By Alberni Poulot on September 16, 2024
photo: RL Argentina
In one of his emblematic “Aló Presidente” programs, Comandante Chávez told this story: “…I was listening to him for more than six hours, almost without interrupting him, a question, a commentary. A wise man. Do you know what Fidel told me? Well, I am going to tell you this because it is a criticism, but he is right, and I feel obliged to make it public. He told me with much respect: “Chávez, would you allow me to tell you two or three things crudely? I told him: “You are authorized to tell me whatever you want”. And he told me: “Two things initially ‘ …: ’Look, a conclusion I have drawn… ‘you said in your speech a phrase, a figure, that ten years ago there were six hundred thousand university students in Venezuela, today there are two million four hundred thousand… ’No Revolution that I know of, not even the Cuban one, achieved so much for its people in the social field, especially in such a short time as the Bolivarian Revolution”. Do you know what the second one is? This is what he told me: “I have concluded that you do not want to take political advantage of these social advances”. The phrase sounds harsh, “you do not want to”. One might think that we cannot. That is, to transfer with the same intensity the social benefit, all that we have achieved, to political capital. So, the conclusion is hard: that we do not want to, you see? And it also has a lot to do with the fact that some people do not know how to do it. We have to learn, that people perceive all that the Revolution has been transferring to the people, and comparing with the past. And more importantly, what would happen if the counterrevolution returns to government in Venezuela?
The two conclusions highlighted above explain to a great extent the Bolivarian success in the face of the ferocious neo-fascist onslaught of US imperialism, the Venezuelan counterrevolution, the regional ultra-right and the European allies, more satellites than independent entities of the US imperial governance. It is good, and it will never be enough that we know all the strategy of attack and conquest of the enemy, their purposes, their tactics, maneuvers, their forces and means, the resources of all kinds they use to break the combative morale of their opponents and most importantly, their war objectives, the reasons for their arrogance, the motivations of their arrogance, the justifications and tools to convince, drag, induce, manipulate and force many, among the confused, uninformed, resentful, selfish and ambitious to swell their ranks and support with enthusiasm or cowardice the fascist policy and the executioner. However, as important as knowing the enemy and his tactics of aggression are, is to know how to put forward a plan, a strategy, tactics and actions to counter, stop and defeat him. Plan against Plan, as Martí would say.
Not having paid due attention to Fidel’s warnings (due to inexperience, unwanted mistakes, betrayals, the premature and irreparable death of Chávez and the strong opportunistic and disloyal onslaught of world imperialism and the Venezuelan counterrevolution), caused, among other causes, the political defeat of the revolutionary Government in the 2015 parliamentary elections. If we reason it coldly, it was Fidel’s two fundamental criticisms that prevailed as causes of that defeat: the people did not have all the necessary political awareness to face, defeat and reverse in the short term (during the election process) the enemy onslaught and their own mistakes. Not all the social achievements had been effectively transferred to the popular political capital, and the worst happened, the counterrevolution reached the Legislative Power, at the hands of the manipulated, confused, resentful, uninformed and de-ideologized popular vote. In an article entitled: “Venezuela: Christmas Reflections”, by journalist Álvaro Samuel, written on December 22, 2015, the columnist certified in a combative manner some paths to follow, with self-critical courage, revolutionary humility and faith in victory. He expounded, “Let us not think of airy government policies, very beautiful on paper, but difficult to bring to reality: let us look for the most suitable model of government for the historical moment we live in, not the most utopian no matter how perfect it may seem.” – “Let us remember that the Venezuelan people are mostly consumerist… by habit, by the modern servitude they carry in their heads and with their help or without them we must reach a fairer system of life for the human being and for the Planet…”. “Enough of so much forgiveness to the Right, to each conspiracy, there was a pardon, and to each pardon there was another conspiracy that was pardoned again. We will not be forgiven by the Right if they get their hands on all the powers of the Venezuelan State”. It is necessary to win consciences with ideas and not with apartments, automobiles, computers, cell phones, tablets. Consciences gained with ideas can withstand a drop in the price of crude oil; those gained with material benefits can fall down, like a house of cards, at the slightest touch”. From that point on, a chain of lessons and rectifications followed to avoid the same mistakes again, and even worse, the loss of political power and with it, the loss of popular power.
Almost 9 years after those events, the Government of Nicolás Maduro Moros, together with the Civic-Military Union, have built an amazing and convincing sequence of political, legal, ethical, civic, patriotic, ideological, social and, this year, economic victories, which stand out as necessary, economic, which stand as necessary lessons and contributions of this revolutionary process to the theory and practice of the construction of radical, transforming, legitimate and alternative processes to the models of savage capitalism, in its imperialist, neo-liberal and neo-fascist phases.
Fascism emerged first as an ideology, imposed itself as a conditioned reflex on the great masses, specifically in Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, and then expanded, in the form of genocidal war, to the world. Today, imperialist neo-fascism operates with a similar methodology and its main theater of war is Venezuela.
Marx and Engels had already identified that the ideas of the dominant class are the dominant ideas in each epoch; or in other words, the class that exercises the dominant material power in society is, at the same time, its dominant spiritual power. The class that has at its disposal the means for material production has, at the same time, the means for spiritual production, which means that the ideas of those who lack the necessary means to produce spiritually are subjected to it, at the same time, on average. Before the Bolivarian process, there were 21 community media, 255 private media and 11 public media in Venezuela, that is to say, a total of 287 media, of which 96.1% were not in the hands of the State. Chávez, in 1999, did not have the benefit of any of those media for his electoral campaign, he even used manual megaphones to speak to his followers; Maduro contested against Capriles, the candidate of Yankee imperialism, of the International Right and of the Venezuelan counterrevolution, with less than 20% of the media used in the electoral elections of 2013, after the death of Commander Hugo Chávez Frías.
Therefore, if there is a lesson learned, it is that the system and the communicational apparatus had to be reformed and put at the service of the truth, of timely, immediate, transparent, enlightening, educational, persuasive, mobilizing and generating awareness, commitment, unity and popular consensus. Today, it is capable of effectively confronting all the maneuvers and aggressions of the Hate Industry and global cultural colonization. The Government created the Bolivarian Communication and Information System (SIBCI), which today has 7 national channels, plus Telesur, which is international, and 36 community television stations with signals authorized by the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL). The most important is Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) or Channel 8, which over the years has been increasing its audience, mainly because it used to broadcast the famous program that Hugo Chávez himself hosted as “anchor”, Aló Presidente.
Today, there are more than 800 media outlets. The main leaders of the Bolivarian Revolution are very active in social communication, through traditional media and through socio-digital media. President Maduro stands out with his program “Con Maduro+”, Vice President Diosdado Cabello and his television program “Con el mazo dando” and the President of the National Assembly and the program “Conexión con Jorge Rodríguez”. Meaning, they capitalize the popular mobilization through their multiple interventions in press conferences, interviews, participation in television, radio and digital programs and in popular mobilizations.
The Government has continued exercising the legislative and legal initiative to defend the Constitution of the Republic, the rights of the people emanated from it and to confront and end (in process) with the impunity and impudence of criminals, violent, haters, corrupt, smugglers, speculators and all the political and vicious scum to continue sustaining the Moral Power of the Nation.
From this certainty, today there is a Law against fascism and neo-fascism. Another of the actions that have made it possible for the Bolivarian and Chavista Revolution to arrive strong and invincible to face neo-fascism, is to have put the neighborhood communities, their social organizations, the leftist parties and movements of the country (Gran Polo Patriotico), the trade unions, the men and women of the Bolivarian and Chavista Revolution on a fighting footing, unions, the men and women of the people grateful to the revolutionary work, through the factual conviction, with concrete and irrefutable evidence of the advantages and benefits of Bolivarian socialism and the nefariousness of neoliberalism, fascism and counterrevolution.
What has been seen, experienced, suffered and regretted by the people in the guarimbas of 2002, when the coup d’état against Chávez took place, in 2014, 2015 and 2017 against President Nicolás Maduro, and now, on July 29 and 30, 2024, has convinced an immense majority of them, of what would be the destiny, if, as Fidel asked and, today this question is recurrent in the Chavista leaders, this imperialist and fascist ultra-right would take political power. The Government has given itself the task of taking extreme measures of internal order, security and peace, in favor of the people and against delinquency, paramilitarism and the violent and fascist counterrevolution in the streets, activated, as the so-called “comanditos” or through sabotage, such as those perpetrated against the National Electric System and other State institutions, by citizens, Chavistas or not, but who think differently or do not allow themselves to be led by them.
The Great Patriotic Pole, headed by the PSUV, has been better articulated, restructured, organized, corrected failures of cohesion and agreements, inefficiencies and bureaucracy, which hindered them. The Venezuelan government has deployed an intelligent diplomatic and regional political strategy, which has allowed it to strengthen strategic alliances, such as ALBA-TCP, with CARICOM, its request and possible incorporation to the BRICS+ bloc, the support of Russia and China, the reinforcement of its integrationist prestige as host country of the peace negotiations in Colombia and the accurate handling of the conflicts with Guyana, over the “Essequibo” dispute and in the face of the dislikes of Presidents Lula and Petro regarding the results of the elections and the non-recognition of Nicolás Maduro as legitimately elected president on July 28. Recently ratified by the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice, in less time than the time established by the Constitution, which is up to 30 days after the initiation of the contentious process.
Other lessons, which have become factors of the electoral triumph, and key to the understanding of the triumph over neo-fascism, were summarized by the remarkable Franco-Spanish journalist, writer and political scientist Ignacio Ramonet. In short, the Chavista government “defeated hyperinflation, the highest in the world and the greatest scourge for any economy. Today, inflation in Venezuela is lower than that of the US and the European Union. It relaunched economic growth in a spectacular way. In 2023, Venezuela obtained the highest growth rate in Latin America and will reach it again this year (+8%). It achieved full employment; between the public and private sectors and the formal and informal economies, full employment was achieved for the first time in decades, with a significant increase in salaries and income”.
It also “achieved, for the first time in more than a century, food sovereignty. Ninety-six percent of Venezuelans’ food is produced in Venezuela. An immense victory for the peasantry. Oil production was relaunched. It is already reaching again one million barrels per day. It defeated the illegal and criminal blockade, the main cause of the great suffering of the population. It has relaunched social aid policies. Venezuela once again has resources and a large part of these are invested in large social programs and solidarity missions”.
Fidel’s warnings and Chávez’s receptivity were revolutionarily assumed by the Government of Nicolás Maduro and his brave people. What it is all about is that ideas do not suffer defeats, because the defeats of ideas are paid for with setbacks in the path of revolutions.
Let us do what our Bolivarian and Chavista brothers and sisters teach us, with this we will have defeated neo-fascism and power will be perpetuated in the hands of the people.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – Havana