Venezuela: translating the revolution

Chavez set for win as campaign pushes socialist transformation

2012-08-19T18:53:00.000+10:00

The following is an article I wrote for Australian socialist publication Green Left Weekly:

Venezuela: Chavez set for win as campaign pushes socialist transformation

Saturday, August 18, 2012
By Owen Richards

It is just six weeks until Venezuela’s October 7 presidential election pits incumbent Chavez and his pro-revolution Great Patriotic Pole (GPP) electoral alliance against his main rival Henrique Capriles.“It would be easier for 100 camels to pass through the eye of a needle than for [the capitalist class] to win the election”, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speaking at the Caracas Municipal Theatre on August 15.

Capriles heads the right-wing opposition bloc, the Democratic Unity Forum (MUD).

Chavez’s campaign has reached fever pitch in recent weeks with the president touring the country and holding huge election rallies nearly every day. Both candidates officially launched their campaigns in early July.

Chavez’s energetic oratory has boosted the hopes of his supporters his statement in the first week of his campaign, that he was “totally free” of cancer, is true.

Polls over the past year have consistently shown that Chavez is set to overwhelmingly win the election. The most recent poll, for example, conducted by the Century 21 Social Investigations Group (GIS XXI), has Chavez at 56% of the vote against Capriles’s 30%. This is an even bigger margin than the vote Chavez received in the 2006 presidential poll.

Behind the raw figures lies an even greater strengthening of the revolutionary socialist project headed by Chavez. The opposition is riddled with political contradictions and is united simply by a virulent hatred of Chavez, but support for Chavez has increased qualitatively with a growing support for the deepening of the socialist project.

The GIS XXI survey found that, of Chavez 56% support base, 40% is “hard” support with 16% “soft”. Of Capriles’s 29%, 20% is considered “hard” and 9% “soft”.

Jesse Chacon, GIS XXI president, said: “If you ask Venezuelans today if they believe in socialism, more than 50% say yes.”

This sustained and “hardening” support for Chavez and the revolution he leads is driven by social and political gains for the poor majority. The continued broadening of people's power and growing socialisation of the productive apparatus at the behest of the poor has earned this support.

As a result, a recent UN-commissioned study found Venezuela to be the happiest nation in South America.

The presidential elections in Venezuela have the appearance of capitalist elections everywhere — a contest of two personalities for the spoils of power. But the context makes these elections something different.

Chavez's campaign — of which the largest force int he GPP is the millions-strong United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) — has turned the election campaign into a full-scale revolutionary mobilidation.

At every one of the many cities and towns where Chavez has held rallies, he has used the opportunity to do more than solicit votes. He has conducted hours-long speeches and discussions, addressing local issues and unveiled new infrastructure works.

But most importantly, he has explained and argued for his his 40-page platform, the “Proposal of the Homeland’s Candidate Comandante Hugo Chavez for Bolivarian Socialist Management”. It is a program for socialist political and economic transition.

Capriles’ campaign has, in marked contrast to that of Chavez, focused on petty personality politics, juvenile stunts and even criminal fraud.

Perhaps most infamously, Capriles posted on his Twitter page a document supposedly issued by the Chavez government to prohibit the military barracks from watching a Capriles’ speech on private television. The document was quickly revealed to be a clumsy forgery.

Another recent rallying point for the opposition has been Capriles’s refusal to remove his Venezuelan flag baseball cap. He was asked to remove by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) as it is a violation of electoral campaigning regulations to use national symbols in electoral campaigning.

Chavez was also issued with warnings over similar breaches, with which he has complied.

Capriless campaign has followed a contradictory line in relation to the CNE. Some of his campaign staff have labelled the electoral body a “tool” of the Chavez government that is not to be trusted. Others have affirmed its independence and fairness.

Capriles’ dire electoral outlook has compelled him to mimic several aspects of Chavez’s campaign.

Not only has he been ridiculed for copying some of Chavez’s signature mannerisms and style, he has also been forced by popular will to support some key sections of Chavez’s program.

These include features of the revolution such as it social “missions” — the government-funded organisations that supply free education, medical care and a whole host of other services to the Venezuelan population.

Capriles claims he will maintain the missions. However, his own past practice as former governor of Miranda state belie this position, as he tried to shut down the healthcare mission in the state and drive out the Cuban doctors stationed there to offer free medical attention to poor Venezuelan citizens.

Capriles also pledged to reverse the Chavez government’s socialisation of Venezuela’s giant oil company PDVSA — the company that funds the social missions.

Where he has diverged from Chavez’s program, Capriles has attacked the revolution from a national-chauvinist point of view. He has condemned Chavez’s solidarity aid and preferential supply of oil to other countries, especially Cuba, and pledged to overturn the policy.

Faced with the prospect of yet another crushing defeat at the ballot box, the frustrated Venezuelan right wing has little room to move. Venezuela Analysis journalist Tamara Pearson said the MUD camp has fractured three ways regarding strategy.

Pearson said: “Some of the MUD support base has given up on the presidential elections and are turning their focus to the regional elections in December, some want to play democratic and by the rules, and others see more hope in creating disturbances and engaging in low tactics.”

[Owen Richards maintains the blog Venezuela: Translating the Revolution.]

Full inclusion of women in Armed Forces

2012-07-30T18:32:00.001+10:00

Revolution achieves full inclusion of women in the FANB

Translation by Owen Richards

RNV

July 29, 2012

Carmen Melendez, first Admiral of Venezuela, said on Sunday that the full inclusion of Venezuelan women in the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) was achieved during Hugo Chavez’s presidential rule.

She made the comments during the Jose Vicente Hoy program, hosted by journalist Jose Vicente Rangel and transmitted by the private channel Televen.

Melendez recalled that during the Fourth Republic period, the FANB was clearly an environment only open to men. “We weren’t allowed into operational units”.

Starting in 2000, women were allowed to join all components of the FANB, “without any kind of discrimination. We have officers on ships, chief pilots, submarine crew, and tank crew. Life has changed”.

Melendez also pointed out that 26% of new graduates were women, and that the number of women currently enrolled in various [military] academies is “incredible”.

“Within ten years, we’ll have a women’s participation rate of 50% or more in the FANB”. Melendez also pointed out that “we have an National Armed Forces, that is better equipped, trained and ready to combat any aggression”.

Cabezas: The proposal for a Fifth International "is still valid"

2012-07-18T13:36:00.001+10:00

Unfortunately I let this article sit for too long, so it's a bit dated now. Nevertheless, I'll post it anyway since Cabezas' comments on the proposal for a Fifth International are interesting, as well as his projections for the July 24 international day of solidarity with the revolution.

Taken from the PSUV's monthly publication, En Vanguardia.
Translated by Owen Richards

“The need for a space of coordination of the world socialist left continues to be relevant”

Rodrigo Cabezas, coordinator of International Issues for the PSUV, asserts that our internationalism needs strengthening. Venezuelan parties propose a global day of solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution for the 24th of July.

Cabezas is the coordinator of International Affairs of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV). An economist and university professor, he says that the XVIII edition of the Sao Paolo Forum, that will take place in our country between the 4th and 6th of July, “could open the debate of an international [organisation] of revolutionary parties that defend forms of organisation distinct from capitalism”.

Comandante Hugo Chavez proposed at the close of the International Meeting of Left Parties in Caracas on 19 and 20 November 2009 the need to convoke a Fifth International. The proposal didn't forsee the turmoil a proposal of this magnitude would cause. But perhaps it continues to be relevant in the context of capitalism's systemic crisis, with the 'indignados' in the streets, and with the progressive governments of Latin America.

Acording to Cabezas, “The Sao Paulo Forum is a space for debate among the progressive parties and movements in Latin America. The proposal of the Comandante is still valid, insofar as it pointed to the need for coordination, a meeting space for the world socialist left. So visionary was it that today, for example, there is the lack of a certain level of left organisation to complement the European workers' struggles. There's a relative disconnect in that sense”.

Why was Venezuela chosen to host the Sao Paolo Forum?

“All the organisations that met in Managua for the XVII meeting unanimously agreed to have the meeting in Caracas. The Sao Paolo Forum parties, from the Mexicans to the Argentinians, along with the special invitees, agreed to have the XVIII edition as an endorsement of the Bolivarian Revolution and president Chavez. The Sao Paolo Forum does not hide from that purpose. We [i.e. Venezuela] are a kind of beacon of the social movements that struggle against imperialism and that propose socialism. It’s the conviction that it's been possible to carry out a process of popular transformation here with high marks for independence.”

If it's a meeting in support of comandante Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution, will the delegations have to carry out a specific task in solidarity with our country, above all when it has been shown that the opposition, in coordination with the United States, seeks destabilisation in the context of the presidential elections?

“On the initiative of the Venezuelan parties in the Sao Paolo Forum (PSUV, PPT, MEP, and PCV), we will request that the 24th of July - the birthday of our Liberator - be made a day of solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution. The idea is to have actions in all the planet's capital cities in solidarity with the revolution, at a time when the right demonstrates no commitment to democracy, when it deigns to respect the electoral adjudicator.”

What are the PSUV's proposals for the seminars and debates?

“We're projecting a seminar on the decolonisation of Latin America. We who have a Liberator of Simon Bolivar's stature cannot neglect to show solidarity with Puerto Rican independence. We're going to evaluate the recolonisation of Aruba, Curazao and Bonaire by the Netherlands. Another theme is Argentina's Malvines [the Falkland Islands]. It's very important to us.”

What will make this forum unique from the previous ones?

“We will set a participation record. We're estimating the arrival of some 600 international delegates from the five continents of the planet. Delegates will receive a gift handmade by Venezuelan women. We will present books about the Liberator, Venezuelan chocolate, and in the evenings we will host cultural events in the vicinity of the Teresa Carreno theatre.”

What will hosting an event of global import mean for the PSUV, for our short history as a left-wing political organisation?

“The PSUV is the main left-wing political force on the American continent. That's because it has been consistently, along with the government, transferring power to the People. After the meeting, the PSUV's prestige will be even greater. We wish to contribute to make the Forum a a meeting of the global anti-imperialist, anti-war grass roots movement.”

Can we speak of a new hegemony of the left in Latin America?

“By deepening our internationalism, we will be able to have a kind of barrier to defend ourselves from imperialism's claws and to be able to propose peace. It's a strategic thing. It means strengthening our internationalism, since we're in imperialism's cross-hairs. The challenge is to maintain the gains already won by the Latin American left.”

SYRIZA looks to Chavez

2012-06-15T12:41:00.001+10:00

Leader of Greek left says Latin America is a shining example
Aporrea.org, Caracas, June 13

Translation by Owen Richards

During an interview with Telesur on Tuesday night, Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the Greek left wing coalition SYRIZA, emphasised Venezuela as an example, as a model to follow to leave behind the capitalist, consumerist model that is presently dominant in Europe.

“The example of Venezuela is characteristic. Hugo Chavez was able to achieve important things for his country through a peaceful process. He carried out the nationalisation of the natural sources of production. And he did so while under the constant attacks of the big end of town”, he said, pointing out that for many years, Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela all followed the same recipe of neo-liberal shock measures that they’re applying today in Greece.

Tsipras insisted that the Greek debt “is an old story, nothing new”, and has been accumulating for a long time, “forming at the base of a model that was based on borrowing” and extreme consumerism.

“No one expected that in 2012 Greece would be at the threshold of a humanitarian crisis … left with debts we couldn’t pay … Greece wasn’t ready to enter the Eurozone. We’re still paying off debt from the Olympic games and corruption … all those years of development, those years, a bit before and a bit after entering the Euro we were left without a social reserve”.

Tsipras said that the social, economic and political development of Latin America is a “shining example” that he will consider if elected Greek prime minister in Sunday’s general election. “Venezuela’s president Chavez would not be in power today if his people had not supported him when those dark forces carried out their coup de etat to overthrow him. We too know that here a dark past confronts a hopeful future (…) our greatest opponents aren’t (Giorgios) Samaras and (Elefterios) Venizelos*; our opponents are the forces of the financial power of bank capital”, he said.

[* The article is in error here. It should say Antonis Samaras and Evangelos Venizelos. Thanks to Stuart Munckton for alerting me to this.]

Ten years after coup, Venezuela vigilant despite gains

2012-04-24T15:56:00.000+10:00

An abridged version of this article was published in Green Left Weekly:

Ten years after coup, Venezuela vigilant despite gains

Sunday, April 22, 2012

By Owen Richards

“April 13, the great day of victory ten years ago, opened the way to the independence and unity of our Latin America and the Caribbean … We showed that a people united will never be defeated”, said Venezuela’s socialist president Hugo Chavez from the “People’s Balcony” of Miraflores Palace, during a commemoration of the April 13 revolution that toppled a short-lived business-military coup that aimed to crush the Chavez presidency.

March commemorating April 13 revolution.

The coup attempt was in response to Chavez’ pro-poor policies. Specifically, the capitalists were desperate to stop Chavez getting hold of the state oil company – and the largest corporation in Latin America – Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), and putting its revenues at the service of the poor. They kidnapped Chavez and held him hostage. However, mass uprising of the poor and working class, along with the bulk of the military defeated the coup attempt within 48 hours and restored Chavez to the presidency.

Since 2002, the revolution has been able to advance thanks largely to the new balance of forces the revolution brought about. However, the process still faces a number of serious threats. Coming up to the presidential elections of October 7, the next few months will be especially dangerous. During Chavez’s speech, he called for the revolutionary forces to “be alert in all these days and months to come”, and announced the creation of a “special anti-coup plan” that involves the formation of a “special civic-military command” to defend against any threat.

The threat of the opposition carrying out extra-parliamentary violence, sabotage or subterfuge continues to rise as the election date approaches and polls continue to show the extreme unlikelihood of the opposition presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, defeating Chavez at the ballot box.

Carlos Sanchez of North American Opinion Research (NAOR) said “we see the victory of Hugo Chavez on October 7 as an irreversible tendency”. Sanchez was referring to the findings of recent NAOR research that found Chavez has 60% backing, while his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has 56% support of the electorate. Meanwhile, Chavez’s opponent Capriles Radonski has a rejection level of 57%.

On the electoral front, battle lines are beginning to be drawn, with the revolution’s social missions taking center stage. An election strategy document drawn up by the opposition reveals the opposition’s bind: “What is the dilemma we confront? In accord with surveys of popular opinion, if the people think we’re going to abandon the missions, we run the risk of losing a very important number of votes, but at the same time, if we try to remedy the former problem by championing the missions without an original, critical position toward them, many people will conclude that it’s best to stick with the missions’ original father (Chavez)”.

The massive popularity of the missions owes itself to their immense achievements. To date, for example, 1,482,543 people have achieved literacy via Mission Robinson; 1,400,000 people have had vision restored through Mission Miracle; and more than 745,000,000 people have accessed public health through the Within the Barrio mission.

Capriles Radonski’s opposition has begun labeling the missions as organizations of “political blackmail”, while on the other hand proposing to introduce a law that will “give a legal status to the missions”. This contradictory position is not likely to gain much traction with Venezuelan voters, as it is common knowledge that the opposition has long attacked the missions, and vehemently opposed president Chavez’s 2007 attempt to institutionalize them - just as they are now calling for five years later.

In the heightened political atmosphere of the looming elections, the revolutionary forces have continued to mobilize. The PSUV has continued its nation-wide door knocking campaign, meeting face to face with 1,750,120 Venezuelans. President Chavez tweeted on Thursday, “Let’s go, everyone united under the direction of the Command of the National Carabobo Campaign … Everyone together! To the streets!

[Owen Richards maintains the blog Venezuela: translating the revolution.]

Opposition’s little man 'the candidate of imperialism'

2012-02-28T18:40:00.001+11:00

I wrote the following article for the current issue of Green Left Weekly newspaper:

Venezuela: Opposition’s little man 'the candidate of imperialism'

By Owen Richards

The International Consulting Services poll revealed that if the presidential elections were held tomorrow in Venezuela, 58.2% would vote for Hugo Chavez. Image from VTV.

“The confrontation here isn’t between Chavez and this little man, it’s the bourgeoisie against the people, the empire against the country”, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on February 16.

Chavez was referring to his newly-nominated presidential opponent, Henrique Capriles Radonski. He was pointing to the class battle that lies behind the looming presidential elections scheduled for October 7.

Radonski, a 39-year-old lawyer and governor of Miranda state, won the endorsement of the right-wing Democratic Unity Forum (MUD) bloc on February 12. He won with 62% of 1.8 million votes in a primary process marked by allegations of irregularities.

Henrique Capriles Radonski

The MUD used the National Electoral Commission (CNE) to run its primaries despite for years claiming the CNE is a fraudulent, corrupt tool of the Chavez government. The MUD's publicised participation figures were revealed to be mathematically improbable.

The MUD’s electoral council also burned all the cast ballots almost immediately after the conclusion of the day’s voting, despite the fact that several candidates wished to appeal vote counts.

However irregular the process, the selection of Radonski to go head-to-head with Chavez for the presidential sash opens the election campaign proper. The selection of a candidate must come as some relief to the perennially-divided right-wing bloc.

But who is Radonski, and what does he stand for?

In the MUD he is considered a moderate with a view to turn Venezuela down the road to a Brazil-style social-democratic capitalism. He calls himself a “progressive” of neither the left nor the right.

In deference to the overwhelming popular enthusiasm for the revolution’s social missions that have benefited millions of Venezuela's poor, he feigns support. But Radonski opposes their being funded through oil revenues.

His campaign slogan, “there is a way” mimics vacuous political slogans from capitalist elections everywhere -- it provides little indication of his actual political stance.

Contrary his moderate credentials, Radonski is infamous for his role in leading a violent siege of the Cuban embassy during the April 2002 US-backed military coup. During the coup, Chavez -- the elected president -- was kidnapped before being returned to the presidency by a mass uprising of workers and soldiers.

Radonski is from one of Venezuela’s wealthiest families.

In response to Radonski’s nomination as the opposition’s candidate, Chavez welcomed him to the electoral race. But Chavez challenged him to come up with more than a slogan, and to “confront me with ideas”.

Chavez characterised Radonski as “the candidate of imperialism, of the bourgeoisie's pro-coup sector”.

He also attacked Radonski’s claimed support for the social missions while opposing their state funding through the state-owned oil company, PDVSA. He said Radonski would return the company to “the capitalists, the transnationals”.

The National Assembly's first vice-president Aristobulo Isturiz said Radonski “is toying with a retrogression. This candidate is the past, because he wants to take us back to neoliberalism”.

Isturiz said such moves would put Venezuela in the same situation as the European nations of today. He said Venezuela’s “indignados” (the name for members of the Spanish anti-neoliberal mass movement) fought and defeated neoliberalism.

Early indications are that the pro-revolution forces organised under the Chavez-led Great Patriotic Pole electoral alliance will comfortably return Chavez to the presidency.

A study carried out by the International Consulting Services (ICS) indicated that if a poll were held now, 58.2% of Venezuela’s population would vote for Hugo Chavez against 35.4% for Radonski.

The ICS also found in a January study that 53% of Venezuelans support Chavez’s socialist vision for the nation, with only 21% saying they believed capitalism was the best system to develop Venezuela.

The Group of Social Investigation XXI (GIS XXI) found Chavez to have a popularity rating of 61.2%.

As the presidential battle continues to heat up, Chavez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the biggest force in the electoral alliance, stepped up its activity.

Chavez has dubbed the campaign the Carabobo campaign. This refers to the 1821 Battle of Carabobo that was decisive in winning Venezuelan independence from Spain.

A huge rally of PSUV grassroots “patrollers” was held on February 17 to bring together and organise PSUV members for the political battle ahead.

A mass campaign of door-knocking has already begun. By February 16, PSUV patrollers had visited a total of 417,000 homes in a first phase of house-to-house deployment. More than just soliciting support for Chavez, the patrollers discuss socialism and encourage participation in the revolution’s programs.

[Owen Richards maintains the blog Venezuela: Translating the Revolution.]

New call to voluntary labour

2011-12-20T15:26:00.002+11:00

www.revolucionomuerte.org

Translated by Owen Richards

Comandante Chavez, in a meeting with the promotions committee of the Great Patriotic Pole [pro-revolution electoral alliance], held on Thursday at the Alba Hotel Caracas, reflected on the construction of socialism and its pillars. He referred to the importance of volunteer work for the creation of the spiritual and material bases of Socialism, and gave the example of one of its most genuine adherents – Che Guevara.

“There’s something that really contributes to the spiritual basis, the material basis of Socialism: voluntary labour.

“I encourage you to undertake volunteer work in the countryside, in the cities, that we may all - the Great Patriotic Pole, the collectives – get working.

“Have you seen Che Guevara, the photos and films of Che cutting cane, brick making, working…? What else… Carrying bags… Voluntary labour, let’s do it, help our people do various things, and it needs to be planned, it must be planned. The workers, the communities, the collectives.”

A budget for socialist development

2011-12-14T11:26:00.004+11:00

Minister Faria: 2012 budget corresponds to the development of a socialist project

Caracas, 13 December, AVN

Translation by Owen Richards

The vice-president of the Permanent Commission of Finance and Development in the National Assembly, Jesus Faria, said that the budget for 2012 corresponds to a socialist development project for Venezuela.

China-Venezuela financed housing in Nueva Esparta

He mentioned this on Tuesday after the session that approved the national budget, which will provide 40% for social investment, which was voted against by the opposition bloc.

“It’s going to raise the level of health and education services, of housing, and of the overall quality of life of Venezuelans”, he explained.

He said that the Budgetary Law for 2012 that reaches 297.8 billion Bolivares [US$69.34 billion] is aimed at meeting the people’s needs.

Faria ratified, furthermore, how important social and productive financing had been for the country, through such instruments as National Development Fund (Fonden) and the China-Venezuela Joint Fund.

“Without these funds it would have been impossible for us (as the government) to meet the needs of the population and to have a growing economy for 2011 and 2012”.

He pointed out that resources for social investment obtained through the Joint Fund with China benefit the nation because they come with interest rates at least 50% lower than those imposed by the rest of the international financial system.

Chavez: 2012 will be the October revolution

2011-12-08T15:02:00.000+11:00

Ciudadccs.info

7 December 2011

At the beginning of a Miraflores press conference, president Hugo Chavez recalled his victory of the December 6 1998, a victory which took place 13 years ago yesterday. He also referred to the coming election day for October 2012, declaring, “We’re going to win the elections. There will be an October revolution, and the projected difference (in votes) shouldn’t be less than four million”.

“We’re heading to the victory of the ten million. We have to get 70% of votes”, he said.

He pointed out that in its 13 years, the revolution had “put the icing on the cake” with the birth of the Community of Latin American and Carribean States (CELAC). He indicated that the creation of the regional bloc was a historic milestone, in the same way as Venezuelans’ participation in the various electoral activities that have taken place since his arrival in power in 1998 had been.

“I don’t think there’s been a more important political event on this continent in the last 100 years”. Chavez emphasized that the impact of the CELAC summit “had been extraordinarily positive”. “It has surpassed our greatest expectations. There are various opinions (…) it’s unity in diversity”, he said, referring a Spanish journalist’s question about Ecuador’s proposal to approve decisions by consensus within the organization.

Chavez said CELAC had to be a defense against imperialist madness. Furthermore, he pointed out that it was born with major geopolitical weight. “CELAC will not be like the ineffable OAS [Organization of American States]”, he said.

He said that there was a proposal for a meeting of the troika to be held early next year, but clarified that it was a decision that belonged to Chile as president of the summit. He criticized the media, saying “they invert reality, presenting the villains as the heroes”.

Translated by Owen Richards

Socialist youth support indignados

2011-11-04T11:01:00.001+11:00

JPSUV supports indignados of the world

Translated by Owen Richards

Aporrea – This Thursday, members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela Youth (JPSUV) expressed their solidarity with the movements of indignados of the world that are protesting capitalism.

The head of the PSUV’s electoral work, Heryck Rangel, said that the capitalist system imposed on the European countries generated unemployment and few opportunities for the world’s youth, a situation that has compelled thousands of indignados to march to reclaim their rights.

“Capitalism is in a terrible crisis that mainly effects the youth, and therefore us young Venezuelans, who live in a totally different reality, we’re taking to the streets of Caracas and all of Venezuela today in solidarity with the struggle of the indignados”, he said.

Rangel pointed out that the mass media tries to silence the struggle of the world’s millions, and for this reason he called on all Venezuelan youth to show solidarity with the indignados and “to show the world that only with socialism can we have a future and a good life”.

He argued that the struggle that the world’s peoples have now undertaken against capitalism is the same struggle that liberated Venezuela in the last few years of the twentieth century. “Let’s recall the Caracazo, [and] the banking crisis of ’94”, he added.

He said that today in Venezuela it could be said “we live in a different reality, in a country where the youth have access to free, quality education, while the rest of the world’s youth are losing their homes, their jobs, and are mortgaging their future”.

Indignados unite!

2011-11-02T11:41:00.002+11:00

By Ana Elisa Osorio

Translated by Owen Richards

The crisis of the capitalist system has provoked the “indignados” movement that has arisen in one country after another across the globe. Revolutionaries cannot be dismissive of this “anti-systemic” manifestation that raises its voice against injustice, against war, against the barbarism that puts our very life on Earth in danger.

Ana Elisa Osorio

It’s true that the “indignados” movement is heterogeneous, and is considered by many to be incapable of overthrowing imperialism. Certainly imperialism has been able to recuperate after each of the crises it has survived. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t overlook the enormous setback it has suffered, perhaps the worst in the history of capitalism.

I’m reminded of a song that goes, “I only ask of God that I be not indifferent to suffering … to war … to injustice”.

There’s much to be indignant about. The predatory capitalism that threatens Mother Earth and all her children; the gendarme imperialism that flaunts international treaties and all morality, that invades Afghanistan, Irak, and Libya, and assassinates Gadaffi. Ought we not be moved to indignation?

The anti-imperialist struggle can become the guiding thread of a global revolt that shakes the common enemy. We cannot leave this flag in the hands of the majunches [the dull, i.e. the Venezuelan opposition] who think they see an opportunity to organize an indignados movement in our country. They’re wrong, the flag is ours – it’s for justice, solidarity, peace. It’s against everything they stand for.

On the other hand, internationalism is characteristic of revolutions, and this is an opportunity to exercise it. Our Bolivarian revolution is called upon to articulate anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-system struggles. This struggle is ours as well.

Onward indignados! Unite!

[Ana Elisa Osorio is a national directorate member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).]

Hugo Chavez applauds OWS protesters, condemns police violence

2011-10-18T10:22:00.000+11:00

[This article originally appeared in Green Left Weekly]

Sunday, October 16, 2011

By Owen Richards

Venezuela’s socialist president Hugo Chavez has likened the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States to Venezuela’s February 1989 Caracazo riots against neoliberal policies that are widely seen as the start of Venezuela's revolutionary process.

Chavez made the comments by phone on the television program Dando y Dando on October 5.

Chavez also expressed solidarity with the protesters and condemned police repression of peaceful protest. “This movement of popular outrage is expanding ... and the repression is horrible, I don’t know how many are in prison now,” he said.

Discussing the roots of the popular explosion, he said: “Poverty’s growing. The misery is getting worse”.

The Caracazo broke out across Venezuela after a “shock package” of neoliberal reforms was introduced by then-president Carlos Andres Perez involving drastic price hikes in fuel and transport costs.

It was a popular explosion of anger by Venezuela’s working people and destitute masses. It marked the beginning of the end of the rule of Venezuela’s capitalist oligarchy.

Three years later, Chavez lead a failed military rebellion aimed at toppling the Andres Perez regime and establishing a popular revolutionary government. The attempt failed, but it earned Chavez and his military comrades immense respect among Venezuela’s poor majority. On the back of this mass support, Chavez was elected president in December 1998.

In his comments, Chavez characterized the Caracazo as “a forerunner to what we are seeing in Europe, and in North America, huge protests” against neoliberalism. In the Caracazo, “the Venezuelan people struck out against neoliberalism, against the Washington consensus, and here a revolution broke out”.

Venezuela has provided an example of an alternative approach to neoliberialism. The Chavez government has continued to nationalise more and more of Venezuela’s productive forces, starting with the biggest monopoly corporations in areas such as steel, electricity and telecommunications, to benefit Venezuela as a whole, not just the rich.

Venezuelanalysis.com said on October 11 that Chavez announced that houses built illegally on the Los Roques islands would be nationalised and turned into holiday resorts for workers and the poor. Until now, the archepelago has been frequented by Venezuela’s rich and international tourists.

Commenting on the nationalisation, Chavez said: “The upper class bourgeoisie privatised all of that, and that’s what we are going to expropriate.”

He also announced that yachts appropriated from fugitive bankers would be used for sight-seeing tours in the region.

[Owen Richards is the author of the Venezuela: translating the revolution blog.]

Venezuela: Chavez sets date for crucial presidential poll

2011-09-24T20:49:00.000+10:00

The following is an article I wrote that has just been published in Green Left Weekly:

Venezuela: Chavez sets date for crucial presidential poll

CNE president Tibisay Lucena

Saturday, September 24, 2011
By Owen Richards

Voters should expect to see “a new Chavez, a rejuvenated Chavez, touring the country as a candidate, touring the streets at a rhythm set by the circumstances”, said Venezuela’s socialist president Hugo Chavez after the date for Venezuela’s presidential elections was announced as October 7, 2012.

The Venezuelan Electoral Commission’s (CNE) president Tibisay Lucena also announced that judicial, regional and local elections would take place on separate dates.

The right-wing, US-funded Venezuelan opposition hopes Chavez’s battle with cancer will keep him from his fourth straight victory in a presidential election.

But Chavez was upbeat and referred to the coming electoral campaign as the “October 7 mission”. Chavez said the campaign should aim to win 10 million votes. In 2006, Chavez won more than 7.3 million votes (63%).

Chavez said he would kick-start the re-election campaign on February 4: “We’ve set that date as the start of our official march towards the October 7 victory.”

February 4 is the date in 1992 when Chavez led a failed military rebellion against the corrupt, neoliberal government of President Carlos Andres Perez. Although the rising failed, it turned Chavez into a hero among the poor majority.

Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) will again lead the campaign as part of the left-wing Patriotic Pole electoral coalition with smaller left-wing groups, which has already endorsed Chavez as its candidate.

Since Chavez’s first election in 1998, his government has sought to redistribute the nation’s oil wealth through pro-poor social missions and other measures, such as nationalising key industries. These measures have halved poverty and millions of people have access to free education and health care for the first time.

Chavez said that if he was to win a fourth term, he might call on the National Assembly to pass an enabling law granting him special powers to enact reforms.

Chavez has previously used such constitutional powers to deepen the socialist revolution in Venezuela.

The PSUV has been holding sign-on sessions across the country to the new “vanguard patrols”. These grassroots bodies that will, among other things, campaign for his re-election.

The patrols have already enlisted more than 2 million members across seven weekends of recruiting.

Starting from October 1, the PSUV will begin the process of organising the members into local patrols of 10 to 20 members. Patrol bases, which will act as command centres, will be formed out of the patrols.

The divided opposition will again try to unite under the banner of the Democratic Unity Forum (MUD), which will hold primaries on February 12 to choose a presidential candidate to challenge Chavez.

There are 18 hopefuls so far vying for MUD endorsement. These include the governor of Miranda state (and participant in the 2002 coup attempt against Chavez) Henrique Capriles Radonski; 2006 presidential candidate and now fugitive from corruption charges Manuel Rosales; and Maria Corina Machado, current member of the National Assembly and former president of US-funded opposition group Sumate.

MUD has now been joined by the Progressive Front for Change (FPC), a grouping of mostly former Chavista parties, such as Homeland for All (PPT), Radical Cause (La Causa R) and We Can (Podemos).

Venezuelan journalist Eleazar Diaz Rangel has warned that the period leading up to the presidential election will be like “passing through a minefield, full of uncertainty and danger”. Rangel said this was due to the improbability of a MUD victory in 2012, making the opposition unpredictable.

Those in the opposition who consider the defeat of Chavez to be “mission impossible”, Rangel said, might be tempted to engage in destabilising actions, such as trying to discredit the electoral process.

“You don’t have to have a crystal ball to realize that surely in governing circles of the United States are also divided, according to the information they receive from Caracas, and they will align themselves with either hawks or doves.”

[Owen Richards is the author of the Venezuela: translating the revolution blog.]

Huge involvement of youth in PSUV vanguard patrols

2011-09-20T10:02:00.002+10:00

AVN/JPSUV, 19/9/11

Youth make up more than 60% of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)’s Vanguard Patrols, according to Juan Carlos Aleman, a PSUV member of the National Asembly (AN).

“They’re in the vanguard and they have a consciousness of where we’ve come from and where we’re going”, said Aleman referring to the socialist model that drives the Bolivarian revolution, lead by president Hugo Chavez.

Aleman made these points in a PSUV patrol sign-up day, which took place in the Maracao de Caracas area.

PSUV patrol sign-up station

He pointed out that the enlistment process for the patrols had been characterized by the participation of the organized population in a massive attendance at the Sign-up Points.

The PSUV patrols will have the responsibility of forming Patrol Bases that will be nothing other than a big mechanism involving the people and the government to work towards the presidential elections on October 7, 2012 and also to strengthen the building of Venezuelan socialism.

Translated by Owen Richards

Communes in Caracas

2011-09-15T13:05:00.001+10:00

Communal organization includes the city

CCS - 07/09/11

Among the aims of community organization is that of building the communal State, where power is exercised directly by the people, through self-government, with an economic model of social property and endogenous development.

Based on this premise, 236 communes and more than 9,000 communal councils have been established, according to information from the Ministry of Popular Power for the Communes.

Through this process the city of Caracas has turned into a space full of examples of self-government.

Socioeconomic model

In the Capital District around 44 sectors exist that are in the process of building communes in order to lay the foundations for Venezuelan socialism.

In the Antimano ward, 18 communal councils of the Carapita sector and part of Santa Ana organised to establish the Victoria Socialist Commune.

Concrete block production by the Ezequiel Zamora Commune, Antimano, Caracas

Edgar Astudillo, the commune’s spokesperson, reports that the developing socioeconomic model now has four collective work units for the production of goods and services, working under the criteria of reinvesting profits back into the community.

Blacksmithing, concrete block making, carpentry, textiles and baking are the businesses established with an investment of 924,000 BsF that was authorized by president Hugo Chavez through the Micro-financing Development Fund (Fondemi), in June 2010.

More power and consciousness

The experience of the communes is based on self-government under the Organic Law of Popular Power, as the “set of actions through which the organized communities directly assume the management of projects, the carrying out of works and services in order to improve the quality of life in its geographical area”.

Blanca Araujo, spokesperson for the commune-in-construction, El Paraiso de Maisanta, of Cota 905, Santa Rosalia ward, defines the commune building process, from her experience, as an “organization of the people to solve their problems”. She adds that “with the commune we have more power and more consciousness of the problems we face”.

This commune, a year in the making, has a route that covers the Guzman Blanco sector on Cota 905 towards Quinta Crespo. The resources it receives are used for community projects.

La Pastora is another example that is adopting the communal model. “Firstly, we met as a promotional team for social and political activities in the area. When the President put out the call to form communes, we decided that this was a way to make a reality of the goals of the revolutionary process”, recalls Milagros Hernandez, spokesperson of the Los Mecedores commune in construction, in La Pastora ward.

They have just established a communal house acquired with 650,000 BsF granted by the Government of Capital District. In that space they will install an Infocentre and a textile company as socioeconomic projects.

Extending the geographic axis

In 2008, locals from the El Observatorio sector in 23 de Enero [neighbourhood] and part of the San Juan ward, which has12 communal councils, formed the Juan 23 Commune, made up of 11,526 inhabitants who share the same territory and history.

Nelson Solorzano, one of the promotors of this organization, said that they are now expanding their axis of activity. They meet with nine communes in west Caracas and make economic exchanges to break with the capitalist market which causes most of the problems the communes are struggling against.

Socialist spaces

The Organic Law of the Communes stipulates that these social organizations are “a socialist space that, as local entities, are defined by the integration of neighbourhood communities with a shared memory and history, cultural features, traits and customs that are recognized in the territory that they occupy and in the productive activities that are the basis of their livelihood”. Among its aims is to promote mechanisms for education and training in the communities and promote the popular defence of human rights.

Translated by Owen Richards

The ideological map of the revolution

2011-08-25T18:47:00.005+10:00

By Neftali Reyes

Translated by Owen Richards

These last twelve years have been in preparation for the “critical point” that inevitably approaches. It is a time that defines society’s direction. Everything done up to this point has been building towards this historic moment.

The Revolution, thanks to the guiding and unifying thread of its comandante, has continued to advance successfully through these turbulent years of ferocious struggle against the empire and its lackeys, and also of violent internal struggles amongst the currents that fight to lead the Revolution. The battle has raged endlessly on both fronts.

That’s how revolutions go – moments of euphoric advance along with tough, dispiriting and confusing moments. That’s why a leader is indispensable to a revolution, to give it the coherence it needs to avoid falling off the rails. And that task is complete. To have arrived at this stage is a feat in itself.

We now approach a decisive battle that will be decided by three basic factors: firstly, ideology, secondly, an active mass imbued with this ideology, [and thirdly, the masses] following the leader’s directives. This trilogy: ideology, mass and leader will decide the contest.

The situation is at once both dangerous and promising. We’ve got a leader; we have the potentials of an active mass that has been tested in previous battles, such as April [2002] and the oil sabotage [of 2002-3]. The 27 of February [i.e. the Caracazo of 1989] taught us the need for organization, for leadership, and that only this way can we win such battles. We’ve learned the need for clear political objectives and we have both good and bad experiences in battle.

We have failed to internalize the ideological struggle, to understand its logic and to use that understanding to place ourselves in the historic moment and assume the role it sets for us.

Victory is impossible without a strong and clear ideological delineation. The battlefronts are defined by ideology, which overflows the boundaries of political militancy and imposes its logic. This explains how parties and former leaders of the Revolution are today sitting at the same table where the assassination of leaders and militants was planned, sitting with Adecos [members of Democratic Action] and Copeyanos [members of COPEI], sitting with the capitalists. Ideology erases shame.

It’s not possible to understand the historic moment without having an ideological map, which supersedes the political map. That means ideological militancy will be more important than political militancy.

The battlefields are being outlined more and more. Chavez rallies the Revolutionary side with the slogan, “those that want a homeland come with me”. That means those that want genuine Socialism – which is the only way to have homeland, to have humanity.

Hence, it is mandatory to define socialist ideology. We can put forward some aspects here:

· The human being at the center of all endeavours.

· Life as the motive of all effort.

· Nature as the basis of everything.

· The Consciousness of Social Duty linked with Social Property in the means of production administered by the National State.

· Internationalism.

· To be always on the side of the weak, of the fighters, of the Revolutionaries.

Only an ideological map allows us to take successful positions in the war to build Socialism and defend humanity. History – that unequaled revolutionary teacher – is very clear in her lessons, we must always go back to them, keeping them under our pillows.

The battle of 2012 – The revolution, the people and the armed forces

2011-08-17T09:50:00.001+10:00

The following is an article I have translated from the Frente Francisco de Miranda youth organisation’s weekly magazine Semenario Signos:

The battle of 2012 – The revolution, the people and the armed forces

The counter-revolution, with its inability to win via electoral means, has a plan, with international backing, to generate violence, destabilisation and intervention before the 2012 elections. Such is shown by the attacks of the right wing’s spokespersons and their media that ranged from calling for Chavez’s resignation, to making attacks against the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB), to attacking the National Electoral Commission.

In the face of these threats, our Comandante advises us: “We must prepare ourselves for the scenario that they call plan B, the Yankee embassy, the Yankee empire, the CIA is preparing, before this disaster for them, which I previously referred to as an organic, structural impossibility for them, of defeating us in the electoral sphere. The continuity and the future of the Bolivarian Revolution are in the unity, organisation and consciousness of the civic and military People”.

The ultra-right argues that the FANB is preparing a coup in the case an unfavourable vote for Chavez. Their strategy is to spread in the world press that Chavez is a coup-plotter and that the FANB cannot be guarantors of the process because they are ideologically committed [to Chavez].

The defence minister, General Carlos Mata Figueroa, accuses the Venezuelan counter-revolutionaries of fomenting subversive acts against the Armed Forces, while emphasising the extremely high level of soldiers’ consciousness.

The Venezuelan Armed Forces has shown itself to be a guarantor of the Constitution and to be more dignified than ever, not like in the Fourth Republic when they encouraged all kinds of abuse against the people like the destruction of electoral results that favoured revolutionary parties, and more recently with the participation of the entire bourgeois high command in the coup de etat against comandante Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution.

Other elements of this conspiracy are the so-called Coalition for Democratic Unity (Mesa de la Unidad Democrática - MUD) agitating against the supposed increase in crime in Caracas and in the country’s interior and against the minister of the prison system, Iris Varela, for giving inmates soft treatment, because for the MUD, the solution to crime is to repress the People.

In this regard, the interior and Justice minister, Tareck El Aissami, pointed out that the MUD has a clear agenda of destabilisation. He claimed that groups linked to the Unity Table intend to carry out a guarimba [road blockades], threatening to cut off Los Valles del Tuy and Valencia and participating in the name of the transport workers, of the main routes of the states of Miranda, Carabobo, Tachira, Lara and Zulia, attempting to promote an agenda of violence and fear in every state of the country.

At the same time as president Chavez’s popularity has reached 58%, they seek through the oppositionist MUD to put out a call for Chavez to resign. Presidential pre-candidate Oswaldo Alvarez Paz formulated the request, which is nothing other than yet another media attack to enhance their discredited leaders at the same time that at the international level there is the false perception that in Venezuela there is widespread discontent with the leadership of Comandante Chavez.

So far, the PSUV has signed up more than 400,000 at 10,450 recruitment posts set up around the country. It seeks to guarantee that the party’s rank and file win the battle of 2012 in the name of the Bolivarian Revolution and Comandante Chavez. And that is the correct strategy to win the elections and consolidate Bolivarian socialism.

Chavez's use of Twitter - "a milestone in the history of our ideas"

2011-08-10T18:50:00.005+10:00

Chavez, the revolution and Twitter a year later

May 1, 2011

Eliades Acosta Matos¹

Revolucion o Muerte

President Chavez’s Twitter account, @Chavezcandanga, debuted on April 27, 2010, at 9:43pm. After one year, the balance sheet is impressive: using this social network, the Bolivarian president has published 933 tweets – short messages of up to 140 characters - has 1 432 740 followers and has been included on 39 461 lists. Its runaway success has necessitated the creation of a mission specifically to attend to the thousands of messages that are received every day and gave rise to a “Union of Socialist Twitterers”.

The most important thing about this phenomenon, initiated by the theoretical and practical prime mover of this promising current called ‘Socialism of the 21^st century’, is that it shows that the new information technologies can and should be utilized without fear or reservation, in the difficult task of changing the world and placing it on more just and humane foundations. They do not have to play a fatal, demobilizing or alienating role, or be a means of diffusing frivolity and nonsense, nor must they be docile instruments in the hands of the programs of world counterrevolution, especially those that fight 24/7 on the frontline of the culture wars.

It is not going out on a limb to claim that Chavez’s decision to set up a Twitter account and make it serve the purpose of making his government leadership transparent and open new channels of contact with the people, can be considered one of the most important strategic actions taken by revolutionary forces on the world scale in the struggle to overthrow their own limits, taboos and myths, and advance toward the transformation of a reality that has little similarity to that which Karl Marx or Lenin faced in their time. Injustice cannot be revolutionized without knowing the keys of each age, or refusing to take advantage of its transformational tools – including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs.

Can anyone doubt that if Marx lived in our time he would have a web page, and Lenin a Twitter account? Would Marti have spurned the enormous information and communication possibilities the internet offers us today?

But if backward approaches and fear of change is harmful, neither is it enough to formally agree with these propositions, after all, they’re so obvious they cannot be denied. To use these social networks to make revolution implies a deep change in the verticalist and centralist mentality - sadly inherited by the left from previous historical experiences – and placing themselves on an equal footing, without a centre or periphery, alongside the people who use these technologies, including our enemies that use them heavily. And this means, in itself, an enormous strategic step in the march of development, democratization and the renewal of socialist forces. Their future and its success in the struggle depends upon it.

Eliades Acosta Matos

As such, that discrete, telegraphic first tweet Chavez made one year ago will go down as a milestone in the history of our ideas. As with all transcendental things, it happened naturally, without pretense. Its brilliance was not visible to the naked eye; it lies within, in its subaltern significance, and in what it means for the future, and the challenge to emulate, but not imitate it.

What is known as the “Twitter Revolution” or the “Cyber Revolution” merits a more detailed analysis. For now, it’s enough to say that the front line of the secular struggle for progress and social justice also passes through here. The confrontation that begins in the political or economic sphere is decided in the symbolic and ideological sphere.

“Twitter is the best way to find out what’s new in your world”, says one of the slogans of the promoters of that social network. A sly Dr Marx of our epoch would no doubt add, ironically, “ … but the point is to change it”.

With patience and constancy, amidst his enormous tasks and responsibilities, Chavez is doing just that.

And it is going out to millions.

^1. Eliades Acosta Matos is the former director of Cuba’s Jose Marti National Library (1997–2007) and currently head of the Committee on Culture of the Cuban Communist party's Central Committee. He is the author of The Apocalypse according to Saint George.

Chavez : “The idea of a new International is catching on”

2011-07-27T20:07:00.003+10:00

Hugo Chavez first raised the idea for establishing a new International association of socialist parties in 2007. In November 2009 he again raised the idea at a meeting of left-wing political parties that was held in Caracas.

Chavez at the International Meeting of Left Parties

Since then, the idea seemed to have been forgotten. However, in this short excerpt from his speech to the executive cabinet, assembled governors and the Political Bureau of the Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) on 16 July, Chavez revived the idea of a new International:

“Well, in truth I feel really strengthened by the way you and our Party shaped this modest document, these five lines, and now they return to me with a sixth line, which really was missing: the international line, a formation of some networks of Bolivarian circles, and different links, a network, a mesh of Latin American and Caribean organizations, of solidarity and political action, heading towards the creation of international structures, respecting the ones that already exist.

“Now, we raised an idea, just one idea for the world. But we need to develop it, to explain it well, because it tended to be rejected initially by sectors of the international Left, the idea of a new International, not the fifth, a new socialist International for the 21^st century. This is a debate that started in Europe, and I think that with the world hotting up in these recent days and months of this feverish year, with big battles in Europe and North Africa, and in Latin America as always, the idea seems to be catching on. But we need to make links, argue and explain to movements and parties that are worried about it being a throwback.”

Excerpted from debatesocialistadigital.com

Translated by Owen Richards

For more information on Chavez' 2009 call for a new International, read:

http://directaction.org.au

http://links.org.au

Socialism and voluntary labour

2011-07-20T18:05:00.001+10:00

The following is an article from the Socialist Debate website about the role of voluntary labour in Venezuela's housing construction program, Mision Vivienda, launched in April this year to address the shortage of housing in Venezuela. It discusses the significance of voluntary labour in the transition to socialism.

Welcome socialism

By Neftali Reyes, Debate socialista

Translated by Owen Richards

Practice has had the last word: this process is headed for socialism. The facts have already appeared on the social horizon. Reality has outstripped the Byzantine discussions of the philosophical pretenders who deny our socialism. They have their refutation from within the bowels of life itself.

An historic event has occurred in Venezuela: the oil workers were summoned to Voluntary Collective Labour in Mision Vivienda and arrived en masse. And the number exceeded fifteen thousand.

Voluntary Labour, where the worker goes off to work motivated by altruism, and committed to the society to which they belong and in which they feel wanted, is giving labour a new meaning: it is liberating it, experimenting with it, and prefiguring free labour. It is now done without the compulsion of survival.

Voluntary Labour is the “sharp tool” that must be used to build Socialism. It radiates to all of society the new ethics of the loving relations, and through it the working class leads the revolutionary process.

The massive surge of oil workers to Voluntary Labour means that the conditions for the flourishing of socialism exist in Venezuela. It’s indicative of the class struggle that socialism unleashes on the old world, against capitalism, a system that hangs on in a thousand ways. It unequivocally indicates that the Socialist battle takes place here in our midst, even though we sometimes misunderstand it.

Without a doubt, the Bolivarian Revolution has created conditions to build socialism as never before in our history. Socialism can arise in Venezuela because it expands and reinforces the state-administered Social Property. This form of property enables the fruits of labour to be the property of society as a whole, constituting itself thus as the basis of the Consciousness of Social Duty.

The workers become more and more aware of their power and their historical role, a role that goes beyond merely making demands; they’re committed to showing the way to the new world. This is the material basis for the advance of the process.

Furthermore, the government, political power, is in the hands of the Revolution, embodied in president Chavez. The call to socialism, to anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism that came down from the high command, unleashed the contradictions that generate movement and make the way toward socialism possible.

After years of struggle, favorable factors converge: Social Property administered by the state; a working class that is conscious of it historical role; Popular Power lead by Chavez – the most important Venezuelan revolutionary of the last hundred years in loving harmony with the masses; the Housing Mission as the auspicious setting for demonstrating the power of voluntary labour.

Centuries of hope, hope in the possibility of greatness, hope that we can defeat the deadening mediocrity, finds its concretion here. We are privileged: socialism is almost within our reach.

There’s no excuse to get lost in shortcuts or to use blunt instruments. We must have faith, break with custom, and follow the example set by the oil workers.

This is Socialism. Now we must pass beyond adversities, deepening socialism, nurturing it and extending it.

The country needed its best sons, and more than fifteen thousand patriots from within the heart of the oil industry stepped forward. The march to Socialism, which is the attempt to build a viable society, needed real action to demonstrate that humanity is able to surpass egoistic behaviour and to wholeheartedly build that other world that the Liberator dreamed of. The oil workers stepped forward and said, “present”.

Now they are the example and the promise, showing the way, they are the evidence that Socialism is more than a utopia; it’s a reality that’s taking shape before our very eyes.

They were called to Voluntary Collective Labour, invited to give of themselves to the Mision Vivienda, they gave themselves to society, to its Revolutionary Government, generously offering their most valuable possession: their labour power. And they came, without asking for explanations, and without hesitating, more than fifteen thousand good souls with a will to commit themselves to the future.

This act, which not by chance passes almost unnoticed, is one of the most important things that have taken place in the Bolivarian Revolution, placing it in a new dimension on the path.

Labour, always appropriated by the ruling classes, acquires with the gesture of these oil workers the condition of being an instrument of liberation, it’s the harbinger of a new world where exploitation - which is nothing but the appropriation of social labour on behalf of a minority - is overcome through the establishment of loving relations for the benefit of all.

What took place in Mision Vivienda with the Voluntary Collective Labour foreshadows the emancipation of labour, when labour will belong to society, to everyone.

The material and social foundations upon which to build a society where “to each according to his ability, to each according to his need” are established. In that world, exploitation, the appropriation of labour, robbery, will no longer be possible. It will no longer make sense. That is True Socialism.

Beyond the will of its protagonists, Mision Vivienda exposes the Revolution’s basic contradiction: the confrontation between capitalism and Socialism.

The capitalists, the anti-social, put a high price on their “collaboration”, they expect payment in cash, and, most harmfully, they do so with an egoistic consciousness.

Voluntary Labour is a socialist tool. It approaches the problem of housing with moral and spiritual vigour. By the end, we will have housing, but more importantly, we will have a conscious mass, a mass able to understand and confront the challenges along the road to Socialism. They will be a symbol of that which we struggle for. And an active, conscious vanguard will have formed, that has proved its effectiveness, its loyalty to Comandante Chavez, willing to step forward when called upon.

The challenge of the oil workers is great: now they have the responsibility to show the way, to guide the rest of society in the building of Socialism.

Let the gesture that these pioneers made be known throughout the country and around the world. Let their selflessness and their understanding of the historic moment be known.

The spirit of our nation’s heroes, of the Paso de Los Andes, of Carabobo, is embodied in this gesture of the workers. They are a prelude, a good omen of the successes we will have in the coming battles.

May society reward them, returning love for the love that they gave to all of humanity.

[For more information on Mision Vivienda, see: Venezuelanalysis.com]

Chavez's return: what is to be done?

2011-07-06T19:05:00.003+10:00

From the thrill of the return

This Grain is written with emotion, which is the first element of the new picture. It is from passion that the great works of the people are built. That love, that passion for Bolivar, was the hurricane that made Independence possible. That human warmth that alone awakens great deeds and the men that embody them has appeared again with the return of Chavez.

Chavez’s return changes the political landscape that the right tried to establish: the plans for restoration have been frustrated; por ahora. The revolution and Chavez’s leadership deepens its roots in the passion of the humble, this is very important, and creates magnificent conditions for the much needed great leap towards complete consolidation.

Amidst the euphoria arises a question that the triumph [of Chavez’s return] cannot gloss over: What is to be done?

We must not fall into triumphalism. In the midst of the euphoria, the side that reflects most, the camp that plans for the future, will ultimately be victorious. We must not forget that the empire’s greed never sleeps.

We must refine theory – this is essential and fundamental. We must never forget that a Revolution cannot stray far from theory, from the ideology that sustains it. Theory, ideology, is the source of every victory and defeat.

Ideological distractions have done such damage to the revolutionary march and have already shown their impotence. With them it’s not possible to shape society, to give sentiment strategic consistency.

It is necessary to consolidate a social and political organization that underpins the building of socialism, an organization that forms a national fabric starting from the finest capillaries and going all the way up to the government and its leader.

Thus, we enter into a stage of reorganization in all fields. We are happy, and there are reasons for our happiness. Chavez has demonstrated great fortitude and deep reflections in his “fruitful repose”.

Army reaffirms loyalty to Chavez

2011-07-04T21:20:00.004+10:00

Translated by Owen Richards

The defense minister, Carlos Mata Figueroa sent a message of strength and solidarity to the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, assuring that the National Armed Forces remains loyal to president Chavez and the Revolutionary Government.

“To you, whose heart fills with pride when you speak of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, now, this Armed Forces expresses its pride in having you as our Commander in Chief. You have inculcated values and principles in us, and for this, we, as soldiers of the Homeland want to express our deepest sentiments of loyalty to the Commander in Chief and the Revolutionary Government”, said the defense minister.

General Mata Figueroa wished the quick recovery of president Chavez, who underwent the removal of a cancerous tumour in Cuba.

“I take this opportunity to send a message of strength and solidarity to our commander, Hugo Chavez. For you, my commander, all our firepower, all our battle strength turned to blessings for your prompt recovery”.

He pointed out that it was a good moment for reflection, and reiterated that the Bolivarian National Armed Forces is “more united and more inspired than ever”.

He said, “this revolutionary process wants its leader back, recovered, healthy and strong, you who are the mainstay of this Revolution. You represent and constitute the best example of the unity of the people with its National Armed Forces”.

Mata Figueroa’s speech was presented at the Honour Courtyard of the Military Academy in Caracas in a ceremony to mark the Official Promotion of Generals and Admirals of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) regarding the inauguration of activities to celebrate the Bicentennial Year.

http://www.chavez.org.ve/temas/noticias/fuerza-armada-bolivariana-ratifica-lealtad-al-presidente-chavez/

We will be with Chavez

2011-07-01T16:41:00.004+10:00

Un Grano de Maiz

In the Peaceful Revolution, which is a war, there are primary and secondary battles.

The primary battle is the one in which the confrontation with the enemy is direct, decisive, and defines the strategic aim. It determines the scenario and the theatre of operations. At one time, the primary battle was against oil sabotage, at another it was against shortages, on several occasions it was elections.

Today the main battle is in Chavez. The oligarcho-bourgeoisie, defeated every time it has reared its head, now sets upon the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution. Its aim is to fracture the loving Chavez-People connection, knowing that this is the fundamental pillar of the Revolution.

Thus, the empire, studying the situations that threaten its rule, knows that the social rebellion is embodied in a leader. This leader sums up the revolutionary masses.

When this occurs, when the mass-leader bond is established, the process becomes invincible. Simon Bolivar symbolizes independence, Zamora, the jolt of Federation, Allende represents the attempt to storm heaven, Torrijos is the concretion of Panamanian aspirations, Lumumba is the symbol of a whole continent’s rebellion… all those assassinated by the empire severing the leader-mass bond and frustrating their redemptive strivings

Now they try to break this same bond that makes the Bolivarian Revolution possible. Its direct object is Chavez; against him they take aim. They try to discredit him, spreading lies and rumours, sowing the seeds of division, spreading discontent amongst the humble, promising love with a Judas kiss and encouraging disloyalty.

The various hacks and sophists invent theories to weaken the bond, comparing Chavez to Hitler, of all leaders, not to Bolivar, Torrijos, Zamorra or Lumumba. They speak of “hyperleadership”, and they rummage in the trash looking for evidence linking him to the counter-revolution, or to reformism.

The main battle takes place around Chavez. Unsurprisingly, the proximity of 2012 requires the opposition to ramp up its push to fracture the loving bond. And now they see an opportunity in Chavez’s infirmity.

The question that arises is this: how to confront this offensive?

Firstly, it is to understand that the defense of Chavez is the defense of the hope that was once frustrated in Santa Marta but was reborn on the 4^th of February.

Secondly, is the heartfelt committment that today, they will not be allowed to repeat Golgotha, the Moneda Palace, the magnicide of San Carlos, San Pedro Alejadrino! We will stand with Chavez in the face of all the manipulations the opposition can muster. In the midst of all doubts, we will be with Chavez.

Thirdly, it is indispensable to organize the people’s love for Chavez. The Comités de Resteaos are an excellent initiate.

Fourthly, is to internalise the fact that the unity of Chavez and Socialism are sacred.

Finally, if they mess with Chavez, a volcano of rage - of the like never before seen on this continent - will be unleashed, and they will repent.

Che Guevara - the fourth fool

2011-06-23T13:15:00.006+10:00

The following is my translation of a recent article posted on the Un Grano de Maiz blogsite. Un Grano de Maiz articles are also published daily in a very popular column in Diario Vea, a mass, pro-revolution newspaper. The column's frequent reiteration of ethical themes aims at eroding the “egoism” that is both deep and widespread in Venezuelan mass consciousness, primarily owing to Venezuela’s century-long economic dependency on oil exports and the ideological reflection of that dependency in a “rentier consciousness”.

Readers might be interested to find that there is now an English language version of Un Grano de Maiz, where many, but not all of its recent posts are available (Un Grano de Maiz).

The fourth fool

Bolivar once said, “Christ, Quixote and I – history’s three fools”. Che Guevara, in the cold Bolivian jungle, could be considered the fourth.

The truth is, the highest rung of the human species, that of the revolutionary, the fool, is reserved for those stubborn about the goal of building worlds for love, for those who in doing so stake their lives.

To be a fool is the highest honour a human being can aspire, reserved for those who reach the highest peaks of revolutionary zeal, it’s a level created by that self same Liberator.

We know not if Che considered himself a member of this select group…. It doesn’t matter. Without a doubt, he is the fourth fool.

Che was an exalted revolutionary. He wanted to change the whole world; his goal was humanity, a goal that outstripped the tiny earth. Asia, Africa, America, Europe, was the theater of operations for his theory and practice. He criticised and struggled throughout humanity, developing theory to change the world.

Great minds think great thoughts. They have the ability to answer the fundamental problems of human existence. They are not limited; their purview is the whole planet.

Courageous Che questioned the ways of “actually existing socialism”, both Soviet and Chinese, but not as an excuse to go back to the shameful refuge of capitalism, but to venture forth into the future. He devised a theoretical compass to guide humanity in this necessary voyage.

His life is an example, his theory an obligatory azimuth. A revolution not deeply steeped in Che’s ideas is unthinkable.

There is no socialism that does not comply with Che’s commandments, which are the same commandments as all the fools:

Love one another. This command of Christ, that comes to us through two thousand years of history and remains just as vital, has guided revolutionaries, fools.

The spiritual over the material. Che based all his theory on the idea that Socialism isn’t a material thing. It’s above all a spiritual act.

Friendship over hate. Che, guided by the teachings of [Cuban independence leader Jose] Marti, emphasized that it is only love that builds. Let’s remember his idea that the true revolutionary is guided by deep feelings of love.

Offering one’s life, loyal to the cause of the poor. Loyalty is an indispensable condition in the revolutionary undertaking - loyalty to principles, and the people who embody them.

A big dose of craziness. Leaping into the void without a safety net. The revolutionary act, essentially unscripted, requires a craziness to dare it, to cut adrift from one’s moorings in habit, and to plunge into the dizzying whirl of high altitude flight.

To aspire more to service than to glory. The revolutionary plays God, while at the same time retaining the humility to recognize they are a part of the whole.

The PSUV's socialist patrols

2011-06-20T14:35:00.012+10:00

The following post continues my translation of the Socialist Party of Venezuela’s ‘Libro Rojo’, or Red Book, the party’s program which was adopted at last year’s congress. The following two articles concern the party’s branches, or “patrols”.

Article 19: On the socialist patrols

The socialist patrols are the primary and basic cellular components of the party. They are linked to the organizational forms of Popular Power, and constitute the basis of the network of socio-political articulation and of the PSUV's system of ideological education.

Article 20: On the typology of the socialist patrols.

The socialist patrols can be:

a) Territorial, as the sphere of the party’s primary discussion is in the communities, and its radius of action is in the streets, blocks, villages and communes. Every party militant must be a member of one of these.

b) Sectoral, in agreement with the activities developed by the militants in specific areas.

c) Any other that the National Political Directorate establishes.

Militants may simultaneously belong to a territorial and a sectoral patrol, in which case the procedure for determining preferences voting in internal elections will be established by the norms to that effect issued by the National Political Directorate.