resolution on venezuela

The 1st World Congress of the CRFI commends the task of supporting the undertaking of the building of a workers party in Venezuela to its International Coordinating Committee.

The Chavez government is carrying out an attempt at very limited nationalism, more precisely budgetary nationalism, which is reduced to trying to earn for the country the largest possible sum of foreign currency as a result of oil production. A great part of the income from oil is destined towards paying the state debt with international banks, and has deepened what is called the oil opening in Venezuela, in which foreign companies are starting to invest in this sector - associated with the state company PDVSA.

Political experience in Latin America and in the world has shown the insurmountable limitations of bourgeois and/or petite bourgeois nationalism, including experiences even more audacious than that of Chavez. The national bourgeoisie is incapable of carrying forward in consistent form an anti-imperialist struggle, and faced with the danger of the working class tending to overcome the nationalist leadership, the bourgeoisie throws itself into the arms of the reaction.

The failed military coup of 2002 and the rebellion of the exploited that buried it, showed the tendency of Chavism to conciliate and capitulate before the right: it was the reaction of the masses and the division within the army that placed Chavez back into power.

Before the offensive of imperialism and the right-wing bourgeoisie against the government, we place ourselves without hesitation in the camp of the anti-imperialist struggle and against the pro-coup forces, but without depositing any political confidence in the government. The continuity of the right-wing offensive is to be explained, first of all, because Chavism has not attacked the pro-coup forces: he has not punished those responsible for the massacre against the masses, he has not expropriated imperialist companies nor stopped paying the foreign debt, workers control has not been established in the oil industry, the big communications media in the hands of the reaction have not been expropriated.

The overcoming of the nationalist bourgeois leadership by the working class demands first of all establishing themselves as the most consistent fighters against imperialism and the reaction, and denouncing every vacilation and concession of the government towards these sectors. Raising a consistent program: the expulsion of imperialism and non-payment of the foreign debt, confiscate the oil companies under workers control, nationalize the banks without compensation, arm the exploited; and emphasizing that only a workers and peasants government is able to consecrate that way out. The driving force of the struggles for wages and demands, for the reopening of the factories under workers administration, for workers control in the oil, petrochemical and gas industries, and the organization of the unemployed, constitute another series of fundamental tasks in the perspective of emancipating the working class from the tutelage of nationalism.

To the important sectors of trade union leaders and activists of a class struggle tendency, and who tend to be overcoming bourgeois nationalism, we propose the construction of a revolutionary party of the working class.

It is indispensable to begin to publish a political journal systematically, as a fundamental tool for the construction of the workers party.

Be it resolved to undertake a politico-programmatic document, containing the characterization of Chavism and of the policy the revolutionary workers should develop in order to overcome bourgeois nationalism. With this document, and the resolutions of the Congress for the Refoundation of the Fourth International, to prepare a tour of public meetings and talks with the participation of leaders of the Fourth, in order to advance towards the constitution of an initial nucleus of the construction of the party in Venezuela.

Submitted by: José Capitán (Venezuela) - Rafael Santos (Partido Obrero)

PASSED BY UNANIMITY IN COMMISSION