The Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela led by Hugo Chavez has been an important and inspiring event, the “first revolution of the 21st century”, not just shaking up Latin America, but giving hope to socialists around the world.
As the report by Roberto J on “The revolutionary process in Venezuela” that was unanimously adopted by our October 2005 national committee meeting stated:
“The revolutionary process that has unfolded in Venezuela since the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998 and the establishment of the new constitution in 1999 has been characterised by some key dynamics. It is these dynamics that are essential to understanding the revolutionary process that continues to develop.
“It is also important to note that the April 11, 2002 attempted military coup was a major turning point for the Venezuelan process. The coup that was organised by the Venezuelan bourgeoisie, sections of the Venezuelan military and with US collaboration raised the level of confrontation to a new stage.
“In response, the Chavez leadership began a major political, economic and social offensive….
“On an ideological level late in 2004 Chavez began to raise the question of socialism, which has opened up a massive nationwide debate about the ideological framework and direction of the Venezuelan revolution….
“We need to stress that there is a revolutionary socialist process that is being undertaken in Venezuela.” (The Activist Vol. 15, No. 12)
What has been the impact of these momentous events on the Socialist Alliance here in Australia, and what is their likely effect on the tactic of continuing to “build SA as a party” that the NC majority is putting forward?
Firstly, I think we’d all agree that we should have been a bit quicker in jumping fully behind the Bolivarian revolution, trying to understand it, organising broad solidarity actions whenever it was attacked by imperialism, and using the inspiration of a revolution in Latin America to recruit young people to a revolutionary socialist perspective here. We did show the videos, produced the pamphlet by Jorge J in 2003, and then at the end of last year initiated the brigades as a major focus for Resistance, and this year the whole party is very much inspired by the socialist revolution in Venezuela.
In Socialist Alliance it’s been more complicated, and had less impact.
Predicted working class radicalisation did not occur
Comrades should remember that our prospects for successfully building SA as a new party, that we started talking about in 2002, and voted for in principle at our January 2003 congress, and fully implemented at our December 2003 congress where we became a tendency in SA with the intention of dissolving the DSP, were predicated on a significant working class upsurge in Australia. As Peter Boyle explained in Links 23 (January-April 2003) outlining the thinking of our September 2002 national executive meeting that set us on this course:
“The current political situation is creating new openings to collect a bigger revolutionary vanguard in Australia today and the proposal is a response to new conditions.” And although “by and large, the working class in the imperialist countries is still in retreat…
“A layer of newly radicalised activists has joined re-inspired older activists in a new cycle of protest. These radicalised layers are very interested in real steps towards left regroupment and unity. Our estimate is that by making the Socialist Alliance the party we build today we will gather more of the class-conscious vanguard of the working class and increase its ability to link up with the broadest masses.”
In comparing the Socialist Alliance project with our previous regroupment attempts in the 1980s, he argued that “The main reason why previous regroupment attempts failed was because the movements were in retreat.”
But we were wrong. Just as we made the move to dissolve into the SA, the movements were in worse retreat than in the ‘80s. Our timing and assessment were off the mark. There have been very few radicalized layers who have joined us in activity in SA. The objective conditions beyond our control meant the perspectives we adopted at our last congress could not be implemented. As the draft resolution adopted unanimously by the DSP national executive on August 15, 2005 states:
“20. This poses a change of the DSP’s perspectives for the Socialist Alliance. Our December 2003 resolution to integrate as much of the resources of the Democratic Socialist Party into the Socialist Alliance as possible was based on an overestimation of the political conditions. This attempt at integration has failed because the conditions to build the Socialist Alliance into a new party did not exist….
“21. The Socialist Alliance will have to go through a more extended period of united campaigning and regroupment with broader left forces that are generated by a new upturn of resistance to the capitalist neoliberal ‘reforms’ before it can harness the leadership resources and political confidence to take a significant step to creating a new socialist party.” (The Activist Vol. 15, No. 4)
Although we all are hopeful, that “upturn in resistance” that we talked about when we started thinking about SA becoming our new party has not happened. The prospects for resistance by the Australian working class are at least as bleak as, or even bleaker, than they were in the 1980s. Of course we’ll encourage all attempts at fightback, and fight shoulder to shoulder with any working class resistance, both before and after Howard’s imposition of his new IR laws.
Can Venezuela turn the situation around in Australia?
Nevertheless, it’s not bleak all around the world, obviously in Venezuela and most of Latin America the class struggle is on the rise. Can that help improve prospects for revolutionary socialists in Australia? I think it can, but unfortunately not through the SA, or pursuing the “build SA as a party” perspective of the NC majority.
The Socialist Alliance is a very clumsy and blunt instrument with which to relate to the Venezuelan revolution. It can’t relate to the revolutionary implications of the Venezuelan struggle because SA still has affiliated the small Trotskyist groups who all have a very sectarian analysis of Venezuela.
Most of the other affiliates just characterise Chavez as a “populist” (the Freedom Socialist Party), or a “Bonapartist” (Workers Liberty), and the process as a “nationalist” revolution at best. The International Socialist Organisation’s Socialist Worker had that incredible article on May Day in Caracas this year stating that “the left is nowhere to be seen”! A lot of energy would be required to counter their sectarian views at the expense of real work that could be done in urgent solidarity activity with Venezuela.
The difficulties of us having a common approach on Venezuela in SA with the small affiliates gets compounded as the collaboration between revolutionary Venezuela and revolutionary Cuba grows. This alliance gets stronger every week, and is having a huge impact on the rest of Latin America. The joint project of training 200,000 doctors to send throughout the continent is an extremely inspiring and subversive project that has already started. Anyone with a line of wanting to overthrow the Cuban government – as most of our SA affiliates have – is not going to get to first base with Latin American radicals and revolutionaries. They are not going to get a hearing among Australian workers inspired by Venezuela and Cuba either.
Now admittedly none of the affiliates play much of a role in SA anymore. None of them are willing to build SA stalls, or be part of SA contingents on demonstrations, or carry SA placards at protests. But they are all, apart from Greg Adler, still technically members and affiliated.
And supporters of the NC majority position still point to them as an important component of the Socialist Alliance. For example, Paul B argues in his contribution (The Activist Vol. 15, No. 14) “that this left-unity dynamic has not evaporated“. But when the other affiliates don’t publicly contribute to building SA, and when on something like the Venezuelan revolution, or defending the Cuba-Venezuela axis, these affiliates will have a different position to the DSP and Resistance, then you don’t see much of that left-unity dynamic left. It’s very much a phantom left unity.
But our original motivations for the Socialist Alliance did put this left unity at the centre of the project. We thought we would be able to get a large degree of political agreement on the tasks involved in fighting the neoliberal offensive in Australia. The resolution adopted by our January 2003 DSP congress argued:
“The key to the success of the Alliance has been the practical demonstration that the left can work together. It is this that has inspired (and re-inspired) many leftists and progressive people to involve themselves in politics within the Alliance.” (Links 23, p.17)
But the working together around Venezuela will have to take place in the broadest Venezuela defence committees, in Venezuela solidarity campaigns, in CISLAC, in Resistance, and through the DSP. It can’t take place within the Socialist Alliance unless it’s just us, the DSP, wearing the SA hat, rebadging ourselves as SA, as has unfortunately happened increasingly frequently.
The real potential of Venezuelan solidarity
Paradoxically, the Venezuelan revolution can have a huge impact in strengthening our current – the DSP and Resistance – in Australia. But only if we put SA in a realistic perspective, and wind back the mistaken line we adopted at our last congress. We have to face up to the fact that we cannot build SA as our party, although it still can be a useful tool for certain things: the DSP has to be “the party we build”.
The politics of the DSP and Resistance are uniquely oriented to take advantage of the Venezuelan revolution, its impact on the rest of Latin America, and its linking up with the Cuban Revolution. No other political tendency in Australia fully supports the Cuban Revolution; no one else should be able to use the image and legacy of Che Guevara to build themselves (though some falsely do); no other organisation has come out in full support of the Bolivarian revolution and is committed to defending it fully and building close ties with those revolutionaries.
If we continue to mire ourselves in SA as “our party” we will undermine our ability to conduct effective solidarity work with Venezuela and Cuba. And it will undermine our possibilities for rebuilding ourselves through relating as deeply as possible to this revolutionary process.
If we do it properly, there’s a tremendous possibility of the growth of our current through building a solidarity campaign with the Venezuelan revolution. This has to be done at least on two levels:
1. Building a broad united front campaign against imperialist intervention in Venezuela. This is our basic duty as revolutionaries, whether it made gains for our party or not. Already imperialism has tried a coup, border incidents, kidnappings, threats from warships, economic sabotage, increased military bases in Latin America, and threats of assassination through its wayward puppet Pat Robertson. We need to build the broadest defence committees possible, involving all members of the Latin American migrant community, all left parties, all left or leftish trade unions, all antiwar groups etc, and any individuals who can be mobilised. We can be sure that Washington will make many more attempts to subvert the Chavez government, and we have to be ready to act efficiently each time.
2. We also have to build a campaign of political solidarity. We have to publicise the revolutionary process going on in Venezuela, with more pamphlets, leaflets, articles in GLW and other avenues. We have to organise forums and conferences and speaking tours of Venezuelan revolutionaries. We have to continue with our Venezuelan brigades for comrades and supporters of the process. We have to make sure that all comrades in the DSP and Resistance are thoroughly familiar with the process and up to date with the events in Venezuela. We have to be the most outspoken defenders and proponents of the Venezuelan revolution.
We should argue that Socialist Alliance should be one of the many supporters of solidarity of the first type, defending Venezuela against imperialist attack. Such solidarity structures should be the broadest possible, all organisations who have some element of anti-imperialist, anti-war consciousness should be encouraged to participate.
But solidarity of the second type will have to be organised primarily by the DSP and Resistance, and the solidarity committees that we initiate and sponsor. If we try to do it through SA, we will either have to pull our punches, make our propaganda much less clear and precise, for fear of antagonising the small-group affiliates in SA, or else ride roughshod over the views of the other affiliates, and effectively make SA a rebadged DSP.
The workers movement in Australia is under serious attack by the ruling class and is likely to suffer further blows, with attacks on our unions and conditions through Howard’s IR laws, and attacks on our civil liberties through Howard’s “anti-terror” laws, with the support of the federal ALP and all state and territory ALP governments. We will be part of the fightback as much as we can, but this is a time when we can’t afford to focus only on the domestic struggles however important they are.
The struggles internationally must be consciously integrated into our perspective, and on the international level things look better for our class. The common anti-imperialist axis of many struggles across the globe is clearer than it has been for some time. The Bush regime is facing increasing opposition at home, and problems internationally. And the Venezuelan revolution especially has given new confidence to Cuba, and is bringing hope and confidence to the oppressed masses of Latin America.
These international developments will help to sustain us, educate us, and politically energise and inspire our ranks, and help us grow and increase our capability for waging the class battle at home. They are extremely conducive for rebuilding the DSP and Resistance.
– The Activist was as the internal discussion bulletin of the Democratic Socialist Party