Apologies

I'd like to apologise to all readers and subscribers of Translating the revolution for the long delays between recent posts. My three-week-old child is the culprit ;-). I'll try to return to a more regular and frequent schedule ASAP. Thanks for your support.

Owen Richards.

Responsibilities of militants

The following post is a continuation of my translation of the PSUV's 'Statutes' from the Red Book:

Article 9: Responsibilities of militants

Translated by Owen Richards

Every militatnt is obliged to comply with the following duties:

1. To defend the Homeland, the Revolution and its leader, and the PSUV.

2. To comply with ethical-moral values, education, self-education, discipline, solidarity and revolutionary love.

3. To contribute to the party's financing, in accord with progressive and proportional rules.

4. To comply with and abide by the [political] lines and instructions put out by the various leadership bodies of the party.

5. To be available to the Party Leadership in order to participate in any activity required.

6. To undertake permanent efforts in voluntary work under the Party's direction.

7. To tirelessly struggle against the scourge of corruption.

8. To confront bureaucratism in any of its manifestations.

9. To educate oneself within the Party's System of Education.

Socialist militants and party membership

The following is a continuation of my translation of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela's 'Statutes'. See previous posts for the rest of the PSUV's Red Book to date.

Chapter 2.  On militants

Translated by Owen Richards

Article 6: Characteristics of militants

Every militant of the United Socialist Party Of Venezuela (PSUV) is a socialist, Bolivarian, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, internationalist, humanist, environmentalist and feminist; and should accept and practice the principles, programme and statutes of the party, and is therefore a militant of the hopes and dreams of the great majority, and guides his or her conduct by the following values:

• Socialist ethics and morality.

• Socialist education and self-education.

• Conscious discipline based on criticism and self-criticism.

• The practice of solidarity and love.

• The consciousness of social duty.

• The struggle against corruption and bureaucratism.

Article 7: A militant of the United Socialist Party Of Venezuela:

Is any person above 15 years of age who voluntarily joins the PSUV and is admitted by the appropriate body, and who accepts and defends the statutes, declaration of principles, and the program of the party.

Article 8: The rights of militants

Every militant has the right to:

1.  Participate in the Socialist Patrols and any other party-defined base unit of organisation with full speaking and voting rights.

2.  Nominate and be nominated to the various leadership bodies of the party and to positions of popular election.

3.  Raise ideas, projects and programmes with the various leadership bodies of the party.

4.  Make reasonable criticisms only within party bodies.

5.  Activate and participate with communities in the strengthening of popular power and in social movements or fronts.

6.  To take—alongside the people—social control of the various organs of popular power and the revolutionary government.

How much socialism?

A good rebuttal of those who argue Venezuela's socialist revolution hasn't moved fast enough in nationalising all sectors of big capital.

How much socialism?

Translated by Owen Richards

The question orbits every revolution. Processes are defined in the amount and speed of changes.

The reformists, the social democrats, often appear to be close to Socialism. At least, they don't combat it openly. They have their Socialist International and don't hesitate to call themselves socialists - take the MAS for example. They accept that capitalism is malignant, they admit the need to change it, but, when the time comes for action, they start slinking off.

They say: "Changes must be made bit by bit so as not to disrupt the economy", "the changes should not be extended too far, certain areas are sufficient", "private enterprises have a right to subsist, society needs them". With such parsimony, the Consciousness of Social Duty is not formed, and the changes get absorbed by the capitalist system. They thus derail the possibility of building socialism.

The revolutionary position is clear: as much and as rapid a socialism as the Consciousness of Social Duty requires, and at the speed necessary to prevent capitalist restoration. This is the formula for building and defending Socialism. There is no other.

The changes can be material ones: those related to Social Ownership administered by the National State, the only form of ownership that is entwined with the Consciousness of Social Duty.

Regarding social organisation: those who make up the national fabric, from the capillary units up to the national level, from the base to the national leadership bodies. This scheme applies to all forms of social and political organisation.

Changes of consciousness: here the message of our means of communication is fundamental - the example of leaders, and the signals they send to the population.  These messages should translate the steps of the Revolution, in ideology, in consciousness, in ethical and moral values. It's important to emphasise that these changes in consciousness and culture are the main aims of socialist construction and the Revolution's measure of success.

The level of consciousness is measured by mobilisation: a defenseless, sedentary mass is an unconscious mass. A combative mass - organised and mobilised, defending the revolution and the Commander [Hugo Chavez] on any terrain - is a conscious mass.

Isolated advances get diluted; they should be achieved in unity, and at the different speeds imposed by circumstance, but always with the same tendency, the same spirit.

Socialism is not built by proposals for advance in one area, while simultaneously taking  actions of retreat in another; or, as Che [Guevara] would say, by using socialist tools in one area and blunt tools in another. The masses will end up confused, the lines that separate us from the oligarchs blurred, and the life will be sucked out of the socialist idea.

Capitalism will never be good: be it small, medium or big, it will always exploit and damage the planet. There is no possible third way - the third way ends up sooner or later in capitalism. The dilemma is Socialism or capitalism.

Spanish original: 'Un Grano de Maiz'

Organisational principles and internal democracy

The following continues my translation of the PSUV Red Book’s ‘Statutes’ (i.e. constitution). Here are articles 3, 4 and 5 from chapter 1:

Fundamental positions (continued)

Translated by Owen Richards

Article 3: values and principles

The party builds itself as a socialist party and affirms the socialist society as the only alternative to supersede the capitalist system. It takes the thoery and practice of Simon Bolivar, Simon Rodriguez and Ezequiel Zamora as its creative source.  Likewise, it adopts the principles of scientific socialism, of Christianity, of liberation theology, of all critical, universal and humanist thought, gender equity and equality and the ethical obligation to build a model that respects life and mother Earth and guarantees the survival of humanity.

Simon Bolivar

As a diverse and multi-ethnic party, it nourishes its roots in the Afro-Indian legacy of Guaicaipuro and Jose Leonardo Chirino, everthing inspired in the fundamental leadership and revolutionary ideas of Commander Hugo Chavez, directed towards creating a new man and woman in the crucible of hopes and dreams that makes our new socialism a racially-mixed socialism, loaded with African identity, with the identity of our indigenous peoples, and with the international vision whose chief exponent has been Francisco de Miranda.

We assume civic-military unity as the principle to guarantee national and popular defence and sovereignty.

Article 4: On organisational principles

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), as a revolutionary party representing the interests of the urban and rural proletariat, of the campesinos and the other exploited social sectors, must be organized and work according to the principles of socialist democracy. That is to say:

• Political-ideological cohesion.

• Democratic centralism—understood as the subordination of the whole organisation to the leadership; the subordination of all militants to their organisations; the subordination of all lesser bodies to superior bodies; the subordination of the minority to the majority; top down and bottom up control of the implementation of party decisions; that all leadership bodies be elected, and the principle of collective leadership (collective and individual responsibilities) —all of which is based on the conscious discipline arising from the political line, programme and statutes governing the life of the party.

• Collective leadership of all bodies.

• Accountability before leadership bodies and before the people.

• Recallability, based upon a democratic evaluation of management.

• Constant exercise of criticism and self-criticism regarding one's own errors and those of others, in the correct way with the aim of overcoming areas.

• The exercise of socialist emulation—understood as the recognition of the political practice and revolutionary integrity of party militants.

Article 5: Methods of internal democracy

The party may use various methods when making decisions and conducting internal elections, which will be decided by the various leadership bodies according to the political conditions: direct,universal and secret election; cooptation; first, second or third grade elections; discussion and consensus.

PSUV Red Book—Statutes

The following is the second section from the PSUV's Libro Rojo, or Red Book, the statutes or constitution of the party. My translation of Section One was serialised in previous posts.

PSUV Red Book—Statutes

Translated by Owen Richards

We, delegates to the First Extraordinary Congress Of The United Socialist Party Of Venezuela (PSUV), militants all, under the leadership of President Commander Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias, having studied and considered the events and political dynamics of recent years, in which new and varied forms of organization, political foundations and elements of action arose, agree with the definitive approval of the statutes of the United Socialist Party Of Venezuela in the following terms:

Chapter 1  Fundamental dispositions

Article 1: Name

The name of the United Socialist Party Of Venezuela is adopted and allows the use of the initials PSUV as well as the flag, anthem and slogans that are set out in the respective regulations.  The party arises as an expression of the struggles and the revolutionary will of the people; it will be the political tool to unite revolutionary and socialist action and to carry out strategic tasks in order to achieve social happiness.

The party advocates unity and ethics in its policy and in the permanent activity that characterises revolutionary anti-imperialist and socialist action.

Article 2: Aims or objectives

The fundamental aims of the United Socialist Party Of Venezuela (PSUV) are the construction of Bolivarian socialism, the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist struggle, and the consolidation of Bolivarian, participatory and activist democracy, through the recognition and strengthening of Popular Power.  In its anti-imperialist essence, it has an internationalist vocation and therefore the unity and alliance of the exploited peoples of the world and their popular and progressive movements, with the aim of putting an end to capitalism.  The party takes up the task of strengthening south-south relations with the peoples of Our America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.

As a party of the masses and of cadres, it has the responsibility to educate itself in history and in human experiences in order to take up the task of permanently creating and inventing socialism, using its own criteria.

Differences between February 4, 1992 and February 27, 1989

The following is an excerpt from Hugo Chavez’s February 4, 2011 speech commemorating “4F” – the February 4 military rebellion he led in 1992. It touches on the “Un Grano de Maiz¹” column I translated in the previous post. 

Differences between February 4, 1992 and February 27, 1989

Translated by Owen Richards

“Those that die for life cannot be said to be dead”. The army and I would like to emphasize this quote, 19 years after that patriotic day, a day which we should call the revolution of the 4th of February, it was within the national army where that force was nurtured ...

Yesterday I was reading, as I do almost every day, the "A grain of corn" column that an old comrade,Toby Valderrama, publishes in the Diario Vea [newspaper], and he makes a very interesting point there, as far as I understand it. He clearly establishes the differences that there was and are in history, for the lessons that history offers us, between that tremendous jolt, that tremendous rebellion of the 27th of February, that of the 28th of February, the Caracazo, and the revolution of the 4th of February.

Nobody planned the Caracazo. The Caracazo exploded in a spontaneous way, but it had no leadership, it had no political project, the people did not go towards the centre of power, no, they dispersed, they were massacred.

The 4th of February on the other hand obeyed a thought-out project, planned for several years. Right here in Valencia there were many meetings, near the hippodrome, this hippodrome that I know so well. There we frequently met with young officers—I'm talking about 1978. The first cells existed of what later would become the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement 200.

[...]

Chavez (standing, left) and his MBR-200 comrades

It was the end of the seventies and the eighties passed by in the same way. And within the National Army a force was amassing, growing in the Army. Meanwhile, nearly all the revolutionary political forces dispersed, dissolved, extinguished. And I remembered last night one of Simon Bolivar's phrases, in some document that Bolivar wrote: “the Army is the people that can”. That's how it happened here. This expression of Bolivar has its context, but I think that it was perfectly applicable to the context of Venezuela in the seventies, in the eighties and in the nineties – “the people that couldn't”, “the people that had no way”. That was shown perfectly by the Caracazo, the people couldn't, they didn't have power to influence the situation neither via the fixed, faked, manipulated elections, nor via other ways. The people could not through guerrilla war, the people could not in the factories, the working class could not, the campesinos could not, the students could not, in spite of their immense sacrifice.

The people could not. They kept bashing themselves against the wall, falling, picking themselves up and bashing against the wall again. And then the Bolivarian phrase - “the army is the people that can” - became a reality, and that was shown on the 4th of February, 1992.

But today the phrase has been transformed. We're no longer in 1992. It was the army, “the people that could”, because we are the children of the people that were in the army and we constitute a vanguard movement. It was a vanguard that set out at midnight on that 3rd of February, and that is another of the ideas that Toby Valderrama yesterday touched on in his "A Grain of Corn" column, and I think it’s really timely for the debate that we are having on the Strategic Lines of Political Action, because a vanguard is always needed.

There are those that proclaim anarchist ideas, that deny the need for organization, that deny the role of the vanguard. But in reality, Venezuelan history shows that the people without a vanguard is manipulated. A people without a conscious and committed vanguard tends to get lost in the spaces of the struggle.

The vanguard must be maintained, it must be strengthened. Today the vanguard is the party, it has to be a coherent organisation, with an ideological, political project. The Socialist Party must become a great vanguard. And, I’m going to say as well, the Army. The Army. And when I say the Army, I’m of course also referring to the Navy, the Air Force, the National Guard, and the Militia.  The Army has to continue to be a revolutionary vanguard of the people. 

Sourced from : Debate Socialista 

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¹ The “Un Grano de Maiz” ("A grain of corn") blogsite by Toby Valderrama (Antonio Aponte) takes its name from a quote by 19^th century Cuban independence hero, Jose Marti. Warning revolutionaries against striving for personal glory, Marti wrote: “All the glory in the world fits into a grain of corn”.