Venezuela December 23rd, 2015
After the elections to the National Assembly on December 6 and the victory of Capriles and the MUD::
Once more, a propos the decline of Chavezismo
- As all the Bolivarian Governments -after strangling the worker and peasant Latin American revolution -, Maduro’s proved to be a simple detour to submit and hand out Venezuela and the oppressed nations of Latin America to Wall Street and the IMF
- Capriles and the MUD won the elections, and together with Obama they are using Maduro and the PSUV as a "squeezed lemon". They need them to deepen the attack on the workers and poor people and go on throwing on the shoulders of the latter two all the crisis of bankrupt Venezuela
While the Castro brothers have already finished selling out Cuba to imperialism and the Gringos…
Maduro continues delivering the attack against the exploited…
The IMF collects until the last dollar from broken Venezuela... and Capriles prepares to take this offensive to the end
The only way for the working class and its organizations is to break with the bourgeoisie and the scam of Bolivarian revolution
Down with the trade union bureaucracy of CTV, CSBT, the FADESS and the UNT!
We must re-found the UNT, bottom up and without collaborationist bureaucrats!
Let's put up a Parliament of the majority of the exploited and hungry!
A Parliament representing the Unions, committees of factory and unemployed, poor peasants, and rank-and-file soldier committees together with supply committees! All of them must be independent of the millionaire chaste of the Boli-bourgeois generals
The solution for the exploited was raised by the workers of SIDOR steel works…
“"We do not believe in Socialists with Hummer, or Communists with Rolex. We believe in the revolution of the workers"
For us to be able to eat and live with dignity, that the capitalists and imperialism pay for the crisis that they have caused!
For an emergency worker plan! Annulment of the debt with the IMF! Expropriation without compensation and under worker control of all banks! Nationalization of foreign trade!
Neither Maduro nor Capriles!
The road ahead is to prepare the revolutionary General strike. They deserve an organized and successful "Caracazo"...
For a worker and Socialist Venezuela without generals, bosses nor imperialist bankers!
December 24 2015
Venezuela:
After the elections to the National Assembly on December 6 and the victory of Capriles and MUD
December 6 parliamentary elections were conducted in Venezuela; a 74.25% of the register voted (voting is voluntary in this country).
The final results were favorable to the opposition/MUD, which overrun the PSUV (Maduro’s Bolivarian Party). Of the 167 seats to the Bolivarian National Assembly, the MUD achieved 112 seats, while the PSUV won only 55 seats. The two missing seats were awarded to the opposition leaders Nirma Guarulla and Karin Salanova, candidates from the Aragua and Amazon States, respectively.
After 17 years, MUD has managed to get a super-majority of two-thirds in the National Assembly. This gives it full capacity to vote laws, convene a constituent Assembly and craft a constitutional reform if so determined, remove state officials, approve the national budget and an amnesty law for releasing whoever they classify as "political prisoners", and even summon referenda for passing or repealing laws.
Before the outcome of the election, the Government of Maduro left aside all the bluster leading up to the elections on "winning at all costs", accepted his defeat calmly considering that this was due to the "economic war" launched by the "oligarchy and imperialism" and stressed that " Constitution and democracy have succeeded". Capriles and opposition, meanwhile, called their followers to keep calm and prudent and to bet on "reconciliation and peace". Capriles said that this will not be "the Assembly of revenge", but "of justice", because the camera "cries out for Order. The country is living the worst crisis in its history", he added and urged the new lawmakers to show "humility, maturity, and much serenity".
With MUD having won the parliamentary elections under the mechanisms of the Constitution agreed by the Chavezistas and the old pro-putsch politicians –and under the umbrella of the caste of Army officers that killed the masses in the Caracazo-, with the opposition strengthened after gaining control of the National Assembly, MUD and the Bolivarian will establish a de facto co-management of the administration where a cunning opposition will force Maduro to continue deepening the plan of attack on the working class and the exploited masses to the account of the IMF. Maduro is a weak, retreating Government, actually supported by the National Assembly with MUD majority. This shows that, despite disputes over the control of the State and the sharing of the oil income, both bourgeois fractions can co-rule because no irreconcilable interests of class separate them. It's a true reactionary victory that strengthens the bipartisan system, which will be used against the exploited masses to deepen the attack and with it, their unheard travails, so they pay every cent of the US$ 105 billion of the fraudulent debt to the IMF; besides, the subjugation of the nation to Wall Street will be worsened.
The farce of the "Bolivarian revolution"
A detour so that "the Americas are for (US) Americans" and IMF strangle Venezuela
The infamous regime strengthens against the working masses
The "Bolivarian revolution" was a continental plan that saved imperialism and the transnational corporations from the fire of revolution at the beginning of the 21st century, when Latin American workers and exploited stormed and threatened the bourgeois property and state power. This plan put in power (fake revolutionary) regimes that in fact expropriated the revolution, with Governments that have given nothing to the exploited masses, only empty promises. Chavez ended up reaching an agreement with Uribe and U.S. imperialism in 2008 over the blood of the Colombian resistance. Then, when the global economic crisis hit, and the price of oil -which was the source of their wealth- sank, Bolivarians met face to face with the masses, and became direct agents of Obama and Wall Street; and as such, they discharged on the masses the full weight of bankruptcy in which plunged Venezuela and the rest of the Latin American Nations through the brutal imperialist plunder. That’s why in Venezuela Obama, the Bolivarians and the "opposition" puppet, sealed a pact vowing loyalty to the Bolivarian Constitution.
The Bolivarian rule proved to be just a rodeo for expropriating the peasant and worker revolution and finally redoubling the chains of subjugation of the nation to imperialism. Now, once Wall Street used of Chavezistas to taste, comes the other bourgeois gang for further looting and subjecting. Now, everyone can see what the Obama-Castro Pact is about. In Argentina, the Bolivarian as Cristina Kirchner, together with the opposition, attacked workers and exploited masses to repay the debt to the IMF regularly. She herself declared to be a "serial payer". Now that Cristina has played throughout her role, transnational corporations already do not need intermediaries and are putting their managers to govern Argentina with Macri and his CEO-ministers, and Kirchner becomes "the opposition" to support the redoubled attack of the new Government. In Venezuela they play the same laws, just as Maduro is applying the plans of the IMF in a co-rule with MUD from Parliament until he is not left even the last drop of "Bolivarian" juice... Mature, Cristina, Capriles, Macri... all acting under the command of Wall Street and Obama, as US imperialism at the last Summit of the Americas ordered them.
Once again the Trotskyist theory-program of 'Permanent Revolution' has been confirmed. Despite the lies of reformism, the class interests defended by Maduro and Capriles as middle-class agents of bankers and transnational corporations looting the nation are not at all irreconcilable. On the contrary, although both bourgeois fractions are in a row over the control of the State and a portion of the oil income, they do completely agree on making workers and poor people pay for the bankruptcy of the nation. As in any colony or semi colony, the antagonistic interests of the working class and imperialism (which is the most important fraction of the bourgeoisie in a semi-colonial country) are the irreconcilable ones. The local bourgeoisie, which at times can be used to manipulate the masses to show force when haggling with imperialism on the size of its slice of the business, fears the revolutionary working class which can expropriate the whole of the (transnational and local) capitalists with the socialist revolution more than it fears any imperialist power, as it is linked to the MNCs by thousands of class and business ties.
We insist, when a barrel of oil collapsed due to the global crash, the Bolivarian bourgeoisie stopped bargaining with imperialism for a part of the business and became its direct agent in Venezuela, the more important one of the IMF’s, in order to deepen the attack against the masses (that is, it was no more devoted to expropriate the worker and peasant revolution as in the previous period). The counter-revolutionary Pact between the Chavezistas, Capriles and Obama was the fundamental institution that worked during the last years in Venezuela.
With his allegations of a so-called "coup" against Maduro by the oligarchy and imperialism, the reformist left concealed this Pact and prevented the working-class from facing the Government of Maduro, which led the attack on the masses, applying Capriles/MUD’s plan. The Renegades of Trotskyism embraced the Stalinist theory-program of “progressive bourgeois fields (against fascism, NT)” and subjected the most combative of the working class to the infamous regime of the Maduro-Capriles Covenant!
Now here you are! Mature applied the plan of the oligarchy in Venezuela, Morales is in a pact with the Bolivian fascist Crescent (the oil provinces of Beni, Santa Cruz and Pando in the Eastern lowlands, where fascist gangs are commanded by the white supremacist oligarchy against the indigenous and mixed-blood peasants and workers NT) to hand out Bolivia to the parasites of the Morgan banking and Wall Street. And the icing on the cake: the Castro Brothers in Cuba, after handing it out to imperialism, are applying the Miami Gusanos’ plan on the island, where the US flag already flames.
The decline of the Chavezismo
What we are witnessing, as clearly seen in the recent elections, is the decline of the Bolivarians. What they are preparing in Venezuela is an orderly transition from the Government of Maduro. While still supporting Madur, Obama and Capriles are pressing him, forcing him to throw the "gasolinazo" (sudden and heavy increase of fuel prices, NT) on the Venezuelan people. Imperialism and both bourgeois fractions need to eliminate the millionaire state subsidy to fuel prices, at a time when Venezuela is mired in bankruptcy and after the stagnation of the Chinese economy, the fall of oil prices worsens. The barrel has come down to U$ S 34 and will continue to decline. They have to redouble the attack with more devaluation of the bolivar, higher taxes on workers (VAT, ISR), still eviler shortage of food, appliances, spare parts, rentals, services, materials for the construction, etc., worse and more expensive services, more unemployment and especially the increase in the cost of living, and brutal repression if the exploited dare to rebel for the bread as it happened in San Felix.
Meanwhile, Capriles prepares and strengthens to be able to carry this plan until the end, when Maduro is left “without a drop of juice” in the attempt. This is the Maduro-Capriles Pact, which all the reformists have concealed: the whole of the bourgeoisie has agreed that the bankruptcy of Venezuela should be paid for by the exploited masses. So, after Chavez’s death and until today Maduro-Capriles Pact gave continuity to the plan of attack on the working class and the masses.
Capriles, far from organizing a "coup d’état" as claimed by reformism, has sworn loyalty to the Bolivarian Constitution and supports Maduro heavily from the backroom, since the former, as he controls the unions linked to the state, was the only one able to download the bankruptcy of the nation on the shoulders of the exploited. Imperialism used the Chavezistas as a squeezed lemon, until the last drop of juice. At the same time, the more Maduro and the Bolivarians attacked the working class and the masses, and the more the trade union bureaucracy and reformist left prevented the working class from responding to the attack, the more the old Venezuelan oligarchy lifted its head, supported in the desperate middle classes. This is what the results of the elections reflect. Both Maduro and Capriles are guarantors of the repayment of the debt to the IMF. This is the Covenant Maduro-Capriles about. Today the infamous regime is preserving the murderous breed of army officers as the guarantor of a counterrevolutionary crushing if the masses stage an uprising against the attack launched on them by IMF-Maduro-Capriles.
The working class has not given in; their leaderships are who have surrendered
The subjugation of the exploited to the electoral trap was not peaceful. The betrayal of the Union bureaucracy in all its wings, the subsuming of the unions to the state apparatus and the subsequent submission of unions and workers organizations fully to the Chavez regime, were necessary; the collective agreements were “kept frozen” for more than 4 years by the Ministry of labor; a chronic unemployment of more than 20%, 200% inflation, a terrible condition of shortage for the exploited masses (scarcity and shortages which the bourgeoisie or the rich middle classes do not suffer!) to submit them by famine and the ruin of the middle classes; and to top it all a brutal repression and murder at the hands of the Bolivarian National Guard and army were launched on the rebel exploited. And above all, it was necessary to isolate and suppress the workers of SIDOR steel works. Thus they could submit the masses to this electoral trap, from which only Obama and Wall Street, the exploiters and their regime of the Bolivarian Constitution came out triumphant. Now they are discussing how better to finish defeating the working class and the exploited masses, at a time when the economic crisis is most acute and Venezuela is in bankruptcy, strangled by the fraudulent debt with the IMF.
However, the working class has not yet said its last word. They persist, although isolated and divided, the workers’ fight against frozen wages and collective agreements made to the measure of the Government, the protests of the school teachers over wages, the revolts caused by hunger. But, fundamentally, and despite the siege of the reformist left, the Pact has failed to defeat the SIDOR steel works workers, who are marking the timing of struggle to all workers, with the battle cry "we do not believe in the Socialists on Hummers or Communists with Rolex. We believe in the revolution of the workers". This way is that all workers and exploited must go along in order to stand up again.
The left, which was a lackey to the Bolivarians supported Chavez and the Chavezistas from the beginning, disguising them as "progressive" and calling on workers to "press them to advance to socialism". They spent their time speaking for years of the "anti-imperialist character" of the Chavez government. They confronted the Chavezista handout of Venezuela to imperialism through the external debt, and hid that Chavez and the Chavezistas shared the oil income with the big imperialist banks. They collected millions of votes for him in the elections and supported his Bonapartist referendums. They submitted the working-class struggle to the decisions of the Ministry of Labor of the capitalists, which never resolved anything in favor of workers.
Today, with a collaborationist policy centralized at the continental level, they insist to go on supporting the Bolivarians even in their decline. After adhering to the reactionary theory of progressive bourgeois fields, they now say that we now have a "rightization" of the "progressive" Governments that would have given way to the Governments of "right", as stated by the PTS in its last statement. So they support the Bolivarian farce, subjecting workers to their executioners, as if the Bolivarians were "progressive or anti-imperialist Governments" "expressing the struggle of the masses" and not its expropriation. Claiming for years that a coup was looming against Maduro, the reformist left took the working-class struggle to put pressure on the Government, refusing to denounce and confront it with the pretext that that was "falling in the hands of the right". For all this is that they never called to defeat Chavezismo with socialist revolution. The Alan Woods, the Chirinos and all of them in the reformist left should be accountable to the Venezuelan and world working class for their support and submission to Chavezismo.
Enough of deceit! The reformist left said that Chavez was "progressive" when he fed the Bush war machine so it could slaughter in the Middle East; then it gave full support to imperialist butcher Obama as "their candidate" in the U.S. and later actively supported the genocide of Al-Assad in Syria against the masses, on account of the imperialism. They proved to be the left of Obama!
The left refused at every step to pose before the working class that the main enemy was Maduro who commanded the attack and the plan of MUD and Obama, to repay the debt to IMF. The left refused to pose before the working class that it had to prepare a plan of action and the general strike, retrieve the UNT from the bureaucrats, re-founding it from below without collaborationist bureaucrats, expelling the Union bureaucracy to be able to centralize its fight and make the working class stand up. There are no "progressive" Governments or bosses as stated by reformism; they are all agents of imperialism and Obama! Enough of submitting the working class and the impoverished masses to their torturers! No truce to the starvers of the people!
The working class must break with the bourgeoisie and the scam of the Bolivarian revolution
The old oligarchy of Capriles and Lopez has been strengthened, because Maduro, under the orders of the IMF, has submitted and attacked brutally the working class. Therefore to restore the Alliance of workers and the people, the working class must return to stand up and go out to the streets to fight for its demands, which are the same as those of all the exploited people and the oppressed nation. Imperialism and bourgeois forces come for the "gasolinazo" and the final battle against the working class, to secure the business of the imperialist MNCs and the re-payment to the IMF. They keep their business with the grain and commercial chains, bankers are taking the oil income and the IMF continues to collect the repayments. Enough is enough! Down with the Obama-Maduro-Capriles Covenant!
Worker fight organizations should break with the Bolivarian regime and its infamous Constitution. Only the working class, as leader of the oppressed nation, can prevent the decline of Chavezismo from meaning the deepening of the most brutal bankruptcy for the working people. Down with the trade union bureaucracy of CTV, CSBT, FADESS and the UNT! We must found anew the UNT bottom up without collaborationist Union bureaucrats!
Against that Bolivarian National Assembly of enemies of the people it is necessary to put up a real Parliament of the exploited, the majority of the poor people, that gathers the factory committees, together with committees of unemployed, of supplies, of poor peasants, and committees of privates independent from the millionaire caste of the Bolivarian bourgeois Armed Forces generals; those committees we must put in place without delay.
It is necessary to start the self-organization of the masses, the organs of the revolution, because we must defeat the bourgeoisie and imperialism with the workers and the socialist revolution to conquer bread, work, land and national independence.
Neither mature nor Capriles!
The right road is to prepare the revolutionary General strike!
The exploiters deserve to suffer an organized and triumphant Caracazo!
To cope with this real catastrophe of hunger, shortages and inflation, let's expropriate without payment and under workers control the transnationals and the imperialist bankers! To end the flight of dollars we must break with imperialism, nationalize foreign trade and expropriate without payment and under the control of all unions, labor organizations and committees of supply all cereal and large retail chains that profit from the hunger of the people. Let's put an end to VAT and impose a progressive tax on large fortunes of the Lopez, the Capriles and millionaires of the Bolivarian bourgeoisie!
The Bolivarian bourgeoisie "must return" 30 billion dollars of oil income which have ran away from the country and it hoarded in Miami! Otherwise we must seize it all its possessions. The Bolivarian bourgeoisie should respond for its stealing and looting the nation! The Capriles, the Lopezes, the Machados and all the children of the old Venezuelan oligarchy should also be accountable for them as Chavezismo did not touch a penny of their properties and assets stolen from the people. They were who contracted the fraudulent debt. The workers have no reason to pay for it!
Not even a single dollar to pay for the debt! Out with the IMF and imperialism in Venezuela! Gringos Go Home! Out with U.S. military bases in Colombia! Enough of massacre and repression against the workers on the Colombia-Venezuela border!
The regime has launched the most brutal repression against our struggles and persecutes our best comrades. The killers act with impunity in the countryside and the cities. The Bolivarian militias are to care for the property of capitalists. To defend ourselves, let’s organize the worker and popular self-defense committees. Committees of privates! Dissolution of the caste of officers who assassinated workers in el Caracazo! Freedom for the CIVETCHI Workers! Freedom and acquittal for all the workers, farmers and students that are prosecuted or imprisoned for fighting! Down with Chavezista anti-strike law! Out with the killers and the reactionary military guards, both Maduro’s and Lopez’s, who only attack the workers that struggle!
It is urgent to impose the breakdown of all worker and poor farmer organizations with the scam of the Bolivarian revolution not only in Venezuela, but also in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Cuba itself. Only in this way we can really face Obama, Wall Street, their military bases, their infamous regimes and pilfering transnationals in Latin America. Maduro and the Bolivarians are the "Al Assad" of Latin America; therefore they support the Grand Coalition that is bombing and slaughtering the Syrian people. Our main ally in this fight is the American working class that has been standing with its cutting edge in the working class of color and immigrants who have risen with the strike and the mobilization, demanding $15 a working hour; they are exposing capitalist bankruptcy. We must put up a revolutionary leadership of the working class! This fight is inseparable from the struggle to rebuild the Fourth International, the World Party of the socialist revolution.
For a worker and Socialist Venezuela without generals, bosses nor imperialist bankers!
Down with the "Bolivarian revolution" scam!
For a single socialist revolution in the Americas!
Let’s regain Cuba by defeating the capitalist restoration; expel the Gringo military bases, and the transnational corporations; and expropriate the expropriators! For the success of the fight of the American working class with the socialist revolution to the interior of the imperialist beast!
Collective for the Re-foundation of the Fourth International - FLTI
