally, prompted the creation of a new Federation, UNT, more linked to the grass-roots movements of the Venezolan working class.

The failure of the strike allowed Chavez to sack 18,000 oil workers and thus made him more reliant on foreign firms but the increased revenue has allowed him to set up ambitious social programmes which have encouraged the development of cooperatives and the nationalisation of firms where the owners have gone bankrupt.

Rather, the failure of the lock-out allowed him to dismantle the pro-American hierarchy inside PEDEVESA.

Luís Henrique

The Feral Underclass

11th January 2007, 11:49

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 08:27 pm
My question is, does the success of Chavez's socialism-isation™ mean that reformism is a viable route of socialism?
Of course it is. Who argues that it isn't? Reformism has always enabled governments to create Socialist initiatives. Salvador Allende being one of the most prominent examples.

So can Venezuala be taken as a successful shift to a socialist state, and can that reformist path be applied to other countries? Go :D

Yes it can and in fact is being applied.

The problem for communists like me is that it isn't going to help at all and will in fact hinder the progression of a classless, stateless society.

ComradeR

11th January 2007, 12:38

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 06:13 pm
interesting article on chaves (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6246219.stm)

Swearing in his cabinet two days before his own inauguration, Mr Chavez explained that the new era would be backed by "five engines", which would:

* allow him to rule by decree

* lead to socialist constitutional reforms

* reinforce popular education

* change the geometry of power (a point which he has yet to explain)

* lead to the "explosion of communal councils"

In the same address, Mr Chavez also announced he would nationalise key businesses, declared himself a Trotskyist and cited the ideas of Marx and Lenin.

Woot Woot!

So he's a trotskyist.

This maybe is a trotskyist revolution. Finally one comes along. Hope its a success.
Hear, hear!

LuÃs Henrique

11th January 2007, 12:45

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 11, 2007 11:49 am
The problem for communists like me is that it isn't going to help at all and will in fact hinder the progression of a classless, stateless society.
Yes, we really should go for an outright military dictatorship in Venezuela, who closed the unions and the parliament, and killed some thousands of workers.

That would teach the class to be revolutionary...

[/sarcasm]

Luís Henrique

The Feral Underclass

11th January 2007, 12:54

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+January 11, 2007 01:45 pm--> (Luís Henrique @ January 11, 2007 01:45 pm)
The Anarchist [email protected] 11, 2007 11:49 am
The problem for communists like me is that it isn't going to help at all and will in fact hinder the progression of a classless, stateless society.
Yes, we really should go for an outright military dictatorship in Venezuela, who closed the unions and the parliament, and killed some thousands of workers.

That would teach the class to be revolutionary...

[/sarcasm]

Luís Henrique [/b]
http://www.smddrums.com/woodcell/straws.jpg

What you are saying is totally beside the point and relates in absolutely no way to anything I have said. Clearly what is in Venezuela is better than the alternative, but regardless of that state socialism remains antithetical to the creation of communism.

Nice try though.

LuÃs Henrique

11th January 2007, 13:29

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 11, 2007 12:54 pm
What you are saying is totally beside the point and relates in absolutely no way to anything I have said. Clearly what is in Venezuela is better than the alternative, but regardless of that state socialism remains antithetical to the creation of communism.
But, earlier...

The problem for communists like me is that it isn't going to help at all and will in fact hinder the progression of a classless, stateless society.

(EM)

Correct me if I am wrong, of course, but to me the verb "to hinder" means "to make go slowlier" or "to make more difficult". In this case, the phenomenon of Chavism is making the proccess toward a classless society "slower" or "more difficult" than what - a Pinochet like dictatorship, an unrestricted implementation of neoliberal policies?

Luís Henrique

Dimentio

11th January 2007, 14:26

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+January 11, 2007 01:29 pm--> (Luís Henrique @ January 11, 2007 01:29 pm)
The Anarchist [email protected] 11, 2007 12:54 pm
What you are saying is totally beside the point and relates in absolutely no way to anything I have said. Clearly what is in Venezuela is better than the alternative, but regardless of that state socialism remains antithetical to the creation of communism.
But, earlier...

The problem for communists like me is that it isn't going to help at all and will in fact hinder the progression of a classless, stateless society.

(EM)

Correct me if I am wrong, of course, but to me the verb "to hinder" means "to make go slowlier" or "to make more difficult". In this case, the phenomenon of Chavism is making the proccess toward a classless society "slower" or "more difficult" than what - a Pinochet like dictatorship, an unrestricted implementation of neoliberal policies?

Luís Henrique [/b]
Some people think that Marx's prophecy about increasing pocerty and despair must be fulfilled for a revolution. Instead, history have shown that revolutionary changes happen after a very good economic time suddenly elapsing into crisis, like in Europe during the 14th century.

The Feral Underclass

11th January 2007, 14:28

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 11, 2007 02:29 pm
Correct me if I am wrong, of course, but to me the verb "to hinder" means "to make go slowlier" or "to make more difficult". In this case, the phenomenon of Chavism is making the proccess toward a classless society "slower" or "more difficult" than what - a Pinochet like dictatorship, an unrestricted implementation of neoliberal policies?

Luís Henrique
I see you're still tightly gripping those straws :rolleyes: What I've said is perfectly clear to understand.

State socialism will not create communism.

Coggeh

11th January 2007, 14:54

I agree state socialism does not does not create communism , but hopefully chavez does not declare a dictatorship in the near future , he should via for pure workers democracy in which the state and the workers councils run the country in a co-op ... just like a worker friendly business :)

Coggeh

11th January 2007, 14:58

I'm confused ... the explosion of communal councils ? Thats taking away the means for the people to hold some grasp on power .. didnt Chavez set these up in the first place .. whats goin on ? :(

Nothing Human Is Alien

11th January 2007, 15:48

Of course it is. Who argues that it isn't?

Anyone with an ounce of sense? The working class cannot take state power through bourgeois reformism.. Pretty basic stuff there.

Reformism has always enabled governments to create Socialist initiatives. Salvador Allende being one of the most prominent examples.

What is a "Socialist initiative" [sic]? You mean enacting some of the demands of communists on their own? You don't have to point to Allende for that. See, the New Deal, for example... But that's not socialism.. it's the bourgeoisie shifting a few things around to limit the class struggle and/or prevent revolutionary upsurges.

The comrade asked if socialism (i.e. the working class taking control of the means of production and constructing a workers' state) could be reached through reformism. And, clearly, it cannot.

This is not a debate about whether socialism is a necessary stage on the road to communism, so take that bullshit elsewhere.

Louis Pio

11th January 2007, 15:49

Coggy, Communal councils (consejos communales) is as far as I understand a means of organizing the poor in the barrios.
He's not going to abolish them if that's what you think:

He stressed the need to give a greater say in running things to the poorer areas of the country, clearly indicating the need to shift power to the masses that support the revolution. He said that what needed to be done is to "dismantle the bourgeois state" because all states "were born to prevent revolutions." This is to be done by giving more power to the newly set up Communal Councils and by developing them from the bottom up with the aim of creating a new state based on these Communal Councils.

From this article: Chavez announces radical measures against capitalism in Venezuela (http://www.marxist.com/chavez-measures-capitalism-venezuela090107.htm)

The Feral Underclass

11th January 2007, 16:22

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 11, 2007 04:48 pm
The working class cannot take state power through bourgeois reformism.. Pretty basic stuff there.
No, but they can create socialism through reformism, which was the question.

The comrade asked if socialism (i.e. the working class taking control of the means of production and constructing a workers' state) could be reached through reformism. And, clearly, it cannot.

First of all your premise that a state can be controlled by workers is flase,.

Secondly, is that what he meant, because that's not at all what he asked? There are more than one definition of State Socialism, for example the form of Socialism in Venezuala...

This is not a debate about whether socialism is a necessary stage on the road to communism, so take that bullshit elsewhere.

No.

State socialism won't create communism, you'd do well to understand that.

bloody_capitalist_sham

11th January 2007, 18:31

State socialism won't create communism, you'd do well to understand that.

If every country on earth had state socialism, then they would all be communist societies by default.

Since the only class in power would be the working class, no capitalist class would exist.

So the state would no longer serve a pourpose, and there would be no class divide, then early communism would exist.

LuÃs Henrique

11th January 2007, 18:37

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 02:26 pm
Some people think that Marx's prophecy about increasing pocerty and despair must be fulfilled for a revolution. Instead, history have shown that revolutionary changes happen after a very good economic time suddenly elapsing into crisis, like in Europe during the 14th century.
Yes, such apocaliptical thinking is very nasty.

But I am not sure of what TAT means.

To him, what is happening in Venezuela is "hindering" the struggle for a classless society... yet, it is still "better" than the alternative.

It seems illogical to me.

Luís Henrique

Guerrilla22

11th January 2007, 18:49

I think we've headed back to the inetivable anarchist vs. communist trap here. I'm still not sure how the state can immidetly be dismantled and everything will fall into place.

Coggeh

11th January 2007, 18:59

First of all your premise that a state can be controlled by workers is flase

We seem to be drawn back to a very basic idea which has been brought under some debate ....

anarachism vs communism .... state or no state ... socialism here is simple .. a state with the usual goverment but with workers councils that control the economy, very basic stuff lads ..... what seems to be the problem with that idea ?

Louis Pio

11th January 2007, 19:33

Well anarchism rejects any form of state what so ever. Which it the case of Venezuela would mean TAT had to sit and wait for the model revolutionary situation. Which never comes of course.

The Feral Underclass

11th January 2007, 20:59

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 07:31 pm

State socialism won't create communism, you'd do well to understand that.

If every country on earth had state socialism, then they would all be communist societies by default.
No, they would be State Socialist.

Since the only class in power would be the working class, no capitalist class would exist.

State socialism creates a bureaucratic class that essentially becomes the dominant class as it is the sole benefactor of political control.

So the state would no longer serve a pourpose

Except to protect its existence and the interest of the bureaucratic class that has been created throughout its years of perpetuation.

there would be no class divide, then early communism would exist.

Yeah, that's the theory but in reality it doesn’t work.

The Feral Underclass

11th January 2007, 21:04

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 11, 2007 07:37 pm
To him, what is happening in Venezuela is "hindering" the struggle for a classless society... yet, it is still "better" than the alternative.
Either you're incredibly stupid or you've got tangled in a web of your own intellectual masturbation.

I apologise deeply and sincerely for using the word "hindered" when I could just as easily used the word destroy.

In any case, I go on to clarify my position by using the word antithetical, which you have very conveniently ignored.

Either way, whether I meant hindered or not it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to the assertion that, while State socialism would either "hinder" or "destroy" the progression to communism, it is in fact a better alternative to military dictatorship.

It seems illogical to me.

Which I find bizarre.

The Feral Underclass

11th January 2007, 21:11

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 07:49 pm
I think we've headed back to the inetivable anarchist vs. communist trap here. I'm still not sure how the state can immidetly be dismantled and everything will fall into place.
It's a very complex argument, made even more so by Marxists incessant desire to play semantic games.

The state is a tool defined not only by its intent but by its specific structures. The Marxist definition of the state, although true does not actual define it as a material structure. Anything can be a state according to Marxists, which of course is total nonsense.

The state is a set of structures where political and military control is centralised through a tier system of hierarchy. While most Marxists wish to take over those instruments of control and miraculously centralise it into the hands of a vanguard/workers - who direct the state on the "behalf" of everyone else - anarchists wish to decentralise those structures or abolish them entirely to be replaced with bottom up or horizontal forms of political, military and economic organisation, where authority is collective owned.

The Feral Underclass

11th January 2007, 21:13

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 07:59 pm
a state with the usual goverment but with workers councils that control the economy, very basic stuff lads ..... what seems to be the problem with that idea ?
A state will not create a decentralised classless society.

Coggeh

11th January 2007, 21:30

but it will create a state of the working class .... which is operated for the benefit of the people ... having no state is just asking for problems

Severian

11th January 2007, 21:33

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension+January 11, 2007 03:11 pm--> (The Anarchist Tension @ January 11, 2007 03:11 pm) It's a very complex argument, made even more so by Marxists incessant desire to play semantic games.
[/b]
Heh. You've started a purely semantic argument, over the definitions of words. What is meant by socialism, by communism, etc. It's wholly pointless.

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 10, 2007 03:36 pm

Leo [email protected] 10, 2007 11:58 am
A crippling oil strike by those who worked in the industry was seen down in 2002-3 and, despite its effect, Chavez clung on to power.
Most of your analysis is completely uninformed, (where did you take these ideas from?), but it is the part about the "strike" that it is more flawed.

Such strike was not "by those who worked in the industry"; it was rather a lock-out by the bosses, aimed, economically, at maintaining the rulling bureocracy of the State oil company, PEDEVESA, and, politically, at creating the proper atmosphere for a military coup and/or American intervention.
I agree with you overall but I think this is a bit of an overstatement. The strike was, overall, a bosses strike, yes. Many companies were shut by their owners.

And at PVDSA it was the managers who led the strike, in defense of the incredible priveleges of PVDSA executives. And mostly technicians and administrators who responded to the strike call. But 18,000 of 32,000 employees joined the strike and were fired - that wasn't all administrators, even with the bloated numbers of administrative personell PVDSA used to have.

PVDSA workers were privileged relative to others in Venezuela, and some did follow the bosses in the strike.

One article on this:

PDVSA had 32,000 employees nationwide before the “strike.” About one-third were administrators and managers, who overwhelmingly joined the boss action. In total, some 18,000 employees took part in the lockout and were subsequently fired—including the entire management.

How workers defeated boss ‘strike’
During a March 22 visit to Cabimas, on the eastern shore of Lake Maracaibo, the heart of oil extraction, workers gave graphic descriptions to Militant reporters of the guerrilla warfare that took place as the outgoing management sabotaged computerized controls and other facilities and shut down operations in early December 2002, keeping them down for about two weeks. Cabimas is an hour east of Maracaibo, the capital of the state of Zulia, where more than half of the country’s oil is produced.

Denny Chirinos has worked for PDVSA for nine years. He told us that he was one of only eight workers from the 1,200 in the main shop repairing all drilling equipment and vessels used in the lake who stayed on the job during the lockout. “I led the eight,” he said. “We recruited another 22 skilled workers from the area within a day, and began the fight to restart production, including night patrols on the lake to protect the oil platforms. Throughout December, we had nighttime skirmishes with employees carrying out sabotage. By the end of the month we had won.”

So it wasn’t just administrative and managerial personnel who joined the “strike,” Chirinos explained. The bosses pressured or convinced most technicians and many maintenance and other production workers into joining them, he said, adding, “These are the best jobs in the country. Not only are the wages relatively high—starting at about $800 per month for full-time positions—but people had complete family medical coverage and subsidized food. Many aspired to become bosses and had that mentality.”

We heard similar accounts in Anzoátegui, second to Zulia in oil production and number one in the extraction of natural gas, according to PDVSA managers.

Carmen Bastarro is the receptionist at PDVSA’s new social development department in the city of Anaco. “A little more than a year ago, I worked for Petrolera,” she said in a March 24 interview, referring to a private company that lays pipe for PDVSA. “I was fired because I opposed the ‘strike.’ I also helped the Unemployed Committee in Anaco that had 400 members. When they shut down PDVSA in December 2002, most of us joined National Guard troops to defend oil tanks and help restart operations.”

Bastarro said a number of the oil workers in Anaco joined 1,200 steelworkers who came from Bolivar state to the south in January 2003 to repair a gas pipeline that had been sabotaged by supporters of the pro-imperialist opposition, stopping production at the country’s main steelworks in Ciudad Guyana. With the help of the National Guard, the steelworkers and their supporters succeeded in pushing back an armed demonstration of some 3,000 opponents and repaired the pipeline.

Bastarro said that before the defeat of the lockout she had “never dreamt” she would work for PDVSA. “These jobs were not open to us,” she said. “You had to know people high up to get in here.”

Today, most of PDVSA’s workers are newly hired. The workforce is younger and includes more Blacks, while company reports state that the percentage of administrative personnel has been reduced from one in three to one in five. The biggest cut took place with the closure of PDVSA’s main headquarters in Caracas, where thousands of administrative personnel were employed. The government has converted the building into the Bolivarian University.
the whole article (http://www.themilitant.com/2004/6816/681603.html)

So there is a grain of truth at the bottom of Leo's distorted picture of events. But overall it's a dogmatic abstraction with little to do with the real course of the class struggle in Venezuela.

Leo

11th January 2007, 22:09

So there is a grain of truth at the bottom of Leo's distorted picture of events.

Yes, the grain of truth is 18,000 workers (minus management) who got fired and are now in very bad living standarts, a government which got to make deals with more foreign companies (and therefore follow more 'neo-liberal' policies) and other attacks on the proletariat which supporters of the Chavez regime ignored, and the distorsion is me calling the left-nationalist bourgeois regime "anti-working class". Bravo Severian! <_<

Louis Pio

11th January 2007, 22:29

Just come clean.
You support the old PVDSA leaderships attemt to keep the company and benefits for themselves or what? Seems to be the logical conclusion of your argument...

Leo

11th January 2007, 22:35

You support the old PVDSA leaderships attemt to keep the company and benefits for themselves or what? Seems to be the logical conclusion of your argument...

No, of course not. I oppose every faction of the bourgeoisie completely. I was only showing that the regime too was bourgeois and anti-working class. What you say is not a logical conclusion but an illogical twist.

The Feral Underclass

11th January 2007, 22:40

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 10:30 pm
but it will create a state of the working class .... which is operated for the benefit of the people ...
That's not what communists want to create.

having no state is just asking for problems

No more problems than if there were a state.

beltov

11th January 2007, 23:04

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 09:33 pm
So there is a grain of truth at the bottom of Leo's distorted picture of events. But overall it's a dogmatic abstraction with little to do with the real course of the class struggle in Venezuela.
There is so much rubbish spouted about the situation in Venezuela it's unbelievable. The whole Chavist 'socialism' thing is a complete fraud. The Venezuelan bourgeoisie are very happy with the way Chavez is running the state and attacking the working class.

As for the strike of the oil workers, this is what left-communists in Venezuela had to say about it,

The biggest and most significant attack has been the one directed against the oil workers. Through the coordinated action of the Chavist and oppositional factions, the Chavist government has succeeded not only in reducing the number of workers, but also in passing a law that has long been wanted by the Venezuelan bourgeoisie, namely the elimination of the staff co-operative which, since the time of the multinational oil companies, had allowed workers and their families to obtain foodstuffs at reduced prices. This was done with the argument that “the situation is very hard for everyone” and that the oil workers are privileged, a “workers’ aristocracy”.

After this unprecedented attack on the oil workers, in which all the parties and unions were complicit, those in power as much as those in opposition, the Chavist government has had its hands free to inflict even stronger attacks on the living conditions of the employed workers: freezing of collective agreements, ridiculous increases in the minimum wage that are well below the current price increases in consumer goods. The threat of massive redundancies has been used to intimidate workers who try to strike for their demands. This is what has been done in response to protests by health and education workers throughout the period of the Chavist government, and likewise with workers in the legal sector and state television, that Chavez himself threatened to “crush” as he had done with the oil workers.

http://en.internationalism.org/ICConline/2...vism_fraud.html (http://en.internationalism.org/ICConline/2006/march/chavism_fraud.html)

Beltov.

bloody_capitalist_sham

11th January 2007, 23:40

In TAT's utopian thinking, a non state actor will be able to maintain coherent funtioning in the face of the worlds only superpower, and a capitalist class just itching to get its property back.

Chavez has already stated 21st century socialism will not be like the statist model in Soviet times or like cuba. The workers councils and workers controlled business will be the new state.

the anarchist is only making trouble because its not anorcho-Bolivarian(ism) or whatever.

Look for real world workers control. Venezuela might just get there.

Severian

11th January 2007, 23:45

Originally posted by Leo Uilleann+January 11, 2007 04:09 pm--> (Leo Uilleann @ January 11, 2007 04:09 pm)
So there is a grain of truth at the bottom of Leo's distorted picture of events.

Yes, the grain of truth is 18,000 workers (minus management) [/b]
Minus, I'd estimate from the info on hand, over 10,000 managers. (1/3 of 32,000). Also minus technicians and so forth. So we're somewhere well under 8,000 workers.

Apparently most production workers did not join the strike. And the more class-conscious workers - not just oil workers, but steel workers and others - mobilized to defeat it. In the private sector, workers sometimes organized to reopen businesses shut by their owners.

a government which got to make deals with more foreign companies (and therefore follow more 'neo-liberal' policies)

Oh. So any deal with a foreign company is "neo-liberal"? How...nationalist of you. The question is, of course, not national self-sufficiency, but on what terms trade and investment are conducted.

Clearly, the trend of the Chavez government has been to oppose imperialist economic domination of Venezuela, including through nationalizing an increasing part of Venezuela's natural resources and economy. Of course this is in a bourgeois nationalist framework, plus concessions to the working class to keep their support.

Originally posted by [email protected]
As for the strike of the oil workers, this is what left-communists in Venezuela had to say about it,

Yeah, there all kinds of "leftist" groups and individuals in Venezuela. Some, like "Red Flag" or "Red Banner" or whatever it's called, have even joined the pro-imperialist opposition. That doesn't prove anything.

Leo
No, of course not. I oppose every faction of the bourgeoisie completely. I was only showing that the regime too was bourgeois and anti-working class.

No shit, it's a bourgeois regime. What a revelation. You were "showing" rather more than that by talking as if the bosses' strike were a workers' strike.

Participation in the class struggle does not reduce itself to declaring "they're all bourgeois." Only the most sectarian groups satisfy themselves with that - I've had enough experience with Sparts and whatnot - to know your self-satisfied declarations of principle sound a lot like theirs.

Most workers in Venezuela did not stand aside from the coup declaring "they're all bourgeois, what do I care who wins". They showed a correct class instinct there, and also in the bosses' strike.

Louis Pio

11th January 2007, 23:56

That ICC seems to support the old discredited union is not really any surprise. Since it's the logical conclusion to their very dogmatic approach to a complex situation, dogmatism usually gives you strange bedmates.
Now one of their critique seems to be:
"had allowed workers and their families to obtain foodstuffs at reduced prices. This was done with the argument that “the situation is very hard for everyone” and that the oil workers are privileged, a “workers’ aristocracy”."
Now the problem with ICC's is actually that now not ONLY the oilworkers can get food at reduced prizes but it's been spread more widely, so people not having the luck to relatively priviledeg can get the same benefits.
And so on and so forth, what really baffles me is the refusal to look at the broad movement of workers and poor in Venezuela by assorted "leftists", factory occupations, social programmes, peasant movements etc etc etc. I searched their website but to no avvail.
Yes the regime is still bourgios, but of course there's more to it than that.
It seems everything need to be put in nice little dogmatic boxes, instead of any indeepth analysis.
But then again I probably just suffers from "parasitism" and to make matters worse im even active in my union. Ohh the horror

The Feral Underclass

12th January 2007, 00:04

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 12:40 am
In TAT's utopian thinking
Claiming that what I am saying is "utopian" is just a convenient evasion, nothing more. It certainly isn't a justification for the centralisation of political authority.

a non state actor will be able to maintain coherent funtioning in the face of the world only superpower, and a capitalist class just itching to get its property back.

Marxists will always claim that "coherence" is specific to the centralisation of political authority, but this is simply an attempt to discredit anarchism. It's a play on the popular misconception of anarchy - nothing but opportunism.

Marxists have little time for "real people"; this is why they focus so heavily on a vanguard of leaders. You simply don't trust the workers to do it themselves, even though the fact is any resistance to counter-revolutionaries will be made up of workers regardless of their organisation.

Centralising political authority is certainly an effective way of fighting counter-revolutionaries, but it certainly isn't the way in which we begin a successful process towards communism.

In any case, there is absolutely no argument that you can give convincingly that will prove coherence is specific to the centralisation of political authority and in fact as we have clearly seen from history, decentralised federated organisation works perfectly well and of course is a real process to achieving our objective.

Chavez has already stated 21st century socialism will not be like the statist model in Soviet times or like cuba. The workers councils and workers controlled business will be the new state.

The "New State" isn't a new idea, it's an age old sound bite and has had no success. It is extremely unlikely that Chavez will decentralise political authority, and there is no point in having economic freedom if you do not have political freedom - that is if one is even possible without the other.

the anarchist is only making trouble because its not anorcho-Bolivarian(ism) or whatever.

Yet more prejudiced evasion of the actual issue. You have learnt well from your masters.

Look for real world workers control. Venezuela might just get there.

History is very much against you.

12th January 2007, 00:49

We have to get a few things straight here. TAT's argument isn't that the proletariat shouldn't have institutions created to maintain proletarian rule; he is merely arguing about the meaning of the word "state". I'm sure he agrees with things like workers councils and all that, but he just doesn't consider it a state.

Originally posted by TAT
The state is a tool defined not only by its intent but by its specific structures. The Marxist definition of the state, although true does not actual define it as a material structure. Anything can be a state according to Marxists, which of course is total nonsense.

According to Marxists, anything used to maintain the conditions of rule of the ruling class is part of the state. Now, you seem to be arguing against the fact that the Marxist definition of state doesn't discuss any material things; in other words, it doesn't discuss the actual institutions that are used that make up the state or how these institutions work.

The reason for this is that the state can come into existence in many different forms using many different institutions in very different ways. What we have to ask ourselves is what do all of these have in common?

This is where the Marxist definition of the word comes from. It comes from looking at all these different forms that the state has taken in hisotry and determining what is at the core of every one; and that is that they are all a set of institutions used to maintain the rule of the ruling class.

The state is a set of structures where political and military control is centralised through a tier system of hierarchy. While most Marxists wish to take over those instruments of control and miraculously centralise it into the hands of a vanguard/workers - who direct the state on the "behalf" of everyone else - anarchists wish to decentralise those structures or abolish them entirely to be replaced with bottom up or horizontal forms of political, military and economic organisation, where authority is collective owned.

I don't think this is correct at all. I think many Marxists are working towards these "horizontal" forms of organization that you are talking about. I don't think it's right to say that "most" Marxists aren't.

but it will create a state of the working class .... which is operated for the benefit of the people ... having no state is just asking for problems

No; it will create a state run by the working class, which is operated for the benefit of the working class.

Marxists have little time for "real people"; this is why they focus so heavily on a vanguard of leaders. You simply don't trust the workers to do it themselves, even though the fact is any resistance to counter-revolutionaries will be made up of workers regardless of their organisation.

I really think you should stop perpetuating the whole "Marxist vs. anarchist thing" because it's getting really old (about 200 years old:P). Marxists don't focus on a "vanguard of leaders" and the ones that do aren't Marxist.

I also think you should educate yourself on the meaning of vanguard. A vanguard is simply those that are at the forefront of the movement. Every movement has a vanguard, because every movement has people who are more involved than others. The vanguard isn't a specific organization or a specific grouping of people, and it should never be defined as such.

In the working class movement the vanguard consists mostly of workers. Plain and simple. Now, can members of other classes be part of this vanguard? I would say so, although I would consider them the extreme minority, and they would only be part of it by chance. Many of these members of other classes that are involved in the movement do so purely for self gratification; they also contaminate it with petty-bourgeois or bourgeois "ideology" which is largely detrimental to the movement.

So, yes, I and every single other Marxist that I've met all think that the workers can "do it themselves". However, this doesn't exclude the idea of a vanguard existing within the movement, because there are always going to be workers who are at the forefront of this struggle. Am I a member of this vanguard? I would say so. Are you? Probably. Anyone can be one merely by becoming more involved in the struggle.

Centralising political authority is certainly an effective way of fighting counter-revolutionaries, but it certainly isn't the way in which we begin a successful process towards communism.

Yes, but you do realize that political authority has to be centralized into the hands of the working class, correct?

Yet more prejudiced evasion of the actual issue.

I'd say the same to you with your ranting against Marxism and Marxists. The point is that all this *****ing and moaning on both sides is detrimental to this debate.

bloody_capitalist_sham

12th January 2007, 01:57

Zampano said it correctly.

To deny the existence of a state means to have an informal state with no democracy or accountability what so ever.

And like the anarchist's vanguard in Spain, it meant they were out maneuvered by a state actor.

They failed to do things properly, and you ended up some self declared anarchist leaders (because thats what they really were), working within the now resurrected bourgeois state.

Chavez on the other hand, is moving against private property while he has the opportunity, oil prices are decreasing, the period before while oil prices were 70+ dollars a barrel meant the risk of being to radical might have meant a loss of wealth for the venezuela.

LuÃs Henrique

12th January 2007, 02:11

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 11, 2007 10:09 pm

So there is a grain of truth at the bottom of Leo's distorted picture of events.

Yes, the grain of truth is 18,000 workers (minus management) who got fired and are now in very bad living standarts, a government which got to make deals with more foreign companies (and therefore follow more 'neo-liberal' policies) and other attacks on the proletariat which supporters of the Chavez regime ignored, and the distorsion is me calling the left-nationalist bourgeois regime "anti-working class". Bravo Severian! <_<
Leo, earnestly... the strike was not a movement of the working class. It was aimed at maintaining privileges, and the "democratic" rights of the bourgeosie - ie, the right to exploit the workers, and the right to slander the goverment through their press.

It was much like the truckdrivers strike in Chile just before the 1973 coup. Nay, it was even more obviously entrepreneurial.

The bosses and managers shut the places, and ordered the workers not to labour.

Maybe the government made unjustices in punishing workers who striked, but those were punishe for not being class-conscious enough to resist orders to participate in a movement whose aim was to destroy democracy in Venezuela.

Those are not Chavist, Stalinist, Trotskyist or Maoist lies. It is the consensus of every serious working class organisation in Venezuela.

Luís Henrique

bloody_capitalist_sham

12th January 2007, 02:14

It wasnt a strike though, it was a lockout!

they didnt let the workers into the workplace at all

12th January 2007, 03:01

Chavez on the other hand, is moving against private property

No he's not. He's just allocating private property away from individuals and into the hands of the state.

bloody_capitalist_sham

12th January 2007, 03:20

thats what i meant though, away from individual property

12th January 2007, 03:27

thats what i meant though, away from individual property

That's not away from private property, though.

bloody_capitalist_sham

12th January 2007, 03:32

:unsure:

now i am confused

LuÃs Henrique

12th January 2007, 04:11

Originally posted by The Anarchist Te[email protected] 11, 2007 09:04 pm
Either you're incredibly stupid
Guilty as charged.

Not guessing the kind and level of answer I would get from you really denounces my total lack of intelligence.

or you've got tangled in a web of your own intellectual masturbation.

That sounds gooey.

I apologise deeply and sincerely for using the word "hindered" when I could just as easily used the word destroy.

In any case, I go on to clarify my position by using the word antithetical, which you have very conveniently ignored.

Well, let's see if something intelligible comes out of your salad of words.

Either way, whether I meant hindered or not it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to the assertion that, while State socialism would either "hinder" or "destroy" the progression to state capitalism, it is in fact a better alternative to military dictatorship.

Why?

Our goal is a stateless society.

"State socialism", according to you, hinders, destroys, or is antithetical to a classless society. Why is it better than a military dictatorship?

Could it be that the conditions it creates are less antithetical, destructive, or hindering to our goals?

Or is it "better" in some other sence that I fail to understand?

It seems illogical to me.

Which I find bizarre.

Which, in turn, I find quite absurd.

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

12th January 2007, 04:35

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 01:57 am
Chavez on the other hand, is moving against private property while he has the opportunity,
No, he isn't. He is moving property from the hands of individual capitalists, or private corporations, into the hands of the bourgeois State. This does not challenge the bourgeois monopoly of means of production, as long, at least, the State remains bourgeois.

That is in fact the central issue, today: whether the State remains at the hands of the bourgeoisie, or it falls into the hands of the proletariat. While Chávez rhetorics are great, there is no sign at all that he remotly understands that. He changes names, but the working class remains in its place. Its only the working class movement, towards taking the State from the hands of bourgeoisie, that can change that. The fact is, Chávez also does not understand this, or he believes that he can deal with the proletariat in a second moment - and, because of this, is not using the repressive machinery of the State against the working class. But he is also not dismantling it.

(There are political forces in Venezuela who reivindicate immediate use of force against the working class: the political and military opposition - including the bankrupt CNTV. Thus the need to defend a regime that does not attack our class at this moment, against those forces that wish an immediate attack. Thus, also, the need of not glorifying Chávez, and not forgetting that the State apparatus remains intact.)

In a future moment, supposing the working class is able to take hold of the State, there will be further, very demanding problems. One of them is confusing the statisation of property with its socialisation, and thus maintaining a repressed capitalism under the form of "state capitalism", which, as the former "real socialism" block's destiny shows, works even worse than "normal" capitalism. Supposing that Chávez survives the working class taking power, perhaps surfing on it, he most certainly will be an obstacle to correctly understanding and solving such problems.

oil prices are decreasing, the period before while oil prices were 70+ dollars a barrel meant the risk of being to radical might have meant a loss of wealth for the venezuela.

You see, Venezuela is trapped in the international capitalist market, and there is no way out of that without a revolution that goes way beyond Venezuela's borders. It is an (un)lucky country in that it counts with a commodity that still is, and will be in the previsible future, absolutely essential to the functioning of capitalism at the international level. But the same commodity, due to the Law of Comparative Advantages, is slowly destroying the rest of the Venezolan economy.

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

12th January 2007, 04:42

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 02:14 am
It wasnt a strike though, it was a lockout!
Yes, that is the correct term.

Luís Henrique

chebol

12th January 2007, 05:45

Yaaaaawn. I mean, really.

All our Agony-anarchists and their wilfully blind friends are about to go into another collective fit of apoplexy. Why?

Must be because, whether they like it or not, the Venezuelan people, led nationally by Chavez, but also across the country by an increasingly conscious and well-organised layer of workers, are making a revolution. And, yet again, the working class are choosing to confront the struggles of practical reality (as distorted and distorting as they often are) over the flippant, philosophically perfect, pipe-dreams of (especially western) anarchist theory.

Let's just hope this puts some of this old doozy to rest. Guys, the state WILL NOT just evaporate, simply coz you don't like it. Simple.

The most important things we should be doing at the moment are keeping as up to date on what's actually happening in Venezuela, and doing our best to build solidarity with the unfolding revolution.

Remember, just because Chavez is talking about socialism, and his government is aiming to begin building it, doesn't mean that it's automatically there. In this sense, the critics are correct, and Chavez, and the Venezuelan Charge d'Affaires to Australia agree - the Venezuelan state is still a capitalist, bourgeois, counter-revolutionary state. And it must be defeated, a feat not possible merely by Chavez's words alone, but by the mobilisation and self-empowerment of the working class.

And anyone with the eyes, brains and sense to realise it would have seen by now that that it is precisely the project that Chavez and his allies have long embarked upon: to make that possible by supplying the resources, confidence and leadership to help the working class break out from their oppression and take power.

For those of you in Oz, we are also running a petition to get Chavez to Australia this year. Feel free to sign up (http://www.venezuelasolidarity.org/?q=node/356).

Leo

12th January 2007, 08:52

So any deal with a foreign company is "neo-liberal"? How...nationalist of you.

Well, no, it is what nationalist left calls neo-liberal. I don't separate foreign capital and national capital. I'm guessing that now you will try to defend how it is an honorable and socialist act to make a deal with foreign companies?

Clearly, the trend of the Chavez government has been to oppose imperialist economic domination of Venezuela, including through nationalizing an increasing part of Venezuela's natural resources and economy.

Oh, how simple the world must be for you, nationalization=opposing imperialism. Did it not occur to you that nationalism is common process in capitalism? When something is not profitable for private business, the state nationalizes it. When it is working well again, the state sells to to private investors. This is exactly what happened in Venezuela.

No shit, it's a bourgeois regime. What a revelation.

Yeah, isn't it?

Participation in the class struggle does not reduce itself to declaring "they're all bourgeois."

They are all bourgeois!

That ICC seems to support the old discredited union is not really any surprise.

Where did you take that from?

Leo, earnestly... the strike was not a movement of the working class. It was aimed at maintaining privileges, and the "democratic" rights of the bourgeosie - ie, the right to exploit the workers, and the right to slander the goverment through their press.

And I'm assuming that you think the workers who ended up losing their job in terrible living conditions just "got what they deserved"?

The Feral Underclass

12th January 2007, 10:50

Originally posted by Zampanò+January 12, 2007 01:49 am--> (Zampanò @ January 12, 2007 01:49 am) The reason for this is that the state can come into existence in many different forms using many different institutions in very different ways. [/b]
Defined specifically by the centralisation of political authority. If there is no centralisation of political authority it ceases to be a state.

Look, I'm bored of having this debate with you. You are not going to convince me that you are right, because you aren't and likewise, clearly I am not going to convince you - so really, what left is there to say but the same thing over and over again.

This is where the Marxist definition of the word comes from.* It comes from looking at all these different forms that the state has taken in hisotry and determining what is at the core of every one; and that is that they are all a set of institutions used to maintain the rule of the ruling class.

Which I don't disagree with.

I don't think this is correct at all.* I think many Marxists are working towards these "horizontal" forms of organization that you are talking about.* I don't think it's right to say that "most" Marxists aren't.

Considering most Marxists these days subscribe to Leninist praxis I think it is safe to assume that "most" Marxists agree with the centralisation of political authority.

Centralisation requires hierarchy and thus you create individuals or small group leaders making executive decisions. This is what happened in Russia, it is what happened in China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos etc etc etc

Originally posted by Zampanò@
No; it will create a state run by the working class, which is operated for the benefit of the working class.

Zampanò
you do realize that political authority has to be centralized into the hands of the working class, correct

Therein lays the contradiction.

How can you centralise authority and have the working class "running" the state? Anyone who takes control of political authority exclusively as an institution, I.E central committee, Politburo, Commissar for Porn - you cease to be a worker by any definition of the word: You become a bureaucrat at the very least, but most likely a despot.

It's just totally irrational jabbering that makes no sense at all. The whole analysis is wrong.

The Feral Underclass

12th January 2007, 10:55

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 06:45 am
Let's just hope this puts some of this old doozy to rest. Guys, the state WILL NOT just evaporate, simply coz you don't like it. Simple.
I don't think anyone in this debate or indeed any anarchist that exists believes that to be true.

Idiot.

The Feral Underclass

12th January 2007, 10:58

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 12, 2007 05:11 am
"State socialism", according to you, hinders, destroys, or is antithetical to a classless society. Why is it better than a military dictatorship?
Well, I suppose it's all subjective at the end of the day.

Could it be that the conditions it creates are less antithetical, destructive, or hindering to our goals?

Probably not, in fact.

Dimentio

12th January 2007, 11:43

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension+January 12, 2007 10:55 am--> (The Anarchist Tension @ January 12, 2007 10:55 am)
[email protected] 12, 2007 06:45 am
Let's just hope this puts some of this old doozy to rest. Guys, the state WILL NOT just evaporate, simply coz you don't like it. Simple.
I don't think anyone in this debate or indeed any anarchist that exists believes that to be true.

Idiot. [/b]
To be against all action which requires the coordination through a state I do view as a bit dogmatic.

The Feral Underclass

12th January 2007, 12:07

Originally posted by Serpent+January 12, 2007 12:43 pm--> (Serpent @ January 12, 2007 12:43 pm)
Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 12, 2007 10:55 am

[email protected] 12, 2007 06:45 am
Let's just hope this puts some of this old doozy to rest. Guys, the state WILL NOT just evaporate, simply coz you don't like it. Simple.
I don't think anyone in this debate or indeed any anarchist that exists believes that to be true.

Idiot.
To be against all action which requires the coordination through a state I do view as a bit dogmatic. [/b]
The question of the state isn't one for political liberalism.

As a communist, my objective is to create communism and the centralisation of political authority is fundamentally antithetical to that objective. In this instance, dogmatism is a necessity.

Dimentio

12th January 2007, 12:12

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension+January 12, 2007 12:07 pm--> (The Anarchist Tension @ January 12, 2007 12:07 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 12:43 pm

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 12, 2007 10:55 am

[email protected] 12, 2007 06:45 am
Let's just hope this puts some of this old doozy to rest. Guys, the state WILL NOT just evaporate, simply coz you don't like it. Simple.
I don't think anyone in this debate or indeed any anarchist that exists believes that to be true.

Idiot.
To be against all action which requires the coordination through a state I do view as a bit dogmatic.
The question of the state isn't one for political liberalism.

As a communist, my objective is to create communism and the centralisation of political authority is fundamentally antithetical to that objective. In this instance, dogmatism is a necessity. [/b]
Centralisation, or integralisation, of technology then? Advanced technology requires large-scale management you know.

If you are going to smash the state tomorrow, the result will more likely be wide-spread suffering, warlordism, neo-feudalism and/or successor states. You must have a replacement system ready to be implemented.

The Feral Underclass

12th January 2007, 12:14

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 01:12 pm
Centralisation, or integralisation, of technology then? Advanced technology requires large-scale management you know.
That's nothing to do with the centralisation of political authority.

If you are going to smash the state tomorrow, the result will more likely be wide-spread suffering, warlordism, neo-feudalism and/or successor states.

Why?

You must have a replacement system ready to be implemented.

Well...yeah...

LuÃs Henrique

12th January 2007, 12:21

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 12, 2007 08:52 am
And I'm assuming that you think the workers who ended up losing their job in terrible living conditions just "got what they deserved"?
Leo, I am not the prophet of some bene/malevolent god to know whether people who screw themselves fighting in the ranks of counterrevolution deserve. Nor do I think what they "deserve" matters.

Workers fought along reactionary forces everywhere, always. Horst Wessel was not a member of the bourgeoisie. To make them martyrs of an imaginary progressive fight, because we happen to dislike the political enemies the bosses of those workers were opposing, is to lie to ourselves - something we should never do.

If you want, we can all weep for the workers who lost their jobs in helping the Venezolan bourgeoisie in its strive to bring the country back into Washington's orbit. But let's recognise that they were victims of the Venezolan opposition first place, who used them - like the bourgeoisie always do to workers. Let's recognise they were martyrs for a very reactionary cause - not for the cause of liberation of our class.

You have already stated, elsewhere, that unions are "tools for the bourgeoisie" - why now such sudden passion for an union that would probably the example to justify such wrong position? You have engaged me in debating that we should look things from the perspective of the whole class, not of the individuals - why in this peculiar case do you bring the personal disgraces of individual Venezolan workers to the discussion?

Did they end up living in terrible conditions? Possibly. Do you imagine the conditions in which most Venezolan workers (possibly even those workers you are referring to) would be living now, if the lock-out you are defending succeeded?

You must be consistent at least, Leo. Your attitude towards fascism borders in an irresponsible "bring them on" bragging; you have forfeited the right to be teary-eyed on the luck of those tools of reaction.

Luís Henrique

Dimentio

12th January 2007, 12:26

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension+January 12, 2007 12:14 pm--> (The Anarchist Tension @ January 12, 2007 12:14 pm)
[email protected] 12, 2007 01:12 pm
Centralisation, or integralisation, of technology then? Advanced technology requires large-scale management you know.
That's nothing to do with the centralisation of political authority.

If you are going to smash the state tomorrow, the result will more likely be wide-spread suffering, warlordism, neo-feudalism and/or successor states.

Why?

You must have a replacement system ready to be implemented.

Well...yeah... [/b]
It does not have anything to do with that. I am against political authorities, but I am not against technical authority.

Empirical evidence from failed states, amongst them Somalia, Bosnia, and Sudan, shows that the dissolution of the state does not lead to anarchism as the population instead fragments around warlords, criminal elements and regional leaders in search for safety. The only exception so far is Somaliland, and even that part of Somalia is turning into a full state.

People prefer to shuffle over authority and responsibility on governments which could coordinate the economy and provide safety to the people so that the people could focus more on working. It is so in all low-energy societies. And given the complete ignorance of anarchism towards the factor technology plays in society, a guess is that it is so focused on the human being that it forgets that there exists factors outside of the social sphere.

The Feral Underclass

12th January 2007, 12:46

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 01:26 pm
Empirical evidence from failed states, amongst them Somalia, Bosnia, and Sudan, shows that the dissolution of the state does not lead to anarchism as the population instead fragments around warlords, criminal elements and regional leaders in search for safety.
I didn't realise there were any anarchists organising class struggle activity in an effort to create communism over in Somalia...?

None of those examples are relevant to this discussion. Those events had nothing to do with class struggle or anarchism or communism.

Secondly, none of these examples were an example of the decentralisation of political authority. In fact all that chaos happened while there existed centralisation of political authority - not the opposite.

Dimentio

12th January 2007, 12:54

Somalia is still in chaos. And yes, it lies an entropy within human society, but not because of the state but because of the pre-state social organisation in clan-systems which sticks it's ugly head up everywhere when the state is collapsing.

Anarchists could try, but they will - out of practical reasons - never achieve full worker class "enlightenment" and their plans would most likely cause more Somalias.

The Feral Underclass

12th January 2007, 17:08

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 01:54 pm
Somalia is still in chaos. And yes, it lies an entropy within human society, but not because of the state but because of the pre-state social organisation in clan-systems which sticks it's ugly head up everywhere when the state is collapsing.
I can accept that there will be instances of such chaos, but you have failed to make it clear why decentralised political authority will be incapable of dealing with it.

Anarchists could try, but they will - out of practical reasons - never achieve full worker class "enlightenment"

No one's will, who argues otherwise?

...and their plans would most likely cause more Somalias

I'm still at a loss in understanding why you think that?

Leo

12th January 2007, 21:55

Leo, I am not the prophet of some bene/malevolent god to know whether people who screw themselves fighting in the ranks of counterrevolution deserve.

The point lies right here. The Bolivarian "Revolution" is not an actual revolution. Both the managers and the leaders of the state are reactionary and counter-revolutionary and workers are, as always, the victim.

Leo, I am not the prophet of some bene/malevolent god to know whether people who screw themselves fighting in the ranks of counterrevolution deserve.

Yes, but that too is not the point. Chavez and the Venezuelan state is not a revolutionary, it is a bourgeois state and a bourgeois administration.

But let's recognise that they were victims of the Venezolan opposition first place, who used them - like the bourgeoisie always do to workers. Let's recognise they were martyrs for a very reactionary cause - not for the cause of liberation of our class.

They were the victims of the opposition and the government - that is the point! Every faction of the bourgeoisie is reactionary! Look, no one is supporting the opposition here, everyone is dead against the opposition and you know this, everyone knows this. This example was used to show how Chavez was anti-working class, and he is. No one is trying to support the opposition, no one is trying to justify the opposition and you know this. You are attacking a straw-man.

You have already stated, elsewhere, that unions are "tools for the bourgeoisie" - why now such sudden passion for an union that would probably the example to justify such wrong position?

Did I ever say that I support the union? Did I ever say that I justify the union? Do you think I have a passion for any union? Sigh, again attacking straw-mans.

You have engaged me in debating that we should look things from the perspective of the whole class, not of the individuals - why in this peculiar case do you bring the personal disgraces of individual Venezolan workers to the discussion?

Straw man again! I am not bringing the personal disgraces of individual (18,000!) Venezuelan workers - I am showing that Chavez is anti-working class, that he is a bourgeois, that he is only serving his faction of nationalist bourgeoisie. Now,do you agree or disagree? This is what the discussion is about.

Did they end up living in terrible conditions? Possibly.

Absolutely!

Do you imagine the conditions in which most Venezolan workers (possibly even those workers you are referring to) would be living now, if the lock-out you are defending succeeded?

Not that much worse. Chavez is not "saving" Venezuela. Living conditions are very bad for a great majority already.

Your attitude towards fascism borders in an irresponsible "bring them on" bragging; you have forfeited the right to be teary-eyed on the luck of those tools of reaction.

Don't worry, I know enough about fascism to be able to forfeit the right to be teary-eyed on the luck of those tools of reaction - I know it very well that tears won't stop torture and neither will begging the bourgeoisie who brought the fascists get there in the first place, to help us make the fascists go away.

Dimentio

12th January 2007, 23:05

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension+January 12, 2007 05:08 pm--> (The Anarchist Tension @ January 12, 2007 05:08 pm)
[email protected] 12, 2007 01:54 pm
Somalia is still in chaos. And yes, it lies an entropy within human society, but not because of the state but because of the pre-state social organisation in clan-systems which sticks it's ugly head up everywhere when the state is collapsing.
I can accept that there will be instances of such chaos, but you have failed to make it clear why decentralised political authority will be incapable of dealing with it.

Anarchists could try, but they will - out of practical reasons - never achieve full worker class "enlightenment"

No one's will, who argues otherwise?

...and their plans would most likely cause more Somalias

I'm still at a loss in understanding why you think that? [/b]
I am not against de-centralism, I am against the idea of by a second eliminating the state, because of pragmatic and utilitarian reasons. Remember that about 50% of the population are against the left.

Louis Pio

12th January 2007, 23:53

Hmm Leo, define what a revolutionary situation is in your oppinion then. Since the situation in Venezuela ain't in your oppinion.

The Feral Underclass

12th January 2007, 23:55

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 12:05 am
Remember that about 50% of the population are against the left.
How could a viable revolutiion exist if half the working class didn't want it?

Dimentio

13th January 2007, 00:04

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension+January 12, 2007 11:55 pm--> (The Anarchist Tension @ January 12, 2007 11:55 pm)
[email protected] 13, 2007 12:05 am
Remember that about 50% of the population are against the left.
How could a viable revolutiion exist if half the working class didn't want it? [/b]
This is going terribly off-topic and I am terribly tired. I am sorry for this deviation and propose that we start a new discussion. But about 25-50% of the active population tend to put themselves behind reactionaries.

The Feral Underclass

13th January 2007, 00:15

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 01:04 am
about 25-50% of the active population tend to put themselves behind reactionaries.
Not in a revolutionary situation. That's simply never been the case.

Severian

13th January 2007, 01:03

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] September 1917
The point lies right here. The Russian "Revolution" is not an actual revolution. Both the managers and the leaders of the state are reactionary and counter-revolutionary and workers are, as always, the victim.
Fixed.

Since both Kerensky and Kornilov are reactionary and counter-revolutionary, Leo continues, there's no need to oppose the Kornilov uprising. Instead, we should complain about how some workers and peasants in uniform were hurt in the course of suppressing that uprising.

BTW, suggesting workers are always the victim doesn't exactly evoke the idea of workers as our own liberators. Engels pointed out, in contrast, that the important thing about the working class is that it's a fighting class, a revolutionary class, not that it's a suffering class.

13th January 2007, 05:36

Therein lays the contradiction.

How can you centralise authority and have the working class "running" the state? Anyone who takes control of political authority exclusively as an institution, I.E central committee, Politburo, Commissar for Porn - you cease to be a worker by any definition of the word: You become a bureaucrat at the very least, but most likely a despot.

What about democratic workers councils? Are those not institutions controlled by the proletariat and implemented in the interests of the proletariat? Is that not working class control? Is that not centralization of power into the hands of the proletariat?

The Feral Underclass

13th January 2007, 09:16

Originally posted by Zampanò@January 13, 2007 06:36 am
What about democratic workers councils? Are those not institutions controlled by the proletariat and implemented in the interests of the proletariat?
Perhaps.

Is that not working class control? Is that not centralization of power into the hands of the proletariat?

No. Centralisation requires a narrowing of control. Democratic workers councils would act independently and may at times not even have 'legislative' abilities.

"Democratic workers councils" are the opposite of centralised political authority.

13th January 2007, 09:27

No. Centralisation requires a narrowing of control. Democratic workers councils would act independently and may at times not even have 'legislative' abilities.

"Democratic workers councils" are the opposite of centralised political authority.

They are still centralized in the hands of the proletariat. If they are institutions controlled by the proletariat then how isn't power centralized in the hands of the proletariat? This "narrowing of control" certainly exists, in the sense that control is narrowed to the proletariat.

You also must realize that I'm not talking about hierarchy of power, but centralization of it. Obviously, this creates hierarchy to an extent, but only that of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, which I'm sure you agree with.

This hierarchy of one class over another will always exist until class society itself ceases to exist. I don't think we disagree on that. This is, however, what my earlier statement was based on. This is the centralization of the power into the hands of the working class, which creates this class hierarchy. Democratic workers councils certainly do this.

Leo

13th January 2007, 10:14

The point lies right here. The Russian "Revolution" is not an actual revolution. Both the managers and the leaders of the state are reactionary and counter-revolutionary and workers are, as always, the victim.

Fixed.

You must be a complete idiot to compare the October Revolution with the state in Venezuela. Wait - you are a complete idiot!

Since both Kerensky and Kornilov are reactionary and counter-revolutionary, Leo continues, there's no need to oppose the Kornilov uprising.

It seems to me that overthrowing Kerensky worked well. I bet you think it would be better if Lenin joined the Kerensky government in order oppose the Kornilov uprising because that's your understanding of opposing fascism.

Good luck begging to the likes of Kerensky, hopefully they'll make good friends with you.

BTW, suggesting workers are always the victim

Oh, you really lack the basic skill of understanding. In conflicts between two factions of bourgeoisie, workers are always used and are always the ones who suffer.

Of course, you don't give a fuck how the workers in Venezuela are doing as long as that left-nationalist bourgeois Chavez goes and says "I'm Trotskyist" "Death to Yankees" etc.

Devrim

13th January 2007, 10:19

Originally posted by Severian+January 13, 2007 01:03 am--> (Severian @ January 13, 2007 01:03 am)
Leo [email protected] September 1917
The point lies right here. The Russian "Revolution" is not an actual revolution. Both the managers and the leaders of the state are reactionary and counter-revolutionary and workers are, as always, the victim.
[/b]

Don't you think that it is fundamentally dishonest to twist what somebody said like that? You could have easily put something like "Leo said this... he could have said this..."
I read that quote, and was shocked that he would right such a thing. I checked back to find the quote and found that he was talking about the Bolivarian revolution.
Other people may not though, and may believe that that was his point in the debate.
I don't think that it is a useful mode of discourse to distort what people say so blatantly.

Devrim

Devrim

13th January 2007, 11:22

apologies. I took quote fixed to mean that you had repaired a mistake. Leo just told me what it meant. It wasn't dishonest, but I still think you could have been clearer.

Devrim

ComradeR

13th January 2007, 12:28

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension+January 13, 2007 12:15 am--> (The Anarchist Tension @ January 13, 2007 12:15 am)
[email protected] 13, 2007 01:04 am
about 25-50% of the active population tend to put themselves behind reactionaries.
Not in a revolutionary situation. That's simply never been the case.[/b]
Serpent is right on this TAT.
This is from one of my previous posts.

The thing that seems to be most often forgotten or ignored is the fact that capitalist education has conditioned the large part of the working class to be apathetic in politics and the class struggle, and complacent towards the status quo. This means as long as capitalism and it's education system are in place we will never be able to get the majority of the working class active in the revolution until after the capitalist government has been overthrown, and it's conditioning of the working class has been broken.

This is especially true in the first world, it is also a major flaw is anarchist theory because as long as capitalist education and it's conditioning are in place, there will never be the "mass uprising of the entire working class" (in which the entire working class instantly becomes active in the revolution) that anarchist theory relies on.

As for Chavez, it's still far to early to see if he's truly on the left, or just another bourgeois "socialist", though the direction he seems to be going is VERY promising.

LuÃs Henrique

13th January 2007, 17:26

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 12, 2007 09:55 pm
The point lies right here. The Bolivarian "Revolution" is not an actual revolution.
Nor I said it was. In fact, I don't even call it by that name, which is a ridiculous one.

Both the managers and the leaders of the state are reactionary and counter-revolutionary and workers are, as always, the victim.

Well, if we are always the victims, let's sit down and weep.

They were the victims of the opposition and the government - that is the point! Every faction of the bourgeoisie is reactionary! Look, no one is supporting the opposition here, everyone is dead against the opposition and you know this, everyone knows this. This example was used to show how Chavez was anti-working class, and he is. No one is trying to support the opposition, no one is trying to justify the opposition and you know this. You are attacking a straw-man.

I am sorry, Leo, but by merely equating the opposition to the government, you are defending it.

Either the "strike" would have been defeated, or it would have succeeded, and Chave would have been replaced by a pro-Washington government. Do you earnestly believe those outcomes would be equivalent?

Did I ever say that I support the union? Did I ever say that I justify the union? Do you think I have a passion for any union? Sigh, again attacking straw-mans.

If that wasn't what you meant, then you expressed yourself quite badly. Reading your post, I had the neat impression that you considered the "strike" a legitimate working class initiative.

Straw man again! I am not bringing the personal disgraces of individual (18,000!) Venezuelan workers - I am showing that Chavez is anti-working class, that he is a bourgeois, that he is only serving his faction of nationalist bourgeoisie. Now,do you agree or disagree? This is what the discussion is about.

No, Leo, I do not agree. It is a terrible oversimplification of a very comlex issue - what I have called in other place "performing brain surgery with axes and chainsaws". It is a travesty of Marxist analysis, performed with no real knowledge or the conditions in Venezuela, substituting dogmatic principles for practical knowledge.

Do you imagine the conditions in which most Venezolan workers (possibly even those workers you are referring to) would be living now, if the lock-out you are defending succeeded?

Not that much worse. Chavez is not "saving" Venezuela. Living conditions are very bad for a great majority already.

Thence you would say that the conditions of Chilean workers under Pinochet weren't much worse than under allende? Or that the conditions of German workers under Hitler weren't much worse than under Bruening?

Don't worry, I know enough about fascism to be able to forfeit the right to be teary-eyed on the luck of those tools of reaction - I know it very well that tears won't stop torture and neither will begging the bourgeoisie who brought the fascists get there in the first place, to help us make the fascists go away.

It doesn't seem that you have a very good grasp on what fascism is about, Leo. You seem to think it is, to use your own words, "not that much worse". You are wrong, just plainly wrong.

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

13th January 2007, 17:32

Originally posted by Leo [email protected]ry 13, 2007 10:14 am
It seems to me that overthrowing Kerensky worked well. I bet you think it would be better if Lenin joined the Kerensky government in order oppose the Kornilov uprising because that's your understanding of opposing fascism.

Good luck begging to the likes of Kerensky, hopefully they'll make good friends with you.
Leo, I know this was in response to Severian, but...

Do you believe it would have possible to overthrow Kerensky, if the Kornilov putsch succeeded? In other words, if the working class had not defended Kerensky against Kornilov?

Luís Henrique

Leo

13th January 2007, 18:50

Nor I said it was. In fact, I don't even call it by that name, which is a ridiculous one.

So you agree that there is no revolution going on in there and therefore the government is not revolutionary?

Well, if we are always the victims, let's sit down and weep.

If we follow factions of the bourgeoisie, yes we will be victims. Again, a straw-man argument, my point is that we don't follow them and we fight against them. This is very obvious.

I am sorry, Leo, but by merely equating the opposition to the government, you are defending it.

And of course I should support another anti-working class faction of the bourgeoisie just because they have a "left-nationalist" rhetoric and they say bad things to Yankees?

Either the "strike" would have been defeated, or it would have succeeded, and Chave would have been replaced by a pro-Washington government. Do you earnestly believe those outcomes would be equivalent?

National capital is not any better than foreign capital - both are enemies of the working class! The outcomes might not be equivalent, but there won't be a change in fundamental ills of capitalism.

If that wasn't what you meant, then you expressed yourself quite badly. Reading your post, I had the neat impression that you considered the "strike" a legitimate working class initiative.

No I didn't express myself badly. Workers who joined the strike didn't do this because they loved their bosses or because they were too reactionary. They did it because they were, like all workers, being exploited and they weren't happy about it. Their political motives lead to nowhere, and yes, they were told to strike for bourgeois interests but the opposition is as guilty as the government and they almost worked together in this incident. The opposition also prefers the government to work more with foreign companies. The bourgeoisie, all factions of it, wanted to get rid of a big percentage of oil workers.

The problem is; when you see that I oppose something, you assume that I must support the "rival" of the faction I oppose. So when I oppose the Chavez government, you presume that I support the opposition. I bet you are against Pepsi Cooperation, following your logic, it should be obvious that you support Coca Cola Cooperation.

No, Leo, I do not agree.

Enough said <_<

It is a travesty of Marxist analysis, performed with no real knowledge or the conditions in Venezuela, substituting dogmatic principles for practical knowledge.

Yes, the dogmatic principle of class struggle, that the bourgeoisie is the enemy of the working class.

Thence you would say that the conditions of Chilean workers under Pinochet weren't much worse than under Allende? Or that the conditions of German workers under Hitler weren't much worse than under Bruening?

No, I wouldn't say that and I haven't said anything like that, this is yet another straw man. The opposition is not "fascist", there isn't a situation in Venezuela that requires fascism to rise. There isn't a mass class movement, there isn't a strong communist organization. The opposition is a capitalist fraction which wants to be allied with a different faction of the bourgeoisie.

It doesn't seem that you have a very good grasp on what fascism is about, Leo. You seem to think it is, to use your own words, "not that much worse". You are wrong, just plainly wrong.

Sigh, no Luis, I have a very good, personal grasp on what fascism is about. I know that neither begging the bourgeoisie nor crying helps anyone.

Do you believe it would have possible to overthrow Kerensky, if the Kornilov putsch succeeded? In other words, if the working class had not defended Kerensky against Kornilov?

What matters is the measure taken to stop Kornilov. Do you think it would have possible to overthrow Kerensky if Lenin joined the Kerensky government in order to stop Kornilov?

The working class did oppose the Kornilov putsch, and the precise reason the putsch failed was that the workers were independent in their organization and did not join their forces with Kerensky or any other faction of the bourgeoisie. Workers weren't defeated by then, they were strong and independent.

Human-o-matic

13th January 2007, 19:15

Ok, Chavez isn't making a revolution, so what? The line dividing progressism and suicide-ism is narrow and Chavez knows this, seriously, you folks demands too much of him...remember this is the 21th century, and not 19th. There is no need of citing Allende, there is it? A tentative of revolution in Venezuela would be risky(even revolutions need reforms) and would probably result in ultimately meaningless bloodshed and loss of life due the fact that as I said, this is the 21th century, the thermal shock would be immense and this is the USA's world...the Worldwide Attack Matrix and everything more would enter in action, and then...boom

And...well...I think reformism can lead to socialism...the problem it's longer than and very susceptible to "detours"...nevertheless as I said i don't see a way to a revolution stands on his feets by too long in this damn world

BTW,are you guys saying that the Venezuelan state still a bourgeois state or that Chavez ,in the core, is a bourgeois?

Leo

13th January 2007, 19:37

BTW,are you guys saying that the Venezuelan state still a bourgeois state or that Chavez ,in the core, is a bourgeois?

That's exactly what I'm saying - and I have to add that Chavez is not only a bourgeois in the core but also a bourgeois to the core.

LuÃs Henrique

13th January 2007, 19:38

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 13, 2007 06:50 pm
So you agree that there is no revolution going on in there and therefore the government is not revolutionary?
No, I do not agree with that either.

Of course there is a revolution going on there - and in Turkey, in the United States, in Brazil, or in Bahrein. The point is not that. The point is, should revolutionaries in Venezuela support this government against the bourgeois opposition?

I think yes, they should.

This is not the same as believing the government is revolutionary.

If we follow factions of the bourgeoisie, yes we will be victims. Again, a straw-man argument, my point is that we don't follow them and we fight against them. This is very obvious.

I an not proposing that we follow factions of the bourgeoisie. I am saying that we should not pretend to be neutral when bourgeois factions who are attempting to implement a full-out dictatorship attempt coups against whatever government, even bourgeois governments, that minimally respect the working class rights.

And of course I should support another anti-working class faction of the bourgeoisie just because they have a "left-nationalist" rhetoric and they say bad things to Yankees?

No. You should support them because they don't jail workers just for being organised - and the other side would do exactly that.

National capital is not any better than foreign capital - both are enemies of the working class! The outcomes might not be equivalent, but there won't be a change in fundamental ills of capitalism.

Yes, there would be a fundamental change, Leo. Workers and leftists in general would be chased, jailed, judicially and extra-judicially murderd, their organisations closed, forbidden, their papers shut down, etc. It is appalling that you don't see that.

No I didn't express myself badly. Workers who joined the strike didn't do this because they loved their bosses or because they were too reactionary. They did it because they were, like all workers, being exploited and they weren't happy about it.

So, evidently, you support the "strike": you believe it was an act of rebellion against exploitation.

It wasn't. The "strike" was clearly intended to topple the government, because the government, in the opinions of those who decided the "strike", did give too much to the workers, and not enough to the bosses.

Their political motives lead to nowhere, and yes, they were told to strike for bourgeois interests but the opposition is as guilty as the government and they almost worked together in this incident. The opposition also prefers the government to work more with foreign companies. The bourgeoisie, all factions of it, wanted to get rid of a big percentage of oil workers.

Frankly, I don't believe this. The opposition was earnest in trying to topple the government. It wasn't just a manoever to allow Chavez to purge the PEDEVESA. From what source do you take such account of the facts?

The problem is; when you see that I oppose something, you assume that I must support the "rival" of the faction I oppose. So when I oppose the Chavez government, you presume that I support the opposition.

While you, from the fact that I oppose a neutrality position, conclude that I must believe Chavez is a revolutionary.

But that is not the point. Your analysis of the strike was worded like the following:

A crippling oil strike by those who worked in the industry was seen down in 2002-3 and, despite its effect, Chavez clung on to power.

There is no word here to warn that the "strike" wasn't what is usually considered a strike. On the contrary, it is painted as a "strike by those who worked in the industry" - not by the bosses, not by the opposition, etc. That was what lead me to think you actually supported the strike.

Did you?

I bet you are against Pepsi Cooperation, following your logic, it should be obvious that you support Coca Cola Cooperation.

No, because they are both capitalist corporations.

If I knew that one of them paid higher wages, I would consider working for it instead of for the other. If one of them cheated the other in a criminal way, was discovered, and sued, I wouldn't consider punishing the offending executive officers as irrelevant. And so on.

Yes, the dogmatic principle of class struggle, that the bourgeoisie is the enemy of the working class.

No. This is not the principle of class struggle. It is the "principle" that when bourgeois factions struggle, we should keep out from the issue, regardless of what consequences our inaction would have for our class, combined with the "principle" that we downplay the disasters we are responsible for, by "explaining" that capitalism is like that.

No, I wouldn't say that and I haven't said anything like that, this is yet another straw man.

It isn't a straw man, it is a question. Since you understand that the conditions under Pinochet, or Hitler, were worse than the conditions under Allende, or Bruening, let me then ask: but weren't Allende and Bruening bourgeois?

The opposition is not "fascist", there isn't a situation in Venezuela that requires fascism to rise.

Oh, certainly, they are not fascist. Pinochet wasn't fascist, too - he was rather liberal in matters economical. Nor were the Argentinian gorillas fascist. Believe me though, a non-fascist dictatorship can be darnedly murderous.

What kind of dictatorship do you fancy the opposition would have installed in Venezuela? Hint - Andrés Perez was talking about "three or four years with no Congress, no elections, and no courts" until the situation came "under control". The Caracas police was shooting people on the streets, in the coup's day.

There isn't a mass class movement,

Of course there is. It is inherent to capitalism. Whether it is radical enough, broad enough, etc, is a different point.

there isn't a strong communist organization.

There wasn't one here in Brazil too. However, we suffered 21 years of dictatorship. The idea that dictatorships only come when a real deadly threat is posed to capitalism is totally false.

The opposition is a capitalist fraction which wants to be allied with a different faction of the bourgeoisie.

Expand on that, please - what is the material base of their disagreement?

Sigh, no Luis, I have a very good, personal grasp on what fascism is about. I know that neither begging the bourgeoisie nor crying helps anyone.

It doesn't seem so from what you post. It looks like you believe it is just not much worse than bourgeois democracy.

What matters is the measure taken to stop Kornilov. Do you think it would have possible to overthrow Kerensky if Lenin joined the Kerensky government in order to stop Kornilov?

And who is talking about joining the Chavez government?

The working class did oppose the Kornilov putsch, and the precise reason the putsch failed was that the workers were independent in their organization and did not join their forces with Kerensky or any other faction of the bourgeoisie.

Yes. What they decidedly did not do is what you seem to be proposing be done in Venezuela - to not fight the opposition, because both government and opposition are bourgeois.

Workers weren't defeated by then, they were strong and independent.

And how will workers become strong and independent, if they refuse to take active part in politics such as it really is?

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

13th January 2007, 19:44

Originally posted by Human-o-[email protected] 13, 2007 07:15 pm
BTW,are you guys saying that the Venezuelan state still a bourgeois state or that Chavez ,in the core, is a bourgeois?
There is not doubt the Venezolan State is a bourgois State - not even Chavez denies this.

To the issue of Chavez, personally, he is obviously a member of the petty-bourgoisie - Army high-rank officer, he used to be. As to his personal beliefs, he seems confuse above all.

ETA - what Chavez personally is, though, is highly irrelevant to the political analysis of Venezuela.

Luís Henrique

Leo

13th January 2007, 21:10

Of course there is a revolution going on there - and in Turkey, in the United States, in Brazil, or in Bahrein. The point is not that.

Well... yeah, you know what I meant.

The point is not that. The point is, should revolutionaries in Venezuela support this government against the bourgeois opposition?

No, they shouldn't support this government in any case because it is a bourgeois government, as you say later on. But this doesn't mean that revolutionaries are not also going to oppose the bourgeois opposition. Quite the contrary, they should all be opposed. Those are bourgeois faction that, in the end of the day, bring proletarians against proletarians in the streets. The left-wing bourgeoisie against the right-wing bourgeoisie; they are all against our class and do whatever is necessary when it is necessary.

I an not proposing that we follow factions of the bourgeoisie.

Oh, right, you are proposing that we "support" the factions of the bourgeoisie. There is a world of difference there <_<

I am saying that we should not pretend to be neutral when bourgeois factions who are attempting to implement a full-out dictatorship attempt coups against whatever government, even bourgeois governments, that minimally respect the working class rights.

Oh, you know that they don't "respect" those rights because they are better people. Subjective intentions are not important - it is the material conditions that is the determining factor.

No. You should support them because they don't jail workers just for being organised - and the other side would do exactly that.

Would they? I don't think they would be able to do anything that Chavez is not capable of really doing if they were in power now. It depends on the material conditions. Our subjective support to the bourgeoisie is ultimately a treason to the working class. Just because the material conditions make it impossible for them to imprison us, this doesn't mean we should support our bosses. The idea that we should is liberalism.

Yes, there would be a fundamental change, Leo. Workers and leftists in general would be chased, jailed, judicially and extra-judicially murderd, their organisations closed, forbidden, their papers shut down, etc. It is appalling that you don't see that.

Just because the person in charge changed? With no relation to material conditions and current class relations? Why should a government jail leftists when leftists are not a threat to the government? Would Chavez not chase, jail, judicially and extra-judicially murder workers who are really opposing him from an independent working class organization?

So, evidently, you support the "strike": you believe it was an act of rebellion against exploitation.

What I did was to state the reason why those workers joined the strike. Or do you think they joined the strike because they were "evil"? Do you think Chavez sacked them because he was really pro working-class?

"Yeah, I'll sack the workers who were involved in the strike! That'll teach the opposition not to mess with me!"

See, it doesn't really make much sense.

On the contrary, it is painted as a "strike by those who worked in the industry" - not by the bosses, not by the opposition, etc.

Well, quite obviously, most people who work in an oil factory are those who work in the industry, and the managers really are rather a minority.

That was what lead me to think you actually supported the strike.

Did you?

I have already stated that politically the strike was a dead end for the workers, almost like a trap and was used for multiple purposes of multiple bourgeois factions. This is the big picture, and of course it can't be supported. Yet the events also show how anti-working class Chavez is.

Frankly, I don't believe this. The opposition was earnest in trying to topple the government. It wasn't just a manoever to allow Chavez to purge the PEDEVESA. From what source do you take such account of the facts?

Oh, yes, the opposition absolutely used this event in trying to topple the government. There was a factional fight involved. Yet, this doesn't explain why PEDEVESA was really purged. You sack 18,000 people just because they supported your political rival, especially after you held on to power after the opposition miserably failed a coup. Purging PEDEVESA allowed some companies to make huge profits and Chavez to make more business with foreign firms. Seems like a result that would make both sides pretty happy.

While you, from the fact that I oppose a neutrality position

There is no "neutrality" position here. I fully take the side of the working class and I completely oppose every single bourgeois element.

No, because they are both capitalist corporations.

And both the government and the opposition are bourgeois political factions.

Since you understand that the conditions under Pinochet, or Hitler, were worse than the conditions under Allende, or Bruening, let me then ask: but weren't Allende and Bruening bourgeois?

They, of course, were. And I wouldn't "support" any of them and even if I did, my support would not mean anything. The only thing that could stop Pinochet was an actual, independent working class movement - the same thing applies with Hitler. Bunch of leftists "supporting" bourgeois statesman would not, and did not help anything.

Yes. What they decidedly did not do is what you seem to be proposing be done in Venezuela - to not fight the opposition, because both government and opposition are bourgeois.

And where on earth did I say we shouldn't fight the opposition?!

Human-o-matic

13th January 2007, 21:42

So...if Chavez is a bourgeois all of his measures until now were just for his estabilization on the power right? I don't see other reasonable explanation to this in the case

Well, I think that if this was true Chavez would take different measures, it would be too risky for him to make all this socialist story just for his own sake. Because of course if he was a bourgeois he wouldn't take this further, and he made such a noise about the "revolution" that in my opinion he wouldn't stay in the power for long if he just abandoned the "socialist revolution" there...it would completely mine his main support

Additionally I saw an interview with an academic where he says that where studies that said that(holy shit, a lot of "that") venezuelans consider themselves revolutionaries before Chavinists, which further explains the situation

The Feral Underclass

13th January 2007, 22:16

Originally posted by Zampanò@January 13, 2007 10:27 am

No. Centralisation requires a narrowing of control. Democratic workers councils would act independently and may at times not even have 'legislative' abilities.

"Democratic workers councils" are the opposite of centralised political authority.

They are still centralized in the hands of the proletariat. If they are institutions controlled by the proletariat then how isn't power centralized in the hands of the proletariat? This "narrowing of control" certainly exists, in the sense that control is narrowed to the proletariat.

You also must realize that I'm not talking about hierarchy of power, but centralization of it. Obviously, this creates hierarchy to an extent, but only that of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, which I'm sure you agree with.

This hierarchy of one class over another will always exist until class society itself ceases to exist. I don't think we disagree on that. This is, however, what my earlier statement was based on. This is the centralization of the power into the hands of the working class, which creates this class hierarchy. Democratic workers councils certainly do this.
You and your bloody word games.

The act of centralisation means to consolidate into a centre: Hundreds of federated councils - that aren't centralised...working independently of each other is the opposite of that.

:rolleyes:

The Feral Underclass

13th January 2007, 22:21

Originally posted by ComradeR+January 13, 2007 01:28 pm--> (ComradeR @ January 13, 2007 01:28 pm)
Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 13, 2007 12:15 am

[email protected] 13, 2007 01:04 am
about 25-50% of the active population tend to put themselves behind reactionaries.
Not in a revolutionary situation. That's simply never been the case.
Serpent is right on this TAT. [/b]
No he isn't...

The thing that seems to be most often forgotten or ignored is the fact that capitalist education has conditioned the large part of the working class to be apathetic in politics and the class struggle, and complacent towards the status quo. This means as long as capitalism and it's education system are in place we will never be able to get the majority of the working class active in the revolution until after the capitalist government has been overthrown, and it's conditioning of the working class has been broken.

This is just idealist pratter and is founded in no material understanding at all. Of course the workers are "apathetic" to class struggle, we live in a period of reaction when the ruling class has consolidated it's position and strength.

The occurance of a revolution indicates that this is no longer the case, hence that the working class are no longer apathetic.

Logic.

This is especially true in the first world, it is also a major flaw is anarchist theory because as long as capitalist education and it's conditioning are in place, there will never be the "mass uprising of the entire working class" (in which the entire working class instantly becomes active in the revolution) that anarchist theory relies on.

Anarchist theory relies on the majority of the working class gaining class consciousness, yes, but history clearly shows that in times of economic upheavel this happens with the desired effect.

A revolution requires the working class in order to make it a revolution and it's irrelevant whether "capitaist education" exists now, the point is it won't after a process of class struggle culminating in a revolution.

How else do you think a revolution exists...? :blink:

LuÃs Henrique

13th January 2007, 22:52

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 13, 2007 09:10 pm
Well... yeah, you know what I meant.

Yes, I do know what you meant: that the situation in Venezuela is not revolutionary. But this should not be confused with there being no revolution; revolutions aren't exchanges of gunfire, though I am pretty sure that they will eventually go through such exchanges.

What do revolutionaries do when there is no revolutionary situation?

Oh, right, you are proposing that we "support" the factions of the bourgeoisie. There is a world of difference there <_<

Yes, there is a world of difference here.

Oh, you know that they don't "respect" those rights because they are better people. Subjective intentions are not important - it is the material conditions that is the determining factor.

Sure. The material conditions for the rule of different fractions of the bourgeoisie are different, too, don't you agree?

I don't think Chavez is a "better person" than Pedro Carmona - nor do I think Lenin was a "better person" than Nicholas II. The political program of Pedro Carmona included the destruction of any kind of political organisation of the working class, and the purge of its unionist organisation from all "subversive" elements. The political program of Chavez does not include this, at least at this moment. Chavez is surfing in the waves of the radicalisation of the working class, and he cannot stop this process by suddenly turning into repression, because he would be left with no support from either right or left.

Would they? I don't think they would be able to do anything that Chavez is not capable of really doing if they were in power now.

Of course they would. The conditions for doing that would have been created by their own victory.

In fact, they started doing that immediately, after the beggining of the failed coup: the police went into the streets and started to repress, quite brutally, any demonstrations, with live fire. This was only stopped, by, first, the popular will to continue to fight, despite the repression, and, second, the fact that they had not adequately secured a real majority in the Army.

When they vacilated, they started to loose. Their political position needed to be based on the most ruthless repression, which they, for the reasons above, failed to deliver.

It depends on the material conditions. Our subjective support to the bourgeoisie is ultimately a treason to the working class. Just because the material conditions make it impossible for them to imprison us, this doesn't mean we should support our bosses. The idea that we should is liberalism.

No, you are wrong. We do not support our bosses. We support a regime that allows us to organise; that's not liberalism, that is defending our lives, our living standards, and better conditions to struggle against them.

Just because the person in charge changed?

No. Because the political programme in charge changed. Because the material conditions for political repression changed. Because the nature of the regime changed. Because the political forces behind the person in charge changed.

With no relation to material conditions and current class relations? Why should a government jail leftists when leftists are not a threat to the government?

To avoid them becoming a threat, perhaps? To be able to change the class relations? They do that all the time, Leo.

Would Chavez not chase, jail, judicially and extra-judicially murder workers who are really opposing him from an independent working class organization?

Until this moment, it is not what he is doing, though.

What I did was to state the reason why those workers joined the strike. Or do you think they joined the strike because they were "evil"?

And that was a false reason. The workers joined the strike mostly because their bosses told them to, and they were afraid of loosing their jobs if they didn't obey.

Do you think Chavez sacked them because he was really pro working-class?

No, of course. He sacked them to punish them for having supported the opposition.

As it has been noted, it was mainly the managerial stratum that was sacked. Obviously, however, the composition of PEDEVESA was the reverse; it had more rank-and-file workers than bosses and managers.

I don't know exactly how the repression against the "strikers" proceeded, but everyone knows that there always are rank-and-file workers who are pro-boss, and even politically reactionary. Those would show up in a boss-oriented "strike".

Well, quite obviously, most people who work in an oil factory are those who work in the industry, and the managers really are rather a minority.

But they were the majority among those actively striking, not to talk about those directing it. Which matches the result of the repression - they were the majority of those sacked.

I have already stated that politically the strike was a dead end for the workers, almost like a trap and was used for multiple purposes of multiple bourgeois factions. This is the big picture, and of course it can't be supported. Yet the events also show how anti-working class Chavez is.

Because he sacked people who tried to topple him? Jeez, he didn't even jail those guys!

Purging PEDEVESA allowed some companies to make huge profits and Chavez to make more business with foreign firms. Seems like a result that would make both sides pretty happy.

This does not make sence at all. The defeated managers at PEDEVESA were the pro-american, privatist group inside the company. How does sacking them make easier to deal with foreing firms?

There is no "neutrality" position here. I fully take the side of the working class and I completely oppose every single bourgeois element.

Of course it is a neutrality position. There is fight against the government and people trying to topple it. Either the government falls or it survives. But to make it fall it is necessary to engage fight against it: get guns and shoot the chavistas, help the Caracas police find them, go to the streets and shout "Fuera Chavez", etc. To prevent the fall of the government, conversely, it is necessary to face the police, to risk being shoot, to surround the Goverment Palace, to throw rocks at the police, to shoot at the gusanos. Which of them should we do? Any other option is "neutral" or favours the stronger side.

And both the government and the opposition are bourgeois political factions.

Exactly. They have different political programs, while Coca-Cola and Pepsi sell us different poisons, but are not politically different. If, however, it was proved that Coca-Cola caused cancer, and Pepsi not, wouldn't you consider the idea that drinking Coca could be, see, perhaps, worse than drinking Pepsi?

The political program of the Venezolan opposition is significantly worse for the working class than that of Chavez.

They, of course, were. And I wouldn't "support" any of them and even if I did, my support would not mean anything.

So when the gorillas came to street to topple Allende, what should we do?

The only thing that could stop Pinochet was an actual, independent working class movement - the same thing applies with Hitler. Bunch of leftists "supporting" bourgeois statesman would not, and did not help anything.

Sure. But our task, as members of an independent working class movement (and not mere bunched leftists) is to decide what the independent working class movement is going to do. If we throw away every opportunity to defeat the reaction, and then pretend it was not our fault because capitalism is just like that, see, in the end they would murder us all the same, we will find, in the future, that the working class may prefer their independent movement better off without us to misguide them.

And where on earth did I say we shouldn't fight the opposition?!

And exactly how would we fight the opposition, the day of the coup, without supporting Chavez's return to power?

Luís Henrique

Severian

13th January 2007, 23:02

Originally posted by Leo Uilleann+January 13, 2007 12:50 pm--> (Leo Uilleann @ January 13, 2007 12:50 pm) Their political motives lead to nowhere, and yes, they were told to strike for bourgeois interests but the opposition is as guilty as the government and they almost worked together in this incident. The opposition also prefers the government to work more with foreign companies. The bourgeoisie, all factions of it, wanted to get rid of a big percentage of oil workers. [/b]
For this to make any sense - the PDVSA executives would have had to want to get rid of themselves! And their bloated salaries and vast fringe benefits. Their incomes were so huge that Venezuela received relatively little back from its oil exports.

No, they led the strike in an unsuccessful attempt to save those salaries, not in order to get themselves fired and some workers along with them.

To correct something I said earlier: you have less grasp on reality than the Sparts do.

Human-o-[email protected] 13, 2007 03:42 pm
Well, I think that if this was true Chavez would take different measures, it would be too risky for him to make all this socialist story just for his own sake.
What "socialist" measures? The truth is, that Chavez has conducted a very limited level of nationalization and land redistribution - and mostly of imperialist-owned property. The latest is to renationalize electricity and phone companies which were public property, then privatized in the past. This fits very well with a bourgeois nationalist regime.

And there's only way for such a regime to stand up to imperialism and the section of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie supporting it. They need the help of Venezuela's working class, peasants, and other layers of working people. It was only with that help that Chavez regained power after the coup years ago, defeated the bosses' strike/lockout, etc.

In order to get that help, Chavez's government has to do some things that benefit working people; give in to demands from workers' and peasants' organizations, etc. He has to refrain from repressing the workers' organizations that are keeping him in power. Which is why Venezuelan workers are absolutely right to defend the Chavez government against the pro-imperialist opposition.

Just as the Bolsheviks defended Kerensky's government against Kornilov's right-wing military coup - in order to overthrow Kerensky down the road.

Then there's Chavez' confused socialist-sounding rhetoric. But all kinds of regimes use all kinds of rhetoric. Actions speak louder - that's what you have to watch.

Human-o-matic

13th January 2007, 23:48

Sorry if I wasn't very clear but when I spoke of measures I wasn't referring to social measures but to political measures, more specifically all the "let's do the socialist Venezuela" fuss.

If Chavez is so bourgeois what's his interest in "stand up to imperialism and the section of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie supporting it", gimmicky attitude? Nah I think that if it was just this he'd just stick on this forever, no need to go on with the "socialist" talk.

And yes, actions speak loud, but if they aren't joined by an ideology in the same direction they are just isolated flops who don't last long.

Chavez is being VERY agressive in his speeches lately, he made it so clear that he wants a "socialist Venezuela" that he, if he isn't looking for real trouble of course, only have 2 options : Carry on and put whatl he says into practice OR fuck everything up and just REALLY go right wing to get bourgeois approval and then have some governmental base. Chavez made to the point that isolated actions won't help him much longer I believe.

My point after all is that I tend to slightly believe in what Chaves is saying because since he's a smart politician, if he was going on this nationalist bourgeois stuff he wouldn't SCREW UP things so badly as he did this month, he wen't too far, there's no turning back now.

Devrim

13th January 2007, 23:50

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 11:02 pm
Which is why Venezuelan workers are absolutely right to defend the Chavez government against the pro-imperialist opposition.

Just as the Bolsheviks defended Kerensky's government against Kornilov's right-wing military coup - in order to overthrow Kerensky down the road.

I think that you are missing a very important point here. When the Bolsheviks fought against Kornilov, the working class had its own organs of class power, the soviets. The workers in Venezuela don't have these independent organs, and any call for defence of the regime ends up in mobilising the workers behind the bourgeoisie.
Devrim

Severian

14th January 2007, 00:12

Originally posted by Human-o-[email protected] 13, 2007 05:48 pm
Sorry if I wasn't very clear but when I spoke of measures I wasn't referring to social measures but to political measures, more specifically all the "let's do the socialist Venezuela" fuss.
In other words, rhetoric? It's easy to become totally disoriented if you focus on that.

If Chavez is so bourgeois what's his interest in "stand up to imperialism and the section of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie supporting it", gimmicky attitude?

What? You expect the capitalists to be united? Capitalism is all about competition, every section has an interest in getting an edge on every other.

Specifically, it's common for bourgeois elements in the Third World to chafe at their subordination to the imperialsits.

And yes, actions speak loud, but if they aren't joined by an ideology in the same direction they are just isolated flops who don't last long.

That makes no sense. Capitalists are typically driven by a short-term, pragmatic understanding of their interests, not by ideology. It's only the working class that needs a clear, theory-guided understanding of our long-term interests.

Chavez is being VERY agressive in his speeches lately, he made it so clear that he wants a "socialist Venezuela" that he, if he isn't looking for real trouble of course, only have 2 options : Carry on and put whatl he says into practice OR fuck everything up and just REALLY go right wing to get bourgeois approval

Or he could just keep doing what he's been doing for years: talk big and do much less. Rhetoric is a big aid in doing something different, especially if you can get people to focus on your words not actions.

That's why liberals can sometimes do more than conservatives in driving through real attacks on the working class: only Clinton could have "ended welfare as we know it." Or, conversely, only Nixon could have gone to China.

Of course in the long run there are no alternatives to imperialism and socialist revolution, but that doesn't stop reformists and bourgeois nationalists from trying. Those forces do exist, and hold power much more often than the working class so far.

When the Bolsheviks fought against Kornilov, the working class had its own organs of class power, the soviets. The workers in Venezuela don't have these independent organs, and any call for defence of the regime ends up in mobilising the workers behind the bourgeoisie.

Yeah, I'm used to this kind of logical non sequitur from Sparts too. Sectarians always set up a lot of conditions, hoops that the class struggle has to jump through. But reality doesn't care about your conditions.

Really, this is just an excuse for why your course has nothing to do with that of revolutionaries historicallly, while pretending it does. Reformists "Communist" do similar maneuvers in an opposite way. Basically: "We're doing the opposite of the Bolsheviks, but that's because X is different, not because we're totally different politically." X can be anything, since it's just constructing excuses.

As it happens, workers in Venezuela aren't completely disorganized by any means. Nor does everyone who backs Chavez against imperialism and the opposition do so without independence - that's the biggest dispute within the UNT union federation right now.

But the larger point is that you won't get to mass organizations of class power, mass assertion of independence, etc., by standing aside from the real class struggle. This includes both demands on the Chavez regime - workers occupying factories and demanding the government legalize their control - and the defense of that regime from imperialism. That's the form the class struggle has taken, whether you like it or not.

On the contrary, you can only affect the class movement by participating in it - and learning from the real movement. As communists always have.

Leo

14th January 2007, 09:40

Yeah, I'm used to this kind of logical non sequitur from Sparts too. Sectarians always set up a lot of conditions, hoops that the class struggle has to jump through. But reality doesn't care about your conditions.

And apparently your imagination doesn't care about real conditions of the working class.

Really, this is just an excuse for why your course has nothing to do with that of revolutionaries historicallly, while pretending it does. Reformists "Communist" do similar maneuvers in an opposite way. Basically: "We're doing the opposite of the Bolsheviks, but that's because X is different, not because we're totally different politically." X can be anything, since it's just constructing excuses.

And I'm guessing the glorious SWP is trying to do everything exactly as the Bolsheviks did?

:angry: -"Let's raid the Winter Palace!"

:unsure: -"Uh, comrade chairman, there isn't a Winter Palace in America..."

:angry: -"This is just an excuse for why your course has nothing to do with that of revolutionaries historicallly, while pretending it does! Reformists "Communist" do similar maneuvers in an opposite way. Basically: "We're doing the opposite of the Bolsheviks, but that's because X is different, not because we're totally different politically." X can be anything, since it's just constructing excuses!"

:unsure: -"Uh, as you wish, comrade chairman..."

But the larger point is that you won't get to mass organizations of class power, mass assertion of independence, etc., by standing aside from the real class struggle.

And yet your understanding of "class" struggle is factional quarrels between the bourgeoisie.

Human-o-matic

14th January 2007, 11:50

In other words, rhetoric? It's easy to become totally disoriented if you focus on that.

Let's hope it isn't just empty rhetoric, since all the real fuss happened recently there's no way to know if it is or not.

What? You expect the capitalists to be united? Capitalism is all about competition, every section has an interest in getting an edge on every other.

True, but as you said : "Capitalists are typically driven by a short-term, pragmatic understanding of their interests, not by ideology". It's MUCH easier to get their support than to do what Chavez is doing, if you're a bourgeois. Just like mindless parasites, give them blood and the will be there.

That makes no sense. Capitalists are typically driven by a short-term, pragmatic understanding of their interests, not by ideology. It's only the working class that needs a clear, theory-guided understanding of our long-term interests.

Yes, but who's Chavez main support?
His main support becomes from the working class so a "clear, theory-guided understanding" is needed, and Chavez is giving that, but, as I said, he went too far on that...it's like...he said 100, so he'll do 20 to maintain support, but now he said 500 and he was so clear in what he'll be doing that he'll need at least 200, and 200 is too much to stay in a national bourgeois path, so he'll have to choose his path. (spiritual...wasn't it? :lol: )

As I said I think that if he's stick with the "Say big, do much less" he'll be screwed. And as I said too I think that if he was a bourgeois he'd be smart enough to don't get things too dangerously big without need.

LuÃs Henrique

14th January 2007, 14:27

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 14, 2007 09:40 am
And yet your understanding of "class" struggle is factional quarrels between the bourgeoisie.
OK, Leo. You are in the streets of Caracas, the day of the coup, with your group of committed revolutionaries. What banners do you carry, Fuera Chavez or Chavez no se vá?

And when the chavistas and the gusanos start firing at each others, do you fire at the chavistas or at the gusanos?

You see a group of chavistas fleeing. A moment later, comes a group of gusanos, who ask you, where have they run to? Do you answer? Do you lie?

You see a group of gusanos fleeing. A moment later, comes a group of chavistas, who ask you, where have they run to? Do you answer? Do you lie?

Luís Henrique

Dimentio

14th January 2007, 14:47

Originally posted by Human-o-[email protected] 14, 2007 11:50 am

In other words, rhetoric? It's easy to become totally disoriented if you focus on that.

Let's hope it isn't just empty rhetoric, since all the real fuss happened recently there's no way to know if it is or not.

What? You expect the capitalists to be united? Capitalism is all about competition, every section has an interest in getting an edge on every other.

True, but as you said : "Capitalists are typically driven by a short-term, pragmatic understanding of their interests, not by ideology". It's MUCH easier to get their support than to do what Chavez is doing, if you're a bourgeois. Just like mindless parasites, give them blood and the will be there.

That makes no sense. Capitalists are typically driven by a short-term, pragmatic understanding of their interests, not by ideology. It's only the working class that needs a clear, theory-guided understanding of our long-term interests.

Yes, but who's Chavez main support?
His main support becomes from the working class so a "clear, theory-guided understanding" is needed, and Chavez is giving that, but, as I said, he went too far on that...it's like...he said 100, so he'll do 20 to maintain support, but now he said 500 and he was so clear in what he'll be doing that he'll need at least 200, and 200 is too much to stay in a national bourgeois path, so he'll have to choose his path. (spiritual...wasn't it? :lol: )

As I said I think that if he's stick with the "Say big, do much less" he'll be screwed. And as I said too I think that if he was a bourgeois he'd be smart enough to don't get things too dangerously big without need.
Dogmaticism is the path to suicide. It is best to be pragmatic and patient, even in conflict. The goal should not be to overthrow the means of control, but to take over them and change them by a gradual process. The revolution is what is happening after a takeover.