[News] Venezuela’s Maduro Meets Commune Leaders, Calls for Devolution of State Power

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14110


  Venezuela’s Maduro Meets Commune Leaders, Calls for Devolution of
  State Power

By Paul Dobson - October 22, 2018
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mérida, October 22, 2018 (venezuelanalysis.com 
<http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/>) – Venezuelan President Nicolas 
Maduro led a gathering of commune leaders this weekend as part of the IV 
Congress of Communes and Social Movements, during which he made a series 
of important announcements in the area.

The event follows a host of meetings by President Maduro during past 
months, withcampesinos in August 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13975>, businesspeople and 
international investors in September, and more recently withworkers 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14098>. The Commune Congress comes on 
the heels of a series of regional encounters to elect delegates of 
community leaders to participate. It was organised under the auspices of 
the Ministry for Communes, and whilst participation levels were unclear, 
unconfirmed reports suggested that some of the most self-sufficient 
communes did not participate.

Speaking from Miraflores presidential palace where the congress was 
held, Maduro began byhighlighting 
<http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/presidente-maduro-ejecutara-un-plan-de-transferencia-de-poder-a-las-comunas/> 
some of his government’s failings in making progress towards the 
communal state.<https://venezuelanalysis.com/video/13509>

“I think that if we review these six years [since Chavez’s passing], 
critically and self-critically we can say that only achieved and 
advanced half-heartedly,” he told community leaders gathered.

Maduro spoke on the sixth anniversary of late President Chavez’s most 
emblematic final speech, known as “Strike at the Helm,” in which he 
publicly criticized his ministers for failing to make promoting communal 
self-government their top priority. Communes are agglomerations of local 
communal councils, which according to Chavez’s vision, combine 
participatory democracy with socialized ownership of the means of 
production in a bottom-up effort aimed at gradually displacing the 
existing bourgeois state apparatus 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/video/13509>and constituting a 
decentralized, self-governing communal state.

“We haven’t advanced in the plan for the transfer of power to the 
communes. It has been simply speeches and applause. ‘Let’s transfer 
power to the Communes’ and then nothing. This is the government’s 
responsibility, which hasn’t completed the task! I tell you ministers, 
let’s make it happen, I want a detailed plan for the transfer of state 
power to the communes,” Maduro declared.

The Chavista leader also specified that his orders are to take effect 
immediately , announcing,“I want to start next week to hand power over 
to the people in the communes, and I ask for your forgiveness for having 
failed in this aspect.”


      More communes and inclusion in the new constitution

At the gathering, Maduro was presented with aseries of proposals from 
communal leaders 
<http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/conozca-la-agenda-de-trabajo-del-poder-popular-en-i-congreso-nacional-de-comunas/>.One 
of the proposals taken up by the president was a request that the 
National Constituent Assembly (ANC) place the series of laws regulating 
the organisations of popular power as a “central nucleus of the new 
constitutional text,” effectively making them “untouchable.”

Maduro also called on community leaders and Communes Minister Blanca 
Eekhout to speed up the formation of the 403 communes needed to reach 
the target of 3,000 communal organisations in the country.

“In Venezuela there are 47,634 communal councils,” he explained. “Of 
these, 23,418 are active with different levels of development and 
grouped into communes, of which there are 2,597 functioning,” he continued.

However, many communal activists have been critical of government 
efforts to foster communes “from above,” which they argue tends to 
stifle local initiative, resulting in corruption, deficits in democracy 
and transparency, as well as long term dependence on the state which 
they are meant to replace.


      Universities, micro missions, and communications

Maduro also announced the creation of a new university following the 
demands of those present at the gathering, which will be known as the 
Bolivarian University of the Venezuelan Communes (UBCV).

It is, though, unclear how the new educational institution will benefit 
the organised communities, or what topics are to be taught.

Likewise, Maduro ordered the launch of the “Nourishing the Nation” 
micro-mission which looks to strengthen the communityFood Houses 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10203> in the poorest sectors of 
the country. Food Houses provide free or low cost food to the most 
needy, and are often run by the communities themselves.

Equally, Maduro encouraged community leaders to step up their efforts in 
the communicational field, especially on social networking, as part of a 
bid to dispute the hegemony of the right-wing opposition in this crucial 
arena.


      Petro mining and crop sowing

The president also approved the creation ofelectronic cryptocurrency 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14078> mining installations in all of 
the communes and communal banks of the country, so as to reportedly 
enable them to “self-finance” by generating Petros and other hard 
currencies.

Cryptocurrency mining requires expensive high-tech computers and draws 
excessive amounts of electricity. An expansion in mining “farms” was 
recentlyidentified as one of the causes of an electrical meltdown in 
Zulia State <https://venezuelanalysis.com/News/13796>.

Maduro also approved resources for the Communal Crop Plan 2018, which 
focuses on small scale production of white and yellow corn, high demand 
products in Venezuela that require relatively little secondary or 
tertiary processing.

The plan looks to sew 200 hectares across the country both in urban and 
rural areas, with financing reportedly guaranteed for the “seeds, 
storage, and logistics” necessary in production.

Communal crop production has been aflagship policy of Maduro 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/News/13727> since 2013, when he urged 
Venezuela’s communities to start producing, even on a very small scale. 
Communal plots are normally owned, managed, and administered by the 
community, with the produce shared among or sold to the members of the 
same community. Whilst the vast majority are limited to primary 
production without the capital to invest in secondary or tertiary 
processing, some communities, such as El Maizal Commune in Lara State, 
have managed to achieve a significant degree of financial 
self-sufficiency, allowing them to acquire processing machines and 
produce with larger economies of scale.


      Unanswered demands

The list of demands from the communal leaders also contained a series of 
elements which the president made no comment on during his speech to the 
Congress.

Amongst the unanswered demands are calls for better efficiency and 
planning in public administration, especially in local government, the 
transfer of Orinoco Woods and unnamed cotton industries to community 
management, and the installation of a commune leader-government 
workgroup to identify state-run companies which may be transferred to 
communal administration.

Delegates also requested that the government create a series of 
communally-run transport companies for public, cargo, land, and water 
transport.

Likewise, they called on the government to culminate the long 
anticipated but incomplete rail networks set to link Venezuela’s key 
industrial sectors, such as Caracas, Miranda, Aragua, and Carabobo, as 
well as create a new network of cargo land transport to address problems 
affecting the distribution of products.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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