Today is the seventh anniversary of that memorable council of ministers led by Commander Chavez, which became known as the Coup de Timón. The electoral victory of October 7, 2012, in which Chávez had defeated Capriles Radonsky by more than a million votes, was still fresh. The country was full of hope, of joy. We had excellent economic indicators, the GDP had sustained growth, social statistics that were the best in Latin America, a currency that although not entirely solid nevertheless had important purchasing power and real exchange, an expanding oil industry. The favourable picture was sealed by the crushing defeat of the largest and most forceful electoral, democratic and unitary gamble that the Venezuelan right had managed to put together. The only cloud that overshadowed the horizon was Chávez’s illness.
The resounding victory on October 7, after 14 years in power, with all the wear and tear it could entail, meant the opening and revitalization of a whole new horizon for the deepening of the Bolivarian revolution. This is how Chávez understood it, and this is how he expressed it on the day the television broadcast began:
“We are talking about (…) the opening of the new cycle in light of the Bolivarian victory on October 7, which opened the political horizon, and also the popular victory, which guarantees the stability of the country”.
Much has been said and much has been written about the Coup de Timón. Today we are not in the middle of a popular victory like that of October 7, we do not have before us that broad political horizon and even less that guarantee of stability that Chávez’s victory meant for a new presidential term.
Seven years later, in the midst of a deep economic crisis, under the brutal siege of the United States, undergoing an important political crisis and of hegemony, of leadership, the interpretation we make of these guiding words of Chávez must begin with the acceptance and understanding of a key fact: the starting point from which Chávez began to contemplate and establish goals is radically different.
Only in this way will we be able to find his reflections, his orientations, the keys to adjust and apply to the current situation, and the keys to design and plan our political actions.
II
The first thing Chávez refers to in the Coup de Timón is the need to transform the real base of the economy in order to advance towards the construction of a democratic, just and humanist society.
Chávez said that
“the transformation of the country’s economic base to make it essential and substantially democratic is key, because the economic base of a capitalist country is undemocratic, anti-democratic, exclusive and hence the generation of wealth and riches for a minority, an elite. If our objective is the social state of justice and the rule of law, then that democratization is essential”.
Then he refers to five aspects, in the economic sphere that are fundamental to advance in the transforming project:
– Democratization of economic power.
– The role of the State as guarantor that wealth is directed to the satisfaction of the basic needs of the majority of the population and to the defense of sovereignty.
– Productive self-management at the collective level.
– Democratic planning to regulate productive relations.
– Autonomy of the country in the face of the internationalization of the capitalist system.
If something is key in Chávez’s reflections, it is what corresponds to the democratization of everything that has to do with the economy. In other words, the certainty that the model to be built is radically democratic, in contrast to the capitalist model, which is radically anti-democratic, and that this democracy must reach the economy without restrictions.
And democratization in the economy implies: means of production (factories, lands, technology), raw materials and supplies, financial resources and instruments, distribution channels, consumption capacity. That all this be at the disposal of all the productive forces of the country in equal conditions, from the big companies and economic groups to the small and medium producers, the sectors of the communal and social economy. But it also means the existence of broad, regular, transparent and serious, credible spaces for debate, discussion, definition, execution and monitoring of policies, plans and projects, from the macroeconomic to the microeconomic dimension. In short, a mixed, humanist economic model.
III
Chávez then referred to the need to territorialize the experiences of constructing the new model of society, and something crucial: that this be concretized in an integral, intertwined and expanding manner, without the experiences being isolated, at the mercy of the enormous and voracious capacity that the capitalist system has to engulf and assimilate everything in favour of its strengthening.
From the metaphor used by Chávez, it would be a question of the fabric of the new economic and social model advancing, occupying the territory, sowing itself, taking root and expanding, that is to say, pushing back, isolating, weakening, cornering the old exploitative and unequal model.
Later, when he referred to the grafting of social property, he clearly said:
“We have to associate with small producers, but we have to graft social property, the socialist spirit, along the entire chain, from the work of the land, where the mango, guava, strawberry are produced, to the system of distribution and consumption of the products that come from there. All this we have done for the sake of the transition, but we must not lose sight, compañeros and compañeras, of the core part of this project: we must not continue inaugurating factories that are like an island, surrounded by the sea of capitalism, because it is swallowed up by the sea”.
In short, what Chávez refers to is the need for the new to become hegemonic, but not by imposition, but by real strength, by rooting, by deep draught in the territory and in the people. It is not a question of imposing supremacy but of building hegemony.
That is why he closes by saying:
“One of the essentially new things in our model is its democratic character, a new democratic hegemony, and that obliges us not to impose, but to convince, and from there what we were talking about, the media issue, the communicational issue, the issue of arguments. Cultural change. All this has to have an impact on the cultural level that is vital for the revolutionary process, for the construction of socialist democracy”.
And he touches as a corollary of this point the media theme, the communicational theme. Following the reflection on the new and its expansion, in the case of the media what Chávez refers to, in essence, is the need for a communicational action that detaches from that reality, that is its continuation in the form of discourse, image, design, slogan. And not the practice that works the opposite way around, that is based more on the discourse, slogan, statement and not on concrete reality being condensed, converted into discursive form, and communicated.
Is it possible to convince and build hegemony only with good videos, good songs, good slogans, good campaigns, good speeches, without this being accompanied or arising from an equally good, verifiable, palpable reality that confirms it and gives it meaning? Can hegemony be built with a discourse, a statement, a gesture, a communicational production monopolized only by the official and institutional spokespersons of the government and the party and by a handful of journalists and communicators? Can hegemony be built with an aligned, univocal discourse, in which there is little room for debate, broad and plural analysis, healthy, sincere and frank critique?
Towards the end of the Council of Ministers this issue is again referred to. And he said:
“I watch some programs on our channel, the channel of all Venezuelans and we continue to cling to what has already happened, even giving a voice to those who have almost nothing to say to the country, showing videos and saying that this person said such a thing. Will that be the most important thing right now? And the government’s management? Why not do programs with the workers? Wherever self-criticism comes out, let’s not be afraid of criticism or self-criticism. That feeds us, we need it”.
IV
It is from this initial framework that Chávez goes on to make the harshest criticisms about the way in which, according to his analysis, the issue of the Commune was being addressed by the government he headed. Several aspects defined the framework: 1) the need for integrity in the work of government, of woven construction, interwoven, between each project, each action of the government in function of the strategic project of construction of a new model of society, 2) the need for the new to become hegemonic and for the revolutionary government to contribute to it in each action, 3) the indispensable need for the new to be radically democratic, 4) the political revolution must lead to an economic revolution that goes hand in hand, indissolubly, with social transformation.
Thus Chávez reaches the issue of the Commune as that space in which it is concretized, engaged, and the materialization of all that he proposed as fundamental in the actions of the government and the revolution. Chávez affirmed that if the economic, social and infrastructure projects that the government was advancing at the time were reviewed inch by inch, the Commune would not be present in any of them. His criticism was very harsh. He bluntly said so.
If the Commune is the space in which the new society is going to be built in the territories, how is it going to happen if the projects of economic development, social investment, the projects and works of infrastructure, are not imbricated with the construction of the Communes in each territory where this advances?
If the Commune is the space par excellence so that all the experiences that exist in the territory of the construction of spaces of participation, popular protagonism and the power of the people converge and are integrated; that is to say, if it is the space par excellence so that participative and protagonist democracy, revolutionary democracy, is concretized and built, how can it be left out of the design, planning and execution of the smallest project of the Bolivarian and revolutionary government?
Chávez expressed this with anguish and severely criticized himself for the viability of the revolution when he realized that this was not being understood and implemented. Today, seven years after those words and criticisms of Chávez that still resound in the country, what can we say about it? What balance could be made?
V
Another key aspect that Chávez referred to that day was the issue of leadership and the essential need for it to be built on ethics, detachment, a vocation for honest work and sacrifice, always in the public and collective interest and never in favour of personal or group interests.
If anything whipped up Chavez that day it was the conformation of groups, elites, power preserves: “If some of you see that he has been conforming in some entity, in some ministry, those closed preserves, tell me that I have the power that the Constitution gives me, that none of you have, I send you a missile”, said Commander Chavez with absolute clarity.
And he said it from the central concern for the necessary unity and cohesion that the entire leadership team must have with respect to the promotion of the new model of society, to the fulfillment of the enormous social expectations of the great national majorities, to the solution of the great and serious problems that afflict the population, especially the most vulnerable, and to the confrontation of the great battles that a revolution like the Bolivarian one must face in order to move forward and be successful.
This is what Commander Chávez referred to when he demanded greater levels of efficiency. He did not refer to numbers and statistics alone, but to concrete and palpable results that can only be achieved if the leadership assumes for itself that mandate of radical democratic ethics, detachment, spirit of sacrifice, work and cohesion in favour of the great collective interests.
Coordinación Nacional Corriente Revolucionaria Bolívar y Zamora
Translation by Internationalist 360°
