– TO IMPERIALIST INTERVENTION AND COUP ATTEMPTS WE RESPOND WITH ANTI-IMPERIALIST MEASURES
– THE GREATEST DEMOCRACY FOR THE MOBILIZED PEOPLE, WITHOUT IMPUNITY
– A PLAN OF EMERGENCY TO OVERCOME THE CRISIS IN FAVOUR OF THE WORKING CLASS
In our statement of April 30, we condemn the coup attempt of Guaidó, López and their imperialist promoters, and we point out that the working class needs an alternative that is independent of the nefarious political leaderships of the bureaucracy and capital. The coup maneuver controlled by Trump and the so-called Group of Lima failed for now, but the traditional bourgeoisie and imperialism will not abandon their aims and the US interventionist plan continues in various ways, with the intention of reinstating an administration directly linked to its interests in the country and to push out Russian and Chinese competition, which vies for the nation’s resources and geopolitical hegemony. For these objectives it has used Guaidó and López, trying to take advantage of the immense popular discontent against the Maduro government, the PSUV and the military caste.
The attempted coup did not have the expected military support and not enough impact on the people tired of the government, which did not come out massively to support it, but remained cautious. Rather, it stimulated anti-imperialist reactions and distrust of these bourgeois politicians, provoking one of the largest May Day demonstrations in the last years, though unfortunately deprived of the necessary political class independence and subjected to the orders of the Maduro government.
Imperialism uses “the stick and the carrot,” economic and diplomatic pressure, sabotage, extortion and the buying of consciences, as well as the manipulation of social unrest, as levers to lead a negotiation favorable to its aim to oust Maduro and the PSUV from power, even if it has to do so through hybrid formulas, through some kind of “transitional government” that combines sectors of the bourgeois opposition, with “moderate” groups and conciliatory sectors of Chavism.
The government, however, does not seem to have any response other than repression and the captive mobilization of public officials and structures articulated with the bureaucracy. It is a government that has been dismantling the achievements of the Bolivarian process. It has applied an anti-worker and capitalist austerity plan. It plunged the country into terrible corruption, through which the inefficiency of the entire system of public services is common. A new bourgeoisie is being installed by the hand of the bureaucracy and the new rich, plunging us into the pillaging system of External Debt, giving up or destroying natural resources, like with the Orinoco Mining Arc, and making us more vulnerable to foreign powers.
As we already said, we will not get out of this economic, social and political decline with the help of the United States, the imperialist Trump and his partners Macri, Duque, Bolsonaro and their Venezuelan puppet. Guaidó and the right wing try to deceive the people with “poisoned candy”. They offer to end the authoritarianism and crisis, manipulating the democratic illusions and the needs of the people, when the only thing they really leads us to is submission and imperialist intervention, to a “Plan País” designed according to convenience of Venezuelan and transnational capitals. The seams are visible everywhere: they clamor for “humanitarian aid” as camouflage for US intervention, but “authorize” the confiscation of CITGO (PDVSA company) by the United States and its funds are used to pay the “debt” to the US, instead being used for “humanitarian aid” for Venezuelans. There are almost no concrete measures of the self-proclaimed “president”, apart from “pardoning” Leopoldo López. He has presented absolutely no measure in favor of the people. Of course, he has no real power, beyond foreign support and the already diminished ability to dupe sectors of the population with false and failed promises, depending on their political aspirations.
Venezuelan working people need to escape from the trap of polarization between these two main groups, which struggle to impose themselves on us: bureaucracy and capital, the two faces of oppression and exploitation. We are, like the traditional saying, “between the snub-nosed and the nose-less”; on one hand, the so-called “revolutionary bourgeoisie” (dubbed so by Minister of Agricultural Production and Lands, Wilmar Castro Soteldo, former governor of Portuguesa state) nestled in the nests of corruption of the government, which seeks to insert itself in global capitalism as an assistant to China and Russia, and on the other hand, the traditional bourgeoisie, united by its umbilical cord to US imperialism, who wants to regain control of its old “hacienda” and the so-called “backyard” of the United States.
The working class must urgently rebuild, in the heat of the struggle, their own path. The dream of revolutionary and socialist transformation was confiscated and destroyed by the bureaucracy that, though it continues to misuse the speech of the revolution, is devoted to capitalist vocation and mafia business. We need another alternative in favor of workers and not of capital, without submitting to empires, bureaucracies or big businessmen, who only think about keeping us dominated and exploited, each one for his own profit, at the cost of prolonging our misery.
How to respond to an imperialist intervention?
We think that the best way to respond to imperialist interventionism is with an emergency plan to face the crisis in favor of the people, with measures in defense of the economic and territorial sovereignty of Venezuela, without the impunity enjoyed by the coup leaders until now and with the greatest democracy for the mobilized people. An anti-imperialist defense would prioritize our working class and the impoverished people, as well as stop the repression of the poor and the citizens who demand their rights, who demand water, light, transportation, gas, medicine and food at reasonable prices. This situation of deprivation is being used by the politicians of the right wing opposition to deceive the people, while the bureaucratic government uses the imperialist attacks as an excuse to punish the people more instead of attending to their just demands.
In our statement on May 1st, we call for continuing the fight to recover the value of wages and protect them from inflation, to equal it to the cost of the basic basket. We introduced a protection measure before the Supreme Court, demanding that Art. 91 of the Constitution be applied. We also suggest that a program of recovery of food production, basic products, public services and work in general is necessary, linked to a real control of speculation prices, with popular participation without bureaucracy and without complicity with corruption.
We also said that we must resist the instructions of the Ministry of Labor and the “hunger wages” imposed by the State, in violation of collective agreements and liquidation of historical benefits, which is also used by private entrepreneurs. We propose to fight for the recovery of trade union freedom, the right to independent unionization, separate from the government and the employers, and against anti-union repression, as well as for the release of imprisoned workers and labor leaders.
Workers should evaluate and find alternative solutions to the electrical crisis and blackouts, because the workers, technicians and professionals of electricity know the National Electric System and they should propose measures to apply under their control.
On the other hand, in order to confront an interventionist coup, it is necessary to suspend the payment of the corrupt and fraudulent external debt, and to recover the resources embezzled and extracted through the criminal flight of capital, confiscating the properties of its authors and imposing the corresponding judicial punishment on them. With the money of the debt and what can be rescued from the billions stolen, we could create a national emergency fund to meet the most urgent needs of the population. In addition, wages could be raised and the productive apparatus could be re-launched, with initiatives that incorporate workers’ control and social ownership. By ending corruption and reorienting the budget, state enterprises could be raised to maximum capacity in key areas such as food and medicine, together with the recovery of the countryside, stopping privatizations and the dispossession of peasants who today, by liquidating the Law of Lands, are again displaced by new civil and military landowners. Expropriating all the pro-coup right´s lands and properties. All this requires, of course, rigorous social control, auditing and vigilance of the people to prevent corruption and the looting of resources and public treasury.
If imperialism was able to take CITGO away from us in an act of rapine, Venezuela has to make up for it by taking possession of what the United States and its transnationals have in the country from the semi-colonial exploitation of our resources. Given the possibility of Trump daring to order a military intervention, beyond the FANB and the militias, we shall proceed to the general armament of the people and organizations that oppose intervention. Speaking against imperialism, without taking concrete anti-imperialist measures as a government, ends up being the same as complicit behavior
At the same time, instead of governmental authoritarianism, we need the greatest freedom and democratization of the sectors and organizations that are against the coup and against the threats of the United States. This includes respect for free information and expression, access to the media for the people who are against the putsch and do not want an invasion of the country. For example, it is inconceivable that the government continues to block an alternative and popular media outlet such as Aporrea.org, which is clearly anti-coup and anti-interventionist and that collects critical contributions and proposals on the problems we are facing. What we need is a truly participatory and protagonist democracy, unlike what Maduro is doing by restricting freedoms every day, while contradictory allowing the impunity of Guaidó and his partners.
To solve the current situation politically, we believe that we should move towards a true National Constituent Assembly of the people, that is not inconsistent, fraudulent and confiscated by the constituted power. That should be truly free and sovereign, to facilitate the most democratic scenario possible for the redefinition of the government and the State, of the economic and social system, with an anti-capitalist approach.
But measures like these will not be taken by the bureaucratic government, increasingly assimilated to capitalism, which has stained and distorted the true notion of socialism. That is why we rescue the notion of a genuine government of the workers and the people, to resume the social, economic and political transformation we need. Based on this, we maintain that the working class and popular sectors have to forge our political independence against the bureaucracy and capital, building our own political organization, a real workers’ party, not led by bureaucrats or bosses. This is the reason why we are committed to the construction of Marea Socialista and we present these and other proposals, to be discussed democratically with the working class and the people.
Marea Socialista, May 4, 2019