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Catherina

(35,568 posts)
Thu Apr 18, 2013, 11:41 AM Apr 2013

Statement of Lucha de Clases, Marxist Tendency of the PSUV

Venezuela: fight attempted coup with revolutionary mobilisation

Thursday, 18 April 2013

Statement of Lucha de Clases (Class Strugge), Marxist Tendency of the PSUV. What we have witnessed in recent days is a developing coup as correctly described by Comrade President Nicolas Maduro.These are not just peaceful protests of fellow Venezuelans who believe that there has been fraud, but an orchestrated plan to overthrow the Bolivarian government and smash the revolution. How can we fight it?


The private media, the U.S., the OAS and the Spanish government of the PP, the local oligarchy (capitalists, bankers and landowners), they are all involved in the plan.

What we have witnessed is a concerted campaign of attacks on the symbols of the Bolivarian revolution and its achievements: CDI health centres, Simoncito nurseries, of PDVALes and Mercal state run popular supermarkets, state and community media outlets, PDVSA oil company, PSUV offices, Petrocasa, as well as buildings of the CNE (National Electoral Council) and the private residences of state officials and Bolivarian leaders and their families.

Since the day of the closing rally of Maduro's campaign in Caracas we have also seen a new factor, the presence of gunmen, often on motorbikes, shooting randomly against revolutionary activists. Seven socialist militants were killed on the night of Monday to Tuesday in several parts of the country while defending the revolution.

The combination of public statements with wide media coverage, international pressure, marches in the streets, systematic violence and organized blackouts, shortages, economic sabotage, the threat of a bosses lockout , etc.. is calculated to create a state of anxiety and lawlessness that could force sectors of the state apparatus to intervene against the legitimate government.

How do we respond to this coup attempt?



The only way to respond to a threat of this kind, as evidenced by all the previous experience of the revolution, is through revolutionary mobilization. The bourgeoisie has correctly understood that the class struggle ultimately cannot resolved within the framework of bourgeois legality, but in open confrontation. We should draw the same conclusion. That does not mean falling into provocations, but rather the need for organized and conscious mobilization of the revolutionary people and the working class. This is what has begun to happen in the last days in neighborhoods and cities across the country, when revolutionary activists have taken back and defended VTV state channel facilities, regional CNE centers, defended CDI health clinics, etc.. This spontaneous mobilization need to be given an organized and coordinated character.

Committees against the coup must be set up in every neighborhood and in every factory, to organize revolutionary vigilance with self-defence patrols to protect the conquests of the Bolivarian revolution (Simoncitos, CDIs, state and community media, revolutionaries headquarters, etc.).These committees must be composed of all revolutionary organisations, the organised motorbike groups, class struggle trade unions, workers councils, community media, CTU (Urban Land Communittes), communal councils, socialist communes, etc. which are active in each neighbourhood or workplace.

The oligarchy is threatening with a national bosses lockout. Workers at POLAR company (food production and distribution monopoly) have reported the existence of secret warehouses being used for hoarding. Merida Governor Vielma Mora reported that cattle ranchers were organizing the sabotage of the distribution of milk and meat.These threats can only be answered with workers' control.

If there is a lockout or an attempt to sabotage the economy the slogan of 2002 must be applied, as correctly explained by Comrade Blanca Eekhout , "factory closed , factory occupied" and we would add "and expropriated".

In all factories, workplaces and state institutions we must organize mass workers' assemblies to discuss the situation and set up workers' control and revolutionary vigilance committees. These committees should be accountable to the workers' assembly and exercise vigilance against employers and against the bureaucrats and infiltrators in state companies and institutions.

At the first sign of sabotage of the economy the government must expropriate the companies responsible and put them under workers control. The threat that Comrade Maduro issued against Repsol and other Spanish companies, should also be applied to the "national" bourgeoisie.

Faced with the sabotage of the electricity supply we must answer with rank and file workers' control. We cannot allow that infiltrated elements within these institutions organise sabotage of power supply in these crucial moments. To declare electricity as a national security institution is correct, but nothing can replace the role of electricity workers who know the situation of the company and can operate it and have been denouncing sabotage for months.Against electricity sabotage, revolutionary workers' control and cleaning of the institutions from traitors and infiltrators.

Faced with imperialist interference the ambassadors of the countries involved should be expelled and the multinationals from those countries expropriated. Venezuela should be respected. You have to combine these measures with an internationalist appeal to the peoples and workers of the world to mobilize actively in defence of the Bolivarian revolution to disable any attempt of external aggression.

The oligarchy is not strong in the streets. In recent months the revolutionary people has shown that on many occasions. But we should not give them a chance to organize. Now Capriles has retreated and called off the march to the CNE, but a show of strength of the revolutionary people in the streets is needed. It is not enough to organise concerts and vigils for peace. The revolutionaries are for peace, but in order to get peace we must first disarm the oligarchy. A mass revolutionary demonstration is needed, in order to make clear to the oligarchy what is at stake.


Funeral for Jose Luis Ponce, La Limonera

Only the people can save the people, as demonstrated in many previous occasions. Now all we are all Chavez, there is no need to wait for instructions from above. The rank and file should be activated in each neighborhood, factory, school and poor parish. The committees against the coup in every factory, workplace, neighbourhood, parish and rural community, should be coordinated through democratically elected and recallable spokespersons in every parish, industrial area, municipality, state and at a national level.

Faced with the random assassination of revolutionary activists, committees against the coup should give themselves the necessary means for self-defence to repel such attacks, and develop popular intelligence to identify the culprits.

The oligarchy and imperialism are working to win over sections of the army high command to their plans for a coup. The revolutionary people must counter this campaign with organized political work in the army and the militia. We need to establish close links between revolutionary activists and ordinary soldiers and officers of proven revolutionary loyalty . Committees of soldiers and Bolivarian officers should be set up in all barracks to exercise revolutionary vigilance. A socialist and Bolivarian armed force can only be guaranteed with a revolutionary political work within it.

The fight against the coup is primarily a political battle. We have to win over to the revolution those sections of the people and the middle class who have been won over by the counter-revolution. This is only possible by solving the most pressing problems of the population, including shortages, insecurity and inflation. All these problems stem ultimately from the continued existence of a capitalist economy and capitalist state bureaucracy.

As Comrade Maduro said, "what is coming is not a pact with the bourgeoisie but the radicalization of the revolution." That should mean the expropriation of the means of production, banking and large landed estates, which are where the oligarchy derives its power from, in order to bring them under the democratic control of the working class. We also have to abolish the old bourgeois state apparatus and replace it with new revolutionary institutions based on the workers' councils and communal councils so that people shall rule.

Iron fist against the coup plotters!
Revolutionary mobilization of the people against the offensive of the oligarchy!
Against electricity sabotage, revolutionary workers' control and vigilance!
Against the bosses' lockout, factory closed, factory occupied!
Against the killings, organized self-defence of the people!
Committees against the coup in every factory and neighborhood!
Revolutionary Committees of soldiers and Bolivarian officers!
Against imperialist interference, proletarian internationalism!
No pact with the bourgeoisie, radicalize the revolution!
Expropriate the oligarchy, so we can plan the economy!

http://www.marxist.com/venezuela-attempted-coup-statement.htm
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Statement of Lucha de Clases, Marxist Tendency of the PSUV (Original Post) Catherina Apr 2013 OP
"There is no need to wait for instructions from above." Ghost Dog Apr 2013 #1
Pretty basic Bolshevik/Trotskyist strategies....... socialist_n_TN Apr 2013 #2
Well, the thing is, small-scale business, capitalism, is just natural, right? Ghost Dog Apr 2013 #3
It's only natural because it has always been around......... socialist_n_TN Apr 2013 #4

socialist_n_TN

(11,481 posts)
2. Pretty basic Bolshevik/Trotskyist strategies.......
Fri Apr 19, 2013, 08:53 AM
Apr 2013

and tactics. I agree with them.

This does point out, however, the failings of taking a revolution only part-way. Which was the League for a Fifth International's problem with Chavez's revolution all along. They left the capitalists in place and just nibbled around the edges of the system. Which meant that at some point this capitalist counterattack was inevitable. The capitalists are like roaches, they ALWAYS come back. Even when they are defeated at the ballot box, they have no problem overthrowing (with help from the worldwide capitalist system) any duly elected socialistic type government.

And to be clear, that argument is not just nit-picking. The gains made by the Chavez administration are now in danger BECAUSE of the very reasons that many Marxist groups complained about his not going far enough. That was the point of the criticism. It's not a "Gotcha" thing, it's a critique that eventually becomes a life and death situation for revolutions.

 

Ghost Dog

(16,881 posts)
3. Well, the thing is, small-scale business, capitalism, is just natural, right?
Sat Apr 20, 2013, 11:35 AM
Apr 2013

The staff of life, indeed. Who wants absolutist (and inevitably corrupt) State Control?

Problem arises when some few (corrupt) capitalist outfits grow too big, too monopolistic, too sick.

Then, we must operate. For the sake of the health of the whole.

socialist_n_TN

(11,481 posts)
4. It's only natural because it has always been around.........
Sat Apr 20, 2013, 06:46 PM
Apr 2013

in some form or another. Even Marx and Engels understood this and allowed for small enterprises and artisans under socialism and then communism. These types of industries were around under the feudal system, the slave owning culture, and even among the communal societies before the rise of the slavers, so it would have been foolish to think that they would go away after the workers displaced the capitalists.

However, the idea is that the people own, collectively, the "commanding heights of industry", usually in conjunction WITH the workers IN that industry. My view is that a planned economy is necessary until no one is hungry or homeless or unclothed. And since we've passed the time of just the basics, I would add transportation, energy, health care, education, and several other industries that have to do with the welfare of the ENTIRE people. These industries need to be used for the well being of ALL the people and run without any consideration of "profit" or "market". And to pay for this, there must be a vast redistribution of hoarded wealth downward to the people who are the ones who actually CREATED that wealth in the first place.

I read somewhere that taking care of ALL of humanity's basic needs in today's society would take an average of 15 or 20 hours a week for each worker. Anything above that amount of work is what's used for any "extras" that a person might want to have and, of course under capitalism, for the profit of the owners. So I would foresee a system where small businesses would still be allowed to provide a "market" system subservient to the planned economy, for these "extras". And personally, I would make sure that small, communally owned businesses (and even larger ones in some cases) would receive government assistance and tax breaks IN DIRECT COMPETITION WITH THE CAPITALIST OWNED SMALL BUSINESSES. IOW, government would encourage co-ops at the expense of individual owners. And before anyone screams about how "unfair" that is, the opposite is what passes for government encouragement now. I would just change the governmental support paradigm from individual owners to co-operatives.

As to your second sentence, I would postulate that the "problem" that has arisen is merely a part of the end game of capitalism. What we see now is what capitalism inevitably becomes. You can "regulate" it into seemingly being more humane and altruistic (like in Venezuela or here before 1980 or so), but that regulation itself is a bastardization of capitalism and will inevitably fail. Capitalism will inevitably seek to shake any regulatory bonds and commodify everything based on it's profit potential. That's what the system DOES. As I've often said, regulating capitalism is like riding a tiger. It's VERY hard to do and you're always in danger of being eaten.

Truly, we must "operate", but what we must do is excise the SYSTEM and not just some perceived bad actors.

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