By Marea Socialista
On 04-12-23 a news emerged that the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) was demanding that the National Assembly (official), which the legislator Oscar Figuera, general secretary of the party, is a member of, conforms a commission to investigate the corruption and inaction of high-level officials of the government up to Nicolás Maduro.
(https://www.aporrea.org/contraloria/n382023.html). He indicated that everything must be investigated by a commission with “personalities that are not involved with the mafia and criminal gangs that have an internal confrontation” to plunder the wealth of the nation. He linked all this to the so-called anti-blockade law, which he describes as “a law of delivery and looting” and criticized the secrecy that prevents social and institutional oversight, so that there can be more forceful actions against corruption. According to him, the Controller General’s Office, the Prosecutor’s Office and the National Assembly are powers of the State, with the constitutional mandate to adopt measures. And he referred to the cases of Aryenis Torrealba and Alfredo Chirinos, Eudis Girot, Johana Gonzalez, Marcos Sabariego and Gil Mujica, whose judicial decisions must be reviewed, annulled and the State must compensate all of them. He concluded with a call to Venezuelan social and political organizations to join “a great movement for the dignity of the people”.
Marea, an anti-capitalist, socialist and anti-bureaucratic political organization, launched initiatives against corruption several years ago (since 2013), during which it promoted investigations based on allegations of embezzlement of the nation and capital flight, and filed petitions before the public agencies mentioned by Figuera. Together with these substantiated complaints and appeals filed with State entities, Marea promoted the Platform for Public and Citizen Auditing, also including among its purposes the investigation of the Illegitimate Foreign Debt.
See: www.aporrea.org/contraloria/a320575.html
Linked to this we also present the demand for compliance with Article 91 of the Constitution, on the adjustment of the minimum wage with reference to the cost of the basic market basket, as a way of defending the income of the workers and the value of labor against the predatory voracity of the bureaucracies and the bosses. See: https://www.aporrea.org/trabajadores/n357132.html. The anti-corruption struggle must give among its results – besides uncovering and punishing the facts – the rescue of the embezzled and stolen resources to be destined to the recovery of the country and above all to the welfare of the people, starting with the substantial improvement of all salaries.
However, at that time, many leftist organizations had not yet distanced themselves from the bureaucratic and corrupt government, camouflaged behind the discourse of “revolution” and “socialism”, but with a clear capitalist and anti-worker practice. At that time, Marea was lumped in with the right-wing opposition, instead of recognizing the betrayal of Madurismo to the Bolivarian revolution.
The Continuous Embezzlement went on with its colossal plundering of the country, taking away the benefits achieved in services and social security, and completely destroying the remuneration of labor and important labor achievements. This is to a great extent what has plunged the people and the working class into a misery never seen before, which cannot be “justified” with the discourse of the blockade, the sanctions, the “criminal dollar” or the fall in oil prices. Although they are important aggravating factors, at the bottom of it all is the abyss of corruption, which swallows everything, and the maintenance of rentier capitalism administered by a political-military bureaucracy turned into a lumpen-bourgeoisie, which beyond the praises to Chávez and the revolution, have acted as a true counterrevolutionary steamroller, covered by the deceitful pseudo-socialist rhetoric.
During all these lost years and in the midst of harsh attacks by the government, we could have tried, with more support, the impulse of that “movement for the dignity of the people”, and perhaps we would have better resisted the attacks of the anti-worker and repressive policies, which have done tremendous and prolonged damage to the material living conditions of the workers and the people in general, to the organization, to the combative capacity, and even to the social conscience.
These investigations and denunciations, among others, should be taken up again, showing what the government tries to conceal under the smokescreen that covers a dispute between clans fighting for the spoils of the State (the money and resources of the people). For this reason, it is not the government, which is part of the cause of the problem, who can come out now to “fight corruption”, since it represents the social stratum that executes it and lives off it at the expense of all Venezuelans who depend on their own work.
For this reason, we have no confidence whatsoever in institutional bodies, even though we have resorted to them to demand their State responsibilities, to summon, for example, the TSJ, or the National Assembly of which Oscar Figuera is a deputy and they do not even allow him to speak, apart from trying to take away the legality of his party with trickery orchestrated with the CNE. Venezuelan popular wisdom taught us that “zamuro does not take caroe of meat”, but even so, he is still in the beak of the zamuros, because there is no one who can scare them away: an organized and powerful social factor, which is a genuine expression of the working class and popular sectors, supported by the honest intelligentsia.
We think it is good that the corruption structurally entrenched in the Venezuelan bourgeois state (administered by false revolutionaries) be investigated, among other possibilities, by a commission with “personalities that are not involved with the mafia and criminal gangs that have an internal confrontation” to plunder the wealth of the nation. But it does not have to be precisely a commission appointed by the NA, which responds to the government and its interests, but it should open the way for the realization of Public and Citizen Audits, with the participation of workers and communities, not only of “personalities”, and even of professional and academic associations, formed through democratic social processes, to investigate, for example, the corruption in the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana (CVG) and its basic companies, in addition to the one that should primarily be carried out in Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
The working class of Guayana, of PDVSA and of the country, have the full right to demand their full participation in the audits and in the formation of commissions for the auditing of the companies, which will not be used to make up and cover up the misdeeds and corruption, nor will they be at the service of the change of control to other ambitious and greedy hands. This would require the realization of assemblies and democratic meetings of revision, balance, restructuring and re-direction where the manual and intellectual workers examine in work tables everything inside the companies, see in detail all the businesses, put a magnifying glass to the accounting books and to the funds. And it is a task that requires absolute autonomy for its realization.
This is what could have been expected if the Workers’ Control had been applied, which did not suit the bureaucracies and corrupt mafias, as well as their business associates, beneficiaries of corrupt contracts; but they sabotaged it to no end so that it would not develop and finally they extirpated it everywhere. Do not compare it with the so-called Productive Councils of Workers (CPTT), which are mere instruments at the service of the bureaucrats of the day, appointed by hand or managed at “convenience”.
In this way we would not limit ourselves to a “parliamentary” work or of mere external observers without real access to the management of information, but we would be involving the working class and citizen participation in the controlling role; especially when we know that it is the workers who are in contact with production and are the main victims of waste or misuse of their effort at work, those who often notice “things” and are not listened to or are victims of retaliation for “opening their mouths”.
For much lesser reasons and amounts than those that have been “lost” in the hands of the pseudo-Bolivarian and falsely socialist bureaucracy, with these new-fangled capitalists, with the government that appointed, promoted and sustained, rotated and defended them for years, former President Carlos Andrés Pérez was tried and dismissed in the IV Republic, and in view of the behavior of his government there was a 27F, a 4F and a 27N. Therefore, there are more than enough merits for the government and the top management of the institutions and companies of the State (in many cases in the hands of the military) to be investigated. We also agree with this demand. But, as the saying goes: Who puts the bell to the cat?
For that, it is necessary to awaken and promote a powerful conscious movement, organized and in full disposition to fight against corruption and for the recovery of the rights of the workers and the Venezuelan people, which cannot carry out and conclude its task if it is not with the vocation of reaching power and changing the structure of the State and the capitalist functioning of the Venezuelan economy: We are talking about a real change, with the people from below, and not with bureaucrats, businessmen, speculators and opportunist military, because what happened in Venezuela with the “socialist” promise was a scandalous fraud, a swindle to the people, whose real object was not social transformation but the “take you off to put me on”. This has to be made up for!
And it is not something that can be solved simply in an electoral scenario like the ones we usually have in Venezuela, where what counts is money, the advantage of institutional power, the resources of the State used with embezzlement and “marketing”, with additives of clientelist “populism” to cajole with crumbs of occasion. What we are talking about is a form of deep, combative and sustained mobilization, which breaks through the prevailing disorder, with the capacity to lead to a strong and democratic empowerment in favor of the workers and the people.
We are fully ready and willing to promote the united struggle to demand and obtain redress for the cases of Aryenis Torrealba and Alfredo Chirinos, Eudis Girot, Johana Gonzalez, Marcos Sabariego and Gil Mujica (and any number of other workers imprisoned for fighting or denouncing corruption), with the revision and annulment of the unjust judicial decisions imposed on them. This also requires a broad and joint work for which we can be counted on, within the framework of the purpose of contributing to forge this “great movement for the dignity of the people”, with a class sense.
To that end, Marea wants to reiterate and share proposals for a common program against corruption and embezzlement, and at the same time for the recovery of the resources of which the working class has been deprived, together with the rest of the Venezuelan people.
– We call on the working class and the popular movement to exercise the role of anti-corruption controller and auditor, which is linked to the education and formation of values and conscience against this scourge, which in Venezuela is a structural part of the system of domination.
– We maintain that the consistent fight against corruption must be linked to the need to fight for a new revolution, to establish a democratic, anti-capitalist government, of the workers and the people, without bureaucrats or corrupt people.
– On this road, we raise the slogan of a Public and Citizen Audit, with the participation of the workers, both of the companies and accounts of the State (including those of PDVSA, CVG, Arco Minero, the agro-food sector…) and of the external and internal debts, very suspicious of illegality and illegitimacy. We even believe that workers have the right to this in private capital companies. In order to apply it, a social movement prepared and capable of organizing it and giving it momentum is necessary.
– We demand the investigation, impeachment, trial, imprisonment and confiscation of accounts and assets of the corrupt (for the recovery of resources). This must include the recovery of lands that were destined to the peasantry (by the Land Law) and ended up usurped by officials, military or their front men and associates.
– This goes hand in hand with the essential elimination of nepotism and the concentration of multiple positions in the same people.
– We demand the demilitarization of the Public Administration and the review of all businesses and companies of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB).
– We demand the investigation of all unfinished and failed or unrealized works with which State resources have been squandered (the “red elephants”).
– We include in the demand for audit and investigation, with due punishment if corruption is proven, the cases of companies and State funds managed by the self-appointed “interim president” Juan Guaidó and his team, with usurpation of public powers, and in a manner harmful to national sovereignty, in complicity or at the service of imperialism (U.S. governments).
– We propose an Independent Fund and Under Social Control for the deposit and management of the resources that can be rescued from the hands of the corrupt, to allocate them to the improvement of wages and social conditions, as well as the recovery of state enterprises, productive investment and public works necessary for the common good.
– The anti-corruption slogans, together with the demand for labor rights and the constitutional wage (Art. 91, minimum wage with reference to the cost of the basic market basket), must be part of the main axes driving the development of the class struggle in Venezuela, and the substantive recovery of the main role of the workers-popular movement.
– In view of the approaching national and presidential elections, the anti-corruption demands should also occupy a central place, in the framework of the great discredit that surrounds the government sector and the opposition bourgeois formations; something that we will have to discuss how to deal with.
– In order to achieve the necessary changes, we are determined to promote and unite all the struggles, to rebuild the organic strength and mobilization capacity of the working class and the poor people, and to continue in the purpose of building a revolutionary, anti-capitalist and anti-bureaucratic party of the exploited majorities.
All our struggle has to be guided by the strategic certainty that we will not get out of the present calamitous situation unless there is a new revolution in Venezuela, which allows overcoming the present government and the prevailing corrupt-capitalist economic system, by means of a government of the workers and the people, without political-military bureaucracies, without corrupt mafias, without big businessmen taking advantage of the State and the national public economy, with predominance of social property for the common good, without interference or subjugation by external economic, political or military powers, with a dynamic of workers’ and popular democracy and with full and real respect for the rights of the people.