Venezuela: Workers Struggle Against Reaction

ON A recent Miami television programme, a group of
Venezuelan ex-military officers openly called for a US invasion to overthrow
the twice-elected radical, nationalist government of President Hugo Chávez.

Alistair Tice

This reflects the increasing desperation of sections of the
anti-Chávez opposition who have given up on constitutional change and are
courting American military intervention.

Currently, the National Electoral Council is checking the
signatures from the opposition petition drive for a referendum against Chávez.
The opposition coalition, Democratic Co-ordinator, claimed they collected up to
3.8 million signatures in December (they need 2.4 million to force a recall
referendum).

But a taped phone conversation between opposition figures
has revealed that the US funded opposition organisation SUMATE, which provided
logistical support during the petition drive, had counted only 1.9 million
signatures.

Chávez has described it as a "mega-fraud"
citing examples of petitions containing the names of people who were not
registered, of people who voted two or more times, or were deceased!

Even before the referendum petition drive, other opposition
leaders were calling for "civil rebellion" to oust Chávez. In
another taped phone conversation, the fugitive ex-leader of the pro-bosses
Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), Carlos Ortega, (and a leading figure
in the April 2002 right-wing coup attempt), was heard saying: "They are
fucked… the government is going to fall… We are going to need about 10, 12
or 15 years of dictatorship to rescue the country, I have no problem with
that."

Sabotage

THESE REVELATIONS expose the ‘democratic’ credentials of
the Venezuelan elite who claim they want to remove Chávez because he is
authoritarian and wants a "Castro-type" dictatorship. The truth is
that the ruling oligarchy (the rich capitalist class) who have pillaged the
country’s oil wealth and monopolised political life for decades, despite their
domination of the private media organisations, have not been able to undermine Chávez’s support amongst the workers and poor.

Indeed, following the failure of the April 2002 right-wing
coup and the ten-week bosses’ strike and work lock-out from December 2002 to
February 2003, support for Chávez has begun to increase again (now around 40%
in the polls which is probably an underestimate).

The economy, which suffered a catastrophic collapse in
2002-03 due to the capitalists’ sabotage, has begun to recover, albeit from a
dire situation. GDP (annual productive wealth) is expected to rebound by 6.7%
in 2004 and unemployment has fallen to 15% from 20% last January.

This mild economic recovery has come about as a result of
the restoration of production at the state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and Chávez’s
programme of publicly funded reforms.

These include government spending on construction projects,
aggressive support for small and medium sized businesses and social programmes
for the poor, land distribution to peasants, deeds to urban slum-dwellers,
degree sponsorship for several thousand high-school drop-outs, a literacy
programme that has helped 1 million people to read and write in just 6 months,
and the "Barrio Within" plan in which Cuban doctors have set up shop
in slum areas to provide free basic healthcare attending 10 million cases.

All these have reinforced Chávez’s support amongst large
sections of workers (especially in the informal sector which accounts for 50%)
and the poor in the barrios.

Zigzags

HOWEVER, Chávez, by his own admission, is not a socialist.
He was initially elected with 80% support, including the middle-class,
promising a Bolivarian revolution, a mix of nationalism and reforms. Without
overthrowing capitalism, he has zigzagged between attacking the ‘oligarchy’ and
compromise. This has driven the capitalists mad but also lost support amongst
the middle-class and some more privileged workers, whilst the economic
dislocation has hit the poor the hardest.

At the recent Summit of the Americas, he attacked the
neo-liberal economic model, but upheld US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and
his 1930s New Deal as his alternative. He is also trying to promote with other
‘radical’ Latin American governments, a regional trading bloc as a
counter-balance to the US inspired Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA).

Whilst Chávez may, especially if the recall referendum
fails, be able to go much further in his reforms, ultimately these half-way
house measures cannot solve the huge social problems of capitalist
crisis-ridden Venezuela. The oligarchy may have to bide their time longer, but
perhaps after US Presidential elections, they might try to oust Chávez again
along the lines of Chile’s president Allende’s overthrow in 1973.

On two occasions, the workers and poor have come out in
their millions to defeat the right. To an extent they are organised in ‘Bolivarian
Circles’ (pro-Chávez semi-militias) and neighbourhood committees but these are
not linked together to provide an alternative base of class power to that of
the capitalist state.

What is needed is an independent workers’ party to not only
defeat reaction but also develop a class programme capable of leading the
struggle for socialist change.

The first steps in that direction may have been taken as a
result of the split away from the corrupt CTV. The UNT ("Unete") was
founded last April bringing together 120 trade unions and 25 regional
federations.

Although pro-Chávez, at their first national congress in
August they adopted a more radical action programme, calling for
nationalisation of the banks and cancellation of the external debt,
nationalisation of failing enterprises, a shorter working week and elements of
workers’ control.

However, some important unions, especially the steelworkers
from the south, have not yet joined with UNT, which so far represents only 12%
of the workers in the formal sector of the economy. Links will also have to be
made with the unorganised workers in the informal sector, as well as the urban
poor and peasants.

The masses have shown repeatedly that they are the real
power in the land. That needs to be consciously organised in democratic action
committees at every level, laying the basis for a government of workers and the
poor that can complete the reform process, creating a socialist Venezuela as a
beacon to the rest of Latin America.