Venezuela

[Set]

Hello everyone. I am new here, and looking forward to some good exchanges with all of you. I would like to know what are the varying views in here, on the Chavez government in Venezuela? I think it's a complicated situation because you can literally find information 180 degrees apart from each other. (Those saying it's good, those saying it's terrible) Given then previous actions of the country's right wing media (taking part in the coup) I trust very little that comes from them (what's left of them) or from the US. Has anyone been there?

I am of the opinion that Chavez is doing good things. Not all good, but good on the whole. Steps in the right direction if you will. But then again, Capitalism makes me puke, so I guess I'm bias :)

[Cheung Mo]

Certain faux-left (Banderas Rojas) and social democratic (AD, MaS) organisations in Venezuela have been spreading misinformation about Hugo Chavez and the situation in Venezuela that have unfortunately distorted some comrades' positions. Others posit legitimate criticisms against Chavez but -- being stuck in ultra-left lalaland -- draw incorrect conclusions from them.

[Herman]

Certain faux-left (Banderas Rojas) and social democratic (AD, MaS) organisations in Venezuela have been spreading misinformation about Hugo Chavez and the situation in Venezuela that have unfortunately distorted some comrades' positions. Others posit legitimate criticisms against Chavez but -- being stuck in ultra-left lalaland -- draw incorrect conclusions from them.

Sound reasoning.

[Die Neue Zeit]

While I ain't a Trotskyist anymore, here's a good article:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/chav-f12.shtml

My only beef is that Bonaparte-III-wannabe Chavez (like his Bonaparte-III-wannabe hero) is a good anti-imperialist (in terms of American and perhaps Western European imperialism), and that the article doesn't really talk about more fundamental problems like, oh, the emergence/re-emergence of Brazilian and (to a much lesser extent) Argentinian imperialism in terms of capital exports and in terms of whole economic blocs.

Nevertheless, in spite of my problems with the Chavez government, there's a fine line between constructive criticism (speaking in the midst of comrades) and providing "useful-idiot" fodder for bourgeois opportunists (speaking in the midst of clearly hegemonized folks).

[Lenin II]

The radical part of me is hoping that he does manage to pass that bill that lets him be the president for 25 years. Fidel Castro won't live forever, and the Western hemisphere needs a true socialist nation--the domination of Latin America by the bourgeosie mode of production must be stopped.

[Lenin II]

The fact is, the logical question we all have is this--"can a socialist government exist when it does business with capitalist countries?" Don't get me wrong here, I don't like the idea and I am a dedicated Marxist-Leninist who thinks free markets produce inequality, racism, injustice, selfishness and chaos in economic planning. But I also feel that a nation with the amount of resources as Venezuela could accomplish in just a few years what Castro's Cuba--a blockaded country with fewer resources--has accomplished since the revolution.
On a short term basis, Venezuela does not have much choice, but the nation does have the option of implementing the most radical revolutionary processes the world has ever seen, even surpassing Lenin's Soviet Union. Right now there is only one man who may lead such a process--and that man is Hugo Chavez.

[RNK]

I found a very telling and informative documentary on the situation in Venezuela is... shit, I forget the name! The local HOV showed it. It's a new one, just being released and aired across North America, filmed, I believe, by HOV Britain.

Anyway, it shows the social progress in Venezuela but also the economic stagnation which the still-present Venezuelan beauraucracy is stiffling -- how the Venezuelan government, despite Chavez' efforts, is still in some cases preventing (actually, a better word would be failing to help) workers' taking control of factories.

The problem relies on the mainly parliamentary way that this revolution is taking place. Because private capital is not being abolished outright (and that is not a critique, simply a fact) workers are finding themselves hard-pressed to survive after taking control of their workplace. In the cases of the high-profile companies which have become nationalized under worker's control, this was only possible after the Venezeulan government bought out the shares of those companies and co-manages the factories with the workers (IIRC the gov't owns 51% while the workers 49%).

In other cases, however, there have been factory occupations which have failed because the workers simply do not have the resources (being shut out from material supplies by privately-owned companies) to maintain their factories indefinately. The documentary I saw followed the attempts of one factory to ask the government to buy out their boss. After several months of hardships, the government denied them, and eventually they were forced to abandon their factory occupation and give ownership back to their boss as they had been successfully bled dry.

And don't get me wrong. It was a pro-Chavez documentary, not some "faux-left" or "right-wing" propaganda that a lot of people will call any criticism of the Bolivarian revolution. The problems in Venezeula rest upon the shoulders of the beauraucratic system there which still prevails to this day. From this experience, I've drawn three possible conclusions..

The first and most apocalyptic is that Chavez is a complete fraud. This is still a very real possibility. He has introduced some progress but his government, at the same time, prevents some further progress.

The second is that Chavez is running up against a brick wall that he has no idea how to break. His Bolivarian revolution is being sabotaged by his own government. Unless he takes action, his entire movement will fail.

The third is that Chavez is aware of this and sometime in the near future he has some plan to directly destroy the governmental beauraucracy.

I'm leaning towards the last two, but which specifically I'm unsure. It's definately certain that not much more progress can be made while the current state machine is allowed to continue on. Sooner or later, some confrontation will have to happen between the masses and the state. It is inevitable. You can not make the bourgeois state and its bourgeois democracy work for the proletariat; it must be destroyed and replaced by true worker's democracy. Whether Chavez is aware of this, and whether he plans to do this, remains a mystery, though I must conclude that atleast where rhetoric is concerned, he seems to be on the right path. But like I said, from this time onwards we will all see the true nature of this Bolivarian revolution.

[Herman]

I'm leaning towards the last two, but which specifically I'm unsure. It's definately certain that not much more progress can be made while the current state machine is allowed to continue on. Sooner or later, some confrontation will have to happen between the masses and the state. It is inevitable. You can not make the bourgeois state and its bourgeois democracy work for the proletariat; it must be destroyed and replaced by true worker's democracy. Whether Chavez is aware of this, and whether he plans to do this, remains a mystery, though I must conclude that atleast where rhetoric is concerned, he seems to be on the right path. But like I said, from this time onwards we will all see the true nature of this Bolivarian revolution.

I can understand Chavez's position though. He wants to appear "legitimate" (as in he is the president, he was elected, etc) and use the parliament temporarily to pass the much needed laws to create a participatory democracy. The good news is that communal councils are VERY popular. They've been appearing everywhere in Venezuela and they are the base of this new democracy he's trying to promote.

You're right in a few things. Bureaucracy is a problem which slows down the progress of the bolivarian revolution. At the same time, there has never been so much participation by the people in a liberal democracy. So he's hit a snag.

For now, the constitutional reforms will help in the moulding of socialist Venezuela and the new 'geometry of power'. I'm sure the next referendum will say yes to these changes, so there is nothing to fear (especially when the PSUV has more than 5 million aspiring militants! 80% of the last presidental election votes!).

[Lenin II]

I see where you're coming from RedHerman, but I have some natural reservations.

For one, I hope Chavez will not become corrupted. A naturally revolutionary or otherwise virtuous man, when he finds himself elected to or cooperating with parliament or a similar system, usually is forced by circumstances to a betrayal of the public trust. A liberal democracy cannot truly represent the interests of the people, as it will inevitably lead to a “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.”
I’m sure that Chavez has not forgotten that this conservative idea of democracy has been only a means towards the destruction of any existing economic equality, I simply hope he plans to do away with such bodies soon, with the utmost ruthlessness. Such parliamentary systems will only get in his way, for such parties—from the Labour Party to the BNP—all try to sell the working class the reformist idea that the wasteful and oppressive capitalist free market is not all bad and can somehow be fixed into a socialist society by doing this or that, usually to the benefit of the parliament’s members.