7. Foxes and Grapes – Sectarian stupidity and the Venezuelan Revolution¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter delivers a blistering polemic against self-proclaimed Marxist sects who, having ignored the Venezuelan revolution for years, now emerge only to denounce Alan Woods for meeting President Hugo Chávez. The author argues that these groups, mired in sterile attacks on other left tendencies rather than engaging with the real movement of the working class, have proven incapable of understanding or intervening in the revolutionary process. Their silence during the defeat of the 2002 coup against Chávez is held up as damning evidence of their irrelevance. The central claim is that the masses’ active participation is the decisive feature of the Venezuelan revolution, and that Marxists must stand with them against imperialism, not denounce leaders like Chávez as bourgeois Bonapartists.
The text situates this intervention within the Leninist and Trotskyist tradition on colonial and semi-colonial revolutions. It argues that while Chávez is a petty-bourgeois revolutionary democrat, not a Marxist, collaboration is both possible and necessary under conditions of anti-imperialist struggle. The policy is “march separately and strike together.” The author defends the limited meeting with Chávez as an opportunity for dialogue and influence, but insists the main task is building the Marxist tendency at the rank-and-file level. The Hands off Venezuela campaign is presented as a necessary intervention in the real movement, where neutrality between Chavistas and the counterrevolutionary opposition would be a betrayal. The masses are chavistas; to separate them from their leaders through ultimatums is sectarian stupidity.
A key polemic targets the ultra-left critics who demand denunciation of Chávez during the recall referendum. The author insists that the immediate task is mobilising all forces to defeat the counterrevolution, and that abstention would assist reaction. The correct policy is critical support for Chávez—an honest and courageous figure who nonetheless wrongly believes development is possible within capitalism—while opposing the right-wing reformist tendency now controlling Miraflores. This reformist wing, the text warns, is pressuring Chávez to modify his anti-imperialist stance, and its acceptance of the referendum, mediated by Jimmy Carter (described as more dangerous than Bush), proves the danger. Chávez’s refusal to expropriate the oligarchy is a fatal mistake, for no gains are safe while the bourgeoisie holds economic power. The chapter concludes by advocating Lenin’s method of patient explanation, not shrill denunciations, and by directing fire against the reformist upper layers, not the rank and file. The sects attack only because they have been inactive and unsuccessful.