{"id":640,"date":"2019-03-03T14:17:41","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T14:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?p=640"},"modified":"2019-03-03T14:17:41","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T14:17:41","slug":"what-is-happening-in-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/what-is-happening-in-venezuela\/","title":{"rendered":"What is happening in Venezuela?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On 23 January 2019, the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaid\u00f3, declared himself \u2018Interim President\u2019 of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, denouncing the elected President Nicolas Maduro as an illegitimate dictator. The US government immediately announced its support, followed by a declaration from the Group of Lima, which is an institution embracing several countries of Latin America, all supported by the US government. Canada and a number of European countries also declared their support for Juan Guaid\u00f3. They all asked Maduro to step down or face imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US government, Juan Guaid\u00f3, Canada and the European countries \nindicated that they were supporting the interim government on the \ngrounds that Maduro was a dictator who has reduced Venezuela to a \nsituation of hunger, unemployment, repression, corruption, and lack of \nfreedom. They asked him to call a fresh presidential election in eight \ndays. In response, the government of Venezuela decided instead to call \nfor a new election to the National Assembly, while the Supreme Court of \nVenezuela declared the self-proclaimed Interim President illegal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The popularity of Nicolas Maduro has decreased since he was elected \ndue to the government\u2019s authoritarian measures and corruption. Others \nblame him for the economic and political crisis and the violence that \nexists in the country. Many workers have taken to the streets to protest\n against his government. During the last presidential election other \ncandidates did not participate and there were a large number of \nabstentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US<\/strong> opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the election of Hugo Chavez in 1999, the Venezuelan government \nhas been opposed by the US and sections of the capitalist class in \nVenezuela, but during his initial period he had the support of the \nmajority of the Venezuelan workers and most of the governments of Latin \nAmerica. His popularity was so high that in 2002 the US was forced to \nback away from a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat that they had orchestrated with certain \nsectors of the military forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the then high international price of oil \u2013 which is the \ncountry\u2019s main source of income \u2013 and as a member of OPEC, Chavez was \nable to implement certain social reforms, such as housing for the poor, \nmedical services, educational programmes and a food programme. The level\n of poverty of the country decreased. And all these measures were \nconsidered by his supporters to be the implementation of socialism by \nthe Bolivarian Revolution, or so-called Socialism of the XXI Century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chavez also helped create many cooperatives around the country and \nexpropriated several corporations and turned their assets over to state \nownership; others became joint ventures. Oil and gas were sold to China \nat a lower cost to compensate for the cost of transport and to penetrate\n the Asian market, and several agreements were signed with the Iranian \ngovernment. Oil and gas were sold at low cost to the Cuban government in\n exchange for medical services using Cuban-trained doctors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social conditions in Venezuela have since deteriorated enormously due\n to a drop in the oil price and the embargo and sanctions imposed by the\n US, and also due to the largely state capitalist mode of production \u2013 \nwhich is the real system of production that exists in the Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US and Canada will also have their eye on the large deposits of \noil and natural gas, and also on the oil and large deposits of minerals \nthat exist in the Orinoco Belt, such as lithium, nickel and iron ore. \nSeveral of these resources have been given to the Russian and the \nChinese corporations, and the ecological impact in that region has been \nenormous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US government has indicated that all options are on the table \nincluding military intervention. The government of Venezuela has \nresponded saying that it might turn into another Vietnam and has called \nfor a dialogue including the members of the National Assembly. All have \nrefused to have a dialogue with Nicolas Maduro, and the US government \nhas frozen all Venezuela\u2019s international accounts and sources of income;\n they have taken over Gitco which is Venezuela\u2019s international petroleum\n corporation situated in the US, and Britain has held back $550 million \nof gold that the Bank of England had been keeping in trust for the \nVenezuelan government. In addition, the US is going to transfer all the \noil proceeds \u2013 more than $7 billion \u2013 to the interim president. \nAccording to some economic statisticians, the loss from the embargo on \nVenezuela has cost the country more than $350 billion in total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the measures taken by the US government against Venezuela and \nthe implementation of new sanctions, the Venezuelan government is going \nto transfer all the proceeds of their oil sales to a Russian bank in \nMoscow as Russia has lent more than $50 billion to Venezuela in military\n aid and for mining. China has lent more than $60 billion in exchange \nfor oil. Both countries have opposed the actions of the USA at the \nUnited Nations and have indicated that they reject the new government \nand support Maduro as president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A possible military confrontation with the US and alliances of \nmilitary forces of other Latin American countries, such as Brazil, \nColombia and Argentina, against Venezuela would become a very bloody \nbattleground, due to the fact that all the armies have been heavily \narmed by the US, Russia and China, and most of them have modern \narmaments. It would be a war where many class brothers and sisters would\n kill each other defending one or other side in the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not socialism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the very beginning when Hugo Chavez was elected President of \nVenezuela and declared himself a socialist, we have shown that he was \njust a left reformist, not a revolutionary socialist, and that socialism\n cannot be introduced by a leader in the name of the working class, by \nimplementing reforms within the framework of a capitalist society and \nnationalising enterprises to be run by the state apparatus. We added \nthat the problems that Venezuela was confronted with and its failures \ncould not be blamed on socialism because a form of state capitalism was \nthe economic model that was going to be established by the leaders of \nthe Bolivarian revolution; that Chavez, Fidel Castro, Peron, Cardenas, \nand other Latin American leaders were bourgeois nationalists who were \nopposed to the influence and domination of the US ruling class in the \nregion. They wanted to expand their own markets and capitalist interests\n there, as was reflected by engagement with Mercosur which is a Latin \nAmerican version of the European Market, by the Bank of the South, a \nLatin American version of the IMF, and showcased by the Cooperatives in \nBolivia which are joint ventures between the state and the peasants of \nBolivia based on a capitalist mode of production and run as typical \ncapitalist corporations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The USA and its president have used the crisis in Venezuela as a \npretext to blame its problems on socialism and to attack the emergence \nof socialist ideas within the youth and some sectors of the US working \nclass. Both are confusing social democratic reforms with socialism such \nas: Medicare for all, increase of taxation on the rich, better housing \nconditions for the poor, elimination of inequality, renovation of the \ncountry\u2019s infrastructures, more state regulations, and better programmes\n for the elderly and the veterans. Most of these measures were \nimplemented by Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal during the Great Depression and none\n of them are an indication that socialism was established in the USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For many years the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties, including\n the World Socialist Party of the US, have established a clear \ndistinction between social democratic reforms, state capitalism, and \nsocialism. Our aim is socialism-communism as a post-capitalist world \nsociety based on the common possession of the mean of production \nadministered democratically, which is a stateless, moneyless, wageless \nsociety of free access to available wealth. This cannot be established \nby a leader, or a vanguard party acting in the name of the working \nwithin the framework of the capitalist mode of production; capitalism is\n an economic system which cannot be reformed to work in the interest of \nthe workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever is taking place in Venezuela has nothing to do with \nsocialism or communism, and all the failures of the Bolivarian \nRevolution, its leaders and the so-called United Socialist Party of \nVenezuela, cannot be blamed on socialism or communism. Venezuela is a \ncapitalist society where workers are economically exploited to produce \nsurplus value and are wage slaves like in any other capitalist country, \nas in all other parts of the world. It is a state-run capitalist system \nsimilar to the ones established in the former USSR, Eastern Europe, \nChina, Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam adapted to their local \ncircumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARCOS<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 23 January 2019, the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaid\u00f3, declared himself \u2018Interim President\u2019 of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, denouncing the elected President Nicolas Maduro as an illegitimate dictator. The US government immediately announced its support, followed by a declaration from the Group of Lima, which is an institution embracing several…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}