Red book—Fundamental documents

[A reader has alerted me to a problem with submitting comments. If you are having this problem please email your comment to me so I can add it myself. I will try to sort out the issue in the meantime.   The following is from the introduction to the PSUV's Libro Rojo (i.e., 'Red Book'). It was issued last year and is available on the PSUV website (http://www.psuv.org.ve/temas/biblioteca/libro-rojo/). I will translate more of this in subsequent posts.]        

Red Book - Fundamental Documents

Translated by Owen Richards

   
The First Extraordinary Congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) approves the Declaration of Principles, the Statutes [constitution] and the Programmatic Foundations of the Party, in the framework of the bicentennial era.

The First Extraordinary Congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), completes this important phase with the approval of the documents that formally give birth to the socialist party: the Declaration of Principles, the Statutes and the Programmatic Foundations of the Party.  This historic event takes place in the context of the development of a revolutionary process whose protagonist is the people, with Comandante President Hugo Chavez at its head, and that has as its aim of providing continuity to the emancipatory heritage  initiated 200 years ago by our Liberators.  Today as yesterday, all socialist militants, all Venezuelans who love this homeland, have the obligation to fight for liberty, for sovereignty, for independence and social justice for the wellbeing of our peoples.

Two-hundred years after the start of the process of a still-unfinished emancipation, we are obliged to reclaim the struggles developed by our Liberators, for such men and women of our peoples as shed their blood and gave their lives and for the Homeland.  Yesterday our peoples confronted the Spanish empire, today we are confronting the U.S. empire with the same aims: liberty, independence, sovereignty and social justice.

2010 to 2013: Bicentennial era

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), as the expression of the people's unity, must assume the role of vanguard in the coming struggles, in the framework of the bicentennial era that has begun, until the definitive independence of our peoples has been achieved, in terms that, in agreement with history, were raised by the leader of the revolution, Commandant Hugo Chavez Frias: 2010 to 2013.  On the bicentenary of the death of the Liberator Simon Bolivar, our Homeland should not just be definitively free, independent and sovereign, but also must have consolidated Bolivarian socialism with the construction of a society where social justice and equality, solidarity and love reign.  Liberty cannot walk alone, she is obliged to guarantee justice, as both are inseparable sisters. As Grand Marshall Jose Antonio de Sucre said:

"When America was at war to achieve liberty, it understood that it would also have to achieve justice…  Liberty and justice are inseparable sisters (and), and if we don't achieve justice, the war of independence will not have made sense."