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, "c an 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.