Clarification to a comment by Jorge Altamira about Opción Obrera
For Opción Obrera, it is necessary to specify some points that contrast with the analysis on Venezuela that Jorge Altamira (Partido Obrero de Argentina) exposes in an interview (lapiparota.wordpress.com) where he also characterizes OO briefly, lightly and mistakenly.
For Opción Obrera, it is necessary to specify some points that contrast with the analysis on Venezuela that Jorge Altamira (Partido Obrero de Argentina) exposes in an interview (lapiparota.wordpress.com) where he also characterizes OO briefly, lightly and mistakenly.
let's get to the point,the first thing that needs to be clarified is that Maduro and his
government, if they resist, still use the masses, not with Trotskyist methods, contrary to what happened with Zelaya, Lugo and Dilma,
who did not resist and they delivered the government to the ultra right,
spurred by the empire. It is important to point out that "our"
right-wing opposition does not use democratic methods, as has been demonstrated
since April 2002.
The repression was used by the government against the onslaughts of the “guarimba”, and sometimes, the repressors were overwhelmed by the assaults of the right that was directed, paid, prepared and equipped, committing not a few murders, frequently some of their " leaders "operated stimulated by the effects of drugs and alcohol supplied by the organizers. These spotlight were sponsored by governors, mayors, deputies of the National Assembly, as well as Colombian and north American organizations, until they were -the guarimbas- visited by former presidents of other countries, "friends of democracy" like Andres Pastrana.
Among the operations was to destroy health facilities, education, transportation, burning of living people and also lash out against their own neighbors who were prevented from moving to their workplace, health emergencies or other needs, just missing a label of fascists to those sectors of middle class desperate, expressing hatred, racism, violence because even the swastika was a common badge. However, the manual was not met to define this as a civil war against the working class to point this out as fascism.
The government still mobilizes popular sectors, coerced, manipulated, that still resist and do not get excited with the siren songs of the MUD, and to avoid that, we can not take out the body or say whatsapp that they are wrong, we must mobilize to try to guide them. Nor is attending the shows of Maduro or a governor to make him bulk.
The election last July 30 of the ANC (1) was an excellent example, days before, the so-called "popular" consultation of the right on July 16 demonstrated its failure, did not drag the population after the fascist protests, there it sentenced its defeat, then the assistance on July 30 to the rigged elections of the constituents, where even Chavistas candidates participated, representing workers or communal sectors, not approved by the PSUV, gave the result or coup de grace to the right.
This did not indicate that the objective of the conformation of the ANC was revolutionary, but it was true and I do not smell of turkey all the threats and sanctions offered by Trump(2), the EU, the OAS and the most reactionary governments of America, led by Manuel Santos against the election of the ANC. Today the economic sanctions are being suffered by Venezuelans, in our "dictatorship", by those democratic countries.
Against the working class, when it fights, makes demands and mobilizes, both public and private employers act in their interests as well as state agencies, such as labor offices, the prosecutor's office and the courts, are coerced and It criminalizes the protest as a form of repression, and on many occasions they send the police and the GNB in defense of the boss. The government and private entrepreneurs are waging war on any movement that points to the autonomous struggle of the working class, there are fascist traits in employer sectors of both sides
On the side of the union bureaucracy that responds to the right-wing opposition, concentrated in the Union of Marcela Maspero, and the Fadess of the union dinosaurs of AD, they declare or act in agreement with Chambers of commerce and industry and the most extremist parties, on the right, of the MUD, although also participates Ccura of the PSL.
Opción Obrera, participates in a front called the Platform for Revolutionary Struggle, section Aragua, where a statement was discussed and approved delimiting those elections, and also regarding government policy(3).
In conclusion, it is important to determine if the government resists whom? And he responds with repression. Is the government besieged by the working class and repressed or is it besieged by the pro-imperialist right and repressed?
Secondly, the problem is strategic and has to do with the control of oil, not by chance, the Middle East is a powder keg bursting every day more than 60 years ago, and Venezuela is in that team that make up OPEC.
Many are interested in devaluing the role of OPEC, although it is very diminished, the countries that comprise it supply a third of the world production, which is exported, this is key, all the countries with the highest energy consumption, such as the US - far from being self-sufficient -, Europe and Japan depend on the "humor" of the OPEC, there are as main producers the Arab monarchy and Iran that together with other non-OPEC such as Russia, agree export volumes. Venezuela, despite the dilapidated state of PDVSA, is a very important exporter for the refineries of the US coast in the Gulf of Mexico.
Another point is the following, in madurism or the Maduro government,
there are all those who were in Chavismo, with the exception of Chávez,
obviously, and it is to lose time to speculate that he would have done today,
as he would have responded, the electoral advantage It was used by both Chavez
and Maduro, the difference was that with the wind in favor and is with the wind
against, although it must be noted that the legacy of Chavez, was the real
basis, which led to this situation. Maduro's personal characteristics or
abilities weigh, it is true, but structurally the country did not change with
respect to the time of Chavez or even before that era, that of the fixed-point
pact regime, which was to squander the oil rent , that is the essential
characteristic of this country, for 100 years and for Chavismo for 19 years.
On the side of the Left, it has never proposed an alternative program to
these traditional and parasitic relations of production. Stalinism, already
with 86 years of existence, survives by fully supporting the Maduro government,
until its electoral slips do not pose anything alternative, just locate in a
seat and continue to support. The PPT, does the corresponding in the same
sense, the pursuit of chavismo essentially. Now both are stripping the daisy,
to determine if they support Maduro's reelection.
Opción Obrera, has made a thorough critique of the political line of the
PCV (4),
in turn when the opportunity has been given has also participated in meetings
where militant unions and sometimes members of the PCV are represented, to give
specific and unitary responses proposing and presenting proposals concrete
class and independent government tutelage. It participated and continues to do
so, with the small union federation Fusbec of Carabobo state, where an
important national struggle activity of the workers of the Barrio Adentro
Mission and in Aragua is spread in a fight platform divided in May of the
autonomous proposals regarding government institutions. The PSL and Marea
Socialista do not propose anything alternative to critical chavismo or to the
right itself.
Some additional element to be specified
The left
One part of the left, uses arguments supporting Maduro under a
"logic of the lesser evil" the other part, just as harmful, product
of the despair of not having achieved something within Chavism, coexist with
the right traditional. Both as well as disorienting, they are liquidators for
any movement that begins its rupture with nationalism. All Trotskyism morenismo
of Venezuela or from the English current of the
Grant, are immersed in this dilemma.
What is the correct, revolutionary position? word so expensive to
chavismo.
First we have to define Chavism, and then clearly delimit it.
The parties and their governments, from January 1958 to December 1998,
after the fall of the Perez Jimenez dictatorship, could not continue to create
false expectations for Venezuelans, and as a result of the discontent, the 1989
social explosion took place. Exhaustion of the parties in power, without an
alternative offered by the left, was picked up by an insurgent sector of the
army that revolted in 1992, and years later, in the elections of December 1998
led, by discarding, a military to the government. The left had burned its
cartridges in the last government of Rafael Caldera, 94-98, then followed his
performance, of follow-up to the new government, to Chavez.
Chavismo
Arriving at the government in 1999, through elections, at the outset
demonstrates its previous commitment, approved, to exercise power within the
bourgeois democratic commitment, a few months after the new constitution
endorses it, nothing happens. Then in 2002, after 3 years in the government, he
was forced to put his hands to the direction of the oil industry, so he was
overthrown, saved by the masses and restored to power, but again insisted on
accepting the rules of the economic interests of the empire, restitution of the
old directive of PDVSA and amnesty to the coup plotters. This radicalized, all
within the bourgeois framework, the struggle for the administration of the oil
rent, between a nationalist and pro-imperialist attempt, the nationalist
attempt, inaugurated a label Socialism of the 21st century (2005) , where it was specified that his way of being
expressed a peaceful revolution, what is a contradiction of terms
Chavismo, when
the previous regime called Punto Fijo pact failed, had its birth as an attempt
to continue taking advantage of the oil rent, without investing in production
in Venezuela, through a Bonapartist regime, whose function is to arbitrate
between the classes, without endangering class domination. Arbitrating between
social classes, implied being repudiated by rancid sectors of the Venezuelan
parasite bourgeoisie and its foreign partners, which does not prevent to
continue united by a thousand bonds with the mechanisms of domination of the
imperialist financial capital and its Creole partners, is also indispensable to
be able arbitrate having to be supported by the army.
This nationalism
is populist, patriotic, which hides defining the class that favors
strategically in its relations of production, aims to level the political
imbalance of the previous regime and to that end, took progressive measures to
a certain limit to stabilize the bourgeois order(5).
Chavismo
became the most important movement of mass mobilization in Latin America,
because of its quantity, its duration, and and for what
it achieved, as a result of the high foreign concurrency income to the
country, all this did not go beyond welfare. Despite his blunders, it was
deposed and reinstated by a popular insurgency in April 2002, saved by the
workers' control in particular of the oil industry after the oil lockout of
December 2002-February 2003, ratified after a constitutional recall referendum
( 2004), requested through a falsified convocation, by the right-wing coup
leaders not punished for this.
It is
important to note that after the bosses' defeat during the lockout, the gangster
union bureaucracy, armed bands, totally undemocratic was displaced, where,
however, important milestones were won with the struggles of the workers
'movement, despite the fact that the government built another trade union
center to regiment the workers' movement.
With unbeatable
material conditions to govern, with a parliament totally to its whims, in the
course of 2005 to 2012 a huge oil rent was squandered, with an economic policy
of transferring most of those immense resources to foreign and national
capitals , in that order, banking, the financial sector month after month was
boosting its profits extraordinarily.
Until the start of 2008 - the collapse of
foreign exchange earnings, due to low prices of crude oil exports, as a result
of a recession in the main consumer countries. They had all the best conditions
for the impulse of the country, they squandered it and they ran out.
The paralysis
of the economy
Maduro has
said that 70000 million dollars of debt has been paid, with that amount plus
the dollars granted by Cadivi and Cencoex since 2004, the best industrial park
in Latin America would have been built next to a vast integral agrarian reform.
Now we are in
a paralysis of the economy, where it is not intended to leave the cause that
produced it, only resort to warm cloths to lighten the fever. On the part of
the government, they only take pains to look for how to obtain dollars to
continue in the same. From the private sector, the industrial sectors became
the best importing merchants, through the acquisition of preferential dollars,
provided by the welfare state and it is enough to hear Lorenzo Mendoza to
realize that his actions are to continue demanding dollars from the welfare
state in order to continue producing, more parasite can not be this national
bourgeoisie.
The production when it is not zero is very low in all public and private companies, the heavy industry of Guayana, the oil industry, all sectors of manufacturing, metalworking, plastics, chemicals, auto parts, tires, household appliances, in addition to confiscation of the money of the Venezuelans on the part of the banks, promoted by the BCV.
Bringing
stones from the outside to dollars almost given away, does not have to do with
the priority of importing the indispensable ones to start up the industry, if
the private industry it requires some input or spare part to operate, what is
strictly necessary in quality and quantity, the state can acquire it without
continuing to grant dollars and deliver it to the company, which pays it in
bolivars.
The current
extreme and fragile situation, which during all 2017, with attempts of fascist
outbreaks, sieges to institutions of the state and the government, now passes
in 2018 due to hunger, scarcity, inflation, unemployment to generate popular
breakthroughs genuine not promoted by the “guarimberos”, which has not been
generalized yet, indicates the degree of contention that the government still
exercises in the most oppressed sectors
The default is
a time bomb for the Venezuelan financial system, its Venezuelan banking system
and with it of course the economy, the debt of sovereign bonds and PDVSA are a
heavy burden that cannot be overcome. Throughout 2018, the BCV and the
government will continue to reduce real public spending, not nominal, tied to
an insurmountable obstacle, the lack of production and the absence of foreign
currency, to achieve the surplus that guarantees the payment of the debt.
This will have
as a consequence an impetuous increase in unemployment, wages of misery and a
huge growth of extreme poverty(6).
The
alternative
The defeats
and learnings are in the real mobilizations and struggles, which are carried
out even in desperate Chavistas bases
before the decrease of social spending along with a speculative trade that the
government allows and in passing adds increases in services and products that
they produce. So not everything is imputed to the empire and the Venezuelan
right.
The survival of
this government is not based today on broad popular support, but still large
sectors resist and defend their modest employment, such as teaching above all
at the university level and humanistic careers that although not well oriented,
is not what promotes the traditional right, in addition a sector especially of
adults who before did not have access to the study, the representatives of the
cultural sector, that although quite declined, was promoted by the government,
farmers with lands granted, public employees, pensioners for their growth and
their miserable but real amount, not as previously they died waiting for the
pension.
Those of the empire are aware of the
monumental development of the misgovernment that exists in the Venezuelan
economy, the mechanisms of surveillance and coercion of status are losing
control over very impoverished, unemployed sectors, in particular rural and
anarchic urban areas adjacent to the roads where they move the transport of
food that is being assaulted, and they know that the government's handouts to
contain them are not enough.
The MUD,
demonstrates its incompetence as an alternative, then the empire has no choice
but to bend the government, pushing it to put it on its knees and reach to an
agreement to leave the crisis to their benefit, especially in the control of
oil. The government also knows that it cannot leave the quagmire alone, and
also requires an agreement with private capital but does not accept to deliver
everything they ask, eliminate the ANC, recognize the AN, legal update of
political parties, privatizations, greater economic cuts in conclusion there is
a whole impasse.
What the US
and capital fear is an uprising out of control of the mass movement, the
confrontation with the workers and the people with limited resources, is what
is expected.
As long as the
fighters and the working class do not take the lead and do not take action to
solve your needs, disasters will follow. There is still a fragile balance
between a weak and erratic government and opposition from the unpopular right,
which aspires to become a government. But even an electoral victory in the MUD
or in a sector of it in the current conditions of the crisis can become the
beginning of its end by not being able to resolve the situation.
The general
political problem facing the ruling class is the situation of ruin economic the
current crisis of power accelerates towards a social explosion, which will
generate a total crisis of governability, and our only way is only on new
socialist bases, to overcome the structural deficiencies of capitalism in
Venezuela, which exploded with the world in crisis.
it is not
limited to nationalists, the even greater problem is the "left" with
a general and historical disorientation, with immersed proposals that are a
mixture of tactics and rhetoric within capitalism, an absence of class work in
the unions and in the communities, which lack of revolutionary objectives end
in empty formalities that aggravate the confusion among the masses
All the above
facts, on the one hand, intensify the capitalist character of the Venezuelan
economy and its ties of preference with transnational financial capital. We
have to prepare ourselves, we have precious time to guide the action of the
looming movement.
The economic
crisis is associated with the political crisis on a national and Latin American
scale.
The bourgeois economic "science"
with its advisers and think tanks are frankly bankrupt. Through both liberal
and nationalist governments, not only led to this economic and social crisis
but now are totally unable to develop a strategy to get out of it, do not have
a capitalist economic alternative to get out of the crisis the Keynesian and
neoliberal recipes they have failed, they have nothing new and it is reflected
in the political sphere as a process of total exhaustion
The bipartisan
adeco-copeyano political system collapsed in 1998 and the PSUV-MUD controversy
is intended to become a polarization that is not stable and less durable. On
this basis, discuss and decide a common plan throughout the country, direct
action on the main social problems.
The key
elements of a revolutionary strategic orientation are summarized as follows:
Venezuela for
historical structural reasons(7), is the weakest link in Latin America, prone
to bursting under the crushing weight of the world capitalist crisis, therefore
cannot be restored in the same social bases The exit must be revolutionary or
it will not be. Immediately required, nationalization of banking and foreign
trade and all strategic sectors under workers' control, the elimination of
payment of debt, no compensation to thief capitalists, reorganization of the
economy according to social needs without bosses capitalists or bureaucrats.
General increase of wages to cover the basic family basket.
The endless
horror must and may end in the outbreak of a social revolution and its triumph,
the work force can realize the socialist reconstruction within a state of the
Commune type and the councils revolutionaries of workers that can only be achieved
with a Workers' Government
Someone said
that internationalism is not a political principle but the subjective
reflection of the objective course of economic history. Venezuela will give to
empire a lot of problem and the solidarity activity of denunciation against
economic sanctions is fundamental for the Latin American working class to feel
protagonist of its role as a revolutionary class.
José Capitán
