The people’s will must be respected. No to repression
For the construction of an independent revolutionary alternative to a decaying regime and a capitalist and pro-US right wing
Declaration of the International Socialist League
The crisis in Venezuela is deepening. It is important to understand what is actually happening and how we can help the suffering working people of the country. The task of revolutionary socialists around the world, as always, is to stand by the masses who fight and defend their social, economic and democratic rights, and in this case also their electoral rights, which are being curtailed today. This task is to be carried out while firmly denouncing the authoritarian, pro-austerity and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, which has the complicity of China and Russia, as well as the political operations of the right, the far-right and the US and European imperialists. Both are imperialist powers with their own interests, fighting over who keeps the administration and profits of the multi-million-dollar oil businesses in Venezuela, in the context of their global competition. Before we proceed further, we would like to make a few things absolutely clear for our readers:
- The regime of Nicolas Maduro in its present form is a degenerated beyond recognition outcome of the process initiated by the toiling masses of Venezuela during the Bolivarian Revolution, which had put Chavez and PSUV into power. However, failure of this process to overthrow capitalism and insistence of the leadership on operating within the confines of capitalist regime has led to present situation in Venezuela.
- Under Nicolas Maduro the continuous erosion and suppression of the revolutionary process has reached a qualitative transformation resulting in a corrupt and repressive regime which accommodates the imperialist ambitions of Chinese and Russian ruling elites for its own survival, reverses whatever progressive policies were implemented in the past, pursues the agenda of austerity and privatizations, and under which conditions of Venezuelan masses have become extremely miserable. All this has led to an uninterrupted strengthening of right and far-right in the country.
- The right-wing, pro-West opposition doesn’t present an alternate for the suffering masses either. These lackeys of US imperialism aspire to pursue an agenda of privatization, imperialist loot and plunder, austerity and neo-liberalism in a different form with different players and shareholders.
- The hypocrisy of Western imperialists and their lackeys in the region shedding crocodile tears over the sabotage of electoral process in Venezuela is despicable. They are no friends of Venezuelan people and have no regard for democratic rights whenever these rights pose a threat to their imperialist interests and profits. The history of Western imperialism is the history of supporting and backing draconian, repressive and dictatorial regimes and fascist groups in one form or the other in order to implement their designs of imperialist oppression and exploitation all over the world.
- Along with the corruption, mismanagement and pro-capitalist policies of the Maduro regime, the criminal sanctions imposed by the West are equally responsible for present social and economic crisis in Venezuela. We demand an immediate lifting of imperialist sanctions in the case of Venezuela, Cuba and elsewhere.
- Without having any illusions in the bourgeois democracy we stand for protecting and furthering whatever democratic rights the working masses have won with their struggles in the past. In this regard we also believe that suppressing the electoral results and mass protests, given the lack of a strong revolutionary alternative, would temporarily strengthen the pro-US right and far-right elements in the country, and any illusions of the masses in Western imperialism could be reinforced.
- We propose an independent action of the Venezuelan working masses—in alliance with their class sisters and brothers throughout the region and globe—armed with a revolutionary socialist program inside and outside the parliamentary channels as the only viable solution to the present crisis.
An undemocratic electoral process
When the National Electoral Council (CNE) of this important Latin American country announced, without showing a single electoral record, that the incumbent Maduro had won with 51.2% of the votes, against 44.2% obtained by opposition candidate González Urrutia, a crisis of profound consequences was unleashed, with social tension, mobilizations, killings and state repression against the population.
The announcement of these highly questionable results and the untimely swearing-in of Maduro as president for six more years, generated mass rejection within the country and growing outrage throughout the world. As the days continue to pass, the CNE, which is close to the government, has yet to publish any electoral record or serious data of the results it issued.
The data presented orally and without any proof was the final chapter of an entirely irregular and undemocratic electoral process. The government has intervened political parties (including the radical-left ones) over the years, raiding their legal records, appointing parallel boards of directors and outright banned right-wing, centrist and left-wing candidates alike in recent months. Finally, it denied the right to vote to millions of Venezuelans who live in other countries as a result of the social and economic crisis. The electoral process was rigged and planned for Maduro to win no matter what, and now we are seeing the consequences of this unfair electoral architecture.
Two candidates that we do not support
The regime kept Maduro as candidate in these elections to ensure the continuity of a repressive project that, while deepening its business deals, corruption and privileges, has also failed to provide the population with work, food and even drinking water in many cases. It criminalizes and represses the people in numerous ways, increasingly resembling the form of the Nicaraguan regime, with millions of people exiled abroad and permanent political and social repression at home.
At the same time, the capitalist right-wing opposition, allied to US imperialism and its capitalist corporations, organized a campaign with María Corina Machado, its main representative, who was banned from running but then appointed organizer and spokesperson for the candidate Urrutia. We do not agree at all with this opposition, not with its political plan, or its program or its project, which we have always rejected and confronted. They are the latest expression of the repeated imperialist attempts to take direct control of the plundering of all Venezuelan wealth.
In this electoral contest, the two main opposing projects were enemies of the interests of the masses, the rights of the working class and the sovereignty and independence of Venezuela. For this reason, our comrades of the ISL in Venezuela in the organization Marea Socialista, actively participated in a united campaign with various workers’ and peoples’ organizations, under the slogan “the working class has no candidate.” The campaign called for recovering the organization and strength of the working class and the masses against whichever government emerged victorious in these elections.
Respect the people’s will, no more repression
In this context, last Sunday’s elections took place and the evidently false results, which violate the decision of millions of Venezuelans, were announced. For this reason, we support the democratic and genuine demand for the entire truth be known and that the people’s will to be respected. Faced with such a political crisis, the CNE has the obligation to expose all the system’s data and form a public citizens’ audit headed and managed by prominent, respected and independent personalities, together with representatives of all parties.
At the same time, we defend the right of the Venezuelan people to mobilize in the ways they see fit, to impose respect for their vote and to make the real results known. We do not confuse or mix up the political plans of the right-wing capitalist opposition with the just feeling of a large part of the population that is fed up with the punishment dealt by a decadent regime that has been making life impossible for all working families, the poor and the middle classes for years. Taking to the streets to demand truth and transparency with the results is a democratic right that we support. Therefore, we reject and condemn all the repressive actions taken by the state under Maduro as well as his recent call to the armed forces to patrol the streets and repress demonstrations. This course will only multiply the killings that have already taken place, and the government will have to pay for all these crimes.
A reactionary anti-socialist regime and a right-wing opposition
Surely millions of workers and young people around the world are concerned about these events and about a campaign by the major capitalist media outlets that speak of an alleged failure of socialism in Venezuela. We want to reflect on this and share our opinions, starting with the assertion that there is nothing further from reality than considering Maduro and his regime as the expression of a genuine revolutionary project.
The Maduro regime has nothing to do with a socialist project, neither on the economic nor on the political or social level. Venezuela is led by a government and regime of capitalist content and form, focused on a high-end oil business led from the state, in association with large corporations of the energy sector and financial powerhouses. The high-level political and military officials taking part in these deals have transformed themselves into new capitalists and millionaires. They constitute an elite entrenched in the state that uses the initial history of the Bolivarian process to its advantage, while dismantling and liquidating all its main social achievements. A process that was never truly anti-capitalist, but did stand in opposition to US imperialism during some years. Today there is no trace of the revolutionary situation of the past.
In order to keep its grip on power, this economic regime is accompanied by a highly authoritarian model, with persecution of political opponents and working class and mass leaders that are imprisoned, prosecuted or sacked from their jobs. A regime that forced millions of Venezuelans to leave the country while who stayed behind lack food and a decent life.
For this reason, a majority expressed its discontent in these elections, with a significant part of the population choosing to vote against Maduro, whether or not they supported the ideas of the opposition. Fed up with this regime and the miserable life it imposes, a majority voted against the status quo.
That is to say, if there is today a possibility that a sector of the political and economic right wing can take control of the country, it is the responsibility of Maduro and his harmful and reactionary regime. By brutally applying its plans against the working masses, and, on top of that, doing so in the name of a supposed socialism and anti-imperialism, they opened the doors to the possibility of the pro-imperialist opposition reorganizing and growing stronger.
Conclusions and tasks
For all this, the International Socialist League calls for solidarity and support for all working class and mass sectors in Venezuela who genuinely fight for the right to have the people’s will respected and for the true results to be known, denouncing and confronting all types of repression.
We call for strengthening spaces of coordination from below, where these electoral and democratic demands and all the social demands of workers and the people are expressed with independence from the large opposition political apparatuses.
We also call for the strengthening of a truly anti-capitalist and socialist organization within Venezuela, which, taking up the best political and independent traditions of the country, welcomes into its midst workers and youth who, against a broken regime and a right-wing opposition, want to advance in an alternative direction. To fight for a future where workers govern and all the country’s common goods and strategic resources are in the hands of the working class, to put them once and for all at the service of the social needs of the majority.
From the revolutionary impulse and construction of a political force with this strategy, we also promote the greatest political unity of the anti-capitalists and anti-imperialists and a new unitary alternative of a true revolutionary left, independent of all imperialist powers—whether hegemonic or emerging—in Venezuela.