Workers Never Ruled Venezuela
“Workers Never Ruled Venezuela” By Karyn Pomerantz, 8-24-2024; From the Multiracial Unity blog at https://multiracialunity.org.
Brief Summary
With the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998, workers and students in Venezuela and around the world rejoiced in thinking Venezuela created a socialist state. The new government under Hugo Chavez supported popular participation in the economy and government. It promoted communes to produce goods collectively and the Councils to make decisions democratically.
Chavez, a military officer and a social democrat, took power with elections, not by a working-class revolt. In 1998, he won by a slim margin that enlarged in subsequent elections through 2012. He led and championed a radical Bolivarian government with social spending and nationalization of industries that countered the austerity, neoliberal policies of the time. (Bolivar was a Venezuelan general who led revolts that liberated people in South America from Spain in the early 19th Century). Chavez denied he was a Marxist or communist but asserted that he was not anti-Marxist or anti-communist. He believed in a mix of capitalism and socialism and relied on voting to maintain control.
Chavez died from cancer in 2013; he chose his vice president, Nicolas Maduro, to replace him as president. Today, twenty-six years after Chavez’ initial election, Venezuelans are experiencing a massive decline in economic security.
This article will review the political economy of Venezuela and investigate the claims that Venezuela enacted a socialist society. What is the role of oil, and the influence of the US and China? What would a socialist or communist society look like?
In conclusion, neither Maduro nor his opponents serve the working class. Favoring the enemy of my enemy, Venezuela over the US, leaves us with evil whether it is lesser or greater. Billions of workers, predominantly black and brown, already live under the precarious and fascist conditions that US voters fear from Trump. Voting for the “lesser” evil will not change that.
Demographics
Venezuela has a population of 28,405,543 (about the population of Texas); all living in urban areas. It has an average life expectancy of 76 years but a large infant mortality close to 15 per 1000 live births (Worldometers). Over half of its inhabitants are mestizo or “mixed,” a combination of black and indigenous traits. Over 42% of people of European and Arab descent are labeled white. Spanish colonialism enslaved black and indigenous people leaving inequitable conditions with mestizos more exploited and oppressed than the better-resourced whites.
In 2021, 90% of the population lived in poverty while the average minimum wage was $3 a month! Approximately 6% of people looking for work were jobless in 2023 while inflation is 150%. Hyperinflation had exceeded 1000%. Eight million (8,000,000) people have fled to nearby and distant countries, adding to the world’s migrant population (UNHCR, Statista).
Elections: “Fair” or Fraudulent?
After Chavez died of cancer in 2013, the US challenged Maduro’s elevation to the presidency and created an American puppet, Juan Guido, to replace him. They failed, and Maduro assumed the office as the economy tanked. The July 2024 presidential election has thrown Venezuela into more chaos as the current president, Maduro, and the rival US-backed candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, claim victory.
The US led the opposition, vigorously opposing Maduro’s claim that he won 51% of the vote. Until 2024, the government election body published the machine-by-machine vote counts within three days. Now close to a month after the election, Maduro refuses to release the ballots. Factions of local capitalists and the middle class always protest the election outcome, but this time people in the barrios who had supported the government mounted large, militant protests demanding to see the counts. At least 25 people have been killed in post-election protests so far, with nearly 200 injured and more than 2,400 arrested (Aljazeera).
It is likely that Maduro lost. Professor Alejandro Velasco at NYU, author of “Barrios Rising”, wrote:
“If revolution is to win … in Venezuela, its backers at home and abroad must first recognize that they lost.
At a glance, it seems all too familiar. Another hotly contested election in Venezuela, another victory for the long-besieged Chavista government, another round of fraud allegations by the US-backed opposition.
Against this backdrop, it may be tempting for those who backed or still back what Chávez called a Bolivarian Revolution—a movement that aims to make Venezuela and later the rest of Latin America more responsive to popular needs—to dismiss opposition claims that Maduro stole elections for a new six-year term of office. All the more so when the US government announced that it will recognize the opposition victory even as most countries in the region withhold making that call.
But the reality is that this time is different. Ten days since the vote, there can be little doubt that Maduro lost his bid at re-election and that his government intends to remain in power, defying the will of Venezuelan voters. The evidence is partly in the continued refusal by electoral authorities to release precinct-level data for public scrutiny, as it has speedily done in previous elections and as the law requires, or to offer proof of what it claims is a “brutal hacking campaign” targeting its election system… And it lies in public statements by governments otherwise friendly to Chavismo—in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico—conditioning recognition on an independent audit of the results announced by the National Electoral Council.
To be sure, US sanctions have exacerbated Venezuela’s crisis. But they are not its cause nor do they explain why sectors loyal to the government for 25 years turned away from it at the polls. Austerity, corruption, repression, and dollarization under Maduro have decimated Chavismo’s historic bases of support.
On July 28, Maduro lost. If revolution is to win in Venezuela, its supporters at home and abroad must first recognize defeat and the many missteps that led here, then begin the work of supporting Chavismo in opposition, not in power (MLT).
Venezuelans continue to fight to see which wealthy group will win: the imperialist US or the homegrown Venezuela elites. Clearly, the working class is losing. It’s another scenario we see in the US, Palestine, and South Africa where no political party serves the workers and students. However, these struggles open opportunities to abolish capitalism and its racism.
US Sanctions Increase Deaths and Disease
The US has imposed sanctions against the government, industries, and individuals identified as terrorists and human rights abusers (as if the US can talk). The US hopes to initiate a popular uprising that can replace Maduro with a US friendly ally.
The sanctions have frozen assets, restricted exports and the sale of oil, prohibited the restructuring of debt, and excluded Venezuela from participating in US financial markets. These have immense consequences since Venezuela depends so heavily on its oil sales. The US, one of Venezuela’s biggest customers, had bought 35% of Venezuela oil. In 2018, it cut its purchases to zero. While the US has modified the scope of the sanctions, damages persist.
Health problems have increased dramatically. The Center for Economic Policy and Research estimates a 31% increase in overall mortality with 300,000 people at risk for illness and death, including 80,000 with HIV, 16,000 who need dialysis for kidney disease, 16,000 with cancer, and 4,000 with heart disease. One-third of the doctors have left the country. In addition, inadequate food, electricity, clean water, and sanitation contribute to high rates of premature deaths. Despite sanctions against countries trading with Venezuela, Iran has delivered oil to Venezuela, and China has lured Venezuela to align with them by loaning them billions of dollars (CFR, CEPR).
It’s About the Oil
Flush with the world’s largest oil reserves, Chavez continued nationalizing the oil industry run by the PDSV, the state-owned oil company, and parts of the agricultural, mining, and banking sectors. The wealth from its oil exports financed social programs that improved the standard of living for its working class. Many of us may remember Venezuela funding heating oil for poor families in the US and exporting oil to Cuba suffering under US trade embargoes.
Venezuela’s economic prosperity and collapse follows the history of its oil industry. Established in 1936, the industry grew until it exported the most oil in the world and became the primary source of income for the government. Rather than diversifying its economy, Venezuela became totally dependent on oil and suffered periods when inflation soared to 130,000% in 2018 and fell to “only” 155% in 2022 (Reuters, Statista 2).
When times were good, the petrodollars allowed Chavez to establish social services, the misiones. He established medical clinics staffed by Cuban doctors in exchange for oil, free compulsory education, and successful literacy campaigns. Poverty fell from 40 percent in 1996 to 7.3 percent in 2013, and infant mortality dropped to 13 per 1,000 live births from 25 per 1,000 by 2013. He opened discount stores, and restaurants for low-income groups, and increased housing. When the petrodollars dried up as the price of oil fell and the US applied sanctions, Venezuela workers lost this safety net and became desperate for jobs, food, education, and health care (Truthout). Saddled with debt, Venezuela owed billions to the IMF that required cutbacks in social spending (History).
Heightened Imperialist Rivalries and the Rise of China’s Influence
Rivalries among the world’s imperialist powers for oil and minerals, trade deals, pipelines, and geopolitical positions, such as access to seaways, intensify the threat of wider wars. The need to profit from oil in the Middle East or cobalt in the Congo drives these capitalists to fight for dominance and influence through diplomacy, tariffs, tax policies, and war. The US and the Soviet Union battled for supremacy after WWII during the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the decline of US power, other countries have formed alliances to counter US imperialists and its G7 allies. Many so-called leftists support these alliances because they oppose the US although the coalitions include countries with repressive governments, such as Hungary and Egypt. The adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, anyone opposed to the US ruling class, steers people to support groups like Hamas, Iran, and China. It is a losing nationalist idea if there ever was one.
The China-Venezuela relationship threatens and challenges the power of the US. China has been a major creditor of Venezuela, buying oil in exchange for loans. Under Chavez, China provided over $50 billion in credit over ten years. From 2007-2014, China loaned $63 billion to Venezuela with payment in oil as well selling Venezuela drone technology and making trade deals. When the price of oil fell, Venezuela’s debt to China grew, further strangling workers’ livelihoods and its economy. Maduro has responded to this disenchantment with repression and violence. In exchange for China’s support, Venezuela endorsed Chinese policies regarding Taiwan and family size (The Diplomat, 2024).
Led by China, BRICS is the major coalition that represents Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa with invitations extended to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iran, Argentina, Ethiopia. Venezuela applied to join BRICS, another indication of its growing alignment with China (BRICS).
China has used its Belt and Roads Initiative (BRI) to make loans for infrastructure projects in less industrialized countries. It allows China to profit from its loans and ownership of companies, including cobalt mines in the Congo where young, impoverished kids extract the toxic mineral in extremely hazardous conditions. More importantly, China uses its Belt and Road Initiative projects to extend its sphere of influence against the US. It has made significant headway in Africa and South America.
Does Venezuela Practice Bolivarian Socialism?
Venezuela suffers from internal and external threats. Its reliance on one source of income and its maintenance of profit-making labor practices belie its reputation as a Bolivarian socialist state. When it reaped riches from oil under Chavez, government reforms created prosperity – but not socialism. As the communist Progressive Labor Party wrote about Chavez’ reform program:
“The reform will facilitate state expropriation of private companies for the “social interest.” But this maintains “just payments” to private owners for their holdings.
This is just a “change” from one form of capitalist property to another. It will guarantee “mixed-capital” ventures like those PDVSA (the state-owned oil company) now has with big international oil corporations — again another form of capitalism. The reform will institute a 6-hour workday and “popular councils,” supposedly organs of “people’s power.” But these councils will be limited to the municipal level. In Venezuela, these “popular councils” will have no power over national policies, the state budget, the PDVSA, the armed forces or the judicial system (https://plp.org).”
Another critic concluded that:
“This constitutional reform fight is one about which kind of capitalism will rule Venezuela, not one about destroying capitalism and putting workers in power under a system based on workers’ needs not on profits”
(Caceres). The bankruptcy of the International Left, Alhelí González Caceres. August 7, 2024)
The communist party of Venezuela, the PCV, also criticized Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the PSUV:
“(The government) often talks about “Bolivarian socialism” which is absurd for us as no socialism exists here. To talk about socialism here is mere propaganda, because wages are below extreme poverty levels, and our healthcare and education sectors are destroyed. We made huge achievements under Chavez, but we are in complete rollback now; come visit our schools and hospitals and you will see the real, disastrous state of our public services which should guarantee people’s wellbeing. But the concept of Bolivarian socialism or socialism of the 21st century is still used (MLT, 2022).
On August 21, 2024, the Swiss Communist Party wrote:
“First of all, political power and the means of production still belong to the bourgeoisie in Venezuela, as in other “progressive” Latin American countries. There have indeed been measures against extreme poverty, social services have been set up and companies have been nationalized. But the fundamental point is that there has been no radical change in the capitalist character of the system. The workforce is still at the service of the capital (New Worker).”
The left parties in Venezuela, including the PCV, rely on elections to take power. It is unclear whether there is any revolutionary organizing for a seizure of power. Socialism or communism has never been achieved through negotiations or the ballot box. It appears that Maduro lost the election. Whether Maduro or Gonzalez won the July 2024 election does not change the capitalist nature of Venezuela (see an exhaustive analysis of election outcomes in Venezuela, Arnold August, Voting Trends: Do They Favor Machado/González or Maduro? August 21, 2024.)”
“The main arguments (against elections, ed) were that elections are not a terrain on which the socialist left can compete or make bids for power, both because of the grip of capitalist ideology over the masses, and because of the bourgeois establishment’s control of real power before, during, and after the elections take place. These arguments are solid ones, and they seemed to be confirmed by history. In our continent, socialist governments did not come to power via suffrage until Salvador Allende was elected in Chile in 1970, only to be brought down by a bloody US-sponsored coup d’etat three years later (Venezuela Analysis).”
Communes and Councils
Besides voting, workers developed the grass-roots commune movement as a transition to a socialist society. The representative body of each commune, the Council, voted on the possible projects, such as sugar production or healthcare funded with $10,000 from the government. The communes also enhanced the social and cultural life of the communards by promoting collectivity and community, experiences that inspired hope of creating a new society as an alternative to life-draining, dog-eat-dog capitalism. Millions of people acclaimed the communes as a promising step to socialism; some viewed them as socialism itself.
Venezuela Analysis described the communes as
“democratic, assembly-based, self-government organisations in the territory with the long-term goal of assuming ownership of means of production and public services.”
The commune movement grew during the 2010s when the US imposed sanctions limited people’s access to food and medicines. Like mutual aid projects during Covid and other disasters (or co-housing for the wealthy), communes knitted communities together, and decreased alienation and individualism.
Women comprise 80% of the communards. They organize reproductive health care, emergency shelters, housing, and access to water. The Transformation, Women, Community (TRAMUCO) Cooperative Production Unit is developing a solid-waste management system. Many of the projects involve expanding opportunities for community, such as entertainment centers (VZ 3).
In 2009, Chavez Council told Council members:
“The commune should be the space from which we give birth to socialism,” we have to build the commune as a revolutionary entity, as a territorial, social, political, moral base…the commune is the space from where we are going to generate and give birth to socialism.” Socialism, he emphasized, could not be created from the office of the president or other institutions in the existing capitalist state. “It has to be created at the grassroots level,” he said. “It’s a creation of the people. It’s a creation of the masses. It’s a creation of the nation (MRonline).
While it is critical that the working-class institutes socialism, there is no mention of revolution and the seizure of power. Venezuela still had capitalist industries. No capitalist has ever surrendered power and wealth. Instead, mass, violent struggles have won socialism and radical reforms. Some examples: socialism in Russia and China, national liberation in Kenya, and the abolition of slavery in the US, Jamaica, and Haiti. And even after years of brutal, courageous fighting, the liberators committed mistakes that reversed their victories. In China and Russia, the communists maintained a wage system that advantaged professionals; South African politicians allowed corporations like Coca-Cola to retain control of the economy. President Cyril Ramaphosa sat on the Board of Directors of the mining company that massacred striking workers. We can learn from these mistakes, make new ones, and constantly improve our ideas and actions.
As of April 2024, there were 4500 communes whose representatives met in the National Popular Consultation conference to propose projects that the government-funded with $10,000 for each one (RedAnt).
Nonetheless, the communes existed within a capitalist world where owners of oil dominate the world. As noted, Venezuela’s prosperity relied on its ownership of the largest deposits of oil, a product notorious for its degradation of the environment. This presents a profound contradiction between the environmental goals of the communes and the need for financial health of the country.
As a proponent of the commune movement acknowledges:
“In fact, oil-dependent economies have largely been imposed on both the Venezuelan people and the majority of people worldwide by the elite social class that rules the global system. … Venezuela’s situation, as an oil-producing country whose socialist goal necessarily implies a rational and sustainable approach to production and life that is incompatible with fossil fuel use, is rife with pitfalls and ironies, even if many of these ironies are simply a distilled reflection of those of the socialist transition anywhere in the world. All transitions to new forms of social organization are essentially bootstrapping operations; they are processes of building the new, based on the old (Monthly Review).”
What is to be Done?
Creating a socialist or communist society requires a violent overthrow of the government led by workers, students, and the military. It means ending the wage system that creates hierarchy and disparities in income and wealth. It means prioritizing equity to erase the effects of racism, sexism, and other means of discrimination and division.
Workers in a communist society decide what needs to be produced-cars versus mass transit, meat or fresh produce? They share their labor to provide the necessities of life based on their commitment. Without a profit system, the exploitation of workers and the extreme exploitation of women and mestizo workers can decline and eventually end.
While it requires an enormous effort to win ourselves and other workers, students, and soldiers to this outlook, our alternative is war, displacement, and starvation. This is not acceptable anywhere in the world.
References
Worldometers, https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/venezuela-demographics/).
UNHCR (https://reporting.unhcr.org/operational/situations/Venezuela-situation).
Statista.https://www.statista.com/topics/11572/poverty-and-inequality-in-venezuela/).
UN (https://news.un.org/en/sites/news.un.org.en/files/atoms/files/Interim_Report_PoE _Venezuela_090824.pdf).
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/17/protesters-rally-in-venezuelas-capital-as-post-election-crisis-persists
MLT. (What’s Next for the Left in Venezuela? August 20, 2024, https://mltoday.com/whats-next-for-the-left-in-Venezuela/).”
CEPR. https://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04.pdf
CFR. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/venezuela-crisis#chapter-title-0-6
Statista 2. https://www.statista.com/topics/8140/oil-industry-in-venezuela/#topicOverview
Truthout. https://truthout.org/articles/chavez-the-legacy-and-the-challenges/
BRICS (https://www.reuters.com/world/what-is-brics-who-are-its-members-2023-08-21/)
The Diplomat, 7-2024. (https://thediplomat.com/2024/07/china-a-silent-ally-protecting-venezuelas-maduro/)
History. (https://www.history.com/news/Venezuela-chavez-maduro-crisis
Caceres. The bankruptcy of the International Left, Alhelí González Caceres. August 7, 2024. https://mltoday.com/the-bankruptcy-of-the-international-left/
MLT. https://mltoday.com/pcvs-carolus-wimmer-in-venezuela-we-see-a-daily-increase-in-capitals-influence/
New Worker. The Political Situation in Venezuela, https://newworker.us/international/on-the-political-situation-in-venezuela/)
Venezuela Analysis https://venezuelanalysis.com/opinion/venezuela-today-revolution-and-elections/ , Chris Gilbert, August 14, 2024
Venezuela Analysis 2. https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/the-dream-of-a-thing-refounding-the-economy-of-a-venezuelan-commune/ June 19, 2024).
From the Multiracial Unity blog at https://multiracialunity.org. The Multiracial Unity Blog presents a class perspective on racism and calls for multiracial organizing to build unity among the workers of the world. It explores the origins of racism and nationalism, the history of multiracial struggles, and the defeat due to capitulation to racist and nationalist ideas. The editors also convene a monthly discussion on pertinent issues like voting, alternative systems, global conflicts, education, and much more. Contact Karyn at pomerantzkaryn6@gmail.com for the zoom link.
