POLITICS by GONZALO GOMEZ The political process Venezuela has followed during the past several years is comparable to the general process undergone by all the bourgeois nationalist regimes in Latin America, whose undeniable decline has been accompanied by new and deeper compromises with imperialism, with a consequent accentuation of the relations of neocolonial dependency. This process of the ruin of bourgeois nationalism has been manifested in Peru and Argentina, is presently under way in Panamo, and has also occurred in Venezuela. It could not be otherwise, for nothing else can be expected from the weak national bourgeoisies of these countries. The constellation of the "color guard" of nationalism in Latin America, composed of such people as Perón in Argen-
Carlos Andres Perce VENEZUELA tina, Velasco Alvarado in Peru, Torrijos in Panama, and Andrés Pérez in Venezuela (of which only the latter two are still in power as of now) has steodily dimmed in the foce of the intensification of the rays of imperialism in South America. Nonetheless, this has gone hand in hand with a gradual rise of the mass movement in some countries. The proimperialist plan of Andrés Pérez In the specific case of Venezuela, the proimperialist turn ran almost parallel with the period of nationalizations opened by Carlos Andrés Pérez with the "nation-
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VENEZUELA alization" of the mines (iron) and closed with the nationalization of oil. In both cases, imperialism was granted big compensation and maintained its control over basic industries, especially through mixed companies of state capital and imperialist and national private capital. In the case of the oil industry, the Yankee companies were able to control the most important sectors, which were sources of the most fabulous profits. They maintained their monopoly on refining, transport, and marketing of petroleum products, aside from the technical assistance accords. After taking advantage of a particularly favorable conjuncture of imperialist weakness on a world scale to negotiate with imperialism from the best possible position, the Venezuelan bourgeoisie once again turned to imperialism to sustain and finance its plans of capitalist development. The whole previous "anti-imperialist" stage had been developed through frequent verbal confrontations with imperialism and by cultivating support from the mass movement in order to strengthen the government and create a basis of political and economic stability and labor peace. This was then to serve to begin carrying out the nationalization project and to undertake plans of economic development under the impetus of the big influx of petrodollars generated by the increase in oil prices. Because of this situation, the Carlos Andrés Pérez government had an initial base of fabulous financial resources whose magnitude was unprecedented in the economic history of Venezuelan capitalism. Thus, when Andrés Pérez began serving his presidential term in 1974 he was able to grant all sorts of credit facilities, loans, and capital contributions to the various sectors of the national bourgeoisie. In addition, he was able to offer certain concessions to the laboring masses, a 25 percent wage increase for example, as well as to take other measures of a populist character. After two years of the Andrés Pérez government, fiscol income approached 84, 000 million bolivars and Venezuelan foreign exchange reserves exceeded the total reserves of all other Latin American countries put together, the equivalent of about USS8, 856 million in 1975. Given this panorama of economic bonanza, the leading groups of the Venezuelan entrepreneurial world, those most fightly linked to the multinational octopus of imperialist capital and represented by the employers' organization "Fedecamaras, * insisted on the importance of an "atmosphere of confidence" and "investment incentives." The figure for total government expenditures was on the order of Bs120, 000 million. A good part of this money went to finance important industrial projects and agri= cultural complexes; it also went for foreign investments as well as loans and donations to other countries and to bodies controlled by North American imperialism such as the World Bank. Another important part of this mass of money was absorbed into the coffers and pockets of the state bureaucracy and thus contributed to flagrant 28 administrative corruption. The magnitude of the waste, together with the leveling off of oil prices on the world market, provoked an economic crisis on the state level, which compelled the state to adopt a more "prudent" spending policy and to introduce some reforms of the public administration. But the bourgeoisie continued to command fabulous resources, which permitted it to nurture ambitious objectives. In order to take advantage of these fat years, the Venezuelan bourgeoisie drew up an economic plan that is supposed to be applied between 1976 and 1980. According to the claims of the president, this plan will be the reference point for the construction of what has been called "Great Venezuela, "which is pretty much equivalent to the "Powerful Argentina" of Peronism or the "Brazilian Miracle. " Let us take a synthetic look at the central features of this plan, which is called the fifth Plan de la Nación. As far as petroleum, the nation's major resource, is concerned, the exploration of the Orinóco fields, site of the country's most extensive oil deposits, has been announced and there have been reports of investment programs "to initiate experimental production" with the participation of North American foreign capital. This means only one thing: Andrés Pérez is preparing to hand the most important oil deposits over to the imperialist companies. The terms of this surrender were undoubtedly on the agenda during the recent talks between Andrés Pérez and Henry Kissinger. The multinational corporations will also occupy an enviable position in the so-called strategic industries. According to the procedure traced out by Article 5 of the law governing industry and trade in hydrocarbons, which permits the establishment of "association pacts" between the state and privote enterprise, the imperialist companies will be able to participate through mixed-capital corporations in the steel and petrochemicals industries, key points in the development project of the Venezuelan government and big bourgeoisie. In addition, in some areas, such as exploitation of important by-products of the petrochemicals industry, "private enterprise" will be able to participate at levels up to 50 percent and will be able to hold majority shares in some cases. In order to fully finance this "denationalizing" plan, the Venezuelan state is now seeking foreign credit, asking for some Bs30, 000 million. This means that it will go into debt to imperialism, since existing reserves and the anticipated budget do not suffice to cover the requirements of the modernization and development of indigenous capitalism. There is no mystery about what the result of all this will be: greater dependency on Yankee imperialism in all respects, whereas real development is possible only by breaking the neocolonial yoke, a task that requires the establishment of a workers and people's government in Venezuela.
The objectives and goals of this plan of capitalist development are closely linked to the government's educational program. One of the most pressing necessities for the Venezuelan bourgeoisie is the creation of a cheap specialized work force, which requires that the educational apparatus be adapted to these development objecfives. The aim is to channel the influx of students in the humanities courses toward exclusively technical courses (especially short courses); to reduce spending on education by lowering the number of students and the budget, to stimulate private education while on the other hand erecting obstacles to free education. Yet another aim is to liquidate the existing democratic bodies of the student movement. These few facts give a good picture of the orientation of what the government calls the "educational revolution." We may conclude by mentioning the signing of accords between the company that directs the iron and steel industry of Orinóco (Corporación Venezolana de Guayana) and various national universities, as well as the signing of "advice and exchange" agreements with North American universities. In whoever field is examined, the policy of the present government team is one of total linkage with Imperialism, in contradiction with the initially "nationalist" image assumed by Carlos Andrés Pérez at the beginning of his term, an image that fooled many people who had illusions in his fake game and believed it was leading toward Latin American independence. The bourgeois project and the masses Andrés Pérez hod made three basic promises in his electoral campaign: 1. He would fight the high cost of living. 2. He would wage "war on poverty. " 3. He would bring about full employment. The first measures taken by Andrés Pérez toward the masses, timid as they were, did respond to these three claims to a certain extent. They penetrated deeply into the workers movement and thus gave the regime a base from which to blackmail imperialism and introduce nationalizations. Among these measures were a 25 percent wage increase, a price freeze on basic products, the introduction of a law partially blocking "unjustified layoffs, " a decree ordering all companies to increase their employment rolls by 5 percent, and other measures of a similar nature. But the effects of these moves were barely felt by the workers. The wage increases were very quickly swept away by inflation; the cost of living continued to rise in the wake of "price adjustments" or indiscriminate increases; the increases in hiring were soon followed by massive layoffs. None of the essential problems of the Venezuelan people have been solved, even partially, by the present employers' government. The number of unemployed is more than 1,800,000, if both permanently and partially unemployed workers are counted; the real wages of the workers decline day by day as a result of inflation, which will reach a rate of 50 percent by July of this year; about 33,000 students could not get into universities for lack of space, and the same problem exists in secondary schools as well. The problem of the countryside remains as intense as ever, with Venezuelan agriculture in deep crisis. The agrarian reform of the 1960s could not go beyond the limits imposed both by the program itself and by the administrative apparatus; about 80 percent of the land is owned by large landlords, and the agricultural workers have no choice but to gradually leave the countryside to flow into the marginal poverty belts that ring the cities. The deterioration of agriculture has necessitated the import of many products, which come in at the inflated prices of the international market and thus cause the ruin of the small-scale producers. The V Plan de la Nación, far from ameliorating these problems, has been a factor aggravating them, since the full weight of the plan's application rests on sacrifices by all the workers. In order to carry it out, Andrés Pérez calls for "the most fruitful cooperation of employees and workers, for the greatest yield from the work force and the uninterrupted functioning of the componies. " That is, he asks the workers to submit to the most intense superexploitation in order to guarantee large profits to the employers. But this is only one ospect of the social effects of the V Plan de la Nación, for the government also wants "austerity" and "efficiency, "which means refusing to grant the slightest improvement in labor contracts and wage freezes in order to maximally reduce costs, thus making the workers bear the costs of the plans for capitalist development. Under these circumstances, Andrés Pérez has resorted to the powerful frade-union bureaucracy (the majority of which is controlled by Acción Democrática, Democratic Action, the official party) and asks the trade-
VENEZUELA union federations "to reach concerted agreements on industrial relations and policy" as well as "cooperation of the labor sector in collective negotiation. " With this pragmatic philosophy of "austerity" and "efficiency" the bourgeoisie intends not only to reduce the costs of production but also to discipline the workers movement. That is why, they are now fighting to repeal the "low against unjustified layoffs, * in an attempt both to clear the way for unshackled application of mass layoffs and purges of activists whenever a conflict arises that threatens the regular development of bourgeois industrial projects and to reduce expenditures on workers whose productivity is low. Thus, the worker will know that he must produce what is required of him or risk losing his job. The wave of layoffs is growing in all sectors, but the hardest hit have been the workers of companies operating in the oil zones. Besides allowing for and implementing layoffs, the solutions Andrés Pérez offers for the problem of unemployment do not even serve as palliatives. He has promised to create 180, 000 new jobs per year, but if we take the total figure of unemployed, at least 1,600,000 people will remain jobless, and this does not take account of the increase in the number of people of working age, people who will be unable to find jobs during the coming ten years. Response of the workers The workers movement and the oppressed masses of Venezuela are temporarily in a state of calm. During the past two years (and even for several years before that) there have not been great struggles in the country. Throughout this period there have been only small-scale conflicts, molecular and isolated struggles of the workers movement and some sectors of the petty bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, the dynamic of the class struggle points toward a slow but steady advance of these struggles, which are now erupting sporadically and with little inTensity. A symptom of this advance may be seen in the current tendency toward massive unionization of the workers. The most important dangers the Andrés Pérez government has had to confront have undoubtedly been the strike of the iron workers and the threatened oilworkers strike. The origin of both problems lay in Andres Pérez's refusal to pay 50 percent of the social security benefits that had been promised the workers when the iron and oil industries were nationalized. Even though these struggles did not win victory in the sense that the cantral demands were not met, they led to direct conflicts with the employers" government and did not represent real defeats for the working class, which is holding its ground and gaining in strength daily. But the case of the ironworkers did lead to a struggle against the fradeunion bureaucracy that has been entrenched in the mineworkers union for the past fourteen years, a struggle that ended by achieving trade-union unity among the ironworkers and the ousting of the old bureaucracy with the triumph of the slates of the Movimiento de Izquierda 30
Revolucionaria (MIR - Movement of the Revolutionary Leff) and the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS - Movement Toward Socialism). This reflected a new shift of the workers toward socialist positions. But the factors that gave rise to these mobilizations or were on the point of provoking them continue to exist under the surface, and the working class is going through increasingly negative experiences with the bourgeois government, which is step by step eroding confidence in that government. More precisely, these problems of the workers in the most important industries, like iron and oil, the backbone of the national economy, are tending to sharpen, while the plan of "austerity" and "efficiency" aims at eliminating some of the gains these workers had made previously (ownership of the living quarters in the work areas, the canteens, etc.). This may stimulate the development of new and more intense struggles. During the two years of the Andrés Pérez government, there has been an increase in the number of strikes around wage demands in various factories. There have been strikes of the transport workers, the public service workers, teachers and university employees, mobilizations of students and the poor against increases in the transport fares, etc. Immediately after Kissinger's visit and the murder of three students by repressive agents, there were powerful student mobilizations that lasted for more than a week. Later the students of the secondary and technical schools took to the streets to protest the "cycle of diversification, *one of the aspects of the "educational revolution. There have also been small signs of discontent in the countryside, resulting in land seizures in some areas. In general, Andrés Pérez's response to these atomized but mounting struggles has been to refuse to give an inch and to take repressive measures: Nearly all the strikes have been declared illegal; there have been layoffs and murders of students; worker activists and left militants have been imprisoned; the headquarters and printshops of some socialist groups have been sacked; in some cases the leftist press has been confiscated. All this has gone on parallel to the increasingly rightward drift of the government and the deepening of its links with imperialism. Nevertheless, the government's image is continuing to deteriorate; the struggles are becoming more numerous, even if slowly; and broad sectors of the masses and the petty bourgeoisie are leaning toward socialism, which is reflected in the growth of left tendencies, as seen in the results of student and trade-union elections and in other developments as well. The left The first actions taken by President Andrés Pérez had a big impact on the entire left, including the groups that had predicted the rise of what they called "pre-fascism, " since they had based their analysis on the political antecedents of Carlos Andrés Pérez, which is no way hinted
at any "nationalist" inclinations. These forces were disoriented by the initial "anti-imperialist" impetus, short-lived though it was, and by the "attacks" on the "industrial powers" and the "defense of the Third World." The most general reaction on the left was to bow down before bourgeois nationalism, thus offering it a left cover. The Partido Comunista Venezolano (PCV — Venezuelan Communist party) outdid itself in praising the "progressive" measures of Andrés Pérez and pushed for the formation of a "patriotic front" of all political parties, as well as "progressive" civilians and officers. Nearly all the left (with the exception of the Liga Socialista, Socialist League, the sympathizing organization of the Fourth International, and the ultraleffists) supported this accord, which was signed by the bourgeois parties, the trade-union federations, and the employers' associations. In practice, this served to promote a greater well of confidence in the fake anti-imperialism of the government and avoided posing the question of which class should control nationalized industry. The principle of the political independence of the workers movement was liquidated, replaced by the call for the unity of the employers and the workers to resist imperialism. The sectors of the left that have representatives in parliament have not gone beyond the framework of this institution and have raised only this or that secondary objection to or reform of the bourgeois projects. Thus, for example, the MAS supported the government's nationalization program, agreeing to pay compensation to the oil companies, Likewise, the MAS is now a de facto supporter of the V Plan de la Nación, being content, along with the rest of the "socialist" parliamentarians, to argue over figures or paragraphs without presenting a workers and socialist alternative. But even more serious has been the attitude of the left toward the struggles of the workers movement. The MAS, the MIR, and the PCV have been as vigorous as possible in betraying the struggles of the Venezuelan workers. They systematically opposed the ironworkers strikes and the holding of an oil strike, considering these actions "inopportune. " The PCV accused the Trotskyists, who were supporting the ailworkers, of sowing confusion and aiding the "antinational" forces; they used their leaflets and publications in the oil zone to attack the Trotskyists insteod of to aid the workers in preventing the theft of their benefits. As for the MAS and the MIR, they concentrated on getting ready for the trade-union elections. In this situation of relative calm of the class struggle, all sorts of ideological degeneration and aberrations are proliferating within the left, from individual terrorism to the rankest reformism. One indication of this is provided by the conceptions of Teodoro Petkoff, the major ideologue of the MAS, conceptions which orient the policy of the greater part of the Venezuelan left. Apart from flirting with the "patriotic officers, " the MAS claims that what is needed is to "brooden democracy, " and as has been seen, this means bourgeois democracy.
The MAS has gone so far as to assert that it constitutes the left of the two main bourgeois parties and to deny its relation to the rest of the left. In an ulfimate insult to Marxism, the MAS insists on a "new way of being socialist" (which is actually nothing but Social Democracy), disavowing the dictatorship of the proletariat, which has been replaced by a "plualistic socialism" in which the employers" parties and capitalist property are freely and happily accepted. Building a revolutionary leadership Such is the situation in Venezuela: economic bonanza" for the bourgeoisie, at the expense of the workers and masses; increased penetration by imperialism, relative calm in the class struggle; absence of a revolutionary leadership. The revolutionary Marxists face many tasks, among the most important of which is to forge a real revolutionary leadership that, in the heat of the mobilizations, is able to orient them toward the road to victory. To forge this leadership means to forge an indispensable tool without which the proletariat will not be able to take power. This tool is the workers and socialist party that Venezuela needs. To build this party it is necessary to deeply penetrate the workers movement and to be present in each of its struggles, to respond to each of its needs and thus to present a class response, materially and politically, to all the projects and actions aimed at delivering the workers to superexploitation that have been undertaken by the capitalists. This means to present a plan of struggle and a workers and socialist program. In Venezuela today, this means fighting for a new general wage increase and for a sliding scale of wages; opposing layoffs and defending the right to employment by demanding a sliding scale of hours; fighting the trade-union bureaucracy by defending unity and democracy within the unions; counterposing total nationalization under workers control to imperialist penetration; defending the right to education in the service of the workers and the people through control by the students themselves; struggling for genuine agrarian reform. Finally, it means to constantly raise the alternative of a workers and people's government that expropriates the capitalists and charts a course to socialism. The Liga Socialista, sympathizing organization of the Fourth International, is devoting itself to the construction of this party, of this revolutionary leadership, attempting at all times to undertake united-front actions with the reformists and ultraleftists in accordance with the objective needs of the mass movement. This alternative leadership will rise above the reformist tendencies and all the false conceptions now misleading the proletarial, which must be the target of the toughest ideological battle. The awakening of coming mass mobilizations, which may herald a rising phase of the struggle, will show the way forward and give an impetus to this process. O
ARGENTINA: REPRESSION