VENEZUELA : The Revolution Must be Intensified!

An interview with Orlando Chirino,
National co-ordinator of the new Venezuelan workers union UNT

Orlando Chirino is the national coordinator of the new Venezuelan workers’ union UNT, a member of its classist trend, and also leader of the Committee to Promote the Construction of the Revolution and Socialism Party, which is currently being formed in Venezuela.

Franck Gaudichaud: A few weeks ago, the sixth World Social Forum (WSF) was concluded. A part of this polycentric WSF was held for the first time in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital: What did this international, alternative-world conference mean for you, where more than 70,000 people were present, from all around the world and all of Latin America?

Orlando Chirino: For us it’s a question of an important occasion when we can share with delegates from all over the world and get acquainted with the political and labour movement situation in various countries. That’s why we value the forum and that’s the reason why we take part in all the forums. It’s very positive, but there are still many structural difficulties too, like the fact that it’s always hard to find, agree on, and vote on policies together. It’s true that very different organisations make up the WSF and therefore it’s complicated to seek specific points and tasks in common.

In the case of the Caracas forum, there was also a low level of participation by Venezuelan organisations, and that explains why the foreign delegates had to go to the factories and barrios, in order to be able to learn about the reality of the Bolivarian process. You have to add the fact that we, the UNT activists, weren’t invited to the forum, we were excluded, even if independently of the organisers, we participated in some discussion sessions. There was also a lack of mass participation by Venezuelans. It seems to me that many comrades who work at the grassroots level don’t know the meaning and the importance of the forum well, and the people in the street know even less: they didn’t feel that the forum was theirs... I think that there wasn’t enough information here, in Venezuela, and a certain fear, on the part of the organising committee and of a sector of the government, of opening up the forum more broadly. So that I think that we have to recognise everything that’s good, but also to know how to strike a critical, and self-critical, balance.

FG: Currently the discussion in Venezuela about socialism is very present in all areas: President Chávez cites both Karl Marx and Bolívar, he talks about 21st century socialism, participatory democracy, the break with capitalism... according to your analysis - as a social leader but also as a revolutionary activist - what’s the present state of the Bolivarian process?

OC: In the first place, today Venezuela is provided with a government that’s independent and autonomous in relation to imperialism. In the second place, its constitution, which was approved by the Venezuelan people, is an important advance for a process of transition toward socialism, thanks to a new autonomy of powers, numerous victories in terms of human rights, the new freedom for trade unions, the increased number of social missions with the creation of free community clinics (“Mission Inside the Barrio”), with the literacy campaign among the poor (“Mission Robinson”)... In short, there are various victories that are very important.

But we’re still inside a capitalist framework, where private property is respected and where most of the means of production remain in private hands, as is the case with the large banks, which earn fantastic sums based on operations on the order of financial speculation. Because of that, at the trade-union level, we’re demanding participation in the activity. Nevertheless, we’re not even getting involved at the bottom, we’re demanding direct control of the utilities and the property. At this level, it can be said that there’s a “confrontation” between a democratic government that respects private property and us, who are planning a profound change in the relations of production. But in relation to the previous governments, the Bolivarian government is deeply democratic and the most progressive of all.

As the president says, this country is sovereign because it takes decisions, and this is an essential victory. The majority of workers and the popular sectors still strongly support President Chávez and the process. At the same time, the result of the most recent legislative elections, some trade union by-elections, or disturbances in the barrios express the fact that we’re seeing a kind of decline after 7 years of government. The workers are starting to demand more. There are enormous expectations, for example, in the area of the control of production, especially in the companies where the work is more insecure. But let’s say that there’s a certain uneasiness among the people and some anxieties, parallel to the popular support for the government.

In recent years, mobilising the people made it possible to defeat the opposition and the bourgeoisie. At present, there are three essential elements in the national debate. First, the process of growing bureaucratisation which the country recognises, and the anti-trade union practices; in the second place, corruption; and in third place, the conservative posture of some ministers, mayors, or governors. All this when we’re in the presidential re-election year! People at the grassroots are demanding more participation and the end of “dedocracy” [1]: the revolution, the process, must be intensified. The two governmental organisations, PODEMOS and the MVR are very bureaucratised and their leaders are the new rich of this country. In spite of this and these conflicts, we’re fighting for the re-election of President Chávez, which is an important part of this struggle. It’s still necessary to keep up support and struggle to maintain Hugo Chávez as president in order to guarantee the continuity of the process.

FG: When we talk about intensifying the revolutionary process, would that also apply to the “co-participation” in companies and work places?

OC: Yes, we’re demanding the extension of co-participation in the country, merely as a democratic watchword (it’s not a “socialist” slogan). But it’s very important that there be worker participation in companies, especially the public enterprises.

Let me tell you that the participation has to do with the present constitution, which is a progressive victory that’s very important in this process, and this raises the subject of the social Treasury control that is opposed to bureaucratisation. And in this sense there were some very valuable experiences, such as in the case of Invepal or Alcasa. But the government started to restrain the co-participation process: above all in the petroleum and electrical sector, arguing that it involves the strategic sectors and that they run the risk of remaining in the hands of the right if co-participation is applied there.

We have a different view. During the last owners’ strike and the oil industry sabotage (in 2002 and January-February 2003), these workers showed that they’re capable of defeating the imperialists’ plans and setting about production work so as to guarantee the country’s energy supply. That’s why we don’t understand now, when the production has been normalised, why there’s no workers’ control (even integrating the users of these public services). We analyse this retreat above all as a political concession to the conservative sectors by the government, and this with arguments like the one that Che Guevara was opposed to workers’ management in Yugoslavia, and others.

In this sense there was a real retreat within the government after these crises. We plan co-participation as a programme for making the transition and raising socialist awareness.

FG: There’s another participatory axis presented by the government as essential for the construction of participatory democracy, which is called here the “nucleus of endogenous development”, it involves cooperatives. Some speak of more than 70,000 in the whole country, although the statistics vary from one ministry to another... Undoubtedly these cooperatives mean the possibility of work and an entry for thousands of people, both in the countryside and in the towns. Nevertheless, and after having talked about this subject with the president’s advisers and workers, it’s not very clear to me that the existing cooperatives are - in the main - viable in the medium term, especially when some of them reproduce forms of hierarchy and exploitation of the labour force opposed to the socialist project.

OC: We, within the UNT, propose that the cooperatives should be able to be complementary. For us, the first instrument of organisation and participation is the trade union. Therefore we’re against a cooperativism that violates the collective negotiations or trade-union law. Many people are using the cooperatives as a form of turning jobs precarious, making them flexible, with subcontracts for a fixed period of time.

Today the majority of cooperatives in the country are involved in this type of relation, where 4 or 5 people are owners of the cooperatives and make contracts with people for a limited time, with low wages and without trade union rights: they’re like “small businesses” ... This obviously contradicts what the government says about the construction of socialism. Actually one sector is in favour of the transformation of the cooperatives into businesses, a phenomenon which is happening in Colombia for example, and which leads to disguising the exploitation of the workforce for the great advantage of the large enterprises which subcontract them as providers of services, without having to go through the rules of collective negotiations and the unions. In addition, it permits them to win the state subventions that are granted to this type of cooperative. What’s certain is that some cooperatives work effectively to solve serious immediate problems, those of the poorest people, such as the cooperatives that serve meals to the poor. These cooperatives are complementary.

But basically we believe that in Venezuela, with all our wealth, it’s possible to create decent and permanent employment, and not these precarious, temporary, and unstable contracts that exist in the cooperatives. This is a debate that’s developing rapidly in the country, in which the UNT is participating. In the end it’s a matter of thinking where the cooperativist movement will be located in a process of constructing a socialist society.

FG: The UNT has announced, after various consultations with its local branches, that it will have its national congress on 30, 31 March and 1 April 2006. What are the challenges and topics that will be discussed on this occasion?

OC: The first challenge will be finally, to make the holding of this national congress a reality. Because during the UNT founding congress, it was agreed to hold elections in order to elect a democratic leadership within the next year and to reform the statutes. And it’s been three years and it still hasn’t been possible to carry out the resolution of the congress: there are tendencies within the UNT that don’t want to submit to a referendum. The reform of the statutes will be designed to radically democratise our organisation, with the aim that elections can be held in May through direct and secret election in all the local organisations. If that happens we’ll be the first workers’ union in the world that will have an executive committee elected in such a way. The second challenge will be to ratify the character of the UNT: autonomous and independent of business, the state and the political parties.

FG: Does that mean that at present that’s not the case?

OC: Yes, but there are strong pressures and there’s a tendency within it [the Bolivarian Workers’ Front - editor’s note] that demands “governmentism”, meaning that they have visions of appendices of the government. It’s necessary to insist on better information at the local level, since the executive committee can’t debate behind closed doors without informing the workers. Also, as regards the collective contracts, these should be prepared through democratic consultation. And one of our greatest challenges as the central is changing the labour code, parallel to reaffirming its internationalist and socialist orientation.

In short, we have to re-discuss our programme: take a position on the country’s internal and external debt and know if we demand a popular referendum in order to abolish it; for the formation of a club of debtors, to hoist the flag of our people’s sovereignty and self-determination, to take a position on the astronomical profits of the bank of Venezuela and the transnationals and to know whether we’ll raise the slogan of nationalisation, etc...

FG: Orlando, you’re also known as a “Trotskyist” political leader, we know that you and other comrades are calling for the formation of a new revolutionary party in Venezuela: can you explain to us in a few words the reasons for this decision?

OC: We’ve been political militants since a very early age. I started as an activist at age 11 and An interview with Orlando Chirino,
National co-ordinator of the new Venezuelan workers union UNT
http://venezuelasolidarity.org.uk/ven/web/2006/articles/orlando_chirino.html

when I was 16, I began a conscientious revolutionary activism, after separating from Democratic Action [2]: at that time I became a “Trotskyist” and I state it straightforwardly. But first and foremost I’ve been a trade union leader in this country, fighting in the trenches, defending the autonomy of the movement and its democracy, like the struggle for socialism. In this process of constructing the Bolivarian revolution and above all, since President Chávez left prison, we’ve shared a lot with him, we talk a great deal, we’re beginning to build a Bolivarian Workers’ Front (FBT), we were founders of the FBT as a front where all the trade union leaders had to come together who identify themselves with President Chávez and with the process.

But the class struggle has been bringing up for discussion among us the programme that we’re defending and today we think it’s a legitimate right to call for the construction of a new revolutionary force. On 9 July last year we set up a sponsoring committee for the construction of a revolutionary party in Venezuela, a workers’ party, called the “Revolution and Socialism Party”. Why? Because we need a revolutionary party, especially when in the FBT, as in the leadership of the three Chavist parties, there are leaders who are curbing the process.

At the grassroots, there’s a strong opposition to the bureaucratisation, the degeneration of these organisations, and the serious corruption of some of their members. As for us, we believe that it’s vital to prevent the loss of the advances that we’ve made, because that means nothing less than also taking care of the lives of many revolutionary leaders of this country, and basically the people of this country, who have devoted themselves, who have gone into the streets to defend the process. With this, I want to emphasise that our victories are not the fruit of the parties who have deputies in the congress.

The party that we want to build won’t be “Trotskyist”, because comrades from different tendencies are joining this party, including the militant fringes, who will separate - in proportion as the class struggle becomes more acute - from parties like PPT, MVR, and PODEMOS. At the same time, and I repeat it here as we have done to political leaders, student and trade union leaders, etc.: we don’t want any kind of self-proclamation, and in this sense, the PRS doesn’t yet exist, it’s not even established.

We’re planning a founding congress for July or August 2006, where we’ll assess whether it’s correct - or not - to proceed further toward creating this party. What we’re very clear about today is that this dynamic of constructing a new revolutionary party is registered as a support to the Bolivarian revolution. For this reason we will give strong support to the re-election of President Chávez in December 2006, an indispensable condition for strengthening the process and intensifying our battle against imperialism.

Union activist Francisco Almarza with UNT leaders Marcela Maspero, Stalin Perez, Ruben Linares and Orlando Chirino
Photo: Aporrea.org

From VSC partners Axis of Logic

An interview with Orlando Chirino, national coordinator of the new Venezuelan workers union UNT By Franck Gaudichaud. Translated from Spanish for Axis of Logic by Agatha Haun and revised by Mary Rizzo (Tlaxcala*)
Apr 6, 2006, 14:00

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