REVOLUTIONARY PROSPECTS With the recent attempt to assassinate President
Rómulo Betancourt, hatched by Venezuelan reactionaries, with the backing of the increasingly senile and psychopathic dictator of the Dominican Republic
- who, with the overdue eclipse of Syngman Rhee, is becoming the leading symbol of blind and frantic resistance to the most elementary progress in the colonial and semicolonial countries - world attention has again been drawn to the tense transitional situation in the continuing Venezuelan revolution. Under these circumstances, we think that our readers will be interested in a survey of the current Venezuelan scene recently sent us by a Venezuelan correspon-
The ravages caused by the wave of earthquakes, which, starting in Chile, have had repercussions over the whole
Pacific area, are relatively slight compared to the repeated blows that the revolutionary tidal wave is causing to imperialism in the colonial and semi-colonial countries. The upsurge of the Venezuelan masses, though it has not yet gone beyond the measures imposed by conventional legality, has only increased since the last months of 1957, when the people of Caracas began their struggle against the ten-year dictatorship that collapsed in January 1958. POLITICAL PARTIES
The Venezuelan proletariat, like that of much of Latin merica, shows a high political level, and, for the la
No and a half years, has been looking for a leadershi suitable to its strength. To the contrary of Cuba, where
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76 the army was dissolved by the triumphant revolution, in Venezuela it was the army itself that gave the coup grâce to the dictatorship which, up until 23 January it had joined with the top bourgeoisie and imperialism to support. There then occurred a divorce between the interests of the military caste and those of the bourgeoisie, which had never had a'specific political party. Soon stage was opened in which political parties, reorganized by leaders who emerged from exile or prison, tried to adapt their programmes both to bourgeois aspirations and to the growing clamor of the masses; and, faced with the risk of military reaciion, they decided to defend the provisional government and to tone down their programmes into a joint line of action that was known by the name of unity.
It was under this sign that the December 1958 elections were held. Three candidates were launched, "provisionally," each saying that he was quite ready to withdraw, all three with the same programme previously and jointly approved, and all three flattering imperialism and the rich bourgeoisie of Caracas. What kept them so united was fcar of a military coup. The aggressive masses of the capital had confidence in Larrazábal, in whom they saw tht man who had finished off the tyranny, but whose personality consisted precisely in the fact that he had ORD He pass had professional policins are profited. He was backed by the Communist Party and the by the popularity of their candidate. Larrazabal and Caldera together obtained half the vote. The latter was the candidate of the Church, Venezuelan people is very much less thar that of the people the government. The other half was obtained by Rómulo Betancourt, the current President, leader of the Acción Democrática, a Petty-bourgeois nationalist party, which takes its inspiration from the programme of the Peruvian A PR A, and has become the most numerous during the time it was in power from 1945 to 1948. is a well-organized party, and the only party that had a honor-list of dead to exhibit during the fight against the dictatorship. Its main suppori lies among and the proletariat and petty bourgeoisie of the provincial towns and villages. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CRISIS
The current government can be characterized by its attitude toward the danger of a coup d'état and toward the economic crisis. What saved it from being overthrown by the armed forces was the unanimous defense provided for it by the peasants, workers, students, and middle classes, as can be judged from the 24-hour strike that paralyzed the country in April this year. The formula adopted by Betancourt, however, is the coalition in power of his party with the URD and the Christian-Social Party, on the one hand; and, on the other a policy of flatteries toward the top military chiefs, the chiefs of past revolts, as in the case of General Castro León, who as punishment was sent to the pleasure-island where the former dictator used to take his ease. thus not surprising that the democratic regime lives under a daily threat.
If one knows the composition of the government, it is easy to guess that the economic crisis is at present loaded on the shoulders of the toilers, to the profit of the bankers and other individuals whose interests are mixed up with those of the foreign monopolies. The latter have really not much to complain about, for, just as the Acción Democrática is now becoming the party of
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL the bourgeoisie, the government of Betancourt is transforming Venezuela into Uncle Sam's spoiled nephew. The Four-Year Plan presented by President to Congress is a confession in advance of the failure into which his economic and administrative management will lead. The unemployed are at least 200,000 in a country whose total population is seven million. The agrarian reform, that the peasantry (40% of the population) has been awaiting for a century and half, will not be able to go beyond the distribution of a few lands to the most starveling peasants — who already constitute the greatest danger for the tranquility of bourgeois institutions. The problem is too grave to be solved by a criterion set by millionaires who, when the time comes to pay. find that their pockets are empiy. YOUTH IS ORGANIZING
With food dear, wages stagnant or dropping, and faced with the impassivity of the regime, a feeling of discontent is spreading from the workers to the petty bourgeoisie. The Venezuelan Communist Party, which is perhaps the strongest in Latin America, has tried to exploit this to its own advantage; but something has gone sour in side that party and it must be recognized that its success has been infinitesimal.
On the other hand, the tradizional mass party in Venezuela, the Acción democrática, had a youth which, together with the youth of the Communist Party, had engaged in the decisive battle during the last years of the
Within its organization therewas a strong left opposition that threatened to carry all the militants along
The old leaders, already tired and separated from the masses, understood the grave risk of this,. and decided to act in time: in the first half of April 1960 the youth of the Acción Democrâtica was expelled from the party.
Only two months have passed, and already the new movement, whose name and programme have not yet been specified (it is announced that they will be in June, when its first national assembly will be held), has been set up in all Venezuelan lowns and villages, and has carried out public demonstrations in Maracaibo and Caracas, which drew more people than the demonstrations of the party from which they had been expelled. It is even said that many voters for the Communist Party have joined the new
And the workers organized in the trade unions, though in their specifie economic needs, they remain faithful to the union bureaucracy, in their general political orientation have not concealed their sympathy for the party now being born.
The new party looks socialist: its best-known leaders have publicly stated their belief in Marxism; the party's enmity to capitalism in general, and not just to imperialism, seems to be the prevailing thought. The impact of the Cuban revolution on the Latin-American masses, and especially on Venezuela, has been formidable, and the people regard the new movement as a sort of Venezuelan 626 July Movement," which, if it reaches power, must nake a more radical revolution than that in Cuba because in Venezuela national capitalism is very strong, and, because of its 90% money-lending and importing nature, cannot be counted on; imperialist interests therein are incomparably more important than in any other country on the continent.
León David
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