The following article has been put together on the basis of a number of reports written by comrades who participated in the World Youth Festival in Caracas this August. It deals mainly with the organisational side of the intervention of the International Marxist Tendency and draws a balance sheet of this.
In August, as readers of Marxist.com will now be well aware, some 20,000 youth from five continents travelled to Venezuela to attend the XVI World Festival of Youth and Students. In the past, the Festival, which was completely dominated and controlled by the Stalinists, was a bureaucratic affair, without any genuine revolutionary content. But this time there was a big difference to the past. This time the Festival took place against the background of a developing revolution. This was the decisive factor.
Reflecting this change, for the first time in the history of the Festival, the International Marxist Tendency intervened in a decisive way. On previous occasions (Korea, Cuba, Algeria) we had made only a minimal intervention with small forces. This was qualitatively different. Our tendency made by far the most significant intervention, leaving all other tendencies in the shade. Our comrades were always present. Our propaganda was circulated to everybody present. And for the first time ever we had one of our leading comrades – Alan Woods – playing a major role in the Festival itself.
This was an historical conquest of the Marxist tendency. For the first time in the history of this Festival, a well-known Trotskyist leader was invited to speak. We do not know how this happened. We can only surmise. But one thing is clear: the Stalinist organisers did not do this out of the goodness of their hearts, but were conditioned by pressures from outside. This is an indication of the growing authority and influence our international tendency is getting, above all in Venezuela and Cuba, but also in many other countries. We are increasingly being seen as a viable force.
The intervention of Alan Woods had an even greater impact than in any of his earlier visits, including last year when he had the conversation with Chavez. Many people commented on it, and it is having important repercussions at different levels. We should recall that in the visit when Alan spoke with Chavez, the President made favourable references to the editor of Marxist.com on several occasions. But these were made before relatively small private meetings of about a 100 people, mainly foreigners. On this occasion we are talking about a big meeting of several thousands of revolutionary activists. That same night, Alan was seen by millions of people on television on a panel of not more than seven or eight people selected from the Festival, together with the President.
The difference between our intervention and that of all the other groups was enormous. For most of the official Young Communists from Europe the Festival began and ended with the procession that took six hours to pass along the Paseo de los Próceres on the first day. After that they seemed far more interested in going to the beach than attending the political sessions. There was even a fight within the Spanish YCL delegation.
This is a fitting comment on the political degeneration of Stalinism. In the old days the Stalinists were at least a caricature of Leninism, and a caricature bears some resemblance to the original. But now they have lost any point of resemblance to Bolshevism and have degenerated into just one more reformist tendency. They lack the organisational capacity and the discipline that used to characterize the old Stalinists. This was all too evident in the appalling disorganisation at all levels. Only the intervention of the Venezuelan authorities and teams of enthusiastic young Bolivarian volunteers saved the Festival from an ignominious collapse.
The intervention of our tendency was in striking contrast to the chaotic inefficiency of the official Festival organisers. The number of comrades who participated actively in the Festival was more than fifty. It was not possible for all the Venezuelan comrades to participate, for reasons of work or because they live far from Caracas. The comrades worked very well as a disciplined team, holding regular daily meetings to plan the intervention. One thing was very noticeable: despite the fact that they came from different countries and did not know each other, despite the language problem, all worked with exactly the same methods.
A disciplined team
Comrades from the following countries were present (apart from Venezuela): Spain, Italy, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Mexico, Britain, Belgium, Russia and the USA. The comrades in Venezuela produced a total of about 80,000 printed leaflets in Spanish and English, including 20,000 declarations of the international Marxist tendency in Spanish, and another 8,000 in English, 20,000 manifestos of the JSR (Revolutionary Socialist Youth), 15,000 leaflets of the Spanish Students Union, campaign, and thousands of other leaflets advertising our meetings. We also produced a thousand posters advertising the Revolutionary Socialist Youth (JSR). In addition to this Hands off Venezuela produced 10,000 leaflets.
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One of our bookstalls |
During the Festival we sold a very large amount of Marxist books, pamphlets and documents to a value of over eleven million bolivars (about 5000 euros) – a huge amount of money for Venezuela. The best-selling document was the Spanish translation of The Marxists and the Venezuelan Revolution, by Alan Woods, and the best-selling book was The Communist Manifesto. The paper of the CMR (El Topo Obrero) sold well, as did our Venezuelan theoretical journal, El Militante. On the first day, during the inauguration and the procession, we practically sold out of the copies of El Topo Obrero that we had brought.
There was a thirst for ideas in many of the youth. Apart from a very few isolated cases of the odd Stalinist fanatic who, on seeing a book by Trotsky, ran away cursing, there was absolutely no difficulty in selling the works of Trotsky. There were no rows or altercations. One person came to ask whether there were any books by Stalin, and was told, “no, only Trotsky”, and he smiled and just walked away. In fact, the greatest interest was in books by Trotsky.
In addition to the actual visitors to the Festival, thousands of Venezuelans passed through it, stopping to discuss and buy literature. We also made many contacts from these. One logistical problem was the fact that the activities of the Festival were spread out between a number of different centres. We were the only organisation to have stalls selling literature in every one of the centres. There were other stands, of course, but none could compete with ours. No one else had such a huge display of books by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.
These were prominently displayed on our stalls in the Parque Central and Fuerte Tiuna. We even managed to set up a stall in Ciudad-Miranda where we were staying and in the stadium (Poliedro) where Chavez delivered his closing speech. It was an impressive display, including books, pamphlets, papers and tens of thousands of leaflets explaining our ideas. We explained the importance of getting organised on an international scale. This idea impressed the people with whom we discussed. And it was concretely backed up by the presence of the Venezuelan comrades together with comrades from many other countries. “So you don’t speak Spanish! OK, here is a comrade who speaks English, or German or Italian or Russian!”
This was genuine internationalism at work. Our comrades were inspired by the idea: we really are working together as an International. Not even the inevitable problem of language prevented us from working together in complete harmony. All the comrades, whether they were from Sweden, from Austria or from Mexico, had the same ideas and methods. This might appear obvious, something we should take for granted. But when you saw it in practice in an intervention of this kind, with all the problems we could have had... The fact is that all the pieces fitted together perfectly.
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Comrades having a rest after intervening at the Festival |
We got a very large number of contacts. If we include the two public meetings we held after the Festival, we collected more than 350 names and addresses, of which we calculate that at least 30 percent will end up as useful, in the sense that they will become active supporters. Of these, about 60 percent were Venezuelans and the remainder from other countries.
The contacts from outside Venezuela numbered about 150 from 37 different countries. Among these are people from: Colombia, USA, Ecuador, Chile, India, Germany, Spain, Turkey, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Greece, Guatemala, Australia, Mexico, France, Brazil, Canada, Uruguay, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, Italy, Switzerland, Peru, Costa Rica, Cuba, Austria, Bangladesh, Denmark, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, Israel, Portugal, Czechoslovakia, Slovakia and Vietnam. There was a group in Paraguay that uses the same symbol as the Venezuelan Revolutionary Socialist Youth, which is very close to us and a group fighting for the independence of Puerto Rico, as well as a very good group from Los Angeles.
As for Venezuela, the result was even better. We obtained addresses from 18 out of the total of 23 states of the country. There were contacts from: Caracas, Lara (Barquisimeto), Carabobo, Sucre (Cumaná), Miranda, Guárico, Zulia, Monagas, Anzoátegui, Mérida, Nueva Esparta, Falcón, Táchira, Yaracuy, Portuguesa, Aragua, Bolívar and Vargas. Of these addresses, those in Caracas have already been followed up, and a number of meetings on Marxism have been held, with dozens of new contacts, including a number of workers’ leaders. We are now organising visits to the provinces to continue the follow-up.
Leftward move
The Revolution has brought the masses to their feet, it has organised them and given them confidence to advance. In turn, the masses want to press forward, confront and defeat the counter-revolution. They are increasingly hostile to the Bolivarian bureaucracy that is trying to hold the movement back. When you speak to ordinary people – workers, unemployed youth, poor people in the shanty-towns, street vendors, taxi drivers – you immediately see the psychological impact of the Revolution. There is a kind of pride in the achievements made, and even where (as is often the case) they say that their fundamental conditions have not changed, they express a burning confidence in the future and a fierce loyalty to the President.
The revolution is advancing rapidly and all sorts of contradictions are opening up. Hugo Chavez is moving sharply to the left, but is meeting fierce resistance from the bureaucracy and the pro-bourgeois elements who occupy key positions in the Movement. The Venezuelan Stalinists are not very numerous but play a pernicious role, in effect trying to halt the revolution. They cling to the old discredited Stalinist-Menshevik “theory” of two stages, which relegates the perspective of socialism to a dim and distant future. When they talk about “socialism of the 21st century” what they really mean is the socialism of the 31st century.
All the time the reformists are pushing the idea: "this is not exactly a revolution, but a process", or a variation on the same theme: "it is not a revolution because the masses have not yet reached the socialist level of consciousness", or the old Stalinist line that "this is a bourgeois-democratic revolution". But in fact, this is a revolution in the classical sense that Trotsky explained in his History of the Russian Revolution: a situation in which the masses move to take control of their lives and begin to participate actively in politics. Nobody who has been to Venezuela can doubt that this is the case.
The arguments of the reformists and Stalinists are in sharp contrast to the position publicly defended by Chavez, who seems determined to press on. His speeches over the period of the Festival were more radical than ever, quoting Marx, Rosa Luxemburg and Trotsky. He now says that it is a question of socialism or barbarism on a world scale. Chavez’s perspectives are not limited to the frontiers of Venezuela. He calls not only for a struggle against imperialism but also for the overthrow of capitalism on a world scale. He used the Festival to call for its organising bureau to be moved to Caracas and for the creation of an anti-imperialist publishing house to publish “all kinds of anti-imperialist books” (including Marxist books). The all-Latin American TV channel which he has promoted, Telesur, is already broadcasting to the whole world, including the USA.
Chavez is increasingly differentiating himself from the right wing, the social democrats, the Stalinists and ATTAC (in reality, the same tendency). One of the high points of the Festival, as you might imagine, was the debate opened by President Chavez on the question of "socialism of the XXI century". Here we saw proof of the growing ideological contradiction that lies at the heart of the Bolivarian Revolution. During this debate, the ex-Marxist Heinz Dietrich put forward a completely pessimistic perspective, signifying the abandonment of socialism.
Dietrich’s speech confirmed his complete repudiation of the socialist perspective. He advised the Bolivarian government to stick to capitalism (“developmental capitalism”, whatever that might mean!). According to him, socialism was incomprehensible to the broad mass of the people. Only the likes of Heinz Dietrich, it seems, could aspire to understand it! Heinz has apparently been in Venezuela quite a lot lately, yet he seems not to be aware that the masses are very much in favour of socialism and identify completely with it. Who does he talk to in Venezuela? Not the workers and peasants, for sure! Not the revolutionary youth either.
It is true that the latter have not read the three volumes of Capital (has Heinz Dietrich? If he has, he has forgotten every word of it). But they are quite capable of carrying out the socialist transformation of society without any “clever” intellectual advisers of the Dietrich type. The real purpose of this speech was not to make clear the ideas of socialism but to pour a bucket of cold water over the heads of the young people present. With “friends” like this, the Bolivarian Revolution really needs no enemies!
However, in the same debate, President Chavez put forward an entirely different perspective that contradicted Dietrich’s defeatism. He answered Dietrich by quoting Marx’s famous phrase that the alternative before humankind was socialism or barbarism. If we did not overthrow capitalism, the future would be barbarism, or worse. We should not spend years and years debating, but must act, the President said.
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Alan Woods at the Tribunal - Chavez speaking on the right |
In the course of his speech, he also paid tribute to the work of Alan Woods in defending the actuality of Marxism, mentioning the editor of Marxist.com by name. At the time, Alan was at the anti-imperialist tribunal. But there can be no doubt that, had he been present, the President would have called him to speak. That is why he was carefully kept away from this particular debate.
Ultra left antics
It does seem that Chavez is looking for ideas and wants to base himself on the Left. The President has repeatedly distanced himself from the ideas and model of Stalinism. It is significant that he made a point of quoting Trotsky (yet again) and quoting Che Guevara’s criticism that the Soviet Union had “abandoned the Third World”.
In these extremely favourable conditions, when the Bolivarian Movement is crying out for Marxist ideas, the ultra-left sectarians have shown themselves to be utterly incapable of intervening correctly in the real movement of the masses. Instead of giving critical support to Chavez, at a time when he is clearly moving to the left and coming into collision with the pro-bourgeois wing, they concentrate all their energies in denouncing him.
The friendly attitude of the young Communists was in sharp contrast to the venom of the sects who are consumed with impotent fury. Their showing was absolutely pathetic.
Needless to say, the ultra-left sectarians have been driven to distraction by the success of the Marxist tendency. In a desperate attempt to find a stick to beat us with, one supporter of the American SWP loudly protested in the meeting on militarism that Alan Woods had questioned the intellectual qualities of George Bush: “He is the most capable representative of the US ruling class,” he explained to the astonished audience, who must have thought they were listening to a man from Mars.
The ultra-left sects that falsely lay claim to being Trotskyists have nothing in common with the ideas and methods of Trotsky. Fortunately they have no serious base of support in Venezuela. They have alienated those people with whom they have come into contact by their constant hysterical attacks on Chavez. They were all like fish out of water in the Festival and made no impression on anybody. Their main activity seems to have been to attack the CMR and the International Marxist Tendency, taking advantage of our meetings to give away their leaflets, but even in this they did not have the slightest effect. They must have gone away pretty demoralised.
Marxism versus reformism
The Stalinists manoeuvred to limit the impact of Alan’s intervention. He was allowed to speak at the meeting on imperialism and militarism, but this was in order to stop him from speaking in the important debate on Socialism and the Bolivarian Revolution. Nevertheless, it was a spectacular success, despite the blatant manoeuvre of the bureaucrats of the Frente Francisco de Miranda, who ordered their members to walk out of Alan’s meeting. This they dutifully did, but since the abandoned seats were instantly occupied by other people, nobody noticed it. In the end, over 1,000 people heard him speak, and he was the only one of the speakers who received an ovation. The Stalinists on the platform, who bored everyone to tears, were mortified. Their faces were a real picture!
In the two days after the Festival Alan spoke at two very successful public meetings organised by the CMR in the Caracas Town Hall (Alcaldía Metropolitana de Caracas). There were about 200 present. The first was a meeting of young comrades with Alan to publicize the Revolutionary Young Socialists (JSR). In addition to Alan, there were good interventions by leading youth activists from Spain, Mexico and Italy.
The second meeting included two speakers from the Town Hall, both representatives of the reformist bureaucratic tendency. The first was a typical pseudo-intellectual, who repeated the usual nonsense about socialism being boring (he certainly made it sound so) and the second was a former guerrilla, and, as such, an ossified cynic.
The line was, as usual, that the ignorant masses were “not ready” for socialism. Only when the masses had been sufficiently educated (presumably by the reformist intellectuals and bureaucrats), could we go down that road. This would presumably take most of the present millennium – or maybe a little more. They were answered very effectively, not just from the platform but from the floor, where a large queue of comrades from different countries formed to intervene in the discussion.
New possibilities
The Festival confirmed what we already knew: namely, that there is a huge potential for the building of the Revolutionary Marxist Current. Everybody was interested in Marxist ideas; everybody was willing to give their telephone, their email address, to meet, to ask questions, to discuss. And after the Festival the comrades have been busy following through the long list of contacts, a number of whom have already joined the CMR.
This intervention served to raise the profile of the Marxist tendency considerably. New possibilities have opened up in areas where we had no contacts before, like Portuguesa and Falcón in the West of Venezuela, in Acarigua (Portuguesa), or in the peasant region of Turen, where there are people interested in setting up the JSR, and a whole group of young people in Guarico, who were very enthusiastic about Alan’s meetings, in Cumane and many others.
There was considerable media coverage. Alan appeared on television as a judge in the anti-imperialist trial, which was to be publicized all over the world. Apart from the reports in the Venezuelan press (he was singled out for attack in an article in the most important bourgeois daily paper, El Nacional, entitled Return of the Hammer and Sickle), he was interviewed in numerous television and radio programmes, and other comrades also spoke on television.
Ultimas Noticias, a paper that is extensively followed among Bolivarian activists, carried quite a good report of one of Alan’s meetings, although all the references to his links to the Revolutionary Marxist Current were cut out, and a much longer interview with him was conveniently replaced by an interview with the revisionist Heinz Dietrich. Nevertheless, the level of press coverage was very good.
We must not exaggerate, but it is clear that our ideas are increasingly having an effect, not just on rank and file militants but also on some of the leaders of the Bolivarian movement, not least on Chavez himself. More than once he mentioned Alan Woods in his speeches (including a speech he made in Cuba). This shows the importance of flexible tactics and correct methods when intervening in the mass movement. The sects and ultra-lefts will complain. Let them complain to their heart’s content. We will continue the work of putting down roots in the mass movement and building the forces of genuine Marxism in Venezuela and internationally.
A tendency that calls itself Marxist and is incapable of building in a revolution – and that is what is unfolding in Venezuela – does not deserve to be taken seriously. The facts speak for themselves. Only our tendency – the Marxist tendency – has shown that it is able to seize the opportunity and connect with the revolutionary mass movement in Venezuela. This requires not only correct ideas but also correct methods, tactics and orientation.
The prior condition for success is always the same: to build a powerful Marxist tendency, with trained cadres who possess an intransigent attitude to ideas, theory and principles, combined with the necessary flexibility in questions of organisation and tactics. On that basis alone we can succeed. Of course, we are still at the early beginnings. It will not be easy. There are many obstacles to overcome. But this report shows that we are definitely moving in the right direction and making impressive progress.