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Debates in the left

On the proposal of "Socialism for the XXIst Century"

Comité Coordinador UIT-CI/CEI, 22 March 2013




Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez
has died. In this situation we reiterate, as
expressed by our sister organization the
Socialism and Freedom Party (PSL) of
Venezuela, that we accompany the pain
of the Venezuelan people and express our
solidarity with his family and with the
population. And flatly reject the positions
taken by the MUD, the political opposition
of the old pro-US Venezuelan bourgeoisie,
who used the painful illness of Chavez for
questioning the legitimacy of the
government of the PSUV, posing as
“democratic” when they were the
drivers, along with the U.S., of the failed
coup of April 2002.

Yet his death does not extinguish one
of the most debated topics in the world
left: what is the reality of the proclaimed
socialism for the XXI century? It is true
that the policies of Chavez and other Latin
American presidents move us towards
socialism?We disagree with this vision,
because what is at stake in Venezuela
are the unsolved problems of the workers
and the people and the PSUV
government’s policy, before with Chavez
or now with Maduro and the so called
Socialism for the XXI Century, do not
actually show to be a substantive solution
for the working people.

We know that in Venezuela a majority
of the people continues to rely on
Chavez’s project. . We also know that
thousands of fighters in the world have
the expectation that progress is being
made in Venezuela toward socialism.
Together with our comrades from the
PSL, we are of those who clearly say that
we do not share these expectations since
the project of Socialism for the XXI Century
is a farce. Behind the “anti-capitalist and
anti-imperialist” speeches of Chavez,
Maduro and other leaders of the PSUV,
there is a political pact with oil
multinationals, the bankers and an attack
to the living standards of workers and
popular sectors. This is the debate we
want to do with the labour, youth and
popular vanguard of Venezuela and the
world.

Latin America, a continent of labour
and popular struggles

Venezuela is part of a Latin America
crisscrossed by a growth of social conflicts
(strikes, indigenous-peasant and student
demonstrations) and the political erosion
of governments, mostly of populist or centre-
left ilk. They are the governments
which, just like Chavez, came to power
with the support and hope of millions that
they would produce a fundamental
change in their countries. We’re talking
about governments such as Evo Morales
in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador, Lula-Dilma-
PT in Brazil, Mujica (Frente Amplio) in Uruguay,
the Kirchners (Peronist) in Argentina,
Humala in Peru, and Lugo in Paraguay,
Daniel Ortega (FSLN) in Nicaragua
or Mauricio Funes (FMLN) of El Salvador.
But reality has been showing that all
of them, beyond a partial and limited
confrontation with imperialist sectors, and
in different ways, applied adjustment
policies to those in the lowest sectors,
ruling in favour of the rich, multinational
corporations and big business,
maintaining the same capitalist
structures of their countries. That’s why
2012 has been a year plagued by large
labour and popular struggles.

In Bolivia, Evo Morales, Chavez’s
main ally, took up office promising
the “Andean socialism” and that he
would consult his indigenouspeasant
grassroots. However, in the
last two years he has been showing
his true face as a conciliator with
landowners and mining and
hydrocarbon multinationals. In late
2010, for example, he wanted to
impose a “gasolinazo” (increase of
100% in the price of gasoline), which
was required by the transnationals.
This caused a popular revolt that
forced the government to retreat. In
2011 he would impose the
construction of a road in the Tipnis,
agreed with Petrobras, Total and
Repsol for oil exploration without
consulting the thousands of Indians
who live there. This provoked another
major indigenous mobilization which
suffered brutal repression. The COB
made several strikes over wages.
Brazil, governed by the PT in
partnership with bosses parties
(PMDB), first by Lula and now by
Dilma, has experienced a wave of
strikes from 2011, showing the great
popular dissatisfaction with the fall in
living standards. It began in 2011
with the strike of civil construction
workers and continued in 2011-12
with strikes by fire fighters for salary
in Rio, the civil and military police,
bus drivers, railway workers,
metallurgy of Niteroi, teachers and
two-month long strike by civil
servants.

In Argentina, the Peronist
government of Cristina Kirchner
suffered in 2012 the first general
strike after 10 years, called by the
CGT and the CTA who broke with
the government. In Peru of the
“nationalist” Humala, there was a
great strike which covered 350,000
teachers and miners and indigenous
peoples staged major clashes, with
dozens killed by repression. Correa’s
government has also been faced
with the indigenous people. To these
examples, we must add the
massive mobilization of students in
Chile, the struggle of the judicial and
university workers of Colombia or the
triumphant popular rebellion of the
people of Colon in Panama.
However, Chavez sought to play
a role alongside Lula’s Brazil, a regional
power, using energy
resources to establish relations of
subordination and dependence of
different countries. This was reflected
in the impetus given to ALBA
[Spanish acronym for the Bolivarian
Alliance for the Peoples of Our
America] against FTAA [Free Trade
Area of the Americas]. But where
Chavez’s role as guarantor of order
was most evident was in the
surrender of social activist linked to
FARC Pérez Becerra, joining thus the
repressive policies and of counterinsurgency
of imperialism, so well
applied in Colombia by both Uribe
and Santos.

Venezuela is not marching
towards any socialism

Social unrest is also reflected in
Venezuela. According to the report
“Social Conflict in Venezuela 2012”,
the Venezuelan Observatory of Social
Conflict (OVCS), protests
increased 3% compared to 2011,
leading for the study period, to a record
of at least 5483 protests. Labour
protests were 2256 (41.15%) and for
decent housing 1874 (34.17%).

This reality, often unknown outside
of Venezuela, shows that, after 14
years of Hugo Chavez government,
the problems of the workers and the
people have not had fundamental
solutions. Just as there has been no
solution either to the persecution and
murder of union leaders and activists
and peasants by “hired hit men”
agents of enterprises and the capital,
who protected by the impunity
of the Chavez regime, have killed
more than 200 leaders, mostly
peasants and native Indians as well
as workers during the years of the
Chavez government. A fact that has
had wide impact and caused wear
of Chavism was that, one day before
his death, Yukpa chief Sabino Romero,
who had been receiving threats
for some time, was killed.
Chávez’s re-election in October last
year shows that even millions of
people still have hopes that the
repeated broken promises of the
PSUV government be finally met.
Many workers and popular sectors,
with many doubts and less
expectation, gave their votes to
reject the political right and the old
bourgeoisie politicians, now recycled
in the MUD, which led the country
to disaster, culminating in the 1989
“Caracazo.” But regrettably the
PSUV government, neither with
Chavez alive nor without him now,
will not answer to this legitimate hope
because Chavez’s assertion that
“we are making a socialist revolution”
is false. We know that both in Venezuela
and in the world, many honest
anti-imperialist and leftist fighters
believe that Chavez, joined to Cuba,
is driving “Socialism for the XXI
Century”. But the truth is different and
it is necessary to elucidate this debate
because at stake is that both
the struggle of the Venezuelan people
and the peoples of Latin America and
the world do not end in a new
frustration.

For revolutionary socialists there
can be neither socialism nor antiimperialism
when Venezuelan oil, the
main source of income in the
Caribbean country, is shared with
multinationals. Chavism beats its
chest with “oil sovereignty” but turned
PDVSA in a joint venture with the oil
companies like Chevron, Total,
Mitsubishi, Repsol, Petrobras, Lukoi
and Norwegian or Chinese
companies. Moreover, in the top 10
companies in the country, five are
banks and insurers and 4 are
transnational: Movistar, Prock
Gouble, General Motors and Coca
Cola (Data in Ultimas Noticias, 25/
10/12).

In addition the [Venezuelan] Banks
Superintendency at the close of
November showed that banking
profits increased by 93% compared
to January-November period of
2012. Year after year, the financial
sector profits continue to grow, in a
country where the minimum wage
is far below the amount of the basic
food basket.

So the redistribution of wealth has
been in the opposite direction to what
Chavism advertises. The hefty oil
revenues allowed funding of social
programs which played a positive role
in the early years of the government,
but they are now insufficient and the
lion’s share of oil revenues has gone
to the pockets of domestic and
foreign businessmen and bankers. In
1998 the wage sector was involved
in 39.7% of the wealth created while
employers appropriated 36.2%. In
2008, as the salaried sector received
32.8% of the value created, while
the bosses went to 48.8%.

The expropriations of some
companies have favorably
impacted, outside Venezuela,
thousands of workers and social
activists. But in reality such
expropriations have not had anything
favorable to the workers or the
country. In all expropriations strong
compensation was paid and there
was no democratic workers control.
In the former CEMEX, a large
cement factory, the workers
enterprise agreement has not been
respected and the sale of cement is
under scrutiny for overcharges and
corrupt dealings of government
officials. In Orinoco Iron, formerly
TAVSA, expropriated in 2009, the
labour contract expired two years
ago. Such is the situation that now,
regrettably, many workers fear or
reject the possibility of expropriation.
As was the case of Polar company,
that under the threat of expropriation,
the workers mobilized against it.

So the reality of the Chavez
government is that, under a
“socialist” discourse, the working
people are “adjusted” and none of
the underlying problems are solved.
Already under the new mandate of
Chavez, with Maduro exercising the
Presidency, there was a brutal
devaluation of 46.5% accompanied
by the announcement that
employers should only sell to the
State 60% of the foreign exchange
earned from exports. Thus, the prices
of staples keep rising while wages
continue to remain on the floor;
collective agreements are not
respected; power outages keep
happening due to lack of investment
and protest is criminalized. So also
the struggles continue. There can
be no socialism ruling in a pact with
multinationals or to benefit bankers.
There can be no socialism ignoring
the rights of workers.

It is not anti-imperialism nor
socialism to support dictators like
Assad (Syria) and Gaddafi (Libya)

There can neither be socialism nor
can you claim to be revolutionary,
as Chávez did, when he supported
the genocidal Syrian dictator Bashar
Al Assad. Hugo Chavez and Assad
“exchanged information about the
political and security situation in Syria
and the Middle East, especially on
how successfully the Syrian
government has contained the
armed terrorist groups that threaten
the peace” (statement reproduced
in El Comercio, Peru, 07/04/12). In
other words, Chavez called the
rebellious Syrian people “terrorist
gangs” and endorsed the massacres
of the dictator.

Chavez was viewed with
friendliness by the Arab peoples for
his fiery speeches against imperialism
and his diplomatic break with the
Zionist state of Israel. Today they are
disappointed by his closed negative,
along with Castro and the old
Stalinist left of the world, to support
the Arab revolution. It is incompatible
to speak of anti-imperialism and
of the peoples struggling against
oppression and to endorse the
systematic repression, torture and
murder Gaddafi applied or Al Assad
applies against his people. Just listen
to the words of Gaddafi who wanted
“to enter Benghazi as Franco in Madrid”,
alluding to how fascism
crushed worker and popular
resistance in 1936, so they cannot
have any doubt left about the
character of the Libyan colonel. But
common oil interests weigh more,
as now they also are in the Syrian
support fund by presenting the
reactionary and repressive Iranian
regime of Mahmud Ahmadinejad that
endorses it, as another leader of antiimperialism.
Internationalism is one of the
cornerstones of true socialism. In
turn, it was Stalinism who falsified this
principle, and always acted, against
the facts of the world class struggle,
defending their bureaucratic interests
above solidarity with labour and popular
struggles. Both Chavez as
Castro continued this tradition. They
put the interests of their bourgeoisies
and oil bureaucracies and the
defence of their own state
bureaucracies over the struggle of
the Arab peoples, knowing that a
victory of these peoples weakens
them as privileged sector. Faced
with the struggles and uprisings
spreading around the world, all the
bourgeois, new or old, as well as
bureaucracies tremble because they
know that the rise and mass struggle
serve as examples to all exploited
peoples of the world.

The Chavez-Fidel Castro unity
does not lead Venezuela toward
Socialist Cuba from 1960s
The weight that Chavez had on
the world left would be inexplicable
without the blessing of Castro. In
1992 Chavez was welcomed in
Cuba with state honours. After the
collapse of preferential trade
agreements with Russia, Chávez
covered 60% of the energy needs
of Cuba handing it oil at minimum
prices. This allowed him to appear
before the world left as a
revolutionary and socialist reference,
beyond his specific policies or plans
to deliver food baskets to the poor
(not unlike that of Lula, for example).

The pro-imperialist right wing and
their media devote many columns
to denounce that Chavism leads
Venezuela towards its
“Cubanization,” towards
“communism”. By this they mean
to the Socialist Cuba which, in time
of Che, expropriated imperialism and
the bourgeoisie and announced the
first socialist state in America. This
would ratify to sectors of the world
left, which support the Chavist
government, almost with the same
argument saying that “little by little”
the Chavez-Castro unity will lead to
socialism. Even these same sectors
are encouraging that there is a fight
between two sectors of Chavism;
one of ‘left’, with Maduro at the head
(with the support of Chavez) that
would be pro Cuba and the other,
that of Diosdado Cabello, that would
be of the anti-Cuban “right”.
This version regrettably is not true,
because there may be those
factions in Chavism, but their fight is not to advance or not on socialism, but
for positions of power within the same
project of false socialism for the XXI
century, supported by the Castro
leadership.

Two reasons for this: 1) it’s been more
than 14 years of Chavez government,
with the support of Castro, and we have
already shown that private ownership and
agreements with multinationals
predominate in Venezuela and 2) what
exists is not that Venezuela is “Cubanizing”
but that Cuba is “Venezuelanizing”.
Something that almost no one says.
What do we mean “Venezuelanizing”?
That since the 1990’s, Cuba has been
walking rapidly toward the restoration of
capitalism, abandoning the socialist
achievements of the 1960s, following the
path of China and Vietnam.

The Cuban Communist Party
leadership hides this process. But it is a
fact that the “Cuban economic model”
is based on capitalist ventures with
Spanish, Canadian, French, Brazilian,
Italian, Chinese or British capital on basic
items such as nickel (Sherritt), hotels (Sol
Meliá), snuff and cigars, food (rum, beer,
etc.) and now sugar. In Cuba, as in China,
under a supposed “socialist
modernization”, there are growing social
inequalities. With the exploitation of
workers who barely reach a monthly
salary 15 to 20 dollars average. With a
one-party dictatorship that prohibits the
right to strike and form unions freely. It is
in this sense of concentrating all power
in the head of state that we can say that
Chavez takes as political references the
Stalinist regimes, as it happened in the
reform of the constitution. Chavism
prompted an accelerated process of
bureaucratization of the state, of a
bourgeois state, power that was used
and is used against workers and only
serves the state apparatus.
Hence the Castro-Chavez unity has
nothing progressive or revolutionary. But
Castro-Chavism is the new version,
recycled, of Stalinist reformism which
always advocated conciliation of classes,
with the false theory of “revolution by
stages,” with which it justified that it could
“move” forwards to socialism ruling, in a
first stage allied to a sector of the
bourgeoisie.

With this “theory,” successful
revolutions as in Nicaragua and El Salvador
were betrayed. In the 1980s, Fidel
Castro and the Cuban leadership advised
not to make “another Cuba” in Nicaragua,
but to enter into an alliance with
the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie to support a
“mixed economy.” Today, 33 years later,
Daniel Ortega governs a capitalist Nicaragua
amid the misery of his people.
China and Cuba are reaching the zenith
of defending an alleged modernization of
the “socialist model,” allied with
multinationals and exploiting their people.
History has already shown that all these
“national and popular” models failed as
in Nicaragua, as Peronism in Argentina,
the MNR in Bolivia or Velazquism in Peru.
In the same way there will be no solutions
for the peoples with Evo Morales, Correa,
Mujica, Kirchner, Lula-Dilma or
Chavez.

The fight for genuine socialism

The struggles of the workers, youth and
the Venezuelan people need to move
towards a true socialist solution. Knowing
that there is no solution with the Chavista
project nor is there a solution with the
right personified in the MUD, of Henrique
Capriles. They are the old policy of the
pro-US oligarchy.

In Venezuela the struggle for genuine
socialism, passes through proposals
raised by our sister party, the Socialism
and Freedom Party (PSL), headed by
labour leader Orlando Chirino. Therefore
we reaffirm our support for the need to
build a new political alternative for workers
in Venezuela to support working class
and popular struggles and to strategically
fight for real socialist change and a
government of the workers.

The slogan “We The Workers Must
Govern” and that the oil belongs 100%
to the Venezuelan state, eliminating
contracts and joint
ventures and under the
control of the workers,
to give decent wages,
work, health,
education and
housing, remain valid.
We support full
political independence
from governments and
capitalist political
variants; a minimum
wage equal to the
basic food basket;
cessation of payment
of the foreign debt;
cancellation of the free
trade treaties and
treaties against double
taxation signed by Venezuela;
nationalization of banks and multinationals under control
of the workers; an agrarian reform that
guarantee land to the peasants;
recognition of indigenous territories; against
the criminalization of protest and the rescue
of the trade unions as an instrument of
struggle of the working class, with
autonomy from governments and the
bosses and without trade union
bureaucracy of any type or colour.

From the UIT-CEI Coordinating
Committee, we call on workers, youth and
anti-imperialist and left fighters of the world
to conduct this debate on the present and
future of the Venezuelan and Latin
American revolutionary process, amid its
current crossroads, and to support their
struggles with the prospect of a truly
socialist change, as well as to support the
revolutionary processes that are unfolding
in North Africa and the Middle East, helping
to rebuild a true class internationalism.

March 2013

UIT-CEI Coordinating Committee

International Workers
Union-Fourth International
International Liaison
Committee (Workers
Front [Turkey] -
Internationalist Fight
[Spanish State])

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