BY CHRISTANO KERRILLA
"There is a driving force behind this revolution and nobody or nothing can stop it", declared Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on April 13 at the closing rally of the four-day World Encounter of Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution, held in Caracas. More than 5000 people from around the world attended the Encounter. The delegation from revolutionary Cuba alone was 150-strong. The rally was attended by hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.
The Encounter celebrated the defeat of the April 11, 2002, US-backed military coup, in which plotters kidnapped Chavez and installed a top capitalist as dictator. However, within 48 hours, a huge popular uprising had defeated the coup and returned Chavez to power (a popular slogan of the Encounter was "Every 11th has its 13th").
Chavez told the April 13 rally that one year after the failed coup, the Venezuelan people now "rule in triumph" and the "Bolivarian Revolution" is stronger than ever.
The Venezuelan people's support not only allowed the Chavez government to survive the military coup but also outlast the highly coordinated December-January big-business shut-down, spearheaded by the bureaucratic management of the state-owned oil company, the PDVSA.
Despite the heavy economic losses inflicted by the bosses' and managers' strike, the government has emerged with two key gains: a radicalisation of Venezuela's organised working class and its integration into the millions-strong pro-Chavez Bolivarian movement (which include the Bolivarian Circles, grassroots committees which organise poor and working-class neighbourhoods, and rank and file soldiers' committees within the armed forces); and control of the vital PDVSA.
Following the collapse of the shut-down, which had been supported by the corrupt, right-wing bureaucratic leadership of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), large numbers of workers realised that the CTV was little more than an appendage of the Fedecamaras, the Venezuelan employers' federation.
As a result, the National Union of Workers (UNT), a militant and class-conscious union, was formed on March 29. The UNT already represents more workers than the CTV and is likely to bring the majority of the country's trade unions into its orbit.
Full control of the PDVSA will strengthen the Chavez government's ability to implement its pro-poor programs. According to Mike Weisbrot, co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), and Simone Baribeau, a CEPR researcher, the government is now in a position to continue its restructuring of the PDVSA management, which cherished its unaccountable and privileged "autonomy".
The Chavez government's hydro-carbon act provides the framework for its restructure of the PDVSA management. According to the April 17 Economist, this has resulted in the sacking of more than 40% of the PDVSA's workforce, primarily the powerful bureaucracy that has controlled the company, on behalf of Venezuela's capitalist elite, for decades.
Weisbrot and Baribeau point out that, with a new accountable management in place, company policies can now be altered to serve the Venezuelan people. If the PDVSA received the same ratio of revenue to oil production that the Mexican state oil company receives, it would increase government revenue by US$12.4 billion, a 54% increase in the yearly government budget.
However, the consolidation democratic control of the state oil company has not just taken the form of the sacking of anti-government executives and managers. According to the April 15 Christian Science Monitor, a new revolutionary culture is developing within the oil company: "'The old culture is dead, and a new one is developing', says Omar Enrique Perez, a compensation analyst with 15 years at the firm, who is working to slash salaries across the board — including his own. 'Because we feel we have to do something about the problems that are confronting our country, and we believe our work will help Venezuela develop.'... 'There has been a change of mentality in all levels of the company', says a member of PDVSA's board of directors, who speaks on the condition of anonymity. 'We believe that PDVSA should be subordinated to the needs of the state. For us, job No. 1 is fighting poverty."
In 1997, before Chavez was elected in a 1998 landslide, 67% of Venezuelans earned under US$2 a day; More than 60% of the country's arable land was owned by 1% of the population.
As Alex Contreras Baspineiro, writing in the April 27 Narco News Bulletin web site (), pointed out, there have been many changes that benefit the Venezuelan people: "One can't help but see important changes here, changes that benefit the public. During the last two years, the government has built 150,000 new housing units. Fifteen thousand of these units were handed over to the victims of catastrophic floods that hit the coastal state of Vargas in 1999. Three-thousand Bolivarian Schools have opened, where children get the attention and adequate nutrition they once lacked. More than 2 million people have drinkable running water for the first time. More than 3000 Venezuelans have received free medical treatment in Cuba. Millions of small farmers have benefited from the Land Law, which redistributes unused farmland. The government has tripled the public university budget and raised teachers' salaries. The privatisation of the electric, gas and water industries has been stopped."
Despite the Chavez government's improved political position, the bosses' shut-down has left Venezuela facing large economic problems. The International Monetary Fund is predicting a 17% contraction in the economy this year and an inflation rate of 30%. It is hard to know how accurate such predictions are likely to be, as the IMF has previously shown its support for the capitalist opposition by openly declaring its support of a "post-Chavez transitional government" not long before the April 11 coup.
According to the New York Times' Venezuela correspondent Juan Forero, the opposition coalition's tactics are so reviled and its failures so pronounced (their strike cost the economy an estimated $7 billion and led to a rash of bankruptcies) that some prominent Chavez opponents are distancing themselves from the group. The Democratic Coordinator (CD), the alliance of opposition groups, is beginning to disintegrate in the wake of the failure of opposition campaigns and strategies, as "everybody is depressed and dispirited", according to an opposition source who spoke to the Economist.
This was starkly illustrated by the total failure of a pro-coup rally on April 11, called by the CD and massively publicised by the anti-government private mass media outlets. The turnout was so small that the big-business press was unable to report the event the next day for fear of highlighting the CD's lack of support.
The two most prominent leaders of the opposition have both left the country. Carlos Ortega, head of the CTV, was granted asylum in Costa Rica on March 26. Carlos Fernandez, head of Fedecamaras, has turned up in Miami, apparently for "health reasons". Many prominent politicians and conservative political parties also seem to have abandoned the CD as a vehicle to challenge Chavez at future elections.
Most opposition groups are concentrating on the call for a referendum to recall Chavez. Not only are they trying to blame Venezuela's poverty and economic problems (which were worsened by the shut-down they launched and supported) on Chavez, they are also trying to win support among the poor. This includes a coordinated effort with the Catholic Church to distribute large amounts of food to the poor, with the promise of more to come if the Chavez falls.
However, even if the opposition can win the referendum on Chavez's recall, they will need to unite in order to win the subsequent election, a prospect which is looking increasingly unlikely.
If Chavez wins any such referendum (or a subsequent election if it is required), he will be again confirmed as the popular leader of Venezuela and the opposition will have no constitutional way of ousting the president. It will also be seen as a resounding endorsement of the increasingly radical Bolivarian Revolution.
The Bolivarian movement is moving forward, as Chavez told supporters at the April 13 rally: "Let no-one forget that we are on the offensive, and we have to maintain the rhythm of the offensive... We cannot let the offensive grow cold in any way."
Chavez is going on the offensive internationally as well. The Venezuelan government has slammed the US-led invasion of Iraq, criticised the right-wing Colombian government for its support of paramilitary death squads and is fiercely opposing the US-sponsored neoliberal Free Trade of the Americas Agreement.
At the April international solidarity conference, according to Cuban Communist Party's newspaper Granma, "Chavez mentioned that he and [Bolivia's presidential runner-up] Evo Morales discussed the idea of organising a meeting in Venezuela for the continent's indigenous populations. Some of the comrades in Miraflores [Venezuela's presidential palace] had also pressed for a [peasants'] meeting and there were plans to stage a World Youth Festival in Venezuela as well."
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, May 7, 2003.
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