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<span class="post_date" title="2016-01-20">January 20, 2016</span>
<h1 class="headline" itemprop="headline"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/20/chavismo-and-its-discontents-international-left-intellectuals-respond-to-venezuelan-governments-legislative-election-setback/"
rel="bookmark">Chávismo and Its Discontents: International Left
Intellectuals Respond to Venezuelan Government’s Legislative
Election Setback</a></h1>
<p class="post_meta"> <span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/author/rogerchuck0980/"
rel="nofollow">Roger Harris – Chuck Kaufman</a></span> </p>
<div class="post_content" itemprop="articleBody"><b><small><small><small><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/20/chavismo-and-its-discontents-international-left-intellectuals-respond-to-venezuelan-governments-legislative-election-setback/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/20/chavismo-and-its-discontents-international-left-intellectuals-respond-to-venezuelan-governments-legislative-election-setback/</a></small></small></small></small></small></small></b><br>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35019111">Five
hours after the polls had closed</a>, the National Electoral
Council (CNE) announced a landslide victory for the opposition
in Venezuela’s the National Assembly elections.</p>
<p>Almost immediately after, President Maduro <a
href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35019111">addressed</a>
the nation accepting “these adverse results,” the worst defeat
for the followers of Hugo Chávez in the 20 elections since 1998.
Maduro subsequently has <a
href="http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11765">called</a> for a
“deep process of revision and self-criticism” in the wake of the
December 6<sup>th</sup>, 2015, election.</p>
<p>The response of international left intellectuals has ranged
from critical support to outright rejection of the socialist
project in Venezuela. We argue for the importance of recognizing
the overarching influence of US imperialism and for the
acceptance of using the state as an instrument of popular power
by the international solidarity movement.</p>
<p><strong>Report from Venezuela</strong></p>
<p>Reporting from Venezuela three weeks after the election, Lisa
Sullivan (pers. com.) comments: “In my experience, I have
witnessed a whole generation of my neighbors and friends gain
access to dignified housing, free education, stable jobs with
honorable wages, free health care and a sense of profound
citizenship as full participants in rebuilding their country.”</p>
<p>Sullivan, from the US, is a long-term solidarity activist who
brought up her family in Venezuela. She acknowledges that “a lot
of this is now falling apart,” but adds “to slander everything
that took place in the past 15 years in order to justify
critiques today” renders one “irrelevant” at best.</p>
<p><strong>Need for an Attitude Change</strong></p>
<p>Chilean sociologist and activist Marta Harnecker continues to
be a critical supporter of Chávismo. Writing in the January 2016
issue of <em>Monthly Review,</em> Harnecker advocates for a
union of social movements with the left government, as long as
each side of the equation learns to behave themselves properly.</p>
<p>Critical of the Leninist formulation of state and party,
Harnecker calls instead for an attitude change where social
movements “overcome the impulse to oppose everything that comes
from the government,” while left governments have to “be very
flexible and patient in working with social movement leaders.”</p>
<p>Harnecker cautions that “the road to socialism (is) difficult
but not impossible,” due to many constraints including what she
characterizes as “elites who were previously dominant.” The
pivotal presence of US imperialism is largely down played from
her configuration of the wielders of political power.</p>
<p><strong>Transnational Capitalist Class</strong></p>
<p>Ignoring, or indeed denying, the phenomenon of US imperialism
gets further developed by prominent academic leftist William L.
Robinson at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and
author most recently of <em><a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1107691117/counterpunchmaga">Global
Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity</a> </em>(2014,
Cambridge University Press). Robinson acknowledges that in
former times Latin America was subject to Spanish, Portuguese,
and British colonialism. But in the current era a transnational
capitalist class has arisen, which transcends state boundaries
and renders the notion of US imperialism moot.</p>
<p>This formulation of an amorphous transnational capitalist
class, rather than US imperialism, as the primary international
antagonist of the social movements has gotten considerable
currency among international left intellectuals, but little
traction on the ground in Venezuela where it stands in
contradiction to the iron heel of the US military’s some half
dozen bases in Colombia on Venezuela’s western border, the US
Fourth Fleet patrolling Venezuela’s Caribbean border along with
additional US military bases a few air minutes away in Aruba and
Curaçao.</p>
<p><strong>US Regime Change Efforts in Venezuela</strong></p>
<p>Our experience on delegations to Venezuela is that grassroots
activists to a person will tell you of the interference by US
governmental agencies such as the CIA and USAID along with
quasi-US-governmental organs such as the National Endowment for
Democracy, International Republican Institute, National Democrat
Institute for International Affairs, etc.</p>
<p>It is not for nothing that the US had an <a
href="https://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are/organization/bureaus/bureau-democracy-conflict-and-humanitarian-assistance/office-1">Office
of Transition Initiates</a> (OTI) – tagline “helping local
partners advance peace and democracy” – to achieve regime change
in Venezuela. The US <a
href="http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5894">illegally</a>
funnels <a
href="http://www.vice.com/read/does-the-uss-funding-of-the-venezuelan-opposition-matter">millions
of dollars</a> annually to the Venezuelan opposition,
coordinated by the US embassy. These efforts to mobilize and
organize the opposition and build its capacity – so-called
“democracy promotion,” though really the opposite – have borne
fruit in the most recent Venezuelan election.</p>
<p><strong>To My Chávista Friends</strong></p>
<p>The existence of US imperialism is not denied by Berkeley
author Clif Ross who has written several books about Venezuela
and Latin America. He is a former faithful Chávista supporter
turned apostate. Ross doesn’t distinguish US imperialism from,
say, a non-existent Cuban imperialism. He is <a
href="http://www.cliftonross.com/#%21Full-article-from-Counterpunch/acsgo/566b06e10cf2bbe8cab5210b">on
record</a> to “defend the Bolivarian process” against both
imperialisms.</p>
<p>His <a
href="http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/12/to-my-chavista-friends/"><em>To
My Chávista Friends</em></a> is a critique of Chávismo that
provides a left gloss to a view that is fundamentally consonant
with the US State Department. Ross proclaims: “The ‘Bolivarian
Revolution’ is over. It failed.”</p>
<p>Further, the “20<sup>th</sup> century socialism” of the USSR,
China, and Cuba is dismissed as simply a “nightmare,” without
any acknowledgement of the social orders that were replaced and
the enormous material gains attained by those populaces.</p>
<p>Ross gives Chávismo failing grades for not accommodating to
neo-liberal capitalism, criticizing the Venezuelan government
for having “the most business unfriendly environment in the
world,” referencing the World Bank. Adding, “I wouldn’t blame
the business sector for fighting back against the relentless
onslaught of attacks by the government over the past 16 years.”</p>
<p>His sympathies are further revealed in his resurrecting
hardline opposition politician Leopoldo López as some kind of
socialist. López, scion of one of Venezuela’s wealthiest
families, is currently serving time for inciting violent
protests in February 2014 following opposition electoral losses.
The economic sabotage in Venezuela by large privately held
corporations, including proven uncovering of massive hoarding,
is deemed “some imaginary ‘economic war.’”</p>
<p>We believe that it is not Ross’s intention to promote US
imperialism. Rather his is a reaction to the deep
disillusionment shared by many of the failure of Chávismo to
overcome in a decade and a half some of the challenges of
transitioning from capitalism to socialism, including
transforming the relations of production. Seeing blemishes on
both sides, he wishes for an untainted, pure third way
transcending statist solutions.</p>
<p><strong>Rats Leaving a Sinking Ship</strong></p>
<p>We do not believe that the metaphor of rats leaving a sinking
ship applies to the international left defectors from the
Chávista camp. The ship has not sunk.</p>
<p>Of the five branches of the Venezuelan government, only the
unicameral National Assembly is currently controlled by the
notoriously fractious opposition coalition made up of 20
political parties. The executive is still held by Maduro, whose
term extends to 2019, although he may have to weather a recall
referendum. Meanwhile the Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir
Padrino pledged the <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Venezuelan-Military-Vows-Absolute-Loyalty-to-Nicolas-Maduro--20160107-0042.html">military’s
allegiance</a>, stating “The president is the highest
authority of the state and we reiterate our absolute loyalty and
unconditional support for him.”</p>
<p>The Chávista’s United Socialist Party (PSUV) remains by far the
largest in Venezuela with some 6 million giving the party <a
href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/venezuelan-election-results-the-electoral-system-and-democracy/5495343">42%</a>
of the vote in the December election. A militant Chávista base
will staunchly resist neoliberalism and defend the advances of
the last 15 years such as a million new housing units and access
to medical care and education.</p>
<p>The opposition MUD coalition, despite the US government’s best
efforts to herd these contentious cats, can only agree on their
opposition to Maduro. Voted in reaction to mounting economic
problems, MUD may not have a consensus program beyond opposition
leader Henry Ramos Allup’s <a
href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-04/venezuela-opposition-chooses-henry-ramos-allup-to-lead-congress">announced</a>
6-month plan to oust Maduro.</p>
<p><strong>Slippery Slope</strong></p>
<p>One thing is clear: all of Venezuela’s current problems were
inherited by Maduro when he assumed the presidency in a close
election in April 2013. As one of us had <a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/02/the-legacy-of-hugo-chavez/">commented</a>
back then: “The problems of building 21st century socialism on a
capitalist foundation include crime, inefficiency/shortages, and
inflation/devaluation. These are the problems inherited from the
existing capitalist order and exacerbated by the sabotage of the
opposition. This is the time bomb that has been handed to
Maduro.” And that time bomb has been ticking ever since.</p>
<p>From the moment that the Venezuelan presidential election
results were announced in 2013, a campaign <a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/18/venezuela-protests-us-support-regime-">orchestrated
by Washington</a> was launched by the Venezuelan opposition to
show their rage in order to <a
href="http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10580">destabilize
the country and overthrow</a> Maduro, followed by the even
more violent <em>guarimbas</em> of early 2014. . The opposition
launched a campaign, costing the lives of 43 Venezuelans, to
achieve by extra-constitutional means what could not be achieved
through the democratic election process.</p>
<p>From the get go, Maduro was on a slippery slope of defending
his government while postponing the hard decisions required to
raise the ridiculously low price of oil, the dysfunctional
multiple currency exchange rates, food shortages, etc. The
longer he delayed, the worse the problems became while his
political capital continued to dissipate.</p>
<p>A flurry of recommendations have been floated to right the
economic ship, as characterized by <a
href="http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11790">James
Suggett</a>, ranging from right to left: neoliberalism,
market-based reform, correction and maintenance of current
policies, socialism with the state, and socialism without the
state. None are without high risks, and all require a societal
consensus which presently does not exist in Venezuela’s highly
polarized polity.</p>
<p><strong>Role of International Solidarity</strong></p>
<p>So what is the role of international solidarity at this
historical moment in Venezuela? Particularly what is the role of
us in the United States given our government’s clear
intervention on behalf of “regime change?”</p>
<p>First we need to guard against buying into American
exceptionalism, which sees our country as having a unique role –
some would say god-given role – as arbiter of freedom and
democracy in the world. American exceptionalism is a deep-seated
heresy that even infects the left in this country. All too often
we assume a natural right to appropriate and to enter into
debates in other countries on an equal footing with those who
will bear the consequences resulting from those debates. This
hubris is particularly prevalent among left intellectuals.</p>
<p>In fact, we only bear the consequences in a general sense that
set-backs in left governments and movements affect our own
efforts to build a better world through changing our own
government. But we are personally untouched by the economic and
social effects of decisions in countries like Venezuela.</p>
<p>We are not stakeholders in Venezuela’s “deep process of
revision and self-criticism” and therefore need not insert
ourselves in their process. Rather, we need our own deep process
of revision and self-criticism to determine why the solidarity
movement is not more effective in its efforts to modify US
behavior. We clearly are stakeholders in US imperialism and thus
share responsibility for the suffering it imposes on the lives
of Venezuelans and movements throughout the world that dare to
chart their own course.</p>
<p>We have to ask ourselves, “Do my statements empower and amplify
the articulated priorities of the movements and governments I am
in solidarity with, or do they strengthen the US government
narrative and create even greater space for it to intervene in
the sovereign affairs of other countries?” Anyone who does not
include the effects of US imperialist intervention in their
analysis is almost surely doing the latter. And, anyone who
ignores the expressed priorities of the movements and
governments that are living the struggle, most certainly cannot
claim the mantle of “critical support” to validate their
commentary.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="author_description"> <strong><em>Roger D. Harris</em></strong><em>
is the past president of the Task Force on the Americas (</em><a
href="http://taskforceamericas.org/"><em><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://taskforceamericas.org/">http://taskforceamericas.org/</a></em></a><em>).
</em>
<em><strong>Chuck Kaufman</strong></em> <em>is national
co-coordinator of the Alliance of Global Justice (</em><a
href="https://afgj.org/"><em><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://afgj.org/">https://afgj.org/</a></em></a><em>).
Both have traveled to Venezuela on a number of political
delegations, where they met with both Chávista and opposition
representatives. They may be contacted through the websites of
their respective organizations.</em> </p>
</div>
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