“If the workers can run Inveval, why can they not run society as a whole?”
More than one and a half years after his first visit , Alan Woods returned to Inveval, the expropriated factory controlled by the workers, this past Monday, November 13. Many things have changed since April 19, 2005. Inveval was still called the National Valve Construction Company (Constructora Nacional de Válvulas - CNV) and was one of the factories occupied by the workers, who hd been in struggle for two years against the counter-revolutionary sabotage of the owner, the pro-coup Andrés Sosa Pietry. The workers were demanding that the government expropriate the company.
Today, the workers at Inveval have won the first battle and, as well as maintaining the management of the company under their control, also support the Revolutionary Front of Occupied Factories (el Frente Revolucionario de Trabajadores de las Empresas en Cogestión y Ocupadas - FRETECO), which is struggling for the extension of the expropriations throughout the economy and for the development of workers' control. Furthermore, several of the workers elected to manage the company or as spokesmen for the Revolutionary Front understand the need to organise politically in order to struggle inside the revolutionary Bolivarian movement for a militant Marxist programme in the branch of the Revolutionary Marxist Current (la Corriente Marxista Revolucionaria - CMR) at the factory. The decision to organise this branch was one of the conclusions arrived at by the workers after the marvellous meeting with Alan one year and a half ago.
For this reason the warm reception the workers gave Alan was completely different to the reception they give the "experts" who come "from afar" for conferences. It was a reunion of comrades, full of affection, warmth and friendliness which exists only amongst comrades of the struggle.
The mood was very good at the start of the meeting. José Gregorio Quintero, a member of the management team and member of the CMR, introduced Alan and explained the circumstances, so different from today, in which Alan's last visit to the factory took place. Several of the members of the audience joked about Alan's surprise and praise at the excellent bean soup prepared by the veteran Cheo, who was the cook durng the difficult months of the occupation and who, with imagination, skill, and very few means at his disposal managed to feed all the comrades each and every day.
The crisis of capitalism and the US elections
Alan began his speech by explaining the international situation. "15 years after the collapse of Stalinism and the launching of an unprecedented smear and slander campaign against the ideas of socialism, it is the capitalist system which finds itself in crisis around the world," Alan explained. "What collapsed in the USSR and Eastern Europe had nothing to do with socialism".
Continuing, Alan spoke about the decline of capitalism on a world scale. "There is a boom, but what type of boom? It is a boom with unprecedented exploitation, which submits the workers to intolerable conditions in all countries. Capitalism today, more than ever means wars, barbarism and misery for the large majority of the world's population."
Alan mentioned the recent mid-term elections in the United States, which he defined as
an "absolute defeat for George W. Bush." He also explained that the results of the election reflect the rejection of the workers, the youth and the great majority of Americans of the war in Iraq. However, the election results mean much more than just this: "It is the result of the policies that the capitalists have applied against the working class in the United States and around the world." Alan gave a few revealing facts about the increasing exploitation of the workers and the growing abyss that separates the condition of life of the workers, who make up the vast majority of the population, and the parasitic minority of capitalists who accumulate their wealth from everything we produce through our labour.
"And there are still "intellectuals", academics, professors, people who consider themselves very wise who say that Marx was wrong when he spoke of the obscene concentration of wealth on the one extreme and the absolute misery on the other," he added. "The Communist Manifesto is the best book for understanding what is happening today in the world. It is a book written more than 150 years ago and speaks not of the world of 150 years ago but about capitalism as it is today. Some 200 big multinational companies, the majority of them based in the United States, dominate the whole of the world economy."
Mexico and Venezuela: examples of the power of the working class
Alan also spoke of the spectacular mobilisation of the Mexican workers against the fraud organised by the parasitic oligarchy which has governed the country for decades and which is represented by president Fox, the "president" imposed by imperialism, Calderon, and the gangster governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz. "They prevented the victory of Lopez Obrador because they fear the masses that voted for him and because they fear that Mexico could become another Venezuela. There exists in Mexico a revolutionary situation and the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) is in reality a soviet. The only thing that is missing in order for the workers to take power in a revolutionary leadership which can organise and unite the advanced workers, youth, and peasants around a socialist programme, the programme of Marxism, which is the only way out for the masses. This is also what is needed in Venezuela."
Alan then explained the fundamental role that President Chavez played in waking up and driving the mobilisation of the masses and called for the redoubling of the efforts to get 10 million votes for Chavez on December 3. However he insisted on one central idea: "What is the motor force of the revolution? The fundamental force which has advanced the revolution and which can take it to the end is the force of the masses. You, the workers, are the motor force of the revolution and also the force that can take it to completion."
After Alan's introduction there was some time for questions where several workers expressed their concern about the contradictions accumulating in the revolutionary movement and asked Alan's opinion on several questions: the cooperative movement, the world economic situation and its influence on the Venezuelan revolution. Several workers expressed the concern the masses of workers have about the growth of bureaucracy and corruption as well as about the willingness of the working class to put itself at the forefront of the struggle to complete the revolution.
The threats facing the revolution and how to combat them
Alan explained that the Venezuelan revolution cannot be understood outside the international situation of capitalism and he insisted that capitalism is a system which has reached its limits and is unable to guarantee decent living conditions to the youth and the workers anywhere in the planet, including the main capitalist powers.
"The reformists believe that the income from oil is always going to stay at the present level and this will allow to improve the living conditions of the masses without expropriating the capitalists. They think it is possible to negotiate with the capitalists and imperialism and that they will accept the revolution. But both things are wrong. Imperialism and the capitalists will never accept the revolution, and the high price of oil will not last forever. An important fall in the US economy will turn the boom in a crash, which will also signify a drop of the Chinese economy and with that a fall in demand and the price of oil. We cannot predict when this will happen, but it will happen. In any case, an economy cannot depend exclusively on one product. The alternative solution to the problems of the Venezuelan people is not to rely on the high price of oil but to build a planned economy according to the social needs."
Alan insisted that that necessarily means wresting control of the economy from the capitalists and putting it in the hands of a revolutionary workers' state based on the four conditions for workers' democracy as raised by Lenin. 1) All officials to be elected and with right of recall. If the President can be subjected to a recall referendum so can all public officials at any time 2) No official to receive a wage higher than that of a skill worker 3) An army not separated and isolated from the people but the people in arms 4) As soon as possible all bureaucratic tasks to be carried out in rotation by all.
His speech finished with a warning and an appeal for action to all revolutionaries. "After eight years of revolution it is not possible that 75 percent of the land remains in the hands of the landlords and that the banks and big monopolies continue dominating the economy; that ills such as the lack of housing or the informal economy, poverty and unemployment continue to afflict society. If this situation continues, if the revolution does not solve these problems -and the only way to solve them is with the nationalization of the banks, the monopolies and the land under workers' control in order to initiate the democratic and socialist planning of the economy- the balance of forces will change.
"I do not know how long we have: six months, one year, two years...? But we do not have much and we must act. The key to the revolution is that the youth, workers and peasants who see this danger get going and group together, get organized, not to set up a new party or movement but to build a Marxist current within the Bolivarian movement to fight for these ideas. This is what the Revolutionary Marxist Current is doing in Venezuela and I call on you all to get organized with the CMR to attain the victory of these ideas."
The event ended with great enthusiasm. Many workers continued the discussion individually with Alan on different subjects and Jorge Paredes, a worker elected president of the company by his own co-workers, an old friend of Alan and leading member of the CMR, lead a tour in the factory which is now operational. Jorge explained how the workers recovered the factory and showed Alan the valves sent by the PDVSA refinery in El Palito to be repaired. This is the first job that the new recovered factory under workers' control will do.
The most impressive feature in this visit to Inveval was the organization, discipline and pride with which the workers prepared every detail of Alan's meeting, the same proletarian pride and discipline with which they take care every day of every detail in the factory: from the production to the maintenance, cleaning and organization of the factory. As soon as you enter Inveval you feel in every detail that the factory is being managed by the workers themselves. And as Alan said in his final remarks: "If the workers can manage Inveval, why can they not manage society as a whole?"