Statement by Anticapitalistas - International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

7.8.17

Statement by Anticapitalistas - International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine - Faced with the political crisis in Venezuela, [1] Anticapitalistas wish to declare:

1) Our rejection of the offensive of the opposition against the Bolivarian government. The Venezuelan opposition is led by deeply anti-democratic sectors linked to the ruling classes. These sectors are preparing a program of authoritarian reaction against the conquests of the Bolivarian revolution, some of which have been greatly diminished by the crisis that the country is going through. An opposition that has not hesitated to burn, assassinate and attack defenseless citizens in recent years and has recently intensified its methods, with the hijacking of helicopters and the use of firearms. This offensive is not new but it is framed in a context of coups, soft or authoritarian depending on the country, in Latin America, as in Brazil, Honduras and Paraguay. These coups have counted on the complicit silence of governments and the international press. The immediate consequences of these coups have been a harsh repression of activists and poor people. In this case we see the same complicity with the Venezuelan opposition, hiding their violent character and we fear that the same cruelty will be used against the activists of the left and the inhabitants of the poorer neighborhoods of Venezuelan cities if it succeeds in the political destabilization in Venezuela and a coup, as part of the opposition seeks.

2) This does not mean that we unconditionally support Maduro’s government: the corruption, bureaucratization and incompetence of the PSUV government are intolerable in a socialist, revolutionary and radically democratic project. The fact that we consider it a priority to stop the onslaught of imperialism and the ruling class does not imply that we have no criticisms of the limits of Maduro’s government and its political management. The revolution within the revolution consists of expanding liberties, combating bureaucracy with democracy, redistributing wealth more, and building institutional mechanisms that guarantee the control of the economy and the state by the popular classes.

3) We reject all Spanish interference in Venezuelan affairs. The PP and the government of Rajoy, so reluctant to defend the memory of the victims of the Franco regime, has used the Venezuelan crisis to defend the interests of companies eager to regain their economic power in Venezuela and to discredit Podemos. The Venezuelan crisis can only have a democratic outcome if there is a new revolutionary impulse within the Bolivarian revolution; it will never come from those who have plundered the Latin American countries.