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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></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Chávismo and Its Discontents:
International Left Intellectuals Respond to Venezuelan
Government’s Legislative Election Setback</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">by <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/author/roger-harris-chuck-kaufman/"
rel="nofollow">Roger Harris – Chuck Kaufman</a> - January
20, 2017<br>
</span></div>
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<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>
<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>http://taskforceamericas.org/</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>https://afgj.org/</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>
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