Venezuela Finally Turns Communist, Maduro Follows Leninist Dogma to the Letter, by
Enrique Standiah, 11/29/13
When Hugo Chávez was running in his
first successful presidential campaign, back in 1998, he was asked point blank
in several television interviews whether or not he was a communist. His reply
was identical to the one given by Fidel Castro to Princeton University students
during his visit to the United States in 1959: “I am a humanist.” Years later,
on consolidating total power in his own hands, Chávez again emulated Fidel and
confessed to being “a convinced follower of Marxist-Leninist ideology.”
During his 14-year rule in
Venezuela, Chávez followed a strategy of introducing socialism in stages. The
first stage entailed obtaining total control of all institutions of the
Venezuelan state. Thus, during the first four years, he concentrated his
efforts in changing the Constitution, packing the Supreme Court, installing
soviet-style political commissars in army units, and changing the national
identity card and the electoral system to ensure his reelection through
manipulation of voter-rolls. During this stage, Chávez was not interested in
antagonizing the private sector or the business community. He had enough on his
plate, and knew he could not tackle all enemies at once.
Just as Hitler’s final destruction
of the Jewish middle class during Kristallnacht did not occur until five years after his ascension to power
in Germany, in Venezuela, Chávez reassured the business community that he was
not really interested in their demise. Throughout this period,
“Chavismo” seemed very similar to Argentina’s “Peronismo.”
In September 2001, Chávez began his
offensive for the “Second Stage of the Process for the Revolution,” as he
called his march towards a totalitarian state. That month, he openly broke with
the United States by calling the US bombing of Afghan targets “an act of
terrorism equal to 9/11.” He then proceeded to pass 49 laws directed against
the private sector. These laws eliminated private participation in the oil
business, allowed for confiscation without payment of private lands, suspended
constitutional guarantees for business owners, and established “military
security zones” in major metropolitan areas — a de facto confiscation of prime real estate in Venezuela’s major
cities. At the same time, he launched an all out attack against the country’s
independent labor unions, persecuting and even imprisoning several prominent
leaders.
These actions galvanized the
opposition, as Chávez expected, and resulted in mass protests and two national
General Strikes. He expected these reactions and was prepared for the
challenge.
However, he miscalculated while he
panicked during the mass protest and march of April 11, 2002. His order to
members of his civilian armed militias to fire on unarmed demonstrators
disgusted the officer corps that he had handpicked to run the Army. His own
generals deposed him.
These same generals, though, quickly
brought him back only three days later when the opposition’s chosen leader
bungled in every imaginable way. As a result, the Second Stage of the Process
succeeded. By the end of 2004,
Chavez had embarked on an
unstoppable march to acquire the “commanding heights” of the Venezuelan
economy, destroyed the independent labor movement — its leaders were mostly
imprisoned or had fled into exile — and gained control of most of the mass
media outlets in the country.
Soon after, he faced significant
problems with his image as a successor to Fidel Castro: large transnational
corporations still had a major presence in key sectors of the Venezuelan
economy, and the country’s revenues were completely dependent on oil sales to
the United States. How could a budding 21st century Leninist achieve world fame
if everyone knew that in his own country transnational corporations ran key
sectors of the economy?
Thus, between 2008 and 2009, Chávez
entered into the Third Stage of the Process. He nationalized the holdings of
international corporations in all sectors considered essential by his Cuban
advisers: telecommunications, mining, steel, construction materials, oil and
oil services, energy generation, distribution and transmission, gas,
agricultural services, and even glass companies. At the same time, Venezuela
entered into a hugely expensive and disadvantageous agreement with China, with
the sole purpose of diverting its oil exports from the United States to the
Chinese market — thereby ending Venezuela’s dependence on the US market.
By the time of his death, Chávez had
achieved most of what he had set out to do. A mediocre opposition, totally
lacking a strategic vision, posed no problems. Moreover, as Chávez himself
boasted several times, he had “infiltrated them to the core.” His aim was never
to turn Venezuela into another Cuba. Chávez knew well that he needed the
private sector to keep goods on the shelves and to avoid Venezuela becoming
economically irrelevant in the way Cuba has become.
His relation to the Castro brothers
was one of a comrade in arms and colleague. He needed the Cubans to provide
security and repression expertise, and they needed him to keep the Cuban people
fed. Chávez’s aim was to supplant Fidel as the new leader of the International
Left, and he knew he needed a strong Venezuela to do that.
Since Chávez’s death, the situation
has changed in Venezuela. Nicolás Maduro lacks Chavez’s brain-power and
charisma and has become completely dependent on Cuban advice. The relationship
with Cuba has also changed: Havana is an imperial capital, and Caracas is
merely the viceroy’s seat of power. Maduro and his vice-president, Chávez’s
son-in-law — a true Marxist fanatic with a degree from Cambridge University —
know that merely tweaking electoral rolls and voting machines will not win them
elections a-la Chávez. They need to enter the Fourth Stage and achieve the
revolution now. The latest news out of Caracas is simply the attempt by
Maduro’s and Chávez’s family members to keep hold of power despite their
evident lack of popularity.
Thus, during the last few weeks,
Maduro has decided to have his Kristallnacht.
This time it is not the Jews that are persecuted, as in Hitler’s Germany
(although Chavismo has always
been openly anti-Semitic), but the entire business class of Venezuela — from
small shop owners to executives from large companies. In the initial opening of
Maduro’s declared “Economic War” against the business community, he accused all
merchants of price gouging, and he forced shops to lower their prices by 70 to
30 percent.
Many citizens think it is immoral
for a merchant to price his goods according to his rational expectations of
what the exchange rate will be in the next few months, and not at the exchange
rate artificially set by the government today. Only last January, the currency
was devalued 48 percent, and yet the average consumer does not understand the
concept of pricing to replacement cost. Thus, Maduro has achieved a great
initial success. People are happy with his decision, only two weeks before
Municipal elections take place. No one is thinking of what will happen in
January when most of the shops do not reopen as they have been forced to
liquidate their inventories below replacement values. No one, except Maduro and
his vice-president, that is.
Last Friday, Maduro approved two
laws that finally ended free markets
in Venezuela. The first law, with the Orwellian name of “Law for the Protection
of the Venezuelan Family and Control of Costs and Prices,” requires all businesses in Venezuela, large
and small, to submit their price mark-ups for approval with the head of
Venezuela’s newly created Economic Council (whose leader happens to be an army
general). The second law creates a National Foreign Trade Center that will
eventually become a monopoly that will handle all Venezuelan imports. Private companies will be allowed to
operate only as local distributors and retailers of the National Foreign Trade
Center.
In January, when Venezuelans
discover that their cheap purchases of government-mandated, reduced-price goods
produced the collapse of the private sector, the government will be ready with
a Soviet-style rationing system. Already, black market operators are setting up
shop in what promises to be a thriving business in Socialism for the 21st Century.
Venezuela has now become the
continent’s second communist totalitarian state.
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