trade unions and socialism in venezuela (interview with orlando chirino, april 2007):

(...) [on chavez' announcement of the PSUV] What is most worrying is that the president ended up by doing exactly what he criticized. He criticized the political cannibalism that characterizes the organizations of the Left, but then he went on to say that anyone who does not share his views is a counterrevolutionary. I think this is a serious mistake, because far from encouraging debate it closes it down and encourages the sectarianism that the president has said he is anxious to fight.
(...) The president says, for example, that the reformists are a danger—and I agree. And yet it is my view that the program the president is putting forward rests on a reformist conception, and that there is no perspective for a break with the logic of capital. Let me explain. After the great neoliberal offensive of the 1990s, we are seeing again multimillion-dollar investments by international capital in strategic sectors of the economy such as oil, mining, coal, construction, and infrastructural projects. International consortia from China, Russia, and Iran are exploiting our workers more than ever. I don’t believe that some multinationals are better than others. They are all essentially concerned with monopolizing production and trade, exploiting workers, pillaging the natural resources of nations and intervening politically in the economic decision-making processes of those countries. This strikes at the heart of the kind of economic model we are building.
(...) The president represents investment by the multinationals as a step forward. I see it as mortgaging the revolution.
(...) [this is relevant - because it has now been nationalized - what does that tell us?] Equally worrying is the president’s announcement that Sidor [a major steel company] will not be nationalized because it is being run by “good capitalists.” In fact, this company was privatized under the Fourth Republic and is owned by a multinational consortium headed by Techint of Argentina.
(...) [W]e wonder when we began to speak of “good” and “bad” capitalists?’
(...) The president is currently making a lot of public references to China. We would ask him not to do that, because capitalism was restored in China a number of years ago, and today it is the country where the working class is most exploited. They are modern-day slaves, led by a rotten party that calls itself communist, but is in fact completely subject to the multinationals. To cap it all, the Chinese have just introduced into the constitution the right to private property. China is hardly a good example.
(...) [tension between state- and public- in state/public-ownership of means of production] Another important issue is the role of social classes in this revolution. You don’t have to refer to Marx, Engels, Lenin, or Trotsky to know that the only way to overturn capitalism, a system in which a minority imposes its will on the majority, is that the working class and the people—we who are the majority and the producers—take the lead in expropriating the enterprises and place them under our control. In that sense, what we mean by socialism is very simply stated. Yet that is becoming more and more difficult in Venezuela. We workers are not in that position, even in the key sectors of the economy, to contemplate even joint management, let alone workers control. The government will not consider the possibility of co-management in strategic sectors.
(...) This suggests that the government’s program does not include expropriation, and nor will the PSUV’s. But if this doesn’t happen, we will not be moving toward socialism, but only toward some kind of state capitalism with a developmentalist perspective. This leaves private property untouched, and means that capitalist exploitation and the accumulation of profit by a very few will continue.

(...) [on trade union autonomy]THIS IS a really important issue. The president can’t change history and argue that those of us who are fighting for the independence of the trade-union movement have somehow been “poisoned” by the experience of the Fourth Republic. On the contrary, trade union autonomy is the key antidote to bureaucratization; that’s why the revolution was saved in 2002 and 2003, and as long as it continues it will be the key safeguard of the revolution.
(...) [and this doesn't mean their de-politicization - it means their unwillingness to submit to power] For forty years the Venezuelan trade-union movement lived through its worst period, because workers were puppets in the games played by the old parties (Copei and AD) and the bosses’ organizations. Venezuelans still remember how AD (Democratic Action) decided the fate of workers, bought and sold contracts, and worked with the government to control the unions and the CTV. We should remember that the bosses’ strike of 2002–03 was led by CTV and Fedecámaras (the bosses’ organization) working hand in hand. The raison d’être of the new UNT union is exactly the opposite: to fight for trade union autonomy, and organize the workers to fight against any attempt to submit them to political control or give in to compromises.
(...) [eschewing universal representation, even as has claimed status of universal subject]The president has to understand that because of what we call the class instinct, and the levels of class and revolutionary consciousness, as well as because of their relationship with the bosses, the behavior of workers is different from that of peasants, communities, or students.
(...) The worst thing about the president’s comments, however, is the suggestion that by fighting for the independence of the working-class movement we are playing a counterrevolutionary role. That is not true. With other comrades we have built a national trade-union current that as well as fighting against bureaucracy and for socialism, is most committed to a fierce defense of trade-union autonomy. The second congress of the UNT was proof of what I am arguing. What happened there was not just about five different factions or currents fighting or some leaders squabbling with others because we have personal disagreements, and President Chávez is wrong to describe it that way. In fact, for the last two years “the mother of all battles” has been under way between two conceptions—on the one hand those who want to tie the trade unions to the government, and on the other, those of us who are fighting for the sovereignty and independence of the trade-union movement.
(...) As PST-La Chispa (Workers’ Socialist Party) we are proud to have been the first political organization to support Hugo Chávez’s presidential candidacy. He will remember the first meetings we organized in the La Quizanda district of Valencia and with the textile workers of Aragua. So our history is unimpeachable.
(...) We are at the forefront of the struggle against the CTV, we supported the creation of the FBT (Bolivarian Workers’ Front), and we are enthusiastically behind the UNT. We joined the best activists in resisting the coup of April 11, 2002, and we were centrally involved in the recovery of the oil industry during the bosses’ lockout of 2002–03. Our record is an extremely honorable one.
(...) THE PRESIDENT has tried to use Rosa Luxemburg’s writings to support his arguments against trade-union independence—but we have to see her positions in the particular political and historical context in which she put them forward. When she discussed the question of trade-union autonomy she was referring to the German Social Democratic Party and arguing against syndicalist and bureaucratic tendencies within the unions. As a Trotskyist I have to recognize that Trotsky was wrong when he argued that the trade unions in Russia should not be autonomous shortly after the Bolshevik victory. Luckily, Lenin participated in the debate and he argued for autonomy. Trotsky’s arguments had real force, given that this was the time of the war economy, when there was hunger, civil war, physical assaults against working-class and trade-union leaders, and a confrontation with the holy alliance of the imperialist counterrevolution. Yet even so he was wrong while Lenin was right.
(...) And there is another issue related to autonomy. The FBT and the Labor Ministry allege that the UNT is not fulfilling its historic role and should therefore disappear. At the same time they are talking about setting up parallel structures and putting forward a series of proposals that will decimate the trade-union movement. It is crucial that these proposals are seriously and carefully discussed by the working class.
(...) It is because we are independent that day in and day out we are able to fearlessly express our views on the errors—sometimes the appalling errors—that the government is committing. Public-sector workers cannot be left waiting for twenty-seven months for their contract to be negotiated. And it seems that the oil workers will face a similar fate. The key question is whether it is right to struggle for the independence of the trade union, and whether our exposure of these issues makes us counterrevolutionaries.
(...) Of course this is not just about trade-union autonomy. It is also about the relationship between the PSUV and the government. Will all PSUV members be obliged to support the decisions of the government and its bureaucrats? Will the new party be more than just an appendage of the government?
(...) For me this is the key question. How is the PSUV being built? I want to express my solidarity with thousands of my compatriots who went to Caracas to take part in the event and who were not only excluded, but mistreated and beaten in the bargain. On television we saw governors, mayors, and deputies who do not have mass support occupying the first rows. There were bosses and bureaucrats present who have defended the bosses, and a number of people who have been accused of corruption and the defense of policies that did not reflect the interests of the people. That is why there is so much discontent—because people know that this process has begun in a very questionable way.
(...) [on the PSUV] WE HAVE to recognize that the people have placed great hopes in it; indeed, it is seen by many as a real political victory over the leaderships of the old parties like the MVR, PPT, Podemos, and all those other organizations that for years have fed a tiny group of fat bureaucrats while the majority grew thinner by the day. However, I must say to you that the way it has been presented by President Chávez will not succeed in bringing in the real class fighters, the honest revolutionaries working within the trade-union movement. And that is why we insist on taking part in this debate. We have a view of how to build a revolutionary party in Venezuela, which is imperative if the struggle for a revolutionary process is to continue and develop to the point where it can seize from the capitalists their economic, political, and military power. Until now, we have seen nothing of that in the discussion about the PSUV.