<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="container font-size5 content-width3">
<div class="header reader-header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13996">https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13996</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Reinaldo Iturriza: Chavismo and Its
Singularities</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">By Reinaldo Iturriza and
Cira Pascual Marquina - August 13, 2018<br>
</div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div class="moz-reader-content line-height4" dir="ltr"
style="display: block;">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div>
<section>
<article>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p><em>Reinaldo Iturriza has engaged with the
Chavista project in a wide range of roles,
from participation to critical and
creative reflection. He is a <a
href="https://elotrosaberypoder.wordpress.com/">blogger</a>
acclaimed by Hugo Chávez, the author of
the book El </em><em>chavismo</em><em> </em><em>salvaje</em><em>
(Wild Chavismo) and former Minister of the
Communes and of Culture. At present,
Iturriza is completing a book called
Caribes while working in the National
Center of History and as a communal
agricultural worker in Lara state. In this
interview for Venezuelanalysis, he
addresses some of the most difficult
questions facing Chavismo today. These
include the dialectic between internal
democracy and leadership in the PSUV
party, the rural </em><em>comuneros</em><em>
that are facing off with the regional
oligarchy and its allies in the
government, and the perception of Chavismo
internationally.</em></p>
<p><strong>Hegemonic historiography interprets
history as developing linearly, implicitly
looking for continuities. By contrast,
your reading of the Chavista phenomenon
points to singularities and ruptures. Can
you explain this to us?</strong></p>
<p>This is indeed a key point. Conservative
historiography makes an enormous effort to
demonstrate Chavismo’s kinship with the most
“backward” elements of Venezuela’s political
tradition. Internationally, there has
certainly been an attempt to dispel the
phenomenon by relating it to the “populism”
said to be characteristic, once more, of
“backward” countries. It focuses attention
on the figure of the leader and relegates
the popular classes to the background.
Tacitly, the latter are considered incapable
of political activity and the same goes for
our countries too, which are presented as
predisposed toward disorder, irrationality
and violence. How often one hears this kind
of opinion! However, the uniqueness of
Chavismo consists, among other things,
precisely in popular protagonism. Chavismo
is the result of an extraordinary process of
forming a political subject that has its
origin in the 1990s, due to a set of
historical circumstances. Moreover, Chávez’s
leadership is itself inconceivable without
that popular upsurge. Chávez is a purely
popular construct: the result of a process
and not the other way around. His leadership
has to do with his resonance with the
people, his translating the desires and
aspirations of the popular subject.</p>
<p>Then, of course, it is surely possible to
point to relations of continuity with the
political culture Acción Democrática [a
right-wing political party that ruled
alongside COPEI for many decades as part of
the so-called Punto Fijo Pact]. This culture
was clientelist, based on the logic of
representation, and relegated the popular
classes to a subordinate role, allowing
“participation” only through traditional
political forms (parties, unions, etc.), and
privileging corporativism. The most
conservative tendencies in Chavismo feel
very comfortable reproducing these same
practices, but, again, that is not what
defines the nature of Chavismo. What is new
in Chavismo is precisely everything that
breaks with the old culture, giving birth to
a new one: the Chavista subject is
essentially Venezuela’s majority population,
that has historically been invisible,
marginalized, which feels a deep distrust of
traditional forms of organization, and which
wagers on the logic of direct participation
and spaces of self-government. Ignoring this
leads to all kinds of errors regarding the
Bolivarian Revolution.</p>
<p><strong>The IV PSUV Congress (July 28‐30)
concluded recently and the debates were
intense, even difficult at times. The most
trying debate focused on the topic of
internal democracy in the party, which has
millions of members. One PSUV tendency
proposed proclaiming Nicolas Maduro as
president of the party and also argued
that (given the difficult conditions
generated by imperialist aggression) he
should personally select the PSUV’s
national leadership. Another tendency
wanted the party’s national leadership to
be elected by the bases while maintaining
Maduro as party president. The first
proposal held the day. Thinking creatively
about the present and the past, what type
of party do you think is needed to build
socialism in the twenty-first century?
Obviously, the question of democracy (and
debate among equals) is key, but it is
also important that communal projects
should have autonomy.</strong></p>
<p>First of all, I consider it correct that
the IV PSUV Congress decided to ratify
Nicolás Maduro as party president.
Chavismo’s unity turns on recognizing the
President’s leadership, not the other way
around. Second, it’s urgent to renew the
party's national leadership. The best way to
do it would have been to appeal to the
party’s bases, to cast one’s lot with the
bases. I do not agree at all with the idea
that more democracy generates disunity. It
is a fallacious argument. Too often, the
Chavista political class decides not to pay
attention to the popular masses’ deep
discontent with the political class in
general, Chavista and anti‐Chavista,
considering them to be disconnected from
reality, without real knowledge of the
problems that the population has to face
every day. There is a very severe crisis of
political mediation, between the party
direction and its bases, that must be faced
with courage and audacity. Among other
things, a party of twenty-first-century
socialism must be one that is willing to do
so. We have already had too many mid- and
high-ranking politicians who ask the people
to make sacrifices that they themselves are
not willing to make. Instead, they take
advantage of the positions they occupy to
obtain benefits, perks, and privileges.</p>
<p><strong>Today it seems as if the rural
areas are where the struggle against the
despotism of capital (and a part of the
bureaucracy) is most active. Examples of
such struggles include El Maizal commune
[in Lara state] , the resistance in the
Sur de Lago [in Zulia state] and <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13966">the
Admirable Campesino March</a>: the
protesting peasant farmers who recently
walked from interior regions to the
capital to make themselves heard. Why do
you think that the rural areas are now the
most active and mobilized regions in this
political process that, until recently,
was focused on urban zones, especially in
the poor barrios?</strong></p>
<p>In each of the foci of rural struggle,
organized popular-class movements are
confronting the regional oligarchy and
powers-that-be, who undoubtedly think that
they are in a position to “restore” their
power in the countryside. The popular
movements are also confronting the aberrant
alliance of a part of the state forces
(bureaucrats, police, military personnel,
judges, etc.) with these same regional power
groups. It is simply unacceptable that this
alliance should take place in a situation
where, in fact, we are called upon to
dedicate all our efforts on using arable
land and must give all the support needed to
the real subject of revolutionary politics
(peasants and comuneros, small and medium
producers). For it is among the latter that
the revolutionary government continues to
operate and hold sway.</p>
<p>In fact, what would really be strange is if
the rural situation today did not generate a
popular response! The meeting of the
peasants and comuneros with the President,
and particularly everything they said during
the time they had the opportunity to speak
(in a national television broadcast), is one
of the most important political events of
recent times. I believe one could say that
the majority of the country felt represented
in their words: in their criticisms and
demands. What we heard there is the same
political clarity found in the people of El
Maizal and other communes, in the people in
Sur del Lago, and in general in all those
who are aware that, in order to overcome
this historical crisis, we will have to be
able to produce what we eat.</p>
<p><strong>In the international context, some
sectors of the the Left say that they are
neither with Chavismo nor with its
enemies, neither with imperialism nor the
Bolivarian government. In truth, that is a
false dilemma, since there is a third
option: grassroots Chavismo. The latter is
of course closer to the government, or at
least is willing to form a front with the
government to face down imperialism (at
the same time as it expresses sometimes
quite strong differences with the ruling
bloc).</strong></p>
<p>It seems to me that this is the typical
position of those who idealize power
relations. Despite all the disagreements one
might have with the government, it is
absolutely clear that anti-Chavismo is
simply not an option. Those sectors of the
Left, which you just mentioned, like to
flaunt their right not to choose. But when
you live in a society like ours, where we
are trying to carry out a revolution -- with
both its wonders and its failures -- and in
which it is not an option to be governed by
the criminals who ruled in the past (the
same people who are recurring to absolutely
all forms of struggle to defeat us,
including assassination), then that
“neither-nor” position looks a lot like
imposture: ”My position is not to take a
position.” Frankly, however, one can go
light on such people. They will understand,
when they do their own revolution. When
imperialism tries to suffocate them, they
will come to understand that the only option
is to breathe.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</article>
</section>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>