Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The Constituent Assembly: Venezuelan Thermidor?

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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i'd like to reply in more depth -- but while there are many problems not
just in general but clearly with the "official" and government response to
the economic problems and serious political crisis, i would just say there
are a lot more voices than the government spokespeople, the amplified
voices of the hard right and sometimes outright fascists on the streets or
even those on aporrea, which runs a wide range of views but is very far
from the be all and end all of left and revolutionary perspectives.

I would also say the government, and the movement as a whole, faces an
opposition that is desperate to take power not just as soon as possible but
not through elections, and this explains the sustained nature of the
violent protests and actual terrorist attacks (there are separate accounts
of who is responsible for what deaths than the one Joaquin mentions that paint
a different picture , but we
can leave aside the question of exactly whose killed who and say that
burning someone alive because you suspect they are Chavista, or just as
likely because they are poor and black, is terror, as is improvise
explosive devices that rip through a national guard contingent -- largely
drawn from the poorer sectors -- violent attacks on maternity hospitals and
military bases all amount to terrorist campaigns. Of course not everyone
who joins a protest is involved in or necessarily supports all these
things, but neither are they isolated).

This campaign of violence and terror has reached a bit of a dead end, and
partly because the constituent assembly elections went ahead despite
pledges to stop them, while no sector of the military has responded to more
than four months of these protests and appeals to bring the government
down, nor has any serious section of other institutions still loyal to the
process or at least constitution, broken, with pretty much the sole
exception of the attorney-general..

The opposition would prefer to come to power outside of having to face an
electoral test (even if they are clearly a reasonably chance to win
elections) because they want a period of time without having to rely on any
mandate in which they can smash up the social gains of the revolution. An
example of what they want is in neighbouring Brazil, where the unelected
coup president temer has an approval rating far, far worse than Maduro's
and his regime is ramming through harsh neoliberal and ant-worker measures
that go further than what the military dictatorship got away with. Compare
this to Argentine, where Macri came to power through electoral means and
has had a tougher time actually getting through his hard-right agenda.

And that is just Brazil, with far milder social reforms under the PT, and
dramatically less popular empowerment. In Venezuela, not only are they
desperate for a far deeper series of counter-reforms, but need to smash a
deeply organised mass movement, that whatever weakening it is has suffered
in recent years is still a force to contend with,. It isn't alarmist to
raise the spectre of 1973 in Chile, but whether it reaches such a scale,
there is no doubt the right coming to power, *especially* outside of
elections, it will involve a deepening of the terror already underway
(where it is at high levels already in the country side, see this detailed
and disturbing eyewitness account in Green let Weekly "The War for Power in
Venezuela's Countryside
").
The fact that in the two days they held power during the coup in 2002, when
they combined overturning all of the progressive laws including the new
constitution with killing 60 chavistas and hunted down and tortured many
more, is indication enough.

Then no doubt, once the worst of the counter-reforms are implemented and
repression against popular sectors achieved its aims, then you could have
elections, the country will be "ready" and up will jump representatives of
the friendlier face of the opposition and the elite, critical of the
"excesses" of recent times, wanting to "heal the nation" and "bring us back
together", end the excesses of the neoliberalism and terror the preceding
"government of national unity" has implemented *and* of course the
"excesses" of the Chavistas beforehand. Before then, they don;t WANT to
have to rely on any electoral mandate, it will only act as a handbrake on
their plans.

All this is not just "yes of course" level of ticking a box and saying
you;ve noted it, it is essential to the situation and the difficulties of
finding a way forward when the opposition won't talk and won't play the
constitutional 

[Marxism] Fwd: The Constituent Assembly: Venezuelan Thermidor?

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I hope sincerely Comrade Joaquin will not mind me sending this to the
list.  It is truly meant in the best spirit of dialog between comrades.  I
sent his post to my good friend  and comrade Jim McIlroy who is the joint
author of a book on Chavez Voices from Venezuela : behind the Bolivarian
Revolution . 

Jim sent me the post below and agreed that I could send it to the list.

comradely

Gary



Hi Gary,
  I haven't got time at present to give a detailed commentary on this
[Joaquin's] article, but the general point is that we on the left have to
decide which side we are on in the final instance.

  (This year is the centenary of the Russian Revolution. No doubt there
were similar commentaries by Western leftists about the "undemocratic"
nature of the October Revolution. Maduro is definitely not Lenin, by the
way).
  Whatever the, very real, mistakes of the Maduro government, and their
political weaknesses, the stakes are clear in Venezuela: No volvaran! (No
return to the past!)
  The article is full of errors...eg, contrary to the coverage, the
majority of deaths in the violence have come directly or in-directly from
the right-wing opposition.
  His stuff on the Constituent Assembly is pure sophistry. The analogy with
Thermidor/Bonapartism is ridiculous. The CA may be a turning point in the
crisis, if the masses can successfully move to the centre of Venezuelan
politics again.
  The best source of information on Venezuela is Telesur English,
venezuelanalysis.com, and dare I say Green Left Weekly (a couple of good
articles in there this week).
  I will send you some more material on all this when I get time,

  Venceremos!

  Jim Mc.


On Tue, Aug 15, 2017 at 7:02 PM, Gary MacLennan 
wrote:

> Hi Jim
>
> What do you think of this?
>
> ae
>
> Gary
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: Joaquin Bustelo via Marxism 
> Date: Tue, Aug 15, 2017 at 5:51 PM
> Subject: [Marxism] The Constituent Assembly: Venezuelan Thermidor?
> To: gary.maclenn...@gmail.com
>
>
>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
> #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
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>
> At the outset, I should explain that for many years I did not try to
> follow the Venezuelan Revolution closely, but in the last couple of years I
> have been increasingly forced to do so.
>
> That because I am the producer and co-host of the program "Hablemos con
> Teodoro." It is a daily 2-hour Spanish-language news, analysis and call-in
> show. Our station is Radio Información, a progressive and now internet-only
> service organized by people from the immigrant rights movement (see the
> footnote for too much information about us).
>
> For some time I have been disturbed by the seeming direction of the
> Venezuelan process under President Nicolás Maduro. Obviously Venezuela
> faces imperialist hostility and subversion as well as the revanchism of
> traditional ruling class figures and families (Capriles, etc.) who dominate
> the "opposition" and quite obviously look to imperialist backing to fulfill
> their dreams of a return to yesterday's Venezuela.
>
> After becoming president in 2013, Maduro had at least formally abided by
> Chavez's Bolivarian Constitution for a couple of years, but since last
> year, after losing (and very badly) the National Assembly elections at the
> end of 2005, his government has defied constitutional provisions by
> refusing to accept the authority of the resulting legislature, refusing to
> hold a recall referendum on his mandate, packing the national Electoral
> Commission, etc.
>
> (But note that the opposition and its National Assembly majority are also
> partly to blame. It was quick to abandon the ground of defending the
> Chavista constitution --especially the recall referendum--, turning instead
> to will of the wisp nostrums like that Maduro by his actions had abandoned
> the presidency.)
>
> This spring, the Maduro administration adopted an all-but-explicit
> anti-constitutional course, with the Supreme Court proclaiming itself,
> formally, on its own initiative, the national legislature. It was quickly
> forced to abandon the usurpation by very widespread denunciations including
> from within the government, given voice above all by the Attorney General.
>
> However this was quickly followed by Maduro calling a Constituent