“I have passed a national leader (who aspires to be part of the party) to the Disciplinary Council for talking nonsense. I will be watching closely … Critical thinking is fundamental to a revolution, but that is very different to going around talking badly about a party that has not been born, collecting signatures to present them who knows where. Anyone who wants to be an anarchist, get out of here, you are not wanted, what is needed here is a creative, but disciplined active membership.”
~ Hugo Chavez, as quoted by Edgardo Lander, ‘Party disciplinarians: the threat to dissidence and democracy in the United Socialist Party of Venezuela’, September 28, 2007 (Source: Sara Carolina Díaz y María Daniela Espinoza “Ameliach fuera de Presidencia de la Comisión de Defensa de la AN. El legislador presentó descargos ante el tribunal disciplinario del PSUV”, El Universal, Caracas [Venezuela], [August 30], 2007)
Then there is this little gem: Protesters getting shot! Nasty.
And this, dated October 1:
“Collective bargaining agreement in the oil sector to be executed this week
Representatives of the Labor Ministry, state-run oil holding Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) and trade unions in the oil business announced during a joint press conference that a collective bargaining agreement was 90 percent approved and the remaining covenants would be completed during this week.”
http://english.eluniversal.com/2007/10/01/en_eco_art_collective-bargainin_01A1087877.shtml
The way I read the situation, political responsibility for the shooting is yet to be established. In other words, I wouldn’t necessarily read it as evidence of, say, a general strategy of government repression of unions… More worrying, I think, is what Lander refers to as the establishment of Stalinist forms of party decision-making within the PSUV. Inevitably, this will mean that it won’t be that long ’til when police shoot at striking workers, it will be because they are ‘counter-revolutionaries’, quite possibly acting under orders of the ghost of a White General…
For someone who has repeated the words ‘moral truism’ (and for that matter anarchist) for as long as I can remember him, old Noam is pretty reluctant to fling some of that shit in Hugo’s direction. Street cred -4 Noam.
(anarchy is a fag)
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2665
‘In the resulting clashes, which lasted three hours, 40 workers were arrested and three were injured, including Richard Querecuto, who was shot in the left shoulder. A bus carrying passengers was also attacked by police who launched a tear gas bomb inside causing panic and asphyxiation. With news of the police repression 4,000 workers from Petroanzoátegui, Petrocedeño, and the project San Cristóbal immediately stopped work.’
Man, this whole thing fucking stinks. At the same time, I hope something good can come out of this for Venezuela.
Chavez you are starting to slip and frankly you have a squashed face and I don’t like you.
yeah… i think chavez has to tread carefully where the oil workers are concerned. and if the arrests and shootings were intended to dampen unrest, it doesn’t appear to have worked very well…
in a way, chavez could be described as a modern-day lenin, if only in the sense that, while lenin once reportedly remarked that ‘Communism = state power PLUS electrification’, chavez maintains that ’21 C Socialism = state power PLUS oil’.
fyi, this, i think, is a pretty neat anarchist account of the political situation under chavez:
======
‘Venezuela today: complexities and outright lies’
Rafael Uzcategui
http://www.nodo50.org/ellibertario/english/Venezuelatoday.txt
* A member of the editorial collective of El Libertario prepared this article for the 6th edition of the Costa Rican (A) journal La Libertad [ September 2007, http://revistalalibertad.blogspot.com ] in response to an inconsistent effort to establish impossible affinities between Chavismo and Anarchism.
1)
One of the successes of the inter-bourgeois confrontation that has been happening in Venezuela for almost a decade is the moving of the media polarization into an international space. This biased and infantilized point of view could well confuse some less awakened libertarian spirits. This indeed seems to be the case with the opinions voiced by companero Rogelio Cedeno in his text ‘Venezuela today: Realities and half truths’, published in # 5 of the Costa Rican journal La Libertad.
Cedeno in a turnabout of intellectual prestidigitation asks for the social situation in Costa Rica precisely what he denies for that of Venezuela: a non-problematic and non-Manichean point of view. While, on the one hand, the Costa Rican movement opposed to the Free Trade Agreement is “…a wholly plural movement that breaks with the simplistic schema based upon the existence of a presumed polarization between left and right”, on the other hand, in Venezuela, the forces that are not aligned with the government represent, “…the brutal violence and cynicism of the forces of reaction”, that desperately yearn for a return to the days of the adeco-copeyan democracy. A strange business this… barely a paragraph earlier Cedeno had affirmed that, “visions in black and white are of little use to those of us who keep on thinking and struggling for a better world.” This very same horizon is shared by a constellation of revolutionary left-wing groups who, despite being made invisible by the propaganda of both the private sector and the state, reject the past as much as they do the present and continue, against the current, to struggle for a better future.
2)
Cedeno reproduces the logic and history manufactured by the government in Caracas. Repeating the mythologizing excesses of Chavism, he locates the genesis of, “…the political and social dynamics of the end of the century,” and the, “…emergence of a revolutionary situation,” in Venezuela, in the attempts at a military coup led by Chavez himself in 1992. A simple glance at Venezuelan history would, as many diverse studies ratify, place the foundational stone of the current situation in the mid 80’s when, as a consequence of the economic crisis, a series of social movements catalyzed the discontent of the average citizen which in turn led to a brutal explosion during the occurrences of the ‘Caracazo’. During that February of 1989 a wave of popular protest reacted to the imposition of a package of neoliberal reforms. This social fabric expanded through various different dynamics, formally founding the first human rights organisations, networks of ecologists and women, student and neighbourhood associations, through employment conflicts and countercultural niches. This subjectivity and will for change is what Chavez capitalized on for his electoral victory. Venezuela thus confirms the words of Cornelius Castoriadis: Popular revolts in the Third World are always channelled and recuperated by a new bureaucracy.
3)
Venezuelan anarchists reject the coup d’etat that occurred in April 2002, as we also repudiate those that happened ten years earlier. Similarly we have denounced the distortion and manipulation of the facts. This is a long and complex history, but here we will only refute the elements repeated by Cedeno. If it is indeed true that the president counted on a certain mobilization in his favour on the 11th April 2002, then quantitatively the demonstration against him was considerably larger. On the other hand, those that died belonged to both sides, not exclusively to the Chavez side as has been suggested – and the formation of a ‘Truth commission’, which would have examined the events in an impartial manner, was boycotted with the same impetus by members of the government and by the opposition. If the demonstrations of the 13th April and the morning of the 14th really were significant, they in no way “…stopped fascism”, nor “…contained the forces of reaction.” The coup against Chavez and his later return was negotiated across desktops by military officials, without a single mediative shot being fired between soldiers. The evidence is considerable, but due to lack of space we will present just one piece: no soldier was tried for their participation in the events.
4)
The author examines the reasons why large sections of the popular classes profess support for the president. Some answers to this question can be found in the cultural nuances of the continent, which has catalyzed the appearance of various populists and strong men with widespread social support, such as Perón in Argentina and Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. The history of Venezuela is itself, a long succession of civil and military strongmen that counted on, in their time, the staunch support of the popular sectors of society: Juan Vicente Gómez, Marcos Perez Jimenez, Rómulo Betancourt and Carlos Andres Perez. However, Cedeno, expanding the mystification of the state, prefers linear explanations of a metaphysical nature. A population that has been impoverished for decades projects its demands in a mass that is personified by the figure of Hugo Chavez, transforming him into the means by which the government can, “…respond to a series of demands and requirements…”
Let us concentrate on this issue, for the propaganda that surrounds social politics in Venezuela confuses local people much less than it does foreigners. Our country is experiencing one of its most significant economic booms of the last thirty years as a result of high oil prices. However, considering the wealth of resources available, the social policies that have been implemented, almost exclusively through the ‘missions’, are superficial and ineffective. It is not just we, the anarchists, who are pointing this out; this has been affirmed by NGO’s that monitor the human rights situation in the country. While we at the bottom receive the scraps from the feast of black gold, a new bureaucracy – nicknamed the ‘boliburguesía’ (contraction of Bolivarian bourgeoisie) – has appeared reinforcing the role that economic globalization has assigned to us: that of providing energy in a ‘secure and trustworthy way’ to the international marketplace. Leaving aside questions about the social and environmental consequences of this type of development, the President recently summed up in a phrase the project of the red elite in power: petro-socialism.
5)
Independent of the restructuring of the State, the return of governability and the ‘democratic’ opening in Venezuela – all seriously damaged during the rioting of the Caracazo of 1989, and a bad example for other countries in the region – is it possible to suggest that the Chavez phenomenon strengthens democratic and self-determining organisational processes? The National Executive has repeatedly imposed from above different and successive organisational models that have mortgaged the autonomy of the Chavista bases, eclipsing local leadership structures, electoralizing agendas and dynamics and imposing militarizing logic and a single party. ‘Participation’ is possible as long as its innocuous, ‘protaganism’ non-existent. There are interesting initiatives that exist in the grass roots structures of the Chavez project, but their exceptionality confirms the rule: In any given field, any initiatives are the exclusive property of the head of state. Examples abound, like the constitutional reform that is currently being discussed in absolute secrecy, or extraordinary powers such as the Ley Habilitante, which gives the president the ability to pass laws by decree. We shall refer to one of the lesser known examples. As a result of a mandate from above, Conarepol, a plural commission was charged with designing a new policing model for the country. To that end they conducted 70,000 consultations with different actors over the length and breadth of the country, including those communities affected by uniformed violence. The entire Conarepol projected was basketed over a single phrase, “…it’s a right-wing project”, and now a centralisation of the police forces has been decided through the Ley Habilitante.
In this part of the Caribbean we don’t suffer ‘deja vú’ for the CNT-FAI of 1936 nor do we allow ourselves to be confused by the re-semantization of demagoguery. Last year 402 prisoners, coming from the popular classes, died violently in the prisons of the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’. More than 60 leaders of trade union and neighbourhood groups were in court because of their participation in strikes, blockades and demonstrations to demand their rights. As Bakunin said, the people will not feel better to see that the club with which they’re beaten with bears their own name. We, the libertarian creoles, have assumed the attitudes of any consistent anarchist: to confront power and stand side by side with the oppressed, gathering together means and ends, constructing free spaces and refusing to be either victim or tyrant. We leave the ‘tactical alliances’ and ‘critical support’, the smokescreens and mirrors to the politicians, of whom there are so many in Venezuela today, fattening their egos and bank accounts, hallucinating a 21st Century socialism that is both military and imperialist by nature, with its epicentre in Caracas.
Yeah you are spot on with the Lenin analysis, what he is basically saying with that anarchist remark above is Leninism in a nutshell ie. the working class can have their revolution, but they are too useless to do it themselves. And on our terms, or else.
Yep. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Unfortunately, there are many who hope for a better world who seem convinced that to oppose imperialism is enough to make one a genuine democrat.
Out of interest, why do you think that things like:
“Last year 402 prisoners, coming from the popular classes, died violently in the prisons of the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’. More than 60 leaders of trade union and neighbourhood groups were in court because of their participation in strikes, blockades and demonstrations to demand their rights.”
…aren’t published more widely? You’d think that even with the strong bias of authoritarian socialist groups towards Chavez’s regime they’d at least acknowledge things like that. That said, I think Chavez’s popularity obviously relies on his heavy anti-US stance more than anything else, but I think that can only go on for so long. His own flaws aside, buddying up to the likes of Iran and Cuba and other dictatorships that randomly murder people is really not a good move, IMHO, and simply attempting to polarize the matter of with us or against us isn’t going to do him much good in the longer term.
Interestingly, 4.30pm, Friday Oct 5th at Martin Place there will be a “Hands off Venezuela” rally by Resistance/Socialist Alliance whatever.
Resistance and Socialist Alliance can’t seem to get enough of Chavez, last year they ran a campaign to try and have Chavez come to Australia to give some talks, and just generally seem to worship the soles of his ex-military boots. Which is funnily enough, a point they often clash upon with those other lovable Leninists Socialist Alternative.
I don’t hold much hope for a genuinely critical look at the regime of Chavez from Resistance nor Socialist Alliance/DSP.
funnily enough, the dsp has recently announced that chavez will indeed be coming to australia… hugo is the new fidel.
funnily enough, the dsp has recently announced that chavez will indeed be coming to australia… hugo is the new fidel.
Your fortune: I see a leninist dictator covered with anarcho-pie…
…not, of course, that I’d ever promote such things…
I think the groups you refer to don’t concentrate on such matters for very similar reasons to those which help to explain why they deny there are any anarchists in Australasia (and if there are, they’re all crazy football hooligans or some shit): it’s politically inconvenient to do so. That said, I imagine that their response would be that, while such incidents are indeed unfortunate, they are the inevitable by-product of almost any attempt to significantly effect social change, and must be weighed against all the positive achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. As for Chavez’s popularity, yeah, I think you’re right: opposition to US hegemony in the region has broad popular appeal, as does nationalising key industries such as gas and oil, and directing the profits not to foreign corporations but state monopolies, a portion of which is then directed towards sustaining forms of social welfare such as (for example) basic education, medical care and literacy programs…
As indicated by our comrade in Venezuela, however: