Venezuela - August 2017

The scam of the “Bolivarian Revolution”
A SELLOUT OF THE NATION DISGUISED AS “ANTI-IMPERIALIST”

A whole sector of the Venezuelan and world left, sympathetic to Castroism, such as El TopoObrero of Venezuela, PO and PTS of Argentina, MAIS of Brazil, denounces that the “imperialist intromission” in Venezuela advances by the hand of MUD. These currents, one way or another, say that the Bolivarian play a progressive role against “the right wing and imperialism”. The world reaction also claims there is an irreconcilable confrontation between Chavezism and USA. They say in Venezuela there’s a “socialist dictatorship” in bankruptcy because it “confronted imperialism”.
Todo esto es completamente falso. El de Maduro y los generales es un gobierno agente de la superoligarquía financiera de Wall Street. El chavismo ha perdido todo rasgo nacionalista burgués. Venezuela está totalmente sometida por todas las cadenas de expoliación y dominio imperialista: usura financiera mediante la deuda externa, liquidación de PDVSA a cuenta de Goldman Sachs, entrega de las riquezas minerales al capital extranjero.
What really posed to break with imperialism was the revolutionary struggle of the Venezuelan working class: 1989 Caracazo, the proletarian rising in 1996-1997, the defeat of the 2002-2003 military coup d’etat and lock out of Bush and the oligarchy.
Nobody in the world left ignores these questions, which are the ABC of Marxism. The sellout of the nation is published in the international press every week. If the lackey pro-imperialist character of the Bolivarian bourgeoisie is not clear for the masses yet is because it is consciously hidden.
Let’s see what is Maduro and the “patriot” generals’ “anti-imperialism” really about

WALL STREET AND VENEZUELAN OIL: 
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS

In May 2017, spokespersons of Spanish imperialism –always on alert on Venezuela due to the interests of Repsol, Telefonica, BBVA, Mapfre, Iberia, Melia, etc.- said: “United States is the first buyer of Venezuela crude oil for a daily value of 32,2 million dollars” (El Pais, May 30th, 2017). The source is certain: it is the US Energy Department.
In the extraction process, Venezuela depends on foreign technology and investments, mainly provided by US service companies. Besides selling crude oil to America, Venezuela buys from it refined products to mix with its oil, which is very heavy, to supply its market with diesel and petrol; and to increase the octanes of fuel and lubricants. It is evident that the Bolibourgeoisie –a faction connected to the business deals of the state and oil- has always had been connected with Wall Street and never broke or will break with the US master, its main partner and boss.
In the midst of an offensive on the subjugated nation, Trump knows that a blockade to PDVSA would mean a devastating blow not only by the bolibourgeoisiebut mainly for the Venezuelan exploited. If US imperialism still hasn’t decided to apply this sanction is because it fears a revolutionary burst in response to the social catastrophe that the blockade would cause.

THE FOREIGN DEBT AND THE STRANGLING OF THE NATION

Venezuela is a backward semi-colony, subjugated to international finance capital. The fall of the price of the oil barrel, which cut the incomes to Venezuela around 50% since 2014 increased the problem of the foreign debt. When Chavez came to power, Venezuela had a foreign debt of 45 billion dollars. Today it is 200 billion dollars. The funding of the bankrupt Venezuela is another huge business for the superbanks of Wall Street, such as Goldman Sachs, completely guaranteed by Maduro’s government and the generals.
Let’s clarify in the first place that even in the top of Chavez presidency, when the price of the oil barrel was above 100 dollars, Venezuela was a paradise of dollars and gold for the banks. In the first 15 years of the Bolivarian revolution, the total incomes for oil reached 1.6 trillion dollars. A huge share of that income, which was not used for state expenses or imports or for the hands of politicians and military, returned to the hands of the super banks throughout the payment of the foreign debt, dollar and gold deposit in the Federal Reserve, finance speculation in Wall Street and London City, capital exit, currency theft, etc.
With the bankruptcy of Venezuela, the bolibourgeoisiehasn’t stopped of paying the foreign debt, but it criminally cut the food, medicine and raw material imports. In 2016 and part of 2017, total imports were only a third of that of 2014. Estimations show a fall of 30% of the GDP, which turned out into hyperinflation, a brutal economic paralysis, unemployment, starvation, misery and thousands of dead due to lack of medical assistance, more child deceased.
Only between 2015 and 2016, years in which starvation and barbarism increased terribly, Maduro paid more than 60 thousand million dollars to the international Banks. This year, the payments of capital and interests amount 17 thousand million dollars.
It is shameful to see currents such as PTS of Argentina (member of FIT)to denounce only Maduro’s repression and bonapartism, while referring starvation, lack of goods, unemployment, etc. as “consequences of the crisis” in general. They hide the fact that this is a result of a conscious policy of Maduro and the generals that led the exploited people to a social catastrophe only comparable to that of Haiti, to fulfill the demands of the IMF and the international banks.

THE SCANDAL BETWEEN ODVSA AND GOLDMAN SACHS

PDVSA has been working as a true bank for the Venezuelan state, which took advantage of the extraordinary oil income to take a new debt with the international banks. The fall of the price of the barrel posed the problem of the debt also for PDVSA. The decay of the last jewel of the nation caused by the low policy of the Bolibourgeoisie today is taken advantage by the international finance capital which accelerates the process of liquefying and privatizing PDVSA, as a vulture flies over the animal which is about to die. Goldman Sachs bank is one of the most active in this true attack of imperialism on the nation, which has an accessory in submission: Maduro and the generals.
In 2016, re-structuring the debt of PDVSA meant the sellout to Goldman Sachs of 50% of the shares of CITGO (PDVSA branch in USA) as warranty. The remaining 50% was given to the Russian company Rosneft, the oil division of Gazprom, whose 49% is in German capital hands. To get fresh funds to pay the debt, Maduro gave in warranty 100% of CITGO, the last great Venezuelan patrimony abroad.
In May 2017, Goldman bought new bonds of PDVSA debt. The value of those bonds is 2,800 dollars. Goldman Sachs bought them for 865 dollars! That is to say, for every dollar in the bonds, it paid 31 cents! How could it be that Madurois considered an “anti-imperialist”?
Pero semejante comunión de negocios entre la boliburguesía y este banco de inversión no es casual. En enero de este año, CITGO (es decir, de Maduro) aportó US$ 500 millones a la juramentación de Trump, que en su gabinete tiene importantes directivos de... Goldman Sachs.
This example is one of the many in the plunder of Venezuela. The intention is clear: those bonds (bought at a cheap price) will allow finance capital to participate in privatization and split of PDVSA in the future, which is the great goal of imperialism, as it happened in the 90’s with tens of state companies in Latin America.

THE OMINOUS SELLOUT OF THE MINES IN ORINOCO

Venezuela has a huge mineral wealth. It has the first oil reserve of the world, with over 490 million barrels of crude oil, bigger than half of all the countries of Middle East together. It has the second gas reserves of the planet. It has the biggest gold reserve, the second in coltan and the first in torio, whose size is two times bigger than the oil that covers around half of the country. All these reports were known from the 80’s, when the Central University of Venezuela researched and elaborated the studies by request of PDVSA. Until recently, these reports were just collecting dust in the library of UCV.
The mining area of Orinoco concentrates the largest part of these almost virgin reserves. There are 7 billion tons in reserves of gold, copper, diamond, coltan, iron, bauxite and others. The low Bolivarian bourgeoisie doesn’t have neither the technology nor capital to explore this huge wealth. That’s why Maduro’s government signed sellout agreements to Barrick Gold, MPE International Inc., the Italian company Bedeschi, etc. The generals also do business deals throughout the Military Anonymous Company of Gas, Oil and Mining Industries (Camimpeg), which is authorized to sign direct contracts with the transnational companies. Among the agreed conditions for exploring the mining area, there’s the prohibition of setting up workers unions, the total exoneration on the tax on the income, a preferential custom regime, etc.
In the hands of the working class, with the revolutionary expropriation of the transnational companies and the Banks, with the exploitation of these minerals, it will be a true source of development for the benefit of the exploited people. In the hands of the transnational companies and the native bourgeoisie, on the contrary, the wealth of the nation become an instrument of subjugation and oppression: we will see environmental catastrophes at the expense of the peasants, workers as slaves, violent confiscation of the land, killings, etc. under the warranty of the armed forces.

“I WANT TO SHAKE DONALD TRUMP’S HAND”

A symbol of this sellout was this year’s July 16th meeting betweenMaduro and the leadership of the US oil company Horizontal Well Drilling in Miraflores Palace. After signing contracts for drilling around 200 horizontal wells, in society with PDVSA, Maduro declared his true position on the imperialist emissaries: “I celebrate this association with US capital and I invite the entire US capital to come to Venezuela, we are cool (…) I want to shake Donald Trump’s hand.” These are the phony “anti-imperialists” applauded by Castroism and the CP, for the former socialists of FIT, El TopoObrero of Venezuela or MAIS of Brazil.

THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION: A TURN TO GET TO WALL STREET

As we see, the Bolivarian guaranteed the “imperialist intromission” in Venezuela. It is just the opposite of what the pro-Castro Latin American and world left says. Chavezism turned out to be a simple turn to end up subjugated to imperialism. Caracazo posed the chance of breaking with Wall Street yoke. Mounted over this struggle and under historical conditions of world economic crisis and war in Middle East, Bolivarian bourgeois nationalism had a small relaxation from the imperialist guardianship.
However, the fireworks of 2005 Counter Summit against ALCA of Bush ended up, inevitably, in the submission to USA from Maduro and the old Chavezist colonels. Today, MUD is preparing itself to continue the sellout work of Chavez and Maduro.
Let the former socialists now in bankruptcy go together with the Bolivarian to their graves. We Trotskyists, raising the banners of 1938 Fourth International, march together with the workers of the continent towards the true liberation of our people. Only the proletarian revolution from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, victorious in New York and Washington, can break once and for all with the chains that tie our people to US imperialism! Yankee out of Latin America!

Democracia Obrera para Centroamérica y el Caribe
Adherente al Colectivo por la Refundación de la IV Internacional FLTI-CI