Communes in Caracas

Communal organization includes the city

CCS - 07/09/11

Among the aims of community organization is that of building the communal State, where power is exercised directly by the people, through self-government, with an economic model of social property and endogenous development.

Based on this premise, 236 communes and more than 9,000 communal councils have been established, according to information from the Ministry of Popular Power for the Communes.

Through this process the city of Caracas has turned into a space full of examples of self-government.

Socioeconomic model

In the Capital District around 44 sectors exist that are in the process of building communes in order to lay the foundations for Venezuelan socialism.

In the Antimano ward, 18 communal councils of the Carapita sector and part of Santa Ana organised to establish the Victoria Socialist Commune.

Concrete block production by the Ezequiel Zamora Commune, Antimano, Caracas

Edgar Astudillo, the commune’s spokesperson, reports that the developing socioeconomic model now has four collective work units for the production of goods and services, working under the criteria of reinvesting profits back into the community.

Blacksmithing, concrete block making, carpentry, textiles and baking are the businesses established with an investment of 924,000 BsF that was authorized by president Hugo Chavez through the Micro-financing Development Fund (Fondemi), in June 2010.

More power and consciousness

The experience of the communes is based on self-government under the Organic Law of Popular Power, as the “set of actions through which the organized communities directly assume the management of projects, the carrying out of works and services in order to improve the quality of life in its geographical area”.

Blanca Araujo, spokesperson for the commune-in-construction, El Paraiso de Maisanta, of Cota 905, Santa Rosalia ward, defines the commune building process, from her experience, as an “organization of the people to solve their problems”. She adds that “with the commune we have more power and more consciousness of the problems we face”.

This commune, a year in the making, has a route that covers the Guzman Blanco sector on Cota 905 towards Quinta Crespo. The resources it receives are used for community projects.

La Pastora is another example that is adopting the communal model. “Firstly, we met as a promotional team for social and political activities in the area. When the President put out the call to form communes, we decided that this was a way to make a reality of the goals of the revolutionary process”, recalls Milagros Hernandez, spokesperson of the Los Mecedores commune in construction, in La Pastora ward.

They have just established a communal house acquired with 650,000 BsF granted by the Government of Capital District. In that space they will install an Infocentre and a textile company as socioeconomic projects.

Extending the geographic axis

In 2008, locals from the El Observatorio sector in 23 de Enero [neighbourhood] and part of the San Juan ward, which has12 communal councils, formed the Juan 23 Commune, made up of  11,526 inhabitants who share the same territory and history.

Nelson Solorzano, one of the promotors of this organization, said that they are now expanding their axis of activity. They meet with nine communes in west Caracas and make economic exchanges to break with the capitalist market which causes most of the problems the communes are struggling against.

Socialist spaces

The Organic Law of the Communes stipulates that these social organizations are “a socialist space that, as local entities, are defined by the integration of neighbourhood communities with a shared memory and history, cultural features, traits and customs that are recognized in the territory that they occupy and in the productive activities that are the basis of their livelihood”. Among its aims is to promote mechanisms for education and training in the communities and promote the popular defence of human rights.

Translated by Owen Richards 

Communal councils and the whip of the counter-revolution

Un Grano de Maiz

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.