Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan Bolivaran “revolution” has long attracted sympathisers from the Left. Much of the attraction was the maverick charisma of Chavez himself, his anti-American rhetoric, and the numerous reforms (many admittedly being beneficial to the poor) he instituted. One of those initially enamoured by Chavez, Clifton Ross, who made the documentary “Venezuela: Revolution from the Inside Out” and is the co-editor of “Until the Rulers Obey: Voices from Latin American Social Movements” has now grown rather disenchanted and has written a critical appraisal of what is happening in Venezuela.
Ross explains Hugo Chávez promoted a “socialist project” without socialism and a revolutionary process without a revolution. Chávez promised to punish and end corruption; develop the national industries (remember “endogenous development”?); distribute land and make it more productive; deepen democracy and the process of change with “protagonistic, participative democracy.” Yet he demonstrated an “apparent unwillingness to attack corruption among his cronies.” The “worker” government of Chávez had refused to recognize the collective bargaining of independent unions in the nationalized industries of Guayana, a region undergoing a special development plan. As the journalist and author Damian Prat puts it, “the Socialist Guayana Plan reproduces a ruinous hyperbureaucracy of a highly unproductive economy that is, in the end, profoundly anti-worker and anti-popular, at the same time that it concentrates all power in the hands of the governing group…” His book Guayana: El milagro al revés maintains, the Venezuelan government is neither “socialist, revolutionary nor even nationalist.”
Clifton Ross goes on to write:
“...Should we ignore the intransigence of the government, or stand with the workers and social movements of the country who are continuing a fight for justice, democracy and socialism?
There was a time when the left actively engaged in a discussion on whether or not to support “state capitalist” revolutions like the USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc. or autonomous attempts at building socialism. That debate ended briefly with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the defection of “Communist” China to the capitalist camp. With the rise of the Zapatistas (EZLN) in Mexico and the indigenous and autonomist social movements throughout Latin America, the debate was briefly renewed. Now, with the coming to power of “progressive” governments in Latin America, that debate is once again being squelched in favor of a doctrinaire statist consensus on much of the left.
The old authoritarian doctrinaire left continues today even under the guise of the “Socialism of the Twenty-First Century,” and many of those who work in its ranks are comrades, friends and neighbors. Some of us find ourselves in conflict with that left as we seek to build a democratic, pluralistic project, and increasing numbers of solidarity activists will find themselves more and more aligned with the ranks of the unionists in Guayana, with journalists like Damian Prat, with Venezuelan human rights activists like Rafael Uzcátegui of PROVEA and co-editor of the anarchist newspaper, El Libertario, and many on the left who find themselves in opposition to the Bolivarian government with its embedded Leninist PSUV.
We haven’t divided from the Bolivarian left: they have divided from us. It’s the solidarity activists for Venezuela who seem incapable of allowing criticism aimed at correcting destructive policies...”
This is indeed an old battle as the Socialist Party can attest over the years that often resurfaces when a new “liberal left” panacea springs forth and captures the imagination of those seeking shortcuts to socialism. Ross perhaps does not offer a solution to the disillusionment but he has, at least, attempted to reveal the delusions.
The full article by Clifton Ross is available on the Counterpunch website.
Ross explains Hugo Chávez promoted a “socialist project” without socialism and a revolutionary process without a revolution. Chávez promised to punish and end corruption; develop the national industries (remember “endogenous development”?); distribute land and make it more productive; deepen democracy and the process of change with “protagonistic, participative democracy.” Yet he demonstrated an “apparent unwillingness to attack corruption among his cronies.” The “worker” government of Chávez had refused to recognize the collective bargaining of independent unions in the nationalized industries of Guayana, a region undergoing a special development plan. As the journalist and author Damian Prat puts it, “the Socialist Guayana Plan reproduces a ruinous hyperbureaucracy of a highly unproductive economy that is, in the end, profoundly anti-worker and anti-popular, at the same time that it concentrates all power in the hands of the governing group…” His book Guayana: El milagro al revés maintains, the Venezuelan government is neither “socialist, revolutionary nor even nationalist.”
Clifton Ross goes on to write:
“...Should we ignore the intransigence of the government, or stand with the workers and social movements of the country who are continuing a fight for justice, democracy and socialism?
There was a time when the left actively engaged in a discussion on whether or not to support “state capitalist” revolutions like the USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc. or autonomous attempts at building socialism. That debate ended briefly with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the defection of “Communist” China to the capitalist camp. With the rise of the Zapatistas (EZLN) in Mexico and the indigenous and autonomist social movements throughout Latin America, the debate was briefly renewed. Now, with the coming to power of “progressive” governments in Latin America, that debate is once again being squelched in favor of a doctrinaire statist consensus on much of the left.
The old authoritarian doctrinaire left continues today even under the guise of the “Socialism of the Twenty-First Century,” and many of those who work in its ranks are comrades, friends and neighbors. Some of us find ourselves in conflict with that left as we seek to build a democratic, pluralistic project, and increasing numbers of solidarity activists will find themselves more and more aligned with the ranks of the unionists in Guayana, with journalists like Damian Prat, with Venezuelan human rights activists like Rafael Uzcátegui of PROVEA and co-editor of the anarchist newspaper, El Libertario, and many on the left who find themselves in opposition to the Bolivarian government with its embedded Leninist PSUV.
We haven’t divided from the Bolivarian left: they have divided from us. It’s the solidarity activists for Venezuela who seem incapable of allowing criticism aimed at correcting destructive policies...”
This is indeed an old battle as the Socialist Party can attest over the years that often resurfaces when a new “liberal left” panacea springs forth and captures the imagination of those seeking shortcuts to socialism. Ross perhaps does not offer a solution to the disillusionment but he has, at least, attempted to reveal the delusions.
The full article by Clifton Ross is available on the Counterpunch website.
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