It seems that “politicking” and bureaucratic manoeuvring is taking charge instead of politics, and  that is a bad sign; a sign of political immaturity, a sign that the working class still has to overcome the legacy of the old political system.

by Jean-Pierre Daubois

Jean-Pierre Daubois is long time union activist and socialist who began to work on the production line at the General Motors assembly plant in Ste Therese, Quebec in 1977. Later he became an electrician and ultimately became president of the skilled trades at the facility. He worked there until the plant closed in 2002 and then became one of the main leaders of the impressive, but ultimately unsuccessful, mobilization to keep the facility open. Two years ago he travelled to Venezuela to learn more directly about Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution; he has followed events closely since. When Greg Wilpert, the respected editor of Venezuela Analysis wrote an article on ‘The Meaning of 21st Century Socialism for Venezuela’, Jean-Pierre was moved to write the following response. Socialist Project reprints it here as part of the international discussions on the evolution of Venezuela as well as questions about our own labour movement in Canada. For Wilpert’s article, see http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1776

Dear Mr. Wilpert

I loved your article ‘Socialism for the 21st Century’. It is well balanced and points out the incredible achievements of the Chavez government, and also some of the dangers which are coming as much from the inside as from the outside. It is most important to discuss the internal dangers; the future of the Bolivarian movement needs this very much.

I have been to Venezuela and witnessed the dangers of the personalization of the revolution around Chavez. Although I am convinced he does not want that, the weight of the political tradition of caudillismo in the culture is strong in Venezuela as well as in Latin America in general. Associated with this, as you point out, are the dangers of the bureaucratization of the revolution and the creation of a sort of nomenclatura — which again Chavez clearly does not want.

I am working class myself, and have been working in industry here in Canada for almost 30 years (at General Motors). I raise this because I want to expand on what you have perceived as one of the dangers for the revolution — the political immaturity of the working class, which is sadly illustrated by the recent collapse of the UNT convention.

It is not so simple to develop worker controlled industries. Workers have to understand that even if they are freed from bosses pushing them around and pressuring them for productivity, they still have to develop quality and productivity in a socialized economy. It is not clear today in Venezuela if workers are fully aware and prepared to address such issues.

A very good friend of mine is from Chile. He is a political refugee who has been in Canada since 1973. We worked at GM together for almost 27 years and of course he, like all of us, went through the numerous restructurings, rationalizations, down-sizing, and other corporate niceties until our plant was closed in 2002. Through these years my friend lived the craziness of our capitalist system.

Two years ago he left for Venezuela and worked there — not as an intellectual, but as a worker. He was working in small companies, but still he got a sense of the attitudes of Venezuelan workers toward work and productivity. It was a shock to him; he was surprised by the low motivation and low productivity of workers.

The other interesting thing he told me came from conversations he had with a Cuban doctor living near his house in a working class area. He had made friends with this doctor and they chatted quite a bit. One day he asked him: “What do you think of the people of Venezuela?” The doctor had this interesting answer: “Chavez is giving them too much too fast — healthcare, education… it all comes without a fight.”

I found that interesting because one of the dangers that you discuss in your article is that of people becoming dependent on authority — the benevolent authority that will solve their problems. This is a passive attitude. I understand that Chavez tries to overcome this situation, but it is there. It is an inheritance from the past, when the old parties handed down favours here and there. It is one thing to condemn such practices; it is something else to extirpate it from people’s conscience. The comment of the Cuban doctor strikes at the heart of the internal political challenges: how to bring about a nation which will take charge of itself without a benevolent state/leader to “take care of it for you”. That is the greatest challenge for socialism for the 21st century.

Allow me to make a parallel here. For a long time, I was an elected union rep and participated in bargaining. The union’s strategy in negotiations with the Big Three automakers is pattern bargaining, which means targeting the company least inclined to accept a strike and then concentrating on it to establish the pattern collective agreement. That pattern would then be imposed on the other companies. It worked wonders for decades. Workers did enjoyed a steady increase in their standard of living: better pay, more holidays, more vacations, better insurance coverage, better benefits in general, better working conditions, etc. And the pattern bargaining strategy allowed it to happen practically without conflict and/or strike. I started in the industry in 1977, and I had a 3-day strike in 1978, 1 week in 1982, 3 weeks in 1996, and that’s it.

The consequence (unforeseen probably) was that workers take it all for granted. They think that it is “their absolute right” and that corporations “owe it to them”; that the company is only paying them what they are worth; and that the union does not have much of influence on all that. Basically, what they get is NORMAL and of course MINIMAL, even though as auto workers they earned much more than any other sector of the working class.

In an atmosphere of such complacency, and with a total misunderstanding of how gains really do come about, what do you think happened when GM announced the plant closure? Do you think workers rebelled against the corporation which was about to deprive them of their jobs? No way! The rebellion was against the union, which was supposed to have the power to prevent that (though how you have power without mobilization is unclear). It was the union for not having prevented the closure that failed them. Not the corporation, not globalization, not capitalism and its rules — the union failed them. In other words, the workers had been handed down great gains by a very smart and dedicated union, but the same workers did not understand the first thing about capitalism and why they were “winning” for a time, and then why they were suddenly on the chopping block in that globalized, capitalist economic system.

I know that comparing a union issue in classic bargaining with the Bolivarian revolution seems out of place, but the mechanism of not having to build, piece by piece, your own social conquests and having a benevolent leadership getting it for you is similar. It leads to an attitude of passivity and complacency, and those attitudes are present in Venezuela’s working class now.

Chavez, by crafting this catchy phrase “socialism for the 21st century” has made clear that he wants to develop something different from Eastern-European, state-run socialism. Chavez has left the debate on “socialism for the 21st century” to his people, and debate they have over this, at length.

NOTE: I do not put Cuba in the same category as Eastern Europe. Cuba was and is under constant political and economic boycott and sabotage, and under permanent military menace since day one. Cuba has to protect its advances under enormous pressure and that reality has created some “rigidity” in its political system. But Cuba has nothing to do with the state-run socialism of the former Soviet Union. In Cuba, the revolution did manage to maintain a strong credibility with the people. If they hadn’t maintained complete credibility, they would not have survived after the collapse of the Soviet Union; it is as simple as that.

I think that one of the most original things about Chavez is that he wants his people to evolve and to reach toward socialism. He is willing to push in that direction, but ultimately he wishes for the people to have the political maturity to strive for it by themselves, and most importantly to TAKE responsibility for it, too.

In other words, Chavez puts challenges to his people. He points to the “star” to attain, and challenges them to attain it by their organization, conscience and will. That’s very rare in politics — forcing your partisans to think about their own attitude and challenging them to act both on society and on themselves, too.

In several articles by Michael Lebowitz on the debate over co-management and the traps to avoid in implementing it (i.e. bureaucracy, top-down decisions, workers not taking charge) you could read about some of the internal limitations the revolution is suffering right now. You are right in your article about the internal contradictions. I would only add that workers have not yet developed the maturity for taking charge and that Chavez, I think, is fully aware of this. He is trying to push them, to challenge them. Clearly Venezuela has decades of underdeveloped, corrupted, lazy, grab-from-the-till mentality to overcome. Your article is helping to put the problem on the table. Chavez has time … for now. The US is bogged down in Iraq; if they were not, they certainly would have undertaken more serious action against Venezuela. This conjuncture allows for a Chavez to develop a project for a different world and for Morales as well to develop his project in Bolivia, but it is only a question of time before more aggression is mounted. In that sense they have to develop their revolutions faster rather than slower.

The future of mankind is at stake here, and I am not trying to be dramatic or to say that Chavez is THE saviour. I am telling you that it is only circumstantial that the US is not attacking with more aggressiveness. We — socialists — need to put before the eyes of the world an example of socialism that cannot be associated with the state-run model of Eastern Europe. That model did not inspire anybody in the working class; that model did not make anybody dream that ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE. The experience of the Bolivarian Revolution has the potential to generate such dreams in the conscience of millions and millions, and at this point in history we need that desperately, NOW more that later in the century. It is in that sense that the Bolivarian revolution is crucial NOW.

If you remember the invasion of the island of Grenada during Reagan’s time, or the Allende experience in Chile, both were democratically elected socialists who were overthrown. Why? Of the many reasons, one clearly is that the US cannot allow socialism to be seen as a democratic alternative. Socialism MUST, for the US, be associated with the Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe.

Talking specifically about Grenada, how this island of 100,000 inhabitants was a threat to US is simple: it was a democratically-elected socialist government that could inspire the poor of the entire continent, and that is not to be allowed by the US. If they invaded Grenada to prevent it from becoming an inspiration, imagine how pissed they are that Chavez is still alive and well….

The Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe were not attractive — this is an understatement — for the working class of the developed countries. The Bolivarian revolution, with the ALBA and all of it, has such potential that it is a most dangerous enemy for the US. This is why I do not hesitate to say that the Venezuela experience is crucial for mankind. It must succeed, and time is not entirely on their side. This is why I am concerned with the collapse of the UNT convention. How come the core of the Venezuelan working class can’t organize? What kind of message is this for the enemies? How come the UNT crumbles under bitter infighting, when all of the five tendencies are each claiming to be more Chavista than the others? My thirty years’ experience in a trade union tells me that this is a sign that the focus of the tendencies is directed toward an internal power struggle more than toward differentiating themselves by their actual accomplishments in the daily struggle of the working class. That is a sign of an organization that lacks solid roots even if they have big numbers on paper.

It seems that “politicking” and bureaucratic manoeuvring is taking charge instead of politics, and that is a bad sign; a sign of political immaturity, a sign that the working class still has to overcome the legacy of the old political system. The leaders of the five factions of the UNT shall, if they are genuine Bolivarians, realize that while they are allowing themselves to commit to infighting, Big Brother is watching…

In solidarity,

Jean-Pierre Daubois

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