Editorial

Chavez victory a victory for socialists around the globe.

When Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez lost his first attempt to win a democratic mandate for constitutional change narrowly in 2007, he accepted the result with humility and dignity.  He accepted the democratic verdict of the Venezuelan people but said he would come back with a slimmed down version of the proposal for consideration at a future date. The revised referendum proposal, to which citizens were asked to vote Yes or No, abolished term limits on standing for re-election for the office of President, Mayors and other elected officials.  Chavez message was clear. Stage one of his Bolivarian socialist revolution was coming to an end. In order to ‘complete the socialist revolution’ it would be necessary to give the people the opportunity to re-elect Chavez himself for a third presidential term in 2012, as well as to re-elect other PUSV candidates who have been the backbone of Venezuela’s revolutionary changes thus far.

Far from seeking to install himself as a dictator, Chavez merely asked for the opportunity to stand again in 2012 and take the arguments for the continuation and deepening of the Bolivarian revolution to the people at that point.  And the answer was Yes, by a margin of 54% to 46%.  In his victory speech in Caracas Chavez read out a message from Fidel Castro saying what you have achieved ‘is almost impossible to measure’.  Chavez went on to say that the result was a triumph for both democracy and the revolution. And he is right.

One only needs to skim the response of the pro-capitalist media – even in so-called ‘left’ publications like the Guardian to detect a sneering tone and cynical narrative that says Chavez only won because he was able to call on state television and state employees to campaign for him, that the referendum result is down on the 63% Chavez won in the Presidential elections of 2006 (no mention that it is up 5% on the previous 2007 referendum result!), and that Chavez’ will be undermined by 2012 because of the huge fall in oil prices which will cut into his social programmes. 

These commentators pass over the existence of the private television channels and newspapers which rail against Chavez daily, and the money and power of Venezuela’s old ruling elite which have attempted to undermine the revolution from day one.  Above all, those who hate the very idea of working people, poor people and indigenous peoples taking their own destiny into their own hands and rejecting the bourgeois world order cannot stand the glaring fact that this revolution has been no coup d’etat, seen no Jacobin revolutionary violence, abjured repression and sought the democratic consent of the Venezuelan people at every turn.  Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution is increasingly hated and feared by capitalism and its spokespersons precisely because it holds up a democratic model for revolutionary social and economic change untainted by Soviet style totalitarianism.

No-one – least of all Chavez and his party, the PUSV – underestimates the scale of the task ahead. Huge achievements have been made.  The taking into revolutionary social ownership of the state oil company and the use of Venezuela’s oil wealth – previously the sole property of the rich – to invest in health, literacy, land improvement and feeding the poor has given the revolution a huge social base on which to build. But there remain massive social problems: violent crime is rife; many people remain economically inactive in the barrios shanty towns, many of which remain unfit to live in.  And, of course, the revolution itself is not chemically pure.  There are problems with corruption and abuses of power.

If Chavez is now to begin the process of ‘completing the socialist revolution’ the Bolivarian revolution will need to be deepened and extended on four fronts over the next ten years.

Economically – the revolution cannot be based on oil alone.  Ironically it is the world capitalist crisis currently causing the most objective material difficulties for Chavez because of the collapse in the price of oil.  There may need to be a temporary period of retrenchment and consolidation. The oil price will recover but the revolution needs to use the gift of oil to invest in wider economic development as well as social programmes – in construction, agriculture, tourism, specialist manufacturing, and in high tech digital and bioscience industries.  Other key sectors of the economy, particularly the financial sector, need to be brought into revolutionary social ownership.  Public ownership needs to be entrenched into the constitution to prevent reactionary privatisations should the PUSV lose an election

Socially – the PUSV need to extend the social basis of the revolution beyond the ideologically committed and the urban and rural poor.  50-60% support is a knife edge on which to carry forward a thoroughgoing social revolution on a democratic basis. Ways need to be found of materially and culturally binding sections of the lower middle classes, students and better off youth to the revolution.  Violent crime and corruption need to be tackled head on and fearlessly.  The barrios need to be swept away and replaced with quality social housing and infrastructure.  Productive economic and socially useful work has to be created for the people of the barrios.

Democratically – Chavez needs to reassure sections of society which are not actively hostile to the revolution but worry about the power of PDVSA (the state oil company) and the PUSV that the revolution will not only remain democratic but extend its democracy.  New, open and dynamic socialist institutions of state need to be created. Alternative viewpoints from the left need to be encouraged.  Participation in the Bolivarian revolution and reconstruction of society needs to become civic and institutional.  Abuses of power and corruption need to be dealt with transparently and through fair due process.

Internationally – the construction of socialism, that is, a higher form of productive and cultural society than is possible under capitalism, can begin in a single country, but it cannot be completed within the bounds of a single nation state surrounded by capitalist enemies.  Together Chavez, Castro and Evo Morales have the authority to spread the revolution throughout Latin America. They should call a Latin American congress of the left and raise the banner of a United Socialist States of Latin America. Chavez should take the lead in the meantime in maximising trading and assistance agreements between the progressive governments of the continent.  In the short term, in the sphere of public relations, he should offer to meet Obama for constructive and cordial discussions.

All of these factors will determine whether or not the Bolivarian socialist revolution that Chavez and his followers have begun can be completed in the decades ahead, or whether this glorious and inspiring movement will eventually run up against its own limitations.  In the meantime socialists everywhere will continue to salute and support those leading the revolutionary struggle in Venezuela.