Preliminary Comments on Venezuelan Referendum Result
1. Perhaps Tariq Ali was the first among the prominent international 'lefts' [though 'left' is a hazy term nowadays] to comment on Venezuelan Referendum Result, and that appeared in Counter Punch on 3rd December. As reason he cited: "...large-scale abstentions by his supporters. 44 percent of the electorate stayed at home. Why? First, because they did not either understand or accept that this was a necessary referendum. The key issues were the removal of restrictions on the election of the head of government (as is the case in most of Europe) and moves towards 'a socialist state.' On the latter there was simply not enough debate and discussion on a grassroots level." ...and then"Another error was the insistence on voting for all the proposals en bloc on a take it or leave it basis...."
2. Tariq could have and should have concluded from the above that it was not a defeat of Socialism, if socialism is to be understood as the International Working Class Movement [and also the movement of all toiling and exploited masses of people of the world under the leadership of the working class] towards liberation of humanity; and neither it was a defeat of the Venezuelan workers and the advanced activists of working class there at Venezuela. Because workers there haven't proposed or sought the referendum, they didn't chalk out their issues at stake or the issues of the referendum... etc. This was a defeat of the Ch?vista ruling group.
3. Tariq wrote, "He is a fighter and he will be thinking of how to strengthen the process. If properly handled the defeat could be a blessing in disguise." We would like to add that: Whatever Ch?vez and his close circle friends think or not, the workers must tell him and them that it was enough, they must stop this funny/crazy 'socialism model-making' [a socialism minus working class] and better they should spend some time in reading history of international socialist movement, some important writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin at least. Tariq wrote about our class brothers and sisters there: "they did not either understand or accept that this was a necessary referendum." And Tariq knows well, he could have written too, what Lenin taught about 'introducing' socialism. Lenin taught that only those socialist reforms could be enacted 'from above' for which the ground, i.e., 'the ground below' is ready, has become ready. This doesn't mean the masses would have to be 'ready' to accept the reforms as 'passive recipients', but Lenin meant that the masses would have to be active participants of those reforms, would be in a position to demand those reforms [apart from the objective condition, as for example, the production process being ready for the change] because the masses should be subjects of history, not 'objects', if we are taking about building socialism. Edgardo Lander did raise the point as Tariq did; but the point is why they didn't put Lenin and his teachings straight and undiluted. Cannot they, as peddlers of '21st Century's Socialism', try to learn from the history of socialist movement, the great rise of working class movement worldwide, and its defeat too? Do they want us to forget that as working class we have a long l-o-n-g history of socialist movement!
4. Tariq wrote, "One of the weaknesses of the movement in Venezuela has been the over-dependence on one person." But the weakness becomes a threatening disease if persons start to believe that he is the messiah who'll give the 'poor and wretched' workers 'deliverance' in the form of '21st Century Socialism' and 'socialism' can come as a 'governmental project' without the initiative and struggle of the working class!!
5. Venezuelan workers must take this issue of referendum result seriously, should take lessons from it and should take those lessons to other toiling masses. It is the initiative and struggle of working class and other toilers there on which destroying capitalism, vanquishing imperialism and building 'socialism' in Venezuela depend.
6. But in spite of all said above, we must say, a solid 49.3% of valid votes went in favour of unlimited power of the president for carrying out 'socialist reforms' [whatever 'socialist' means to them]. This figure speaks out the soul of Venezuela.
And here too we have Pros and Cons: very briefly speaking, Pros ? in the sense that so many people are veering to 'socialism', at least they are seeing it as a better and viable alternative to 'capitalism'; and Cons ? in the sense that they are seeking actions and intervention 'from above' for materialisation of their objective rather than thinking of taking the steering wheel of history themselves.
7. Later we found James Petras in his analysis emphasising and probing the role of the 'holy-alliance' or the unholy-quartet led by the US imperialism for a disorder in Venezuela and for a NO vote in the referendum. Surely this point is to be noted and given due importance.
Comments:
No Comments for View