By the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV)
In Venezuela there is a fierce confrontation between two bourgeois poles disputing the domination of the state apparatus in order to control the management of the oil rent: On the one hand, there is the sector of the traditional bourgeoisie and its parties grouped in the Democratic Unitary Platform that have attempted coups d’états, the imposition of foreign sanctions and the theft of public patrimony abroad. And on the other side is the new bourgeois and landed class of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its allies that emerged from 25 years of privileged access to oil revenues with an administration plagued with corruption and an inability to transform the rentier and dependent base of Venezuelan capitalism.
The international narrative of “progressivism” insists on analyzing the situation in Venezuela in the light of this political polarization, without delving into its class nature. This rose-colored vision is incapable of recognizing the bourgeois character of the parties that make up each pole and remains in the false dilemma between “sovereignty” or “interference”, where the working class cannot play an independent role according to its own class interests.
Not looking beyond this dispute between bourgeois blocs prevents understanding the situation and the interests of the Venezuelan working class and popular strata, as well as the process of regrouping of revolutionary parties and forces seeking to build an alternative to the two poles responsible for the national disaster.
Venezuela is suffering a deep crisis that is the product of the exhaustion of its dependent and rentier capitalism, which has been aggravated by the effects of the criminal foreign sanctions. In response, the administration of Nicolas Maduro is characterized by the imposition of a series of measures aimed at safeguarding the interests of national and foreign capital, while sacrificing rights and historical conquests of the working class, including those achieved under the government of Hugo Chavez.
The anti-working class and anti-popular turn of Maduro’s government, seen from the viewpoint of Marxism-Leninism, is nothing more than the crude manifestation of policies for the benefit of. capital in the context of the capitalist crisis. However, from the opportunist and myopic vision of“progressivism”, the sacrifice of the working class is presented as a supposed “anti-imperialist resistance.”
The essence of the neoliberal adjustment of the Venezuelan government has nothing to do with sovereign positions, much less anti-imperialist ones. Its defenders are doing nothing other than justifying an all-out offensive of capital against the Venezuelan working class:
– Privatization of important sectors of strategic industries, including oil, mines, gasand core industries.
– Granting of extraction licenses to multinational companies such as Chevron (USA), Repsol(Spain), ENI (Italy) and Maurel & Prom (France), under conditions disadvantageous to national sovereignty.
– Liberalization and dollarization of prices of all goods, excluding workers’ wages.
– Dollarization of economic activity.
– Creation of Special Economic Zones – where labour, environmental and tax laws do not apply- to attract the investment of large transnational capital.
– Subsidies to the private sector through the weekly injection of millions of dollars from the State to the currency exchange system (more than $15 billion between 2021- 2024 according tothe Central Bank of Venezuela).
– The per capita income of the richest group in society is 70 times more than that of the poorest group. Venezuela is the most unequal country in the continent.
– Corruption goes unpunished – Tareck El Aissami (former oil minister and member of the PSUV national leadership) stole $23 billion.
– Social investment (health, education, etc.) has been reduced, paving the way for a progressive privatization process.
– The minimum monthly wage and pension have been frozen for two and a half years at the equivalent of $3.50.
– The policy of de-salarising workers’ income has meant that 97% of the payments received by workers are bonuses, which are not taken into account when calculating social benefits,vacations, services, savings, and other benefits contemplated in the collective bargaining agreements.
– The basic family basket of goods is estimated at $550 per month, which forces millions of workers to hold down several jobs, work longer hours, emigrate from the country or engage inillicit businesses in order to survive.
– More than 7 million Venezuelans have been forced to migrate out of the country in search of better conditions for the sale of their labor force.
– The rights won by workers in collective bargaining agreements have been eliminated.
– The right to unionize is restricted. Class-conscious unions are prevented from registering and most of the unions have expired because they are not allowed to organize their elections. Thispolicy prevents workers from fighting for new collective bargaining agreements.
– Increasing persecution of labor union struggles. More than 30 union leaders and activists have been persecuted. Workers demanding their rights are illegally tried in “anti-terror” courts for
alleged “hate” crimes.
– The right to strike is prohibited.
– The Communist Party of Venezuela was attacked by the courts and its right to partake in elections all but outlawed in August 2023 to disarm the working class of its main instrument for political struggle.
