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The Militant (logo)
Vol. 82/No. 22 June 4, 2018
(front page)
Venezuela toilers face deepening capitalist crisis, US rulers’ anger
BY SETH GALINSKY
Middle-class professionals and workers have been abandoning Venezuela in
droves — seeing no way forward in the face of the deepening political
and capitalist economic crisis there. As many as 250,000 Venezuelans
have crossed the border into Colombia since last August.
The crisis is exacerbated by the punishing economic and political
measures taken by the U.S. rulers in their ongoing efforts to isolate
and undermine the government of Nicolás Maduro.
Against this backdrop, early presidential elections called by the Maduro
government had the lowest voter turnout in decades — just 46 percent.
Maduro was re-elected, getting 68 percent of the vote.
The U.S. rulers hope the economic hardships will open up rifts in
Venezuela’s armed forces, leading to a coup and a government more to
their liking. But they have no intention of invading, and are not likely
to impose a ban on U.S. imports of Venezuelan oil. They fear these steps
would throw the country into complete chaos. Instead, they have banned
U.S. capitalists from buying new Venezuelan bonds and freezing the
assets and bank accounts, if any, in the U.S. of members of the government.
Washington, which has never masked its hostility to Maduro or his
predecessor Hugo Chávez and their relations with revolutionary Cuba,
called the vote “sham elections.” Fourteen Latin American governments,
including Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, announced they will not recognize
the government and pledged to back Washington’s stepped-up pressure
campaign.
Maduro, like Chávez before him, has attempted to “manage” capitalist
social and political relations. They funded “welfare” programs that
foster a corrupting dependence on government largesse. These steps were
consciously counterposed to leading a working-class revolution, giving
workers and farmers greater confidence in what they can accomplish in
struggle, as was done by the July 26 Movement in Cuba.
After the collapse of oil prices and production, the government just
printed money to make up for the drop in hard currency and inflation has
soared.
But these policies only exacerbated the capitalist crisis and its impact
on workers. Inflation is an estimated 50 percent per month. A quarter of
working-class families eat two meals or less a day and shortages of
basic medicines are widespread. Electricity and water outages are frequent.
Oil production in free fall
The Venezuelan government was hard hit by the steep drop in the price of
oil — its main source of hard currency — to $50 a barrel last year. Even
though oil is back up to $80, it has done little to refill the
government’s coffers. Production has plummeted at the state-owned oil
company, because of breakdowns in production facilities, corruption and
bureaucratic mismanagement. Thousands of oil workers have quit and
creditors have begun seizing company assets in other countries.
Many workers are taking action to try and combat the effect of the
crisis. According to VPI-TV there were 927 protests against bosses or
the government in April, 25 percent more than in the same period last year.
Thirty-five office workers at the Social Security Institute in Táchira,
near the Colombian border, walked off the job May 2. “This is our first
time ever on strike,” one worker told the press. “Our wages aren’t
enough to take the bus to work.” Some 35 of the 70 workers have quit and
left the country, she said. “If we can’t get a raise, I might leave too,
even though I don’t want to.”
Workers at Masisa, a Chilean-based company in Anzoátegui that makes wood
products for export, held a two-week strike in April to demand higher
wages and investment to increase production. “What we earn is not even
enough to feed our children,” union Secretary General Oniel Mendoza told
VPI. Some 400 workers have quit.
Leading up to the election, Maduro appealed to the bosses to help him.
“To the business class, who want to work together,” he said, “I am ready.”
Crumbling infrastructure
“We’re not protesting against that disgraceful Maduro,” a resident of a
working-class area of east Caracas told the representative of the water
company there during an April 27 demonstration. “We just want water.”
The official apologized, blaming the shut-off on a broken main and power
outages. He said that they hoped to fix the problem soon and the water
supply should go back to “normal” — three and a half days with water on,
then three and a half without.
The May 20 elections did nothing to solve the crisis. The
pro-imperialist opposition, discredited and with little support from
working people, is divided and demoralized, with many of its leaders out
of the country. The main group, the Democratic Unity Roundtable, urged a
boycott. Its two most prominent figures, Leopoldo López and Henrique
Capriles, were barred from the ballot. Months earlier they had organized
a series of provocative and violent anti-Maduro actions, but virtually
nothing leading up to the vote.
Two candidates did challenge Maduro, Henri Falcón and Javier Bertucci.
Falcón, a former Maduro ally, launched his candidacy over the objections
of the opposition. His program to solve the economic crisis centered on
replacing the country’s currency with the U.S. dollar to try to stem
runaway inflation, halting subsidized shipments of oil to Cuba and other
Caribbean and Latin American nations to “save money,” and asking for
international food aid.
Bertucci, a Pentecostal minister, said the answer was a return to
Christian values. He attracted workers to his rallies by giving away
free bowls of soup, but won few adherents or votes.
Maduro government officials set up what they called “red spots” right
next to the polling places, where voters were told to bring the ID cards
that entitle them to monthly government-subsidized food baskets — which
most workers depend on to try and squeeze by each month — to prove they
had voted. Many feared they would lose access to the cheaper food if
they didn’t.
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