Trotsky, Permanent Revolution, Venezuela.

From natural disaster to national humiliation

By WSWS.

2 September 2005

The catastrophe that is unfolding in New Orleans and on the Gulf coast of Mississippi has been transformed into a national humiliation without parallel in the history of the United States.
The scenes of intense human suffering, hopelessness, squalor, and neglect amidst the wreckage of what was once New Orleans have exposed the rotten core of American capitalist society before the eyes of the entire world—and, most significantly, before those of its own stunned people.
The reactionary mythology of America as the “Greatest Country in the World” has suffered a shattering blow.
Hurricane Katrina has laid bare the awful truths of contemporary America—a country torn by the most intense class divisions, ruled by a corrupt plutocracy that possesses no sense either of social reality or public responsibility, in which millions of its citizens are deemed expendable and cannot depend on any social safety net or public assistance if disaster, in whatever form, strikes.
Washington’s response to this human tragedy has been one of gross incompetence and criminal indifference. People have been left to literally die in the streets of a major American city without any assistance for four days. Images of suffering and degradation that resemble the conditions in the most impoverished Third World countries are broadcast daily with virtually no visible response from the government of a country that concentrates the greatest share of wealth in the world.
The storm that breached the levees of New Orleans has also revealed all of the horrific implications of 25 years’ worth of uninterrupted social and political reaction. The real results of the destruction of essential social services, the dismantling of government agencies entrusted with alleviating poverty and coping with disasters, and the ceaseless nostrums about the “free market” magically resolving the problems of modern society have been exposed before millions.
With at least 100,000 people trapped in a city without power, water or food and threatened with the spread of disease and death, the government has proven incapable of establishing the most elementary framework of logistical organization. It has failed to even evacuate the critically ill from public hospitals, much less provide basic medical assistance to the many thousands placed in harm’s way by the disaster.
What was the government’s response to the natural catastrophe that threatened New Orleans? It amounted to betting that the storm would go the other way, followed by a policy of “every man for himself.” Residents of the city were told to evacuate, while the tens of thousands without transportation or too poor to travel were left to their fate.
Now crowds of thousands of hungry and homeless people have been reduced to chanting “we need help” as bodies accumulate in the streets. Washington’s inability to mount and coordinate basic rescue operations will unquestionably add to a death toll that is already estimated in the thousands.
The government’s callous disregard for the human suffering, its negligence in failing to prepare for this disaster and, above all, its utter incompetence have staggered even the compliant American media.
Patriotic blather about the country coming together to deal with the crisis combined with efforts to poison public opinion by vilifying those without food or water for “looting” have fallen flat in face of the undeniable and monumental debacle that constitutes the official response to the disaster.
Reporters sent into the devastated region have been reduced to tears by the masses of people crying out for help with no response. Television announcers cannot help but wonder aloud why the authorities have failed so miserably to alleviate such massive human suffering.
The presidency, the Congress and both the Republican and Democratic parties—all have displayed an astounding lack of concern for the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been shattered and who face the most daunting and uncertain future, not to mention the tens of millions more who will be hard hit by the economic aftershocks of Katrina.
In the figure of the president, George W. Bush, the incompetence, stupidity, and sheer inhumanity that characterize so much of America’s money-mad corporate elite find their quintessentially repulsive expression.
As the hurricane developed over two weeks in the Caribbean and slowly approached the coast of New Orleans and Mississippi, Bush amused himself at his ranch retreat in Crawford, Texas. It is now clear that his administration made no serious preparations to deal with the dangers posed by the approaching storm.
In an interview Thursday on the “Good Morning America” television program, Bush reprised his miserable performance of the previous day, adding to Wednesday’s banalities the declaration that there would be “zero tolerance” for looters.
The president blanched when ABC interviewer Dianne Sawyer asked about a suggestion that the major oil companies be forced to cede a share of the immense windfall profits they have reaped from rising prices over the past six months to fund disaster relief. He responded by counseling the American people to “send cash” to charitable organizations.
In other words, there will be no serious financial commitment from the government to save lives, care for the sick and needy, and help the displaced and bereft restore their lives. Nor will there be any national, centrally financed and organized program to rebuild one of the country’s most important cities—a city that is uniquely associated with some of the most critical cultural achievements in music and the arts of the American people.
Above all, the suffering of millions will not be allowed to impinge on the profit interests of a tiny elite of multi-millionaires whose interests the government defends.
Later in the day, Bush described the aftermath of the flood as a “temporary disturbance.”
The ruthless attitude of those in power toward the average poor and working class residents of New Orleans was summed up Thursday by Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who declared “it doesn’t make sense” to spend tax dollars to rebuild New Orleans. “It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed,” he said.
While Hastert was forced to backtrack from these chilling remarks, they have a definite political logic. To rebuild the lives that have been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina would require mounting a massive government effort that would run counter to the entire thrust of a national policy based upon privatization and the transfer of wealth to the rich that has for decades been pursued by both major parties.
Can anyone truly believe that the current administration and its Democratic accomplices in Congress are going to launch a serious program to construct low-cost housing, rebuild schools and provide jobs for the hundreds of thousands left unemployed by the destruction?
Congress has been virtually silent on the catastrophe in the south. It has nothing to say, having voted to support Bush’s extreme right-wing agenda of massive tax cuts for the rich, huge outlays for war in Iraq and Afghanistan and an ever-expanding Pentagon budget, and billions to finance the Homeland Security Department.
The millionaires club in the Capitol is well aware that it voted to slash funding for elementary infrastructure needs—including urgently recommended improvements in outmoded and inadequate Gulf Coast anti-hurricane and anti-flood systems.
The Democratic Party has, as always, offered no opposition. Indeed, the president was gratified to be able to announce that former Democratic president Bill Clinton would resume his road show with the president’s father, the former Republican president, touring the stricken regions and drumming up support for charitable donations. In this way the Democratic Party has signaled its solidarity with the White House and the Republican policy against any serious federal financial commitment to help the victims and rebuild the devastated regions.
The decisive components of the present tragedy are social and political, not natural. The American ruling elite has for the past three decades been dismantling whatever forms of government regulation and social welfare had been instituted in the preceding period. The present catastrophe is the terrible product of this social and political retrogression.
The lessons derived from past natural and economic calamities—from the deadly floods of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the dust bowl and Depression of the 1930s—have been repudiated and derided by a ruling elite driven by the crisis of its profit system to subordinate ever more ruthlessly all social concerns to the extraction of profit and accumulation of personal wealth.

Franklin Roosevelt—an astute and relatively far-sighted representative of his class—had to drag the American ruling elite as a whole kicking and screaming behind a program of social reforms whose basic purpose was to save the capitalist system from the threat of social revolution. But even during his presidency, the large-scale projects in government-funded and controlled social development, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, never became a model for broader measures to alleviate poverty and social inequality.

From the 1970s onward, as the crisis of American capitalism has deepened, the US ruling elite has attacked the entire concept of social reform and dismantled the previously established restrictions on corporate activities.
The result has been a non-stop process of social plunder, producing an unprecedented concentration of wealth at the apex of society and a level of social inequality exceeding that which prevailed in the days of the Robber Barons.
Fraud, the worst forms of speculation and criminality have become pervasive within the upper echelons of American society. This is the underlying reality that has suddenly revealed itself, precipitated by a hurricane, in the form of a collapse of the most elementary forms of social life.
The catastrophe unleashed by Katrina has unmistakably revealed that America is two countries, one for the wealthy and privileged and another in which the vast majority of working people stand on the edge of a social precipice.
All of the claims that the war on Iraq, the “global war on terrorism” and the supposed concern for “homeland security” are aimed at protecting the American people stand revealed as lies. The utter failure to protect the residents of New Orleans exposes all of these claims as propaganda designed to mask the criminality of the American ruling elite and the diversion of resources away from the most essential needs of the people.
Sent by: nonpositivism@yahoo.com

CAMBIO CLIMÁTICO :
KATRINA ES SÓLO UNA MUESTRA

Por Stephen Leahy

TORONTO, Canadá (IPS) El calentamiento del planeta favorece tormentas tropicales cada vez más intensas y frecuentes, coincidieron científicos tras el paso del huracán Katrina por Estados Unidos, en una de las peores catástrofes naturales de la historia de ese país.

De acuerdo con ese diagnóstico, la Administración Oceanográfica y Atmosférica Nacional (NOAA) de Estados Unidos pronosticó 21 tormentas tropicales en el Atlántico, el doble de lo normal, antes del fin de la actual temporada de huracanes, el 30 de noviembre.

De ese total de tormentas, entre 10 y 12 pasarían por Estados Unidos, México y el Caribe, incluido un huracán de la escala de Katrina, aunque por fortuna no todos tocarán tierra.

Katrina aterrizó en la costa estadounidense sobre el golfo de México el 29 de agosto y dejó atrás una devastación que llevará años revertir, según el propio presidente George W. Bush.

De acuerdo con estimaciones hasta el 1 de septiembre, el huracán dejó al menos 166 muertos a su paso en los últimos días por los estados sudoccidentales de Luisiana, Mississippi, Alabama y Florida.

Sin embargo, el alcalde de Nueva Orleans, Ray Nagin, dijo que sólo en su ciudad las víctimas fatales podían calcularse "por cientos o miles". Ochenta por ciento de esa ciudad está inundada, y los cadáveres flotan en las calles.

Pasarán una o dos semanas antes de que se pueda evaluar por completo el grado de la devastación, pero según estimaciones preliminares, los daños materiales superarían 25.000 millones de dólares. Según expertos, serán necesarios campamentos de refugiados para dar albergue temporario a cientos de miles de personas durante semanas o meses, por lo menos.

Lo peor es que hay más. "Esta podría ser una de las temporadas de huracanes del Atlántico más activas de que se tenga registro, y será la novena con actividad superior a lo normal en los últimos 11 años", declaró el brigadier general David Johnson, director del Servicio Meteorológico Nacional de la NOAA.

La causa de tanta actividad sería la calidez de las aguas en el océano Atlántico, según científicos. El agua oceánica a 27 grados centígrados o más crea suficiente humedad en el aire para favorecer la formación de un ciclón o huracán. Una vez iniciado, un huracán sólo precisa agua cálida y las condiciones de viento adecuadas para mantener o intensificar su fuerza.

Cuando el huracán Katrina golpeó el suroccidental estado de Florida la semana pasada, estaba en la categoría uno en la escala de Saffir-Simpson, que clasifica a los huracanes según la velocidad de sus vientos y su potencial destructivo.

Menos de 24 horas después de entrar en las aguas cálidas del golfo de México, ganó fuerza y se transformó en un huracán de categoría cinco, con vientos continuos superiores a 250 kilómetros por hora.

Aunque bajó a la categoría cuatro cuando llegó a la costa estadounidense del golfo, para entonces sus dimensiones eran enormes. Nueva Orleans, que se encuentra bajo el nivel del mar, llevó la peor parte cuando unos diques se rompieron y provocaron la inundación de cerca de 80 por ciento de la ciudad.

"No hay duda de que las aguas cálidas del golfo proveyeron el calor necesario para transformar a Katrina en un gran huracán", afirmó Ross Gelbspan, periodista galardonado con el premio Pulitzer y autor de dos libros sobre el calentamiento del planeta. Este calentamiento es, en definitiva, la causa del fenómeno, dijo a IPS.

Expertos coinciden en que el calentamiento de la atmósfera terrestre es provocado por gases de invernadero derivados de la quema de combustibles fósiles, como el carbón y el petróleo, que atrapan el calor en la atmósfera. Este efecto invernadero es causa a su vez de graves trastornos del clima que se han dado en llamar "cambio climático".

La afirmación de Gelbspan es polémica en un país en que muchas autoridades llegan a negar la existencia del calentamiento del planeta y del cambio climático. Pero crecientes pruebas científicas sumadas al aumento de desastres como huracanes, sequías, inundaciones e incendios forestales demuestran que el clima terrestre está cambiando en realidad.

El climatólogo David Easterling, del Centro Nacional de Datos Climáticos de la NOAA, concordó en que Katrina obtuvo su poder destructivo de las aguas cálidas del Golfo.

"Las temperaturas oceánicas más altas tienen más probabilidades de producir tormentas más fuertes e intensas", dijo en una entrevista.

Sin embargo, es difícil determinar si el aumento de las temperaturas en medio del Atlántico es resultado del calentamiento terrestre o de un ciclo natural, aclaró Easterling.

A escala mundial, existen claras pruebas de las causas humanas del calentamiento de los océanos, observó Tim Barnett, un físico marino del Instituto Scripps de Oceanografía, de la Universidad de California en San Diego.

En los últimos 40 años, los 300 metros más superficiales de los océanos del mundo se han calentado 0,5 grados en promedio.

Esto no es novedad, pero Barnett probó que el fenómeno es causado por las emisiones de gases invernadero, combinando modelos de computadora y observaciones reales.

Otro estudio, publicado en julio en la revista científica Nature, demostró que el calentamiento de los océanos está intensificando el poder destructivo de los huracanes y tifones.

El incremento de 0,5 grados de la temperatura oceánica duplicó el poder destructivo de los huracanes en el Atlántico norte, escribió Kerry Emanuel, del Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts, en ese informe.

"No debemos esperar otros 10 años de estudios para reducir las emisiones, como sugiere el gobierno de (George W.) Bush", urgió Michael Mastrandrea, investigador ambiental de la Universidad de Stanford.

Estados Unidos es responsable de un cuarto de todas las emisiones de gases invernadero del planeta.

Sin embargo, Bush retiró en 2001 la firma que había estampado su predecesor Bill Clinton en el Protocolo de Kyoto, firmado en 1997 para reducir las emisiones de gases invernadero, alegando que el tratado era injusto al exigir reducciones sólo a países industrializados, y que su aplicación en Estados Unidos causaría la pérdida de más de cinco millones de puestos de trabajo

Family to curb misuse of Che photo

by
Wednesday 31 August 2005 5:26 AM GMT

The image has been an enduring 20th century pop icon

With his picture on rock band posters, baseball caps and women's lingerie, Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara is firmly entrenched in the capitalist consumer society that he died fighting to overturn.

The image of the Argentine-born guerrilla gazing sternly into the distance, long hair tucked into a beret with a single star, has been an enduring 20th century pop icon.

The picture - taken by a Cuban photographer in 1960 and printed on posters by an Italian publisher after Guevara's execution in Bolivia seven years later - fired the imagination of rioting Parisian students in May 1968 and became a symbol of idealistic revolt for a generation.

But as well as being one of the world's most reproduced, the image has become one of its most merchandised.

And Guevara's family is launching an effort to stop it.

Uncontrolled use

They plan to file lawsuits abroad against companies that they believe are exploiting the image, and say lawyers in a number of countries have offered assistance.

"We have a plan to deal with the misuse"

Aleida March
Guevara's widow

"We have a plan to deal with the misuse," Guevara's Cuban widow Aleida March said in an interview.

"We can't attack everyone with lances like Don Quixote, but we can try to maintain the ethics" of Guevara's legacy, said March, who will lead the effort from the Che Guevara Studies Centre which is opening in Havana later this year.

"The centre intends to contain the uncontrolled use of Che's image. It will be costly and difficult because each country has different laws, but a limit has to be drawn," the legendary guerrilla's daughter, Aleida Guevara, told Reuters.

Paraphernalia

It will be a battle to deter use of
such a widely reproduced image

Swatch has used Guevara on a wristwatch. Advertising firms have used his image to sell vodka. Supermodel Gisele Bundchen even took to the runway in Brazilian underwear stamped with Che's face.

Guevara collectibles - from Zippo lighters to belt buckles and key chains - can be bought online at thechestore.com. But a successful copyright lawsuit against Smirnoff vodka in Britain in 2000 set the precedent for legal action, establishing ownership of the photographic image.

Lawyers say it will be an uphill struggle to deter non-photographic use of such a widely reproduced image, other than in countries such as Italy where laws protect image rights.

Photographer's action

The famous picture was shot by Alberto Diaz, a fashion photographer better known as Korda, at a funeral for victims of the explosion of a French freighter transporting weapons to Cuba, one year after Fidel Castro's revolution triumphed with the help of Guevara.

"The centre intends to contain the uncontrolled use of Che's image. It will be costly and difficult because each country has different laws, but a limit has to be drawn"

Aleida Guevara
daughter of Che Guevara

Korda's group photograph was not printed by his newspaper the next day.

Seven years later, when Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli showed up looking for a cover picture for an edition of Che's "Bolivian Diary," Korda gave him two prints for free.

Guevara was captured six months later in the Bolivian jungle, where his bid to start an armed peasant revolution ended in fiasco.

On news on his death, Feltrinelli cropped the photo and published large posters that quickly sold one million copies.

The guerrilla fighter was transformed into martyr, pop celebrity and radical chic poster boy.

Photo trivialised

Korda said he never received a penny from Feltrinelli.

But a year before his death in 2001, the photographer won a lawsuit against London agency Lowe Lintas for unauthorised use of the picture in a Smirnoff vodka advertising campaign. The Smirnoff brand is now owned by Britain's Diageo Plc.

Che Guevara was killed in Bolivia
in 1967

Korda later donated the $70,000 award to children's health care in communist Cuba.

Razi Mireskandari, the London lawyer who filed the copyright case, said Korda worried that the image of Che, who did not drink, was being trivialised by its use in promoting an alcoholic beverage that bore no relation to Cuba or his political message.

"We felt there were so many people you could take action against that we had to start somewhere," Mireskandari said.

"The plan of action was to target one of these, which was Smirnoff, and then, when we got the judgment, we were going to go against everyone else," he said in a telephone interview.

After the photographer's death, his heirs never contacted the lawyer for further action and are disputing among themselves copyright ownership of the famous picture.

Korda's daughter Diana Diaz has continued to fight political misuse of the picture.

Cuba and Che

In 2003 she won a lawsuit against a Paris-based press rights group for using the Che photograph in a poster campaign aimed at dissuading French tourists from vacationing in Cuba after the jailing of 29 dissident journalists.

Fidel Castro's revolution
triumphed with Guevara's help

Reporters Without Borders had superimposed Che's face on a picture of a baton-wielding riot policeman.

The caption said: "Welcome to Cuba, the world's largest jail for journalists."

Che fever was stoked last year by The Motorcycle Diaries, a film about his eye-opening trip through poverty-stricken countries of South America as a medical graduate.

Even Cuba sells Che's image.

Postcards and posters of Guevara playing golf at the Country Club shortly after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista in 1959 are popular with tourists.

So are Cuban banknotes issued when Guevara was Central Bank governor, simply signed "Che."

Reuters
By

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/06C28694-2A0A-4BB4-B6BF-3D1AB20E3363.h

AUTHOR'S COMMENT:
Hi, Franz,

This is an article I wrote when Chavez announced the recuperation of iddle factories in which I tried to link that with the debate about socialism and particularly the issue of workers' control and the contradictions in its implementation. It was written at the end of July and then I went away so I could not send it out. If you think it is still relevant feel free to publish it.

Best

Jorge

Chavez announces expropriation of closed factories – Venezuela debates socialism

By Jorge Martin

www.marxist.com

Monday, 18 July 2005

In his weekly Alo Presidente TV programme, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced that some 136 closed factories are being surveyed with the aim of expropriating them. “This is like the case of idle land. In the same way that we cannot allow idle land we cannot allow it with companies”.

Yesterday’s programme was broadcast from Cumana, where Chavez also participated in the inauguration of the Cacao Agro-industrial Cooperative Union, a Cacao processing plant that had been closed for nine years and has now been bought by the workers organised in a cooperative, with a low interest loan from the government. He explained that the type of cooperativism that is being promoted is one that “generates collective wealth through joint labour, going beyond the capitalist model which promotes individualism”.

“We have identified some 700 closed down companies. This cannot be allowed,” said Chavez, who read a list of companies where the process of expropriation has already started. There are another 136 which are being surveyed, and there are also a lot of companies that are partially paralysed. The total number of companies being investigated is 1149.

He mentioned the case of a fish processing plant in the Guanta harbour, which is ready to start producing. “If the employers do not want to open it, we will have to expropriate it and we will open it ourselves”. President Hugo Chavez went through the list and mentioned a number of companies that are closed but have all the machinery and assets necessary to start producing, including a textile plant, a wood mill, a furniture factory, a hotel, a dairy plant, a shoe making factory, and a steel factory, amongst others.

Paraphrasing a popular Venezuelan saying Chavez declared that, “he who has a shop must keep it open or sell it. If he does not keep it open or does not sell it, we will expropriate it”. He was clearly not referring to small shops though, since many of the companies mentioned in the list would employ between 100 and 500 workers.

He added that for any employers who want to keep their companies open, the state is prepared to help them out with low interest credit, but on condition that “the employers give workers participation in management, the direction and the profits of the company.”

Maria Cristina Iglesias, the Minister of Labour, also intervened in the programme making an appeal “to the trade unions and the workers and former workers of these companies to recover them. Only with the strength of the workers we can defeat this internal enemy which is dependency, and which keeps us away from our goals in the struggle against poverty”.

Socialism

“This is the revolution. This is socialism,” added Chavez who also said that, “revolutionary democracy is the transition, the bridge, the path towards Socialism of the XXIst century, one that is Bolivarian, Venezuelan and Latin American”. He appealed to the population to “leave to one side the ghosts with which the idea of socialism have been associated”. On Thursday, the president had disclosed the results of an opinion poll according to which the majority of Venezuelans prefer socialism. The survey, conducted by a private company at the end of May and the beginning of June, shows that 47.9% of Venezuelans prefer a “socialist government”, while only 25.7% support capitalism.

Chavez explained that there were still nearly 25% of the people who had not answered the question and that the ideological offensive had to be strengthened. Since Hugo Chavez declared that the way forward for the Venezuelan revolution was to go towards socialism, this has become the main debate within the revolutionary Bolivarian movement, and society in general. Even the president of the business federation FEDECAMARAS was forced to say a few months ago that it was not a question of choosing between socialism and capitalism but rather, “taking the best aspects of both systems”.

More recently, retired Division General Muller Rojas, in his speech to the National Assembly special session on July 5th, Independence Day, made an appeal to create a new Patriotic Society (the organisation that sparked the struggle for independence nearly 200 years ago), but that this time it should be “a Patriotic Society for Socialism”. In a speech to army officers Chavez himself urged them to take the debate on socialism “into the barracks” and to discard the old ideas and prejudices they had been taught in the past about socialism.

Within the workers’ movement these ideas have been enthusiastically received. The main discussion now is what is meant by socialism, how to apply “co-management” and what the role of the workers is in the revolutionary process and in the economy. It is clear that there are still many interpretations of what is meant by socialism. For the more moderate sections within the Bolivarian movement socialism means basically social democracy, or as they say “Zapatero’s socialism”, referring to the Spanish president.

But for the workers and the poor it is clear that socialism means a radical break with capitalism. Chavez himself has explained that, “within the limits of capitalism, the problems of misery, poverty and inequality that Venezuelans face, cannot be solved.”

In the massive state owned aluminium plant ALCASA, where the most advanced experience of what is known as “co-management” is taking place, it is quite clear that to the workers “co-management” means precisely workers’ control and management. In fact a poster printed by ALCASA has as its main slogan “Workers’ Control” (see http://www.alcasa.com.ve/images/Pruebas/CG/Afichep01.htm)

This was made clear by Edgar Caldera, one of the ALCASA workers’ union leaders in an article on May 29th. “If there is something that the workers must understand clearly is that our co-management cannot become a weapon to deepen the exploitative capitalist mode of production. We cannot repeat the sad story of Europe, where the system of co-management was used to get rid of the rights of the workers and acquired conditions”. (ALCASA, co-management, workers’ control and production, http://venezuela.elmilitante.org/index.asp?id=muestra&id_art=1999)

In ALCASA, it is the workers themselves who elect the managers. These managers keep the same wage level they had before being elected and are subject to the right of recall. In the same article, Edgar Caldera gives an example of how workers’ control at the same time means making production more efficient and getting rid of bureaucracy, mismanagement and corruption. He explains how in the Reduction Line III an outside company had been in charge of maintenance and repairs. But in fact this was a source of corruption and in practice it meant that for about 7 years, 10% of the reduction cells in the line had been idle. At a mass meeting the workers decided to kick out the outside contractor and hire the necessary amount of workers to do the same job in house. As a result the repairs were carried out in record time and now the line is working at full capacity.

This experience has enormously raised the political level of the workers who are involved in it. On June 16 to 18 there was a national meeting of workers involved in experiences of workers’ control and the conclusions agreed were definitely very sharp and pointed in the right direction. There was a clear understanding that what is known in Venezuela as “co-management” (cogestion) is in fact a step towards the building of a socialist society. One of the points agreed makes this very clear:

“To include amongst the proposals for revolutionary co-management that the companies must be the property of the State, without distribution of shares to the workers, and that any profits will be distributed according to the needs of society through the councils of socialist planning. These councils of socialist planning must be understood as bodies which implement the decisions taken by citizens in assemblies”

Contradictions

This whole process of political discussion and action by the workers and the poor is not without contradictions. For instance in the old paper mill Venepal, now INVEPAL, the first company to be expropriated by the Bolivarian government, the leaders of the union have taken the step of disbanding the union and are hoping to buy off the state’s stake in the company so that they can be the sole owners and keep any profits from production. Other trade union leaders have warned them against taking this step, insisting that this would mean the maintenance of capitalism and might even set them against other groups of workers in the future.

In INVEVAL, the former National Valve Making Company, CNV, which was expropriated by the government on May Day, difficulties are not arising from the workers themselves but rather from the state bureaucracy. During the signing of the expropriation decree Chavez made it clear that the workers had to have a majority of representatives on the board of directors and that the highest decision making body should be the General Workers’ Assembly. But when the representatives of the Ministry for Peoples’ Economy read the proposed Statutes of the company to the workers, on June 27, there was no mention of the participation of the workers. The mass meeting rejected this proposal and started a process of mobilisations demanding workers’ control. They are now linking up with workers in other companies where there are experiences of workers’ participation in order to spread their struggle beyond INVEVAL.

Finally, in the state owned electricity generation and distribution company CADAFE, from the very beginning of the implementation of “co-management” (which was when the workers exercised workers’ control to prevent sabotage during the bosses’ lockout in December 2002), there have been all sorts of tensions with the company’s managers. First they wanted to limit the workers’ power to making decisions on secondary aspects (one that was described was when a discussion was opened about the Christmas’ decorations in the company’s building in Valencia!). The workers and their union have had to fight for every inch of workers’ control they now have in the company. And now the managers have come up with another argument: “There can be no workers’ participation in strategic industries”.

This argument flies in the face of reality. It was precisely during the bosses’ lockout that the oil workers recovered production in PDVSA, and that the aluminium and steel workers from the massive plants in Guayana physically fought their way to the gas installations and restarted the supply to their factories. It was also at this time the Caracas Metro workers who kept the Metro open and the CADAFE electricity workers who maintained the supply of electricity and prevented the sabotage of the industry.

The Venezuelan labour movement is undergoing a massive transformation and becoming aware of its own strength. In this lies the hope for the future of the Bolivarian revolution.

One thing the workers are very clear on is that, as Chavez said in his Alo Presidente programme, a revolution is a process in which new ideas and models are born, while old ideas die, and “in the Bolivarian revolution it is capitalism that will be eliminated”!

Latest

Published: Friday, September 02, 2005
Bylined to: Franz J.T. Lee

The permanent revolutionary specter haunting Bush, defying World Fascism

University of Los Andes (ULA) professor Franz J. T. Lee writes: Over the previous dark ages of political Puntofijismo ... nurtured by the Yankee "Cold War" witch-hunt of "communists," bedeviled and exorcised by Roman Catholicism and other world religions and infected by a virile, racist, anti-Communist epidemic ... in Venezuela, like elsewhere, ideological terms like Marxism and Socialism were converted into diabolical, terrorist, anti-Christian house words used by just about everybody at whim and caprice without having the foggiest idea what they really connote.

Venezuelan kindergarten, schools and universities in did not escape the ideological venom of this global mind and thought control campaign.

Till today, ignorance about Marxism is bliss and, for the few, true, revolutionary Marxist comrades in Venezuela and Latin America, it still remains folly to be wise, to criticize reformists, revisionists and counter-revolutionaries.

This is the reason why hundreds of adjectives have to be added to the concept "socialism," in an effort not to be classified by the mass media as a "Castro-Communist," a "Marxist," a "terrorist" or even a "Trotskyite."

Once labeled as some "-ist," following some ideological "-ism," one is disarmed, cannot be taken seriously anymore and is thus sentenced to fade away into revolutionary oblivion.

The "politically correct" panacea against such social ostracism at all times is simply to be a "democrat," a "true democrat" that firmly believes in the system, the market, labor and consumer goods.

We have had a galaxy of "socialisms" already, among others African Socialism, Cooperative Socialism, Christian Socialism, Democratic Socialism, Socialist Democracy, Arab Socialism, Revolutionary Socialism, Real Socialism, Real, Existent Socialism, and, to crown them all, even Hitler-ite National Socialism.

Nowadays, we have arrived at a "New Socialism" and a post-capitalist "Real, True Democracy" for the 21st Century.

A while ago, in my article, "Venezuela: What is Marxist Socialist Revolution?," I wrote: "Any 'old or obsolete,' 'real or existent,' 'orthodox or dogmatic,' 'social democratic or real democratic,' any new or original Socialism of any century, at first, as point of honor, of departure, must pass before the critical eyes of Marx and Engels, of Lenin and Trotsky, must know the living Marxist conception of Socialism."

Furthermore, I underlined that:

"Talking about Socialism without having studied Marx is like a Christian who never read and studied the New Testament, who never heard about Jesus Christ."

Now, what did Marx mean by Socialism? By a free association of creators worthy of their human nature? In how far is this relevant for Bolivarian Revolutionary Praxis and Theory?

For a century and a half already, scientifically Marxism was either ransacked to give capitalism itself a new lease of life or it was ideologically falsified, disfigured and violated by bourgeois, capitalist and "real, existing socialist" mass media across the globe. In the last analysis, the bulk of the Third World "dependence" theories, and their corresponding socialist or democratic "desarrollismo," were aimed against Marxism, especially against the imperialist theories of Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Rudolf Hilferding and Leon Trotsky.

Across bourgeois education, capitalism was nicely separated from imperialism; all over anti-imperialists appeared who were not anti-capitalists, even African nationalism suffered from this mental cancer -- a rupture completely absurd in Marxist political economy. Alexander the Great was imperial, but he was not an imperialist; on the contrary, Cecil John Rhodes was an arch-imperialist. To develop an incisive, scientific praxis and a decisive philosophic theory, Bolivarians have to be precise in the formulation of their strategic concepts, in their revolutionary language tools and arms of emancipatory action and thought.

Probably, during the epoch of primitive accumulation of capital, Jesus Christ ... if ever he had lived ... was against imperial rulers, against Pontius Pilate, had chased usurers out of the Temple, but he surely could never have been a modern anti-imperialist, or even a paradigm for an anti-capitalist socialist. In Europe, after national, liberal, competitive capitalism, monopoly capitalism, that is, imperialism, was launched in 1870, followed by the Berlin Conference of 1884/5, and the resulting ravenous cutting up of the colonial world among the European capitalist-imperialist vultures.

This was imperialism, a late stage of capitalism, of colonialism itself.

Similarly, even the global "theology of liberation" and "Christian Socialism" ... of course, like always, truly respecting their innocence and scientific naivety ... with few exceptions, eventually also ended up in negating the very scientific advances of bourgeois materialism itself, and the theoretical socialist enlightenment developed across Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx and Engels.

Some counter-revolutionary political turncoats, forming a so-called "political class" in itself, even today still doubt that a social revolution currently is taking place in Venezuela. Well, we should ask them: why then the several attempts of Yankee organized military coups, why the oil sabotage, why the permanent threats to assassinate President Chavez and the fear of US military invention in Venezuela?

Why is the popularity of Chavez rising vertiginously in geometric progression, why is the economy improving by leaps and bounds?
Also, why did the "Chavistas without Chavez" -- the corrupt counter-revolutionaries -- come into being in Venezuela if no social revolution is taking place here?
If the national and international, ruling class interests in Venezuela are not being threatened fundamentally?

Thus, for the sake of creating a real, true, anti-capitalist, socialist vanguard and its corresponding revolutionary cadres, in order to advance Socialism that per definitionem is new, scientific and philosophic, it is imperative to study Marxist praxis and theory, as they evolved over the whole planet over the past 150 years. In other words, we urgently need a Mission Bolivar, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky; and thereafter, a Mission Lumumba, Ho Chi Minh, Mao tse-Tung, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias.

A Socialist Revolution does not live by bread alone! It urgently needs living, innovating Marxist Praxis and Theory!

Only as such, the Bolivarian vanguard could discover the Marxist, revolutionary, politico-economic method, that precisely defines social classes, and their corresponding economic and political class interests and struggles, that does not just describe formal logical "political classes."

Also, then we will note that Marx' Capital was not another work of 19th century national economy; that it was not just the perfection of the political economy of Adam Smith or of David Ricardo. Compared to the classical, bourgeois economists, Marx' "labor theory of value" was not developed exclusively to describe prices in terms of quantities of labor-time, it did not just calculate prices, surplus values or equivalents, on the contrary, it revealed that workers' labor was exploited, and thus it unmasked the real master-slave contradictions in the capitalist mode of production. It verified scientifically and philosophically that under capitalism never ever the "real democratic," master-slave relations ... the exploitation, domination, discrimination, militarization and alienation of all working classes ... could be abolished.

Hegel's "Phenomenology of the Mind (Spirit)" explains the whole superstructural development of Capitalist, Bourgeois Society, of the Global Spirit, of Reason alias Capital. Marx's "Capital" explains the basic, material, infrastructural, economic sojourn of Capital, its origin, its tendential developmental laws, its zenith, and its inexorable demise. A serious socio-economic study of these two mammoth works will reveal that by definition, also in Venezuela, Socialism is the Dialectical Negation of Capitalism.

Strange enough, in 1887, it was the "renegade" (Lenin) Karl Kautsky ... who originally in his youth was a "Marxist" ... who published a booklet titled "The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx." It contained the typical bourgeois economist approach, that profoundly influenced other works, even some Marxist treatises, for example, Maurice Dobb’s Political Economy and Capitalism or Ronald Meck's Studies in the Labor Theory of Value.

As they "matured," many originally Marxist theoreticians like Karl Kautsky, Edward Bernstein, Joseph Stalin, Georg Lukacs or Max Horkheimer later repented from their "sins of youth," began to corrupt the best, and thus became dangerous counter-revolutionaries, reformists and Mensheviks. Some developed brand new intra-systemic ideologies, with their corresponding counter-revolutionary practices, that favored everything except workers' class struggles and socialist emancipation. The history of the Second, the "Second and a Half" and the Third Internationals can confirm the above.

Ernest Mandel, the world renowned Marxist economist, in his two works ... a massive treatise "Marxist Economic Theory" published in French in 1962 and in his Ph.D. thesis from the Free University of Berlin, published as Late Capitalism in 1972 ... contrary to Kautsky's unilateral approach, explained what Marx meant by being ‘truly human’, by scientific and philosophic socialism as being a "free association" of producers who consciously will transcend to create a society "worthy of their human nature."

Here Marx indicated very clearly that he was not just "criticizing" Capital, on the contrary that he concretely wanted to overthrow the power of capital. Hence, Marx paved the socialist road towards the current historic transition from Workers' Production to Socialist Creation, from Revolutionary Class Struggle to Human Emancipation.

In a paper, Hegel, Economics, and Marx's Capital, Cyril Smith very aptly describes that Marx's "aim was not to ‘explain capitalism’ (a word he never used) but to comprehend how humanity could free itself from the grip of that deadly, exploitative, atomizing social power he called ‘capital’. This aim permeates every sentence of Capital."

By work, by labor, in Capital, Marx meant modern ‘wage-labour’, that he saw as a possibility to dis-alienate labor itself. In fact, he saw dis-alienated labor as "free creative activity."

He wrote: "Labor is man’s coming-to-be for himself within alienation or as alienated man."

For Marx, no socialism could exist without Human Creativity and Creation. He knew that free, human, creative activity, the exercise of human creative powers, is what lies locked up and tortured within the current inhuman, global processes of wage-labor. The past bourgeois political economists and Hegel investigated these forms of alienating wage-labor , but they could not question their existence, could not negate labor and capital, according to Marx, for they were themselves "alienated men."

This was also true for the reformist Mensheviks, for the Kautsky and Bernstein revisionists, for the "Social Democratic" traitors of the Second International and for the Stalinist followers of the late Third International; especially for all those counter-revolutionaries who have played havoc with socialist praxis and theory in the 19th and 20th centuries, and who have reduced it to some "real, existing" Frankenstein creature.

Surely, the above is also valid for their contemporary staunch adherents, who are trying to rob the Bolivarian Revolution of its own, healthy, creative self-determination. In fact, with the help of the Bush junta, permanently they are trying to assassinate or kidnap its political leadership, to nip its emerging socialist consciousness and revolutionary vanguard in the bud.

However, not a step backwards, all this will be in vain!

Inter alia, the transhistoric reasons are the following:

* In Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution did not come into existence by historic accident, or as the result of the whim and caprice of President Hugo Chavez, but simply as a result of global, human, emancipatory necessity, that catapulted Chavez into the front line of world revolution.

* It is taking place during a world energetic crisis, that is shaking the very productive foundations of the current world order, of the great powers, and of their future competitors. Venezuela possesses massive reserves of oil, gas, water, oxygen and other natural resources, including strategic minerals, metals and a huge biodiversity, that are quintessential for the future survival of Latin America, even of the USA, of mankind itself.

* The Bolivarian Revolution ... together with its counter-parts elsewhere, for example, in Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Palestine or Nepal ... is new, authentic and original. It is transitional, emancipatory in character, that is, it is born at the eve of the 21st Century, in the Third Millennium, in a decisive epoch in which the very survival of humanity is at stake. in the era of the decay of capitalism and imperialism.

* It is a historic negating product of so-called "neo-liberalism," or "globalization," euphemistic terms for the currently raging world terrorism and imperialist fascism. In the trans-historic tradition of real Negation of World Fascism, the Bolivarian Revolution can only disappear when its Affirmation itself fades into oblivion. As such, like Phoenix, it has the emancipatory capacity to regenerate itself all over the globe, at different times and spaces.

It is the tip of the iceberg of permanent world revolution, that for the first time is creating its own global objective, subjective and "transjective" conditions to surpass the still raging, capitalist French Revolution, including all its particular social revolutions in different times and places.

* From Latin American soil, from his grave in Mexico, the permanent revolutionary "specter" of Leon Trotsky is now haunting Bush, defying World Fascism. Its current spearhead is the Bolivarian Revolution.

* Finally, in anticipation and expectation, for billions in the "Third World" and elsewhere, currently the Bolivarian Revolution reflects the equal, unequal and combined dialectical development of global revolutionary forces, relations and processes towards a real, true exodus, towards a possible, post-productive, post-capitalist, creative, creating Human Emancipation. As President Chávez himself has warned, we do not have much time left, to save planetary Nature and earthly Society, to save mankind from extinction ... perhaps, there are only a few decades left for urgent Human Emancipation.

Capitalism was born with blood and dirt dripping from every pore, its Opposite, its Negation, Socialism, currently shines from Pico Bolivar, inviting Humanity with a creative smile not to capitulate before the vicious onslaught of the northern Orwellian World Empire.

franzjutta@cantv.net

More VHeadline.com commentaries by

Franz J.T. Lee

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=45775

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

THE NATURE OF THINGS IS NOT DEFINED BY THE NAME , BUT BY WHAT THEY REALLY ARE.

The "Socialism" applied or enforced in USSR between 1917 and 1991 was a fiasco, because in fact it WAS NOT socialism,
although that (weird) Union called itself Socialist.
It was the Capitalism of the State, the WORST of ALL capitalisms. As is the present case of China.
China has a very rich government and very poor people. Labor conditions the WORST in the world. China's Capitalist Government working and partnering with the world largest corporations.

No production could be achieved without capital. The production (in defined goods and/or services) has to be destined to the social benefit, to the benefit of all the members of the society. The more this is applied the more socialist is the community. Capital has to increase because with it increases the production, thus more benefits for all.

Socialism is a term misused by most of the people. Communists trying to confuse people call themselves Socialists.
Communism as defined by Marx is/was only practiced by the Koreans and Vietnamese in some areas, and by the Israelis in their Kibbutzes. May be it can not be applied at a large scale because of the ego in the human nature.

Socialism in its social & economical definition exists with Capital, and now exists in most countries at different scales. No country is 100% socialist. At the present the countries of highest grade of Socialism are Norway, Sweden and Finland. In America Canada has the highest grade, Cuba comes 2nd.

China and India along with Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Gulf countries have the lowest grade of Socialism.

The Nazis of (1933-1945) Germany called themselves National Socialists when in fact they were FASCISTS.
At the present many socialist parties in the world are to the right of the U.S.- Republican party. Very Weird thing.

In applying socialism in Venezuela the dilemma is being PRAGMATIC or DOGMATIC. If DOGMATIC it will fail. It should be open to continuous changes, thus it should be revolutionary.

There are many frustrated communists now close to our president Chavez trying to enforce a system similar to the USSR Fiasco.

If they think they can sell it with a new and nice package they are wrong.
WE AND MANY OTHERS SUPPORTING CHAVEZ ARE ALERT. IT WILL NOT PASS.
CHAVEZ gave hints on what would be the Socialism he is offering to the Venezuelan people. Call it XXI Century Socialism, or Bolivarian Socialism; the name is not the basic. Its CORE NATURE is the important thing.

CARL MARX theory was proven to be wrong and not applicable in many of its points. The Bible was proven false or wrong in many of its points. These could be used as references but not as axioms.

The Venezuelan people agreed on a new Bolivarian Constitution that defines the nature of a Socialist Democracy.
Democracy is the name, Socialist is the Surname. Republic BOLIVARIANA de VENEZUELA. VENEZUELA the name, BOLIVARIANA the surname. This is the path we chose. Nothing else will be applied, regardless what many frustrated marxists want.

Capitalism of the State will not pass, because it is equal to Huge Bureaucracy, Corruption, Less production and Poverty.

The nuclei of the Socialist Democracy (DEMOCRACIA SOCIALISTA) are being established in Cooperatives, in Social Production Ventures, and in mini companies promoted by the state. Not as fast as we wish.

The basic services such as Health Care and Education have slightly improved towards more social benefits. Still in the beginning of the road. Nothing in transportation, yet.. The target is there, we are tracing the path to reach it, but still

a long way to run ( or walk)

I RECOMMEND WE READ NAOM CHOMSKY.
MARX, MANDEL, LENIN WERE THE PAST. A FIASCO AND POOR PAST. USEFUL AS REFERENCES.
WE BELONG TO A PROSPEROUS FUTURE.

Regards,
Anwar

***
Note:
Bush will be gone in 2008. (in history, very shortly). His legacy will be few months after. We wish he makes the least damage to the world (including the USA) before he is gone.

****

THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION AND SOCIALISM OF THE XXI CENTURY

Dear Anwar,

Solidaric thanks for your thoughtful remarks with regard to my VHeadline commentary, "The permanent revolutionary specter haunting Bush, defying World Fascism", that was distributed by redial_s_bolivar. Honest, open, free, scientific exchange of ideas about social or socialist revolution in Venezuela, in this violent global "war of ideas", is imperative and necessary. Your critical thoughts form an excellent contribution towards the self- understanding of the Bolivarian Revolution, that is, towards a historic consciousness of, by and for itself.

Of course, we have no interest in absolute truths or of being omniscient, in an ever-chamging world. Hence, much what we do or say, always has its specific context, relations and processes. What was true yesterday, is not necessarily true today, and it may be true tomorrow again. Nature, Society, we always change, and so does flowing, ever-flowing, over-flowing, historic truths.

For all these reasons I respect what you wrote, and essentially I agree with you, we have our hearts and minds at the right place, in the right time. Nonetheless, let me remark about a few things that need more afterthoughts.

On the whole, we would agree with Juliet: "What is in a name? Call a rose by any other name, it will smell just as sweet!" In other words, words do not think, do not think for us; they are just our thought tools. There are no substitutes for independent, self-thinking and original, new thoughts, for revolutionary theory and emancipatory philosophy. Venezuela and Latin America have to act, think and surpass their very own revolution, their own Emancipation. Basically, the above inspired me to write the commentary in question.

You wrote:
"No production could be achieved without capital. The production (in defined goods and/or services) has to be destined to the social benefit, to the benefit of all the members of the society. The more this is applied the more socialist is the community. Capital has to increase because with it increases the production, thus more benefits for all. "

It is true that no modern production can be achieved without capital, because we live in a global. capitalist, productive society. However, history is the process of human production, and surely there were pre-capitalist epochs, pre-history in America, current history in Amazonia, in which we did/do not work, not labor, not produce, when we were/are doing things, were/are active and creative, creating ourselves. Such a human, humane, humanist epoch can be achieved again, by abolishing Market Economies, Wage-Labor, Capital, Production, Distribution, Consumption and Realization of Giga-Profits, in other words, if we annihilate "His Story", alienating and alienated History itself.

Under capitalism, redistribution of national income, even in a "just" and "equitative" sense, does not touch the quintessence of capitalism, private property of means of production, master-slave relations, the capitalist State, exploitative wage-labor, lower class exploitation, domination and discrimination. As long as capitalism will be the dominant mode of production on a world scale, socialism, socialist creativity and creation in a reformist environment will not have a lasting chance; it will be overrun militarily, like in the case of the USSR, in the arms race it will be bled to death by the metropolitan military-industrial-space complex. Like Capitalism is doing it, Socialism can only triumph on a global scale, as world permanent revolution, this is also valid for the Bolivarian Revolution.

<>
Agreed, "Socialism is a term misused by most of the people." The following assertions are somehow problematic: "Communists trying to confuse people call themselves Socialists. Communism as defined by Marx is/was only practiced by the Koreans and Vietnamese in some areas, and by the Israelis in their Kibbutzes. May be it can not be applied at a large scale because of the ego in the human nature."

Concerning the terms "Social Democrats", "Communists", "Socialists" or "Marxists", the original creators were not very precise in the scientific application of these concepts; in fact, mostly they were used as synonyms. Since 1848, the birth of the Communist Manifesto", all called themselves Social Democrats until the October Revolution. Marx even stated in Paris: "I am not a Marxist!" What happened in Israel over the last 60 years, especially now, I would not term as socialism, even if Israel was a member of the "Socialist International". As both of us remarked, we will not associate Hitler's National Socialism with any workers' liberatory struggles.

Capitalism can be graded ... it can be liberal, monopolist, neo-liberal, late capitalist, etc. ... however, socialism because of its dialectical, negating, qualitative essence and existence cannot be "graded". How could we grade solidaric, international Beauty, Truth, Love and Humanity? Only master-slave relations, thing-relations, capitalist equivalents, market prices, exchange values and alienated, barren minds can be computerized, could be used in a future Orwellian "computer socialism" -- the most absurd "socialism" of them all.

Greetings,
Franz.
****

VHeadline.com guest commentarist Leandro F. Chique C. writes: The political situation in Venezuela seems to be calm and even some of the people I know that have been opposition to Chavez government seem to actually agree with some of the government's policies ... this my impression after about a week back here at home.

But since I arrived in Venezuela ... here in my hometown Puerto La Cruz ... I felt I should share my impressions about what is happening with VHeadline.com readers around the world.

When I arrived at Caracas (Simon Bolivar) international airport, I thought about how I love this country and how happy I was to be back here again after a long and hard year away.

My international student status keeps me away from my country and is only possible to visit two times a year ... I like to think that being away for several months and coming back to Venezuela gives me a broader perspective. Each time I'm here, I ask my family and the people in the streets about the government and look around for positive/negative changes.

My first surprise was when I stepped on the plane in Atlanta ... it was filled with foreigners from Spain, India, Americans and elsewhere. The woman next to me, asked one of the Spaniards who said that they were all tourists heading for Merida in the Venezuelan Andes ... the conversation concluded that the plane was filled with tourists who wanted to visit and get to know Venezuela.

Arriving at Simon Bolivar (the airport) was another cheerful surprise ... they had remodeled the airport ... it is clean, new, well-maintained, well-illuminated and it seemed and felt very safe ... everything seemed perfect except for a big construction project by the parking lot outside the airport building, which had everything dirty and very unpleasant compared with inside that airport.

I do not know how old the old airport was ... but this new one surely is a decent and modern facility.

When you get out of the most important airport in the country you start driving up to Caracas along a highway which is has not been fixed, either by this government or the ones before. It's just amazing how everything changed from my first impressions and that part from Maiquetia to Caracas is very very awful ... there are little or no lights along the highway and the tunnels are awfully maintained .. when you think that this is the main entrance to the country you just cannot believe it. And after having been in the airport (which is very superior in my opinion to others in USA) it just cannot be understood by anyone that the main highway is in that terrible condition.

I just cannot understand why the police system has not been upgraded to prevent the transit of cars without brake lights ... I know most of the owners are poor, and may not have money to fix them (although this quite hard to believe) ... but being poor does not give the right to put others peoples' lives at risk ... anyway, is widely known by everyone who knows Venezuela that police and security matters are rather retrograde.

That night I went to bed just hoping to be home in Puerto La Cruz as soon as possible ... Puerto La Cruz is a city in eastern Venezuela; a mid-sized city with about 700,000 inhabitants; divided into four municipalities or alcaldias.

Since my arrival in Puerto La Cruz I've been in only three of the municipalities ... Bolivar Urbaneja and Sotillo municipality. The mayors of each (in same order) are:

If you want to see, write or feel the contrast of Venezuela and the differences in efficiency and effectiveness in one place. Come to Puerto La Cruz.

Bolivar municipality, an area with a Chavista mayor, is a zone of disaster ... everything seems to be dirty and during the night there is a lack of street lighting ... holes in the pavement are the rule and some sectors such as Colinas del Neveri -- a middle income neighborhood -- seem to bbe abandoned and part of a no-government zone. I keep counting and counting many things that are very wrong in this municipality and probably, I will never stop.

But when you cross from Bolivar to Urbaneja municipality is like if you were in a different country ... the area is cleaner and you can start to see that there is more order and people working on paving or changing light bulbs (at least during this period of time). During the night, Urbaneja seems to be safer and public lighting is present almost in every place. At least in this municipality you can hope that a hole in the pavement can disappear from one day to the next.

The same, but with a lot less effectiveness and efficiency, can be said regarding Sotillo municipality which also has a Chavista mayor ... but in Bolivar and Sotillo there's a lack of understanding on the importance of maintenance and public lighting.

Generally speaking, there's a big problem with paving and lighting on the streets and main avenues throughout the whole city ... and it is hard to believe that during a “golden time” for Venezuela (thanks to petroleum prices) the problem has not been confronted and dealt with.

Economically speaking, the economy here in Puerto La Cruz seems a lot better than in December 2004. Malls, cinemas, restaurants and night clubs are filled with people. If they are spending as much as before or not, I do not know ... but a mall filled with people in Venezuela could be used as an indication of how the economy is doing. The Plaza Mayor mall in Urbaneja is quite full during weekdays and at weekends you have to queue for the parking lot ... which is quite big. Other malls around the city are opening up new stores.

The malls are not enough in the city and the industrial and commercial sector of the economy has surely started to plan investments for next year, because they will not have the capacity to overcome demand. Of course, poverty and security are weak points ... but the economy has to do its job, just as the government is doing theirs.

The point of all this is the contrast that exists in the efficiency of government ... it is just amazing how big the differences are between municipalities in the same city. I understand that Bolivar is a lot bigger ... but they also receive more money from central government and have more bureaucracy to do their job.

The problem is inefficiency, ineffectiveness and corruption in lower levels of government. The government of Perez Fernandez in Bolivar municipality is simply not doing its job ... he's been there for one mandate period already and this is his second.

Chavez is doing his part ... providing education, health and creating infrastructure plans around the country .. but the revolution can not allow inefficiency among revolutionaries. It just can not be comprehended that the main avenue in Puerto La Cruz is in such a really bad shape ... without lights and with potholes in the paving.

And not just for the economy ... being a socialist, I believe that the residents' quality of life can be highly increased by the state of their streets and highways ... all the health, education and infrastructure programs have no importance if these mayors are going to forget other important aspects.

If we're talking about a city in the middle of nowhere, or about a country with no money to confront these kind of problems, I would understand ... but certainly this is not the case in Puerto La Cruz where the workers of one of the most important oil refineries in Venezuela and the world are to be found ... put simply, Venezuela has enough resources to confront this problem effectively.

We cannot blame Chavez, because he is doing his job, and his job can be seen in the streets of Puerto La Cruz. The ones to blame here are the mayor of Bolivar and Sotillo municipalities ... mayors who have been in government already for one period and are on their second.

I do not like to use names, but Perez Fernandez and Nelson Moreno are the ones to blame for damaging the image of the city, the country and the revolution. What happened? Is it that they do not have time? Is it inefficiency? Many sentences can be used to describe what is happening here that is not happening in other cities.

It is really hard to keep the government pure .. it is really hard to make people do an effective job ... but as the Revolution is revolutionizing many aspects of Venezuelan society and the Venezuelan economy it is still in debt on other aspects or sectors of the country, such as police and security.

Of a Venezuelan Revolution I want to see control and use of the money municipalities spend ... there must be a way to measure their affectivity and efficiency to avoid the kind of people who take advantage of Chavez’ image to get into government and to do so badly.

Obviously ...and I mean obviously ...the “Contraloria” is not doing its job.

We cannot pretend that in a country that is approximately twice the size of France, the President is going to be aware of all the problems of

every city. We cannot pretend that the economy will keep growing and developing in dark streets full of potholes, industrial zones that are insecure, dark and pavements almost non-existent or in incredibly bad shape.

The Governor of Anzoategui State, Tarek William Saab also has part of the responsibility ... because he is the local State leader of Movimiento Quinto Republic (MVR) and he lives here in the city.

... if he is going to be an effective leader, he must do it effectively and make sure that these two mayors work ... or leave the office to others who can do a much better job.

VHeadline.com's special Far East correspondent Yap Chongyee writes: I lifted the above quotation from an article from www.commondreams.org website. It is not necessary to be exact but the author has researched and listed them in ascending priority. It is to the great credit of China that they have grown from Third World standing and become today stronger and more independent than Japan.

China today has eclipsed Japan as a world power; how much progress China has achieved from their standing of 40 years ago.

Look at the list above and you will see that SINGAPORE, with a population of a mere four million people has greater foreign currency reserves than the USA (with a population of 280 million); what a bum superpower world power that the USA is.

The truth is that it is only a myth that the USA is great, when, if we look at all the factors, we see that the USA is today BROKE!

Adding to the USA bankruptcy is the tremendous millstone around Uncle Sam’s neck that Iraqi is ... and that spells the final collapse that is a la Soviet Union.

There is a lot of talk that George W Bush will invade Venezuela from Paraguay and that US Special Forces are waiting on the Venezuelan border for the signal to attack ... but I can say with utter contempt for the USA that all that is a lot of hot air.

I say to our comrades in Venezuela that President Hugo Chavez is a great leader and he has the right strategy in place. The plan he has in place is to fight a intensive guerrilla war if the USA attacks is the only way that the people of Venezuela can drag and maul a USA invasion force.

Never fight USA in a conventional war’ ... learn from the Vietcong and the Mujahedeen of Iraq and Afghanistan and you will defeat the USA.

The US has a shortage of GIs to fight any kind of war; and therefore, I recommend President Hugo Chavez to go on and take complete control of Venezuela's oil resources ... this is the best time and opportunity since the United States is already broke and cannot retaliate.

If President Hugo Chavez forms an alliance of (non-western) oil producers and consumers ... China and India have already formed a prototype of such a collective enterprise and they will be only too glad to join in such an alliance with Venezuela.

Uruguay, 22 agosto 2005.- Su obra Fidel: la estrategia política de la victoria conoció varias ediciones en todo el continente y constituyó uno de los textos de divulgación sobre el proceso revolucionario cubano más leídos en los últimos 20 años. En otro de sus trabajos, Haciendo posible lo imposible: la izquierda en el umbral del siglo XXI (1), editado inicialmente en Cuba y luego en Chile, Colombia México, Portugal y España, Marta Harnecker ofrece un panorama de los movimientos populares de Latinoamérica y, ya desde el título, aventura una definición del accionar político de cambio –hacer posible lo que a primera vista resulte imposible– que hoy repite, entre otros, el presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez para ejemplificar el sentido que tiene la Revolución Bolivariana. Más aún, desde hace ya tres años, la chilena que dejó su patria perseguida por la dictadura pinochetista se trasladó desde La Habana, Cuba, hacia Caracas, donde reside y trabaja como estrecha colaboradora ad hoc de Chávez en lo que ella misma define como el "laboratorio" revolucionario que es el país petrolero en la actualidad. Harnecker es, así, parte de un selecto grupo de intelectuales –militantes, orgánicos– que, con asiento dentro o fuera del territorio venezolano, "asesoran" al conductor del proceso que, desde inicios de año, tiene como meta declarada la construcción del "socialismo del siglo XXI". Como parte de ese think tank de izquierda debe contarse además, a teóricos, periodistas y divulgadores como Heinz Dieterich Steffan (alemán profesor de la Universidad Autónoma mexicana), el uruguayo director de TeleSur Aram Aharonián y Luis Bilbao (periodista argentino y director de la revista América XXI), entre otros. Harnecker tuvo a su cargo, por ejemplo, la edición e indexación de El nuevo mapa estratégico, un libro en el que se recogen intervenciones de Chávez efectuadas en noviembre de 2004 ante la plana mayor de su gobierno y donde está condensada la doctrina de la Revolución Bolivariana.

Desde esa perspectiva, Harnecker brinda en esta entrevista con Siete sobre Siete datos significativos y de primera mano acerca de los debates y las prácticas que pautan la actualidad de la Revolución Bolivanaria. Asegura que existió un quiebre de parte de los sectores burgueses venezolanos en su enfrentamiento al gobierno luego de derrotado con creces el paro general de fines de 2002 que motivó una aguda situación de escasez en productos básicos. Pero además explica por qué, mientras se propugna la necesidad de "construir el socialismo" se hacen de parte de la conducción bolivariana ingentes esfuerzos para que el empresariado privado entre al redil de los cambios sin renunciar a la posesión de los medios de producción o a una tasa de ganancia cuyo límite son las medidas que permitan abatir los lacerantes niveles de pobreza venezolanos.

—¿En qué momento político se encuentra la Revolución Bolivariana?

—En un momento de profundización de la revolución. En un esfuerzo por hacer más eficiente el aparato del Estado y por luchar contra la corrupción, purificando la policía y organismos de seguridad del Estado. Tratando de profundizar la democracia participativa y esforzándose por implantar otra lógica económica: una lógica humanista y solidaria.

—¿Cuáles han sido los pasos más importantes en el proceso político desde que Chávez definió el rumbo socialista de la Revolución Bolivariana?

—Te asombrará quizá que te diga que no ha habido ningún paso de relevancia dado después de dicha definición. Lo que ocurre es que la práctica fue demostrando a la dirigencia del proceso que la lógica humanista y solidaria que ellos iban implantando a todo nivel, especialmente en el terreno económico, chocaba a cada paso que daban con la lógica capitalista del lucro.

Por ejemplo, no se podía crear cooperativas agrarias ni de productos industriales básicos exitosos si el Estado no asumía gran parte de la compra y distribución de dichos productos. No se podía controlar el efecto de exceso de circulante producto de la enorme cantidad de becas que el gobierno está otorgando a todos los venezolanos que están estudiando en las distintas misiones si no se buscaba un mecanismo para controlar los precios de los productos de la dieta básica que los sectores más humildes consumen. ¿Cómo resolver esto dentro de la lógica capitalista donde el motor del sistema es la ganancia y no la satisfacción de las necesidades humanas? Una medida que fue adoptada como medida de emergencia para asegurar la alimentación de la población cuando la oposición quiso detener el proceso doblegando por hambre al pueblo venezolano durante el paro empresarial de fines del 2002: la compra estatal masiva de productos alimentarios en el exterior para nutrir improvisados mercados populares, mostró el camino. Hoy cientos de mercados populares distribuidos en todo el país, y que ya cubren el 40% del consumo de alimentos de la población, ofrecen productos a precios mucho más baratos que los centros comerciales privados y sus precios han sido mantenidos mediante subsidio estatal al mismo nivel que al inicio de la experiencia. Por otra parte, se está estimulando a los campesinos a producir internamente lo que hasta hace poco se importaba, asegurándoles la compra de sus productos y evitando los intermediarios.

Como ves, el "socialismo" no empieza en Venezuela cuando Chávez lo declara —a comienzos del 2005— sino bastante antes. Y hablo de socialismo entre comillas, porque en realidad lo que se había iniciado en Venezuela no era el socialismo sino un camino que podía conducir hacia una sociedad regida por una lógica humanista y solidaria, donde todos los seres humanos puedan alcanzar su pleno desarrollo.

Chávez no niega que en sus inicios él creyó que era posible resolver los profundos problemas económicos y sociales de Venezuela por una tercera vía; creyó que era posible humanizar el capitalismo, pero la historia le hizo ver que eso no era posible.

—La insistencia en el socialismo como el único camino, paradójicamente aparece al mismo tiempo que se hacen esfuerzos por incorporar al sector privado a los planes económicos del gobierno, ¿no es esto contradictorio?

—Es algo contradictorio para la visión clásica que se ha tenido del socialismo como una sociedad en que todos los medios de producción deben estar en manos del estado eliminándose de raíz la propiedad privada. En esta visión clásica se pone el acento en la propiedad y no en el control de los medios de producción. Cuando Chávez habla del socialismo que se intenta construir en Venezuela él siempre aclara que se trata del "socialismo del Siglo XXI" y no una copia de los modelos socialistas anteriores. Lo central hoy en Venezuela es salir de la pobreza. Hace poco oí a un joven izquierdista criticar al vicepresidente de la República de reformista porque hablaba de que el enemigo principal era la pobreza, y que había que eliminar la pobreza, en lugar de hablar de la necesidad de eliminar a la burguesía. ¡Qué ceguera! ¡Qué dogmatismo! ¿Cuál es la necesidad de atacar esas empresas privadas en este momento? Estas son meras consignas radicales que tienen poco que ver con un análisis de la situación real.¿Cómo no entiende ese joven que para salir de la pobreza entre otras cosas hay que crear empleo productivo y que la reactivación del sector privado ha sido la principal fuente de empleo en los últimos meses en el país? ¿Por qué no se pregunta cuál es la razón por la que la burguesía venezolana, que se jugó entera por derrocar a Chávez en el pasado, hoy está dispuesta a colaborar con el gobierno?

Ni el propio Lenin pensó que era necesario eliminar la propiedad privada para empezar a construir el socialismo. Pocos han leído uno de los decretos iniciales del recién estrenado gobierno soviético: el decreto sobre la publicidad privada que partía de la base de que los capitalistas privados dispuestos a colaborar con el gobierno debían tener un espacio para publicitar sus anuncios. No fueron los socialistas los que marginaron a los capitalistas en Rusia, fueron los capitalistas los que automarginaron al negarse a colaborar con el gobierno soviético y optar por la guerra civil.

Cuando se analiza este problema no hay que olvidar el tema de la correlación de fuerzas. Mientras la burguesía se sienta fuerte y crea poder dominar la situación por las urnas o por las armas es comprensible que no esté dispuesta a colaborar con un proyecto revolucionario que vaya contra la lógica del capital. Pero, ¿qué podía hacer la burguesía venezolana luego de ser triplemente derrotada: fracasó el golpe militar de abril del 2002, no logró sus objetivos el paro empresarial de fines de ese año y ni el referendo de agosto del año del 2004? No le quedaba otra alternativa que irse del país o colaborar con el gobierno si éste le daba facilidades crediticias y le aseguraba mercado.

—Pero ¿no implica un peligro esta coexistencia con la burguesía?

—Claro que implica un peligro. La lógica del capital buscará imponerse siempre. Se dará una lucha constante por ver quién vence a quién. Estamos en el inicio de un largo proceso. El control del poder político, el control cambiario, una correcta política de créditos en la que los capitalistas reciben el préstamo siempre que acepten determinadas condiciones que fija el gobierno —que produzcan para el mercado nacional creando fuentes de trabajo, que paguen impuestos, que colaboren con las comunidades aledañas, etcétera— son fórmulas que usa el gobierno bolivariano para hacer que los empresarios venezolanos medianos y pequeños se comprometan a colaborar con el programa del gobierno cuyo eje es eliminar la pobreza. Son precisamente estos sectores los que se vieron más afectados por la globalización neoliberal.

Pero, no hay que olvidar que se viene de una sociedad en que impera la lógica del capital, con una cultura que inclina tanto a los dueños de las empresas como a los trabajadores que en ellas laboran a la búsqueda de objetivos individualistas. Por eso el socialismo sólo logrará triunfar sobre el capitalismo si pone en marcha, junto a la transformación económica, la transformación cultural de la gente. En la medida en que las personas vayan percibiendo los efectos positivos del nuevo modelo económico que se está tratando de llevar adelante orientado por esta nueva lógica humanista y solidaria, en la medida en que vayan venciendo el individualismo, el consumismo, el afán de lucro en su propia práctica cotidiana, llegarán a las mismas conclusiones a las que Chávez llegó: que la única alternativa a las nefastas consecuencias del capitalismo neoliberal es el socialismo. Es sintomático que encuestas recientes indican que hoy un 40% de la población ya considera el socialismo como algo positivo. Este es un gran avance si se considera el bombardeo ideológico al que ésta ha sido sometida. Los efectos prácticos de las medidas humanistas y solidarias adoptadas por el gobierno son fusiles más poderosos que todos los misiles mediáticos lanzados por la oposición

Y, teniendo claro que se trata de dos modelos económicos antagónicos, es fundamental que una parte importante de los recursos del estado se destinen a afianzar y desarrollar el sector estatal de la economía, ya que el control de las industrias estratégicas es la mejor forma de asegurar que triunfe la nueva lógica humanista y solidaria y se cumplan a cabalidad el plan de desarrollo nacional orientado a eliminar la pobreza.

La búsqueda de colaboración con el capital privado sólo debe plantearse en la medida en que permita avanzar en ese sentido.

—Esa definición implica un cambio conceptual, en la medida que significa "inventar el socialismo", en el siglo XXI y en América latina bajo una hegemonía norteamericana severa. ¿Qué innovaciones teóricas aparecen como más urgentes?

—Más que innovaciones teóricas, creo que hay muchos elementos que ya se encontraban en los pensadores marxistas clásicos, pero que luego fueron desconocidos u olvidados. El Socialismo del Siglo XXI debería retomarlos al mismo tiempo que tendrá que inventar soluciones nuevas a los nuevos problemas planteados por los cambios sufridos por el mundo en estos últimos años. Uno de ellos: el socialismo como la sociedad más democrática. Ya Lenin decía: "capitalismo igual democracia para una élite; socialismo igual democracia para la gran mayoría de la gente". Otro, la importancia del tema del control de los trabajadores. Puede haber propiedad estatal, pero sin control obrero no es propiedad socialista; en cambio puede haber una propiedad privada pero con control obrero y quizá pueda acercarse más al socialismo que la anterior. Otro: cada país deberá buscar su propio camino de transición al socialismo. Lo que pueda o no hacerse dependerá en gran medida de la correlación de fuerzas que en ese país y a nivel mundial se de a favor del socialismo.

Si queremos ser consecuentemente radicales y no radicales sólo de palabra debemos empeñarnos en el trabajo diario de construir la fuerza social y política que nos permita llevar adelante los cambios que queremos. ¡Cuánto más fructífera sería la política si quienes tomaran la palabra fuesen aquellos que están comprometidos en esa militancia cotidiana y no aquellos que hacen de un escritorio su militancia!

—Después de largos años viviendo y trabajando en Cuba, ¿por qué te fuiste a vivir a Venezuela?

—Para acompañar de cerca ese laboratorio que es el proceso revolucionario bolivariano y darlo a conocer en el exterior. Para apoyar en lo que se pueda y especialmente en el tema de la participación protagónica de la gente, que es mi pasión.

—Aunque Chávez se proyecta cada vez con más fuerza en el escenario latinoamericano, algunas fuerzas de izquierda, populares y aún con responsabilidades de gobierno todavía parecen mirar con recelo su liderazgo. ¿Crees que la izquierda de la región valora adecuadamente el proceso venezolano?

—Creo que lo está valorando cada vez más. Los hechos se imponen con demasiada fuerza. Pero todavía hay quienes, tanto dentro como fuera del país, no entienden la importancia de poder contar con un gobierno popular para el avance de las luchas de su pueblo, por muy limitado que este sea.

—¿Qué implicancias tiene el hecho de que, a quince años de la caída de la Unión Soviética, hoy en América latina se haya instalado con tanta fuerza el debate sobre la construcción de un sistema contrapuesto al capitalismo?

—Que estamos en el comienzo de un nuevo ciclo de avance revolucionario y que hay que acelerar la construcción de los factores subjetivos que eviten nuevas frustraciones históricas. Por desgracia, son contados los países donde las fuerzas sociales y políticas de izquierda trabajan armónicamente potenciándose las unas a las otras. Suele predominar el personalismo, la ambición política entre sus dirigentes. No se ha entendido suficientemente que es en la unidad donde está la fuerza, pero que la unidad se construye respetando las diferencias. No se ha entendido suficientemente que el arte de la política es construir la fuerza política y social que permita hacer posible en el mañana cercano lo que hoy parece algo imposible; que para construir fuerza política hay que construir fuerza social.

NOTAS

1. MEPLA, La Habana, febrero de 1998. Algunos pasajes de este trabajo, junto a varios artículos de Harnecker pueden consultarse libremente en www.rebelion.org/harnecker. Nota del editor: Este libro fue publicado por primera vez por Siglo XXI Editores en España.

2. Los llamados MERCAL.

Former Swedish Foreign Press Association (FPA) chairman Henk Ruyssenaars writes: Eva Golinger, a US human rights attorney and writer/researcher, was invited to participate in a democracy seminar taking place in the Swedish House of Parliament ... but (as the press release below shows) ''she has been removed from the program at the last minute.''

Apparently the seminar's Swedish organizers prefer the murderous CIA front organization NED ... aiming at killing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ... to a human rights lawyer.

At the same time, the CIA cover organization 'National Endowment for Democracy' (NED) is being allowed to participate. This malignant organization is one of those revealed by Golinger as a participant in the coup d'etat attempt in April 2002 to overthrow the elected President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.

If there are any real journalists left in Sweden, they'll certainly have to find out what pressure the US Embassy has used on the Swedes involved, to replace Golinger ... the fighter for democracy ... with those whom she has proved (by their own documents) to be the killers of democracy ... and not only in Latin America.

In Sweden it has to be found out who the miserable spooks and politicians are who are responsible for this shameful maneuver ... and the answer points, of course as always, in the direction of the American secret services, which have been poisoning Sweden for decades too.

Sweden absolutely has gone a long way since I stopped working there, but if this shameful act really is supported by people in Sweden and they don't react anymore to a rape of democracy like this, then it's been a road down the neocon drain. (In Swedish: Fy Fan!)

La cinta alemana Good Bye Lenin carece de una dimensión. Lo sé porque viví allá, en la RDA hasta poco antes de la caída del Muro. Ese Muro estaba derribado antes de erigirse. La inmensa tragedia que constituyó el tránsito al capitalismo en la Europa del Este no puede medirse por el par de años que transcurrieron desde la vulgar y decadente perestroika hasta que vimos derribarse festinadamente las estatuas de Lenin. No se le puede decir adiós a Lenin, pues nunca se le dio la bienvenida. Tan sólo importaron una imagen, marginándolo, convirtiéndolo en un sumiso payaso de la burocracia estalinista.

Al Lenin que le trataron decir adiós en aquella cinta, no era para nada representativo del iniciador del socialismo en el mundo. Aquellas estatuas estaban vacías de contenido...sospecho que también de forma.

Eso sí. No lo entenderemos mientras permanezca oculto en muchos sitios la vida y el pensamiento de León Trotsky. Puede ser irónico mas la única manera que podemos traer a Lenin de vuelta es entendiendo por cuáles razones fue desterrado su mejor contemporáneo. No sabremos entender lo que pasó si no comprendemos el oscuro mecanismo por el cual la casta burocrática soviética se adueñó del socialismo, traicionó la internacional, y desmontó el espíritu revolucionario del mundo.

Por supuesto nos queda una alternativa: Descubrirlo todo desde el principio, cosa que nos llevará el tiempo que es cada vez más escaso, además estaríamos rechazando información de primera mano. Es como si naufragara un barco, y el maquinista enviara notas expresas de cómo y porqué naufragó, y entonces con dosis elevadas de irresponsabilidad pretendiéramos zarpar, por los mismos mares y con las mismas intenciones sin investigar las causas de la catástrofe, enterrando como avestruces el mensaje embotellado en la arena.

Comparto con Hugo Chávez su discurso de urgencia donde, más o menos parafraseando a Federico Engels, expresa nuestra disyuntiva, la cual se balancea entre el socialismo y las cucarachas. Sí las cucarachas, pues la barbarie sería una variante casi idílica de pensar en los días actuales, luego de calcular groseramente el numero de veces que podríamos exterminar la vida en la Tierra.

El siglo XX no ha terminado de hablar. La vicisitudes por las que pasó la práctica revolucionaria está en gran medida engavetada. Y si alguien puede hablarnos del siglo XX es precisamente León Trotsky.

Ernest Mandel lo dijo mucho mejor: "De todos los más importantes socialistas del siglo XX Trotsky fue el que más claramente reconoció las tendencias fundamentales del desarrollo y las contradicciones principales de la época y también fue Trosky quien formuló más claramente una adecuada estrategia emancipadora para el movimiento obrero internacional."1

Sí, necesitamos a Lenin, mas hoy no vendrá a nosotros sin que escuchemos lo que Trotsky debe decirnos. Ellos defendieron lo mismo, tan sólo Trotsky lo sobrevivió y supo interpretar en su propia vida y con su propia muerte los poderes del exterminio del socialismo. Reto en este instante a cualquier pensador que de manera sincera pretenda interpretar la historia que no tenga que recurrir, incluso para rebatirlas, a las experiencias trotskistas. Los que las obvian, los que las pasan por alto no son verdaderos leninistas.

Dicen que sin Lenin no hay Carlos Marx útil, yo diría que sin Trotsky no hay Lenin. Todos los pensadores marxistas, sobre todo todos los marxistas verdaderamente revolucionarios son imprescindibles para entender a Carlos Marx, el cual no tenía la bola de cristal. Tan sólo le puso dirección a las ideas revolucionarias, a la filosofía y por primera vez en la historia los hombres haríamos concientemente el túnel hacia nuestra felicidad...globalizada.

Usemos el siguiente símil. El socialismo se supone ser un túnel, una vereda por donde podamos transitar. Es ese mundo que tenemos que ganar, perdiendo sólo nuestras cadenas. Pues bien: La Revolución de Octubre fue el primer intento por cavar este túnel, que nos apuntó Carlos Marx. Pero el estalinismo nos lo dinamitó por dentro. Durante su construcción fueron colocadas las dinamitas para su destrucción. Trotsky fue entonces el ingeniero que dijo donde estaban los explosivos. No hubo manera de escucharlo, y ya sabemos el fin. Tierra arrasada.

Ahora se habla muy poéticamente que el túnel que construiremos será el socialismo del siglo XXI. Sea del XXI o del XXXI, el túnel puede ser dinamitado por exactamente las mismas insuficiencias y seguiremos llenos de lágrimas esperando el socialismo del venidero siglo...Eso sí , esta vez convertidos ya en cucarachas.

La posibilidad del tránsito al socialismo es un descubrimiento científico. No es un poema, ni una manera de hablar. La única forma que tenemos de acceder a él es a través de la lucha de clases. Así de sencillo. El socialismo del siglo XXI es tan sólo porque estamos en el siglo XXI. Es casi una obviedad decirlo. El descubrimiento del origen de la explotación capitalista es una verdad científica del mismo valor y de la misma objetividad que el movimiento de traslación de la Tierra en torno al Sol. No necesitamos a Einstein para que nos explique a través la Ley de la Relatividad General y las geodésicas, la causa por la que pasamos del verano al otoño. Newton es más que suficiente. Los resultados son idénticos y las matemáticas infinitamente más sencillas. No necesitamos entender los huecos negros, o las teorías de Hawking para colocar un satélite en órbita. Puede ser que las comunicaciones, la informática etc., hayan complicado un tanto la realidad del capitalismo moderno, pero la esencia, (el pollo del arroz con pollo) sigue siendo la misma que hace siglos atrás. No hacen falta los “economistas cuánticos” o la “matemática tensorial” para explicarnos el origen de la explotación y la depauperación del sistema capitalista en la actualidad

El llamado socialismo del siglo XXI es equivalente a decir que debemos construir un avión del siglo XXI . Pero ese avión deberá vencer la gravedad, como hizo el del siglo XX En el siglo XXI tal cual desde hace unos cuantos miles de millones de años la constante G de Gravitación Universal sigue siendo la misma que calculó Newton. (G = 6,7 x 10-11m3/ Kg. s2 )Coincido que debemos fabricar aviones más cómodos, rápidos y seguros, pues las exigencias del siglo XXI difieren de las del siglo XX, pero la razón última de una pieza que deba vencer la gravedad es la misma. Haciendo un parangón pudiéramos decir que nuestro avión que trató de vencer la gravedad en 1917 tomó altura y se estrelló contra la superficie terrestre. Mas nos vale buscar las causas antes de tanto discurso futurista, pues por mucho siglo XXI que haya, G sigue invariante. Del siglo XIX al XXI las razones primigenias de la explotación capitalistas son las mismas: La expropiación del trabajo. Entonces sólo hay una manera de transitar “del reino de la necesidad al reino de la libertad”. Basta ya de caracolear, que cada instante de tiempo está en nuestra contra.

El avión se nos cayó y creemos ahora que por tener computadoras, celulares o INTERNET, éste podrá desafiar la gravedad sin tener en cuenta G ¡No señor! La gravedad seguirá siendo la misma hasta el que colapse el planeta. Más nos vale apurarnos, dejarnos de retórica y asumir de una buena vez que el enemigo sigue siendo el mismo. Tal vez más vulgar guerrerista y peligroso, pero el mismo. Apurémonos, eso sí, en saber quienes somos nosotros.

Y entonces ¿por qué León Trotsky? No es obstinación por una figura histórica como muchos me acusan. Es tan sólo porque este hombre tiene muchas pistas de la caja negra de aquel avión que quiso hacer despegar la historia.

Hoy hace 65 años que León Trotsky fue asesinado de la manera más grotesca. 65 años después nos salpica todavía aquella sangre. Debió bastar aquel asesinato para extinguir el derecho del Kremlin a pretender alguna vez monopolizar y acuñar el pensamiento socialista, pero lo siguió haciendo y a estas alturas está convertido en estatua de sal. Con la medalla de la Estrella Roja de Ramón Mercader se acuñaba entre vítores secretos y cobardes la defunción del socialismo verdadero. Ese asesinato constituyó uno de los actos de terrorismo de estado más perversos en la historia, pues el glorioso Octubre del 1917 se suicidó aquel 20 de agosto.

Mercader después de cumplir la condena en México estuvo en Cuba. No me entero todavía con quien se reunió, ni por donde caminó, ni siquiera si pudo mirar de frente las palmas de Martí, ni las cenizas de Mella. Murió en Cuba, por más que me cueste aceptarlo, el hombre que tuvo en sus manos, sin él imaginarlo, la misión de tratar de desaparecer la izquierda de las ideas del socialismo...estuvo en los 60, en esos años luminosos del Che Guevara... Me parece que es absolutamente imposible.

Por supuesto, el camino de la supervivencia ideológica de la revolución cubana no tiene nada que ver con Mercader, la GPU y el estalinismo. Todo lo contrario, lo que hace sobrevivir a mi revolución ha sido precisamente el espíritu de León Trotsky, aunque paradójicamente no lo sepamos, porque ha estado oculto en los pliegues de la memoria histórica.

La verdad es testaruda y se abre paso como el agua lenta , pero constante e indetenible.. Hay un canal misterioso en la revolución cubana que nace con el Partido Revolucionario Cubano, se funde con Mella, después con lo más radical del movimiento 26 de Julio, culminando de manera sublime en el Che Guevara. El canal del compromiso irrestricto de clase y del internacionalismo. Allí, silencioso, desconocido y difamado anda León Trotsky con pícara sonrisa. ¿Por qué durante muchos años le han prohibido a Trosky relacionarse con la revolución cubana? Nunca lo he podido saber, porque si alguna revolución ha sido radical e interminable ha sido la nuestra, si alguien apeló por las revoluciones radicales e interminables fue sin dudas León Trosky. Tal vez Martí no se equivocó cuando dijo que en política lo real es lo que no se ve.

De Julio Antonio Mella tendremos que hablar mucho, mucho más en otro momento y analizar con más profundidad su labor en México. Entre otros contamos con los trabajos excelentes de Olivia Gall2 y Alejandro Gálvez Cancino3 donde de manera absolutamente clara y precisa y con una carga documental excelente analizan la labor comunista de Mella en ese período. Al margen de que Mella citara a Trotsky una vez que regresara de la URSS y pudiera conocer los objetivos de la Oposición de Izquierda a través de Andrés Nin, (asesinado, para variar por la GPU en la guerra civil española), o que le escribiera a un camarada en el libro La plataforma de la Oposición “Para Alberto Martínez con el objeto de rearmar el comunismo. Julio Antonio Mella”2. so trotskismo declarado no es lo que más debe importarnos. Mucho más trascendentes fueron sus posiciones radicales en México. De hecho y por su consecuencia política “los trotskistas consideran a Mella como el iniciador de la corriente que más tarde conformó la Oposición de Izquierda en el PCM (partido Comunista Mexicano)3 a decir de la historiadora Olivia Gall.

¡Y fue Julio Antonio Mella quien nos introdujo en el camino del socialismo en Cuba! Quien tendió ese puente hermoso entre Martí y el bolchevismo, quien fundió nuestro mejor pasado reciente, con el reciente futuro del mundo. Y a pesar de lo que se pueda decir, por más que algunos quieran enjaularlo en una patética bandera patriotera y le asignen un discurso escaso, es este Mella valiente, vigoroso, polémico ¡Y nunca otro! el primer comunista cubano.

El estalinismo que contagiamos después y que de alguna manera tuvo relevancia por unos años en la revolución socialista es eso no más. ..un virus contagioso, a pesar del cual y no sin batallas logró sobrevivir el ideal del socialismo, porque éstas estaban en la esencia misma del proceso revolucionario. Los partidos estalinistas no contribuyeron ideológicamente a nuestro proceso, ni cuando echaron a Mella del partido, ni cuando pactaron con Machado, ni en muchas otras ocasiones ¡Gracias a Dios!

Por ahí andan algunos camaradas trotskistas con mucho que contarnos, fieles a la revolución socialista.... y agradecidos por haber sido ayudados y escuchados por otro marxista consecuente que engalana junto a Mella el logotipo de la Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas de Cuba: El Che.

Y es precisamente al Che al que quiero invitar, con todo y su estrella en la frente a dar esta bienvenida a León Trotsky en el 65 aniversario de su asesinato.

El Che Guevara, símbolo del comunismo más radical también llegó a instrumentar un trotskismo que no conocía. Y es tan sólo porque las verdades teóricas de Trotsky tienen la misma constancia que el valor de G, la constante de Gravitación Universal. El Che llegó a muchas de las tesis del pensamiento de Trotsky por su propia cuenta, sin saberlo nunca... sin que se lo dejaran saber.

Les expondré un par de ejemplos con los cuales empecé a descubrir una comunión secreta entre ambos:

El Che Guevara fue de todos los revolucionarios que ha existido el que mejor entendió los principios de la revolución permanente... A tal punto que murió por tratar de defender sus principios. Pero no tan sólo por morir llevando a la práctica estas tesis, sino también por arribar intelectualmente a sus esencias:

Por ser el 65 Aniversario del asesinato de León Trotsky me permito repetir los tres aspectos de la revolución permanente.

Primer aspecto “La teoría de la Revolución Permanente resucitada en 1905, declaró la guerra a estas ideas demostrando que los objetivos democráticos de las naciones burguesas atrasadas, conducían en nuestra época, a la dictadura del proletariado, y que ésta ponía a la orden del día las reivindicaciones socialistas”4.

El Che fue terminante en eso. Déjenme decirlo en voz de Néstor Kohan: “Él (el Che) en ningún momento acepta que en América latina (y en el mundo diría yo) las tareas consistan en construir una “revolución nacional”, democrática”, “progresista”, o un capitalismo con rostro humano, que deje para el día de mañana el socialismo. Plantea de una manera tajante, muy polémica, que si no se plantea a la revolución socialista, eso es caricatura de revolución, que a la larga termina en fracaso o en tragedia, como pasó tantas veces”5.

Son dos planteamientos idénticos. Los países subdesarrollados no tienen porque razón esperar por que un inglés u alemán decidan organizarse para hacer la revolución. Es más el propio Trotsky mencionó en el Manifiesto de la Conferencia de Emergencia de la Cuarta Internacional, de mayo de 1940 “…la perspectiva de la revolución permanente no significa en ningún caso que los países atrasados deban esperar la señal de los países avanzados, ni que los pueblos coloniales deban esperar pacientemente a que el proletariado de los centros metropolitanos los libere. ¡Ayúdate a ti mismo!

El segundo aspecto: de la teoría, caracteriza ya a la revolución socialista como tal. A lo largo de un período de duración indefinida y de una lucha interna constante van transformándose todas las relaciones sociales. La sociedad sufre un proceso de metamorfosis (...) Este proceso conserva forzosamente un carácter político (...). Las revoluciones de la economía, de la técnica, de la ciencia, la familia, (...) se desenvuelven en una compleja acción recíproca que no permita la sociedad alcanzar el equilibrio4.

Y dijo el Che en el Socialismo y el hombre en Cuba:

“En este período de la construcción del socialismo podemos ver el hombre nuevo que va naciendo. Su imagen no está todavía acabada no podría estarlo nunca ya que el proceso marcha paralelo al desarrollo de formas económicas nuevas”6. Según el Che “el único descanso de los revolucionarios es la tumba”

El tercer aspecto: es el internacional. Dijo Trotsky: “Este aspecto de la teoría de la revolución permanente es consecuencia inevitable del estado actual de la economía y de la estructura social de la humanidad únicamente un reflejo teórico. El internacionalismo no es un principio abstracto, sino únicamente un reflejo teórico y político del carácter mundial de la economía (...) La revolución socialista comienza dentro de las fronteras nacionales; pero no puede contenerse en ellas. La contención de la revolución proletaria dentro de un régimen nacional no puede ser más que un régimen transitorio, aunque sea prolongado, como lo demuestra la experiencia de la Unión Soviética. Sin embargo, con la existencia de una dictadura del proletariado, las contradicciones interiores y exteriorescrecen paralelamente a sus éxitos. De continuar aislado el Estado proletario caería mas tarde o más temprano, víctima de dichas contradicciones (...)” 4

Dijo el Che refiriéndose a los revolucionarios: “Si su afán de revolucionario se embota cuando las tareas más apremiantes se ven realizadas a escala local y se olvida el internacionalismo proletario, la revolución que dirige deja de ser una fuerza impulsora y se asume en una cómoda modorra, aprovechada por nuestros enemigos irreconciliables, el imperialismo, que gana terreno. El internacionalismo es un deber, pero también es una necesidad revolucionaria”6.

No voy a detenerme demasiado. Si alguien luchó por hacer cada vez más socialista la revolución cubana fue el Che. El Che se lanzó a la construcción del socialismo en una tierra atrasada y profundizó día a día su carácter socialista...y lo abandonó todo en nombre de la revolución mundial. No conozco otro que haya hecho lo mismo. No creo que haya habido mayor fidelidad a las tesis de la revolución permanente. Si las condiciones en Bolivia eran o no eran propicias...es tema para otro análisis y no el de la revolución permanente. Podemos criticarle que fue un revolucionario demasiado permanente o demasiado consecuente.

Y otro aspecto que con las debidas diferencias de circunstancias acercan el pensamiento de Trotsky al del Che es, sin dudas, la decidida opción por la economía planificada. Es cierto que Trotsky optó al principio por la NEP en el joven estado soviético dada las terribles condiciones económicas del llamado Comunismo de Guerra. Pero después casi desde le comienzo Trotsky criticó este estado de cosas. Sostuvo como nos dice Isac Deutscher “que con la transición a la NEP, la necesidad de planificar se había hecho más urgente (...) Precisamente porque el país volvía a vivir bajo una economía de mercado debía tratar de controlar el mercado y prepararse para ejercer su control. Volvió a platear la demanda del Plan único, sin el cual era imposible racionalizar la producción, concentrar los recursos en la industria pesada y establecer el equilibrio entre los diversos sectores de la economía” 7

Las posiciones del Che a favor del plan y su proverbial animadversión a la NEP son harto conocidas. De hecho el Che insistía que Lenin de haber tenido tiempo la hubiera reconsiderado. Y no sólo al plan: El Che se pronunció en sus últimos años sobre la democracia socialista. Escribió Michael Löwy en Rebelión: “ Sabemos que en los últimos dos años de su vida Ernesto Guevara avanzó mucho en su toma de distancia hacia el paradigma soviético (...) Entre estos documentos se encuentra una crítica radical al Manual de Economía Política de la Academia de Ciencias de la URSS, redactada en 1966(...) Uno de ellos es muy interesante, porque demuestra que en sus últimas reflexiones políticas Guevara se acercaba a la idea de la democracia socialista”.8

Ahí está el Che, sin haber estudiado suficientemente a León Trotsky, acuñando las tesis trotskistas más consecuentes. Quizás nunca lo supo, pero no importa. Eso indica solamente que esas tesis son verdad y a su vez les otorga, paradójicamente, mucha más fuerza y vigor al pensamiento de Trotsky. En 1965 el Che le escribe a Armando Hart estando en Tanzania acerca de sus convicciones para el estudio de la filosofía marxista. En el apartado VII le dice “y debería estar tu amigo Trotsky, que existió y escribió según parece”.9

Podrán imaginarse entonces lo poco que conocía sobre el fundador del Ejército Rojo. Sin embargo pudiera parecer que en su último año pudo acercarse bastante a su literatura. Juan León Ferrer, un compañero trotskista que trabajaba en el Ministerio de Industrias me lo han comentado. El Che recibía además el periódico de su organización y fue el Che quien los sacó de la cárcel después de su regreso de África. El compañero Roberto Acosta, ya fallecido tuvo gran camaradería con Guevara. Según Juan León Ferrer durante las zafras azucarera debatían estos temas. Este camarada sostiene que el Che se había leído La Revolución Permanente y es sabido que a Bolivia marchó con La Historia de la Revolución Rusa. en su mochila de combate.

Y así podríamos poner muchos más ejemplos donde de alguna manera estos dos revolucionarios ejemplares encendían la luz por la misma ruta.

Los dos dirigieron a un ejército y a un naciente estado socialista de manera brillante y exitosa, asumiendo a Carlos Marx desde el estribo del caballo; los dos fueron ideólogos revolucionarios que tomaron el poder e intentaron profundizar sus procesos revolucionarios manteniéndose fieles a Lenin y Fidel respectivamente, reclinados, eso sí, a la izquierda de ambos. Por representar el ideal más acabado del internacionalismo y la consecuencia revolucionaria, fueron los dos brutalmente asesinados.

Ernesto Guevara me hizo trotskista. Cuando tuve acceso a Trotsky, muy tarde para mi gusto, me di cuenta que muchas de esas cosas ...ya me las había dicho desde niña el Che. Al leer sus primeras paginas confirmé aquello que tantas veces sentí en sus textos: que la revolución no tiene nada que ver la idiosincrasia nacional. Y que por esto en el socialismo no tenían espacios los pronombres “nuestro “ o vuestro”, que la teoría revolucionaria , al igual que las leyes de la física tenía el mismo idioma universal. Que tal como señalara Armando Hart en otra época: “Nuestra lucha no es solamente por Cuba, sino por todos los trabajadores y explotados del mundo. Nuestras fronteras son morales. Nuestros límites son de clase”10

Lo que más reconozco en Trotsky es eso...la manera de hablar, la pasión que me despiertan todavía sus discursos. Fue lo mismo que me conquistó del Che Guevara. Por eso milito en su ejército y en el del Che sin traicionar a ninguno. Ambos esgrimen con la misma verdad de luz la palabra , el fusil y el corazón.

Camaradas: Alcancemos de una vez nuestra mayoría de edad. Son demasiadas las injusticias de la explotación; demasiada grande la evidencia de la única solución; y son ya demasiados nuestros muertos. León Trotsky nos vuelve a convocar a la lucha ¡Démosle la bienvenida sin trámite alguno! Su anfitrión es el Che Guevara y los pueblos de América Latina que claman por el socialismo. Trotsky ganó de forma dramática la partida teórica. Armemos nuestros movimientos revolucionarios sin dilación con confianza. Trotsky y el Che están en nuestro partido. Sacudamos de una buena vez el árbol desenmascarando a los nuevos reformistas que no dejan avanzar a la revolución bolivariana que está llamada a ser la punta de lanza , el primer peldaño de una revolución continental sin precedentes.

Recordemos una vez más que el Sol , las estrellas... y la gravedad terrestre son nuestros aliados.

¡Proletarios de todos los países uníos!

Notas

Ernest Mandel “Trotsky as alternative” Verso, 1995
.Alejandro Gálvez Cancino. “Julio Antonio Mella. Un marxista revolucionario” Crítica de la Economía política, 1986
Olivia Gall. “Trotsky en México” Colección Problemas de México, 1991
León Trotsky. “La revolución permanente” Fundación Federico Engels.
Ernesto Guevara . “El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba” Marcha Montevideo 1965
Néstor Kohan. “Ernesto Che Guevara. Otro mundo es posible” Editorial Nuestra América 2003
Isac Deutscher. “El profeta desarmado” Ediciones ERA,1968
Michael Löwy. Ni calco ni copia: Che Guevara en búsqueda de un nuevo socialismo Rebelión 5 de Agosto 2002
Ernesto Guevara , Carta dirigida a Armando Hart en 1965 y publicada en Contracorriente (1997) Ver en la ref.5 pág159
Armando Hart “Saludo del CC del PCC al XXIII Congreso del PCUS” (Política internacional de la Revolución cubana, editora política,1966)

http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=19360

US campaign to ring Chavez alarm fails to resonate

28 Aug 2005 12:31:20 GMT

Source: Reuters
By Saul Hudson WASHINGTON, Aug 28 (Reuters) -

"Since when did Venezuela become a threat?" asked U.S. radio sports talk show host Tony Kornheiser. "Since gas went over $3," his co-host joked, referring to soaring U.S. prices and the fact Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East. The Bush administration has accused leftist President Hugo Chavez of seeking to destabilize Latin American governments and doing too little to combat drug traffickers and Marxist rebels operating around its border with U.S. ally Colombia. But Washington's campaign to raise the alarm over a major U.S. oil supplier has failed to resonate among members of congress, editorial writers, think-tank analysts and the public. In the void, Pat Robertson, a former Republican presidential candidate and key supporter of President George W. Bush, called last week for Chavez to be assassinated for exporting communism and Muslim extremism. As wild as his charges appeared, the attack came against the backdrop of largely unsubstantiated Bush administration accusations and Chavez said they represented the view of the right-wing U.S. elite. "The Bush administration has tried to make Venezuela seem like a spooky, murky place," said Larry Birns of the Washington based think-tank the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. "But they have cried wolf too often. Without serious evidence, you can't take their accusations seriously." The Bush administration distanced itself from Robertson and the evangelist leader grudgingly apologized but by the end of the week even sports talk radio was ridiculing the idea Venezuela posed a threat. ACTIONS LOUDER THAN LOUD WORDS Venezuela's ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Alvarez, said U.S. complaints were baseless and driven by American right-wingers, who fear Chavez's ideology of spreading oil wealth to the majority poor resonates in a region rejecting American-prescribed free-market models. Chavez, who routinely insults Bush and claims Washington plots to oust him, can match Robertson's rhetoric. But this month he let his actions undercut U.S. charges that he funds groups trying to oust Ecuador's government With Ecuador facing a political crisis where protesters halted oil production, Chavez helped rescue the fragile government by lending its poor neighbor crude so that it would meet its export commitments. The Bush administration is under pressure to hold off on its accusations. Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, complained that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's repeated criticism of Venezuela during a Latin American tour could undermine efforts to improve cooperation on such issues as drug trafficking. "It may well be helpful to at least have a moratorium on adverse comments on Venezuela," the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote to Rumsfeld last week. But that advice seems to go against the administration's instincts. A congressional official, who asked not to be named because he was relating a private conversation, said a bipartisan delegation of U.S. legislators met Condoleezza Rice before she became secretary of state to urge her to reach out to Chavez. According to the official, Rice cut the lawmakers off and said, "We just don't like him."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N2611461.htm

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=45703

Chinese oil company to buy Canadian firm for $4.2B

BEIJING (AP) — State-owned Chinese oil company CNPC has agreed to buy PetroKazakhstan (PKZ), a Canadian company that is a major oil producer in China's neighbor Kazakhstan, for $4.2 billion in what would be China's first successful takeover of a foreign-listed energy firm and the latest move in its aggressive push to secure more oil.

CNPC beat rival bidders including top Indian oil firm ONGC

The deal announced Monday would give CNPC access to PetroKazakhstan's 150,000 barrels per day of production — a small fraction of China's 6 million barrels per day of consumption but a step nonetheless for the world's second-largest oil-consuming nation and its fastest-growing major economy.

It also comes just weeks after China's CNOOC was foiled in its bid to acquire the American producer Unocal for $18.5 billion.

China National Petroleum offer would pay PetroKazakhstan shareholders a total of $55 a share — $54 in cash, plus one share valued at $1 in a new company that would pursue energy deals elsewhere in Central Asia, the Canadian firm said in a statement issued in London. The offer represents a 21% premium over PetroKazakhstan's Friday closing share price of $45.40 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The deal, which requires approval by PetroKazakhstan shareholders, would add to a series of foreign oil and gas acquisitions that China hopes will secure energy supplies for its booming economy.

"It's a very high price but this is a strategic investment. Finally, it's reserves that you can bring to China," Stephen O'Sullivan, oil analyst at United Financial Group in Moscow, told Reuters.

PetroKazakhstan shareholders are to vote at a meeting in October, CNPC said in a prepared statement, and the Canadian company's board has recommended shareholders accept it.

The announcement comes about three weeks after CNOOC withdrew its bid for Unocal after opposition by critics who said it might threaten U.S. national security.

Chinese state-owned companies have signed a multibillion-dollar string of deals in recent months to develop oil and gas fields and buy fuel supplies from countries as far-flung as Sudan, Venezuela and Australia.

But this deal would be China's first successful takeover of a foreign-listed energy firm.

The takeover of PetroKazakhstan would add closer economic ties to the growing strategic cooperation between China and Kazakhstan, which is expected to become one of the world's leading oil producers over the next two decades.

China is trying to increase its role in Central Asia, spurred in part by unease at the presence of U.S. military forces in the former Soviet region that borders Afghanistan.

Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Kazakhstan in July and signed an agreement with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to develop a "strategic partnership."

The two governments already are partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization — a six-nation security group led by Beijing and Moscow that is meant to combat Islamic extremism in Central Asia.

CNPC is China's biggest oil producer and the parent company of PetroChina, whose shares are traded on stock exchanges in Hong Kong and New York.

CNPC says it is the world's 10th-largest oil company in terms of sales, reserves, production and refining capacity.

PetroKazakhstan is based in Canada but all of its operations are in Kazakhstan. It has been involved in joint ventures there since 1991 and bought a state-owned oil company, Yuzhneftegaz, in 1996 in the country's first major oil privatization.

The Canadian company says its proved and probable oil reserves stand at 550 million barrels.

CNPC already holds oil exploration and production licenses in Kazakhstan and is a partner with Kazak state oil company KazMunaiGaz in the construction of a $700 million pipeline to carry Kazakh oil to energy-hungry China.

Kazakhstan exports about 800,000 barrels of oil a day.

The agreement with CNPC requires PetroKazakhstan to pay the Chinese firm $125 million if it accepts any other takeover offers, CNPC said. It said the agreement also would let it match any higher offer.

Contributing: Reuters

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2005-08-22-china-oil_x.htm

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