[WSMDiscuss] (Fwd) Left dissidents ("Surgentes") rise in Venezuela, as Maduro U-turns from Chavismo

[Patrick Bond]

(/Maduro said //he felt offended 
<https://monitoreamos.com/venezuela/maduro-arremete-contra-periodista-mexicano-por-preguntarle-sobre-la-persecucion-a-sindicalistas-estas-muy-mal-informado>//by 
accusations that he was repressing the left. But he has begun 
questioning what he calls the “outdated left”, “the left’s infantilism” 
and the “exquisite left”. While there are cases where left sectors have 
been clearly targeted, repression is mostly aimed at what we call the 
popular camp; that is, campesinos that fight for the democratisation of 
land or workers who struggle for their labour rights. We believe a 
relationship exists between the package of economic measures and the 
package of repression that inherently comes with it. It is not possible 
to implement economic adjustment without generating conflict... There is 
no doubt that we have seen a mutation in the governing elite. It no 
longer raises the Chavista program, even if it continues to quote Chávez 
and use his image/.)


  'Turning right, repressing left': How Venezuela's Maduro shifted course

Federico Fuentes <https://www.greenleft.org.au/glw-authors/federico-fuentes>
Antonio González Plessmann 
<https://www.greenleft.org.au/glw-authors/antonio-gonzalez-plessmann>
June 24, 2021
Issue
1313 <https://www.greenleft.org.au/glw-issues/1313>
Venezuela <https://www.greenleft.org.au/country/venezuela>
May Day rally in Caracas in 2017.

In the face of a prolonged and deep economic and political crisis, 
Venezuela’s government has embarked on a “turn to the right” in economic 
policy, while resorting to repression against the left.

This is the conclusion of a new report released by human rights 
organisation Surgentes, /Turn to the right and repression to the left: 
Human rights violations against Venezuela’s popular camp (2015-2020) 
<https://surgentes.org.ve/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/GIRO-A-LA-DERECHA-4.pdf>/.

The report says this shift — publicly defended by the government as a 
tactical turn — directly clashes with “the essential pillars of 
Chavismo”, the political movement forged by former president Hugo Chávez.

Its findings, which are the result of extensive interviews and 
fieldwork, echoes what some sections of Chavismo have been arguing for a 
while.

/Green Left’s /*Federico Fuentes* spoke with Surgentes’ *Antonio 
González Plessmann* about the investigation.

** * **

*Could you outline what changes in policies or actions led the group to 
conclude that the government has turned to the right. *

The turn to the right has occurred both in economic and political terms.

Regarding the economy, we have seen a range of measures implemented with 
the aim of attracting private capital at the expense of social rights.

For example:

* Privatisations have been occurring since 2015 
<https://tatuytv.org/opinion-de-la-nacionalizacion-a-la-privatizacion/>, 
either openly (via the handing over of agricultural land or nationalised 
companies) or in hidden form (via strategic associations or mixed 
companies). The anti-blockade law passed by the National Constituent 
Assembly 
<https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-maduro-anti-blockade-law-deepens-debate-over-revolution-future> 
(ANC) enables the state to continue and deepen the process of 
privatisations under the cloak of confidentiality;

* Tax exemptions on investments 
<https://pandectasdigital.blogspot.com/2018/08/gaceta-oficial-de-la-republica_4.html> 
and imports 
<https://pandectasdigital.blogspot.com/2021/01/gaceta-oficial-de-la-republica_5.html>;


    See also

‘Commune or nothing’: New laws reignite old debates over communal power 
in Venezuela 
<https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/commune-or-nothing-new-laws-reignite-old-debates-over-communal-power-venezuela>
Venezuelan revolutionary MP: ‘We need a patriotic, ethical and 
democratic National Assembly’ 
<https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuelan-revolutionary-mp-we-need-patriotic-ethical-and-democratic-national-assembly>

* Elimination of currency controls and de facto dollarisation of the 
economy;

* Systemic violation of labour rights, expressed in the maintenance of 
one of the lowest minimum wages in the world (about $2 a month); and

* Due to the sanctions imposed on Venezuela, the state has worked with 
economic agents and business owners that are negotiating on its behalf 
to evade the illegitimate blockade. This, in turn, has generated a 
network of non-transparent economic interests that promote illicit 
enrichment of circles close to the political elite.

With the exception of this last point, we are basically talking about 
measures that the right has been requesting for more than two decades, 
and which Chavismo had not ceded ground on, because they run contrary to 
its programmatic aims.

By aims, I mean its support for increasing popular power — through 
handing over the means of production to the people and promoting 
self-governing communes — and a strong state that controls strategic 
goods and services for the benefit of the majority, all within the 
framework of a transition towards a democratic alternative to capitalism.

These aims have been cast aside by the governing elite.

This economic shift has been accompanied by a progressive closing down 
of democratic spaces. But it is important to contextualise this tendency.

Until 2015, Chavismo had responded to each crisis, to each 
anti-democratic assault by the opposition, with calls for mobilisation, 
self-organisation and popular participation, in elections and on the 
streets.

The important electoral defeat suffered by Chavismo in the 2015 
parliamentary elections constitutes a point of inflection.

The opposition’s control of the National Assembly (AN) allowed the right 
wing to designate hostile anti-government authorities to other national 
public powers. It was also clear that it had the necessary support to 
activate a presidential recall referendum.

This produced a change in Chavismo: consultations and electoral 
processes, at the levels of state institutions as well as territorial 
popular power, were avoided, restricted or adjusted to suit the government.

For example:

* The Ministry of Communes suspended the registration of new communal 
council spokespeople 
<https://pandectasdigital.blogspot.com/2016/07/gaceta-oficial-de-la-republica_26.html> 
in 2016 and, with it, elections for spokespeople. When elections were 
reactivated, conditions were created 
<https://surgentes.org.ve/poder-popular/> so that only militants of the 
governing party or those endorsed by the party participated or were elected.

* Given the enormous difficulties in accessing food, the Local 
Committees for Supply and Production (CLAPs) became the most important 
spaces for mobilisation in the community, displacing the communal 
councils. Unlike communal council spokespeople, CLAP spokespeople are 
not elected but instead designated by the state and governing party 
<https://pandectasdigital.blogspot.com/2018/01/gaceta-oficial-de-la-republica_30.html>.

* The elected AN was de facto annulled, first via successive Supreme 
Court rulings and later by the existence of the ANC.

* Political parties — both from the right and the left — that have 
criticised the governing elite’s turn, have had their electoral 
registration handed over to sectors aligned to the government by 
electoral and judicial authorities.

*How do you explain this turn? *

Different factors explain this turn to the right.

Some are internal, the result of changes in power relations and the 
governing elite’s management of the economy, and others are external, in 
that they are due to the international right’s attacks.

The blockade imposed by the United States and European Union runs 
systematically contrary to the protection of human rights. Its impact on 
the population is devastating and criminal. It seeks to generate a 
change in government, which is a violation of our right to 
self-determination.

With all its contradictions and internal tensions, in Venezuela there 
has been an attempt to construct a democratic alternative to capitalism 
that is independent of the US. This is something that imperialism cannot 
tolerate. What is occurring today cannot be understood outside of the 
framework of this existing conflict.

By escalating this conflict, the US and EU are among those responsible 
for the deterioration of the governing elite, for the tactical turns it 
has taken, which ended up becoming strategic.

In terms of internal factors, we have to say that control of a state 
that administers oil wealth has, throughout our nation’s history, been 
tied to the emergence of capitalists associated with the political 
class. This has also been the case in the past decade.

Corruption and the discretional use of public resources to benefit 
certain economic sectors has generated a network of (legal and illegal) 
economic interests that have consolidated themselves and worked to 
undermine the anti-capitalist component of the Bolivarian Revolution.

That is why, when the blockade obliged the government to adopt emergency 
measures, the governing elite had little problems in embracing economic 
measures commonly associated with neoliberal adjustment programs and 
promoting the role of business to confront the crisis.

The problem with this is that it involves a transformation in what 
Chavismo stands for. It reduces the role of the people, who were 
previously the protagonists of the Bolivarian Revolution, and represents 
an abdication in the face of capital.

*What form has the repression of the left taken? Do you believe there is 
a direct relationship between the turn to the right and this repression?*

The government continues to identify as left-wing. In fact, the 
president said he felt offended 
<https://monitoreamos.com/venezuela/maduro-arremete-contra-periodista-mexicano-por-preguntarle-sobre-la-persecucion-a-sindicalistas-estas-muy-mal-informado> 
by accusations that he was repressing the left. But he has begun 
questioning what he calls the “outdated left”, “the left’s infantilism” 
and the “exquisite left”.

While there are cases where left sectors have been clearly targeted, 
repression is mostly aimed at what we call the popular camp; that is, 
campesinos that fight for the democratisation of land or workers who 
struggle for their labour rights.

We believe a relationship exists between the package of economic 
measures and the package of repression that inherently comes with it. It 
is not possible to implement economic adjustment without generating 
conflict.

And if it is not possible to generate consensus on the need to violate 
social rights, then the only option left is coercion.

*Given the difficult situation Venezuela finds itself in, one could 
argue these measures represent a negative, but necessary retreat. Why do 
you argue that the government has broken with Chavez’s legacy?*

There is no doubt that we have seen a mutation in the governing elite. 
It no longer raises the Chavista program, even if it continues to quote 
Chávez and use his image.

/Tatuy TV,/ a left Chavista alternative media outlet, has an excellent 
video series comprised of a selection of Chávez’s speeches called 
“Radical Chávez <https://tatuytv.org/chavez-radical/>”.

To illustrate the contrast between Chávez and the measures I have talked 
about, here are some quotes that have been used as titles for their 
videos: “It is impossible to advance to socialism using the tools of 
capitalism”, “The hegemony of social property must impose itself”, “Here 
nothing will be privatised”, “Beware of a Bolivarian oligarchy in our 
ranks”.

The contrast is evident. Chávez almost seems to be directly questioning 
the current turn of the political elite.

The governing elite justifies its turn to the right as the only option 
available to it. It says it is a tactical, not strategic, turn.

But it seems, at least highly unlikely, that such a turn, which supposes 
the creation of strong economic interests, could be reversed in favour 
of the post-capitalist aspirations of the Chavista program.

*Finally, could you tell us a bit about Surgentes?*

Surgentes is a collective that was formed eight years ago and whose 
areas of focus are strengthening popular power and human rights. It is 
made up of left militants with three decades of experience in human 
rights and who have working at the level of activism as well as in the 
state and academia.

Several of us were part of various attempts to construct a police reform 
consist with human rights during Chávez’s government.

Our conception of human rights activism distances us from most human 
rights NGOs in the country, which have a liberal outlook and are made up 
of opposition-aligned middle-class professionals.

Our vocation is openly anti-capitalist and from a class perspective. We 
identify as Chavistas.

[A longer version of this interview will be published at /Links 
International Journal of Socialist Renewal <http://links.org.au>/.]

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