the Chávez revolution

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

Found this in today's Guardan - thought it was a great article

Another agreeable lunch ended at the Caracas Country Club with a bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon, the chef's famous flan and a round of espressos.

From their table in the sun-kissed courtyard the three businessmen could hear only the fountain's gurgle, the murmur of other diners, the clink of glasses and the swish of waiters.

A socialist revolution is supposed to be clanging through Venezuela but from this oasis of wealth in the heart of the capital it is inaudible, just like the traffic. "The revolution is blah blah blah. We don't feel threatened," said one of the trio, a shoe factory owner...

continued: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1947345,00.html

Chávez has made improvements to Venezuela, but this just illustrates the failure of the Chávez government to be prepared to venture anywhere past social democracy - an example I thought demonstrated the comittment to preserving the ruling class... that the Caracas Country Club, after being decided that housing for the lower classes would be built on it... is still standing, showing that the government are prepared to put the wants of social elites in front of those most exploited in society

[loveme4whoiam]

Disappointing, but not wholly unexpected. Its a great shame that Chavez is afraid of making any actual changes - it makes all the good stuff he does (namely, twisting the US' tail) hollow

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Apparently Chavez has cited Norway as a model for Venezuela.


Capitalist mode of production, NATO membership, extremly close alliance with the United States, deployment of a significant amount of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, lack of seperation between chuch and state.

Large fast food chains like McDonalds everywhere, TV only airing U.S. episodes and series like The Oprah Winfrey Show, Days of our Lives.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Chavez is all over the place sometimes. His more radical moves have come at the proding and pushing of Venezuela's workers and farmers.

[Guns of Brixton]

This article is pretty interesting:

Venezuela's Chavex Welcomes Democrats' Victory in U.S. Election

First, it says a lot about the class dynamics of neoliberalism:

“I received various emissaries from President Clinton,” said Chavez, emphasizing that such discussions were conducted quietly...

Chavez told of how the Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, made overtures to contact him, via Citgo, and that Kerry sent warm greetings at the time. This gave him some hope that if Kerry were to win, a relationship of mutual respect with the U.S. could be started. However, a few days after the Citgo meeting, Kerry’s campaign came out with a strong anti-Chavez statement, which Chavez attributed to an error within the Kerry campaign, to “infiltrators” and thus decided not to respond publicly to the statement. Instead, he sent a private message to Kerry, saying that he doesn’t ask Kerry to put on Chavez’s trademark red beret. Instead, “If Kerry has to say that Chavez is a tyrant, fine, but then, once elected, we talk.”

Neoliberalism is about managing the contradiction between the people of oppressed nations and imperialism in a way favorable to the empire. Because the empire is often so broadly exposed to the opperessed peoples, the bourgeois nationalist leaders must wear two masks. The national leader must, at the same time, appear to be loudly opposed to the empire while working with it behind the scenes. Really, both sides need the freedom to rant and rave as required to hold and manipulate the support of their constituancy while conducting the real business of neoliberal transactions behind closed doors.

This article also, I think, illustrates an important failure of the neconservatives in terms of promoting the interests of the empire:

Chavez then went on to recount how numerous efforts to establish a dialogue with the U.S. failed. Mexico’s President Vincente Fox, Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe, Brazil’s ex-president Henrique Cardoso, France’s Jacques Chirac, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, all tried to mediate between Bush and Chavez. According to Chavez, he agreed to all of these efforts, but none of them went anywhere because Bush declined to accept their efforts. Some, such as Fox, even tried to mediate several times, every time to no avail. Chavez concluded, “There is no mediation with insanity.”

Neoconservatism is a valuable tool for the empire, when it is necessary and neoliberalism has failed. It is the empire's iron fist inside of the velvet glove of neoliberalism. But, it appears that the empire is realizing that the neocons have "jumped the gun" and unnecessarily alienated subject states. Neoliberalism is a more "enlightened" policy for extending and maintaining the empire.

Chavez was pushed into a more rebellious position than was necessary by the inflexible approach of the neocons.

[Lenin's Law]

Originally posted by CompañeroDeLibertad@November 14, 2006 09:22 pm
Chavez is all over the place sometimes. His more radical moves have come at the proding and pushing of Venezuela's workers and farmers.

Exactly. I was thinking the same thing: Sometimes I hear Chavez talking about Vietnam or China as the model for Venezuela, now he's talking about Norway.

I think this article does some good service to those people who view Chavez as "up in the clouds" somewhere; this will hopefully put some water over their heads and bring them back down to Earth. Now with that being said however, Chavez has indisputedly brought some positive reform and some positive change in a country with severe povery and inequalities and surely needing them.

But Chavez won't touch capitalism and thus the Venezuelan working class is severly limited in what they can under a bourgeois social democracy.

[norwegian commie]

TV only airing U.S. episodes and series like The Oprah Winfrey Show, Days of our Lives.

Actually you cant blame him for those things. The media in Venezuela is manely private and the private capitalist investors mainly controls the tv chanels. Exept one state channel available to Chavez.

[Jhé]

Yes, to my knowladge the only channel which is state owned is channel 8.

[Guerrilla22]

Many people on this board have criticized Chavez for not making any relevent progress towards actual socialism over the past few years, communist inside Venezuela are amongst the most vocal critics of Chavez, yet some are content with social programs funded by oil money and nothing else. They call the Bolivarain revolution "a great success." I think they still have a long ways to go.

[TC]

The Bolivarian Revolution is coming for more capitalists every day, just cause it hasn't come for those ones yet, doesn't mean it wont get them


Of course they don't want people to think that they're losing, they want investment and to hold on as long as they can.

[Faceless]

hehe, yeah right,

you read one article in the bourgeois press and its enough to reduce you to disappointment and inspire you with futility in the venezuelan revolution.

First of all; the conclusion of the golf course expropriation is almost irrelevant, in fact it is only really symbolic. Two expropriated golf courses is different to a planned economy, although we naturally would congratulate the Caracas mayor in his attempt to expropriate the courses to provide for the poor of Caracas.

What is important is that this is a demonstration of the split within the bolivarian movement between reform and revolution; that there is a debate going on from the very top of the bolivarian movement down to the grassroots on how to take the revolution forward.

So this

Disappointing, but not wholly unexpected. Its a great shame that Chavez is afraid of making any actual changes - it makes all the good stuff he does (namely, twisting the US' tail) hollow

Is by no means true. Chavez has had to incur the wrath of Imperialism and the opposition (aka the oligarchy) in Venezuela on several occasions. The bolivarian government has made serious reforms which have affected the lives of Venezuelans.

What is more important though is that this process has invigorated the masses and swept them into activity. There is a real debate going on in Venezuela about things like democracy and socialism, all taking place with government support! There is a revolutionary movement of occupied factories which recently held its annual conference in Caracas, with the support of the government. Chavez himself has called for the occupation and nationalisation of factories closed or not working at full production. To do so would provide an example to the workers of other factories. The old, corrupt trade union federation, the CTV, has been brushed aside by the force of events and a new class-consciouss trade union movement, the UNT, has become the main representative of the workers. All this "good stuff" Chavez has done has only forced him to rely upon the workers and the poor of venezuela as his base of support. There is no chance that Chavez can now turn to the oligarchy - they cannot trust him.

That the revolution is not complete is obvious; it is only going to be complete when all of the major industries have been nationalised under workers control, but there is a revolution taking place, this much is undeniable.

[MiniOswald]

Originally posted by CompañeroDeLibertad@November 14, 2006 09:22 pm
Chavez is all over the place sometimes. His more radical moves have come at the proding and pushing of Venezuela's workers and farmers.

I think this is a good comment, I get the feeling he feels somewhat torn, one day hes dancing around praising Castro and singing like a socialist, and then the next he's backing off, unwilling to forcefully correct the injustice in Venezuela and put all the effort he could into helping the poor and correcting the political process in Venezuela.

Personally I don't really know why this is, im not sure where his heart truely lies, whether he supports the poor but is afraid of some form of counter revolution if he pushes it too far or whether he is infact planning to model Venezuela on something like Norway. I can certainly say though, if he put the amount of effort he puts into anti-US moves into solving internal problems, we'd have a perfect workers run state by now :P

[Louis Pio]

Good post faceless, I agree, but then again were are both in the IMT

For the love of Marx people, the situation in Venezuela is much more complex than what Chavez does or does not. The masses are on the streets, the workers take over factories control them and reach out to the occupied factories in the rest of Latin America. Shouldn't we be discussing that instead?

[Comrade Castro]

i am venezuelan and let me tell you, this is definitely a revolution. chavez has reduced poverty from 70-80% of the people to now 30-40%. major industries almost totally nationalized. free healthcare and education. no illiteracy. the old oligarchy that oppressed us for so long is dying, wealth and land redistributed. we communists love him except for about 300 traitors in BR. the poor dont love him just because he is anti USA. hes the only president weve had who cares for the people. PM me with any ven ?'s.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Guns of Brixton@November 14, 2006 03:35 pm
Chavez was pushed into a more rebellious position than was necessary by the inflexible approach of the neocons.

As Marx once said "Every revolution needs from time to time the whip of the counter-revolution to drive it forward."

Chavez is a representative of elements of the Venezuelan capitalists and petty bourgeoisie who want a bigger share of profits at the expense of imperialism. Because they come under attack from imperialism, they need the support of working people. So they have to do things that benefit working people, and which open political space for working people to push for more.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Actually you cant blame him for those things. The media in Venezuela is manely private and the private capitalist investors mainly controls the tv chanels. Exept one state channel available to Chavez.

I was refering to how things are in Norway.

Perhaps Chavez has no idea how things really are in Norway.

[Tekun]

Originally posted by Comrade Castro@November 17, 2006 09:51 pm
i am venezuelan and let me tell you, this is definitely a revolution. chavez has reduced poverty from 70-80% of the people to now 30-40%. major industries almost totally nationalized. free healthcare and education. no illiteracy. the old oligarchy that oppressed us for so long is dying, wealth and land redistributed. we communists love him except for about 300 traitors in BR. the poor dont love him just because he is anti USA. hes the only president weve had who cares for the people. PM me with any ven ?'s.

Got any links or sources for your claims?
Last I checked it was still at around 60% poverty rate


Although I agree that Chavez has done some good here and there, with reforms and improvements to worker's conditions and rights
There is still much to be done, and it cannot be done by a president but rather by the masses of working class men and women
And I for one believe that if it does come down to it, Chavez will be more of a disruption and a distraction than any type of help due to the bureaucratic nature of government
He'll want to lead the masses, instead of allowing the proletariat as a whole to lead
He's done good, but now its time for workers to forget him and start fighting for their own class
No more reforms, but class war

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

Originally posted by Tekun@November 19, 2006 12:51 pm
Got any links or sources for your claims?
Last I checked it was still at around 60% poverty rate

Tariq Ali put it at 60%
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...942828,00.html

some sources put it around 37%
http://www.rprogreso.com/index.php?progres...week=1138341600
I think Pilger put it around that as well... couldn't find the link and what I just posted was the first result on a google search

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1775629,00.html
mentions poverty at 37% as well, though it also says that poverty was only 50% to begin with...

CIA world factbook puts it at 47% in 1998
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications...k/geos/ve.html

so yeah... stats all over the place

[norwegian commie]

-<NWOG

Yeah.
Probably Chavez does not really know how Norway is like.
There are classes here like everywhere else and the working class is as oppressed as everywhere.

Norway has large deposits of Oil.
And if you have that, you get to be best pal with big-bro USA. Trade deals and wealth making is not that hard when you sit in tons of oil and is best friend with nr.1 superpower.

[Faceless]

Severian:

Chavez is a representative of elements of the Venezuelan capitalists and petty bourgeoisie who want a bigger share of profits at the expense of imperialism. Because they come under attack from imperialism, they need the support of working people. So they have to do things that benefit working people, and which open political space for working people to push for more.

right,
don&#39;t get me wrong; there are petty bourgeois elements in the MVR. And indeed, some of the poorest and most oppressed petty bourgeois, being ruined by the capitalist class, are natural allies of the working class. But where are these "capitalists" you speak of that Chavez represents? The whole of the oligarchy has gone over to the opposition. That is not to say that the whole of the oligarchy are not subservient to foreign, imperialist capitalism&#39;s interests, and that ideally there is no reason to think that they shouldn&#39;t callenge for a share of that profit. But they don&#39;t dare "open space for working people". Chavez has denied that capitalism can lead anywhere but to hell, and has called for the socialist transformation of Venezuela and occupations of factories. This is not representative of any Venezuelan capitalist. Indeed, it is not even a reform which "benefits the working people" but is a call for permanent revolution&#33;

Tekun:

Although I agree that Chavez has done some good here and there, with reforms and improvements to worker&#39;s conditions and rights
There is still much to be done, and it cannot be done by a president but rather by the masses of working class men and women
And I for one believe that if it does come down to it, Chavez will be more of a disruption and a distraction than any type of help due to the bureaucratic nature of government
He&#39;ll want to lead the masses, instead of allowing the proletariat as a whole to lead
He&#39;s done good, but now its time for workers to forget him and start fighting for their own class
No more reforms, but class war

Consider this for a moment. Chavez loses the upcoming december elections (not likely&#33. What will this mean for the revolution? It will mean a terrible defeat, not the marching progress of the proletariat as they somehow put their leadership at the forefront of the revolution. Yes, the UNT needs to be more proactive in its role, and yes, we need to build a marxist current with the aim of putting our own men and women at the vanguard of this revolution.

It&#39;s all very good saying in abstacto that the workers need to forget about chavez, but in the minds of the revolutionary masses this process is inseperable from Chavez. The workers and the poor of venezuela are "chavistas". To tell them to forget about Chavez, that they are being "distracted" as you put it, is to cut yourself off from this process in the minds of the workers, and as such to reduce yourself to irrelevance.