Editorial: Chavez: 'I also am a Trotskyist'

CHAVEZ: '1 ALSO AM A TROTSKYIST' to see some detail, and some concrete a kind of confederation, local, regional EDITORIAL What are we supposed to think when a head of state makes this kind of statement? Has he not understood that his revolution is supposed to be anti-imperialist and national-democratic first, before moving towards socialism? On the other hand, should we agree with the Guardian that Chavez is a communist revolutionary? Such are the puzzles thrown up by the real movement of history... Chavez was thought by many on the left in this country - and many among the ! bourgeoisie - to be a populist. That is, he would talk socialism but in practice produce a massive public sector funded by oil wealth, without ever moving to a non-capitalist form of state. The ISG and the Fl have however been right not to leave things here. We understood that the process underway had a possibility of radicalising further - or it would go backward - and there are strong signs that the former is happening. Chavez has sworn in a new government with a member of the Communist Party in it (for the first time in Venezuelan history), and a self-declared Trotskyist - at least according to Chavez' public version of their conversation. 'He told me he was a Trotskyist. I said what's the problem. I also am a Trotskyist - I follow permanent Buoyed by the latest electoral victory Chavez is shifting to the left. Communist Party of Venezuela, it has been argued, is following Chavez rather than arguing its old stageist views. And Rangel, the Vice President, who opposed giving Caracas's golf courses over to social housing, has graciously but firmly been removed from the Cabinet. Nationalisations and a new party Then there are the nationalisations. government's intention to nationalise the biggest telecoms company, CANTV, as well as the Caracas Electricity distribution company. He referred more generally to re-nationalising strategic industries and all that had been privatised, and to retaking majority control of the super- heavy crude oil processing that is currently operated by multinational oil companies through 'strategic agreements' with the state oil company PDVSA. We still have capitalism continue to flourish. But far from sanctioning the enrichment of the 'Boli-bourgeoisie', these measures indicate a real threat to private capitalist firms and the international markets have Then there's the party, the new 'unified socialist party' that Chavez is aiming to set up. Chavez has created this party by decree but at the same time has declared that it must be built democratically, from the grassroots. He is hamstrung by his own methods - the contradiction between populist style and socialist content may indeed result only in a populist content. Far better would have been the call of the UNT left and other social movements to call a conference in order to prepare grassroots forces to maximise their weight in the new party. There is also something else which deserves our attention. This was the last of the five 'motors' of the revolutionary project that Chavez identified as he swore in his new government on 8 January. It came after the enabling act for the nationalisations, the 'socialist constitutional reform', the spread of popular education to counter the individualist values of capitalism, and a new geographical redistribution of wealth and power to Venezuela's most deprived regions. Chavez said this fifth motor should be the 'most powerful of all the motors'. Communal Councils Chavez calls it, 'the revolutionary explosion of communal power, of communal councils'. This is a project for rebuilding or replacing the bourgeois administrative machinery of local and state governments with a network of communal councils, where the local populations meet to decide on local priorities and how to realise them. The initial inspiration for these Communal Councils comes from the Participatory Budget Councils in Brazil. But Chavez seems to see this going much further, as the key to breaking free from the bourgeois revolution, for all its increasingly radical intentions, has remained trapped for the last eight years. 'With the communal councils', he said, 'we have to go beyond Bolivia, remains to be seen. 1 the local. We have to begin creating... and national, of communal councils. We have to head towards the creation of a communal state. And the old bourgeois state, which is still alive and kicking - this we have to progressively dismantle, at the same time as we build up the communal state, the socialist state, the Bolivarian state, a state that is capable of carrying through a revolution.' radical formulations received little coverage in either the mainstream media or the left press. For the former, of course, it does not fit the prevailing demonology of a slide towards authoritarian communism, but it also gets very little mention from the left of the solidarity movement, where an over- simplifed kind of 'workerism' sometimes prevails. This left correctly insists on the importance of workers' control and democracy in the workplaces; even though this importance is still largely inspirational or symbolic, as it touches only a tiny part of the Venezuelan workforce. This position also makes a great deal of the promised nationalisations. Of course these are also important. But on their own they do not necessarily mean that much. After all, the one essential commanding height of the Venezuelan economy - oil - has been nationalised since the 1970s. Yet articulated with workers' control in as many workplaces as possible, and a new the development of 'communal power' is possibly where the best hope for a real socialist democracy in Venezuela lies: one that really engages the immense majority of the Venezuela poor (the Venezuelan working class defined in its broadest and most appropriate sense) breaks through the logjam of bureaucracy and corruption thrown up by the existing state apparatus and begins to consolidate a socialist Obviously the experiences of a century ago cannot just be repeated. But it's worth remembering that most of the soviets in St Petersburg in 1917 were not in fact based in the factories. They were geographically based in the local communities. In any case there is a new momentum in Venezuela, and Chavez has immense support. Whether it will be enough, faced with an inevitable counter- revolution such as is being attempted in