9. Theses on revolution and counter-revolution in Venezuela¶
Core Argument¶
The Venezuelan revolution stands at a decisive crossroads. Having twice repelled counter-revolutionary offensives, it now confronts a new, desperate assault combining legal campaigns, economic sabotage, and armed preparations, including a conspiracy with Colombian paramilitaries backed by US imperialism. Society is polarised to breaking point: workers, peasants, and the poor on one side; bankers, landlords, and capitalists leading the middle class on the other. The counter-revolution controls key economic levers, having inflicted billions in losses through a bosses’ lockout, capital flight, and deliberate disruption of food distribution to manufacture scarcity. The decisive element is the working class, which has begun occupying factories and introducing workers’ control. The corrupt CTV union leadership must be replaced by building the UNT as a mass federation, and workers must exercise democratic control over production to prevent sabotage. Workers’ control is a transitional step towards nationalising banks, land, and big industry under a planned economy.
The state remains a bourgeois state, but the bourgeoisie has temporarily lost control over parts of it, including sections of the army. The question of power is unresolved; the revolution has not passed the point of no return. A consistent struggle for democracy must break the bounds of capitalism to destroy the oligarchy’s economic power, or defeat and eradication of democracy will follow. US imperialism, defeated in direct assaults, now uses siege tactics, economic sanctions, and subversion, conspiring with Colombia and the OAS. Venezuela’s only reliable allies are the oppressed workers and peasants of Latin America, not their governments. Economic decline—GDP fell 18% in 2003, living standards dropped to 1950s levels—cannot be indefinitely offset by oil revenues and exchange controls. Inflation at 27% is unsustainable. If the revolution does not seize the commanding heights of the economy, frustration and apathy may enable a counter-revolutionary coup. Reformist calls for moderation are dangerous: imperialism is hostile from the start, and weakness invites aggression.
The government must translate President Chávez’s words into deeds by establishing special schools for military training and forming a mass people’s militia. Every workplace and neighbourhood must become a bulwark of the revolution. The old state bureaucracy must be swept out and replaced by genuinely democratic administration, with a serious purge of conservatives and counter-revolutionaries carried out from below. Democratically elected action committees in every workplace and district must be linked at all levels to lay the basis for workers’ power, organising against counter-revolution, patrolling neighbourhoods, controlling transport and supply, and rooting out speculation. The Caracas Metropolitan Police and other opposition-controlled forces must be disbanded and replaced by a popular militia under local committees and trade unions. The revolution demands a workers’ democracy on Leninist lines: free elections with recall of officials, salaries limited to that of a skilled worker, arming of the people, and mass involvement in administration.
The Revolutionary Marxist Current and the Bolivarian Movement are not contradictory but inseparable. Marxists must fight alongside the masses, advancing the movement and clarifying what is needed for its success at each stage. Marxism, as scientific socialism, provides the necessary scientific standpoint for working-class victory. All other trends are characterised by confusion and absence of coherent strategy, whose consequences will be exposed as events develop. Venezuela is completely mature for the transfer of power to the working class: the bourgeoisie has shown its incapacity to rule, and the working class has demonstrated courage and revolutionary spirit. The problem is not working-class consciousness but a leadership lagging behind. The revolution faces a choice between the greatest victory or the most terrible defeat.