Tony Saunois — Venezuela: The Capitalist Offensive – Has Socialism Failed?

by
Mike Norman
My articles My siteAbout meMy booksMy videos
Follow on:TwitterFacebook

An international campaign by capitalist politicians and media has been unleashed against president Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuelan government. It has been used by Labour’s Blairista right wing to try to weaken Jeremy Corbyn. In Spain, the spectre of Venezuela has been held up as a warning of what a Podemos-led government would mean. The close links of Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias to Hugo Chávez regime in the past has facilitated this idea.

Across Latin America this campaign has been conducted for a longer period of time to try to discredit the idea of socialism, with Venezuela presented as “another socialist failure.” Accept our medicine (austerity and cuts) or you will get an epic crisis of Venezuelan proportions has been the cry of presidents Michel Temer in Brazil and Mauricio Macri in Argentina. Others, like Donald Trump in the USA and Theresa May in Britain, have added the charge of “dictatorship” and “brutal repression” against the Maduro government. Trump even threatened military intervention. The was actually used by Maduro to bolster his support, although the threat was rapidly buried by more farsighted leaders of U.S. imperialism.

Such charges from the mouths of the political representatives of the ruling 1% are dripping in hypocrisy. How many military coups have been carried out in Latin America with the active participation of U.S. imperialism resulting in the slaughter of tens of thousands and more viciously tortured? Who but Margaret Thatcher was a friend and supporter of Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet, later freed from custody in Britain by Blairista home secretary Jack Straw?….

There is a catastrophic economic, social and political crisis in Venezuela. This has developed not because of a failure of socialism but as a consequence of the failure to break conclusively with capitalism and introduce a democratic, socialist, planned economy. That would need to be linked up with the working class in other Latin American countries to establish a voluntary socialist federation which could act as a counterweight to imperialism. The tragedy of the current situation is that the opportunity to break with capitalism did exist in Venezuela and some other Latin American countries, especially Bolivia and Ecuador. The opportunity was lost....

The CWI warned of this threat early on. In an article, “Venezuela: The Revolution in Danger” (Socialism Today No.115, February 2008), we pointed to important lessons from history: “While the reform program has been financed largely through the rising price of oil, this can change with the onset of a crisis in the world economy. This can trigger a fall in oil revenue and result in the rolling back of the reforms. Between 1974-79, the left-of-centre nationalist, populist regime of Carlos Andrés Perez introduced some significant social reforms which were paid for by rising oil prices. By 1979, oil had reached US$80 per barrel. Yet these reforms were wiped out in the 1980s as a major economic crisis hit Venezuela following a crash in oil prices to US$38 per barrel.Those living below the poverty line rocketed from 17% in 1980 to 65% in 1996. This is a warning to Chávez and the working class if capitalism is not replaced by a democratically planned socialist economy.”...

While capitalism has not been broken in Venezuela there has been a change in the makeup of the capitalist class. Although the traditional elite remains – epitomised in the Polar food and drinks conglomerate – a new wing of the capitalist class has emerged over a protracted period, the so-called ‘Boliburguesia’. This phenomenon was pointed out by the CWI in 2009 in an article, Venezuela: A New Phase and Greater Dangers.

Sections of the Boliburguesia literally made a fortune on the back of the revolutionary movement. For instance, Wilmer Ruperti was transformed from being a relatively small businessman into a shipping tycoon and billionaire, at one stage the richest man in Venezuela. He made his fortune during the bosses’ lockout using his tankers to break the ‘strike’ and ship oil for the government. After the lockout he was rewarded with very lucrative government contracts.

This section of the Boliburguesia is totally enmeshed with the Maduro-led government. This process began under the Chávez led governments. It is the inevitable result of trying to maintain a capitalist state and private ownership of decisive sectors of the economy.…

Indeed, the military high command has its own economic interests tied to the regime. This militarisation of the state machine began to develop under Chávez but has become increasingly apparent in recent years. Chávez came from the armed forces and although immensely popular adopted a militaristic approach. In 2016, Maduro issued an executive order establishing the Compania Anómina Militar de Industria, Minera, Petrolifera y Gas, a state-owned oil company run by the military and the ministry of defence.

A consequence of the absence of a powerful, independent and politically conscious mass working-class movement – one of the main weaknesses of the revolutionary process in Venezuela – has been those top-down, administrative methods. With no system of democratic workers’ control, there could be no check, accountability or control. This inevitably allowed corruption and gross inefficiency to thrive. They have now reached a catastrophic level, a rotten impasse.…

In Venezuela, socialists are confronted with an extremely complex situation arising from a failure to complete the socialist revolution and break with capitalism. It has provoked much discussion and debate, including among the revolutionary left. There can be no question of socialists supporting the capitalist reactionary opposition led by the MUD with the support of imperialism and international capitalism. At the same time, it is necessary to oppose the policies, program and methods of the Maduro government.

There are strong echoes of the situation which developed in Brazil when the right wing attempted to impeach Dilma Rouseff, the former PT president, and replace her with an even more right-wing neoliberal reactionary, Michel Temer. The CWI section in Brazil, Liberdade Socialismo e Revolução, and others correctly argued the need to oppose the attempts of the right to impeach Dilma. At the same time, it was necessary to oppose her policies as part of the campaign to build a mass socialist alternative.

To those who argued that there was no difference between Dilma and Temer, the neoliberal hurricane he has introduced since the parliamentary coup is a clear riposte. In Venezuela, this element is also present, but in an even more acute form economically, politically and socially. Only an independent movement of the working class can struggle for an alternative to the right-wing capitalists and the governing bureaucratic caste.…