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Venezuela: translating the revolution aims to promote solidarity with Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution by providing translations of interesting and important Venezuelan news articles and opinion pieces. It welcomes genuine discussion and debate on the posted articles.

Wednesday 6 April 2011

Communal councils and the whip of the counter-revolution


Translated by Owen Richards

Reality, history tells us that the Empire turns all areas of social life into politics, that is, into the defence of its capitalist system.

No corner of social activity escapes being used to perpetuate, to reproduce the system. So it is with art, film, theatre, the economy, social organisation - the capitalist Empire penetrates everything and puts everything at its service, or rather, all of society is the scene of a fierce battle between capitalism and socialism.

The following news recently appeared on a front page in the esqualido press:

“Communal Councils form a front to combat exclusion

“A thousand Communal Councils that failed to gain Fundacomunal registration created an organisation yesterday. In an assembly that took place at the Brion de Chacaito Plaza, representatives of these associations explained their reasons: without this procedure, they would not be able to receive funding for their projects. Therefore, signatures were collected to support the legal integration of the National Front of Excluded Communal Councils.”

One of this front’s promoters is William Ojeda, if there was any doubt about its intentions. As Che [Guevara] thought, the Empire has a good nose for sniffing out what should be used and what eliminated. The enemy understood before we did that the Communal Councils are above all political, and to be most effective they need to be integrated, and so they integrated in this anti-government, anti-socialist front, using the guise of community work.


The revolution, spurred on by the counter-revolution’s whip, must take a step forward and organise the Communal Councils into a national fabric, the only way to make them into strong fortresses in defence of Socialism - which is the real defence of their immediate problems.

The Communal Councils must understand - and it’s the party and the government’s job to make it understood – that the solution of their problems is only possible with socialism, and that if the opportunity is lost the country will fall once more into the capitalists’ hands. Then, inevitably, the days of spiritual and material misery will return multiplied a thousandfold.

So, the struggle against neighbourhood problems must be the battle for Socialism. Capitalism cannot resolve problems of its own making.

The job of creating this web of Communal Councils is vital and urgent. Capitalism attacks us on this front. The answer is to advance. Only this web will be a barrier against the egoism that grows in the isolated Councils. And only this web can absorb the teachings, ideology, and solidarity that is the foundation of Socialism.

Never before in history have we been so close to giving concrete form to Socialism, to the new society, to the new man.  A national, social web of Communal Councils and Communes is a really important step on this path.

Isolated Communal Councils are weak before capitalist seduction.