Counter revolutionary forces win big in Venezuelan elections

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

We agree with with Alan Woods here. This was made before the election and a crushing defeat for the socialists. But what Woods says with regards to what should be done had the socialists won the election is no less crucial now.   The counter revolution has worn down the Venezuelan workers and peasants. It is inevitable if only half measures are taken. He mentions those within the Bolivarian movement who believed that there was a a third way, that a compromise with the oligarchy, with global capitalism and US imperialism in particular could be reached.

But this is not possible.  The expropriation of the big banks, the landed estates, the economic power of the oligarchy and the the major industries should have taken place long ago. We have lessons that teach us this, that there is no compromise, that the oligarchy and international capitalism's talk of democracy and respect for the  electoral process is nothing but lies.

Allende thought that a compromise was possible and the US and its Chilean partners slaughtered him. So much for elections. And many of the readers of this blog have seen the documentary by those Irish documentarians who were in Caracas when the US backed coup took place and Chavez was kidnapped. There is no doubt Chavez too was headed down the same path as Allende until the Bolivian masses rescued him with help from the Bolivarian military.

For years the CIA, the Catholic Church and international capitalism have tried to undermine the Bolivarian government and destroy the gains made through the revolution. Sabotage, murder, propaganda, no effort has been spared to throw back the gains and return the oligarchy, to absolute power. The so-called socialist Bernie sanders, referred to Chavez as a "dictator".

The Venezuelan Oligarchy and its US backers on Wall Street, if not halted and its power negated, will, as Pinochet did in Chile, exact a heavy toll on the Venezuelan working class and peasantry. 

The tasks that were left unfulfilled before the election are absolutely crucial now.