Venezuela; Understanding Socialism and Self-Determination

This week imperialism did what it does best in Venezuela.  It completely disrespected the will of the Venezuelan people and the international community.  By imperialism we mean the rich industrialized countries who have wealth because of their system of exploiting the resources of the rest of the planet.  This network of thieves is of course led by the U.S.  As it relates to the situation with Venezuela, imperialism is represented by the U.S. and the so-called "Lima Group."  A collection of gangsters who used a meeting in August of 2017 in Lima, Peru, to agree to place the interests of international imperialism ahead of justice, integrity, and respect for humanity. 

By disrespect, we mean the methodology in which imperialism carried out its nefarious activities this week.  For those who recognize that truth matters in life, let's repeat that in Venezuela's 2018 national election, Nicolas Maduras, the current president, received 67% of the vote.  His best challenger received only 20% of the vote and the other person running got 10%.  The only registered complaints against the election process by those so-called international observers were statements that the representatives from Venezuela's community councils which carried out the election process were "concerning."  No specific accusations of voter suppression.  No evidence of violence by the government against opposition leaders.  Nothing.  In other words, compared to the 2016 and 2000 U.S. presidential elections, the Venezuelan election came off without the slightest hitch.  Still, none of this stopped U.S. imperialism from contributing to conditions to commit an illegal coup against the democratically elected Venezuelan government.  They did this by "recognizing" the so-called opposition leader as the president of Venezuela, completing disregarding the Venezuelan people's clear mandate of support for Maduras and his socialist party.

As par the course, imperialism is using the same tired rhetoric to justify their actions.  We've all heard this story many times before.  Its been used for decades against Cuba and other socialist countries.  Same old lies.  There's no freedom in Venezuela. People are fighting for food to eat.  The policies of the Venezuelan government have failed because of their commitment to socialist development.  Since most people in the world know absolutely nothing about socialism, its not difficult for these lies to continue to stick.  And, to add to the confusion, as they have historically done using the scum posing as exiled Cubans in Miami, Florida, U.S., to denounce the Cuban revolution, we have any number of bourgeoisie Venezuelans who want you to know they are the experts on what is happening in that country.  And their message is what is happening isn't good.  

Regarding the last point, we have stated in this space countless times that this logic borders on absurdity.  Revolutions are fought to address inequities in society.  By definition, this means they are fought for the working class and peasants.  In other words, not the people who will be sought after to be interviewed on capitalist news channels or stories.  On the flip side, bourgeoisie inhabitants, or the people who possess class privilege, are never on the side of revolutionary change unless they have made the conscious decision to commit class suicide (denouncing the bourgeoisie classes and siding with the masses of people against the power structure).  So, unless you understand the class contradictions of a society, just saying "someone from Venezuela told me people are eating out of garbage cans" is a completely asinine process of studying what's happening in a country.  Its as mindless as the bourgeoisie in the U.S. telling federal workers, unpaid due to the stupid government shutdown over the last few weeks. that their banks "know them" and would give them loans until they get paid.  To the bourgeoisie, who never even interact with supermarkets and banks like we do, its a completely unknown reality that most federal workers in 2019 probably rarely even enter bank branches as banking is done largely through electronic means e.g. direct deposit, mobile banking, etc.  So, your bank doesn't know you.  My credit union is located in different state than the one I live in so I haven't gone into a branch in years.  Someone who works at my credit union could walk up to me and slap me and I wouldn't know them so the idea that they "know me" is completely insane.  The same is true for Venezuela's bourgeoisie.  These people are completely out of touch with the masses in Venezuela.  They therefore have no understanding of the progress the Bolivarian revolution there has achieved. Illiteracy has been practically eliminated in Venezuela since Hugo Chavez took office in 1999.  Health care and other clear signs of human progress have improved dramatically since then.  These gains explain why Maduas, who won narrowly in 2013 when he succeeded Chavez after his death, won convincingly in 2018.  

The other confusion is related to Venezuelan policies and its actions against opposition.  Again, these are common attacks against revolutionary governments.  The liberal elites in countries like the U.S., who's primary objective is to reform capitalism, are always quick to adopt this line of logic.  The cold hard truth is revolutionary governments, particularly those like Venezuela, Nicaragua, and of course Cuba, who function within the sphere of the strongest imperialist country in human history, have every right to act quickly and decisively against efforts to illegally sabotage their societies.  Often, errors are made in this process.  This is certainly unfortunate, but these are always going to be the realities for young societies who deserve the right to figure out how to govern in a world hostile to their approach.  And, to those who say I can say this because I don't live in those countries, understand that when I take this position, I use the example of Cuba, which following the Soviet models in the first 30 years of its revolution (before the fall of the USSR), was very much indifferent at best, and outright racist at worst, in acknowledging the history of its largely African population.  There was a time during the Cuban revolution when African culture was frowned upon because of the early narrow Marxist-Leninist interpretation that any identification based on culture and nationality was reactionary e.g. only the class struggle was accepted as the proper method of human identification. 
  

Venezuela and her people have the right to craft out their socialist society and they will make errors in doing so.  Anyone who criticizes that doesn't understand human development.  Now, the Venezuelan people have the right to expect that corruption, a major problem in Venezuela, must be eliminated, but even doing this is a process.  There is no country on earth where corruption doesn't exist.  And, certainly, the U.S. is in absolutely no moral position - as corrupt as government is in this country - to point the finger at anyone.  Corruption exists everywhere and Venezuela has the right to learn how to eliminate it.  The fact they haven't completed this process after only 20 years of existence under antagonistic conditions, isn't an indication of anything derogatory about their integrity as a revolutionary society.  The same bourgeoisie in Venezuela who are charging the Bolivarians with corruption had no problem with its existence in all the previous years before 1999 when it existed at a much higher level than it does today in that country.  The fact no one, not even their harshest critics, can claim that Hugo Chavez, or Maduras, have stolen even one Bolivarian piece of currency should be all the evidence you need about the integrity of their commitment to their work.  The same can be said about Fidel Castro, Muammar Qaddafi, and Robert Mugabe.  By comparison, U.S. puppet leaders like Marcos in the Philippines, Pinochet in Chile, Mobutu in the Congo, Duvalier I and II in Haiti, etc., have a trail of stealing their country's wealth that can be easily traced by any novice researcher for the next 200 years. 

Finally, the charge of mismanagement is completely dishonest.  The corruption is a problem of political education. Its an issue of building consciousness in the country beyond the primitive level of individual gain to that of selfless collective gain.  Socialist gain.  Socialism is a transition system.  It should take time because growing consciousness takes time.  Until Venezuela is able to get much farther along in that process than 20 years while fighting sabotage, we are not even close to closing the book on the quality of their progress.  This is such confusion for most people in the U.S. because their understanding of socialism is being colored by bourgeoisie politicians within the U.S. like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who wants to make to clear to you that she's not pursuing the socialism that exists in Cuba or Venezuela.  She wants something that is supposed to emerge by hijacking the bourgeoisie U.S. electoral process.  The same bourgeoisie process that has conspired to push Saudi Arabia to continue to produce mass amounts of cheap oil in an effort to saturate the oil market in a way that has adversely impacted Venezuela's economy since oil is Venezuela's major export and revenue producing industry.  In the 2000s, Venezuela enjoyed such lucrative oil wealth that poverty was massively reduced and they were able to even supply heating oil to poor communities around the world, including the Bronx, New York, U.S., where Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez comes from, despite her complete dismissal of Venezuela's progress.  Meanwhile, no one is asking the question of why Saudi Arabia continues to flood the market with cheap, low priced oil at the time when the Saudi economy is in deep trouble.  In other words, doing so does nothing to benefit Saudi Arabia, but much to benefit imperialism's desire to destabilize Venezuela's socialist advancement.  This tactic has been used many times before by imperialism to sabotage socialist development with sugar, rubber, and other commodities.  

Venezuela had no national liberation war fought to achieve power.  Instead, they are attempting to transform their people into a revolution through policy while working through all the contradictions touched upon in this piece and much, much more.  Anyone who supports imperialism's quest to destroy Venezuela is not a friend to colonized and oppressed people on the planet.  And even those who are attempting to act like they are objective observers when they point out the shortcomings in Venezuela are no better than the out and out racists and right wing anti-communists.  The road to hell is paved with great intentions.  Imperialism is obviously relentless in its intentions to destroy any movement working to advance people against profit.  If Maduras and Venezuela's socialist work was so off point, why is imperialism working so hard to sabotage them?  People who are genuinely concerned about justice have the responsibility to make honest assessments.  If you know you haven't studied any socialist materials stop trying to pretend that you are objective.  You have however many years you have been alive of anti-communist propaganda that has formed your perspectives whether you want to admit it or not.  The people of Venezuela need people committed to justice now.