The Bolivarian circles
Critical step in Venezuelan revolution
By Andy McInerney
Every social revolution has its own unique characteristics.
But there are certain tasks that all have in common. By
definition, a social revolution involves the overturning of one
set of property relations, transferring the ownership of
industry and resources from one social class to another.
In order to do this, one of the central tasks in any
revolutionary process is the creation of organs of popular
power. For example, during the Russian Revolution of 1917,
councils called soviets allowed the workers, peasants and
soldiers to defend their own class interests and ultimately
seize state power. During the Chinese Revolution, the Chinese
Communist Party organized a Red Army that served as an
embryonic workers' and peasants' state until it broke the back
of the imperialist-backed Chiang Kai-shek government in
1949.
In Cuba, Fidel Castro's July 26th Movement formed an armed
nucleus that served as a lightning rod for popular discontent
against the Batista dictatorship, culminating in the 1959 Cuban
Revolution. Key to the continued success of the revolution is
the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, organized on
a neighborhood basis to both provide services to the community
and to defend against counter-revolution.
The fundamental problem facing the progressive government of
Hugo Chávez in Venezuela is that it is based on an
electoral victory. In and of itself, it does not reflect the
successful conquest of power by Venezuela's working classes--a
conquest that can only take place in the course of intense
class struggle by battle-tested organizations based on the
working class.
But the Chávez government does describe itself as a
revolutionary government. And true to its word, it has embarked
on a process that clearly separates the Chávez movement
from any of the bourgeois nationalist regimes that sometimes
take progressive positions against imperialism but are
opponents of the working class.
That process is the creation of the Bolivarian circles.
These committees played a major role in reversing the April
coup against the Chávez government by U.S.-backed
elements in Venezuela's ruling class and military. The circles
also are the key to extending the Venezuelan revolution to
address the interests of the working classes.
After Chávez was elected in 1998, his government
addressed what it called a "peaceful, democratic revolution"
toward reforming the corrupt political establishment. A
popularly elected National Assembly wrote a new constitution.
Chávez led Venezuela, at the time of his election the
single largest exporter of oil to the United States, to an
independent foreign policy no longer dominated by
Washington.
He embraced Cuban President Fidel Castro, providing oil to
Cuba at preferential terms. He expressed solidarity with Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein and openly defied the U.S. blockade of
Iraq.
But Chávez was elected on his promises to address the
needs of the 80 percent of Venezuelans who live in poverty. In
June 2001, his government began to address these concerns.
Over the next several months, Chávez proposed a
series of 49 laws aimed at addressing the economic needs of the
big majority of the Venezuelan people. He proposed a land
reform, turning over land held by absentee landlords to people
who would work the land. He aimed at strengthening the role of
the state in the oil and fishing industries, with the goal of
using the resources for the benefit of the people.
This was the background to the creation of the Bolivarian
circles. The circles were to be popular, neighborhood-based
organizations to defend the revolution. They are named for the
great Latin American liberator Simón Bolívar.
A supporter of the Chávez government, Guillermo
García Ponce, described the initiative to set up the
circles in the June 4, 2001, edition of the Caracas newspaper
El Universal: "The Bolivarian circles are the organized people
in the neighborhoods, the townships, the projects, every place
in Venezuela, in order to strengthen the revolutionary process,
to bring the people into the activity of the government, to
make participatory democracy effective, to carry out the
Constitution and to defend it.
"We have now finished with the electoral aims and the
creation of a new [political] institution. We have now entered
on a thrust toward the economy, toward social solutions. For
that the greatest unity of political force is needed."
By the time President Hugo Chávez officially
announced the creation of the circles at a ceremony in
December, there were estimated to be 8,000 around the country.
Each circle is composed of 7-12 members.
By April, that number had mushroomed to 70,000, and by May,
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello estimated there were
130,000. That amounts to over a million people organized in the
Bolivarian circles.
The May 1 Miami Herald gave a description of the circles:
"Elena Raspillo, 54, a widow, said her Circle in the Caracas
slum of Chapellin runs a low-cost day care center for the
children of single mothers who work in overnight jobs such as
garbage pickup and office cleaning.
"Painter David Bello, 50, is part of a Bolivarian Circle
that offers after-school art classes to children in the
Libertador district. Teodoro Ruiz belongs to another that runs
a sports program for school dropouts.
"Other Circles run low-powered television and radio stations
financed by the government to broadcast neighborhood news, and
still others deliver food to the needy and transport the
elderly to and from clinics."
A Dec. 4 article in the Washington Post gave a feel for the
political level of the circles: "Venessa Yarce, 20, who with
[Bolivarian circle organizer Henry] Navas helps run the No
Turning Back Social Network, an umbrella group of community
organizations, belongs to a circle in the hillside town of La
Guaira [near Caracas]. The circle works on children's
issues--how to clean up a neglected community park, how to
raise money for new playground equipment. ...
"'This is about community struggle,' Yarce said. 'But there
are still people who will not accept change.'
"While the movement formally has no ideology, there is a
left-leaning feel to it. Posters of Che Guevara ... watch over
the rooms used by the circles. Yarce, who calls herself
'progressive,' wears a T-shirt denouncing 'Yankee imperialism'
in Colombia."
'Comandante' Lina Ron
The spread of the Bolivarian circles is an effort to unleash
the power of the masses, to bring the working people into the
political arena. One immediate effect of that effort has been
the emergence of new, popular leaders--a clear challenge to the
view promoted in big business media that the Chávez
movement is based on the president's popularity alone.
On March 30, Colombian daily El Espectador described one
such leader :"The most outstanding figure in the Bolivarian
revolution, outside President Hugo Chávez, is a
42-year-old woman from Anaco [about 100 miles from Caracas],
who speaks forcefully and firmly. She is never patient. She is
always on the offensive. It is Lina Ron who takes to the
streets to defend, with blows if necessary, the Chávez
government."
Lina Ron is a leader of the Bolivarian circle movement in
Caracas, a spokesperson for the popular organization Gustavo
Altuve Network of Popular Culture and a leader of the People's
Power Network. Her supporters call her "Commander." She
compares herself to "Tania"--Haydee Tamara Bunke--the famed
internationalist hero from Argentina who fought with Che
Guevara in Bolivia.
Days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when most of the left was
disoriented, Ron was burning a U.S. flag in Caracas's main
square. In February, Caracas police arrested her for
confronting an anti-Chávez student demonstration.
Chávez defended her as a political prisoner, "a
soldier who deserves the respect of all Venezuelans."
Bolivarian circles responded to her arrest by organizing
people's street tribunals aimed at rightist leaders.
In a March 13 interview with the Caracas daily El Nacional,
Ron discussed her expulsion from the main pro-Chávez
party, the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR). "We are very involved
with the MVR," she said. "I never received the letter of
expulsion, but that's not relevant right now, because the MVR
is not the non plus ultra, the high chic, the
crème de la crème of the revolution. That is the
people, simply the people. And we are with the people."
In the same interview, Ron called for arming the Bolivarian
circles to defend against the counter-revolution.
One thing is clear. For every Lina Ron noticed by the big
business press in the U.S., there are hundreds in the streets
of Caracas. Chávez has put out a call to the people, and
the people are responding.
Battles still loom
The revolutionary process led by President Hugo
Chávez survived a key test in April--thanks largely to
the organized people in the Bolivarian circles. But new battles
are looming on the horizon.
When Chávez made some conciliatory remarks after his
release, the right wing made one central demand.
Anti-Chávez lawmaker Andrés Velásquez told
the AP on April 18, "There can be no reconciliation until the
Bolivarian circles are disarmed."
New rumors of coup attempts are still rampant. The
U.S.-backed Venezuelan ruling class still controls the main
media in the country, and is organizing openly.
Hugo Chávez's election in 1998 was not a revolution.
But it did open a revolutionary process that is now being
tested in struggle. The Bolivarian circles have felt their
power, reversing the April coup attempt that had the support of
the U.S. government and the Venezuelan ruling class.
The creation of the Bolivarian circles has been the most
important step taken to date in the Venezuelan revolution. It
is the creation of working class power, growing up alongside
and in defiance of the old ruling class's state. Widening the
influence of the circles and strengthening their organization
is the critical task both to defend the revolutionary process
against counter-revolution and to extend the revolution to
address the social needs of the working class.
Reprinted from the May 30, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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