Monday, October 08, 2012

Chavez Again

Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela since February 1999, has been re-elected. Unlike Castro, Chavez does not claim to be either a Marxist or a Leninist, but a new type of socialist – "a socialist of the 21st century". For leftwingers, after deceived hopes placed in Yugoslavia, then Algeria, then Vietnam, then Nicaragua, Venezuela has become the new Mecca.

"The revolution has triumphed!"
Mr Chavez told the crowd, saying his supporters "voted for socialism".

On the campaign trail, president Chávez vowed that if re-elected he would use the next six years to correct past mistakes, to continue to build a socialist alternative to the capitalist model.

Such a pity, that Chavez has a concept of socialism seriously at odds with the one held by Marxists. “Socialism” is the buzzword of Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Revolution” (so called after Simon Bolivar who led the army that freed Venezuela from Spanish rule). Socialism is the ongoing task of the majority; it cannot work top down; it cannot be imposed and cannot be legislated for by one or more leaders or vanguard movement, however sincere. Chavez’s heart may well be in the right place, even if he is somewhat muddled as to the meaning of the word “socialism,” and he may well have good intentions. But his “socialist” agenda amounts to little more than one vast reformist programme that is largely being financed by the country’s oil. The generous profits from oil have gone into financing programmes to improve health, provide cheap food, extend educational access, and to organise land reform. Chavez, is also keen on workers’ cooperatives. We don't want to belittle this but it's not socialism. Venezuela is no nearer socialism than Russia was when it claimed to have established it. Despite his popularity amongst the poor that could well carry him to another electoral victory next year and assure Venezuela of another six years of Bolivarian reformism, Chavez is compelled by circumstances to govern within the confines of capitalism.

It is impossible to establish socialism in one country. Nor can it ever be established by a leader. A president as leader of a vanguard movement cannot equate to socialism. Chavez is just one more in a string of populist leaders: it is a well-established concept in Latin American countries – the role of the military strongman, the cult of the macho man, politics as a matter of urgency or emergency – everything starting anew with each new individual in power. He issues top-down decrees for new organisations rather than encouraging real initiatives from the base. It is not a simple one of leader and followers, but one where the leader somehow interprets and expresses the undeveloped wishes of the people, all rather mystical. Autonomy cannot be imposed from above; people have to want it and work for it. This is a recurring theme, that Chavez is very much about imposing his ideas from the top, ideas which in many areas don’t match what social groups are seeking for themselves, and that there is a gulf between words and results, between ideas and realisation. For instance, the communal councils are directly linked to Chavez’s executive power, not routed through municipal or parochial councils, and have direct government funding for their projects – a way of garnering and maintaining their support?  If Chavez can take his country into socialism, which is downright absurd, then some other leader could just as easily lead them out of it again. Similarly, the reforms he has implemented could be taken away the moment he is removed from office. Rafael Izcategui, editor of El Libertario, Venezuela’s longest-running anarchist periodical (and on-line at www.nodo50.org/ellibertario) accuses  Noam Chomsky and Michael Albert as too ready to take Chavez and his government spokespersons at face value without checking the voices at the base of the supposed revolution.

Chavez has tried to manipulate the capitalist system to bring cheap food to the poor (yes, they are still there). According to The New York Times (April 29 2012) he has mandated the prices that the manufacturers can charge to keep prices low. The result, as expected, is that the manufacturers simply stopped production and there are shortages of even the basic food supplies in a very rich country. Lesson? What passes for socialism in the in the tiny minds of would-be leaders and the press has nothing to do with real socialism. You cannot divorce manufacturers from profit. If there is no profit, there is no production. Both are very elementary lessons for socialists. Venezuela is bogged down by the logic of capitalism. Capitalism in Venezuela, as elsewhere, staggers on. We can safely predict that the majority of the people of Venezuela, the employed and unemployed working class, will continue to exist in poverty and deprivation, in the dilapidated apartments of Caracas, the run-down shacks of the surrounding ranchos or the one-storey slums of Maracy in Aragua state. All Chavez's reforms, and all the present support of the workers, will not make one iota of difference. Only a change from capitalism to socialism will achieve that.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

man, i'm from venezuela and if you said that here you'd get ur ass beat up like a dog. dude, fuck your profit, nobody gives a damn about it, we wanna eat, we don't care about your profit and how much money you make per sale. food is an elementary necessity and can't be considered and treated as a source of money. you guys didn't get over the death of hugo chavez, the commander, did you? y r u attacking someone who can't defend himself? stop that. focus on isis now, a product of your interventions in the middle east. forget venezuela. and hey, our president now is maduro. the commander has died man. a big hug from venezuela.

Anonymous said...

and hey. the poor here cried rivers when hugo chavez died. that proves that we, the poor, love him cause he gave us everything that you imperialists capitalists had deprived us of for so long. you guys now in times of turmoil because of oil prices are trying to create scarcity to topple down the government and make it seem like it doesn't feed the population properly. but socialism will win.

ajohnstone said...

Perhaps in your haste to comment you neglected to note the date of the original post - October 2012

Certainly Chavez was a popular leader and he instituted some reforms....but the fact that now they are all at risk by the fall in oil prices and that Maduro's progress has been slowed because he lacks the charisma of Chavez should indicate all is not well with the state of Venezeula.