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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
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href="http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14433">http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14433</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Defending Venezuela: Two Approaches</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">By Chris Gilbert ‐ Monthly
Review Online - April 18, 2019<br>
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<p>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.</p>
<p>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).</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>From the start, the Venezuelan revolution
skillfully interpellated people from all
around the world. It said to them<em>: Our
struggle is your struggle, your struggle
is</em> our <em>struggle</em>. That is not
just a tactically useful position but is
actually scientifically correct.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <em>has</em> the
universal solution; it means that a
universal solution is being <em>proposed </em>and
has to be evaluated.)</p>
<p>These hypothesized solutions developed over
time. The Venezuelan revolution first
proposed <em>popular, participative
democracy</em> 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 <em>socialism </em>as the way
forward. Finally, the revolution refined its
socialist proposal by hypothesizing that <em>communes </em>are
the key to realizing democracy in the area
of production.</p>
<p>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 <em>capital</em> 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 <em>is </em>that
proposed nonhierarchical and democratic
environment for production and life.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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).</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <em>defending popular
empowerment and social justice through a
complete transformation of the current
system</em> would incorporate more people
than it would turn off.</p>
<p>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 <em>willful</em> 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.</p>
<p>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 <em>shared
sovereignty</em> will be the next goalpost
they defend.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><em>The views expressed in this article are
the author's own and do not necessarily
reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis
editorial staff.</em></p>
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