The “Si” of Venezuela's left
By Demetrio Boersner for Tal Cual*
The Venezuelan left, conformed by its more important social and political groups, is firmly aligned with all of the other forces that defend freedom, within the Democratic Coordinator, in its fight for the victory of the “Si” in the recall referendum next August 15th. Besides the “adeco” social democrats, who stand to the left of centre within a relatively moderate position, the progressive wing of the Coordinadora encompasses the parties Alianza al Bravo Pueblo, Bandera Roja, Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), Solidaridad and Union. It also includes Causa R, a popular workers party.
It also counts with the backing of the Venezuelan Confederation of Workers (CTV) which continues to be recognized internationally as the largest and most representative union group of the Venezuelan working class, despite the failed efforts of the regime to counterbalance it with a Government sponsored union organization with the right to be recognized.
With a progressive and popular wing of such dimension and quality, the Coordinadora Democrática denies with facts the fake idea, spread across the whole world by the billionaire campaign of Chavismo, that it only represents the bourgeois, the middle class and other “privileged” groups.
Unfortunately, there are few groups and individuals within the labour movement and of the international left that allow their brains to be washed by the propaganda of the Venezuelan militaristic populism. The International Federation of Free Union Organizations (CIOSL), almost all of the International Secretariats of Professional Unions, the workers confederations of the main industrial countries of the world and the union leaders of the Social Forum of Porto Alegre have condemned the “caudillismo chavista”. Eminent spokesmen of the international anti-globalization movement, such as Naomi Klein, have deplored any surge of veneration towards “great leaders” within the new left.
The International socialist organization and its member parties are faithful to the true teachings of its founders and classical thinkers, in the sense that all Bonapartist populism is a worse enemy for the workers than any conservative or liberal-Manchesterian regime that respects political freedom. With even greater vehemence, those classic thinkers condemned all authoritarian deformations, personalist and volunteerist within the labour movement.
National and internationally, today, the same as yesterday, the true left says “SI’ to revoking the presidential mandate of Hugo Chavez Frias.
*Translated by Miguel Octavio
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