{"id":11921,"date":"2019-03-27T21:50:06","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T21:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/?p=11921"},"modified":"2019-03-27T21:50:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T21:50:06","slug":"neither-maduro-nor-guaido-for-a-workers-and-poor-peoples-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/neither-maduro-nor-guaido-for-a-workers-and-poor-peoples-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Neither Maduro Nor Guaid\u00f3! For A Workers And Poor People\u2019s Government!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is necessary to build a working class political alternative. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

During 2018 second half, the country became the stage of the beginning of a rising of workers’ struggles, mainly public sector and State-owned companies, which were joined by retired workers associations.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Leonardo Arantes, from Socialist Workers Unity (Venezuela)<\/em><\/p>\n

The May 20 rigged presidential elections high abstention was the result of people\u2019s dissatisfaction. The current workers\u2019 struggles uprising was triggered by President Maduro \u201cEconomic Recovery Plan\u201d.<\/p>\n

This Economic Plan is meant to place the burden of the economic crisis on the shoulders of the working people. Public and private sectors labor contracts are targeted together with new decreased wage levels throughout public sector.<\/p>\n

This uprising led to the founding of the \u201cIntersetorial de Trabajadores de Venezuela\u201d (ITV – Venezuela\u2019s Workers\u2019 Labor Alliance) on November 7-8, 2018 and other labor alliances across the nation.<\/p>\n

This labor uprising continued in 2019. There is a growing general feeling among the working classes that Maduro leaving power is the only solution for the Venezuelan crisis. On top of a deep rupture with Maduro\u2019s administration, there is a lot of distrust in the bourgeoise opposition primarily represented by the \u201cFrente Amplio Venezuela Libre\u201d (Free Venezuela Broad Front) plagued by internal conflicts.<\/p>\n

The bourgeois opposition plays on the masses\u2019 dissatisfaction<\/strong><\/p>\n

The bourgeois opposition works with imperialism to take advantage of the growing dissatisfaction among the workers and the people whose struggles grow and radicalize amid media silence and selective repression against labor leaders and activists.<\/p>\n

On Maduro\u2019s inauguration the U.S. imperialism and the Latin American rightwing administrations declared his mandate illegitimate.<\/p>\n

Then the National Assembly which the bourgeois opposition makes the majority and Juan Guaid\u00f3 presides, declared Maduro administration illegitimate and called a demonstration for January 23, 2019 when Guaid\u00f3 self-proclaimed himself president, under imperialism\u2019s instructions, being immediately recognized by the US administration, by Latin American semi colonial countries\u2019 rightwing governments and by the imperialist European Union (EU) countries.<\/p>\n

The enormous repudiation of Maduro’s government, responsible for the worst inflation ever lived in the country and the greatest crisis it has experienced in its recent history, coupled with the absence of a political alternative for workers, led to the bourgeois opposition\u2019s \u00a0actions being seen with sympathy for the majority of workers and the population as a whole and to a considerable recovery of the bourgeois opposition prestige and unity around Guaid\u00f3.<\/p>\n

A sector of the ITV capitulates to Guaid\u00f3<\/strong><\/p>\n

As expected, these political events were reflected in the the workers\u2019 struggles which led a majority of ITV labor unions and leaders to take a stand in favor of Guaid\u00f3 and to call the workers to give him political support, as well as to stand in favor of the “humanitarian aid” offered by imperialism and the continental rightwing.<\/p>\n

This political support for the pro-bourgeois and pro-imperialist leader Guaid\u00f3 materialized in the meeting held with this group of leaders of the ITV, in which Guaid\u00f3 ended up presenting himself as the convenor of the calls for partial stoppages in the public sector, a policy that had been passed by ITV general meeting on February 26, 2019.<\/p>\n

The Socialist Workers Unity (UST) opposes the dictatorial regime of Maduro and raises and takes action under the slogan of Out Maduro<\/strong>. Nevertheless, we consider these ITV leaders\u2019 stand a full capitulation to U.S. and bosses backed Guaid\u00f3.<\/p>\n

An eventual Guaid\u00f3 administration will only deepen the austerity adjustments Maduro is already applying against the workers and the poor people of Venezuela, accelerating the backlash against labor, social and democratic rights, the oil and minerals\u2019 hand over, the tremendous payments of the foreign debt for the benefit of the bankers and transnational capitalists, at the cost of great sacrifices for the workers, and subjecting the country even more to the yoke of external indebtedness by contracting new debts in draconian conditions.<\/p>\n

All that we say here is based on Guaid\u00f3 public program called \u201cPlan Pa\u00eds\u201d (National Plan).<\/p>\n

We consider Guaid\u00f3\u2019s stand for partial stoppages among public employees mere demagoguery to capitalize workers\u2019 dissatisfaction. Pro-Guaid\u00f3 ITV leaders should be asked whether Guaid\u00f3 would support private sector workers\u2019 demands on Polar business group or Nestle for wage increases, defense of their union organizations and fulfillment of their contracts.<\/p>\n

The need to build a workers\u2019 alternative for Maduro Out! Neither Maduro nor Guaid\u00f3!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Socialist Workers\u2019 Unity (UST) understands the hopes (although we do not share them) that many base workers and humble inhabitants of the country place on Guaid\u00f3 or on any leader coming from bourgeois opposition parties, who postulate themselves as an alternative to Maduro.<\/p>\n

That is easy to understand, based on the fact that the Maduro government directly kills people of hunger and lack of medicines, keeps the country plunged into a never seen deterioration of hospital and educational services, destroys public universities, prices of basic products rising to the clouds and hunger and misery strolling through the streets of the main cities of the country.<\/p>\n

All this combined with the most brutal destruction of the public transport service, the divestment and destruction of the national electricity system, which recently led to the biggest blackout that has taken place in the country and in Latin America, seeing the Venezuelans subjected to five days without electricity which led to failures in the water service and telecommunications, which are also in dire conditions.<\/p>\n

That’s why we agree with these colleagues when they say that Maduro has to leave. We insist on affirming \u201cMaduro Out Now\u201d and taking action accordingly. But from our point of view this cannot mean supporting Guaid\u00f3, nor the political initiatives of imperialism, even less an eventual or possible foreign military intervention.<\/p>\n

For this reason we want to start a dialogue with these sisters and brothers for building as soon as possible a political alternative of the workers and the poor, which is proposed as an alternative to achieve a workers government that adopts a program that starts from the most felt needs of the working class, as the only solution to the crisis for the benefit of the workers and the poor people of the country.<\/p>\n

ITV must organize the struggle against the Maduro dictatorship under a workers\u2019 program to get out of the crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n

We agree with pro-Guaid\u00f3 ITV leaders on the need to topple Maduro but we disagree on giving any kind of support for Guaid\u00f3, who is a lackey of imperialism, a puppet of Venezuelan top capitalists and who offered an amnesty to the corrupt Bolivarian bourgeoisie that emerged along 20 years of Chavist-rule.<\/p>\n

We stand for an ITV that fights for both labor demands and to topple Maduro, that opposes both Maduro and Guaid\u00f3, and that stands for a workers\u2019 government calling mass meetings in workplaces and unions to democratically discuss and organize the plans for that struggle. That is a stand for an independent workers\u2019 political alternative for the workers based on a working-class program.<\/p>\n

At this moment this program must start from \u201cFUERA MADURO YA\u201d (Maduro Out Now), no confidence in imperialism and its lackey Guaid\u00f3. Neither Maduro nor Guaid\u00f3.<\/p>\n