Introductory Note:
August 1, 2004. More than a year ago, on May 30th, 2003, I held a short lecture at the University of The Andes, Mérida, Venezuela, now, two weeks away from the "recall referendum", it is worth recollecting what I stated. FJTL.

Introduction by Prof. Dr. Franz J. T. Lee to the Forum convened by the Students Movement Utopía 78, titled: “The Current Situation of the Social Economy and Alternative Media in Venezuela", with parlamentarian Ing. Luis Tascón at the University of The Andes in Mérida, Venezuela, on May 30th 2003.

Editors note: Regarding the transcription of the tape (as well as its translation) we tried to keep the original flow of the lecture exactly as it had been delivered; however, we permitted ourselves to make some slight corrections where necessary, e.g., removing redundant repetitions and adding brief amplifications where a phrase or part of a phrase needed to be completed.

The lecture was preceded by a brief review of the political and academic activities of Prof. Lee, read by one of the organizers of the event, in which his life and death struggle over three decades against the apartheid regime in South Africa, carried on by this fighter for social justice, of South African origin, was highlighted.

Transcription by Jutta Schmitt.
English Translation by Iris Bühler.
Edited by Carl Zimmerman.

Dear Friends, Meridenians, Compatriots, Comrades, Students, and, Colleagues!

Before I begin with my short lecture, allow me to introduce some brilliant ideas of very famous personalities.

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword." (Jesus Christ - Matthew 10:34)

"I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? ... Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." (Jesus Christ - Luke 12:49,51)

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (Jesus Christ - John 8:32)

*Although Plato and the Truth are dear to me, sacred duty tells me, to give Truth preference".

Aristotle.

Concerning Revolution anywhere, that is a very serious praxico-theoretical issue, an immense scientific-philosophic task, against Rosa Luxemburg, already a century ago, Lenin explained a significant part of the Truth:

"There is much talk of spontaneity. But the spontaneous development of the working-class movement leads to its subordination to bourgeois ideology ... for the spontaneous working-class movement is trade unionism ... and trade unionism means the ideological enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie. Hence, our task, the task of Social-Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to divert the working-class movement from this spontaneous, trade-unionist striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social Democracy." (V. I. Lenin.)

Now let us begin. It seems as though I am very much qualified to speak about revolution. What a pity that Luis Tascón does not have arrived as yet! Throughout these streets, the streets of Mérida, I remember Luis Tascón, a student of the engineer sciences, demonstrating in the streets, a modest man, taciturn and slim; and in contrast, I myself that big, making much of a noise against apartheid, against racism, against fascism, then established in my native place - for not to say my "patria" - South Africa. So, I don't know if Luis Tascón would remember me, however, I certainly do remember him. The two of us have been catapulted towards the front of the world revolution, within a very, very short period of time.

Now, my topic is "The Bolivarian Revolution - A Paradigm for the World". First of all, I want to remind you of something interesting. In 1845/46, when Karl Marx stayed in Paris, each and everybody in that epoch was a "marxist", and it was that horrible, that the same Marx, from Paris, had to declare "I am not a Marxist!" (Laughter by the audience). In the same manner I say to you, that I "love" the so-called "opposition", and that I "love" the Bolivarians - but the Truth I do love much more! Therefore, neither am I a "Chavist", nor and not even am I a "Lee-ist", yet, if telling the Truth were "to be a Chavist", well, then I'm a "Super-Chavist"! (Applause by the audience.)

So, "por ahora", for now, there are many revolutionaries in this world; there are many people saying that they are revolutionaries. But, who knows what exactly is "the revolution", and what exactly is "a revolutionary"? What is the objective of "the revolution"? Wherefrom originated "the revolution"? Who fabricated the concept of "revolution"? As you all are aware of, the monstrosity we are facing currently -- globofascism, corporate capitalism -- was born in northern Italy in the XII century, within the context of absolutist feudalism. There, the first factories originated, in form of "Work Houses". During the XII, XIII, and XIV centuries, however, there wasn't yet any social revolution taking place in Europe. Slowly, along with the economic advancement of capitalism, the first "disturbances", political events, the "political spectacle" set in, and the bourgeoisie, in Italy, had denominated that political spectacle "rivoluzione" or "rivoltura", "rivolta", "insurrezione".

Thus, comrades, compatriots: The very concept of revolution was an invention of the then emerging bourgeois, of the democratic-capitalist class. Imagine! The same French Revolution, which is now completing itself, was a revolution invented and prepared by the emerging class of that time, by the bourgeoisie. That rising class had a partner, a comrade, the proletariat, and, since the Dark Ages, it fought against the clergy, the Inquisition, the Dominican Order; against the religious, absolutist State of that time which had Roman Catholicism established as its theology, as its ideology. It fought against the nobility, the aristocrats, the oligarchs, against the government of "the best" -- arístos, kratos --, who were governing "by divine right", "thanks to God".

Thus, there was a conflict, unfolding in the womb of feudalism: on the one hand, the clergy and nobility against the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, on the other hand, the latter among themselves. Precisely this very conflict is the historical essence of the revolution!

Now, when do revolutions come up? - We live in a very unilateral world, in a world, where you are having problems with your environment, in a world, where a perverse relation between society and nature exists. That perverse relation between society and nature, since millennia, is the Labour Process, is production, the production process. It is called "history", and this is what degenerated into a master-slave relation. That historical process has acquired certain attributes due to the division of labour, where some are working physically, and others, intellectually, are giving the orders. Surely, the American Revolution (1776) took place before the French Revolution (1789), starting as the first colonial revolution, nonetheless, it was inspired by the liberal, capitalist ideals of the emerging bourgeoisie. Later, it would perform its own bourgeois, democratic, social revolution, the industrial North against the feudalist South. Certainly, originally, Bolivar and Miranda were also inspired by this revolution.

(Luis Tascón arrives, applauded by the audience. Franz salutes him cordially, and he tells Luis about the memories of the eighties which he has of him.)

Well, we are dealing with the revolution! Now, continuing with my introduction, a perverse relation has been established between the environment and the so called "human being", "man" -- and, be careful with "man"! All of you affirm to be "men", "human beings". Aristotle clearly had told you what you are: Speaking Tools! -- tools which do not think, but speak. In other words, parrots and carrots for the dominant class. And, what did Voltaire and Montesquieu say about you, about me, about my African compatriots? They stated that it was hardly to be believed that God, the Almighty, who is a wise Being, should place a soul, especially a good soul -- in such a black, ugly body, in the body of a Negro!

These are our bourgeois, political theorists! They said, that the African, the "Negro", the people of the Third World, are in no way suited neither to the use, nor the abuse of philosophy. In short, they affirmed what Montesquieu had stated in a most telling and overt manner: "It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures to be men!" There you have the only true man speaking, whilst we are the "non-men", the "non-human beings", --- yet, it is all that difficult to explain this to you!

So, firstly, the revolution is an invention of the democratic-capitalist bourgeoisie. Secondly, I explained before that the labour process, the process towards "liberté", towards Freedom, History, is a closed system. There exists nothing else but only this very system. It's a uni-verse, and you are studying in a uni-versity - not in a diversity, nor multiversity, nor poliversity, but in a uni-versity, in the "unomnia"; in Greek it's called hen kai pan, "the one and all" - which means that nothing else does exist. Consequently, everything that happens in this world, is occurring "within", inside the world system; and the world can only be changed from within, within the system. There does not exist any exit whatsoever, no exodus at all, apart from the fact, that in the Old Testament, actually it is being spoken about an exodus.

The same philosophers, the political theorists of the Enlightenment, e.g., Immanuel Kant, and after him, Hegel, developed the dialectical method, which explains the internal evolution of something, of a closed system. In dialectics, two things are opposed to each other - the affirmation and the negation of the system. Consequently, within the system -- and "system" means here the Labour Process, History --, a contradiction was given, and as you all know, *contradictions are not allowed to exist", are prohibited to be. The historical contradiction of today's Bolivarian Revolution started with revolts, with the "opposition" of ancient slaves against their masters in Egypt and in Ancient Greece. It had started with Spartacus, the famous leader of the slaves, continuing in the early Middle Ages with the same original Christians, with the genuine, true Christians, disciples of Jesus Christ, the original communists and "cooperativists", like in the Bolivarian Revolution. Before another social "revolution" occurred in that remote epoch -- between the slave-owning society and the feudal society, with an"ideology", a super-structure for a new society being developed. -- I am calling your attention to this context, because later on I shall comment on its relevance with regard to the Bolivarian Revolution.

Now, when materialism -- equivalent to the negation within the super-structure of Ancient Greece -- had been destroyed, when that negation had been relegated to Africa and Arab countries from where it would be picked up later on by Avicenna, Averroës and Avicebron, the obscure epoch, the epoch of the Inquisition, of the Dominican Order, arose in Europe.

What had happened? It had been necessary, that the "jinetes del apocalípsis", the storm troopers of the apocalypse of that time -- in this case they were three: a slave, Epitectus, a statesman, Seneca, and a philosopher-king, Marcus Aurelius -- had already converted Original Christianity into Roman Catholicism, and this was what has been exported later to the Americas, and what has destroyed all the genuine, spiritual, sacred treasures of yours, all your own beliefs -- that was part of the Conquest of Latin America!

I don't have anything against God, I don't have any problem with God, and God does not have a problem with me either (laughter by the audience), nevertheless, as I told you before, I have to tell you the truth! And, this is the Achilles' Heel of the United States of America! Although it is difficult and hard to hear the truth. So, a superstructure was developed in the Middle Ages, which encompassed the State, religion, philosophy, ethics, morals, and the like.
That superstructure was inserted in a quite fixed, solid manner, in a geocentric system, with production being bound to the soil, the serfs pertaining to their masters, and where neither movement, nor liberty existed.

You'll see what the French Revolution would do later on with regard to "freedom" in order to shatter a super-structure, where the Church and the State were combined. Now, I don't need to explain to you what happened during the Spanish Inquisition, I don't need to explain to you, what happened with the women on the burning stake during the Middle Ages. In those times, for the hundred thousands of victims of the coming revolution, it was the same situation as given today on a world scale in Baghdad or Kabul, and what is even worse, according to Bush, it was vindicated "by divine right", by the Grace of God. And all these resulted, firstly, in the Middle Ages, in censorship of the Holy Bible, and secondly, more recently, thanks to the transformation of the New Testament into a religious ideology, it became global facist bigotry, "God Bless America", "In God We Trust"!

Thus -- what had happened?-- and this is now important with regard to the Bolivarian Revolution. Within the womb of the absolutist feudal system, since the XII century onwards, the germ of capitalism had developed, conquering slowly economic power, and this economic power reflected itself in the thoughts of the authors which you are studying in my classes, for example, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Smith, etc. These are the thinkers -- and this is important here --, who were preparing political theory, the bourgeois, capitalist, democratic theories for the American, French and Industrial Revolutions.

Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin have explained it most clearly: "Without revolutionary theory, there is no revolution." -- Do you see, whither I go with regard to my constructive critique, but also with regard to my infinite assistance to the Bolivarian Revolution? There cannot be a counter-revolution without a real, true revolution in historic process.

So, throughout the centuries, the bourgeoisie was preparing its revolutionary theory. That very same revolutionary theory would later on stagnate and convert itself into democratic-bourgeois, capitalist ideology! This is the relevance of studying the authors we are dealing with in my classes: these are the authors who formulated the exploitative, dominating essence of the coming superstructure and ideology for the future capitalist ruling classes! As we know, at the middle of the XVIII century, economically, the leading bourgeois classes had achieved the desired economic, revolutionary power.

What they were still lacking, however, was the political power. And now here comes something very macabre. There is no real, true social revolution in history which would have unfolded pacifically. It's not because the pioneers, the theorists were violent, rather because the reaction of the old regime against the new, the original and authentic, is violent. And precisely this world in which we are living, the corporate capitalist world, is very violent indeed.

Capitalism has come into this world covered with blood, sweat and death from head to toes. This system, which at this very moment is talking about "world peace", was the most terrorist system all along history. I do not need to remind you of the transatlantic slave trade and of what had happened to the peoples of Africa, neither do I need to remind you of what had happened to the Amerindians here in Latin America. I do not need to remind you of what had happened to the poor women in the Middle Ages. Neither do I need to explain to you Mussolini's and Hitler's fascism and nazism, nor the atrocities of Stalinism, nor the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima -- and not to forget the bombs dropped on Baghdad and Kabul, either..., and -- be careful with Caracas! This is the real system, the real world in which we are living.

Returning to the Bolivarian Revolution, the way how the latter took over political power is very different compared to how the French Revolution seized power. This indicates, that there is a difference between the Bolivarian Revolution and the French Revolution, that the globalized Bolivarian Revolution could be the first possible revolution that could exit the realm of the French Revolution, which is not completed as yet. Look and compare the way how the Bolivarian Revolution has come to political power, and how in contrast the French Revolution - our today's dominating class on a world scale - had come to political power! The first one due to the vote of the people, of the impoverished classes, the latter by means of the industrialists, of the guillotine, with its corresponding "reign of terror"! The same bourgeoisie, they themselves had termed it this way.

And they are treacherous, like the oligarchs here, and like some who have supported the Bolivarian Revolution, as for example Alfredo Peña and Miquilena, traitors. The bourgeoisie had betrayed its partner, the proletariat, and therefore the French Revolution proved to be incomplete; that's why a kind of "radical bourgeoisie", the so called "Hegelian Left" arose: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels! They proceeded from there, for that reason, due to a betrayal that lasts until today. So, I explained that by the end of the XVIII century, we had a bourgeois class, whose mode of production already had come to power economically. The revolution in France and later on in other parts of Europe, was simply the capturing of political power. And if you study all political theories, including the Marxist theories, you'll take note that there is no State, accepted by the metropolitan big powers, and even less a democracy, where the political power and the economical power are kept in different hands. Within the system, the State guarantees and protects the interests of the dominant classes, the economic, capitalist interests. Anything else is not being considered a democracy. For Washington, this is not democracy, no matter what laws or constitution rule in any country.

Here in Venezuela you have something very strange. Very strange things happen in Caracas -- not only "miracles", but also realities. And a matter of fact is, that we do not know with precision, what it exactly is that we have in Caracas.

Because this is neither a liberation movement, and in a certain sense it is no State either. This is what has caused the problems during the last five years, because the political power and the economic power do not correspond, the economic power was and continues to be in the hands of the Capriles, Mendozas, Cisneros, etc. Worse even, the central heart, the economic heart, was in the hands of the CIA, of North America. The truth is what has to be told, period!

So, this is where the problem started. And the problem to be dealt with by the Bolivarian Revolution was exactly to conquer the heart of Venezuela, the economic power, PDVSA. Yet, it isn't merely about PDVSA, because the oligarchs, the international capitalists, still hold the economic power in Venezuela in their fangs.

Now, how shall we classify all that? Why is the Bolivarian Revolution placed on the vanguard of the momentous changes, of the international transformations taking place? What is occurring? - Firstly, it is not a matter of coincidence, there is a reason as to why Venezuela finds herself in these conditions, because Venezuela, in a world that is facing energetic problems, is number four or five with regard to the world's oil production and geographically the closest to the United States. Thus - "black gold", that's the problem! Yet, not exclusively. What is it that, structurally, has occurred in the world during the last decades?

You know that whenever something is not of use, it is being thrown into the garbage can. When millions of "mad cows" are of no use, they are being burned on the stake of the world market, they are being slaughtered. So, furthermore, and secondly, a structural change is unfolding on a world scale, where the physical-manual Labour Force is already of no use anymore. On the world market, measured by importation and exportation, the main commerce is being realized between the metropolitan countries themselves, and with products, that basically do not originate from physical-manual labour. The "Information" epoch where people, erroneously, are speaking of "intellectual labour", of "intellectual property", sets in. But look what happens: Out of a total amount of about 6 billion workers on this planet, only 0.76 percent are producing the merchandise which are relevant on the world market in the interchange between the metropolitan countries. In other words, economically, in the new mode of -- I don't know if it is "post-production" or "creation" or what it is --, physical-manual production performed by millions of wage slaves is already no more of any relevance whatsoever.

If you study the international trade, Africa, with its participation in the world market reaching a mere one percent, almost does not appear anymore; and Latin America, with its entire petrol, probably reaches an overall participation of two or three percent. This is the structural context of the problem challenging the Bolivarian Revolution. I told you that what is of no use anymore to the system, is simply being thrown away, and is simply being slaughtered. And with regard to physical-manual labour, since long already, the "United Nations" and other groups have drafted the current genocide, the coming massacre, the world-wide holocaust. Where do you think AIDS come from? It is proven, unofficially, of course, that AIDS is part of the vast array of the Pentagon's "ABC" war weaponry! In case you would not know as yet, according to reliable sources, the AIDS virus has been fabricated in the war laboratories of the Pentagon. It's been delivered to Africa via the United Nations vaccination programs, as kind of an experiment on the control of population growth. The massacre of Rwanda has its origins in determinate interests both of Europe and the USA, with the purpose furthermore, that the population would massacre themselves; notably, the "New Wars" of the USA on a world scale not only are based on the struggle about petrol, it's rather the very start of a massacre of billions. And they already do not need any pretext anymore!

Why? - Because what had happened in 1789 and 1830 in France and England, where dominantly, on a microcosm scale so to say, the bourgeoisie took on power, and when having achieved economic and political power on a national level, this system spread throughout the world during the last centuries. And that what I just explained resulted in that the world production nowadays has merged in the hands of a few. As already Lenin had explained, there is an immense centralization and monopolization of all kinds of power which is currently concentrated in the fangs of Corporate America. What is still to come, and what will be completed by the process called "globalization", which is in reality globofascism -- the true face of democracy and capitalism --, is the conquest of political, of state power on a world scale. Why is it necessary that "regime change" should be accomplished in "rogue states", in Iraq, Libya, Iran, Congo, Zimbabwe, Sudan or Venezuela?

Because the few - for example, Chávez, the Bolivarian Revolution here in Venezuela - those who still are resisting for some reason, are to be eliminated in order to introduce and establish the Fourth Reich on a world scale. This has an immediate effect with regard to the Nation States, with regard to sovereignty, to national sovereignty - and here we have another important aspect concerning the Bolivarian Revolution. The development of the national States and of national sovereignty were historical products of a specific, particular epoch within the development of capitalism. Our times -- situated at the decay, and not at the birth of capitalism -- are no more pointing towards the tasks of the age of national sovereignty, because in a certain sense, the Global State, the "Fourth Reich" is already a reality. Precisely that is the problem. And look, what has happened to the sovereignty of Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, things look quite obscure, but precisely in that what I have tried to explain lies at the same time the transcending, emancipatory solution.

Because above all, and firstly, one needs to know what something is all about, has to be knowledgeable; it is imperative to see, perceive and face reality, and then to take that very same reality as starting point for developing one's ideas and theories.

Now, there is something in history, in dialectics, in the internal system, which is called even, uneven, and combined development. In the realm of the combined operates Dialectics, in the realm of the equal Formal Logics. Not everything happens at the same time at the same place, it constitutes, however, a totality. -- In any case, in reality, in the "objective world", as Immanuel Kant has explained to you, time and space are "inventions", are forms of the intellect.

They are not real, and, as such, as being non-real, they are real, are real in the patria, and have to be dealt with accordingly. Rather, they were discovered and introduced by the same labour and capitalist system for the benefit of the very production, to calculate profits and to calculate how best to exploit, dominate, discriminate, militarize and alienate. However, beyond all these, on Earth and else where, other things do exist, as Shakespeare's Hamlet told Horatio: "There are much more things on heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!".

Many things happen in this world, as precisely the "Miracle of Caracas"; there, something new, something original, something genuine, something authentic took place. Also, the smashing of the economic oil coup against PDVSA. - However, you must be very careful with regard to "the new". Because there is a notorious habit of putting these three letters, "neo-", in front of literally anything, and then you have something supposedly "new". Fascism either is or is not fascism, liberalism is or is not liberalism, colonialism is or is not colonialism, there doesn't exist any "neo-fascism", "neo-liberalism", "neo-colonialism". -- Thus, what then is "the new"?

Due to a closed, universal system, -- even this has not been taught to us either -- nothing new can be generated. In my book, "La Teoría-Práxis de la Revolución-Emancipación", "Theory-Praxis of Revolution-Emancipation", I explained what the new, the original, the genuine, are all about: Something is truly new only if it never had occurred before, and if it won't ever repeated itself again. Praxis is new in this sense, because if it repeats itself, it converts into Practice. The "Miracle of Caracas" and the "PDVSA-Coup" will never repeat themselves again. And the same is valid with regard to Theory. If Theory repeats itself, for it already does not correspond anymore to its real Práxis, to its real time, it ceases being Theory, converts itself into Lie, into Ideology. Currently, we just have too much ideology! Barely, any theory!! --

Thus, and returning to the new, the original and genuine with regard to the Bolivarian Revolution -- where in this world a social contract has ever been realized? You, who have studied your Hobbes and Locke, tell me -- were it the Europeans by chance, who, very apart of their "French National Assembly", have convoked a National Assembly, with the people deciding on a social contract? Imagine the new, the genuine meaning of the Venezuelan Constitution! It reveals the farce of American and European Democracy!!

Furthermore, imagine what had happened in Caracas in 2002, between April 11th and 13th! Where on this planet had ever occurred something like that? This is the proof of the new, of the genuine aspect of the Bolivarian Revolution! The novelty is to leave Formal Logics and Dialectics behind, to exit the One, i.e., the two sides of the same thing, to surpass the eternal dichotomy of "good" and "evil": "Chávez is a devil", "Estanga is a devil", a "Chavista" - horrible, what thing is that supposed to be? (Laughter by audience). One has to leave behind the bivalent morals which has been inculcated in all your minds! And, how does one leave all this behind?

There does exist a way of "exodus" out of this mode of production, out of this catastrophe, out of this international disaster: “Neither - Nor