Venezuela – The Americas’ Other Presidential Story

NOVEMBER 1, 2012 – While most eyes in North America have been on the presidential election in the United States, for people in the South another election last month was actually of more interest. In the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, incumbent president Hugo Chávez was up against a strong challenge, from a – for once – united opposition. Gwynne Dyer (2012) was not alone when he speculated, days before the vote, that this could be “Hugo Chávez’s swan song”. However, when the vote came, it wasn’t really close, Chávez winning a third term as president with 55.08% of the vote, far ahead of the 44.3% obtained by his challenger Henrique Capriles Radonski (CNE 2012). Neither candidate in that other presidential election in the Americas can even dream about this kind of a victory margin.

UNASUR and the Eurozone Crisis

Significant regional integration efforts, independent from the United States, have been among the most striking developments in Latin America and the Caribbean this century. The most ambitious of these projects is CELAC – the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States – founded at a summit in Caracas, Venezuela in December 2011. In conjunction with the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of our America (ALBA) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), there now exist very serious, regionally distinct, alternatives to both the existing Organization of American States (OAS), for decades dominated by the United States, and the now moribund (and also U.S.-dominated) trade agreement, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

The European Union (EU) was for many years a key source of inspiration for regional integration in Latin America and the Caribbean. Understandably then, the current crisis in the EU, particularly in the Eurozone countries, might be expected to give pause to regionalist enthusiasm in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, the fundamental dynamics in the two regional projects are completely different. The EU is trying to build a regional bloc through neoliberal policies. By contrast, the new regionalism in Latin America and the Caribbean has emerged as a challenge to neoliberalism. We can anticipate a continuation of efforts to integrate the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean no matter how the Eurozone crisis plays out.

These are the first two paragraphs of an article published, August 30, in e-International Relations.

Ecuador, Venezuela: Danger South of the Border

OCTOBER 26, 2010 – It is not difficult to see that the events of September 30, in the Latin American country of Ecuador, amounted to an attempted right-wing coup d’état.[1] Mass mobilizations in the streets and plazas of Quito (the capital) and other cities – in conjunction with action by sections of the armed forces which stayed loyal to the government – stopped the coup before the day was out. But those few hours highlighted, again, the deep dangers facing those fighting for progressive change in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Shed no tears for the SPP

Finally it has been publicly (if quietly) acknowledged that the so-called “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” (SPP) is no more. Stuart Trew of the Council of Canadians drew our attention to the obituary, finally posted on the official SPP site.[1] Truth be told, the SPP has been dead for a couple of years. The following obituary was written in October, 2007[2] – and if you ask yourself why this death been kept so secret, you open the door to many insights into the current impasse of neoliberalism.

OCTOBER 13, 2007 – In an extraordinary article, published in The Globe and Mail, long-time Globe columnist John Ibbitson declared that, according to the Trilateral Commission, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) “is defunct”.[3]

What a remarkable statement. It was just August of this year that thousands demonstrated in Ottawa and Montebello, Quebec, against the SPP summit. The anti-SPP movement rightly identified that the SPP was trying to codify the neoliberal assault on social services, wages and the environment, an assault that has been a hallmark of governments in the west since the 1980s.

Some are seeing the announced death of the SPP as a smokescreen. But we should take the report quite seriously. The Trilateral Commission, founded in 1973 by one of the biggest of the big capitalists – David Rockefeller – along with longtime adviser to U.S. imperialism, Zbigniew Brzezinski[4] – has been an important think tank for world capitalism for more than 30 years.

It is possible that the news out of the Trilateral Commission reflects the other aspect of the SPP – that its announcement, in 2005 was not just an attempt to continue the neoliberal assault, but also an attempt to save face after the collapse of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

2005, the year of the SPP’s birth, was after all the same year the FTAA was supposed to come into effect. The FTAA was designed to be an institutional embodiment of the neoliberalism held so dear by successive U.S. and Canadian administrations – a neoliberal hemisphere under U.S. hegemony.

But the FTAA was made impossible with the rise of mass radical movements throughout the south of our hemisphere. The crucial turning point was the April 2002 attempted coup against the radical nationalist government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

Chávez had been the only head of state at the FTAA summit in Quebec City in 2001, to oppose the project. Eliminating him from the scene would clear the way for the FTAA steamroller. But one million of the poor masses in Caracas made that impossible when they surrounded the presidential palace, forced a split in the armed forces, and forced the coup leaders to back down.

That opened the floodgates to a massive upsurge in radical movements in South America, including the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia, and the creation of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA)[5] as an explicitly anti-neoliberal alternative to the FTAA.[6]

The FTAA was the real prize sought after by the U.S. and Canadian governments, and since its demise, they have been unsure of which way to turn in their attempt to pursue their agenda. John Ibbitson says that the reported demise of the SPP “is very bad news.” He is wrong. It is a sign of confusion and disorientation at the very centres of power in the leading capitalist countries of our hemisphere – the U.S. and Canada.

We need to take advantage of this confusion, and build movements in solidarity with the popular forces in the Global South, forces which have begun to carve out an alternative to neoliberalism.


© 2009 Paul Kellogg

References


[1] See Stuart Trew, “The SPP is dead, so where’s the champagne?” rabble.ca, August 19, 2009 and “SPP.gov: A North American Partnership”
[2] Paul Kellogg, “Is the SPP Dead?” in Paul Kellogg, PolEconJournal 2001-2007 (Toronto: authors' collection), October 13, 2007
[3] John Ibbitson, “Say goodbye to North America’s special partnership,” The Globe and Mail, October 10, 2007, p. A.21
[4] Holly Sklar, “Trilateralism: Managing Dependence And Democracy – An Overview,” in Holly Sklar, ed., Trilateralism. The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1980), pp. 1-2
[5] Since renamed “Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas,” see “ALBA changes its name to Alliance,” ACN, Cuban News Agency, June 25, 2009
[6] Paul Kellogg, “Regional Integration in Latin America: Dawn of an Alternative to Neoliberalism?” in New Political Science, Volume 29, Number 2, June 2007, pp. 187-209

Bolivian masses defeat the right

Mass mobilizations of indigenous peasants and workers, in conjunction with actions taken by the government of Evo Morales, have won a decisive victory against a right-wing plot to destabilize the country. The events are as significant for the movement in Latin America as the April 2002 defeat of a right-wing coup attempt against Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. Frederico Fuentes has provided a gripping account of these events, summarized below.[1]

Morales’ won a decisive victory in an August 10 referendum – gaining 67.4 percent of the vote nationally. Even in the “half moon” area of Bolivia – the eastern departments of Pando, Beni, Santa Cruz and Tarija – where opposition to Morales has been intense, Morales did very well, winning in Pando, tying in Tarija and getting over 40% in Beni and Santa Cruz.

Frustrated at the polls, the right-wing turned to violence. Central to this violence was the role of US ambassador Philip Goldberg (since expelled from the country). He met with anti-Morales forces after their defeat in the referendum. That meeting resulted in “a plan to destabilize the east, stirring up violence to the point where either the military would be forced to react, causing deaths and Morales’ resignation, or creating the justification for some kind of United Nations intervention to ‘restore stability.’”

What happened was nearly catastrophic. Groups of armed thugs took over airports in the “half moon” area. Paramilitaries took the streets, openly saying that would only take orders from the anti-Morales prefectures (governors). Morales ordered troops to the area to restore order, but once in Pando “the top commander of the Armed Forces, Luis Trigo, known to have links with the Santa Cruz oligarchy ... ordered troops to remain in their barracks and turned off his phone.”

In effect, Trigo was giving tacit permission to the right-wing and their paramilitaries to proceed with their destabilization campaign. He was in Pando, but he was folding his arms and refusing to act.

The right wing understood the signal very clearly. September 11, an unarmed group of peasants, traveling to a meeting of their union, were attacked by right-wing paramilitaries. The number killed is at least 20 – including women and children – and maybe be much higher. More than 60 are still missing.

But the day before, social movements had held an emergency meeting to respond to the crisis. They accelerated their plans in the wake of the massacre, setting out to encircle Santa Cruz, epicentre of right-wing organizing. Peasants cut off all access to the city.

The massacre had backfired. Ordinary soldiers were repulsed at the bloodshed. They were also inspired by the sight of thousands of peasants mobilized to surround the city. “Soldiers demanded to be allowed to go and defend their indigenous brothers. Under direct order from Morales, new troops were sent to Pando.” These troops confronted the paramilitaries in the airport and moved to restore order in the capital Cobija. This, in combination with the emergency summit of UNASUR (union of South American Nations) which fully backed Morales, left the right-wing isolated and in disarray.

There now exists in Bolivia a new force, “the National Coalition for Change (CONCALCAM), which unites more than 30 peasant, indigenous, worker and social organizations, together with the Bolivian Workers Central.” It is clear that such unity will be necessary in the months ahead. A “coup in slow motion” has been defeated. But mass mobilization and organization are a permanent necessity to counter a right-wing which has shown a clear commitment to using violence to defend its entrenched privileges.


© 2008 Paul Kellogg

References


[1] Frederico Fuentes maintains the important blog, Bolivia rising. Quotes in this article are from Frederico Fuentes, “Bolivia: Right-wing push to stop change defeated,” Green Left Weekly, October 25, 2008, www.greenleft.org

Let’s Not Forget Mexico

Letter to the editor printed in Queen’s Alumni Review, Review Plus, Volume 82 Number 2, May 19, 2008 • Thanks to Sara Beck for her informed, well-researched and interesting article, "A Question of Treason."[1] The stories of Israel Halperin in the 1940s and the Security Certificate Five in the 21st century show clearly the frightening ease with which human rights can be swept away in moments of societal panic.

One small correction I would like to make. Sara calls the events of 9/11 "the most horrific act of violence ever on North American soil." I have in front of me William H. Prescott's classic History of the Conquest of Mexico and History of the Conquest of Peru.[2] The first few hundred pages of the book amount to a dry tale of the utmost brutality carried out by the European armies of Cortés against the people of what is today Mexico, culminating with his barbaric assault on the capital.

A long siege reduced much of the population to starvation. As his armies advanced into the city: “Dead bodies lay unburied in the streets and court-yards ... As the invaders entered the dwellings, a more appalling spectacle presented itself; – the floors covered with the prostrate forms of the miserable inmates, some in the agonies of death, others festering in their corruption; men, women, and children, inhaling the poisonous atmosphere, and mingled promiscuously together; mothers, with their infants in their arms perishing of hunger before their eyes, while they were unable to afford them the nourishment of nature; men crippled by their wounds, with their bodies frightfully mangled, vainly attempting to crawl away, as the enemy entered. Yet, even in this state, they scorned to ask for mercy, and glared on the invaders with the sullen ferocity of the wounded tiger, that the huntsmen have tracked to his forest cave.”[3]

And when the conquest was complete, the corpses “‘lay so thick,’ says Bernal Diaz, ‘that one could not tread except among the bodies.’ ‘A man could not set his foot down,’ says Cortés, yet more strongly, ‘unless on the corpse of an Indian!’ They were piled one upon another, the living mingled with the dead. ... Death was everywhere. The city was a vast charnel-house, in which all was hastening to decay and decomposition. A poisonous steam arose from the mass of putrefaction, under the action of alternate rain and heat, which so tainted the whole atmosphere, that the Spaniards, including the general himself, in their brief visits to the quarter, were made ill by it, and it bred a pestilence that swept off even greater numbers than the famine.”[4]

Enough. The attacks of 9/11 were acts of terrible violence. But they do not qualify as “the most horrific act of violence ever on North American soil.” As someone who teaches history and politics of Latin America and the Caribbean, I feel it is important to qualify that one sentence from an otherwise excellent article. Mexico is part of North America, and we have to know that the Europeanization of North America – in Mexico, in the United States and in Canada – has at its foundation terrible acts of violence against this continent’s original inhabitants.

© 2008 Paul Kellogg

References


[1] Sara Beck, “A Question of Treason,” Queen’s Alumni Review, Volume 82 Number 1, February 19, 2008
[2] William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico and History of the Conquest of Peru (New York: Modern Library, 1936)
[3] Prescott, p. 592
[4] Prescott, p. 599

Colombia crisis strengthens Venezuela, isolates U.S.

APRIL 7, 2008 – War preparations that might have involved three or more Latin American nations, came quickly to a halt March 7 at the Rio Group Summit in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. A Venezuelan-brokered deal ended a crisis that began with a Colombian military incursion into Ecuador. The great fear in Venezuela was that such a war would have ended up pitting Venezuela against U.S.-backed Colombia, the proxy war against the U.S. that has been feared for years. Instead, the resolution of the deal has weakened the hand of the U.S., and strengthened the prestige of Venezuela throughout the region.

Fidel Castro: ‘Our revolution is not red but olive green’

Fidel Castro has announced that he will step down as president after almost 50 years as the president of Cuba. He has outlasted two generations of U.S. presidents, dedicated to his overthrow. In 1959 – the year of the revolution – Castro said: “Our revolution is neither capitalist nor communist! ... Capitalism sacrifices the human being, communism with its totalitarian conceptions sacrifices human rights. We agree neither with the one or the other ... Our revolution is not red but olive green. It bears the colour of the rebel army from the Sierra Maestra.”[1] No wonder generation after generation of young people, fighting for social change, have identified with both Castro and the revolution he personified.

When you study the history of Cuba, you can understand why the young Castro described his revolution as “neither capitalist nor communist.” Before the 1959 revolution – which overthrew the corrupt U.S. backed Fulgencio Batista – hidden from most histories is the magnificent uprising of 1933.[2] In the context of the catastrophic Great Depression, a massive movement engulfed the country. Richard Gott cites one eyewitness account. “Within less than a month the number of mills under labour control was estimated at thirty-six. Soviets were reported to have been organized at Mabay, Jaronú, Senado, Santa Lucía, and other centrales. At various points mill managers were held prisoners by the workers. Labour guards were formed, armed with clubs, sticks and a few revolvers ... Workers fraternized with the soldiers and police.”[3]

Batista emerged into history as the central figure who helped to restore capitalism by leading the counter-revolution. Tragically, the communist organization at the time – the Partido Unión Revolucionaria – eventually did a deal with Batista. Their international organization – the Communist International – could say that “The people who are working for the overthrow of Batista ... are no longer acting in the interests of the Cuban people.”[4] This alliance with Batista would last a decade, from 1937 to 1947. Castro’s movement in the 1950s was, then, a movement against a regime which the Communist Party had helped legitimize. The Communist Party was completely discredited, and Castro’s revolution was “not red but olive-green.”

Bitter opposition from the United States has defined Castro’s rule. This has nothing to do with a supposedly “democratic” U.S. against an “authoritarian” Castro. On taking power, to make even small improvements in the lives of Cuba’s poor, Castro had to challenge both landlords and capitalists. The U.S. has never forgiven him.

Cuba like much of Latin America, had an economy disfigured by centuries of imperialism. A handful of very rich landlords controlled the vast majority of land, while thousands of peasants were completely landless. Castro took three steps. First, he restricted most landholdings to 1,000 acres. Second, he divided up 40 per cent of the countryside into small holdings for the poor and landless peasants – giving them on average plots of 67 acres. Third, he stated that in future, land in Cuba would be owned only by Cubans. This infuriated the Americans, because the majority of foreign landowners were from the U.S.[5]

So when 300,000 tons of desperately needed crude oil arrived from Russia (in exchange for Cuban sugar), under pressure from the U.S. government, Shell, Standard Oil and Texaco refused to allow the use of their refineries. Castro expropriated the refineries. The U.S. then attacked the sugar industry – the lifeblood of the country, taking away Cuba’s sugar quota. “They will take away our quota pound by pound, and we will take away their sugar mills one by one.”[6] The sugar mills were nationalized, along with all major American properties on the island. So the U.S. “struck back ... with the most powerful economic weapon in its armoury: an embargo on U.S. exports to Cuba.”[7] That embargo has continued to this day, and has made life in Cuba extremely difficult.

But Castro’s Cuba has nonetheless survived – in fact it has more than survived. Through the 1970s and 1980s, Cuban troops fought side by side with liberation fighters in Africa, helping win national liberation struggles against European imperialism. Critically, in 1987 and 1988, Angolan troops supported by Cubans, fought repeated battles in Angola against an invading army from apartheid South Africa. The inability of the South African military to defeat the Angolans and Cubans was a critical factor in the subsequent collapse of the apartheid regime.[8]

But the brutal U.S. embargo had the disastrous impact of driving Cuba into the camp of the Stalinist Soviet Union. An economy dependent on the export of sugar to the United States became an economy dependent on the export of sugar to the Soviet Union and its allies. And working too closely with the Soviet Union sometimes meant taking the wrong sides in international disputes. In the 1970s, Cuba provided military support to the repressive Russian-backed regime of Ethiopia against the people of Eritrea who were fighting for their independence, an action that left a legacy of bitterness in Eritrea.[9]

Most analyses of Cuba accept that its society is now “post-capitalist” in some sense. This is misleading. No country as poor and isolated as Cuba can, on its own, make a transition to socialism. It remains caught in the web of the world economy, forced to “market” itself as a tourist designation with all the social ills which come with carving out such a “niche” in the capitalist economy.[10] Cuba under Castro needs not to be romanticized as a new socialist society, but understood as a country that has mobilized and stood up to imperialism over half a century.

In 1953, while on trial with 100 others for their assault on the Moncada Barracks, the then 26 year old Fidel Castro entered the stage of history. “The guilty continue at liberty and with weapons in their hands - weapons which continually threaten the lives of all citizens. ... I do not fear prison, as I do not fear the fury of the miserable tyrant who took the lives of 70 of my comrades. Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.”[11] As Castro prepares to step down as president of Cuba, more than half a century later, there is no question that history has absolved him. The revolution he led remains a beacon for millions in the Global South.

© 2008 Paul Kellogg

References


[1] Cited in Peter Binns and Mike Gonzalez, “Cuba, Castro and Socialism,” International Socialism 2:8, Spring 1980, p. 6
[2] See Luis E. Aguilar, Cuba 1933: Prologue to Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972)
[3] Cited in Richard Gott, Cuba: A new history (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 136
[4] Cited in Gott, pp. 143-4
[5] Gott, pp. 170-1
[6] Gott, pp. 183-4
[7] Gott, p. 185
[8] “Cuba & The Liberation of Southern Africa,” Pan-African newswire, November 8, 2005
[9] D. Fogel, Africa in Struggle, (San Francisco: ISM press, 1982), pp. 281-336
[10] See Antonio Carmona Báez, State resistance to globalisation in Cuba (London: Pluto Press, 2004), pp. 1-85
[11] Fidel Castro, “History Will Absolve Me,” Castro Internet Archive

Venezuela: The spectre of Big Oil

FEBRUARY 21, 2008 – “Never again will they rob us – the ExxonMobil bandits. They are imperial, American bandits, white-collared thieves. They turn governments corrupt, they oust governments. They supported the invasion of Iraq.”[1] This was the response from Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez to the successful lawsuit by the world’s biggest corporation (ExxonMobil), freezing $12 billion in assets of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA – a serious escalation in Big Oil’s long running dispute with Chávez and the movement he represents.

Venezuela – Referendum Defeat Strengthens the Right

In the early morning of Monday December 3 – when President Hugo Chávez conceded the defeat of proposed changes to Venezuela’s constitution – the mood in the capital Caracas depended on whether you were rich or poor. Outside the Miraflores Palace, thousands of red-shirted Chávez supporters “collapsed into stunned silence. Some began to sob.” By contrast, “middle-class areas of Caracas erupted in jubilation. Housewives leaned out of windows banging pots, cavalcades of cars honked horns and couples danced salsa in the streets.”[1] For the first time since the election of Chávez in 1998, the rich in Venezuela had something to celebrate, and the repercussions are still unclear.

The vote itself could not have been closer – 4,504,354 votes against, (50.70%) and 4,379,392, (49.29%) for the proposed changes. Importantly, this result did not represent a sharp increase in the numbers of people opposed to Chávez. The “No” vote was only 100,000 more than the votes against him in the 2006 presidential election. The real story was the decline in those voting with Chávez. The “Yes” vote was 2.8 million fewer than the numbers who voted for Chávez the previous year.[2] In other words, the referendum was defeated – not because of a sharp growth of right-wing forces, but because of a sharp decline of those willing to back the Chávez referendum initiative.

And at one level, it is not a defeat at all. In accepting the decision of the voters, Chávez made it very difficult for his opponents to call him undemocratic. The process itself was remarkable as an exercise in public participation. According to Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, Ambassador of Venezuela to the U.S.: “from August 16 to October 7 – some 9,020 public events were held ... Over 10 million copies of the reforms were distributed to the public, and one poll found that over 77 percent of the Venezuelan people had read them.”[3] Further, the constitution up for amendment, was already an extremely progressive Chávista document – the product of a 1999 popularly elected Constituent Assembly. According to respected Venezuela commentator Maria Paez Victor:

It guarantees the rights of women as well as children; full rights over land, culture, and language to Aboriginal peoples, includes environmental rights, and enshrines public participation. It also guarantees social human rights such as the right to health care, education, work, and food. And thus, it has given the state a role not just as guardian, but also as a promoter of civic and social rights. It is unique in that it recognizes the right of housewives to social benefits, it specifically uses both female and male nouns and pronouns – thereby asserting the active role of women – and it gives constitutional parity to all international human rights treaties signed by Venezuela.[4]

But Victor and all other serious commentators agree that the vote was a defeat for the revolution, and the reason this defeat has to be taken seriously is not because of electoral considerations (counting the number of votes), but because of the social dynamics the vote has revealed. Specifically, the campaign against the reforms created a context in which the right-wing in Venezuela could unite and effectively mobilize – really, for the first time in a decade. This newly unified opposition included some prominent individuals and organizations, including Chávez ex-wife Marisabel Rodriguez, the social democratic party Podemos, and former defence minister Raul Baduel.[5] The unifying of an anti-Chávez opposition – especially one with the connections to the military represented by Baduel – is an event to be taken very seriously indeed.

The opposition was able to take advantage of the complexity of the referendum. August 15 2007, Chávez presented 33 amendments. The National Assembly then held a three round debate, and proposed an additional 36 amendments for a total of 69. The reforms ranged from decreasing the working week to institutionalizing funding for the new communal councils, to ending limits on the presidency. This complexity was clearly a problem. The merits of individual reforms were easily lost in the sheer magnitude of what voters were being asked to decide on. In this confusion, the right-wing seized on the proposal to end limits to the presidency, seeing in this an attempt by Chávez to stay in office in perpetuity – a silly point, given the fact that in any parliamentary (rather than presidential) democracy, there are often no limits on the term of office for the head of state. A good example would be, well, Canada.

On top of the complexity, there was the question of time. The official campaign lasted from November 2 to December 3 – an amazingly short time given such a complex question. At one level it is incredible not how many people stayed away, but how many people showed up to vote, in spite of these obstacles.

Greg Wilpert insists, however, that the vote reflected deeper problems. He argues that there has been a “souring of the mood” among the poor and workers who are the base of the Chávista movement. Many of Chávez’ supporters believe:

... the government's public administration had become inefficient and many of the president's supporters wanted to send him a message. As the human rights group Provea reports, the social programmes, the missions for community health care, literacy training, high school completion, public housing, subsidised food, land reform, and employment through the creation of cooperatives, have all been deteriorating in the past year. While pro-Chávez poor Venezuelans appreciate the increase in social programmes and spending over the past four years, they are disappointed and frustrated at the inefficiency with which these programmes are managed. It did not help that there was a severe milk shortage in October and November, which made it almost impossible to find fresh milk, and hard to find powdered milk.[6]

This is a dangerous situation. Chávez has massively raised expectations, talking about “21st century socialism.” But the reality is, socialism is not on the agenda any time soon in Venezuela. The country is massively poor, handicapped by the terrible legacy of colonialism and neo-colonialism, and facing an extremely powerful enemy in the shape of Imperialist North America (including both the United States and Canada). The Chávez project has accomplished many things – but they are at the level of reforms and the assertion of national independence. If these are painted with the gloss of the struggle for socialism, the potential for massive demoralization is very real, as the grim everyday reality of oppression and exploitation grinds on for Venezuela’s impoverished millions.

Having raised expectations too high, Chávez now has put out signs that he may be turning in the other direction, and setting them too low. In a confusing televised address January 6, 2008, Chávez on the one hand said that “we’re going to continue to move forward in creating a socialist fatherland,” but that at the moment would mean a sharp change of pace. “We couldn’t expand the framework, we couldn’t increase the perspective and we couldn’t accelerate the pace” he said. “I’m obligated to put on the brakes.”[7] If the brakes need to be put on, it is of abstract talk about “socialism” in the face of the bitter reality of class society. In terms of pushing for reforms of that society, the gas pedal is required, not the brake pedal.

One week after the referendum defeat, a huge step towards Latin American integration took place with the announcement of the “Banco de Sur” – the new South American development bank. This was a joint initiative of the governments of Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay,[8] and is designed to continue the process of freeing Latin America from the underdevelopment clutches of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. This is a fantastic assertion of regional independence, and is in line with Venezuela’s moves to become a full member of the trade alliance, Mercosur.

One of our jobs in the solidarity movements of the Global North is to defend these assertions of independence from imperialism. But in themselves, they are perfectly compatible with capitalism. It is interesting that a senior member of Brazil’s government sees the referendum defeat as being a useful event, something that “for the purposes of inclusion” into Mercosur, the referendum defeat could actually help.[9] From the standpoint of the social movements, this is a terrible logic. A defeat which partially demobilizes the mass movement, and gives confidence to the right wing is not a useful event even if it greases the wheels of a business deal like Mercosur. Too far down the road of mass demoralization and right-wing unification, and increased violence against the revolution cannot at all be discounted. The history of Latin America is littered with examples of attempted revolutions where a demobilized mass movement has been left vulnerable to counter-revolution.

We build solidarity for the Chávista stand against imperialism for what it is – the assertion of sovereignty and independence. But we do that solidarity work no service by “painting it in communist colours” to borrow a phrase from the Russian Marxist Vladimir Lenin. In this, we can take heart in the fact that in all revolutionary processes such as that unfolding in Venezuela, there are thousands who move towards a vision of a future based, not on electoral considerations, but the self-activity and self-organization of the poor and the working class.

© 2008 Paul Kellogg

References

[1] Rory Carroll, “Shock and celebrations as voters stall the Chávez revolution,” The Guardian, December 4, 2007, www.guardian.co.uk
[2] Information taken from Alan Woods, “Venezuela: The referendum defeat – What does it mean?”, venezuelanalysis.com, December 4, 2007
[3] Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, “Reforming Venezuela’s Consitution,” venezuelanalysis.com, November 20, 2007
[4] Maria Paez Victor, “Mr. Danger and Socialism for the New Millennium,” ZNet, March 29, 2006, www.zmag.org . To read a copy of the constitution, see www.venezuelanalysis.com/constitution
[5] Gregory Wilpert, “Venezuela’s Revolution Checked,” ZNet, December 24, 2007 www.zmag.org
[6] Gregory Wilpert, “Venezuela’s Revolution Checked”
[7] Matthew Walter, “Venezuela’s Chavez to ‘Put Brakes on His Revolution (Update1)”, Bloomberg.com, January 6, 2008, www.bloomberg.com
[8] Jude Webber, “S America launches Banco del Sur,” Financial Times, December 11, 2007, www.ft.com
[9] “Referendum results to Help Venezuela Enter Mercosur,” eluniversal.com, December 7, 2007