Venezuela:
Socialism back on the agenda
How to advance the revolution
LESS THAN 15 years ago leading philosophers, capitalist commentators
and politicians hurried to the burial ground of the bureaucratic
Stalinist states of Russia and Eastern Europe and declared socialism
dead. Never again would the poor of the world, never mind the working
class, look towards an alternative to the market and genuine socialist
ideas as a means of improving their living standards and of gaining
control over the fruits of their labour.
Karl Debbaut, Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI)
But, as events in Latin America demonstrate, to paraphrase Mark
Twain, ‘rumours of socialism’s death have been greatly exaggerated’.
Latin America has seen big political upheavals, mass struggles and,
in countries like Bolivia, open revolts against the experience of
‘neo-liberalism’ ie privatisations, attacks on pensions and welfare
provisions, deregulation of labour, free movement of capital, etc, to
restore capitalist profitability.
The continent has seen the emergence of a mass anti-capitalist
consciousness. In Venezuela this has gone even further, with sections of
workers and rural and urban poor looking towards the ideas of socialism
to defend and deepen the ‘Bolivarian revolution’.
In one opinion poll, the results of which were collected between May
and June this year, 48% of those questioned said that given the choice
they would prefer to live under a socialist government. Only 29% of the
people declared their preference for a capitalist government.
Chavez’ reforms
THE RADICAL populist regime of Hugo Chavez – elected, defended and
re-elected by the masses – has implemented many important social
reforms. Chavez (whose support within Venezuela is at an all-time high),
concluded his speech at the 60th UN general assembly by mentioning the
achievements of his government in nearly seven years.
According to Chavez, 1.4 million Venezuelans who were previously
excluded from education due to poverty have been included in the
education system. 70% of Venezuela’s population now enjoy access to free
health care and over 1.7 million tonnes of food is being provided to 12
million Venezuelans at reduced prices. These reforms are in complete
contrast to the devastating neo-liberal policies implemented in the rest
of Latin America over the same period.
Venezuela is now described by representatives of the US government as
the single most important threat to US domination of the region. Time
after time the Chavez government has come under attack from the forces
of imperialism and their Quisling collaborators in Venezuela.
These attacks have involved the April 2002 US-sponsored coup, the
employers’ lock-out in December 2002/January 2003 and last year’s recall
referendum to end Chavez’s presidency.
In all these confrontations the president and his government have
been saved by the mobilisation of the working class and the urban and
peasant poor. At each turn they have demonstrated tremendous
determination and audacity. Yet, in most cases Chavez has initially
sought to accommodate his opponents with calls for "national
unity".
Socialism in the 21st century
THE DEFEAT of the attempted coup gave a great impulse to the
revolutionary process. It was the starting point for what characterises
every real revolutionary movement. The masses entered the arena of
history and came out on the streets to do ‘politics’ ie the struggle
over which class controls society.
The mobilisations, and specifically the groundswell of support for
Chavez in the recall referendum, have pushed the president and part of
the government to the left. This has resulted in, for example, the
nationalisation of companies like Venepal (now renamed Invepal) – one of
the most important paper producing factories in Venezuela.
Chavez declared that his once-held belief of looking for ‘a third
way’, not having to choose between socialism and capitalism, is a farce
and that the only alternative to capitalism is socialism. This debate on
the development of socialism as a necessary alternative to capitalism
has become crucial for the further development of the Venezuelan
revolution.
In his speech for this year’s May Day parade, Chavez declared that
his Venezuelan government was in fact a "workers’ government".
At the opening rally of the World Festival for Youth and Students in
Caracas this year the delegates were greeted by a banner reading
"Welcome to the Socialist Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela".
Workers’ government
ALTHOUGH THE radicalisation of the Bolivarian revolution is embraced
by the activists, trade unionists and representatives of the poor
working-class neighbourhoods, many are worried for the future. They are
eager for Chavez to take more drastic measures as a true workers’
government would.
Such a government would take the necessary steps to break with
capitalism and landlordism, including the nationalisation of the oil and
gas industry, the banks and financial institutions and the leading
private companies. These nationalised concerns would be run under
democratic workers’ control and management, as part as a national plan
of production.
In early September Chavez announced that the government will no
longer grant private, national or foreign mining concessions. Instead it
would create a national state-owned mining company that will take charge
of all mining activities in the country. This is one example of Chavez’s
policy to create national companies, state owned or partly state-owned,
in competition with the private sector.
This policy, funded with oil dollars, is no recipe to break with
capitalism. In the last few weeks Chavez has announced that the
Bolivarian government will send commissioners to take seats on the
boards of private banks to oversee their dealings.
This policy, whilst infuriating the capitalist class and imperialism
and possibly making it harder for the financial institutions to dodge
taxes and finance crime, does not guarantee any real influence or
control over finance capital.
Chavez might end up having the worst of both worlds, an infuriated
national and international capitalist class on the one hand and workers
frustrated with the lack of progress made by the revolution on the
other.
This is the typical mistake of conventional ‘radical’ reformism of
just wounding capitalism, trying to pull the proverbial tiger’s teeth
one by one, whilst allowing its control over productive forces and large
swathes of its apparatus to remain intact
Co-management or workers’ control
THIS SUMMER Chavez announced the future nationalisation of about 700
non-productive companies and disclosed a list of another 1,400 companies
currently under investigation for future expropriation. Unfortunately,
these new measures follow the Bolivarian template. These are companies
already closed down by the employers and the list for future
nationalisations is made up of companies currently working at less than
50% of their capacity.
Chavez declared that expropriation will only be used as a measure of
last resort and he asked for the collaboration of local authorities and
governors. The message to the owners of the companies under review was
that, on the condition that they allowed a form of co-management with
workers, they could reclaim their property and apply for state
subsidies.
Furthermore, co-management as the Bolivarian government sees it is a
far cry from workers’ control and management. In some cases, like in the
aluminium producer Alcasa, the workers, under the leadership of the UNT
trade union, have introduced important elements of workers’ control. In
Alcasa it is the workforce that elects the managers and managers are
subject to recall. People who are elected to the position of manager can
only accept on the basis of their previous wages.
Alcasa is the exception. In general there are many complaints about
the co-management system. Workers get squashed between the Ch‡vista
bureaucracy on the one hand, the previous managers on the other, and in
some cases their own trade union bureaucracy.
In Invepal, the paper mill, the trade union leaders decided to
dismantle their union and are hoping to buy off the state’s stake in the
company. In the state-owned electricity company CADAFE, for example, the
company’s managers wanted to limit the co-management of workers to
secondary aspects of production. The managers declared that "there
can be no workers’ participation in strategic industries".
Shopfloor control
IN REALITY, the Venezuelan economy is still capitalist. This does not
mean that the few experiments with workers’ control are unimportant. The
trade unions, and indeed all other fighting organisations of the working
class, should fight for workers’ control in individual workplaces as a
start of its extension to all branches of industry.
Workers’ control should allow the workers to be in command of the
day-to-day production in the factory and give them control over hiring
and firing.
Workers, through their general assemblies and councils in the
workplace, should have full access to the books and all other so-called
secrets of the factory, of entire industries and of the national economy
as a whole. Thus the workers can begin to discover the actual share of
the national economy appropriated by individual capitalists, trusts and
by the exploiters as a whole.
The working out of the most elementary plan of national production
from the point of view of the exploited is impossible without workers’
control, ie, without revealing all the open and hidden methods of the
capitalist economy.
In that sense workers’ control, even under the general conditions of
capitalism, can be a school for workers’ management and the
democratically planned economy. It is the basis on which workers can
take over the management of the nationalised industry.
Independent working class organisation
A REVOLUTION cannot be dropped on the masses from above. It requires
the conscious organisation and activity of the working class,
implementing and testing its own programme to break with capitalism.
The need for the working class, together with the urban and rural
poor and all those exploited by capitalism, to develop its own
independent organisations is becoming ever more pressing. The most
urgent task of the day is to build an independent revolutionary mass
organisation of the working class, armed with a programme of socialist
revolution.
The task of the revolutionary party is to arm the masses with clear
ideas and programme, to draw out the collective lessons of the class
struggle and past revolutions.
Implementing its programme, a revolutionary party would lift the
consciousness of the working class about its own role and weight in
society and in the revolutionary process.
A revolutionary party would channel the energy of the working class
towards the conscious act of overthrowing capitalism and the
construction of a socialist society.
A longer version of this article can be found on www.socialistworld.net
See also Socialism Today Issue 95, October 2005
Unions’ key role in changing society
THE UNT, the National Union of Venezuelan workers, is a very young
organisation. Since its inception in May 2003 workers have embraced the
UNT as an alternative to the old and corrupt trade union confederation
CTV. The CTV leadership cooperated with the reform and privatisation
programme of the Caldera government in the mid-1990s and was, quite
rightly, seen as being hand-in-glove with the capitalists and
imperialism.
Most commentators agree that the UNT has already overtaken the CTV as
the main trade union federation. According to the Ministry of Labour,
76.5% of collective agreements signed in 2003-04 were with unions
affiliated with the UNT, and only 20.2% with the CTV.
However, half of all workers are employed in the informal sector of
the economy and most at this stage are not in unions. But the UNT is at
the forefront of working-class involvement in the Bolivarian revolution.
The process in the factories and communities is very dynamic. Workers
take initiatives to build UNT branches in their workplaces. Young
workers’ leaders emerge and the experience of the struggle – but also of
the limitations of the Bolivarian process – lead them to far-reaching
conclusions.
Generally speaking, the UNT militants are not only activists in the
workplaces. They take part in all the aspects of the Bolivarian
revolution including in the communities and the cooperatives.
They have a thousand stories about the magnificent and
self-sacrificing work that is being done by the inhabitants and
activists. They have hundreds of examples to illustrate the limits of
this process, the slowness of the government and officials, and sabotage
by state bureaucracy and the capitalist opposition.
There are many examples of working-class struggle against parts of
the state and government bureaucracy. In the first week of September,
for example, a group of workers of the PDVSA-Anaco plant surprised
public opinion by staging a protest in front of the Mira-Flores, the
Presidential palace, for three days.
When they were cleared away by the National Guard early one morning
they decided to go to the parliament building and a group of them staged
a ‘bleeding protest’ cutting themselves on the arms and chest with
pieces of broken glass.
These 500 workers, protesting against their unfair dismissal, were
heroes less than two years ago. Then, they got a special mention in the
PDVSA magazine for their heroic resistance in defeating the bosses’
lock-out.
Protests
Other protests are taking place against unfair dismissals, the
withholding of pay or other irregularities. Mostly these conflicts are
part of an exchange of blows between workers starting to unionise and
change the conditions in the factories and the ferocious response by the
private-sector employers. Some of these employers have very good
relations with parts of the state machine or local mayors, governors,
etc.
The task for the UNT and its leadership is to defend the interests of
the working class in the class struggle and promote its independence.
The UNT’s policies should not be tied to those of the government or see
itself as an auxiliary force in the revolutionary process.
If it has a duty to support in words and deeds the positive sides of
government policy, it also has a duty towards the workers and the
exploited peoples of Venezuela to criticise and struggle against what
goes against the interests of the workers and the people in general.
The task for the UNT is to become the living expression of the
struggle waged by the exploited masses. If it succeeds the UNT can
fulfil its historical role and become the organisational centre of the
revolutionary masses in the struggle for revolutionary socialism.
Social reforms dependent on oil boom
THE VENEZUELAN economy has known rapid growth in 2004 and prospects
for 2005 look equally rosy. According to the central bank of Venezuela
the economy grew by 17.3% in 2004, although part of this can be
explained as a recovery from the earlier bosses’ lock out. For 2005,
economic growth is expected to reach 7.9%.
Oil and oil exports play a very important part in this. The oil
economy accounts for 80% of the country’s exports and Venezuela has
benefited enormously from the rise in prices. The price of a barrel of
Venezuelan crude rose from $20.21 in 2001 to $42.25 in 2005 (figures are
annual averages). This has meant a huge inflow of extra capital.
In the first quarter of this year the national oil company received
$7,600 million in direct sales. On the basis of these figures they would
realise $30,400 million for the whole of 2005.
Oil money has allowed President Chavez to buy the most priceless of
commodities in politics – time. The increased spending is one of the
reasons that have allowed Chavez to stay in power for seven years whilst
improving the day-to-day lives of the workers and poor and extend his
base in society.
If oil prices come down as a possible result of a world economic
crisis of capitalism, this will have the reverse effect on the
Venezuelan economy, with an almost immediate worsening of employment,
revenue and living standards for the Venezuelan working class.
Further reading
Socialists and the Venezuelan revolution by Tony Saunois, £2.50
inc. postage
Che Guevara – symbol of struggle by Tony Saunois £5.50 inc.
postage
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