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The
unexpected defeat of the constitutional changes backed by President
Hugo Chavez in the Dec. 2 national referendum has provoked deep-going
discussion in the Venezuelan left. Much of it is expressed on the
website Aporrea, which is operated by a Venezuelan current of
Trotskyist origin linked to the Movimiento Socialista de los
Trabajadores (MST) in Argentina. In general, this current identifies
itself with Chavez but it does offer a broad forum for the left,
including groups and individuals critical of Chavismo.
The
group that started Aporrea, the Partido de la Revolucion Socialista
(PRS), however, seems to have split over the question of the
referendum, as well as the question of whether or not to join the state
party set up by Chavez, the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela
(PSUV).
One
wing is identified with Orlando Chirino, the national coordinator of
the Union Nacional de Trabajadores, the new trade-union federation that
emerged from the opposition to the 2002 strike-lockout aimed at ousting
the Chavez government. Chirino opposed joining the PSUV and called for
casting a blank ballot in the Dec. 2 referendum.
The
other wing is identified with Stalin Perez Borges, another leader of
the UNT, who has joined the PSUV and called for voting "yes"
on Dec. 2. The Borges group argues that it is maintaining the
principles of working-class independence and revolutionary socialism
within the PSUV and it makes much the same criticisms as the Chirino
group, except in very diplomatic language and in the context of presenting
itself as a current within Chavismo.
The
diffferences between the two currents could be seen as tactical - that
is, that one wing wanted criticize the PSUV from the outside while the
other wanted to raise the same differences among the workers attracted
to it. But the differences have sharpened since the referendum.
The
Borges group accuses Chirono and company of identifying themselves with
the right-wing opposition while the Chirino group claims that the
defeat of the referendum was a victory for the workers. Presumably,
Chirino is trying to drive his position home by carrying it to an
extreme, but in so doing he is taking a provocative stance that cannot
be defended politically. He is risking discrediting whatever
well-founded criticisms of Chavez's course he might raise.
Much
of the criticism on Aporrea is directed at the inefficiency of
government bodies, the incompetence or disloyalty of Chavista local
officials, as well as generally of the state bureaucracy. These
articles undoubtedly reflect real problems, but they are superficial.
The
fundamental question is that of the political leadership, specifically
of the political instrument Chavez created with the declared aim of
building socialism in Venezuela, the PSUV. Without a structured political
leadership - a party - the basic problems of the state and its
functioning, as well as the organization of society in general, cannot
be solved.
The
most spectacular failure of the referendum campaign was on the part of
the PSUV. The party claims more than 5 million members, but only about
4 million votes were cast for the proposed reforms. Obviously, a large
proportion of the PSUV's members did not even give their proclaimed
leader the vote of confidence that he demanded despite their lip
service to his leadership.
Chirino
and other Trotskyists who reject the PSUV have raised general
criticisms of the project, such as the fact that Chavez has declared
that the party will welcome "national capitalists" and that
it has been used as a platform for figures that Chavez claims are
workers’ leaders but who are merely his creations.
However,
damning criticisms of the PSUV were also made in a Dec. 13 article by
Gonzalo Gomez Freire, an Aporrea editor, who declared his loyalty to
the party and his determination to build it. His basic criticisms were
that the party had been formed before it had a program or a democratic
structure, and so "the cart was put before the horse." The
result was an extremely distorted formation:
"The
open days for signing up created the illusion that we had millions,
without separating out a real devotion to political activism, sympathy,
opportunism, and people who joined because they were forced to. Some functionaries forced their
employees to sign up. It should
not be surprising that they did not participate in the campaign groups.
“The
formation of the party was not based on an initial accumulation of
political cadres and activists. People were signed up on a territorial
basis on open lists, instead of relying on the strength already
existing in the movements, which could assure a greater political
solidarity for launching the party, and a greater weight for the
working class, for the popular sectors and the peasants, as against a
dispersed, multi-class, unstructured mass.
“It
would have been possible to create a large basic nucleus of founding
activists with a real base in the social struggle and political
quality, in order to go from there to sign up more members in
transitional structures for political testing and political education.
“Among
the battalions formed, some were artificial, created only to elect
spokespersons and delegates for various factions contending within the
bureaucracy. There were a lot
of electoral tricks. A Discipline Commission and 'expelled members' in a
party not yet constituted is something of quite dubious legitimacy and
open to arbitrary decisions.”
Apparently,
there have been a lot of expulsions from the PSUV even before its
founding convention and even before it has determined what it stands
for. It would be interesting to know who has been expelled, for what,
and by whom.
The
one case that became generally known was that of the deputy Tascon, who
was expelled for objecting to denunciations of General Baduel as a
"traitor" when the latter came out against the proposed
constitutional reforms. He was expelled immediately, without a trial or
a debate.
But
it is obvious that Baduel was not the only anti-socialist or right-wing
element in the Chavez bloc, and there is no indication that Chavez has
either a structure and criteria for building a homogenous party, or
even for organizing a debate that could led to political definition.
It
might be useful for revolutionists to participate in political
discussion in meetings of initial PSUV groups, if they can, but it
should be clear to anyone with any understanding of the nature and
purpose of a revolutionary party that the PSUV cannot be transformed
into one. It will never be an instrument for those who want to make a
socialist revolution in Venezuela.
No
matter how much you squeeze a sponge, you cannot make it into a sword.
And to the extent that revolutionary groups dissolve their structures
into the PSUV, or dilute their programmatic profiles for the sake of
being accepted into it, they only disarm and paralyze themselves.
Chavez's
first electoral defeat, the failure of the Dec. 2 referendum, has posed
dramatically the need for the creation of a real revolutionary party in
Venezuela. That is essential if the radicalization is to go forward.
How the debate provoked by the failure of the referendum develops will
be an indication of what the possibilities are for achieving that. Venezuela remains the major
laboratory for socialist revolution in the world today. All those who
are interested in socialism will have to follow it closely.
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