http://www.marxist.com/socialism-or-barbarism160905.htm

Alan Woods in “Ultimas Noticias”

By Ultimas Noticias

Friday, 16 September 2005

The following report appeared in “Ultimas Noticias”, a paper widely read by the Bolivarian left, on Friday 19 August:

Alan Woods: “Bolivarianism can only be concretised in Marxism.”

Alan Woods, British Left Workers’ Leader, spoke at a forum in Caracas:

Says that this is an example for all revolutionaries

Warns that bureaucracy threatens the process

Caracas: “The Bolivarian Revolution will either be concretised in the socialist transformation of society, or it will be defeated.”

This is the final conclusion which the activists of the Hands off Venezuela international solidarity campaign defended in the forum that was held last Tuesday in the mayor’s office in Caracas.

As explained by Alan Woods, the leading British Marxist who during the bosses’ lockout of 2002 first launched an international appeal for the defence of the government of President Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan President, the Venezuelan Revolution has become “a point of reference for all the revolutionaries in the world.”

In his words, the political process that is unfolding in Venezuela is the clearest proof of the correctness of Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution: “the Bolivarian Revolution began as a bourgeois-democratic revolution but immediately clashed with the interests of the national bourgeoisie. Which is tied hands and feet to imperialism.

Only socialism, Woods explained, can offer a way forward for the Venezuelan Revolution. The key for a “great leap forward” would be the building of a cadre party that would “put forward a programme, elaborate the strategy and tactics, and be capable of developing a perspective.” At the same time, said the Marxist theoretician, the introduction of a planned economy, controlled by the working people themselves, would guarantee a general improvement of the living standards of the masses.

However, Woods warned, the Bolivarian Revolution is in danger. The crystallization of a layer of bureaucracy puts on the order of the day ever more urgently the need for “a permanent struggle of the masses to exert control over their organizations, and this is just as necessary in the trade unions as in the Bolivarian movement itself.”

The same line was defended by the other speakers in this meeting. Juanjo Lopez, the president of the Sindicato de Estudiantes, the main student organization in Spain, stated: “The Venezuelan Revolution is the clearest Proof of the inability of capitalism to provide a satisfactory solution for the problems of the people. Even the most modest social reforms come into conflict with the interests of the bourgeoisie, not only in Venezuela but in countries like Spain.”

In Europe, the student leader pointed out, one government after another have been attacking the conditions of the working class, cutting social spending, privatising public education, public health services, lengthening the hours of work, eliminating union rights and democratic rights.”

Also present at the meeting on the political process in Venezuela were representatives of the left wing of the Partido de la Refundación Comunista from Italy, Jacopo Renda and Dario Salvetti, who emphasized that “In Italy the youth and the exploited people are becoming more and more interested in the revolutionary process in Venezuela, because a victory here will be a resounding example for the workers of the world.”

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