For a democratic consultation of the sovereign people, with a consultative referendum to re-legitimate all powers in general elections!
Let’s stop the war with the voice of the people!
The current situation in Venezuela demonstrates the illegitimacy of the leaderships. The government of Maduro and his totalitarian regime, that controls everything in all the powers, that should be autonomous and independent of the government, even those of supposedly popular power, like the communal councils, the few remaining communes and, of course, the pro-government unions, great part of the social movements and the so-called “collectives” have slowly turned into spaces almost completely co-opted and subordinated to the State apparatus, the bureaucracy of the PSUV and the military.
The National Assembly, led by the Venezuelan right, though it was voted with certain elements of legality (but some parties, as Marea Socialista, couldn’t participate on their own because they were proscribed and denied their right to be present slates) has incurred in grave faults and used that space for a confrontation between leaderships, while the people and the workers carry on our shoulders the consequences of the political, economic and social crisis.
The doors to the interventionist policy of the US and the region’s right-wing governments are on both sides:
On one hand, a government like Maduro’s, that has starved the people, that has hit the working class like no other government did before, with monthly wages under ten dollars, lower than the food basket and even lower than the basic one, with access to food controlled by the bureaucracy and the PSUV apparatus through discriminative distribution mechanisms by government structures that have completely overlooked several collective contracts, that also incarcerates workers and union leaders that fight for their most basic working rights.
The government of Maduro, though he has used antiimperialist rhetoric and has talked about revolution, has done and maintains the most evident submission of sovereignty and resources through the Mines of Orinoco, the special economic zones and the joint service deals of PDVSA with transnational companies and even with associates of Trump. Today sovereignty and natural resources are in the hands of predator companies that destroy the environment; it’s a government that is advised by the bureaucratic Cuban government in the censoring of the democratic and individual liberties of the Venezuelan people, while emerging imperialisms, like China and Russia, and repressive reactionary governments, like Erdogan in Turkey, are benefited by these obscure deals and a group of the government has stolen in corrupted acts our natural resources until leaving the people in poor conditions. The government of Maduro proudly shows its alliance with dictatorial governments and let’s them have a say in national matters. They’re the same governments that haven’t doubted in silencing dissidence in their own countries.
But on the other hand, we have the other side of the same coin. The traditional right and its pro-yankee concessions, currently carried out by a puppet like Guaido to implement the policies of Latin American right-wing governments, like the Group of Lima, under the leadership of Trump. Both leaderships are part of capital, but in different groups (the traditional bourgeoisie and a new bourgeoisie born from the bureaucratic rapine) and in the global economy and geopolitic level, they’re on contrary groups of the intra-imperialist dispute between the interests of the world powers, financial capital and big capitalist companies. They represent those who also have anti-workers policies and have denied their rights and worked against the Bolivarian revolution in the past. The concession of what used to be the MUD, today grouped around Juan Guaido and his party Voluntad Popular, wants foreign forces to impose a government that wasn’t chosen by the Venezuelan people, via any method, as the economic strangling of the people and a possible invasion, the bloodshed of the Venezuelan people and destruction of infrastructures. He perpetuates interference policies and even wants Donald Trump -who is hated by Venezuelans- and his satellite governments in the region, to impose an “interim president”, while publicly calling for a military rebellion to put him in power, with the offer of then holding elections with an unknown program, but without a doubt anti-workers and against sovereignty, with probably worse sacrifices for the people. They want to impose a de facto government tailored to their needs, and have found the alibi to manipulate a people that is mostly sick of the current government of Maduro, that in its despair wants any way of getting rid of him, not knowing the dangers of following the right in this adventure.
Guaido and Maduro are taking us to a real bloodbath.
It’s undeniable that on January 23th the mobilization that accompanied Guaido and the National Assembly was massive. But a part of it was a sector that wouldn’t accompany it if it knew that all that mobilizing energy of the people is being used to promote foreign interference, risk a civil war or a military confrontation that would end up making the people pay with death.
We insist that the accompaniment of the people to this de-legitimized right wing, rejected by great part of its own base is the result of the people being fed-up with the inhuman effects of the economic crisis, whose main responsible is the government of Maduro, his fake socialism and rhetorical anti-imperialism. They mobilized to get rid of a government that sows hopelessness, famine, death and mainly uncertainty; but they didn’t mobilize so foreign forces could enter the country or steal Venezuelan properties abroad.
Guaido has opportunistically used the mass movement, but is ultimately supported by US marines, foreign forces, the Colombian army… as final tools in his death agenda. And in relation to this, the excuse of “humanitarian help” is used as a disguise to justify the possible military accompaniment of it, or the creation of a no-fly zone over Venezuela, to guarantee the security of the interventionist operations in this supposed help. Because for a country to receive humanitarian help it doesn’t need the direct intervention of imperialist troops. So, the so-called humanitarian help, in the terms with which the “interim president” authorizes it, is a disguise for poisoned candy.
The “option” of Guaido is with the yankees, but it’s not the “only opportunity” as some people say, attracted by the call of the right-wing opposition. None of them have anything to do with the poor people and the workers. They’re both lackeys of the imperialists and world capitalism.
Marea Socialista promotes an alternative in the middle of the crisis
From Marea Socialista we promote another solution to the situation we’re in. Understanding that we’re facing the complete annulation of the independent expression of the workers and the people. We call everyone to not give up in our strategy for the mobilized people to sovereignly express themselves and decide. Its false that our alternative is between the bureaucracy of the State, turned into a new bourgeoisie because of a corrupt state, and the traditional bourgeoisie of the big bosses that exploit the workers. This false polarization has more consequences than it shows. One of them is impeding the working people from creating a program of transformation to help overcome the financial crisis and solve the socio-economic struggle we’re in. This shows the need for workers to be in charge, since the bourgeoisies and imperialisms have proven that they are not capable.
This polarization puts “Chavism” and workers´organizations in the middle of great debates. For example, in the Venezuelan Workers Inter-sectorial (ITV), we are trying to preserve its class autonomy, confronting the tendency of a part of its leadership to be part of the agenda of the opposition (now parallel government) that follows Guaido. If we are with the ITV or with a different class tool, we’ll continue supporting the struggles for workers rights against any government, as a source that can feed the construction of an autonomous political reference of the people and the working class, where we have as a starting point the will to continue building Marea Socialista.
In first place and for now, stop the war! With a democratic alternative based on the popular sovereignty
This is why Marea Socialista raises the issue of a consulting referendum to decide the call for elections to legitimate the public powers. This seems to be the only possible proposal that has the potential of allowing the Venezuelan people to escape from the plans of the extremist belic lackeys of the pro-yankee opposition, and the equally belic Madurists, who are willing to sacrifice us to protect the rapine and the authoritarian regime of the bureaucracy or its new bourgeoisie.
This is about taking advantage of the different democratic mechanisms that allow the expression ofan alternative to those who want to take us to a bloodshed. And it’s about an alternative that is one of the greatest democratic conquests of the 1999 Constitution: the consulting referendum (binding, of course) so we can decide on this national matter of special importance that is the possibility of free elections for every government position, with a new CNE, without accepting a self-proclaimed government like the one Trump tries to impose, nor accepting the continuation of the illegitimate government of Maduro.
This consulting referendum, which is linked to the forms of popular participation of Art. 70 of the CRBV (neighbourhood assemblies) and other democratic and struggle tools, historically used by the working class. This can be activated through a powerful national movement that campaigns for this proposal and collects the 10% of electors signatures required for it to be carried out. It’s a constitutional right and if any of those who dispute the government now denies it, he’d be showing once again his true anti-popular nature.
This would obviously demand the previous elimination of the CNE to make it believable and acceptable, making it politically plural and with social participation, where the citizens movement can be represented. We’ll do what’s necessary for the Venezuelan people to be consulted if they want the legitimization of the powers through general elections and with the application of participation mechanisms.
This will obviously mean being able to unite our wills and generating a dynamic that is mobilizing enough to promote this hopeful alternative. And if our proposal is approved, it can open the way for new and genuine constituent processes where the working class and the people can guarantee a democratic and anticapitalist solution to the crisis, while also recovering the stolen resources of the country that can be used to give an answer to the humanitarian crisis, a plan that favours the working people and to reconstruct our devastated economy, guaranteeing food, health and education for everyone.
To promote the counter-proposal, Marea Socialista has taken part in the conformation of a new platform against intervention and the war, for the consulting referendum, so the sovereign people can find a solution for the situation we’re in. This platform is the space from where we’ll do what’s necessary to promote and mobilize to achieve our goal; which implies dialogue and cooperation with every sector to reach a deal around the proposal and its materialization, but always paying special attention to the mobilization and the democratic discussion with the people. In this platform, which will be releasing a public document, there is a combination of diverse and politically plural organizations, in the framework of the democratic rights, and it keeps on growing. There are critics that come from chavismo, ex ministers of Chavez with the Citizen Platform in Defence of the Constitution, with the participation of Marea Socialista, former mayors, journalists, intellectuals and academics, left personalities that oppose the government of Maduro (chavists and non-chavists), workers, unions leaders, people from the popular media, some members of the Platform Against the Orinoco Mines and even a part of the social-democracy that opposes Maduro and Guaido, that is against the invention and for the democratic consultation.
This doesn’t mean that we renounce to our political organization. Because of this, from Marea Socialista, we invite you to support this referendum policy to stop the war. To stop those that with the face of Maduro or Guaido will only take us to more privatizations, lay-offs, destruction of wages, anti-workers laws and pro-capitalist regulations, with the plundering of the natural resources of Venezuela.
We do all of this in view of our strategy:
For a workers’ government, independent of the bourgeoisie lackey of the empires!
The worst “opportunity” is the one that take us to the death! The best is defending life!
No to imperialist interference! No to Guaido’s coup nor the tragedy of Maduro! No to the war of the leaderships! For a democratic consultation of the sovereign people! Consulting referendum to legitimate the powers in general elections! For an international campaign against the imperialist intervention and in support of the Venezuelan popular sovereignty!
Marea Socialista