WORLD SOCIAL FORUM IN CARACAS

Reformist parties make another
World Social Forum possible by
betting on the idea of the “21st century socialism” promoted by Chaves’
capitalist government

Article retrieved from the Luta Operária newspaper # 120, February/06

The WSF organizers, facing the crescent disillusion of the people who expected that these meetings could in some way resist to the so called “neoliberal globalization”, decided to promote its sixth edition in Caracas as a tentative to revive this reformist project by taking a ride on the Chavism.

As assumed by Ignacio Ramonet, member of the international council for the organization of the event, “the WSF’s initial formula is debilitated (Sao Paulo’s Paper, 01/24/06).” In reality, the precocious collapse of the WSF resides in the fact that its “initial formula” was never more than a re-edition of the already debilitated “reformism formula” in which “another world is possible” by redistributing the means without breaking with the capitalism. In practice, all of its organizing groups, the European socio-democracy, ATTAC, the Brazilian PT, sectors of the Catholic Church, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the Le Monde Diplomatic, share the immense political erosion existing in the popular fronts, Latin American populist governments such as Lula, Tabare, Kirchner, etc., and in the European social-democracy. All of them are Bush’s lefty partners who are responsible for giving continuity to the re-colonizing politics in the oppressed countries and for the destruction of the so called “state of good well-being” in the imperialist nations. We also have to take into account that the anti-globalization movement, one of the principal groups present in the WSF, has almost completely retreated after September 11 when the petit-bourgeoisie and the autonomist sectors that headed this movement decided to keep distance from any type of direct fight against the imperialism. They are doing that with the intention not to be mistaken with the resistance imposed by the oppressed people who are being hunted by Bush’s “anti-terror” offensive.

Chaves, inside this context, comes to help the WSF and, at the same time, to celebrate his seven years inside the government presenting his Bolivarian revolution as the “21st century socialism” model.

The Chavism, in the same way as the Nasserism in the Arabic countries, incites for a nationalism that goes further than his country’s borders by gaining Pan-American extension. Chaves likes to use the expression “Latin America for the Latin Americans”. With this jargon, he tries to sentimentally mobilize an ampler basis of support and moves forward with the construction of ample spaces and markets under the influence of a national bourgeoisie who uses an “anti-imperialist” rhetoric.  That is why Chaves is eagerly focused on the creation of a commercial trade area, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), for native capitalists such as Telesur, a telecommunication channel, PetroAmerica and PetroCaribe, petroliferous companies.  Discussing on January 27 at the WSF, the Venezuelan President affirmed “our revolution will depend on the advances of social movements and agendas. It is impossible to have a revolution in only one country. We are simply leaving the ‘savaged capitalism’. The capitalism system either falls every where in the world or does not fall any where.” Chaves, who in certain way controls all of the Venezuelan Bonapartist bourgeois institutions such as the executive power, congress and army forces, justifies with a certain doze of cynicism that he would not expropriate the multinationals and capitalists in his country because of the well-being of the mass. He said that so people would think that he is opposed to the Stalinist conception of “socialism in only one country”. This way, before the “capitalism hasn’t fall in the entire world”, Chaves is continually stimulating it in Venezuela by giving big state subsidies to Venezuelan capitalist parasite companies. So, with petroliferous and gasiferous multimillionaire concessions, the transnational companies can develop partnership with the State. During these seven years, many of the state companies were privatized (banks, aluminum reserves, electricity, etc), and the government does still keep straight bonds with big Yankee and European imperialist corporations such as the  Bilbao Vizcaya Argentira  Bank (BBVA), Telephonic, Texaco and Repsol-YPF.

 That is why in Chaves’ new socialism “the elimination of private property is not planned (Taller of High Level. The new strategic map, 11/04).” By using the anti-imperialist and anti-neoliberal demagogies, the Chavism spreads false expectations of social transformations through well broadcasted charitable assistance and a fake “participative democracy”. These methods in any instance incise over the working conditions and the productive process because they preserve the fundamental pillars over which the capitalist exploitation is built.

On January 27, the Bolivarian president raised the anti-imperialist feelings of an audience of 15 thousand people by announcing “the recuperation of 32 oil camps which used to be on the hands of transnational companies”. In reality, in order to have these petroliferous camps back, Chaves did not have to expropriate the imperialists in favor of the workers. He only retook the shareholding control of 70% of the oil camps’ stocks owned by the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA. As it was previously established in accordance between the Bolivarian government and the oil imperialist multinationals, from 2006 on, it would be firmed new contracts of Joint venture fees for the exploitation of the oil camps. Based on oil’s high international price, it will be one of the most lucrative businesses in the whole world. It is not coincidence that when talking about the fact that the PDVSA has retaken control of the oil camps, the Financial Times, a capitalist major newspaper, cynically laments: “The high prices of oil obligate the multinationals to accept not so lucrative conditions in many countries that produce oil (Financial Times, 01/03/06).”

After Chaves’ victory on the August/2004 referendum, his govern firmed an agreement with the oligarch opposition and with the Yankee government until 2006 based on fabulous deals for the exploitation of oil. According to the newspaper El Pais (09/19/04) right after the referendum, the North American company Chevron-Texaco announced an investment of 6 billion dollars on projects for the exploitation and extraction of oil in the region. The oil company Shell also announced annual investments of 200 million dollars until the end of 2006 followed by the French company Total in collaboration with the Norwegian company Statoil. They announced an increase of 4 billion dollars on the investments already made. At the same time, the oil company Exxon Mobil together with the Pequiven (affiliated of the state company PDVSA) announced investments of 3 billion dollars for the construction of a new petrochemistry basis. All of these facts demonstrate that the reality differs from Chaves’ statement when he says that “Venezuela will never be a US’s colony again, never again!”  The truth is that Chaves’ “21st century socialism” and the imperialist “savage capitalism” are very well understanding each other and closing excellent deals. It is also important to point out that the Bolivarian slogan: “Latin America for the Latin Americans” is nothing more than an empty rhetoric of a real political content. It is a fake front imposed by the imperialist parasitism against the country’s natural resources.

Facing the profound imperialism integration manifested in Lula and Tabare’s acts and words, the use and repetition of old anti-imperialist jargons guaranteed applauses to the well broadcasted performance played by Chaves during the WSF. He criticizes the external debt as “eternal debt”, but keeps paying it religiously. Sometimes, he even pays its fees to the IMF in advance as did Lula and Kirchner who privileged the imperialism to the cost of maintaining the masses on poverty. Chaves uses solidarity words with the Iraqi people against the Imperial military occupation, but in practice he nourishes the Yankee invader’s assassin war machine with 80% of the Venezuelan oil. However, what is the reason why the imperialism and expressive sectors of the national bourgeoisie try to destroy him to any cost? The imperialism wants to do that because they want to maintain the complete strategic control over the government (including what it says) who is responsible for 25% of the total amount of oil they import. For sectors of the native bourgeoisie who are opposed to Chaves, he is to blame for an unforgivable crime: Chaves charged them with taxes over their fabulous profits. With the objective of saving the capitalist state, the gold eggs chicken that belongs to the extreme parasitism imperialist and their Venezuelan partners who were using it to exhaustion, Chaves simply demanded direct income taxes over their fortunes and benefits. Collecting the state’s fraction of the capitalist exploitation is something never done before in the Venezuelan history. To obligate the bourgeoisie to pay taxes over their fabulous incomes makes them much more furious than Chaves anti-imperialist rhetoric or the oil that is sold to Cuba (who supposedly also makes the Venezuelan and the Yankee elites furious). This very bad habit acquired by the national bourgeoisie was established by the so called “Ponto Fijo” pact that has been applied for 40 years since the social-democracy and the Christian democracy co-governed the country.

HIGH PRICE OF OIL, THE CHAVISM SECRET

Kirchner, Tabare and Lula’s government who disseminated the reactionary utopia of “humanizing the capitalism” and to abandon the “neoliberal model” reveled themselves as mere neoliberal continuators. It happened simply because neoliberalism is not a model, but the unique form of relation between the imperialism and its semi-colonies in today’s world. Chaves still has a certain degree of maneuver because of the fact that Venezuela is the fifth biggest oil producer in the planet and because oil prices are higher than ever in history. It permitted the growth of 9,4% of their economy in 2005 which is still small if compared to the spectacular 17,3% in the previous year. During these seven years of Chavist administration, the country enriched 400 billion dollars, a high amount, but much lower than the transactions and profits that used to be acquired by the multinational oil companies installed in Venezuela. Even though the Chavism is swimming in dollar-oil (used, among other things, to finance the WSF), the money is not being used by the Bolivarian socialist government for the redistribution of incomes and profits. What is really happening there is that business people are dismissing employed people and squeezing the wages as much as they want. There is an increase of unemployment, cost of living, cuts of social expenses and misery in the country. 

At the same time, the center of attention of the Chavist popular mobilization, the so called “pre-socialist missioners”, group of state employees who works in the sanitary and educational departments, is nothing more than a “lefty” version of the well known voluntary group.  This group, for a “social” or “revolutionary” cause, is employed for wagers lower than the ones paid to regular workers in order to do the same job, but without any type of worker’s rights. At the end, the “pre-socialist missioners” serve also to coerce the other workers to tolerate the aggravation of their working conditions in the “savage capitalism”.

Furthermore, on a clear demonstration of accordance with the coward position assumed by all of the semi-colonies’ bourgeois governments, Chaves, during these seven years, has resisted to move forward with minimal democratic tasks that would help to take the country out of its backwardness. For instance, he completely deviates from the agrarian reform in which the latifundium of his country would be expropriated in favor of poor peasants and the people without lend. The Chavist Land law approved in November/01 limits itself to divide only land that belongs to the state. The agrarian reform is an emergence task for Venezuela where 70% of food is imported, including the basics. It is an extreme expression of how dependent Venezuela is on external markets. “The Bolivarian “21st century socialism” is nothing more than a charlatan re-edition of the national-populism who refuses to perform the tasks before executed by the French revolutionary bourgeoisie in the 18th century. In first instance, the Chavism objectively favors the imperialism itself and, right after, it favors the capitalist state and the parasite bourgeoisie who are smaller partners of the international capital in the exploitation of the Venezuelan valuable natural resources and of the proletarian surplus-value.

Even though Chaves tries to attract the anti-Stalinist petit-bourgeoisie’s support (his real reason for this is that he refuses the idea of converting Venezuela into a workers’ state more than any thing else), he does not reject the Cuban revolution sympathy in the continent as an intention to increase his prestige. It is an old populist national resource towards the auto-promotion of a romantic image in both internal and external ambits. His intention is to achieve equilibrium in his relations with US as the leader of “lefty” capitalist government fronts.  By utilizing the Cuban revolution on his own advantage, Chaves in practice rejects it and does not think Cuba is an example to be followed. However, pressured by the people for social and economical changes which arrive in small shots or, most of the time, never arrive, Chaves had been maneuvering the situation by using an anti-imperialist and socialist language. It is not coincidence that one of his principal preoccupations manifested on a lucid speech directed to the public during the Forum was a call for the people to be patient as an intention to calm down the popular pressure over the Latin American populist governments. He told the people not to expect that he would follow Fidel’s foot steps or that Lula would follow his “Bolivarian revolution”. By justifying difference in rhythms which he says should be respected, the Venezuelan president is dedicated to gain more time, so he and his partners in the continent can breathe. His intention was also to comfort those who deposited illusions on populist or nationalist government fronts.

Nothing new will appear from the Bolivarian charlatanism or from his continental partners. They are the re-edition of the 20th century national populist tragedy wrapped in a new face. All of these sirs, Lula, Morales, Kirchner, Tabare, etc, who have Chaves as their leader are nothing more than expropriators of the masses’ anti-imperialist fight. They bring the masses’ fight to the electoral and institutional sphere with the intention to destroy it. Very, very soon when the relatively smooth times they are going through to finish and the global economic crisis to install, these governments will show their rage not to the imperialism, but to the rebelled populations from their own countries. The recent history has enriched the theory of permanent revolution. It has shown that given the populist governments’ profound integration with the semi-colonies bourgeoisie, they has restricted their anti-imperialism discourse to a mere rhetoric resource, but in practice they have capitulated to the imperialism all of the way. This phenomenon, incapable of giving to the masses any type of reform which could attenuate their agony under the capitalism, is fated to have a short political life, as for instance the short government of Gutierrez in Ecuador. It is also a fact that the amount of maneuvers used by the imperialism and by titer regimes, even with the alternation of titers in the Latin American governments, to control the situation is achieved by the ideological confusion spread by the petit-bourgeois directions. These directions are responsible to recycle the reformism by promoting events such as the WSF. Opposing to break with the imperialism and with the private property regime, the Chavism is, either by capitulating or by favoring the situation to new state takeovers commanded by the CIA, a counter-revolutionary obstacle which has to be transposed by the masses on their way towards liberation from the oppressing class. For the fight to overcome of the masses’ illusion on reformist variables, for the organization of a political struggle with the objective to construct an internationalist revolutionary party which can conduct the workers to take over the power. The destruction of the capitalist state and the establishment of the workers’ dictatorship are elementary conditions which can make the socialism to triumph in the 21st century.

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