Building Bolivarian socialism – the only way out

More from the PSUV’s Libro Rojo - the party’s 2010 party program:

9.  Building Bolivarian socialism – the only way out

Translated by Owen Richards

In any society, the private ownership of the means of production determines the relations of work, human relations and all aspects of life. It denies the aims of a humanist, solidarity-based and socialist society.  But it's no less certain that the transition at the current stage of humanity demands the careful evaluation of each step, to guarantee at every stage the conscious participation of the majority and the necessary efficiency.

The exploitation of man by man contradicts the sentiments of solidarity and mutilates the links of fraternity.  Capitalism wages war on the human condition and on the preservation of the species.  The irrational imperative of growth and accumulation provokes the global destruction of ecosystems and threatens to extinguish the sources of life.  This catastrophic dynamic is caused by a socio-economic system that dispenses with human needs and acts according to its own logic, compelled towards constant growth in pursuit of profit.  In such a frantic race, periodic crises are provoked that the system "resolves" with the massive destruction of human life, material goods and natural resources.  Socialism is the only way out that ensures the existence of humanity.

Since the division of society into classes, there has been resistance to oppression and exploitation. Beginning with the victory of capitalism over feudalism and the predominance of the capitalist mode of production at the global level, the social struggles of the nascent industrial workers movement fused with the most advanced thought of its epoch and gave rise to the struggle for socialism based on science and on the deepest sentiments of human beings.

On our continent, Simon Bolivar established the bases of national and social liberation with his libertarian example and his humanist and revolutionary vision, which are now fundamental to the union of our peoples and to social transformation in our time.

Before the crisis of the system and the grave threats that are entailed therein, the contemporary challenge consists in directing action in a way so that the exploited and oppressed masses of Venezuela absorb as much knowledge of history, economics and political theory as possible, so as to ground them in the immense task of responding in an original way, grounded in concrete reality, in the roots of Venezuelan identity, in the cultural particulars, including those of each region and social group, faced with each daily requirement, and each difficulty raised in the transition from capitalism to socialism.

This context opens up the perspective of promoting an international anti-imperialist bloc on a large scale, with the participation of national, provincial and local governments, social movements of different kinds, and political forces of a broad ideological spectrum.  It is about uniting in action hundreds of millions of people around the world against imperialism and its wars.

The possibility likewise arises of making a qualitative transformationin the politico-organisational reality of the tens of millions of exploited and oppressed in our America.  The party therefore assumes the need to forge tools that both recover and bring together universal revolutionary thought, as the vanguard in an era of immense challenges and great victories.  Capitalism is international; the revolution is international; theory and the action it inspires must too be international.

Activity based on the idea of a worldwide anti-imperialist bloc and the revolutionary and socialist convergence of the people of our American will guide the steps of the party, in the certainty that the concretion of these aims will change the balance of forces on the international scale and inaugurate a new historical era.

Finally, we reclaim the building of socialism as the only way out of imperialist capitalism and to achieve the redemption of our people.  Venezuela has begun to build socialism.  The crisis of imperialism is clearly evident.  The party is born to defend the homeland, to take forward the revolution towards its emancipatory goal, as the instrument to take the people and exploited to power, to put itself at the service of the transition from capitalism to socialism, progressively transforming the relations of production, of exchange, and of ownership into a means of production for the liberation of the working class, ending the bourgeoisise's control and monopolization of the means of production, transferring them to the power of the workers, to the communities, and to unite with all the other peoples of the world in the task of burying capitalism and building a new world, in accordance with a free and full humanity.  This implies the socialisation of the means of production, the rational distribution of the land and wealth, combating corruption and bureaucratism.  It means changing the rentier, single commodity export, and consumerist economic model for a productive and diversified model, aimed at the full satisfaction of human needs.

Socialism is the true way of reclaiming the deeper meaning of democracy, with the maximum development of popular power, as the most developed form of participatory and protagonist democracy, of the participation of the popular masses in the building of a new society, where the power of the organised people legitimates and empowers actions towards a united human society, in loving coexistence and in peace, in the search for and continuance of a world in which justice and social equality prevail as the basic principles for the distribution of wealth and the benefits of society, of ethics and socialist morality as the fundamental axes motivating the self-sacrificing behaviour of the members of society, for the total happiness of being.