6 responses to “Venezuela and Continuity Workers’ Power”

1. 

   George B

   November 29, 2006 at 12:34 am

   The piece on the PR website against which Liam polemicised with his unmistakeable sardonic wit is not the only comment featured on the ‘site regarding the upcoming presidential election in Venezuela.The piece he quotes and derides was the compressed expression of what embodies a majority view (for now) within PR. There is also, by the way, quite a lengthy statement (which Liam does not mention and may have missed) from Diego Carmoni, a Chilean comrade, who is very sympathetic to PR: http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=968.and in my view he puts a persuasive case for a vote, albeit a critical vote, for Chavez in the forthcoming presidential election.I certainly don’t for a moment disagree with Liam’s assessment that very significant reforms have taken place in Venezuela under Chavez’s presidency, while recognising that these have occurred in the context of an economic boom, underpinned by extremely high prices on the global market for Venezuela’s key export, oil.Likewise, I think that there is an overwhelming body of evidence to suggest that various components of the UNT, which at present are not incorporated unions of the sort characteristic of Peron’s Argentina in the 1950s, are backing Chavez, along with large sections of the urban poor and the campesinos in a country where the “land question” remains far from resolved.During the course of the campaign now drawing to a close there has been abundant evidence of a sharp polarisation within Venzuelan society around the battle between Chavez and Rosales. There can be little doubt that Chavez still commands fervent support among huge swathes of the exploited and oppressed, including among the best organised and politically conscious sections of workers. Certainly, there is little evidence of a significant organised opposition to Chavez’s left. So do the masses have “illusions” in Chavez? In my view, yes, most definitely, but that faith in the president has an undeniable material basis.Much of this is far from historically unprecedented and did not come to equal socialist revolution, but it has certainly been rare in the post-1989 when the very word socialism had seemingly disappeared from the vocabulary of all but a comparatively few diehards. In addition, the Venezuelan example has certainly proved an epicentre for tremors of promised or actual “regime (though not yet system) change” across much of Latin America.On the other hand, I think that there is legitimate room for debate about the gap between stirring rhetoric and actual practice. I’ve previously watched the footage Liam kindly downloaded from al-Jazeera’s English language broadcast last week and though intrigued remain doubtful that this is part of a process that will lead to the construction of a new state apparatus. Similarly, the evidence of factory/workplace takeovers is rather scanty to date. However much the country’s oligarchs despise Chavez, he has thus far done little to encroach on their wealth and privileges or on the prerogatives of capital more generally.But even if one were to accept that the position on the PR website reflects a rather wooden application of a set of electoral theses, which may well not have stood the test of time, Liam fails to respond to a valid argument contained in the original article – namely that there is no obvious mechanism for holding Chavez accountable in the way of a party, unless the Bolivarian movement is itself capable of so doing.Chavez may still pleasantly surprise me and prove an exception to the rule when it comes to left-talking military officers in the semi-colonial world, but on balance I think that there will ultimately be a parting of the ways between Hugo and the Venezuelan revolution. That day, however, has not yet come and that is why I think it is very worthwhile joining a debate on the applicability and meaning of critical support for Chavez’s re-election in the context of a real if currently muted imperialist threat, a lingering possibility of another internal attempt at counter-revolution and the very real mass support Chavez commands.

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2. 

   Anonymous

   November 29, 2006 at 5:27 pm

   What is comical is that not only were Workers Power part of the Labour Party up until fairly recently they were advocating a vote for Labour! Yet they can’t bring themselves to vote for Chavez against the alternative

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3. 

   Jim Jay

   November 29, 2006 at 6:45 pm

   I think you must be thinking of someone else anon. I don’t believe workers power were ever in the labour party as they were formed in the 70’s out of a split with the SWP.

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4. 

   George B

   November 29, 2006 at 11:45 pm

   For the sake of historical accuracy, to satisfy the appetites of fellow anoraks or whatever, Workers Power emerged from the expelled “left faction” of the then International Socialists, immediate precursor of the British SWP, in 1975. The original tendency from which it sprang had developed around the question of “critical but unconditional” support for the Irish republican struggle in the wake of a bombing at an army barracks in Aldershot, Surrey in 1972.There was a short-lived fusion with the precursors of Socialist Organiser (and ultimately, I suppose, the Alliance for Workers Liberty!) in 1976, which at the time was a rather “orthodox” Trotskyist grouping.Workers Power pursued a tactic of sustained faction work in the Labour Party, involving several dozen supporters at some points, during most of the 1980s. Systematic Labour Party work had more or less ceased by the mid-1990s, with the organisation making a brief turn towards Scargill’s SLP in 1996, though the organisation called for a Labour vote in most constituencies in 1997 and again in 2001, though giving support to the SSP and the Socialist Alliance where it stood in England and Wales in 2001 (calling for a Labour vote once again in most other constituencies at that general election). By 1999/2000 Workers Power had joined the Socialist Alliance, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, breaking from the organisation in July 2003, rightly or wrongly, over the trajectory of the organisation under the SWP’s dominant leadership, which led to the establishment of RESPECT and the eventual dissolution of the SA.The Workers Power majority called for abstention at the general election of May 2005, bar in Scotland, while comrades who would later form Permanent Revolution in July this year had a range of views over voting tactics in that election.Worth noting that the richly amused anonymous blogger makes no mention of the fact that the ISG was in the Labour Party until the late 1990s, lost some very able comrades during the turn to the Socialist Alliance and, as far as I know, supported, however reluctantly, a Labour vote in most parliamentary constituencies across the country as neither RESPECT or the SSP were standing in them in 2005 (Liam – please correct me if I’m wrong on that last bit).Finally, to reiterate from an earlier post an alternative position, advocating critical support for Chavez, has also been posted on the website and there is an open debate underway on the question.

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5. 

   Derek Wall

   November 30, 2006 at 4:09 pm

   I guess that not too many PR activists live in down town Caracas

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6. 

   Anonymous

   December 1, 2006 at 7:00 pm

   Not too many PR activists live in the UK!Long live the 6th International!

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