[News] Defending Venezuela: Two Approaches

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14433


  Defending Venezuela: Two Approaches

By Chris Gilbert ‐ Monthly Review Online - April 18, 2019
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Recent U.S. attacks on Venezuela have generated a widespread 
international response. Good willed people from all walks of life have 
come forward to express their solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution 
and their opposition to intervention. This is inspiring and leads one to 
conclude that there is generalized dissatisfaction with the global 
system and, together with it, a willingness to be critical and work for 
change.

Naturally these defenses have focused on imperialism, intervention and 
interference. The overall consensus is “Hands off Venezuela.” This 
slogan is a good one, since every thinking person today defends 
democracy, and a condition for democracy is that nations maintain (or 
attain) their sovereignty. (Nothing could be more antidemocratic than 
having foreign powers interfere in a country and have them sponsor 
foreign-appointed pretenders such as Juan Guaidó).

However, this focus on imperialist interference, correct as it is, has 
sometimes led to an apparent indifference to the content of the 
revolution and its internal dynamic. One might think that the oversight 
is actually for the better since internal affairs are “none of our 
business, but rather the responsibility of Venezuelans.” Yet I think 
that this sidelining of the internal dynamic and contents of the 
Bolivarian process is mistaken. Although it has been a pattern of 
internationalist behavior for some time, I believe it is not necessary 
and could be even harmful.

 From the start, the Venezuelan revolution skillfully interpellated 
people from all around the world. It said to them/: Our struggle is your 
struggle, your struggle is/ our /struggle/. That is not just a 
tactically useful position but is actually scientifically correct.

For this reason, the Venezuelan revolution declared from the beginning 
that the problems of neoliberalism, imperialism, and later capitalism, 
were not unique to Venezuela. They were challenges that peoples from all 
around the world faced, and it invited people to join in a common struggle.

It follows that, if the problems faced by the Venezuelan revolution are 
universal ones, then the solutions discovered along the way also have 
some claim to universality. (A claim to universality, by the way, does 
not mean that one /has/ the universal solution; it means that a 
universal solution is being /proposed /and has to be evaluated.)

These hypothesized solutions developed over time. The Venezuelan 
revolution first proposed /popular, participative democracy/ to solve 
the problems created by neoliberalism. Later, it concluded that this 
kind of democracy had to be extended to the sphere of production to be 
real democracy, and this led to proposing /socialism /as the way 
forward. Finally, the revolution refined its socialist proposal by 
hypothesizing that /communes /are the key to realizing democracy in the 
area of production.

It is important to recognize that the commune is not just a whim, nor is 
it part of some endogenous “Venezuelan path to socialism,” but rather a 
solution to a universal problem. This is because /capital/ subordinates 
society through a diffuse metabolism that is essentially hierarchical, 
implying that there has to be a diffuse nonhierarchical environment to 
overcome it. The commune /is /that proposed nonhierarchical and 
democratic environment for production and life.

Any or all of these ideas could be wrong. Nevertheless they are 
solutions proposed to overcome shared problems. Therefore, they propose 
to be universally-valid solutions for how to overcome imperialism and 
capitalism.

Coming back to the question of imperialist interference and how to 
oppose it: It is one thing to show the criminality of imperialist 
interference—it is indeed criminal—but it is a more powerful gesture to 
show that popular democracy can confront imperialism (a takeaway being 
that popular democracy in your own context, be it Nigeria or Nepal, 
could confront imperialism). Finally, it is an even stronger idea to 
show that socialism—that is, democratic, self-governed production—could 
lead to a world without imperialisms (that is, a world in which the 
imperialist motive would not be operative).

So when intellectuals defend Venezuela, why not put the cards on the 
table and say that we also defend popular democracy, socialism, and 
communal production? The orthodox, time-honored answer is that we need 
the most ample alliance possible and cannot risk offending people who 
maybe don’t like popular democracy, socialism or communal production.

This argument is a bit like the old claim that we need the support of 
the progressive bourgeoisie (which, these days, is a bit like looking 
for the philosopher’s stone or the unicorn). Of course, we may need to 
choose our words carefully (since some words, such as “communism,” have 
been victims of so much propaganda that they might alienate the masses). 
Yet it remains undeniably true that /defending popular empowerment and 
social justice through a complete transformation of the current 
system/ would incorporate more people than it would turn off.

So why do spokespeople and intellectuals so often backburner these 
aspects of the Bolivarian revolution in their discourse and their 
defenses? There may be motives that are honest, including simple 
ignorance of the revolution’s contents (which as long as it is not 
/willful/ ignorance is understandable). Nevertheless, it is extremely 
probable that many right-wing elements inside or associated with the 
process, including intellectuals, actually use the crisis to advance 
their agenda, which involves eliminating the Venezuelan revolution’s 
proposals for how to achieve social justice and popular power.

These right-wing elements are surely delighted to see the shifting of 
goalposts that is taking place in the public sphere. Once intellectuals 
in pro-Bolivarian contexts defended popular democracy and socialism, but 
now they defend just sovereignty. Perhaps mere /shared sovereignty/ will 
be the next goalpost they defend.

However, the law of diminishing returns does not have to operate in the 
field of international solidarity. Internationalism can take the 
right-wing path of empty or formal defense, in which the content of the 
Bolivarian process is ignored, or it can take the left-wing path, in 
which sovereignty is defended along with the social project.

The latter defense is not only the correct one for those who struggle 
for a better world; it is also the only consistent one, since there is 
no sustainable basis for national sovereignty in peripheral countries 
except popular power. Furthermore, a left without the capacity to 
imagine and project a better world—call it socialist, communal, or 
self-governing—is a virtually useless one.

/The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not 
necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff./

-- 
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