Concerning the articles and commentaries, on Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution, that we published on various sites on the internet, we have received numerous letters from all across the globe, hence, we wish to use this opportunity here, to summarize and comment some central issues raised, for all to enjoy.
(To read all the complete international correspondence, see: http://www.franzlee.org/venezuela00001.html )

 
Concerning the articles and commentaries, on Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution, that we published on various sites on the internet, we have received numerous letters from all across the globe, hence, we wish to use this opportunity here, to summarize and comment some central issues raised, for all to enjoy.
(To read all the complete international correspondence, see: http://www.franzlee.org/venezuela00001.html)

Concerning the Bolivarian Revolution

The Bolivarian Revolution here in Venezuela is, according to our analysis. and placed in the context of even, uneven and combined development, the effort to accomplish the pending historical tasks of the French revolution (such as agrarian reform introduced by the Chavez' government), the push for industrialization beyond the oil/extractive industry sector, and the building of a national bourgeoisie, which has been a continuous effort of this government since 1999.

Simultaneously and facing today's globalized reality, the Chavez government has been strongly pushing towards Latin American integration, in order to effectively counter the USA's Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which originally was going to take effect in 2005 ... a plan aborted for now.

Latin American Integration, however, presupposes the existence of respective national bourgeoisies in all of the hemisphere's countries, yet we know, that historically and as a result of the establishment of the world market, national, productive bourgeoisies -- as we have known them in Europe for instance -- never came to be a reality in the "Third World" countries, where the economic structures and the capital accumulation models were, from the very beginning, unilaterally oriented towards the extractive industries and/or agri-monocultural production, mainly for exportation.

Pretending to catch up with the historical tasks of national capital accumulation, industrialization and the formation of a national bourgeoisie in the midst of the de facto existing, globalized corporate world, under the economic and financial dictate of the few giga-corporations that dominate the world market, is comparable to "fighting the hen with the egg."

Given Venezuela's specific situation, where we have seen kind of a "rentist state model of capital accumulation" operating through the 20th century, based on the State's income from the oil extractive industry, the behavior of the economy always strongly has depended on oil prices.

Depending on these, we have seen efforts in the past of a redistribution of national wealth, favoring the lower classes of Venezuelan society, and this is what we see again today, under Chávez' government, which, in addition, has tried to politically empower the lower classes to a certain extent, which may be considered the epicenter of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Given all these factors, can we really speak of a "revolution" here?

* Certainly not in terms of a socialist revolution, in terms of socializing the means and gains of production.

Even if the new Constitution (1999) is a comparatively progressive and innovative one, the right to private property keeps being enshrined in it and thus does not affect the continuity of capitalist production.

However, and given the concentration and monopolization of capital on a global scale, the fascist face of which we have been seeing ever since the "New American Century" has (unofficially) been proclaimed with its merciless drive to preventively stop and crush all remaining competitors for energy and markets on a worldwide scale, we have to support each and every effort, however obsolete in time and limited in space, to counter the existing global barbarism ... and this is why we are supporting the "Bolivarian Revolution" ... especially the radical tendencies that do exist within it, and that tend to transcend it towards overcoming the capitalist mode of production as such.

Venezuelan opposition supporters misled by their leaders lies and deceit

A letter from (Peruvian) Antonio Chusho really impressed me. He is right; in one of my articles, I have definitely failed in making an effort to include those, who are on the other side of the political spectrum, and who reject President Chavez, the new constitution and the project for the nation.

Having witnessed and lived through April 2002's brief and ugly coup d'etat, the lock-out and sabotage of the petroleum industry from December 2002 to January 2003, and many another unconstitutional and brutal effort of the "opposition" to oust a democratically-elected and perfectly legitimate President ... and having witnessed the merciless and relentless 24/7 media campaign which has caused psychological damage of unsuspected proportions (and yet to be analyzed in its magnitude and range) to its viewers and audience ... I must admit, I have been forced by these very factors to categorically take sides, without consideration for the other part that makes up Venezuela's "opposition."

For the past forty years, the vast, impoverished majority of Venezuelans have been trampled upon, been economically exploited, politically oppressed and socially discriminated, and have never been given a chance of recovery, neither as far as their integrity as human beings was concerned, nor as active participants in the economic and political decisions that affected their very lives.

The coming to political power of Hugo Chávez is but an expression of these circumstances, and the country's economic and political elite (today's "opposition"), backed by the private, national and international media, has not woken up to this reality until today.

A reality, that constitutes a proper time bomb -- deactivated in Venezuela through the new, Bolivarian Constitution and the inclusive model of political participation (yet with the economic model still waiting to be truly humanized) and still ticking in all of Latin America and much of the world, for that matter.

I don't ignore the fact, that many of the supporters of the Venezuelan "opposition" have been misled by their "leadership" with lies and deceit, but when the moment of the falling masks had come in the form of April 2002's coup d'etat, their "innocence" and "ignorance" was gone with one stroke -- just as was the Bolivarian constitution, the President, the Attorney General, Ministers, Parliamentarians, Governors, the Supreme Court, the Electoral Power, moral power and democratic rights of the people -- that vast majority of humble folks who never had a voice and face before they elected Chavez their President, and who would come to his rescue, defeating the very coup.

Can you, in the name of freedom, reconcile with exploitation?

Can you, in the name of equality, reconcile with oppression?

Can you, in the name of justice, reconcile with discrimination?

If we want to give ourselves, in Venezuela and hopefully else- and everywhere in the world, a peaceful and effective start for our social, political and human recovery, we have to go well beyond Chávez and the "opposition", we have to go to the very roots that have brought them both about: a world, where economic interests and profit walk over human beings -- dead and alive.

By the way, my Spanish teacher at Frankfurt University in Germany, was Juan Gamarra, from Chiclayo (Peru). An outstanding personality, combining sharp critique of our contemporary society with a warm and open character and a good deal of humor ... he lived for some years in an apartment of a four story building, in one of the best quarters of Frankfurt city.

The owner of the building, a very old lady, decided to devise the building to him in her testament, because of all the persons she knew, including her own family, Juan was the most human, humane to her.

Juan rejected the offer, because he felt that going back to Peru, teaching his countrymen about his experiences in the "First World" for the equivalent of a couple of dollars monthly, was a fortune worthier than anything else in this world.

This is the true Peruvian, the Venezuelan, the Latin American spirit, the ALBA of which President Chavez likes to speak, that we need to come closer to a truly human horizon.

Venezuela: O inventamos, o erramos -
we either invent, or we err

Now, specifically concerning my article "Why Venezuelans support the Bolivarian Revolution wholeheartedly", let me try to make an effort to address the most important points and questions raised.

My article is, in the first place, a synthesis of a debate we have been conducting with supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution from the ideological spectrum of the political left, and outlines the answer to the question, what the Bolivarian Revolution is all about and where in history it stands.

Because of its summary character, my article does not include detailed reasons, why Venezuelans also support the Bolivarian Revolution, such as the fact and as correctly pointed out in one comment, that for the first time in Venezuelan history, the vast majority of the eternal, socially and racially discriminated "forgotten ones" - the very poor and downtrodden, the dark-skinned, the "lumpen", "la chusma", "la Venezuela primitiva y bananera", - have been actively addressed by their political representatives. Not only have they been bestowed with political rights, but provided with concrete measures of action, that allow them to overcome their chains of misery and lethargy, recover their human dignity and participate in Venezuelan society as active players; also a decisive step in leaving behind the social and racial discrimination, where "an individuals origin and secondly his/her level of wealth and finally the color of the skin" determines the fate of millions.

I agree it is a "silent and healthy revolution", and in spite of the ferocious and relentless attacks it had to endure, that have cost the country hundreds of lives and the economy billions of dollars, it has not gone for the extermination of the adversary, but made continuous efforts of principled dialogue and effective inclusion! The Bolivarian government presided by Hugo Chávez has, in many ways, acted exactly to the contrary of the calculations of its adversaries and thus avoided falling into a sea of traps. The Bolivarian Revolution is, indeed, a "revolution of paradigms" and furthermore contains tendencies of "building new means and gains of production", towards overcoming the existing economization of the human being and establishing the humanization of the economy.

Can we really think of and actually construct a social order, where the economy stands in the service of the human being, and not in reverse? Can we conceive of and realize a social order, where the means and gains of production do not produce exclusion and destruction, where economic interests and profits do not walk over human beings, alive and dead alike? Although we cannot point to "any nation in the world which is presently prospering and providing a nice standard of living for its people wherein private property does NOT exist", we can certainly point to a myriad of nations which are presently dwarfing and providing a generalization of misery for its people, wherein private property of the means and gains of production DOES exist.

However, is the negation of capitalism - socialism -, still an alternative, "can over 75 years of experience with the communist model demonstrate one single success story on our globe?" - It can't. I not only agree, that "capitalism has been quite successful", I dare say it has been successful to an extent, where its consequences can only disappear with the universal extinction of the entire planet earth, extinction we are actually beginning to witness.

What is at stake with regard to the Bolivarian Revolution here in Venezuela, goes definitely way beyond the question capitalism or socialism - the two sides of the same, productive-destructive labour process, culminating in today´s globalized barbarism. We need to creatively foster each and every germ in the Bolivarian Revolution that contains the potentiality to counter the self-destruction course of homo "sapiens" on a world wide scale.

In this sense, I say with Simón Rodríguez: O inventamos, o erramos - we either invent, or we err. The floor is open.