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Bolivarian revolution on the offensive

by Stuart Munckton “Caracas is a place where people have woken up. Revolution is part of everyday vocabulary", wrote Heiko Khoo, an activist from the international solidarity campaign Hands Off Venezuela in a July 2004 article on the In Defence of Marxism website entitled “Impressions of a revolution”. Khoo continued: “Everywhere, amongst street vendors of cheap jeans and magic herbal potions, you also find a vendor selling [new revolutionary] laws … These law pamphlets are not for the consumption of students at the law faculty but for the poor … [so they] know how to exercise their rights according to ‘their laws’. The masses feel that politics, government and the state belong, and should belong, to them.” Khoo provided a vivid picture of the intense politicisation in Venezuela: “At the Simon Rodrigez Experimental University, deep inside the impoverished district of El Valle, a creche full of children and a children’s party are noisily taking place. Upstairs the local Ali Primera Radio station is broadcasting in FM as the forum, voice and self-organised entertainment channel of the community. On the stairway, a group of twenty or so local activists for the No vote gather and discuss and plan their action … This building is a revolutionary centre, organisational, cultural, political and social. The dynamism and creativity of revolution sweeps aside petty bureaucratic formalism and impels the masses to participate. “In a nearby restaurant … the owner asks why and for whom I am filming, when I explain for Hands Off Venezuela a look of great pride exudes from his face. I see him return to his open door and shout out ‘Viva la Revolution!’ to his family inside.” On August 15, 2004, supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez scored a major victory, winning a special referendum on whether or not Chavez should continue as president by just under 60% of the vote. This was the third major defeat for the US-backed, capitalist-led counter-revolutionary forces in less than three years — after the smashing of the April 2002 military coup and the December 2002 bosses’ lockout. In the latter, the capitalists shut down their companies in a so-called “general strike” supported by right-wing unionists. The corrupt, pro-capitalist management of the oil industry sabotaged the industry, attempting to shut off all oil supplies until Chavez agreed to resign. This attempt to overthrow the elected government was defeated by the mass mobilisation of the workers — who rallied in the streets and took over dozens of closed firms. Most decisively, the oil workers took the industry over and got it up and running under their control. Defeated again, the US-backed opposition was forced to concede to a key government demand and try to utilise the profoundly democratic clause in the new constitution that allows voters to recall any elected official, including the president, if 10% of electors sign a petition demanding a referendum and the incumbent loses the vote. Chavez’s referendum victory was not just registered in votes. A week before the vote, at least one million supporters of the revolution demonstrated in Caracas in support of voting “No” to the question of whether or not to recall Chavez. At the same time, the anti-Chavez opposition failed to mobilise more than a few thousand. The referendum involved a massive mobilisation of the working class. Queues at voting places began to assemble as early as 3am on August 15 and voters waited in line for up to 12 hours, with polling extended after 1am to cope with the significantly increased voter participation in working-class areas. The working-class districts erupted with euphoria at the outcome, celebrations starting even before official results came through. The opposition cried fraud, but the Organisation of American States, which had sent observers, accepted the result. Despite this victory — the eighth straight national electoral victory for Chavista forces — US hostility to the Chavez government continues. Less than a month after the referendum, the US government announced it would seek to block loans — totalling US$290 million — requested by Venezuela from the Inter-American Development Bank and aimed at combating poverty. Washington justified this by claiming Venezuela is not doing enough to stop the trafficking of Venezuelan women and children “for the purposes of sexual exploitation”. The Venezuelan government angrily responded by pointing to its active cooperation with the United Nations to stop this trade. The hostility of Washington and the capitalist elite inside Venezuela toward the Chavez government does not stem from what this government has failed to do, but from what it has done. The Chavez government publicly opposes and campaigns against the US-driven Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement, which aims to open up Latin America to increased exploitation by US corporations. Instead, Venezuela is pushing for a Latin American regional trading bloc that would empower the continent to defend itself against US imperialism. A centrepiece of this push is the proposal to merge oil industries across the continent to form a united industry — Petrosur — that would control almost 12% of the world’s oil production and would give the continent enormous bargaining power against the economic might of the US. Venezuela has been crucial to re-organising the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to ensure that oil-producing countries receive a better price for their oil. Chavez has not only stopped the Venezuelan capitalists’ plans for the privatisation of the country’s state-owned oil company (PDVSA), he has repeatedly hiked up taxes and royalties on oil corporations investing inside Venezuela. Oil companies were forced to pay back billions of dollars of unpaid taxes. In 2006, the government enforced legislation that forces all oil corporations with investments in Venezuela to sign joint-ventures with PDVSA that give the government majority control. Those corporations that didn’t agree had their investments taken over wholesale. As a result, oil corporations, always less significant than PDVSA inside Venezuela, now control around two-thirds less of Venezuela’s oil reserves than previously. The increase in revenue has been channelled into social missions tackling poverty. Chavez has publicly condemned the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Venezuela has established close relations with socialist Cuba, providing the Cubans with much needed oil at cheap prices. In return, thousands of Cuban doctors and teachers have volunteered to provide medical care and education in the poorest neighbourhoods in Venezuela. Since the recall victory, the two revolutionary governments have signed dozens of new cooperation agreements, including approving 115 new projects in health care, education, sports and agriculture. These reasons alone are enough for the US rulers and the Venezuelan capitalist class to do whatever it takes to see the back of the Chavez government. But what really terrifies them is the growing radicalisation, confidence and organisation of the Venezuelan working people that has been occurring under Chavez’s presidency. Encouraged by his fiery rhetoric and progressive reforms, the masses of poor Venezuelans, both in the cities and the countryside, have been the driving force behind the gains that have so far been won in the revolutionary process and the force that gives the revolution its potential to go much further. An inefficient, corrupt and often consciously anti-Chavez state bureaucracy — largely drawn from the families of the wealthy elite — has made it necessary for the revolutionary government to organise the poor to create counter-structures to carry out the its radical reforms. The growing number of “missions” that carry out the provision of health care and schooling and other social services to the poor are an example of this. The working masses have organised through the Bolivarian Circles, mass popular assemblies, elected land councils that helped draw up the urban land reform laws and, more recently, the Units of Electoral Battle (UBE) — grassroots organisations set up to coordinate the campaign for the successful “No” vote in the recall referendum campaign. For Washington, the greatest threat the Chavez government poses is the example it sets for the rest of capitalist Latin America, already in the throes of a continent-wide antineoliberal revolt. If the Venezuelan working people can organise to drive back imperialism and the local capitalist class, then why can’t the working people across the continent do the same? Revolutionary Venezuela is a beacon for progressives across the world. The construction of an international solidarity movement to defend Venezuela and the example it sets is crucial. Here in Australia we also have a role to play in letting people know what is happening in Venezuela and building solidarity with its revolution. Based on a November 3, 2004 Green Left Weekly article.