First paragraph (Teaser):

Open Letter to Paulino Nuñez and our comrades

By: Franz J. T. Lee

Straight after the presidential elections, comrade Paulino Nuñez asked me the following: "After the electoral triumph, what next?" Since this burning issue concerns many of us, I will reply in an open letter.

Rest of the text:

In the first place, many times President Hugo Chavez has already revealed the revolutionary program of his government for the years to come. Of relevance is that what we should do and could think here and now? President Chavez cannot do and think it all alone. We have to join the revolution in an organized responsible manner. This is the real New to come. What follows now are just ad hoc revolutionary ideas, real creative food for emancipatory thought.

1. One thing is certain, urgently we have to launch the next phase of the Bolivarian Revolution, but, at first, in our brains we have to separate the healthy, germinating wheat from the sick, religious and ideological chaff; also concretely, in our midst we have to separate the wolves in sheep's clothing wearing red caps from the real, true Bolivarian liberators.

2. Our political predictions have to be scientific, this is what natural and social science is also about. In my latest commentary in Aporrea, we were very clear. It was not difficult to forecast the exact figure (over 60%) with which Chavez, and therewith all of us, would win for the eleventh time in a row:
" However, it is not so much what the ballot eventually will reveal, this is an open secret, its very clear. Under normal democratic electoral conditions void of fraud, sabotage and conspiracy, even Venezuela's arch-enemies in the White House should know that President Chavez, the political darling of the millions of Latin American pauperized masses, and of the entire globe, would win with over 60% of the cast votes. "
http://www.aporrea.org/oposicion/a27835.html

3. Against what we have to fight in Venezuela now must be crystal clear. Our fight is not against a Bush, or against an Empire. We stated categorically that it is against:
" ... the exploitative nature, the parasitic existence, social contradictions, terrorist modus operandi, racist cruelty and the barbaric alienation of imperialist capitalism, of capitalist imperialism, of global fascism and of fascist globalization in Venezuela and elsewhere in the solar system. "

4. What really happened in Venezuela over the last eight years, specifically in April and December 2002 (coup and oil sabotage), and in December 2005 and 2006 (parliamentary and presidential elections)? We explained the revolutionary essence of these historic moments as follows:
" WHAT HAPPENS TODAY HERE IN VENEZUELA IS A CLASS STRUGGLE, A CLASS WAR AGAINST GLOBAL FASCISM.

Already the fact that we have democratic political elections, discovered and developed by bourgeois political scientists, indicates our real, true dilemma: the daydream of trying desperately to abolish wage-slavery within the context of private property of the means of production and reproduction, within the capitalist system of eternal barbarism, within the fascist world market, by using its own political institutions, rules of the game of capital accumulation, its instruments of legal oppression, political parties, the State, etc. "

5. What evolved on planet earth in 6 billion years, capitalism is about to destroy within 200 years; similarly, the Bolivarian Revolution is destined to annihilate the corporeal and intellectual colonial plague of five centuries within the next 20 years. Hence, with much bravery and piquant brevity I have emphasized the quintessence of our major revolutionary problem in the following way:

"WHO SUPPORTS, CULTIVATES AND NURTURES CAPITALISM IN VENEZUELA, IS SIGNING OUR DEATH SENTENCE AS A PEOPLE, AS A SPECIES.

WHAT HAPPENS TODAY HERE IN VENEZUELA IS A CLASS STRUGGLE, A CLASS WAR AGAINST GLOBAL FASCISM. "

The crux of the matter is how to get rid of capitalist norms, patterns, customs and vices. We have to change the social conditions that nurture and sustain capitalism. We have to study Marx's Capital, to know what to dismantle, to eradicate forever. In this case, the Holy Bible is useless. We have to study imperialism, the theories of imperialism. We have to know what is globalization, the realization of capitalism and imperialism on a world scale. Only, then we will understand the global panorama of the Bolivarian Revolution.

6. The above will reveal a macabre reality, will detonate our current world outlook, but this is necessary. It will demonstrate the bourgeois-democratic limits of many a past social revolution in the colonial world also it will show the reformist human boundaries of many a comrade around us.

7. We definitely are making a social revolution here, the first one in the epoch of globalization, but this Bolivarian Revolution is not complete as yet, it has just begun, it is still weak, is in danger, and can be frustrated, can be "nipped in the bud". Hence, more than ever, now we have to be very careful. The whip of the counter-revolution is vanishing, reformism is rapidly spreading, we ourselves could jeopardize our own revolution. We urgently need a real, true opposition, a dialectical, revolutionary negation. We need the real, true negation of capitalism, we need Socialism, we need Marxism.

8. Currently, in full victory, we are mostly threatened, some of us completely lulled by triumphalism. Our quo vadis has to be subjective, to be desired, to be thought by all of us, be directed, be watched, be revised. For this we need our own revolutionary práxis and theory, invented of, by and for us. We are not storming the Bastille anymore, also not the Winter Palace, we are not fighting in the Sierra Maestra anymore, , we are faced by atomic weapons of mass destruction, by HAARP, Fallujah, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We need the respective, corresponding arms of self-defense.

9. Whether we like it or not, a simple updated scientific and philosophic Marxist analysis of global reality over the last millennium easily could verify that "good capitalism" kills all workers. In fact, our great grandchildren could experience the end of life on this small planet in agony at the very edge of the Milky Way.

10. Another bitter truth to learn is that those who discovered and coined Christianity in feudal times were not precisely the toiling slaves, serfs and peasants, it was the European ruling classes, the ruling nobility and clergy, the Roman Church and State. The Reformation, Luther, Calvin and Zwingli, did not negate rising capitalism, on the contrary, it nourished its repressive, ideological superstructure. The true negation of capitalism came with scientific socialism of Marxism at the middle of the 19th century.

11. Only by taking the above into consideration, all of us, especially the workers of Venezuela, could have a minimum possibility to know what is capitalism, what is imperialism, reformism or revolution. Above all, we could get a glimpse of what really is democracy ... the most virulent ideological concept of capital accumulation ever since 500 B.C. Only then, could we grasp what is the dictatorship of the few over the many (Lenin), could we relieve ourselves from all the spools which via the mass media were carefully indoctrinated into our delicate minds. Only then a real escualido, a neo-liberal, a reformist or a wolf in sheep clothing could be detected and eliminated by us. In this way we gain a mass base, a popular legitimacy to get rid of traitors, of "anillos around Miraflores", of "chavistas without Chavez", of the new rising political capitalist class, of the CIA and its corresponding lackeys in our very brains, in our language, jokes, swear-words, in our classes, company and beds.

12. Who knows capitalism knows socialism, who knows socialism knows capitalism. Who knows that capitalism is a mode of production and destruction logically also knows what is its opposite, its negation, that is, what is socialism as a mode of human creativity and creation. The problem is that we have to stop producing goods and exchange values, capital and profits, we have to eliminate economic exploitation in Venezuela. We have to become creative, to create ourselves, our present and future. Anything else is not socialism, at least not that what we need for human emancipation. The quintessence of capitalism in Venezuela consists of economic exploitation, political domination, social discrimination, universal militarization and eternal alienation. All these compose the Socratic hemlock in Venezuela. Its opposite is pure, fresh revolutionary juice of the paradise fruit.

13. What is to be done?

*To get rid of all the five tentacles of capitalist imperialism in Venezuela: exploitation, domination, discrimination, militarization and alienation.

*To reflect whether all our projects are aimed against these evils.

*To study why we still are protecting capitalism in our constitution and laws .

* To understand why private property of the means of production and reproduction are still sacred in Venezuela.

** Why do we still protect stolen privatized property of the sovereign?

** Is this the road towards socialism?

** And, if this is the path, then, where will it lead us to?

** Not back to the neo-liberal past?

** Or, even worse, to the current Orwellian fascist present, to the Yankee "plague" of America?

14. With Dark Age European logics, beliefs, metaphysics and theology, in a word, with Christianity, with European and Western Civilization, that is, with Capitalism, we will get nowhere. We tried for millennia, for centuries, to liberate ourselves with theology, with patriarchal religion, all these led us to Ratzinger and Bush. Let us also give Marx, Engels, Rosa, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Lumumba, Nkrumah, Mandel, Nahuel Moreno, Castro, Che, Alan Woods, .... Chavez, a fair global emancipatory chance. Let them negate all the caricatures of socialism of the 20th century. Let we get rid of ideological divide et impera, weakening splits, senile sectarianism and revolutionary "apartheid" once and for all.

15. Finally, let us leave geocentrism, heliocentrism, eurocentrism, "prolet-aryan centrism" behind, by studying and learning from the utmost best of humanity in revolutionary attire, let us give birth to Bolivarian Marxism, to Marxist Bolivarianism, to Human Socialism, to Human Emancipation.

These are just a few questions, some reflections about which we have to theorize culturally in a revolutionary manner. They form part and parcel of the deepening of the revolution, of the revolution in the Bolivarian Revolution.

Paulino, in any possible way, our crew here will contribute to the aspirations of the Centro Internacional Miranda. However, of central importance is that our Venezuelan comrades themselves should build a revolutionary vanguard,should develop their emancipatory theory. Chomsky or Dieterich are fine, are excellent revolutionaries, but the Bolivarian Revolution should begin at home, should be home-made, it cannot be imported or exported, it is not an expensive ware on the international market. We should link up with other home-made movements of global resistance. Nobody should think and act for us, our liberation is our historic task.

Furthermore, of course, we are interested in your excellent trabajo en pro de la Auditoría Social de la Deuda y, en general de la Contraloría Social en articulación con CADTM, Attac y Jubileo Sur. Thanks for placing us on your list.

Whenever we have a free space, we will participate in any possible way. We are extremely busy here, do not forget that like in Zulia, Chavez won the presidential elections here in Mérida with an infinitesimal margen, hence, we have urgent work to do here for the revolution. At the ULA, I am part of a handful of Bolivarian professors. Teaching the students in our Law and Political Science Faculty about Marxism is of prime importance.

Once more, thanks for your friendly letter, and comradely suggestions and efforts.
La lutta continua!

fra...@aktionspotenzial.de
Paul...@cantv.net
http://southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2006/12/11762.php