President Hugo Chávez has died after a long battle with cancer

[Hit The North]

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

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

[Ismail]

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

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

Chávez, of course, drew heavily on the whole guerrilla image.

[ElCubano]

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

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

[~Spectre]

[pastradamus]

I actually cried.

RIP Commandante.

This guy is my next tattoo.

Pastra.

[brigadista]

Reposar en paz...

From Dec 2012

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/...f-hugo-chavez/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Thirsty Crow]

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

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

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

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

I really can't believe that the day when I'm forced to conclude that Ismail is completely right has actually arrived. It's unsettling as all hell, but hey, it's not like people set the bar high here.

Now excuse me while I go cry into my pillow.

[KurtFF8]

RIP Chavez

[pastradamus]

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

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

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

[Rafiq]

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

[Lord Hargreaves]

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

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

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

[Rafiq]

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

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

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


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

[Ismail]

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

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

[Thirsty Crow]

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

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

It saddens me, how people are willing to compromise everything for the chance to identify with something relavent.

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

[tachosomoza]

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

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

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

[pastradamus]

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

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

[Ismail]

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

There are two issues here:

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

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

[Geiseric]

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

[tachosomoza]

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