Analysis of developments in Venezuela and other parts of South America

It is certainly generous of the Monthly Review to make important articles such as this available for free on its website. The whole article is available on the website. Lebowitz concentrates on Venezuela but also touches on other countries in South America as well.


Venezuela:
A Good Example of the Bad Left of Latin America
by Michael A. Lebowitz


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Notes From
the Editors


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Michael A. Lebowitz is author of Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), Build It Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century (Monthly Review Press, 2006), and The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development (Monthly Review Press, forthcoming in 2008). Portions of this essay were presented as “Going Beyond Survival: Making the Social Economy a Real Alternative” at the Fourth International Meeting of the Solidarity Economy, July 21–23, 2006, at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Fair wages, a fair day’s work! Through their struggles within capitalism, it has often been possible for workers and citizens to secure themselves some share of the benefits of social labor. Capitalist globalization and the offensive of neoliberal state policies, however, have encroached upon all those gains from past struggles; and the answer to those who were surprised to find those victories ephemeral was the mantra of TINA—there is no alternative.

Yet, as the devastation of the capitalist offensive has become obvious, opposition has emerged especially in Latin America. We warned you this would happen, say the hucksters and self-promoters; instead of the good times ahead promised from the neoliberal medicine prescribed from the 1980s on, Latin America experienced (in the words of Jorge G. Castañeda) “the persistence of dismal poverty, inequality, high unemployment, a lack of competitiveness, and poor infrastructure” (“Latin America’s Left Turn,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006). The left (“rightly foretold” by the prophets) has returned.

This means that hope has returned. Working people around the world look to Latin America these days for the demonstration that there is an alternative, that a better world is possible. But, are they right to look to Latin America? Is a real alternative emerging or is it merely a negotiation of better terms in the implicit contract with capitalist globalization? Is Latin America breaking with capitalism or is it struggling for fairness?

The Good Left and the Bad Left

Of course, we know that all lefts are not the same. And, indeed, that is a constant theme among commentators of all varieties. While few would divide Latin America in accordance with dietary practices as did Alvaro Vargas Llosa (Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, and Evo Morales being designated as “carnivores”—Washington Post, August 6, 2006), for many there is simply the Good Left and the Bad Left. What they have in common, according to Castañeda, is that they stress “social improvements,” “egalitarian distribution of wealth,” “sovereignty,” and “democracy” (over the presumed opposite package of macroeconomic orthodoxy, wealth creation, international cooperation, and governmental effectiveness). What makes the Bad Left bad, though, is essentially described by one word—“populism.”

When they hear the term populism, Latin American intellectuals reach for their incense. Partly that is because the term conveys people, masses, the unwashed in motion. When Castañeda declares populism to be “nationalist, strident, and close-minded,” it is hard not to think of this as his description of the masses themselves. But, there is more to it (or, rather, there is another aspect of this). When he describes as among the characteristics of populists in power that they “nationalized large sectors of their countries’ economies, extending well beyond the so-called commanding heights” and captured “natural resource or monopoly rents, which allowed them to spend money on the descamisados, the ‘shirtless,’ without raising taxes on the middle class,” you know that what makes the Bad Left really bad is its attack on capital.

Small wonder, then, that the Good Left is said to include the governments of Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil (and maybe even Nestor Kirchner’s Argentina), while the Bad Left invariably revolves around Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales. Given that the distance from Chávez appears to be the true measure of all things, one might conclude that Ecuador’s Rafael Correa will also fall into the category of the Bad.

Yet, here is where this classification system breaks down. How do we distinguish between an attack on capitalism as such and an attack on the current policies and practices of capitalism? Between a struggle for a new economic system, on the one hand, and a struggle for fairness on the part of international creditors, in trade relations, and in the distribution of resource rents, on the other? Distinguishing between these may be harder than it appears at first sight.

After all, even a process of despotic inroads upon capital (of a long march which wrests, “by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie,” in the words of Marx and Engels) is certain to be described as mere reformism by those for whom anything less than storming the heights immediately—nationalizing everything with workers’ control now—is simply acquiescence to international capital. Abstract idealists for whom the correlation of forces (internal and external) and the concept of process mean less than the pamphlets they have underlined always sing the same tune of betrayal (changing only the names of those who have spurned their overtures). But, it does not mean that they are wrong in particular cases.

How can we identify an attack on capitalism as such? Is an alternative to capitalism being built in the new left governments of Latin America?

Identifying an Alternative to Capitalism

What constitutes a real alternative to capitalism? I suggest that it is a society in which the explicit goal is not the growth of capital or of the material means of production but, rather, human development itself—the growth of human capacities. We can see this perspective embodied in the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela—in Article 299’s emphasis upon “ensuring overall human development,” in the declaration of Article 20 that “everyone has the right to the free development of his or her own personality,” and in the focus of Article 102 upon “developing the creative potential of every human being and the full exercise of his or her personality in a democratic society.”

In these passages (which are by no means the whole of that constitution), there is the conception of a real alternative—an economy whose logic is not the logic of capital. “The social economy,” President Hugo Chávez said in September 2003, “bases its logic on the human being, on work, that is to say, on the worker and the worker’s family, that is to say, in the human being.” That social economy, he continued, does not focus on economic gain, on exchange values; rather, “the social economy generates mainly use-value.” Its purpose is “the construction of the new man, of the new woman, of the new society.”

These are beautiful ideas and beautiful words, but they are, of course, only ideas and words. The first set comes from a constitution and the second comes from the regular national educational seminar known as Aló Presidente. How can such ideas and words be made real? Let me suggest four preconditions for the realization of this alternative to capitalism.

(1) Any discussion of structural change must begin from an understanding of the existing structure—in short, from an understanding of capitalism. We need to grasp that the logic of capital, the logic in which profit rather than satisfaction of the needs of human beings is the goal, dominates both where it fosters the comparative advantage of repression and also where it accepts an increase in slave rations.

(2) It is essential to attack the logic of capital ideologically. In the absence of the development of a mass understanding of the nature of capital—that capital is the result of the social labor of the collective worker—the need to survive the ravages of neoliberal and repressive policies produces only the desire for a fairer society, the search for a better share for the exploited and excluded: in short, barbarism with a human face.

(3) A critical aspect in the battle to go beyond capitalism is the recognition that human capacity develops only through human activity, only through what Marx understood as “revolutionary practice,” the simultaneous changing of circumstances and self-change. Real human development does not drop from the sky in the form of money to support survival or the expenditures of popular governments upon education and health. In contrast to populism, which produces people who look to the state for all answers and to leaders who promise everything, the conception which truly challenges the logic of capital in the battle of ideas is one which explicitly recognizes the centrality of self-management in the workplace and self-government in the community as the means of unleashing human potential—i.e., the idea of socialism for the twenty-first century.

(4) But, the idea of this socialism cannot displace real capitalism. Nor can dwarfish islands of cooperation change the world by competing successfully against capitalist corporations. You need the power to foster the new productive relations while truncating the reproduction of capitalist productive relations. You need to take the power of the state away from capital, and you need to use that power when capital responds to encroachments—when capital goes on strike, you must be prepared to move in rather than give in. Winning the “battle of democracy” and using “political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie” remains as critical now as when Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto.

Consider these preconditions. Are they being met by the new Latin American governments on the left? On the contrary, for the most part, we can see the familiar characteristics of social democracy—which does not understand the nature of capital, does not attack the logic of capital ideologically, does not believe that there is a real alternative to capitalism, and, not surprisingly, gives in when capital threatens to go on strike.

“We can’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs,” announced the social democratic premier of British Columbia in Canada (in the 1970s when I was party policy chairman). Here, crystallized, is the ultimate wisdom of social democracy—the manner in which social democracy enforces the logic of capital and ideologically disarms and demobilizes people.

Venezuela, however, is going in a different direction at this point. While the Bolivarian Revolution did not start out to build a socialist alternative (and its continuation along this path is contested every step of the way), it is both actively rejecting the logic of capital and also ideologically arming and mobilizing people to build that alternative.

The Initial Venezuelan Path

Although the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999 focused upon the development of human capacity, it also retained the support for capitalism of earlier constitutions. That constitution guarantees the right of property (Article 115), identifies a role for private initiative in generating growth and employment (Article 299), and calls upon the state to promote private initiative (Article 112). And, support for continued capitalist development was precisely the direction of the initial plan developed for 2001–07. While rejecting neoliberalism and stressing the importance of the state presence in strategic industries, the focus of that plan was to encourage investment by private capital—both domestic and foreign—by creating an “atmosphere of trust.”

To this was to be added the development of a “social economy”—conceived as an “alternative and complementary road” to the private sector and the public sector. But, it is significant how little a role was conceived for self-managing and cooperative activities. Essentially, this was a program to incorporate the informal sector into the social economy; it is necessary, the plan argued, “to transform the informal workers into small managers.” Accordingly, family, cooperative, and self-managed micro-enterprises were to be encouraged through training and micro-financing (from institutions such as the Women’s Development Bank) and by reducing regulations and tax burdens. The goal of the state was explicitly described as one of “creating an emergent managerial class.”

The social economy, thus, was to play the role it plays in Brazil and elsewhere—islands of cooperation nurtured by states, NGOs, Grameen-type banks, and church charities and serving as positive shock absorbers for the economic and political effects of capitalist globalization. Of course, if seriously pursued, this could make things easier for the unemployed and excluded, the half of the Venezuelan working class in the informal sector, by providing them with a better opportunity for survival. But, the social economy was not envisioned in the 2001–07 plan as an alternative to capitalism (except insofar as survival within the nooks and crannies of global capitalism constitutes an alternative).

A Third Way for Venezuela: it would turn its back on neoliberalism, would change the distribution of oil rents by acting against the state within the state that was the national oil company (PDVSA), and would move via an active state in the direction of the “endogenous development” supported by structuralist economists. The goal, in short, was a different capitalism. The Bolivarian Revolution at its outset clearly belonged in the Good Left.

But, it also contained a potential subversive element—its theme of human development. The Bolivarian Constitution is unequivocal in indicating that human beings develop their capacity only through their own activity. Not only does Article 62 declare that participation by people is “the necessary way of achieving the involvement to ensure their complete development, both individual and collective,” but that constitution specifically focuses upon democratic planning and participatory budgeting at all levels of society and (as in Article 70) upon “self-management, co-management, cooperatives in all forms” as examples of “forms of association guided by the values of mutual cooperation and solidarity.” With its emphasis upon a “democratic, participatory and protagonistic” society, the Bolivarian Constitution definitely contains the seeds of the social economy, the seeds of socialism for the twenty-first century.

And, those seeds didn’t drop from the sky. They came from the social movements that were allied with Hugo Chávez’s struggle to throw out the Fourth Republic (and that, through membership in the new Constituent Assembly, introduced those seeds directly into the constitution); and, they came from the self-described “subversive in Miraflores” himself—Chávez, the prisoner who wrote in 1993, “the sovereign people must transform itself into the object and the subject of power. This option is not negotiable for revolutionaries.”

Of course, contradictory elements such as those found in the Bolivarian Constitution are not unique, and potentially subversive seeds often produce nothing. We are all familiar with governments elected as agencies of working people which, once elected, send the people home to rest for the next election. Further, there is much sad experience with the manner in which those social movements then proceed to self-police themselves—with the result that the seeds wither. In Venezuela, however, class struggle nurtured the seeds of that social economy so that it increasingly was seen as the alternative to capitalist development.

Troubles Brewing in Bolivia

It sounds very much as if there will be violent confrontations between the old elites and the new mass organisations quite soon unless some negotiations can defuse the situation. There is almost no news or analysis in the North American press about this.


BOLIVIA
Bolivia: End of the new social pact?

Federico Fuentes, Caracas
25 August 2007

Having come out of an intense period of political confrontation,
including the biggest mobilisation in Bolivia's history, this
landlocked country situated in the heart of rebellious South America
seems on the verge of plunging into a new phase of open conflict. At
the centre of this is the country's Constituent Assembly — a central
plank of Bolivia's cultural and democratic revolution, led by the
country's first indigenous president, Evo Morales — which was
convened
over a year ago with the goal of achieving a new social pact between
Bolivia's conflicting sectors and drafting a new constitution that
would for the first time include the country's indigenous majority.

Both sides of politics now openly talk about the possibility of the
closure of the assembly, which has already passed its initial August 6
deadline to present a new draft constitution without a single article
having been approved. Outside the assembly, in the streets of Sucre,
the number of pickets and people on hunger strike continues to grow.
Protests by locals in Sucre continue to radicalise, angered by the
assembly's vote to leave out any debate over where the capital of
Bolivia should be.

On August 22, the ABI news service reported that "mobilisations in
Sucre, spilled over this Wednesday into acts of vandalism, persecution
of constituent delegates, attacks against houses, looting of union
headquarters, destruction of media installations and physical
aggressions against journalists". The assembly indefinitely suspended
its sessions due to the lack of any guarantees for the safety of
delegates. While Sucre is the historic capital of Bolivia, ever since
the 1899 civil war La Paz has been the country's political capital.
The cries for the return of the capital to Sucre, stoked by the
right-wing opposition to the Morales government, have raised tensions
across Bolivia and revived fears of another "civil war".

The previous day, brawling broke out in Bolivia's congress following
moves by Morales's party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), to
elect new members to the Constitutional Tribune and replace the
current judges — aligned with the neoliberal right — who had
suspended
four members of the Supreme Court legally appointed by Morales at the
end of last year. Shifting the vote to another area of the congress,
without the presence of the opposition, MAS pushed through its agenda
in the chamber of deputies. The vote now must go to the
opposition-controlled senate.

Responding to the increased threats to the process of change the
country is undergoing, Maximo Romero, a cocalero (coca-grower) leader
from the Chapare region, was quoted by ABI on August 20, warning that
"If some sectors, political parties and others, do not allow the
Constituent Assembly to advance, it will be necessary for the social
organisations to organise ourselves, and we will respond to the
provocations by surrounding Sucre" in order to "defend the continuity
of the assembly".

Romero's comments came as the Six Federations of the Tropics of
Cochabamba — Bolivia's chief cocalero organisation and where, in the
'80s, Morales began his political activity (he is still the elected
president of the federation) — began to mobilise 7000 cocaleros to
march on Sucre. Other campesino groups, including the Union
Confederation of Campesinos of Bolivia (CSCB), will join them. The ABI
article quoted CSCB relations secretary Rosendo Mita declaring that
"whether they [the opposition] want it or not, the assembly will
continue its work until December".

"They [the right-wing opposition] are calling for violence. If we
don't resolve this via consensus, it has to be resolved via violence",
said Bolivia's Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera. "Those that don't
want the assembly are proposing violence." Warning of the impact of
the impending mobilisations of the cocaleros and campesinos, first
vice-president of the Constituent Assembly Roberto Aguilar said "we
are searching for channels of dialogue to impede confrontation".

On August 22 Garcia Linera was quoted by ABI as saying: "To wear down
the old powers will cost a lot, it will be conflictive, the population
needs to be conscious of this, and the best way to defend the
continuity of the process of change is through democratic mobilisation
to back this transformation and to put an end to the history of these
old elites, of their old privileges, of their old shameful quotas, so
that they never return to the country."

Troubles in the Constituent Assembly

Since convening on August 6, 2005, the Constituent Assembly has been
plagued by confrontations as a re-emergent opposition — organised out
of the city of Santa Cruz in the east of Bolivia and which has at its
core the Santa Cruz elite, gas transnationals, large agribusiness, and
the US embassy — has attempted to derail the process of change.

Aiming to mobilise the white, middle-class sectors in opposition to
Morales's indigenous revolution and defend their economic power, these
elites have raised the banner of departmental (state) autonomy as a
way of shielding themselves from the measures taken by Morales's
government.

By blocking any steps forward by the national government, particularly
in the Constituent Assembly, they hope to sow disillusion in the
assembly and Morales and pave the way for their return to government.
These same interests, which never wanted the Constituent Assembly,
have been working from within it and from without to ensure it fails.

For the first eight months, the assembly was deadlocked over rules of
procedure and debate, with the opposition demanding a two-thirds
majority for all votes as a way to prevent the possibility of any
radical measures being introduced into the new constitution.

Once over this hurdle, a combination of factors soon acted to again
stall this process. Firstly, when voting began within the assembly's
21 commissions over what report to present to the assembly as a whole,
MAS manoeuvred in a few of the key commissions so that, in alliance
with some smaller parties, it could essentially present both the
majority and minority report and lock out the right.

Threatening to walk out of the assembly, the right wing retreated to
its trenches in Bolivia's east. On July 2, the anniversary of a
national referendum on departmental autonomy, the opposition in Santa
Cruz launched its proposed statutes for autonomy, warning that the
eastern half of the country would reject any constitution that did not
incorporate its proposals.

At the same time, almost out of nowhere, the demand for the return of
the capital to Sucre emerged. The protests, which began in Sucre, were
supported by the opposition so as to create a fake debate and heighten
tensions. It also saw it in its interest to have the capital closer to
the east and away from the combative social movements predominately
based in the country's west. In response, around 1.5 million people
mobilised in La Paz on July 20 to defend its position as the capital.

As the August 6 deadline continued to draw closer, a debate opened up
as to who had the power to extend the assembly's mandate. Given the
opposition's majority in the senate, allowing it to block any
extension, the ultra-right separatist wing of the Santa Cruz elite
began to raise fears of MAS imposing its own constitution against the
will of the "half moon" (Bolivia's four eastern states — Santa Cruz,
Beni, Pando and Tarija) and forcing the country into a "civil war".

The spectre of an indigenous-military parade scheduled to occur in
Santa Cruz the day after the assembly's deadline, with the legendary
"Red Ponchos" (militant Aymara people with a long history of armed
resistance) marching side by side with the military in heart of the
east, was used to conjure up the threat of "indigenous revenge"
against the east. Meanwhile, more and more evidence emerged of the
movement of illegal arms into the hands of right-wing militias in the
east.

>From one challenge to the next

Only at the last minute did the Bolivian congress vote to extend the
Constituent Assembly deadline until December 14. Then, on August 7,
rather than the prophesied "racial revenge" and threats of clashes,
thousands flocked to view the indigenous-military parade.

Venezuela's El Nacional reported the following day that during his
speech at the parade, Morales stated: "The presence of the armed
forces and indigenous peoples is in no way a provocation against
anyone, it is so that all of us can get to know each other. We are
united with the social movements to take forward the cultural
revolution and the process of change within democracy."

Sending a clear message to Santa Cruz's ultra-right separatists,
General Wilfredo Vargas, chief of the armed forces, was quoted as
saying, "Today the institutionality of the country is threatened by
abominable enemies who are not in agreement with our development and
independence". The general added that Bolivia's armed forces "are
always alert in order to confront the enemies of the homeland".

However, protests continued over the issue of the capital, and the
east continued to maintain the threat to boycott the assembly and
reject any constitution that does not enshrine the version of
departmental autonomy pushed by the elite.

The threat from the Santa Cruz elite is far from gone; the groundwork
for a future confrontation has already been laid.

At stake with the question of the extension of the assembly's deadline
was the possibility that, needing to produce a constitution in a few
days, the assembly would end up with a majority report from MAS and
supported by the indigenous and social movements and a minority report
from the opposition. The aim of the opposition would then have been to
get a majority for its draft in the east and demonstrate in practice
the "validity" of the concept of "two Bolivias", triggering a possible
disintegration of the country.

While that threat was averted, the pact agreed to by all the parties
—
including MAS and the opposition — in order to facilitate the
extension may have created a minefield for assembly delegates.
According to the agreement, once the deadline is over, the assembly
will first present those articles where a two-thirds majority could
not be reached in the assembly in a national referendum. Those that
are supported by voters in the referendum will then go back to the
assembly and be incorporated into the draft constitution, which would
then go to a national referendum.

This could create a number of future problems for MAS. Firstly, the
whole process could take up to the end of next year, increasing the
possibility of general discontent with the whole process. While the
polls still show a large majority support the assembly, the
opposition's campaign of stalling has had an impact.

Secondly, the opposition may be able to present its "alternative"
constitution, in the form of numerous key articles that will go to the
first referendum. It will undoubtedly be aiming to win a majority in
the east for these articles. In fact, the process may act as an
incentive for the right to not seek any consensus and instead to test
the strength of the two camps in the referendum.

Bolivia's future

Lastly, as MAS constituent delegate Raul Prada pointed out to Erbol
radio station on August 4, the law to extend the deadline means that
"the Constituent Assembly has been converted into an appendix of the
congress and lost all its originario character". This pact has
demonstrated in practice that the Constituent Assembly, irrespective
of all the discussion over its character and whether it was originario
— that is, above the current constituted state bodies — is for now
subordinated to the constituted powers. This is undoubtedly part of
the reason why MAS is intent on electing new judges to the
Constitutional Tribunal.

Bolivia's mainstream media, in its attempt to split the social
movements, has marked this decision as a decisive step by MAS towards
the center of politics and away from the radical left and indigenous
movements, playing on divisions that have begun to emerge.

However, faced with a growing polarisation, an emergent right with a
real base in the east, transnationals that continue to oppose
nationalisation of the country's significant gas reserves, the
presence of US troops over the border in Paraguay and the very real
threat of the disintegration of Bolivia, attempting to reach pacts in
order to buy time and build up forces for future confrontations may be
a sensible move by MAS.

Moreover, it is necessary for MAS to avoid unnecessary and premature
confrontation. Part of the political struggle is projecting a viable
and convincing course to defend the territorial integrity of Bolivia
and overall social stability. These issues weigh heavily on the minds
of middle-class elements and on important sections of the armed
forces. They add weight to the need to concentrate on widening the
scope of political struggle against the right.

The right, well aware of this, seeks to avoid political struggle
through provocations, street violence and threats to defy
constitutional authority wherever it senses it has the strength to do
so.

This is why the government has been quick to point out to the people
of Santa Cruz that those who are in favour of closing the assembly are
in favour of violence and are acting against the call for autonomy —
because departmental autonomy can only be agreed to within the
framework of the assembly.

Nevertheless, Argentine journalist Pablo Stefanoni, a former adviser
to Morales, warned in an article in Pulso of a current policy of
"unfocused pactism" being pushed by MAS — seeking pacts at all cost
—
which could send the Constituent Assembly to "the cemetery", or
produce a constitution that suits neither the social movements nor the
Santa Cruz elite.

For Prada, it seems that only two exits to the current situation
exist: conclude working in an honourable way within the rules of the
game, or definitively kick over the table and search for new
conditions, breaking with the constituted powers. Either way, MAS will
need to continue to mobilise Bolivia's poor majority, centred around
the country's powerful indigenous and campesino movements, behind a
firm defence of indigenous self-determination and national integrity
against imperialism, and against the separatist Santa Cruz oligarchy.
The actions of MAS and the social movements up until now, and the
renewed calls for mobilisation emanating from the heart of MAS — the
cocaleros — are, on the whole, signs for optimism in this dangerous
battle for Bolivia's future.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #722 29 August 2007.

Report on Venezuela

The US backed coup of April 11-13 in 2002 seems completely unremembered in the western media. It is like the Bay of Pigs. There does not seem to be much news about Venezuela so I thought this might be of interest to some.


http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/707/36702

Venezuela's revolution accelerates
Federico Fuentes, Caracas
19 April 2007


Returning once again to Venezuela — having last spent four months here in 2005 — I recalled a refrain that had been constantly repeated by Venezuelans: "After we re-elect Chavez in 2006, the real revolution will begin." It took very little time for me to realise exactly what they meant.

I arrived on the eve of the fifth anniversary of those historic events that shook Venezuela from April 11-13 in 2002 — a US-backed coup that was overturned by a subsequent mass uprising of the poor in alliance with the majority of the armed forces. Across all of Caracas, banners and billboards carried the slogan that summarised what had occurred on those fateful days: "Every 11 has its 13 — From oligarchic counter-revolution to civic-military revolution". Throughout the city, numerous screens had been set up to play video footage of the massive rebellion that reversed the coup — which was aimed at putting an end to the Bolivarian process and protecting the interests of the wealthy elite — and reinstated President Hugo Chavez. State television played documentaries through the three days, detailing the events surrounding the coup and subsequent uprising.

On the streets, everyone was remembering what it was that they did during those days. It was impossible to miss the upbeat feeling among the people on April 13, as hundreds, and then thousands, began to congregate outside the presidential palace, just as they had five years ago, to await their president.

Speaking in front an estimated million-strong demonstration, Chavez recalled the events that led up to the coup attempt, pointing out that it had acted as a "trigger", pushing the process towards "an anti-imperialist revolution, because we know from where [these events] were led and planned from, the US".

Now five years on, Chavez called on the Venezuelan people to "radicalise" the revolution towards the "new socialism of the 21st century", to thunderous applause and chants of approval.

Throughout most of 2005 and 2006, the Venezuelan government focused its attention on consolidating its support internally and internationally. On the domestic front the government paid particular attention to strengthening the social missions, in order to attack poverty and organise the population.

In the international arena, Chavez travelled the world, seeking support for his government in the face of continued US hostility and Washington's attempts to isolate Venezuela diplomatically. Throughout the Third World, the Venezuelan government signed trade agreements, deepening both economic and social ties as part of a campaign to create an international anti-imperialist alliance.

By trading not just in dollars and petroleum, but in human capital, providing — jointly with revolutionary Cuba in many cases — education and health programs, and though Chavez's defiant and outspoken stance, such his denouncement of Israel's invasion of Lebanon, the Bolivarian revolution has captured the hearts and minds of millions across the world.

This has helped provide the space for a rapid accelerating of the Bolivarian revolution, and with it an opening up of a period of definition of the process's goals and line of march. In the economic sphere, Chavez told the April 12 rally, the government has "no plan to eradicate private property in Venezuela, as long as it subordinates itself to the national interest and the socialist project". If it didn't, then it was "condemned to progressively disappear".

He added, however, that the government's emphasis would be in working with "new forms of property, social property … collective property … co-management, self-management". It would encourage "direct or indirect social property via the companies of social property, of social production, and many other mechanisms that we are designing".

The first morning here I attended a meeting called by one of the currents in the National Union of Workers (UNT) to discuss the formation of Bolivarian Councils of Workers, more commonly dubbed workers' councils. Describing the nature of the discussion over these councils, Marcela Maspero, a national coordinator of the UNT, said that the councils had to be "political organisations of the working class, based on direct democracy and control over production".

They had to play the role of "eradicating capitalist exploitation, and transforming relations of production in order to create socialised ownership over the means of production". Although these councils have only just begun to appear in a handful of companies, an intense debate at both the governmental and grassroots levels is unfolding over their nature and role.

In the social sphere, Chavez has called for "an explosion in communal power", urging the rapid construction of Communal Councils. These councils are based on the coming together of 200-400 families in urban areas, even less in rural areas, in order to plan and execute projects for the benefit of the community. In some areas, this has already progressed to the point where discussions have begun on the need to establish federations of Communal Councils, in order to tackle larger projects. There are now more than 19,000 Coimmunal Councils. In essence, the aim of the Communal Councils is for power to reside in the communities. This has led to some cases where these councils have come into conflict with the existing state structures, where those who currently hold power fear losing it — a constant battle the revolution encounters as it comes up against the structures of the old state bureaucracy.

Perhaps most importantly, Chavez stated in his speech on April 13 that the revolution once again called on the Venezuelan people to participate in the formation of the new united socialist party. Stating that to date the revolution "hasn't had real parties", he referred to the construction of the new party as "the greatest necessity of this revolution".

On April 19, 16,000 promoters of the new party were initiated. Their task is to agitate for, and involve the communities in, the construction of the party, which organisers estimate will bring together 4-5 million people.

Chavez's call has opened up a big debate on what the nature and program of such a party should be. For now, apart from Chavez's party, the Movement for a Fifth Republic (MVR), the main Chavista parties have decided not to dissolve into the new party. However, large fractures have begun to occur as both leaders and rank-and-file members of these parties — Homeland For All (PPT), Podemos and the Venezuelan Communist Party — are leaving en masse. Most of the parties outside of the official Chavista electoral alliance but committed to the revolution have decided to integrate themselves into the new party, with a few waiting on the sidelines to see how things unfold first.

The party will be established along democratic lines, from the bottom up. For several weeks from April 29, 6000 booths will be set up all over the country for people to sign up to the new party. Next, the new joiners will be divided up into basic cells of 200 people based on territorial divisions, universities and factories. Out of each, a spokesperson will be elected to participate in the founding congress. No quotas have been set aside for party officials, nor will anyone automatically secure a place in the congress. Even Chavez will have to be elected by his local cell if he is to participate in the conference.

The founding conference will run for approximately three months. As the congress deliberates, spokespeople will return to their local cell, back to the congress, then back to the community and so on. On December 2, a referendum of all members will decide whether or not to approve the founding program of the new party. To ensure transparency and democracy, the national electoral commission will run the whole process.

It will be a truly democratic and participatory process, never seen before on this scale, with the aim of drawing together the real leaders from the communities into a process of discussion and debate aimed at driving the process forward.

Without doubt, the more this revolution deepens the more desperate the opposition will become. At the same time as Chavez was giving his speech, a small explosive was detonated in the building that houses the legislative council of the state of Miranda. This followed two other explosions in shopping centres earlier that week. Although no-one was killed, the intent was clear.

May 28 is the expiration day of RCTV's license, a television station that openly participated in the 2002 coup plot. While the government never shut it down, it has decided to hand RCTV's license over to community media as part of a program of expanding access to media. Chavez warned that the government had reliable information that the opposition had begun a destabilisation plan aimed to culminate on the day of the expiry of the license, of which the bombs and the attempts by big capital to create food shortages are only the first steps.

But the Venezuelan people, side by side with the military, have etched in their memories the events of April 13, 2002, because as they say in Venezuela, "every 11 has its 13".