[News] The Role of the Working Class in Venezuela’s Crisis

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14043


  The Role of the Working Class in Venezuela’s Crisis: An Interview with
  Pedro Eusse

By Pedro Eusse and Cira Pascual Marquina - September 10, 2018

------------------------------------------------------------------------

/Pedro Eusse began his militancy in the Communist Party of Venezuela 
(PCV) in 1979 at the age of 17, when he was working in a chicken 
factory. Currently, he is a member of the political bureau of the party, 
where he coordinates worker and trade union issues. Eusse is also the 
General Coordinator of the “Cruz Villegas” Class-conscious Current of 
Workers and of the independent trade union confederation the National 
Front of Struggle of the Working Class (FNLCT). /

/In this interview with Venezuelanalysis, we asked him about the 
situation of the working class in Venezuela, how it might contribute to 
overcoming the current crisis, and the PCV’s expectations concerning the 
economic measures <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14011> recently 
announced by President Maduro./

*In Venezuela today – with the economic crisis and its many dimensions, 
including inflation and emigration – what is the importance of the 
workers' struggle? Beyond the standard discourse about producing more, 
what solutions can the working class offer? How can workers help us with 
a situation in which the socialist project seems to be falling out of view?*

For the PCV, the working class’s most important task now is to defend 
the country against the heightening aggression of the international 
Right led by US imperialism, with its economic, political, 
communicational and diplomatic blockade, and the threat of a military 
attack against our people. If the plans of imperialism and its lackeys 
against our country were to be carried out, the consequences would be 
catastrophic for our people and for Latin Americans in general.

The interests of US monopolies would be imposed, with great loss of 
life. National sovereignty, territorial integrity, peace, the 
achievements of the Venezuelan people – although precarious at present – 
would all be at risk, even the very existence of Venezuela as a nation 
state is at stake. Workers' struggles that are focused on particular 
economic and social demands would basically make no sense, if the US and 
its puppet governments were to wage war against Venezuela and impose a 
neoliberal, pro‐imperialist government.

 From our perspective, the most important contribution the working class 
can make is to accumulate forces – and do so with independence and class 
autonomy – with the aim of leading a broad patriotic and 
anti‐imperialist front. We cannot talk about “the socialist horizon 
falling out of view,” because up until now there has not yet been a 
“socialist horizon” in Venezuela. It’s one thing if the reformist petty 
bourgeoisie talks about socialism and another thing altogether if the 
conditions are there to build it.

For us, the first step towards socialism is achieving a favorable 
correlation of forces so that the working class and working people can 
come to power in Venezuela, and that does not yet exist. We must create 
such a correlation of forces, but first we have to defeat the 
pretensions of imperialism and its extreme‐right lackeys. Of course, we 
should recognize that it’s not because Venezuela has a socialist 
revolution that the US and its satellite governments attack us. No, a 
socialist revolution isn’t in process here. What we have is dependent 
rentier capitalism. The real reason they attack us is because the US 
needs to regain full control of the strategic resources of this country 
and consolidate its dominance in Latin America, in the context of a 
dispute over world hegemony that is taking place between US and European 
imperialism and the bloc of emerging powers, led by China and Russia.

*What do you think will be the short‐term and long‐term impact of the 
new economic measures <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14011> 
(including the monetary reconversion, the anchoring of the Sovereign 
Bolivar to the Petro, and the new minimum wage) on purchasing power of 
the Venezuelans?*

As far as the Venezuelan government’s recent economic measures are 
concerned, we are not deluding ourselves: they are fiscal, monetary and 
currency exchange measures that do not impact the structural causes of 
the crisis. In other words, they are reformist measures. Of course, some 
of these reforms, such as the minimum wage hike, are positive but very 
insufficient. The PCV and the National Front of Struggle of the Working 
Class (FNLCT)[1] have said the following: “Adopting the new minimum wage 
and transforming workers’ income into salary[2] – permanent demands of 
the PCV and the class conscious trade unions – are positive but 
insufficient steps in the face of the high cost of living due to 
inflation. Moreover, the prices set by agreement between the government 
and bourgeois groups (even monopolistic ones) without the participation 
of the workforce or the people, turn out to be very high for Venezuelans.

For this reason, we continue to propose a policy of raising the force of 
labor’s value and establishing, on the basis of the new minimum wage, a 
sliding scale of salaries that would reference the consumer price index 
of goods and services that constitute Venezuela’s basic goods basket[3], 
in compliance with the Constitution 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/constitution>’s article 91. This, in turn, 
would oblige Venezuela’s Central Bank to fulfill its constitutional 
mandate to regularly publish the consumer price indexes. At the same 
time, we need to establish an institutional and social system for 
controlling costs, prices and profits, in which workers, organized 
communities, and the people in general would participate in a binding way.

*A new form of social protest has emerged in recent months. Instead of 
the violent protests against the government (like the 2014 and 2017 
guarimbas[4]) now there are often popular mobilizations that aim at 
pushing the government toward positions that would favor workers and 
campesinos over employers and landlords. Most notable are the electrical 
worker’s strike, the nurses’ strike 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13930>, the pensioners’ protest, and 
the Admirable Campesino March <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13966>. 
Interestingly, however, it seems to be the struggles of peasant and 
rural communities that are most successful in going beyond mere 
grievances to present a political vision and form spaces of resistance. 
How do you explain this? Why does the epicenter of the revolution now 
seem to be in the rural areas?*

The first thing is that the violent actions of the Right in 2014 and 
2017, which were identified as “guarimbas,” should not be confused or 
compared with the legitimate struggles and mobilizations of the workers, 
peasants and the popular movement. Additionally, it is very important 
that the working people mobilize in defense of their rights and that 
they also transcend immediate economic objectives. Of course, there are 
sectors of the peasantry and some rural communes that are carrying out 
interesting struggles against landlords (old and new members of that 
class) and against the bureaucrats who are in league with them.

The campesino struggle, which is on the rise, is defending the 
progressive achievements made by what is known as the Bolivarian 
Revolution, particularly those made during the administration of 
President Chavez. It has also raised some even bigger goals in terms of 
overcoming agribusiness and obtaining sovereignty in the face of the 
transnationals that control agricultural inputs. That is what was 
proposed by the “Nicomedes Abreu” Class Conscious Peasant Current (under 
PCV leadership), which, together with the Peasants Struggle Platform, 
organized the Admirable March.

But this kind of struggle that develops and takes shape on a path of 
national and social liberation needs to unite with the struggles of the 
working class, where there are forces that fight not only for immediate 
economic and social objectives. We are really enthusiastic about the 
campesino struggle’s advances, because in a country where agricultural 
production has fallen, exacerbating our dependence on imports (and now 
with a lack of foreign currency and also blockaded by imperialism), what 
genuine rural producers can achieve is of strategic importance.

*The PCV signed a document with President Maduro as a preliminary to 
supporting his candidacy in the May 20 elections. Briefly, what is the 
nature of that document and, more importantly, what is the current 
status of the agreement?*

The Unitary Framework Agreement 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13690> signed between the 
national leaderships of the United Socialist Party (PSUV) and the PCV, 
at the suggestion of our party [PCV], expresses programmatic aspects of 
an alliance between the communists and those who are socialists. It took 
shape in the context of a need to confront the crisis of capitalism and 
(locally) the collapse of our dependent and rentier system. 
Unfortunately, the dominant tendencies in the government and in the 
leadership of the PSUV have opted for a reformism that is conciliatory 
with capital and are moving away from revolutionary and progressive 
positions.

Thus, we need to recognize that the government has not adhered to the 
Unitary Framework Agreement’s content. For example, it has not 
reinstated workers illegally dismissed from the public and private 
sector, which was a commitment publically taken on by President Maduro 
himself. Likewise, the government has allowed many state companies to 
deteriorate, and everything points to this being a strategy to privatize 
many of those companies. All this goes against what was set up in the 
document: recovering state enterprises with a new management model that 
would incorporate workers.

*It is no secret that the government has attempted to coopt workers' 
struggles by creating organizations such as the Bolivarian Socialist 
Workers Confederation (CBST), which doesn't have autonomy or vocation 
for struggle. Simultaneously, we have seen some cases of the state’s 
apparatus repressing workers <https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13739> 
and peasants <https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13857>. However, 
despite these contradictions, the revolutionary working class and 
peasants continue to consider themselves Chavistas and, in electoral 
conjunctures, wholeheartedly support the government. In a process of 
change like Venezuela’s, how should one strike a balance between the 
necessary autonomy of the workers' movement on the one hand, and a 
commitment to a process of national emancipation on the other?*

 From our point of view (the PCV and the FNLCT), the workers' struggle 
has not been coopted by the government. Rather the government seeks to 
overcome or domesticate it through the CBST. This trade union 
confederation and, more specifically, its leadership, is an instrument 
of official and bureaucratic trade union reformism. The CBST exists so 
that there is a hegemonic trade unionism that is subordinated to the 
government and led by the reformist petty bourgeoisie.

If in the Puntofijista <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puntofijo_Pact> 
period the governments of Accion Democratica and Copei – at the service 
of US imperialism – had the CTV 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederaci%C3%B3n_de_Trabajadores_de_Venezuela>, 
now, whatever the differences, the current government has the CBST to 
legitimate and rubberstamp all its decisions. All this is very 
problematic, because it does not help to develop class consciousness 
among the workers and does not help create a working class capable of 
confronting the owners, the bourgeois state and the capitalist system – 
thereby pushing for the revolutionary transformation of society.

Thus, the “Cruz Villegas” Class Conscious Current of Workers and the 
FNLCT propose to strengthen the labor movement and class conscious trade 
union movement, and do so with independence and autonomy in the face of 
capital, state, and the bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties. However, 
we are conscious that, when facing the serious imperialist threat that 
looms now over all of Venezuela, unity of action is needed, as is the 
participation of all the diverse workers’ sectors in a broad patriotic 
anti‐imperialist alliance.


    NOTES

[1] The Cruz Villegas Class Conscious Current of Workers is the 
organization of trade unionists and workers leaders within the Communist 
Party of Venezuela. The National Front of Struggle of the Working Class 
is an independent trade union confederation that takes a position close 
to that of the Communist Party of Venezuela.

[2] Recent policies of the government have increasingly converted an 
important part of the salary into bonuses, thereby reducing the nominal 
salary and, consequently, the size of pensions. This has been an ongoing 
tendency in Venezuela – opposed by the Communist Party – which the 
recent economic measures have addressed.

[3] Venezuela’s Bolivarian Constitution of 1999 indicates that a minimum 
salary should be equal or higher than the basic market basket, which 
represents the sum of the prices of the basic goods needed by a family 
of four.

[4] Guarimbas are a form of violent street protest employed by the 
Venezuelan opposition. They frequently involve burning tires and the use 
of barricades to block roads.

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