After the presidential elections of last July 28, the Venezuelan situation has been in the spotlight of the world press. Nicolás Maduro declared himself the winner against Edmundo González, candidate of the right-wing bourgeois opposition, after evident fraud in which the regime could not even make public the minutes of the polling stations.
By Alejandro Iturbe
From the following day, “the youth and the population of the popular Venezuelan neighborhoods took to the streets of Caracas and several cities of the country, to show their indignation for the fraud in the presidential elections that keeps the dictator Nicolás Maduro in government. The response of the dictatorship was a brutal repression against the unarmed youth: so far 11 dead, dozens wounded, several disappeared and a hundred imprisoned”[1].
Faced with this situation, workers all over the world have been bombarded by different analyses and positions in the media. Two of these positions appear clearly at odds and have polarized the debate. One is presented by various Latin American bourgeois governments (especially those of the right and far right, such as that of Javier Milei in Argentina) and various governments of imperialist powers.
According to this position, what is happening today in Venezuela (both the electoral fraud and the absence of democratic freedoms as well as the deterioration of the economic-social situation of the masses that has led millions of Venezuelans to emigrate to other countries) is the result of the existence in the country of a “socialist dictatorship” since Hugo Chávez took power at the end of the 20th century. In other words, “socialism” would be the source of all of Venezuela’s ills.
On the other pole, there are those who affirm that, in Venezuela, the process headed by Hugo Chávez and continued by Nicolás Maduro is revolutionary and of socialist content. So, what we see today in Venezuela is the defense of the “Bolivarian revolution” against those who want to liquidate it. This is the position put forward by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, one of the most solid international backers of Nicolás Maduro[2].
Although it may seem contradictory, both positions have a common basis: Venezuela is “socialist”. For the bourgeois right wing, this is the source of all evils. For Díaz-Canel’s position, it is what must be defended at any cost.
Chavez’s Venezuela
Let us begin with this debate. From the very beginning of the Chavez regime, the IWL maintained that the process headed by Hugo Chavez had nothing socialist in it, nor even the pretensions of advancing in that direction. We did so even in the period of greatest prestige of Chavism and when a great part of the world left adhered to his proposal of Socialism of for the 21st Century. On the contrary, we maintained that it was a question of who had access to power within a sector of the leadership of the bourgeois Armed Forces that aspired to retain a greater portion of the country’s oil income (the main source of resources) but without changing anything in the structure of the country as a capitalist dependent on U.S. imperialism[3].
For several years, Venezuela received billions of dollars from oil exports. Thanks to that money, the Chavista cadres (especially the high military commanders) accumulated great fortunes and became the so-called “Bolibourgeoisie”. Its best known exponent is Diosdao Cabello, owner of the second largest business group in the country, with banks, industry and service companies in Venezuela and also with numerous properties abroad.
Chavismo did not seriously fight the old Venezuelan bourgeoisie either. After the latter tried to overthrow him with the coup of 2002 and the bosses’ lockout of 2003 (defeated by the action of the workers and the masses) he made a big agreement with the Polar-Mendoza business group (the biggest in the country).
Finally, his proclaimed anti-imperialism was more in words than in deeds. He punctiliously paid the country’s foreign debt (sometimes in advance) and handed over large areas of oil exploitation to multinationals, such as the U.S. Exxon. Finally, already in 2016, with Maduro, the government announced the Orinoco Mining Arc plan, which gives to multinationals 12% of the country’s territory, rich in gold, diamonds, iron and other minerals, in addition to oil (in this case, in addition to U.S. and Canadian companies, Chinese companies also entered the business).
In the case of the Orinoco Oil Belt (FPO), the entry of Chinese capital took place through joint ventures between Chinese companies and PDVSA, which began to carry out hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation activities. The Chinese company National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), for example, has exploited Block Junín 4 and Block Junín 10 through the joint venture Petrourica. Additionally, in 2008, CNPC, together with PDVSA, established the company Petrosinovensa, to carry out exploration and production activities in the Carabobo area. In 2013 SINOPEC agreed with PDVSA investments for the exploitation of the Junín 1 oil field for US$ 14 billion. Another company with investments in this region is China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).
The few nationalizations that took place, such as that of the telephone company CANTV, in 2008, were carried out with a normal capitalist method: buying its shares at stock market value.
The oil bonanza allowed Chávez to allocate part of the income remaining in the country to give some concessions to the masses, especially through the so called “missions” with medical services, education and food aid. They meant a benefit for the masses but have nothing to do with “socialism”. They are “compensatory policies” applied in many capitalist countries, such as in Brazil with the Bolsa Familia. But it was these policies that gave Chavismo a mass social base and, for several years, a broad electoral majority.
At the same time, the wage situation and working conditions of the workers remained the same as before Chavismo. The regime built and integrated within itself a bureaucratic union structure of iron control of the masses. When there were important workers’ struggles, it repressed them harshly, as happened with the workers of Sanitarios Maracay in 2007.
Maduro’s bonanza is over
In 2013, when Nicolás Maduro succeeded Hugo Chávez, the “oil bonanza” was over and the income of dollars into the country was decreasing. In this context, Chavism acted like all bourgeois regimes: with increasingly harsh attacks on the living standards of the masses. The missions were weakened to the extreme or disappeared, the wages of Venezuelan workers became the lowest in the world, and poverty, indigence and hunger grew permanently.
The most acute expression of this terrible situation of the masses was that more than 7,000,000 Venezuelans had to emigrate (especially to work in other Latin American countries) in order to survive and/or help their families who remained in the country[4] (a number that in other countries has only occurred in situations of war or terrible natural catastrophes).
For their part, the Bolivarian bourgeoisie and the top Chavista cadres obscenely exhibited their wealth with imported cars, luxurious residences, pleasure trips abroad and properties in other countries, as we have seen with Diosdado Cabello.
At the same time, the surrender of the country to capitalism deepened. On the one hand, with the Arco del Orinoco and the FPO, which we have already referred to. On the other hand, he began to privatize the few foreign companies he had nationalized[5].
Chavism had lost any progressive trait it might have had in its heyday, the workers and the masses broke massively with it, began to hate it and to fight against Maduro, with all of their righteousness. His base of popular support was reduced to the extreme.
Then, he had to use very harsh repression against the masses (on the part of the Armed Forces or armed groups) and to electoral fraud that became more and more evident in order to stay in power. That is why, as expressed in the statement of the UST (Venezuelan section of the IWL): “We are categorical in affirming that the government of Nicolás Maduro is a capitalist, corrupt, starvation and repressive dictatorship…”. For those of us who defend the interests of the working class, there is no other way to characterize the Chavista regime today.
A political crime
This harsh reality is what explains why the old Venezuelan bourgeoisie and its political expressions, which in 2002-2003 were totally defeated and hated by the masses, have been able to recover their popular influence and, unfortunately, today appear as the only possible alternative to get rid of the Chavist regime. Chavism itself is mainly responsible for this.
Here it is necessary to add another factor: in the best years of Chavism, the vast majority of the Venezuelan left organizations “bought” the false story of the Socialism for the 21st Century, integrated into the political apparatus of the PSUV or supported it uncritically. An important part of the international left also aligned itself in favor of Chavism. In this way, they prevented the construction in Venezuela of a truly revolutionary and socialist political organization that could present itself as an alternative for the workers and the masses that were beginning to break with Chavism.
If in the epochs of the rise of Chavismo this policy was wrong, to continue defending it now with Nicolás Maduro, and identifying it as “socialist”, is a serious political crime. Because any worker who looks at the Venezuelan reality says: “if this is socialism, it is not what I want. I prefer capitalism which also starves you but at least gives some democracy”.
It is a political crime that dirties the true socialist and revolutionary proposal in the eyes of the workers and the masses, and pushes them into the arms of imperialism, the bourgeois right and even the far right, like Bolsonaro or Milei, who, together with their discourse against “socialism” and “communism” have the luxury of hypocritically presenting themselves as “democratic” in the face of the Chavista dictatorship.
Some final considerations
The Venezuelan reality with Maduro is so unpleasant that some very influential figures in Latin American politics, such as Brazil’s Lula or Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner, who used to defend Chavism and Nicolás Maduro, have now distanced themselves and are calling for “electoral transparency”[6]. At the same time, this distancing brings the position of these leaders closer to those of U.S. and European imperialism.
The IWL also states that in Venezuela it is necessary to fight for truly democratic elections. But, at the same time, we affirm that to achieve them, “it is necessary to unify, deepen and strengthen independently the mobilizations until the dictatorship is defeated” and that, therefore, “it is pertinent to discuss democratically, in the popular sectors and in the workplaces the actions to be taken to give continuity to the process of confronting the dictatorship, to maintain the street mobilizations and build a general strike to overthrow the dictatorship”.
Precisely that is what the Venezuelan bourgeois opposition, U.S. and European imperialism, the Pope and figures like Lula or Cristina Kirchner most want to avoid. That is to say, they want to avoid at all costs that the departure of Maduro and the end of the Chavist dictatorship are the result of the revolutionary action of the masses.
They believe that any transition that takes place should occur through a negotiated exit with the regime or, in any case, through a fracture of the FFFA and a coup. Nicolás Maduro has already denied any possibility of negotiation and, at the same time, the leadership of the FFAA firmly maintains itself as a central part of the regime, in defense of its business and its enrichment.
Revolutionary action by the workers and the masses is the only possible way to get rid of the Chavista dictatorship. We do not believe that this can be achieved through an “electoral path”. Nor through negotiations with the Chavista dictatorship or U.S. imperialism. We propose the independent mobilization of the masses, outside the frameworks of the right-wing bourgeois opposition. The IWL and its Venezuelan section promote the broadest unity of action with all those who share this proposal of struggle against the dictatorship. At the same time, in the framework of this common struggle, we find it necessary to make an overall assessment of the whole Chávez process and how its bourgeois character led in germ, from its beginning, to this present capitalist dictatorship. The struggle against dictatorship must be part of the road in the strategy of a true socialist revolution. That is why, on that road, it is necessary to advance in the construction of a revolutionary organization of the workers ready to take it to the end.
Sources:
[1] https://litci.org/es/no-al-fraude-electoral-abajo-la-dictadura-de-maduro-todo-el-apoyo-a-las-movilizaciones/
[2] Díaz-Canel gives his “unwavering support” to the revolution in Venezuela (efe.com)
[3] See for example, the selection of materials from the book “Venezuela despúes de Chávez: un balance necesario” published by Editorial Sundermann (Brazil, 2015) and the magazine Correo Internacional Nro. 18 (2017) at https://litci.org/es/correo-internacional-18-maduro/
[4] https://www.acnur.org/emergencias/situacion-de-venezuela#:~:text=M%C3%A1s%20de%207%2C7%20millones,Am%C3%A9rica%20Latina%20y%20el%20Caribe.
[5] Maduro’s government advances in the process of reprivatization and surrender of the country’s resources – International Workers League (litci.org).
[6] The division of the Latin American left after the Venezuelan elections: who recognizes Maduro as the winner and who does not (cnn.com).
