Venezuela

Chávez presents timetable for new party

Hugo Chávez announced his timetable for a new ruling party last week, and it is clear that it will be a top down affair. Chávez has created a special committee of political leaders, including vice-president Jorge Rodríguez to oversee the process over the next nine months.

The first stage, to be...

Chávez nationalises oil fields, oil workers demand better conditions

Hugo Chávez has announced a new law to nationalise the last remaining oil production sites that are under the control of foreign companies in Venezuela. The nationalisations affect oil production in the Orinoco oil belt, which is said to contain the world’s largest reserves of extra-heavy oil and...

Venezuela: workers march for nationalisation under workers' control

By Pablo Velasco Around 6,000 workers marched through the streets of Caracas on Thursday 8 February demanding nationalisation of all strategic industries under workers’ control. Workers welcomed the Chávez government’s nationalisations of EDC, Venezuela’s largest electric company and the Compania Anonima Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela (CANTV) telecom company. But they called for others such as steel firm Sidor and bathroom firm Sanitarios Maracay to be nationalised - and for workersÕ control in all these industries. The day began with two marches. The first organised by the Corriente Clasista...

Venezuelan workers march for nationalisation under workers’ control

Around 6,000 workers marched through the streets of Caracas on Thursday (8 February) demanding nationalisation of all strategic industries as well as steel firm Sidor, manufacturing firm Sanitarios Maracay and others under workers’ control.

There are some initial reports and good pictures on the A...

"Revolution by stages" in Venezuela?

Jim McIlroy and Coral Wynter, two very well-respected and experienced socialists from Brisbane, members of the DSP, have just returned home after spending a year in Venezuela. On Saturday 3 February they reported back at a public meeting in Brisbane, with a slide show of over 100 photos accompanied by their comments. Three of us attended from Workers' Liberty, with a leaflet advocating a more critical attitude to Venezuela's president Chavez . What struck me most was the huge gap between the general claims that Jim and Coral made for Chavez, and the specifics they reported. In general, their...

So Chávez is a Trotskyist now?

Socialist Appeal and its international current, In Defence of Marxism are the foremost “Trotskyist” apologists for Hugo Chávez. Two recent articles they’ve produced indicate the extent of their disorientation as well as making me laugh.

Last week, Jorge Martin reported on Chávez’s new government...

State capitalism in Venezuela

By Paul Hampton

The shape of Venezuelan “21st century socialism” has become clearer since the election, with Hugo Chávez announcing plans to nationalise strategic industries and form a new ruling party. The direction is towards state capitalism, headed by a Bonapartist bureaucracy.

On 8 January...

The new mañana socialism from above

A new left-wing consensus is emerging, a “common sense” that takes Latin America as its point of departure and which combines many of the worst features of previous versions of “socialism from above”.

The new orthodoxy is articulated by talking heads such as Tariq Ali and Richard Gott as well as...

"Left" backs Hugo Chávez - we say solidarity with the workers!

By Martin Thomas A conference of left-wing trade unionists on 11 November, initiated by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) under the auspices of their “Respect” coalition with George Galloway MP, discussed a “workers’ charter”. There is a lot to say about the defects of that attempt at a “charter”. What concerns us here is the final action point in the charter, which was also the one international element in it. It called for a trade union solidarity delegation to Venezuela. A good idea, but it begs a question. Solidarity with whom in Venezuela? Should British workers organise in solidarity...

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