Bolivarian Circles Key to Venezuela's Revolution Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the May 30, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- THE BOLIVARIAN CIRCLES: CRITICAL STEP IN VENEZUELAN REVOLUTION By Andy McInerney Every social revolution has its own unique characteristics. But there are certain tasks that all have in common. By definition, a social revolution involves the overturning of one set of property relations, transferring the ownership of industry and resources from one social class to another. In order to do this, one of the central tasks in any revolutionary process is the creation of organs of popular power. For example, during the Russian Revolution of 1917, councils called soviets allowed the workers, peasants and soldiers to defend their own class interests and ultimately seize state power. During the Chinese Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party organized a Red Army that served as an embryonic workers' and peasants' state until it broke the back of the imperialist-backed Chiang Kai-shek government in 1949. In Cuba, Fidel Castro's July 26th Movement formed an armed nucleus that served as a lightning rod for popular discontent against the Batista dictatorship, culminating in the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Key to the continued success of the revolution is the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, organized on a neighborhood basis to both provide services to the community and to defend against counter-revolution. The fundamental problem facing the progressive government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is that it is based on an electoral victory. In and of itself, it does not reflect the successful conquest of power by Venezuela's working classes-- a conquest that can only take place in the course of intense class struggle by battle-tested organizations based on the working class. But the Chavez government does describe itself as a revolutionary government. And true to its word, it has embarked on a process that clearly separates the Chavez movement from any of the bourgeois nationalist regimes that sometimes take progressive positions against imperialism but are opponents of the working class. That process is the creation of the Bolivarian circles. These committees played a major role in reversing the April coup against the Chavez government by U.S.-backed elements in Venezuela's ruling class and military. The circles also are the key to extending the Venezuelan revolution to address the interests of the working classes. After Chavez was elected in 1998, his government addressed what it called a "peaceful, democratic revolution" toward reforming the corrupt political establishment. A popularly elected National Assembly wrote a new constitution. Chavez led Venezuela, at the time of his election the single largest exporter of oil to the United States, to an independent foreign policy no longer dominated by Washington. He embraced Cuban President Fidel Castro, providing oil to Cuba at preferential terms. He expressed solidarity with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and openly defied the U.S. blockade of Iraq. But Chavez was elected on his promises to address the needs of the 80 percent of Venezuelans who live in poverty. In June 2001, his government began to address these concerns. Over the next several months, Chavez proposed a series of 49 laws aimed at addressing the economic needs of the big majority of the Venezuelan people. He proposed a land reform, turning over land held by absentee landlords to people who would work the land. He aimed at strengthening the role of the state in the oil and fishing industries, with the goal of using the resources for the benefit of the people. This was the background to the creation of the Bolivarian circles. The circles were to be popular, neighborhood-based organizations to defend the revolution. They are named for the great Latin American liberator Simon Bolivar. A supporter of the Chavez government, Guillermo Garcia Ponce, described the initiative to set up the circles in the June 4, 2001, edition of the Caracas newspaper El Universal: "The Bolivarian circles are the organized people in the neighborhoods, the townships, the projects, every place in Venezuela, in order to strengthen the revolutionary process, to bring the people into the activity of the government, to make participatory democracy effective, to carry out the Constitution and to defend it. "We have now finished with the electoral aims and the creation of a new [political] institution. We have now entered on a thrust toward the economy, toward social solutions. For that the greatest unity of political force is needed." By the time President Hugo Chavez officially announced the creation of the circles at a ceremony in December, there were estimated to be 8,000 around the country. Each circle is composed of 7-12 members. By April, that number had mushroomed to 70,000, and by May, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello estimated there were 130,000. That amounts to over a million people organized in the Bolivarian circles. The May 1 Miami Herald gave a description of the circles: "Elena Raspillo, 54, a widow, said her Circle in the Caracas slum of Chapellin runs a low-cost day care center for the children of single mothers who work in overnight jobs such as garbage pickup and office cleaning. "Painter David Bello, 50, is part of a Bolivarian Circle that offers after-school art classes to children in the Libertador district. Teodoro Ruiz belongs to another that runs a sports program for school dropouts. "Other Circles run low-powered television and radio stations financed by the government to broadcast neighborhood news, and still others deliver food to the needy and transport the elderly to and from clinics." A Dec. 4 article in the Washington Post gave a feel for the political level of the circles: "Venessa Yarce, 20, who with [Bolivarian circle organizer Henry] Navas helps run the No Turning Back Social Network, an umbrella group of community organizations, belongs to a circle in the hillside town of La Guaira [near Caracas]. The circle works on children's issues--how to clean up a neglected community park, how to raise money for new playground equipment. ... "'This is about community struggle,' Yarce said. 'But there are still people who will not accept change.' "While the movement formally has no ideology, there is a left-leaning feel to it. Posters of Che Guevara ... watch over the rooms used by the circles. Yarce, who calls herself 'progressive,' wears a T-shirt denouncing 'Yankee imperialism' in Colombia." 'COMANDANTE' LINA RON The spread of the Bolivarian circles is an effort to unleash the power of the masses, to bring the working people into the political arena. One immediate effect of that effort has been the emergence of new, popular leaders--a clear challenge to the view promoted in big business media that the Chavez movement is based on the president's popularity alone. On March 30, Colombian daily El Espectador described one such leader :"The most outstanding figure in the Bolivarian revolution, outside President Hugo Chavez, is a 42-year-old woman from Anaco [about 100 miles from Caracas], who speaks forcefully and firmly. She is never patient. She is always on the offensive. It is Lina Ron who takes to the streets to defend, with blows if necessary, the Chavez government." Lina Ron is a leader of the Bolivarian circle movement in Caracas, a spokesperson for the popular organization Gustavo Altuve Network of Popular Culture and a leader of the People's Power Network. Her supporters call her "Commander." She compares herself to "Tania"--Haydee Tamara Bunke--the famed internationalist hero from Argentina who fought with Che Guevara in Bolivia. Days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when most of the left was disoriented, Ron was burning a U.S. flag in Caracas's main square. In February, Caracas police arrested her for confronting an anti-Chavez student demonstration. Chavez defended her as a political prisoner, "a soldier who deserves the respect of all Venezuelans." Bolivarian circles responded to her arrest by organizing people's street tribunals aimed at rightist leaders. In a March 13 interview with the Caracas daily El Nacional, Ron discussed her expulsion from the main pro-Chavez party, the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR). "We are very involved with the MVR," she said. "I never received the letter of expulsion, but that's not relevant right now, because the MVR is not the non plus ultra, the high chic, the crème de la crème of the revolution. That is the people, simply the people. And we are with the people." In the same interview, Ron called for arming the Bolivarian circles to defend against the counter-revolution. One thing is clear. For every Lina Ron noticed by the big business press in the U.S., there are hundreds in the streets of Caracas. Chavez has put out a call to the people, and the people are responding. BATTLES STILL LOOM The revolutionary process led by President Hugo Chavez survived a key test in April--thanks largely to the organized people in the Bolivarian circles. But new battles are looming on the horizon. When Chavez made some conciliatory remarks after his release, the right wing made one central demand. Anti-Chavez lawmaker Andres Velasquez told the AP on April 18, "There can be no reconciliation until the Bolivarian circles are disarmed." New rumors of coup attempts are still rampant. The U.S.- backed Venezuelan ruling class still controls the main media in the country, and is organizing openly. Hugo Chavez's election in 1998 was not a revolution. But it did open a revolutionary process that is now being tested in struggle. The Bolivarian circles have felt their power, reversing the April coup attempt that had the support of the U.S. government and the Venezuelan ruling class. The creation of the Bolivarian circles has been the most important step taken to date in the Venezuelan revolution. It is the creation of working class power, growing up alongside and in defiance of the old ruling class's state. Widening the influence of the circles and strengthening their organization is the critical task both to defend the revolutionary process against counter-revolution and to extend the revolution to address the social needs of the working class. * CHAVEZ REMOVES COUP GENERALS The Miami Herald reported on May 19 that 106 generals and admirals who had supported the coup against President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela have been removed from their posts. Only six of them have actually been charged, however. The others remain in the military but without command authority. Venezuela has had 260 generals and admirals--a huge number of high-ranking officers for a country of 24 million people that has not waged a war in many years. That's about three times as many general officers per person as in the U.S. Obviously, Chavez inherited a large number of high-ranking officers promoted in years past by the oligarchy for reasons of patronage and privilege. "Another 500 lower-ranking officers were sent home under suspicion of supporting the coup or failing to back the president on April 11," says the Miami paper. They included the commanders of the barracks in Caracas, who allowed the coup members to take over the presidential palace until a mass mobilization of hundreds of thousands forced them to flee. In that confrontation, most rank and file soldiers defied their officers and came over to the side of the people. ---D. Griswold - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. 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