Marco Teruggi
It is Saturday morning, and, outside of national news and television channels, the community organizes to hold a communal market in the upper part of the Lídice neighborhood in Caracas. The higher up the hill, the more materially humble the houses, the infrastructure and the income.
This is the case throughout the capital, a city where the center, the valley, had been reserved for the upper and middle classes, and the great popular neighbourhoods were built in the heights, with houses one above the other, narrow stairways, labyrinths, struggles.
From above you can see almost all of Caracas. The market takes place in the sector Nuestra Señora del Rosario, organized within the Socialist Commune Altos de Lídice. This Saturday is the second communal market in a row, one of the main options promoted by the community members in these times of price war, economy, and international financial siege against the country.
In a narrow street there are food stalls: bread, fish, and coffee. The previous week was one of vegetables and bread. They experiment, they test, they don’t expect solutions, but they seek how to create them with their initiative and effort.
“A commune must understand that food is one of the elements that must be addressed in policy, we know that as a commune we have the possibility of finding alternatives, providing a better diet, more complete, integral, with fish protein, meat,” explains Jesús García, a member of the commune.
In addition to allowing affordable products to Venezuelans affected by the scarcity of the economic war waged by the U.S., communal markets are also places for socialization.
The goal is to bring quality food to the community and guarantee prices below those that are increasing on the street week after week, often day after day.
According to the Red de Defensoras y Defensores de la Seguridad y Soberanía Alimentaria (Network of Defenders of Food Security and Food Sovereignty), which permanently monitors the prices of sown and/or industrialized food in the country, there has been a 100% increase in prices in the municipal markets of Caracas between May 20 and 31, and 91% in the previous week.
Faced with this situation, there are two main avenues of resolution for the popular neighbourhoods and the undollarized middle classes. One is through products at prices subsidized by the Government, distributed mainly through the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP), which serve more than six million families in the country. It is precisely on the CLAP where the US has decided to focus part of its attacks to prevent imported food from reaching Venezuelan ports.
The other option is the one created by organized communities, mainly in communes, which are the primary form of organization developed theoretically by Hugo Chávez to advance in the construction of socialism in the territories.
There are currently about 3,000 registered communes throughout the country. The communal market experiences have been going on for several years, not only in Caracas but throughout the country: resolving the issue of food supply and accessibility has become a major issue for any popular organization.
This week, in the market of the commune of Altos de Lídice there were abundant fish for sale.
Sputnik / Marco Teruggi
“The markets are about meeting with our people, informing them of what we are doing, offering an alternative beyond CLAP and also to be involved with other communes at the national level,” explains Jesús.
They have made connections with communes in the state of Lara, such as Pío Tamayo, El Maizal, for flour and beef and pork products, as well as communes in Caracas, such as Panal 2021, for vegetables.
The main problem lies in transport, particularly for foodstuffs that must preserve the cold chain: the aim is to be able to carry out exchanges directly between communes without intermediaries who are always those with high profit margins because they have trucks. The direct link between communes lowers costs and thus final prices.
In the Socialist Commune Altos de Lídice they have planned to carry out a fortnightly market that rotates through different parts of the Commune that is composed of seven communal councils, which are the communal organizational pillar: each communal council has its own assembly and leaders.
At the market the previous week they were able to sell to 400 families, close to 500 families in this market, with 2,000 families living throughout the communal territory. They hope to increase in quantities, items, alliances with other communes and with the State, such as, for example, with the mayor’s office of Caracas. The municipality facilitates purchases of products in a prepaid way to the commune, which then sells them in the markets.
The medium-term objective is more ambitious: communal warehouses with production of the commune. They already have land where they plant different crops; they produce bread and textiles and have just inaugurated a communal pharmacy run by the doctors who are part of the community, supplied with medicines donated by the international solidarity movement.
The working and middle classes without access to dollars find in the communes a way to satisfy their food needs.
Sputnik / Marco Teruggi
One of the strategic goals of the communes is to achieve the development of a proper economy, coordinated, organized under logics of self-management, directed by self-government that must govern in a participative manner in the communal territory.
This Monday, June 3, the Altos de Lídice Socialist Commune celebrated its first year as a commune. The weekend will have elections to determine who will integrate the bodies of communal government, such as the Parliament of the commune, the Executive and the Comptroller. It will be a space for debate, voting, and celebration: establishing a commune in the storm is something to be celebrated.
The communal markets, with their fish, bread, coffee, legumes, vegetables, the voluntary work of the people, the conformation of self-government, are a sample of the daily life of Chavista away from the cameras, ignored by the Venezuelan right wing and by those who designed the financial blockade from the United States.
It is in these hills where the political identity of Chavismo was formed more than twenty years ago, its strength expressed in great historical moments such as elections, and also -and above all- in its willingness to confront difficulties.
Buying in the markets of the communes, Venezuelans can be supplied at prices significantly lower than those of conventional businesses.
Sputnik / Marco Teruggi
Those who are most affected by the material situation are in turn those who are most organized to find answers, to seek a collective solution. It is a way of building the politics of Chavismo, in solidarity, among equals, which explains, among other things, why in the face of so many difficulties there is a determination not to give up.
The experience of Altos de Lídice is one of the many that are happening day after day throughout the country. The revolution is not only an affair of the Miraflores Palace, but a historical movement that, with successes, errors and complexities, transcends the traditional forms of politics.
The communal organization in more than 3,000 points throughout Venezuela allows its members to find solutions to the shortage caused by the economic war imposed by U.S. sanctions.
Sputnik / Marco Teruggi
Translation by Internationalist 360°
