The exploitation of human beings for the sake of profit,
whether its monetary or political.
Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is trying to put a stop to that.
Venezuela: Mass organisation, unity increases as
revolution deepens
“This
government is here to protect the people, not the bourgeoisie or
the rich”, proclaimed Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez on February 28, as he ordered soldiers to take over two
rice-processing plants owned by Venezuelan food and drink giant
Empresas Polar.
The move was made in order to ensure that the company was producing
products subjected to the government-imposed price controls that
aim to protect the poor from the affects of global price rises and
inflation.
Under Venezuelan law, companies that can produce basic goods
regulated by price controls must guarantee that 70-95% of their
products are of the regulated type.
“They’ve refused 100 times to process the typical rice that
Venezuelans eat”, said Chavez. “If they don’t take me seriously,
I’ll expropriate the plants and turn them into social
property.”
Four days later, Chavez announced the expropriation of a
rice-processing plant owned by US food giant Cargill after it was
revealed the company was attempting to subvert the price
controls.
Moving against capital
In the following period, “Venezuela’s National Institute of Lands
(INTI) [took] public ownership of more than 5000 hectares of land
claimed by wealthy families and multi-national corporations and is
reviewing tens of thousands more hectares across the nation”,
Venezuelanalysis.com reported on March 11.
This includes the March 5 expropriation of 1500 hectares of a tree
farm owned by Ireland’s Smurfit Kappa. The government has pledged
to move away from eucalyptus trees, which were drying up the land,
and turn the land over to cooperatives for sustainable
agriculture.
On March 14, Chavez decreed a new fishing law, banning industrial
trawl-fishing within Venezuela’s territorial waters.
“Trawling fishing destroys the sea, destroys marine species and
benefits a minority. This is destructive capitalism”, explained
Chavez on his weekly TV show, Alo Presidente the following
day.
Venezuelanalysis.com reported on March 17 that the government will
invest US$32 million to convert or decommission trawling boats, as
well as to development fish-processing plants.
“Thirty trawling ships will be expropriated, Chavez said, due to
the refusal of their owners to cooperate with the plans to adapt
the boats to uses compliant with the new fishing
regulations.”
Small-scale fisherpeople will have access to the converted
boats.
Anti-crisis measures
This latest wave of radical measures by the Chavez government
should be seen in the context of the ongoing process of
nationalisations since early 2006, the onset of the global economic
and food crises and the February 15 referendum victory.
The government has re-nationalised privatised industries such as
electricity, telecommunications and steel. Cement companies, milk
producing factories and one of Venezuela’s major banks have either
been, ore are in negotiations to be, nationalised.
Unlike the state interventions currently being undertaken in the
imperialist centres, the aim of these moves is not to bail out
bankrupt capitalists, but to help shift production towards meeting
people’s needs — in service provisions (phone lines, electricity,
banking) and production of essential goods (concrete, steel for
housing and factories, and food).
Last July, the government made strong signals that its next targets
would be two strategic sectors previously barely touched — food and
finance.
The day after announcing the planned government buyout of Banco de
Venezuela (which, once completed, will give the government control
over close to 20% of the banking sector), Chavez issued 26 decrees,
a number of which increase government and community control over
food storage and distribution — and allow the state to jail company
owners for hoarding.
Moves aimed at increasing government control over food production
come amid soaring world food prices and 30% inflation within
Venezuela — which is still dependent on imports for 70% of its food
supply.
The government also faces an ongoing campaign of food speculation
and hoarding carried out by the capitalist food producers and
distributors in order to destabilise the anti-capitalist
government.
With oil prices plummeting by almost $100 per barrel from a high of
more than US$140 last year, the government is tightening the
screws. Oil accounts for 93% of the government’s export revenue and
around half of its national budget.
The government has already announced the restructuring of its
ministries, merging a number of them in order to cut down on
bureaucracy.
The Chavez government is making it very clear that it will be the
capitalists, not the people, who will pay for the mess that the
capitalist system has created.
“I have entrusted myself with putting the foot down on the
accelerator of the revolution, of the social and economic
transformation of Venezuela”, Chavez explained on March 8.
Mandate for socialism
These latest moves follow the government’s victory in the February
15 referendum.
Officially, the referendum concerned whether to amend the
constitution and remove limits on the number of times elected
officials could stand for re-election. At stake was the possibility
of Chavez standing for re-election in 2012.
In the context of the intense class struggle, it became a
referendum on the socialist project pushed by Chavez.
Addressing tens of thousands of supporters from the balcony of the
presidential palace after the victory, Chavez noted that those that
had voted “yes” had “voted for socialism, voted for the
revolution”.
The referendum was proposed by Chavez as a “counter-offensive”
against the opposition following the November 23 regional
elections.
Candidates from Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)
won the overwhelming majority of governorships and
mayoralties.
However, opposition victories in key states on the Colombian border
(where there is growing right-wing paramilitary activity) and the
Greater Caracas mayoralty were viewed as important gains for the
counter-revolution.
Opposition governors and mayors began to use their new positions to
attack community organisations and the pro-poor social
missions.
The rapid mobilisation to defeat these attacks by the poor and
working people was converted into the formation of 100,000 “Yes
committees” to campaign in the referendum, in poor communities,
workplaces and universities across the country.
These committees were the backbone of the successful referendum
campaign.
Organising for revolution
The latest measures will undoubtedly intensify the class conflict
in Venezuela.
An example of this conflict has resulted from the government’s
program of land reform, aimed at ending the domination over
agriculture by a small minority of large landowners.
Previous attempts by the government to redistribute land have
resulted in a violent counter-offensive by large landowners that
has resulted in the murder of more than 200 peasants since the land
reform law of 2001.
On March 9, land reform activist Mauricio Sanchez was murdered in
Zulia, two weeks after campesino activist Nelson Lopez was shot
dead in Yaracuy.
Increasingly, trade unionists have also been the target of violent
repression when struggling for their rights. On January 29, two
workers at Mitsubishi plant were killed by police during an
industrial dispute — sparking protests and the arrest of a number
of police.
Several peasant organisations are seeking to unite their forces in
support of government measures and against repression. The PSUV
leadership has also called for a restructuring of the party to
better organise the masses for the coming battles.
Launched after Chavez’s 2006 re-election to help accelerate the
revolutionary process, the PSUV brought together a range of
revolutionary forces as well as opportunist and corrupt
layers.
On March 6, the national leadership of the PSUV made public a
series of decisions aimed at deepening participation and democracy
in the party.
This includes a recruitment drive to sign up new militants, a clean
out of the current membership lists, the reactivation of the
grassroots socialist battalions and the organisation of an
extraordinary congress for August to deepen discussion over the
party’s program and principles.
Building on the success of the “yes” campaign, the PSUV will move
to consolidate national mass fronts of workers, peasants, women and
students — along with converting the “yes committees” into ongoing
“socialist committees”.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12848
USA also needs someone like Chavez to go and break up the power
of the oligarchy there.
