The right wing inside
From the early days of the “Bolivarian revolution”, Resistance, a socialist youth organisation in
An unfolding revolution gives socialists in
Chavez was originally elected in 1998. At that time he was not talking about a socialist revolution, but was instead campaigning to introduce modest reforms to lift people out of poverty, through providing basic education and improving health care, and combatting corruption. The rigid opposition to this plan from big business, the media and state bureaucrats led Chavez to realise that the Venezuelan capitalist class would never willingly allow these reforms if it meant damaging corporate profits.
This fight to introduce reforms began to radicalise Chavez and other people throughout the country who had been promised change. They came to understand the whole system would have to be transformed if the Bolivarian project was to be realised in full.
In the November 2006 edition of its magazine, SAlt claimed that what is happening in
Yet it was Chavez who in 2005 called for a national discussion of socialism; prior to this, there had been no mass support for socialism. Chavez went to the polls in the December 2006 elections on an explicitly socialist platform, promising to deepen the revolution. He was subsequently returned with an even bigger majority.
However, by himself Chavez cannot transform the country. To say that the Venezuelan revolution has been made “from above” misses the role that the masses of Venezuelan people have played in creating and defending the revolution.
The social missions have all been carried out by people themselves. The eradication of illiteracy, for example, was achieved through thousands of young people being recruited to go door-to-door in every street to organise classes to teach people how to read and write. The missions facilitate people’s organisation and self-confidence to struggle.
The 2002 US-backed coup failed because the millions of people who voted for Chavez came out onto the streets to demand the return of their government. Chavez has continually encouraged the involvement of the majority of people in politics. The explosion in the number of communal councils is one way doing this. These councils, based on a few hundred families in a particular neighbourhood, have direct access to funding and control of social programs in their area. There are now some 19,000 of them. There are plans to introduce workers’ councils to facilitate workers’ control over production.
It is true that the introduction of free health care and education are not by themselves socialist. A socialist system involves taking the power away from big business, unelected bureaucrats and profit-friendly politicians and putting it directly in the hands of working people, and replacing a profits-first economy with a democratically controlled one that will put the interests of workers and the protection of the environment before the interests of the corporate elite.
People will be able to make decisions about the issues that affect them, whether it is in their neighbourhood, or workplace or school. Socialism will, for example, eliminate the incongruity of a government taking a country to war when the majority of people are opposed.
A socialist society can only be constructed by working people themselves because it is a direct threat to the interests of the super-rich minority that control the big corporations — they aren’t going to give up their privileges without a fight.
SAlt members, who like Chavez claim to support Trotsky’s ideas, should ask themselves: If you wanted to hold back the self-emancipation of working people, as they claim Chavez does, why would you combine calls for workers to take power into their own hands with encouragement to study the ideas that teach workers how to carry this out.
This is a process full of contradictions, like any revolution. SAlt asks how
It is contradictory for SAlt to attack the revolution for being “from above”, but then turn around and attack Chavez for not introducing more radical measures. However, as Chavez has said, “if people want to take control of a factory then constitutionally they don’t have to wait for me to do it”.
There are many challenges for the revolution. The economic and social weight of
Within the revolutionary movement there are real debates at the moment about what “socialism for the 21st century” means for
The Venezuelan revolution does not fit into the pre-arranged idea SAlt has of what a socialist revolution will look like when it happens, so they argue in their November 2006 article that Chavez “will likely act as a brake on workers’ attempts to build socialism from below”. Yet where is the evidence of Chavez holding back the rights or organisation of workers? SAlt has decided in advance that the revolution is bound to fail.
Resistance does not blindly support everything Chavez or his government does. However,
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