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<h1 class="reader-title">The Crisis of Rentier Capitalism in
Venezuela: A Conversation with Oscar Figuera</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">By Cira Pascual Marquina –
October 10, 2019<br>
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<p><em>Oscar Figuera is secretary-general of the
Venezuelan Communist Party (henceforth PCV or
Communist Party). As a 17-year-old metal worker in
Aragua state, he began union organizing with the
Venezuelan Worker’s Unitary Central (CUTV, the PCV’s
union). In 1986 he became Secretary-General of the
PCV union. Figuera was elected to Venezuela's
National Assembly for the period 2016 to 2020. In
this exclusive interview, Figuera presents his
party’s case for how Venezuela should attempt to
overcome its economic and social crisis.</em></p>
<p><strong>How do you analyze the situation of the
Venezuelan working class and the pueblo in general?
What do you think are the roots of the crisis.</strong></p>
<p>For us, it is important to begin by characterizing
Venezuelan society. For the Communist Party, what has
entered into a serious crisis in Venezuela is the
capitalist, dependent mode of production which is
characterized by a rentier model of accumulation: we
find the roots of the catastrophic crisis that we are
currently facing in that model.</p>
<p>I should add that we are paying the consequences of
recent mistakes: the model of accumulation wasn’t
transformed during the Bolivarian Process. It wasn’t
transformed with President Chavez and much less so
now, during the presidency of Nicolas Maduro.</p>
<p>This, in turn, brings us to another question: why
does the PCV consider that Venezuela, since Chavez’s
arrival to power, is in a process of national
liberation? To that, we would say that we considered
that Chavez’s program brought forth one of the key
elements to breaking with dependency and building a
new Latin American and Caribbean system: an organized
effort to build a united bloc of our continent’s
peoples.</p>
<p>This is a line of work which we historically promoted
and which is, from our perspective, fundamental, if we
are to advance toward breaking with imperialist
domination and the longstanding dependency of our
region. We adopted the project put forth by President
Chavez from a tactical and strategic perspective.</p>
<p>Actually, we go as far as saying that, from our point
of view (and we said this when President Chavez made
the proposal), Venezuela’s [economic] development
isn’t mature enough to move toward socialism. We
understand that when Chavez began to speak of
socialism, his call fit with a particular political
scenario, but it didn’t correspond with the
development of the country’s productive forces (what
we generally call the objective conditions), nor with
the subjective conditions of the Venezuelan people.
So, again, we are where we are because there is a
profound crisis of the capitalist and dependent
rentier model which wasn’t transformed in the twenty
plus years of the Bolivarian Process.</p>
<p>Another key to understanding our support of Hugo
Chavez is the issue of oil sovereignty. With Chavez,
the Venezuelan state was able to control the nation’s
main source of wealth: oil. Before Chavez, ninety
percent of the oil profits were expropriated by large
transnationals. With Chavez, part of the oil revenues,
which has been the backbone of Venezuela’s economy for
the past one hundred years, was put at the service of
attending to the social, cultural, and political needs
of the pueblo.</p>
<p>However, Venezuela didn’t advance in other aspects
which are key to building a sovereign nation, such as
the development of productive forces. Chavez did
initiate a politicization of the pueblo, which became
actively engaged. Chavez’s era politicized the
Venezuelan people and that is, in part, one of the
keys to our people’s resilience today. With Chavez,
there was an important leap in understanding that US
imperialism, its European allies, and the national
oligarchical forces aligned with international capital
are our fundamental enemies.</p>
<p><strong>How does the PCV analyze the Bolivarian
Government’s direction in recent years? Some
celebrate Nicolas Maduro’s leadership – he has
defeated coups d'état, won elections, and resisted
the onslaught of imperialism – whereas others
criticize his pro-capitalist solutions to the
crisis: privatizations, cuts in social spending,
elimination of workers’ rights, and so on.</strong></p>
<p>Since early 2019, as an outcome of the PCV’s XVII
Plenary, our position has been that the policies
pushed forth by Maduro’s government are liberal ones,
and this means that the weight of the crisis is borne
by the poorest. This was ratified in our XIV Plenary
just a couple of months ago.</p>
<p>As I mentioned before, at the root of the crisis is
the model of accumulation – that, combined with the
imperialist aggression. But we believe that liberal
[economic] policies are not going to bring us out of
the crisis.</p>
<p>Within the party, there is an ongoing debate about
the precise characterization of the government’s
economic tendency. Is it neoliberal? The answer to
that is still pending, but we believe that the
measures that have been implemented privilege
capitalist investment, national and particularly
foreign. In that sense, we have witnessed a
deregularization in the sphere of labor, and a
spectacular fall in the price of the labor force,
large-scale layoffs, reforms, etc.</p>
<p>All this is done, as I mentioned, with one aim:
encouraging investment. That, however, is not going to
happen for one very simple reason: foreign investment
only comes to Venezuela when the price of oil is high,
and it comes here with the sole objective of directly
profiting from the wealth generated by oil sales.
Capitalists have never developed this country, they
have never invested a penny. And now that the oil
prices are low, all that we can expect them to do is
to come here to profit from our gold, coltan, and the
other strategic minerals that are found in our
territory.</p>
<p>So instead of liberalizing [the economy] and seeking
foreign investment, which will not work, Maduro’s
government should focus on attending to the needs of
the people with social programs, while looking for a
revolutionary way out of the crisis of the capitalist
rentier model.</p>
<p>We are against the route of class-conciliation, which
privileges and gives advantages to foreign investment.
All this is particularly problematic when that route
is wrapped up in a socialist discourse that has no
connection with reality… We believe that that
socialist discourse hurts the masses because it
distorts our reality. Tragically, many are rejecting
socialism because they identify what is happening now
with the project, and others take it to mean that
socialism demands a great level of sacrifice. Of
course, it is true that socialism demands sacrifice.
Socialism requires a great deal of sacrifice because
it confronts the forces of capital, but socialism is
not only that, it’s also about building something new,
and that perspective is nowhere to be found in the
present.</p>
<p>In addition to addressing the people’s urgent needs,
which is something that the government must do, we
also argue for the centrality of the working class and
the role of the campesinos and the communards in the
solution to the crisis. Should we attempt to come out
of the current crisis together with transnational
capital? Should we let the bureaucratic perspective
prevail? Or is the path out of the current crisis in
the hands of those who produce with their hands? We
cast our lot with the latter.</p>
<p>Now, one could ask, given our conditions, isn’t it
necessary to pursue some alliances with sectors of
capital? Yes. We are not inflexible. We understand
that the state has no resources to jumpstart
production, so some concessions must be made.
Venezuela has to look for allies, but seeking
alliances with transnationals is not the way to go.
They will not bring investment and will bring foreign
interests along. Instead, Venezuela should seek
investment from sectors that accept that we have a
process of national liberation and that the
construction of an autonomous and independent model is
one of our key goals.</p>
<p>In any case, the role of the working class, the role
of campesinos, the role of communards must be brought
into play, not in merely discursive terms but with
real participation in the process of recovery of the
productive apparatus. That is why we have to build a
broad anti-imperialist alliance, with all sectors,
including the government of President Nicolas Maduro.
All those committed to social change should be brought
on board, including the patriotic capitalist sector.</p>
<p>After all, we are in the midst of an
inter-imperialist dispute between world powers. This
confrontation is, actually, at the core of the
aggression against Venezuela. The world powers don’t
want us to establish alliances with China, Russia, and
India, because those alliances are key to breaking
with our dependent situation. We have to move in the
direction of those alliances, and we have to, in
parallel, build the union of Latin American and
Caribbean countries, which is the only means to weaken
imperialism’s chains.</p>
<p><strong>There have recently been dialogs between the
government and some sectors of the opposition. These
dialogues took place without the participation of
any Chavista organizations, except the PSUV.
Additionally, and according to your party’s own
statements, the PSUV has broken the <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13690">PSUV-PCV
Unity Agreement to Confront Crisis of Venezuelan
Capitalism</a> (February 26, 2018), which was the
basis for the PCV’s support of Nicolas Maduro’s 2018
candidacy. Do you consider the PSUV to be capable of
listening to the popular movement and Chavista left?</strong></p>
<p>The PSUV is not listening to the diverse voices,
which includes other patriotic and revolutionary
forces. There is one simple reason for that: for those
of us on the left, it is very difficult to separate
ourselves from the alliance with the government and
the PSUV, because we have one common enemy – our main
enemy – which is US imperialism, its European allies,
and the internal right-wing.</p>
<p>Given this fact, the government and the PSUV think
they do not need to discuss anything with us. They act
unilaterally. It is a serious mistake, since
construction benefits from collective participation.
The working class, the campesinos, and the communards,
we all have analyses and proposals that can help bring
Venezuela out of the crisis.</p>
<p>It could be that the government or the PSUV don’t
share the views or proposals that come from the
popular camp. Within the PSUV there are different
ideological currents, including social democrats,
social Christians, and even liberals. However, the
political leadership should understand that we are in
a diverse alliance (“unity within diversity”), and
this requires spaces of collective construction.</p>
<p>Additionally, the contradictions that arise should
not be understood as a problem. Much the opposite,
contradiction can be constructive. The problem is not
that there may be contradictions inside the movement;
the problem is how we deal with them! If
contradictions are dealt with badly, that can produce
ruptures, and in a moment like ours, fractures weaken
our collective project.</p>
<p>Since the PSUV understands that we will not ally
ourselves with the right or with imperialism, they
close spaces for common construction. They act in an
arrogant manner that (even if it doesn’t lead to
rupture) produces confrontations. That is what is
happening now.</p>
<p>In our most recent Plenary session, we developed the
slogan “confront, separate, and accumulate forces to
advance towards the construction of the working class,
campesino, communal, and popular force” [“confrontar,
deslindar y acumular fuerzas para avanzar en la
construcción de una fuerza obrera, campesina, comunera
y popular”]. The idea is to move toward an ample
anti-imperialist alliance to confront and defeat the
external aggression while also confronting internal
reformist and submissive currents which, with a false
revolutionary discourse, are developing alliances that
go against the process of national liberation and
whose perspective is the opposite of the socialist
one.</p>
<p><strong>And what is the PCV’s approach to the <a
href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14657">recent
dialogues</a>? </strong></p>
<p>The most recent dialogues have led to an agreement
with one sector of the opposition. We believe that
[the idea of dialoguing] was correct, and these
dialogues are important because they show the world
that the ultra-right opposition is not the only one in
our country. However, that agreement was built without
the participation of other sectors [of Chavismo]. That
has led to a situation that isn’t easy to navigate.</p>
<p>One of the agreements was that representatives of the
<a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/gpp">Patriotic
Pole</a> would be incorporated into the National
Assembly. However, the Communist Party has decided to
not incorporate itself into that organ. [Our reasons
are:] first, that an explanation hasn’t been given to
us as to what the tactic would be in that space, and,
second, that the National Assembly continues to be in
contempt [of the law], and it is the key tool of
imperialist aggression in our country. The National
Assembly is a body that does not recognize other
public powers, including Maduro’s presidency, and our
participation there would lead to creating more
confusion among the people. Our presence would
legitimate a tool that is in the service of
counterrevolutionary conspiracy.</p>
<p>When faced with this dilemma, we decided to not
incorporate ourselves into the National Assembly,
although this is an issue still on the table and it
will be debated soon in the XV Plenary [session of our
party]. Frankly, our understanding is that the
National Constitutive Assembly should have taken
forceful action when Juan Guaido, who is the president
of the National Assembly, proclaimed himself
president. The National Assembly is part of a
conspiracy and should be dissolved.</p>
<p>Now, if the PSUV were to explain to us that there is
a route to overcome the conspirative character of the
National Assembly, them we might well reincorporate
ourselves to the space, following an internal debate.</p>
<p>There have been new forms of protest in recent years:
protests that do not seek regime change, but rather
solutions to concrete demands in the face of serious
problems. These range from people protesting for gas
and water to campesinos demanding justice and
protection from landowners. How do you understand this
new phenomenon?</p>
<p>Emanating from the popular and patriotic movement and
from those sectors committed to transforming
Venezuelan society, there is a growing tendency to
stage legitimate protests. These protests no longer
come from the right, but rather from the popular
revolutionary movement, from the force that has come
to be known as Chavismo. They put forth demands but
also proposals that have to do with labor policies,
agrarian, and campesino policies, and so on. These
protests share one concern: the course of the
Bolivarian Process and the living conditions of the
people.</p>
<p>The Communist Party believes that it is important to
bring together legitimate grievances, to create a
nation-wide front that will stand firm when faced with
imperialism but will also confront the government’s
promotion of liberal policies.</p>
<p>That is our aim in promoting the National Struggle
Front of the Working Class [Frente Nacional de Lucha
de la Clase Trabajadora]. This front is not an
appendix of the Communist Party. We are just one
factor inside it. There are Trotskyist sectors there,
and there are sectors from the PSUV’s bases. Actually,
they are the majority.</p>
<p>We are also promoting the work of the Nicomedes Abreu
Campesino Current [Corriente Campesina Clasista
Nicomedes Abreu], trying to work with diverse communal
actors, among them El Maizal Commune and other
communes that have truly important work but are not
under PCV leadership. We believe that we have to come
together in a bloc with these communal organizations,
because they are instances of self-government that
question the bureaucratic conception of power.</p>
<p><strong>Finally, in the face of the imperialist
aggressions and the drifting of the government
toward “reformist” or even “liberal” position, what
is the role of internationalist solidarity with the
Bolivarian Process?</strong></p>
<p>The Communist Party has a line of work toward
fostering solidarity, and we do this with thorough
presentation of what is going on here when we travel
abroad. To the forces of the left, to the communist
parties and other organizations, we do not hide the
contradictions that we are facing – the complexities
of the process and the tendencies that confront one
another –, but we always make it clear that our main
enemy is imperialism. We struggle inside the process,
but when faced with imperialism, we are unified and
disciplined. Thus, we explain [the complexities of
what is going on inside], but we also demand
solidarity.</p>
<p>If US imperialism, its European allies, and the
continental right put their hands on Venezuela, the
situation will resemble the one at the end of the
1980s with the fall of the Soviet Union and the East
bloc. That was a very hard blow to revolutionary
forces worldwide. Even though the problems we face
here are huge, Venezuela continues to be a flagship in
the anti-imperialist struggle. We need a Venezuela
that can hold its ground, while we struggle within.</p>
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