By Jesús Faría on March 30, 2023, from Caracas
photo: Bill Hackwell
The Bolivarian Revolution was born in a historical confrontation against multiple forces and phenomena that plunged the country at the end of the 20th century into one of its greatest historical crises. It was an economic, social and political crisis, but also a moral crisis of enormous proportions. Let us remember that the military rebellion of 4F of 1992 denounced on the front line the disgusting moral decomposition of the political and economic elites. Punto Fijoism was crumbling in the swamp of corruption, which far from being combated, was stimulated and justified.
One of the main priorities of the Bolivarian Revolution, of the constituent process, as well as of all the initiatives of the Chavista forces, was aimed at eradicating corruption, which we could define as private enrichment (group or individual) from the exploitation of public and private power.
At the beginning of the revolution, perhaps we thought that stopping this scourge and defeating it would be a simpler task, when in fact the theft of State resources, the nauseating actions of public officials and the corrupting use of private economic power were based on powerful and deeply rooted mechanisms in society.
What we now have is the most recent and most serious cases of corruption in our oil industry and the judicial system, where high-ranking public officials, with the utmost contempt for the people, committed the most abominable outrages with the people’s money in conditions of enormous material difficulties for the population as a result of the brutal effects of the Yankee blockade. This is a real onslaught against the people and the revolution by traitors to the homeland.
This, however, cannot at any time hide the fact that, with the Bolivarian Revolution, as never before, we have acted implacably against the theft of public resources. It is in this new period of our history, under the firm leadership of Commander Chávez and now of President Nicolás Maduro, that very high public officials have been judicially prosecuted, from ministers and magistrates, to governors and mayors, up to presidents and directors of companies and State agencies.
This constitutes an abysmal difference, as has already been said on other occasions, in relation to the past of the dictatorships and caudillos in the 19th and 20th centuries. Those were governments of morally decayed elites, who held power based on their enrichment by means of the squandering of public funds.
Causes and dimensions of corruption
The system of corruption designed by the economic and political elites of the bourgeoisie has multiple forms of expression. One of them is moral. As we know, capitalism is based on principles and anti-values such as the desire for profit at any cost, individualism, accumulation of wealth, competition, inequalities, among others. From this, behaviors such as bribery, theft, influence peddling, abuse of power in the service of the growing accumulation of wealth and, therefore, of power, are encouraged. This activates a process of moral decomposition on a growing scale, permeating key sectors in the administration of the State and society.
Another dimension of this scourge is economic. The very way capitalism works, based on profit maximization, leads businessmen to use the most shameless bribery to capture income, perks and privileges. With the accumulated wealth, the State is penetrated in order to achieve privileges and accumulate greater profits. Corruption is, in fact, a frequent mechanism of the fusion of political and economic power, of the absolute subordination of State decisions to the strategies of capital.
Finally, we have the institutions of the State. In our case they are, to a large extent, those inherited from the past, tailor-made for the looting and privileges of the oligarchies. They are inefficient institutions, plagued by bureaucracy, which is a prelude to acts of corruption. Moreover, they coexist with useless oversight mechanisms.
Consequences of corruption
In the context of this trilogy, corruption remains alive even in conditions of the greatest efforts of the revolution to eradicate it, with very negative consequences for the development of the nation, which go far beyond the already crucial moral issue.
Among many of them, it is worth mentioning in the socio-political area: growing inequalities in the distribution of income, reduction of State resources for social investment, political instability due to social protest against this scourge, delegitimization of the political system, deterioration of democracy, etc.
In the economic sphere, we have: reduction in the financial strength of the State, growing accumulation of wealth by fraudulent means, undermining of the economic stimulus mechanism for production, parasitism towards the State, strengthening of the control of economic power over the State, etc.
Revolutionary offensive against corruption
The fight against corruption is complex, as is the process of decomposition. In the current situation, the revolution has declared a relentless offensive to fight it and a great strength of this strategy is precisely that the Head of State himself, Nicolás Maduro, has put himself at the forefront of this crusade.
Here, tasks of enormous importance are combined. Eradicating impunity is key, which requires efficient control and sanction mechanisms. Educational processes based on new cultural patterns, as well as the examples projected by the country’s leadership, are vital for the ethical rooting of socialist values in this and new generations. The strengthening of institutions and, beyond that, their total transformation within the framework of the new revolutionary State of growing popular participation constitutes one of the most efficient antidotes against the embezzlement of the treasury. It is necessary to insist on overcoming rentierism, which generates a chronic parasitism in relation to public resources. The participatory and democratic communication of the society allows the sustained denunciation and the ample debate of the cases of corruption. The democratization of economic life prevents the privileges of big capital through bribes, among many other tasks.
It is clear that we will be able to put a definitive end to corruption when we bury its roots, which are located in the capitalist system of exploitation. Therefore, the aforementioned tasks belong to the process of transition to socialism. But this is a long, complex process, where there is the danger of contagion of the decomposition of the old system. Because of this, as comrade Diosdado Cabello has said, the revolution has to create its antibodies to go thoroughly against corruption. This is vital, because these manifestations of moral degeneration, of restoration of the old bourgeois domination, could be even more dangerous for the Bolivarian revolution than the imperialist aggression itself.
Finally, there is an essential point of our anti-corruption strategy: to unite the people with their powerful moral shield, the same one that allowed us to defeat Yankee imperialism in its recent and ferocious attack. Every great battle requires a force of extraordinary dimensions. That force is the organized and conscious working people, at the head of which is the PSUV, its powerful vanguard.
To this end, it is crucial to carry out an intense communications campaign to guide them, since this is also a great battle of truth against lies. The revolution has absolutely nothing in common with corruption, they are antagonistic, it has always fought it relentlessly. By the way, the right wing, corrupted in the governments of the past and now in the coup opposition, lacks the moral authority to talk about this issue.
From this battle we will come out morally and politically strengthened, purged of decomposed elements and in better conditions to develop our historic program.
Jesús Faría is a member of the National Directorate of the PSUV and President of the Economy and Finance Commission of the National Assembly
Source: Cuba en Resumen