Venezuela: The PSUV congress has now been called
and Marxists will fight shoulder to shoulder with left-wing
delegates for a genuine socialist programme in the struggle against
bureaucracy and against the right-wing in the party.
On Thursday, October 15, Jorge Rodríguez, one of the national PSUV
coordinators, stated in a press conference that the National Leadership
had agreed upon a set of rules for the PSUV National Congress. This
means that the Party Congress will begin on November 21 and go on
untill December 13.
In August 
… called for a re-organisation of the party structures with the launching
of the ”Socialist patrols”, a new type of branches, which was aimed at allowing
greater participation by the rank and file. At the present moment, the
PSUV has an official membership of 7 million. with 2.5 million signed up
to be active in the patrols.
Apart from this, there has been a very significant development with
the setting up of workers’ patrols, i.e. PSUV branches in the
factories. As we have explained in other articles,
working class activists in many plants have taken up this call with
great enthusiasm. In the SIDOR factory, 40 patrols have been
set up with 502 workers participating actively. According to the PSUV
National Leadership, 16,000 such workers’ patrols have been formed
throughout the country, organising a total of 250,000 workers. The
number of normal party branches based on locality has reached the
impressive figure of 104,000.
The process of electing delegates for the congress has already
begun. At the time of writing, the PSUV branches are in the process of selecting two
candidates per branch who will then be part of the delegate elections
scheduled for November 15th. In those elections, all of the 2.5 million active PSUV members who are listed as belonging to a patrol will be able to vote.
However, before this vote is cast, the vice-presidents of each PSUV
region will make a seletion of the candidates in each region, taking
the nominations as their starting point. This method has raised some
concerns in the minds of the more left-wing sectors of the party, who
are afraid that this will give less representation to the rank and file.
The nomination of candidates will have finished on Saturday, October 24th
and the selection process by the regional vice-presidents will take
place the next day. The PSUV National Leadership is thus suppossed to
publish the list of candidates for the delegate elections on Monday,
October 26. From that date untill the elections of November 15th, there will be an electoral race for the 780 delegate-seats.
PSUV at the crossroads
The congress is taking place in the middle of a revolution in a
country that is being hard hit by the world capitalist crisis. It will
therefore be a focal point for revolutionaries everywhere. As we
analyzed at that time, the founding congress of the party
in 2008 was a heated struggle between revolutionaries and reformists
over all the main political aspects: programme, declaration of
principles, party democracy and day-to-day politics. While the
left-wing surely made a remarkable impact, the right-wing bureaucracy
was nevertheless well-organized and therefore managed to take control
of the main positions in the leadership.
The party then had to stand in its first
electoral contest, the elections for mayors and governors in November
2008, where it managed to win a clear victory with 58% of the votes.
However, this victory was obtained with the loss of strategic
governorships suchs as Alcaldía Mayor de Caracas, Miranda and Carabobo.
This was a clear warning sign, which showed that the Bolivarian masses
are tired of elections after elections with no clear action being taken
to finish the counter-revolution, solve the urgent problems of the
country and satisfy the needs of the masses. The alarm bells where
ringing once again in February 2009, when the vote in favour of the
revolution shrank to 54% in the referendum on the constitutional
amendment.
The discussions in the congress
The main subject of discussion at this congress should therefore be
how to reverse this trend. It is not enough to talk about Socialism – it
must be built in action. If Socialism remains just words, the masses will
be tired of all the parades, speeches and elections. None of these
things solve the problems. During 10 years of revolution, the
Bolivarian masses have defended the revolution again and again, not only
in elections, but also against coup d’etats, economic sabotage and
violence on part of the counter-revolution.
The signs of lower participation in recent electoral contests can in no way be attributed to the supposedly ”low level of
counsciousness” of the masses. On the contrary, the masses have
displayed a high level of class counsciousness and courage by saving
the revolution time and again. The problem is, that the
masses can only sacrifice their today for their tommorrow up to a
certain point. If the revolution does not advance decisively – and if
it is incapable of offering a solution to problems such as housing,
food scarcity, inflation and unemployment – a mood of apathy can set in
among the Bolivarian masses, which will pave the way for the
counter-revolution. The congress should discuss how to put a halt to such a development. In
our opinion this can only be done by expropriating the industry, the
banks and the land and thereby creating the basis for a genuine
Socialist planned economy.
Freddy Bernal, another national PSUV organiser, has stated that the
agenda of the congress will contain points on the party statutes,
ethics of the party, the definite structure of the national leadership
and the values and conceptions of a Socialist society. Other sources
indicate that a point on the agenda is called ”Elements in the
transition towards Socialism”.
Marxists are intervening
The Marxists of the CMR – Venezuelan section of the IMT – are
standing candidates for the delegate elections in a number of regions.
Our comrades have worked to build the local PSUV branches and
especially the workers’ branches. In the factories Mitsubitshi (MMC),
SIDOR, INVEVAL, INAF and Gotcha, workers belonging to the CMR have
played a leading role in the setting up of the PSUV branches.
The CMR has produced a short document, entitled ”For a PSUV as
the instrument of the workes and the people, that can take power in the
factories, the communities and the rural areas”. This document
will be printed with 5,000 copies as a special feature of the next issue
of El Militante, the Venezuelan Marxist paper. The document will be
distributed massively and discussed in the PSUV branches and around it
we will group a number of left-wing delegates who support its basic
principles. In the month that remains up to the November 15th
delegate election, we will run a campaign in favour of revolutionary
candidates who support the document. Our website and paper will be
carrying regular comments on and analysis of the proceedings of the
PSUV congress.
As part of our campaign, during the PSUV congress, the CMR will also
organise a speaking tour with Alan Woods, the well-known British Marxist
theoretician and leader of the IMT. Alan Woods is the author of books
such as Bolshevism – The Road to Revolution and the recent Reformism or Revolution – Reply to Heinz Dietrich. Both books have been recommended on several occations by President Chávez. He will be visiting Venezuela between the 13th and the 30th of November and will be speaking in regions throughout Venezuela and in meetings of the PSUV.
Another aspect of our intervention will be to connect the ongoing
struggle of the workers at Mitsubishi (MMC) in Barcelona, Anzoátegui
state with the wider struggle of the PSUV rank and file for a Socialist
programme. At MMC, 153 workers are to be sacked by the multinational in
a prolonged labour dispute which cost the lifes of 2 workers back in
January 2009. Among the 153 workers are 11 trade-union leaders, all of
them members of the PSUV. In the congress, the CMR will collect
signatures in solidarity with the struggle at MMC.
Fight against bureaucracy
A very deep-felt theme in Venezuela is the debate on how to counter
the growth of the bureaucracy within the Bolivarian movement and in the
PSUV in particular. While the Party won the majority of governorships
and mayorships back in November 2008, ther is a widespread discontent
with the work of these elected representatives.
A recent example is Carabobo, where the PSUV won a number of
mayorships, including the capital Valencia. Many rank and file members
and local leaders of the party have complained that these mayors
elected on a PSUV-ticket havn’t changed anything since their
inauguration and are in fact carrying out policies contrary to the
party’s principles. Marío Silva, member of the National Leadership and
host of the famous TV programme ”La Hojilla”, has given a voice to this
anger and suggested that the National Leadership intervenes in that
region.
Many similar cases could be mentioned. The main problem is that the
Venezuelan revolution is clashing with the bourgeois concept of
democracy, where elections are held every 4 or 5 years and then the
elected politicians can do whatever they want in the meantime. As
pointed out in the CMR document for the National Congress, the only
alternative is to crush the bougois state and build a new workers’
state:
"In this regard, Marxism can offer a practical guide about how to
build a revolutionary state and complete the socialist revolution in
Venezuela. In other revolutions where there was an attempt to overthrow
the bourgeois state, the revolutionary states created had a series of
common characteristics. As Russian revolutionary Lenin pointed out in
his book "State and revolution", this new state, or rather a
semi-state, as it would not be separate from the people but composed of
the workers themselves organised together with the rest of the
oppressed (peasants, communities, students, fishermen, indigenous
communities, …), would have the following characteristics:1. Election and right of recall at any time for all officials,
2. No state official of the workers’ state to receive a wage higher than the average wage of a skilled worker
3. Rotation of all positions. If everybody is a bureaucrat, no-one is a bureaucrat.
4. The people in arms. General arming of the workers and the people. No standing army. "
In the PSUV congress, the Marxists will fight shoulder to shoulder
with the left-wing delegates in the struggle against bureaucracy and
against the right-wing in the party. Our main aim will be to provide a
genuine socialist programme for the delegates who are seeking for a way
to complete the revolution and build socialism in practice. We are
convinced that this is what the majority of the PSUV rank and file are
fighting for.
This article was first published on Friday 23rd October on the www.marxist.com site
