TURNS AWAY OFFICIALLY FROM ARMED STRUGGLE
Caracas
Fidel Castro's March 13 speech was a shattering blow to the Venezuelan Conmunist party [PCV]. The crisis which it had been undergoing, along with all the forces of the left in the country, reached a climax with the devastating attack launched by the Cuban leader.
What the leaders of the PCV sought when they offered to participate in the armed struggle was a good deal like the aims of the MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria] when it appeared on the political scene.
In 1960 the MIR split from Accién Democraética as the organization ready to lead the revolution in Venezuela. Its initial success was astounding, since in all the important cities of the country thousands poured into the ranks of the rising party. The PCV was unquestionably displaced from a position it did not wish to lose -- that of being regarded as the political formation that is always farthest to the left.
What did the Communists then do to maintain themselves in this prime position? They penetrated the new revolutionary formation at all levels in such an elaborate and effective way that within a few months no decision was taken in the MIR without the approval of "the comrades" (this word came to be spoken in the MIR like the name of Jehova in the 01d Testament).
Tied hand and foot under the manipulations of the Communist leaders, the new party began tumbling from the peak it had reached with such velocity.
The name of the MIR is still attached to the organization which, together with others, is carrying on a guerrilla struggle today. It is the result of two important splits, plus innumerable desertions, and a final splintering into two or three tendencies which may remain divided, or, in the light of recent events, become reconciled.
The original MIR succumbed, partly due to the inexperience of its leaders, who were caught. in all the traps set by Betancourt, partly due to open submission to the dictates of their adroit rival, the PCV.
The tactic of armed struggle began to be practiced first through barracks plots, in agreement with military men of revolutionary inclinations, as happened at Cartipano and Puerto Cabello. And, in face of the failure of these rash attempts, through peasant guerrillas, sabotage and terrorism in the cities.
The PCV engaged in this work with the MIR, headed by Simén Sdéez Mérida and Américo Martin, and with the group headed py Fabricio Ojeda. But did the leadership of the PCV act sincerely in sending its people to join the guerrillas and establish armed commands in the cities? Fidel Castro unmasked this leadership in his March 13 speech; what the Machados, . the MArquez and the Garcia Ponces wanted was to bring the new revolutionary formations under the control of their party apparatus, as they had done six years previously with the MIR.
Except that this time they were much less successful. The prestige which Pompeyo M4arquez won during the years when he edited an underground newspaper against the dictatorship of Pérez Jiménez became very tarnished by his equivocal position in relation to armed struggle, even before he was imprisoned. Equivocal we say, because up to now no one knew with absolute certainty whether the PCV leadership was for or against armed struggle.
Even during the very period when Douglas Bravo was suspended from the party and expelled from the Central Committee of the PCV, this organization did not say that these measures were due to differences of opinion over maintaining the guerrilla struggle. When Domingo Alberto Rangel left the MIR, he and his followers made it quite clear that they were doing this because they disagreed on armed struggle. But let anyone search through the many communiqués issued by the Communist leadership and the articles written by Pompeyo M&rquez and his followers -- it is like reading the papal encyclicals in which the pontiff of Rome goes so far as to permit one to speak evil of capitalism so long as you uphold the infallibility of the church. The declarations of the Venezuelan Communists are very similar. -- to struggle with or without arms, that is secondary; what is important is to abide by party discipline.
A small Stalin of the tropics, Pompeyo MArquez does not limit himself to imitating the monotones of the late Soviet dictator in writing and speaking, but wants the members of his party to come and go as they are ordered, without asking why. Too bad that the Pompeyo's encyclicals are no longer backed by the Moscow pope!
The immediate reaction of the PCV over Castro's speech was plaintive sorrow ...and imprecations. No foreigner has any right to intervene in the Venezuelan revolution! The Machado brothers and Garcia Ponce, MArquez, Ortega Diaz and other bureaucrats trained in the school of Stalinism, fortunately for themselves
have forgotten the period of the second world war when the party they headed obeyed a general line that came "from abroad" telling them to collaborate with the government of President Medina.
The later, official reaction of the party came a month after Fidel Castro's speech. They were finally compelled to take off the mask. The Eighth Plenum of the Venezuelan Communist party, held during the first two weeks of April, agreed to formally give up armed struggle and participate in the 1968 elections, advancing the line of a "democratic peace" (criticized by Castro in his speech as a completely bourgeois, collaborationist line).
The bourgeois parties in opposition to the Leoni regime, like the spokesman of high finance, Uslar Pietri, the inconsistent Larraz&bal, and even the URD [Unién Republicana Democrética], which from time to time threatens to leave the government, must be waiting for the legalized envoy of the PCV, Héctor Mujica, to knock at their doors soliciting an electoral alliance, inasmuch as the new slogan adopted by the Eighth Plenum of the Communists is as follows: "Against continuing Accion Democr&ética in power and against COPEI" (Comité Organizado por Elecciones Independientes -- the Social Christian party].
In order to emphasize the adoption of peaceful tactics, Pompeyo M4rquez was named general secretary of the PCV in place of Jesis Farias, who is in exile in Europe. Replying to the famous March 13 speech, Farias had declared in 1'Humanité [the French Communist party daily] that his party would continue to wage armed struggle. It is general knowledge that Farias has always stood for peaceful forms of struggle, so that his declarations in 1'Humanité sounded strange; but in any case the fact that he was removed from office can be interpreted as a fornal denial of his declarations in Paris.
Nevertheless, Pompeyo M&rquez
sought to keep up the pretense (although
no one was taken in) by sending a letter
to the daily El Nacional, which published
it April 23, as this was being written,
stating that the expulsion of Douglas
Bravo was not due to his being a guer-
rilla leader, since -- according to M4r-
quez -- members of the Central Committee
of the PCV are taking part in the guer-
rilla struggle. MA4rquez also said in his
letter that the replacement of Farias as
general secretary would last only as long
as he was out of the country. It can be
seen that they are trying to keep up ap-
pearances.
* * Ok
In two long articles published in
La Reptiblica, the daily newspaper of Ac-
cién Democratica, Rémulo Betancourt
warned the Leoni government from abroad
that it should not legalize the PCV. A
few weeks previously, the leader of the
URD, Jévito Villalba, had declared that
the Communists could be restored to le-
gality. This is the fervent hope of the
general secretary of the PCV, who appears
to be seeing himself again decked out
in the trappings of a Senator of the
Republic.
Whether or not they enter their
own candidates in the elections, the
split between the PCV on the one hand and
Douglas Bravo and the MIR people on the
other is now final. And it is probable
that the government will tolerate the
activities of the Venezuelan Communists
on a more or less legal basis (there are
indications of this) not so much out of
gratitude for the hounding to which Bravo
has been submitted by them, as out of the
ease gained in the struggle against the
partisans of the revolutionary guerrillas
by opening the streets to the partisans
of a “democratic peace."