The NY Times article says: "In an effort to complete his consolidation of power, Nicolás Maduro is cracking down on the leftist activists who once supported him, but have begun to speak up against his administration’s corruption and cronyism."
While briefly mentioning "sanctions", the article downplays the economic war being waged against Venezuela by the US and its allies. The economic blockade has reduced the country to extreme poverty. This creates favourable conditions for the growth of corruption. Bureaucratic tendencies have long been a problem in Venezuela, as in every revolution that remains isolated in a capitalist world. The intensification of the US blockade in recent years has also led the government to make increasing concessions to private capital. This creates an environment conducive to the growth of "corruption and cronyism". Trotsky explained that the degeneration of the Russian revolution was not solely due to the ill-will of individuals, but was to a large extent the result of material conditions. In "The Revolution Betrayed", Trotsky writes: "Generalized Want” and the Gendarme Two years before the Communist Manifesto, young Marx wrote: “A development of the productive forces is the absolutely necessary practical premise [of Communism], because without it want is generalized, and with want the struggle for necessities begins again, and that means that all the old crap must revive.” This thought Marx never directly developed, and for no accidental reason: he never foresaw a proletarian revolution in a backward country. Lenin also never dwelt upon it, and this too was not accidental. He did not foresee so prolonged an isolation of the Soviet state. Nevertheless, the citation, merely an abstract construction with Marx, an inference from the opposite, provides an indispensable theoretical key to the wholly concrete difficulties and sicknesses of the Soviet regime. On the historic basis of destitution, aggravated by the destructions of the imperialist and civil wars, the “struggle for individual existence” not only did not disappear the day after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and not only did not abate in the succeeding years, but, on the contrary, assumed at times an unheard-of ferocity. Need we recall that certain regions of the country have twice gone to the point of cannibalism? https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch03.htm#ch03-4 (This passage appears at page 56 of the print edition) On page 112 Trotsky writes: The basis of bureaucratic rule is the poverty of society in objects of consumption, with the resulting struggle of each against all. When there is enough goods in a store, the purchasers can come whenever they want to. When there is little goods, the purchasers are compelled to stand in line. When the lines are very long, it is necessary to appoint a policeman to keep order. Such is the starting point of the power of the Soviet bureaucracy. It “knows” who is to get something and who has to wait. https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch05.htm#ch05-3 Trotsky's analysis of the reasons for the degeneration of the Russian revolution is applicable to other countries, such as Venezuela. For socialists in the US and its allies such as Australia, it is essential to campaign against the blockade. Chris Slee _._,_._,_ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#3815): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/3815 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/78391567/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
