Clarification to a comment by Jorge Altamira about Opción Obrera

Clarification to a comment by Jorge Altamira about Opción Obrera

For Opción Obrera, it is necessary to specify some points that contrast with the analysis on Venezuela that Jorge Altamira (Partido Obrero de Argentina) exposes in an interview (lapiparota.wordpress.com) where he also characterizes OO briefly, lightly and mistakenly.

let's get to the point,the first thing that needs to be clarified is that Maduro and his government, if they resist, still use the masses, not with Trotskyist methods,  contrary  to what happened with Zelaya, Lugo and Dilma, who did not resist and they delivered the government to the ultra right, spurred by the empire. It is important to point out that "our" right-wing opposition does not use democratic methods, as has been demonstrated since April 2002.

The repression was used by the government against the onslaughts of the “guarimba”, and sometimes, the repressors were overwhelmed by the assaults of the right that was directed, paid, prepared and equipped, committing not a few murders, frequently some of their " leaders "operated stimulated by the effects of drugs and alcohol supplied by the organizers. These spotlight were sponsored by governors, mayors, deputies of the National Assembly, as well as Colombian and north American organizations, until they were -the guarimbas- visited by former presidents of other countries, "friends of democracy" like Andres Pastrana.

Among the operations was to destroy health facilities, education, transportation, burning of living people and also lash out against their own neighbors who were prevented from moving to their workplace, health emergencies or other needs, just missing a label of fascists to those sectors of middle class desperate, expressing hatred, racism, violence because even the swastika was a common badge. However, the manual was not met to define this as a civil war against the working class to point this out as fascism.

The government still mobilizes popular sectors, coerced, manipulated, that still resist and do not get excited with the siren songs of the MUD, and to avoid that, we can not take out the body or say whatsapp that they are wrong, we must mobilize to try to guide them. Nor is attending the shows of Maduro or a governor to make him bulk.

The election last July 30 of the ANC (1) was an excellent example, days before, the so-called "popular" consultation of the right on July 16 demonstrated its failure, did not drag the population after the fascist protests, there it sentenced its defeat, then the assistance on July 30 to the rigged elections of the constituents, where even Chavistas  candidates participated, representing workers or communal sectors, not approved by the PSUV, gave the result or coup de grace to the right.

This did not indicate that the objective of the conformation of the ANC was revolutionary, but it was true and I do not smell of turkey all the threats and sanctions offered by Trump(2), the EU, the OAS and the most reactionary governments of America, led by Manuel Santos against the election of the ANC. Today the economic sanctions are being suffered by Venezuelans, in our "dictatorship", by those democratic countries.

Against the working class, when it fights, makes demands and mobilizes, both public and private employers act in their interests as well as state agencies, such as labor offices, the prosecutor's office and the courts, are coerced and It criminalizes the protest as a form of repression, and on many occasions they send the police and the GNB in ​​defense of the boss. The government and private entrepreneurs are waging war on any movement that points to the autonomous struggle of the working class, there are fascist traits in employer sectors of both sides

On the side of the union bureaucracy that responds to the right-wing opposition, concentrated in the Union of Marcela Maspero, and the Fadess of the union dinosaurs of AD, they declare or act in agreement with Chambers of commerce and industry  and the most extremist parties, on the right, of the MUD, although also participates Ccura of the PSL.

Opción Obrera, participates in a front called the Platform for Revolutionary Struggle, section Aragua, where a statement was discussed and approved delimiting those elections, and also regarding government policy(3).

 
In conclusion, it is important to determine if the government resists whom? And he responds with repression. Is the government besieged by the working class and repressed or is it besieged by the pro-imperialist right and repressed?
Secondly, the problem is strategic and has to do with the control of oil, not by chance, the Middle East is a powder keg bursting every day more than 60 years ago, and Venezuela is in that team that make up OPEC.

Many are interested in devaluing the role of OPEC, although it is very diminished, the countries that comprise it supply a third of the world production, which is exported, this is key, all the countries with the highest energy consumption, such as the US - far from being self-sufficient -, Europe and Japan depend on the "humor" of the OPEC, there are as main producers the Arab monarchy and Iran that together with other non-OPEC such as Russia, agree export volumes. Venezuela, despite the dilapidated state of PDVSA, is a very important exporter for the refineries of the US coast in the Gulf of Mexico.

Another point is the following, in madurism or the Maduro government, there are all those who were in Chavismo, with the exception of Chávez, obviously, and it is to lose time to speculate that he would have done today, as he would have responded, the electoral advantage It was used by both Chavez and Maduro, the difference was that with the wind in favor and is with the wind against, although it must be noted that the legacy of Chavez, was the real basis, which led to this situation. Maduro's personal characteristics or abilities weigh, it is true, but structurally the country did not change with respect to the time of Chavez or even before that era, that of the fixed-point pact regime, which was to squander the oil rent , that is the essential characteristic of this country, for 100 years and for Chavismo for 19 years.

On the side of the Left, it has never proposed an alternative program to these traditional and parasitic relations of production. Stalinism, already with 86 years of existence, survives by fully supporting the Maduro government, until its electoral slips do not pose anything alternative, just locate in a seat and continue to support. The PPT, does the corresponding in the same sense, the pursuit of chavismo essentially. Now both are stripping the daisy, to determine if they support Maduro's reelection. 

Opción Obrera, has made a thorough critique of the political line of the PCV (4), in turn when the opportunity has been given has also participated in meetings where militant unions and sometimes members of the PCV are represented, to give specific and unitary responses proposing and presenting proposals concrete class and independent government tutelage. It participated and continues to do so, with the small union federation Fusbec of Carabobo state, where an important national struggle activity of the workers of the Barrio Adentro Mission and in Aragua is spread in a fight platform divided in May of the autonomous proposals regarding government institutions. The PSL and Marea Socialista do not propose anything alternative to critical chavismo or to the right itself. 

Some additional element to be specified 

The left 

One part of the left, uses arguments supporting Maduro under a "logic of the lesser evil" the other part, just as harmful, product of the despair of not having achieved something within Chavism, coexist with the right traditional. Both as well as disorienting, they are liquidators for any movement that begins its rupture with nationalism. All Trotskyism morenismo  of  Venezuela or from the English current of the Grant, are immersed in this dilemma.

What is the correct, revolutionary position? word so expensive to chavismo. 

First we have to define Chavism, and then clearly delimit it. 

The parties and their governments, from January 1958 to December 1998, after the fall of the Perez Jimenez dictatorship, could not continue to create false expectations for Venezuelans, and as a result of the discontent, the 1989 social explosion took place. Exhaustion of the parties in power, without an alternative offered by the left, was picked up by an insurgent sector of the army that revolted in 1992, and years later, in the elections of December 1998 led, by discarding, a military to the government. The left had burned its cartridges in the last government of Rafael Caldera, 94-98, then followed his performance, of follow-up to the new government, to Chavez. 

Chavismo 

Arriving at the government in 1999, through elections, at the outset demonstrates its previous commitment, approved, to exercise power within the bourgeois democratic commitment, a few months after the new constitution endorses it, nothing happens. Then in 2002, after 3 years in the government, he was forced to put his hands to the direction of the oil industry, so he was overthrown, saved by the masses and restored to power, but again insisted on accepting the rules of the economic interests of the empire, restitution of the old directive of PDVSA and amnesty to the coup plotters. This radicalized, all within the bourgeois framework, the struggle for the administration of the oil rent, between a nationalist and pro-imperialist attempt, the nationalist attempt, inaugurated a label Socialism of the 21st century (2005) , where it was specified that his way of being expressed a peaceful revolution, what is a contradiction of terms

Chavismo, when the previous regime called Punto Fijo pact failed, had its birth as an attempt to continue taking advantage of the oil rent, without investing in production in Venezuela, through a Bonapartist regime, whose function is to arbitrate between the classes, without endangering class domination. Arbitrating between social classes, implied being repudiated by rancid sectors of the Venezuelan parasite bourgeoisie and its foreign partners, which does not prevent to continue united by a thousand bonds with the mechanisms of domination of the imperialist financial capital and its Creole partners, is also indispensable to be able arbitrate having to be supported by the army. 

This nationalism is populist, patriotic, which hides defining the class that favors strategically in its relations of production, aims to level the political imbalance of the previous regime and to that end, took progressive measures to a certain limit to stabilize the bourgeois order(5).

 

Chavismo became the most important movement of mass mobilization in Latin America, because of its quantity, its duration, and and for what it achieved, as a result of the high foreign concurrency income to the country, all this did not go beyond welfare. Despite his blunders, it was deposed and reinstated by a popular insurgency in April 2002, saved by the workers' control in particular of the oil industry after the oil lockout of December 2002-February 2003, ratified after a constitutional recall referendum ( 2004), requested through a falsified convocation, by the right-wing coup leaders not punished for this.

It is important to note that after the bosses' defeat during the lockout, the gangster union bureaucracy, armed bands, totally undemocratic was displaced, where, however, important milestones were won with the struggles of the workers 'movement, despite the fact that the government built another trade union center to regiment the workers' movement. 

With unbeatable material conditions to govern, with a parliament totally to its whims, in the course of 2005 to 2012 a huge oil rent was squandered, with an economic policy of transferring most of those immense resources to foreign and national capitals , in that order, banking, the financial sector month after month was boosting its profits extraordinarily. 

Until the start of 2008 - the collapse of foreign exchange earnings, due to low prices of crude oil exports, as a result of a recession in the main consumer countries. They had all the best conditions for the impulse of the country, they squandered it and they ran out.

The paralysis of the economy 

Maduro has said that 70000 million dollars of debt has been paid, with that amount plus the dollars granted by Cadivi and Cencoex since 2004, the best industrial park in Latin America would have been built next to a vast integral agrarian reform. 

Now we are in a paralysis of the economy, where it is not intended to leave the cause that produced it, only resort to warm cloths to lighten the fever. On the part of the government, they only take pains to look for how to obtain dollars to continue in the same. From the private sector, the industrial sectors became the best importing merchants, through the acquisition of preferential dollars, provided by the welfare state and it is enough to hear Lorenzo Mendoza to realize that his actions are to continue demanding dollars from the welfare state in order to continue producing, more parasite can not be this national bourgeoisie. 

The production when it is not zero is very low in all public and private companies, the heavy industry of Guayana, the oil industry, all sectors of manufacturing, metalworking, plastics, chemicals, auto parts, tires, household appliances, in addition to confiscation of the money of the Venezuelans on the part of the banks, promoted by the BCV. 

Bringing stones from the outside to dollars almost given away, does not have to do with the priority of importing the indispensable ones to start up the industry, if the private industry it requires some input or spare part to operate, what is strictly necessary in quality and quantity, the state can acquire it without continuing to grant dollars and deliver it to the company, which pays it in bolivars. 

The current extreme and fragile situation, which during all 2017, with attempts of fascist outbreaks, sieges to institutions of the state and the government, now passes in 2018 due to hunger, scarcity, inflation, unemployment to generate popular breakthroughs genuine not promoted by the “guarimberos”, which has not been generalized yet, indicates the degree of contention that the government still exercises in the most oppressed sectors 

The default is a time bomb for the Venezuelan financial system, its Venezuelan banking system and with it of course the economy, the debt of sovereign bonds and PDVSA are a heavy burden that cannot be overcome. Throughout 2018, the BCV and the government will continue to reduce real public spending, not nominal, tied to an insurmountable obstacle, the lack of production and the absence of foreign currency, to achieve the surplus that guarantees the payment of the debt. 

This will have as a consequence an impetuous increase in unemployment, wages of misery and a huge growth of extreme poverty(6). 

The alternative 

The defeats and learnings are in the real mobilizations and struggles, which are carried out even in desperate Chavistas  bases before the decrease of social spending along with a speculative trade that the government allows and in passing adds increases in services and products that they produce. So not everything is imputed to the empire and the Venezuelan right. 

The survival of this government is not based today on broad popular support, but still large sectors resist and defend their modest employment, such as teaching above all at the university level and humanistic careers that although not well oriented, is not what promotes the traditional right, in addition a sector especially of adults who before did not have access to the study, the representatives of the cultural sector, that although quite declined, was promoted by the government, farmers with lands granted, public employees, pensioners for their growth and their miserable but real amount, not as previously they died waiting for the pension.

 Those of the empire are aware of the monumental development of the misgovernment that exists in the Venezuelan economy, the mechanisms of surveillance and coercion of status are losing control over very impoverished, unemployed sectors, in particular rural and anarchic urban areas adjacent to the roads where they move the transport of food that is being assaulted, and they know that the government's handouts to contain them are not enough. 

The MUD, demonstrates its incompetence as an alternative, then the empire has no choice but to bend the government, pushing it to put it on its knees and reach to an agreement to leave the crisis to their benefit, especially in the control of oil. The government also knows that it cannot leave the quagmire alone, and also requires an agreement with private capital but does not accept to deliver everything they ask, eliminate the ANC, recognize the AN, legal update of political parties, privatizations, greater economic cuts in conclusion there is a whole impasse. 

What the US and capital fear is an uprising out of control of the mass movement, the confrontation with the workers and the people with limited resources, is what is expected. 

As long as the fighters and the working class do not take the lead and do not take action to solve your needs, disasters will follow. There is still a fragile balance between a weak and erratic government and opposition from the unpopular right, which aspires to become a government. But even an electoral victory in the MUD or in a sector of it in the current conditions of the crisis can become the beginning of its end by not being able to resolve the situation. 

The general political problem facing the ruling class is the situation of ruin economic the current crisis of power accelerates towards a social explosion, which will generate a total crisis of governability, and our only way is only on new socialist bases, to overcome the structural deficiencies of capitalism in Venezuela, which exploded with the world in crisis.

it is not limited to nationalists, the even greater problem is the "left" with a general and historical disorientation, with immersed proposals that are a mixture of tactics and rhetoric within capitalism, an absence of class work in the unions and in the communities, which lack of revolutionary objectives end in empty formalities that aggravate the confusion among the masses 

All the above facts, on the one hand, intensify the capitalist character of the Venezuelan economy and its ties of preference with transnational financial capital. We have to prepare ourselves, we have precious time to guide the action of the looming movement. 

The economic crisis is associated with the political crisis on a national and Latin American scale.

 The bourgeois economic "science" with its advisers and think tanks are frankly bankrupt. Through both liberal and nationalist governments, not only led to this economic and social crisis but now are totally unable to develop a strategy to get out of it, do not have a capitalist economic alternative to get out of the crisis the Keynesian and neoliberal recipes they have failed, they have nothing new and it is reflected in the political sphere as a process of total exhaustion 

The bipartisan adeco-copeyano political system collapsed in 1998 and the PSUV-MUD controversy is intended to become a polarization that is not stable and less durable. On this basis, discuss and decide a common plan throughout the country, direct action on the main social problems. 

The key elements of a revolutionary strategic orientation are summarized as follows: 

Venezuela for historical structural reasons(7), is the weakest link in Latin America, prone to bursting under the crushing weight of the world capitalist crisis, therefore cannot be restored in the same social bases The exit must be revolutionary or it will not be. Immediately required, nationalization of banking and foreign trade and all strategic sectors under workers' control, the elimination of payment of debt, no compensation to thief capitalists, reorganization of the economy according to social needs without bosses capitalists or bureaucrats. General increase of wages to cover the basic family basket. 

The endless horror must and may end in the outbreak of a social revolution and its triumph, the work force can realize the socialist reconstruction within a state of the Commune type and the councils revolutionaries of workers that can only be achieved with a Workers' Government 

Someone said that internationalism is not a political principle but the subjective reflection of the objective course of economic history. Venezuela will give to empire a lot of problem and the solidarity activity of denunciation against economic sanctions is fundamental for the Latin American working class to feel protagonist of its role as a revolutionary class.

José Capitán