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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
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href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14043">https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14043</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">The Role of the Working Class in
Venezuela’s Crisis: An Interview with Pedro Eusse</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">By Pedro Eusse and Cira
Pascual Marquina - September 10, 2018</div>
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<p><em>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). </em></p>
<p><em>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 <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14011">economic
measures</a> recently announced by President
Maduro.</em></p>
<p><strong>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?</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><strong>What do you think will be the short‐term and
long‐term impact of the <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14011">new
economic measures</a> (including the monetary
reconversion, the anchoring of the Sovereign Bolivar
to the Petro, and the new minimum wage) on
purchasing power of the Venezuelans?</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/constitution">Constitution</a>’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.</p>
<p><strong>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 <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13930">nurses’
strike</a>, the pensioners’ protest, and the <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13966">Admirable
Campesino March</a>. 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?</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><strong>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?</strong></p>
<p>The <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13690">Unitary
Framework Agreement</a> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><strong>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 <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13739">workers</a>
and <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13857">peasants</a>.
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?</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>If in the <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puntofijo_Pact">Puntofijista</a>
period the governments of Accion Democratica and Copei
– at the service of US imperialism – had the <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederaci%C3%B3n_de_Trabajadores_de_Venezuela">CTV</a>,
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>NOTES</h2>
<p>[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.</p>
<p>[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.</p>
<p>[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.</p>
<p>[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.</p>
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