We reproduce below a report that appeared on Aporrea, the most important left website in Venezuela, which is read by a very large number of activists in Venezuela and throughout Latin America
Last Friday, 16 April a successful public meeting with Alan Woods was organized by the Bolivarian Workers United by Knowledge (Trabuco), in the Auditorium of the Ministry of Science and Technology in Caracas. There was a packed audience and the active participation of the great majority in the questions and answers session allowed one to get to know the positions of this outstanding intellectual of the Marxist Current El Militante.
Among the elements emphasised by Alan Woods the most important were the following: he insisted on the need to arm the people and the working class so that they themselves could defend the Revolution; he stressed the need to organise a mass movement (party, organization, etc.) to channel enormous expectations for change that exists among broad layers of people who have always been excluded from Venezuelan society; he urged us to fight and defeat the reformist tendencies that are holding back the real advance of the Revolution, and advised us not to fall into a conciliatory stance, since conciliationism only strengthens the forces of reaction. He said that the government must take more radical action, passing over to a new phase characterised by the expropriation of the property of the big national capitalists who are behind the counterrevolution, sustain it and continually organise counterrevolutionary conspiracies against the government.
He also stressed that the Revolution should concentrate all its energies on strengthening bonds of friendship and co-operation with the peoples of the region and not with its bourgeois governments. Only in this way, he said, would we be able to reach the critical mass necessary to ensure the future of the revolutionary changes made in this country and in the region. He said that it was necessary to purge the Venezuelan state from top to bottom, to extirpate the agents of reaction who still exercise control over the state, and he reminded us of the measures taken by Lenin immediately following the victory of the October Revolution, understanding the danger posed by bureaucrats and their role in undermining the Revolution.
We hope that ideological debate of such high stature will be repeated with even greater force inside rank and file organizations like Trabuco, in order to strengthen our revolutionary convictions and orient our actions to do what is necessary in the present critical stage of the Bolivarian Revolution.
 A fiery speech, full of revolutionary conviction |  "The people must be armed" |
 A lively question and answer session |  A packed house for Trabuco |
 A big success but there is still a hard climb ahead |  Alan Woods with the organisers of Trabuco |
See also:
- Hands Off Venezuela! International Solidarity Appeal
- The revolution in Venezuela is in danger! By Fred Weston. (March 2, 2004).
- The Venezuelan Revolution must advance towards socialism in order to defeat reaction In Defence of Marxism editorial board (February, 2004)
- Venezuelan opposition steps up campaign against Chavez government By Jorge Martín and Camilo López (February 19, 2004)
- Venezuela - Unification of the revolutionary currents El Topo Obrero and El Militante (January 6, 2004)
- Mass mobilisation - the only way to defeat the counterrevolution: Counterrevolutionary offensive in Venezuela By Miguel Campos (November 15, 2003)
- A year after the coup - The red tide floods Bolivar Avenue once again By Jorge Martín. (April 21, 2003).
- Opposition "strike" or bosses lock out?- An eyewitness account by Jorge Martín (January, 2003)
- Venezuela between revolution and counterrevolution By Alan Woods (December 10, 2002)