Interview with Johan Rivas, general coordinator of the Bolivarian Health Workers’ Front in Algodonal, Caracas

In Venezuela a number of political, community-based and trade union groups have sprung up, as the masses try to take the initiative in the context of a revolutionary offensive. A good example is the case of the workers in the Algodonal Hospital in Caracas who have been struggling for democracy in the workplace and for the right to have a space for trade union and political meetings. We met Johan Rivas who is the general coordinator of the Bolivarian Workers’ Front in Algodonal and a comrade of the CMR (Revolutionary Marxist Current), to talk about the activities that are going on. In Venezuela a number of political, community-based and trade union groups have sprung up, as the masses try to take the initiative in the context of a revolutionary offensive. A good example is the case of the workers in the Algodonal Hospital in Caracas who have been struggling for democracy in the workplace and for the right to have a space for trade union and political meetings. We met Johan Rivas who is the general coordinator of the Bolivarian Workers’ Front in Algodonal and a comrade of the CMR (Revolutionary Marxist Current), to talk about the activities that are going on.

AB: This building we are in right now, what is it?

Johan: This is the Centro de Desarollo Integral Comandante Hugo Chavez. It is a place for the education and participation of workers. It is the product of a struggle on the part of the workers of the Algodonal Hospital. The comrades in the trade union branch insisted on the need for a place where the political and cultural education of the workers could develop. Originally these buildings, right next to the hospital belonged to a private enterprise but were left unused by the owners.

Through pressure from below it was decreed to be a place for the misiones (social programmes promoted by the government in the fields of education, health, etc). Four comrades from the hospital took the place over and spent 14 days renovating it, making it usable for meetings and so on.

AB: So what kind of activities are held here?

Johan: First and foremost we have education of workers through the misiones. These are programmes where workers and people in the neighbourhood can come and participate in classes on all sorts of subjects. Basically there are three programmes: 1) Mision Robinson, which is the literacy programme; 2) Mision Ribas, which is secondary school education; 3) Mission Cultura, which is about raising the cultural awareness of the people and educating the cadres in order to defend the revolution. In these classes the origins of Venezuelan culture is discussed and the role that African and indigenous culture played within it. The study of poems and literature is used as a necessary tools in forming a critical consciousness.

This is having an impressive effect on the exploited masses. In the past this cultural knowledge was hidden away   now millions of people for the first time are getting access to such knowledge. But the programme also consists of discussions on the national and international political situation, and there is a very sharp criticism of the bureaucracy.

AB: Could you explain in more details the role of the bureaucracy in general?

Johan: This revolutionary process at present finds itself at a crucial turning point. More and more activists in the vanguard are beginning to sense that something is wrong and that the enemy of the revolution is beginning to appear within the movement in the form of a bureaucracy. They see bureaucracy as something unnatural, something that does not belong in the Bolivarian movement, something that must be driven out.

The bureaucracy manifests itself in different ways. It is a layer of people who, although they publicly cling to Chavez, do not really believe in the revolutionary capacity of the masses. In the different platforms they defend their own interests and privileges. For example, in some of the misiones they accept only people who are members of a specific group or party and some parts of the state apparatus directly sabotage the misiones by refusing to send the necessary equipment (educational material, videos, etc.).

AB: How is it possible to counteract this bureaucratic tendency?

Johan: The only road is the participation and organisation of the masses. It is especially important to organize and educate the working class. In this centre alone 150 workers participate in classes every week. But education by itself is not enough. It is necessary to use this education of the masses for them to exercise power. Here in Algodonal we have taken some steps in this direction with the setting up of asambleas de contraloria social (accountability mass meetings). In July a committee was set up where the workers could exercise control with the hiring and distribution of substitutes in the hospital. The mayor in this municipality has opposed workers’ control and the employers’ union has conducted a campaign of slanders to discredit the Bolivarian trade union. However, the union has answered these slanders and has given the workers confidence in their own forces. The only way to really improve and transform the health sector is through workers’ control.

Interview by Andreas Bülow

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