Maduro ‘ready to radicalise the revolution’
Imperialist and comprador sabotage can only be countered by the rule of the proletariat.
While the corrupt and reactionary agents of the bourgeoisie in Brazil have illegally removed the democratically elected president Dilma Rousseff from office, leaving the traitorous Temer holding the reins, the class struggle in Venezuela intensifies. (For background see Attempted coup in Brazil, Proletarian, April 2016)
Venezuela has been suffering at the hands of the national and international bourgeoisie and compradors, who are determined to reverse and overthrow the revolution and consequently are conspiring to sabotage the gains made under the leadership of Presidents Chávez and Maduro, and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
Hoarding basic goods such as toilet rolls and food, economic and infrastructural sabotage, capital flight and, more recently, assassinations, combined with the drop in oil revenues, are just some of the tactics employed to undermine the popular democratic efforts to begin the socialist transformation of Venezuela.
The victory of the opposition coalition, the MUD, in the elections for the national assembly has brought home to the most revolutionary sections of Venezuelan society the need to intensify the struggle against the bourgeoisie and achieve the victory of socialism.
Therefore, the PSUV is taking more decisive action, with President Maduro announcing in December, “this is no time for cohabitation or coexistence with the bourgeoisie”. (See Maduro says it is time to end cohabitation and coexistence with the bourgeoisie, Lalkar, January 2016)
Putting these words into practice, a state of emergency has now been declared in response to the contrived shortages of food and medicine, mirroring the situation in 2002 (and the attempted coup against President Chávez) when oil prices plummeted and the public took control of food distribution. Maduro has already approved the funding of seven large-scale projects to set up communes and community councils, known as the ‘Communal Power’, in order to kick-start food production and distribution.
Further to this, at a rally to support these small-to-medium production projects managed by workers’ councils, Maduro announced: “I’m ready to hand over to the Communal Power any factory stopped by any rich person in this country … Whoever doesn’t want to work should leave and those who do are welcome; we will go united. This country needs all of its economic structure to be functioning.
“A stopped factory (is) a factory turned over to the people; the moment to do it has come. I’m ready to do it, to radicalise the revolution.” (Maduro orders shuttered factories seized and given to workers, Telesur, 15 May 2016)
The events in Venezuela prove once again that any serious threat to imperialism and the bourgeoisie will call forth the most violent resistance, and that the working class, if it is not to experience the most appalling defeats and tragedy, must respond to this in a most determined, militant and, if needs be, ruthless fashion, which inevitably, as Marx concluded long ago, leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, the democratic rule of the vast majority and the suppression of exploiters and oppressors.
This period of intense reaction by imperialist powers and the comprador bourgeoisie has now brought the class struggle precisely to this critical point in Venezuela. The Venezuelan proletariat are well experienced in this struggle, but the forces ranged against them are powerful and ruthless. All those who have supported the revolutionary process and the progressive gains made in Venezuela so far have the absolute duty to maintain and step up that solidarity. Now more than ever!
Viva Chávez! Viva Maduro! Viva Venezuela!
Viva la revolución Bolivariana!
