The Latin American left at the start of the 1990s looked a lot like its counterparts throughout much of the world. It was a fragment of its former self. Military regimes had wiped out much of the left in South America during the 1970s and 1980s, and counterinsurgency had finished the job in Central America by 1990. Nor was there much reason for hope. Structural adjustment reigned supreme. Labour was on the defensive, unable to mount much of a challenge to neoliberal policies that were decimating the working class and its capacity to fight. The countryside was eerily quiet. Peasants had been neutralized and demobilized by a combination of repression and government policies that made both organizing and daily life increasingly difficult. The Soviet Union had disintegrated, Cuba was isolated and on the brink of collapse, and the Sandinistas – once a beacon of hope – had been soundly defeated.
In short, although it took a peculiar path to get there, Latin America was firmly in step with global political trends. Its body politic, from NGOs and academics to political parties and labour unions, had moved decisively to the right during the 1980s, as the Washington Consensus enveloped the region. Talk of revolution and socialism seemed out of place. The left was reeling. Neoliberalism had become the only alternative, and was being implemented by nominally democratic governments that used varying degrees of repression to impose policies that destroyed left institutions, undermined the capacity of popular groups to forge solidarity, and redistributed wealth upwards.
It is all the more remarkable, then, that only a quarter century later there is no better place to think about revolution and revolutionary agency than Latin America. For a range of reasons, not least of which were the devastating consequences wrought by neoliberalism and US imperialism, a reconstituted left put together a broad-based anti-neoliberal bloc with the political capacity to remove neoliberal governments from power. The left named neoliberalism, subjected it to debate, and dismantled the neoliberal rudder that had united and guided Latin American elites for two plus decades. In so doing, popular-left forces made anti-neoliberalism reputable, if not hegemonic, regained a potent street presence, and built considerable political power both within and outside the state.
More than this, these forces have implicitly or explicitly embodied understandings and practices of revolution, revolutionary agency, and socialism that differ substantially from the (stereotypical) model that is often associated with ‘October 1917’. Unlike Russia, China, Cuba, and Nicaragua, as well as numerous left-led insurrections that failed to capture state power in the twentieth century, twenty-first century socialism in Latin America has not involved armed insurgencies or protracted wars. No colonial power or brutal dictator served to unify the people. In this respect, they share more with Chile than Cuba or Nicaragua.
At the same time, the distinctive nature of recent revolutionary initiatives should not be all that surprising. Latin American revolutions, from Mexico and Cuba to Chile and Nicaragua, have never followed Marxist orthodoxies with any precision. Revolution today, much like Latin American revolution in the twentieth century, has not been initiated or led by political parties or a particular sector of the working class (i.e. industrial workers or peasants). Rather, social movements comprised of indigenous peoples, workers, students, street vendors, peasants, neighborhood organizations, the landless, and others who had been politically excluded and economically discarded took to the streets, ousted neoliberal governments, and then captured some degree of (formal) power through the messy realm of electoral politics.
Not surprisingly, these elections did not sweep away old regimes with the speed and decisiveness of armed revolution. Once elected, leftist governments, as had been ominously the case in Chile almost fifty years earlier, found themselves in charge of countries where the opposition still controlled most of the media, the economy, the church, and significant sectors of the state. New governments had to contend with powerful and energized, if divided, oppositions while managing competing interests and ideologies within their own coalitions. They came to power after decades of increasing corporate influence, reduced state capacity, and ever-widening income inequality. The struggle has been more about reversing neoliberalism – and convincing people that politics and governments are potentially positive forces – than waging a full assault on capitalism or implementing socialism. It has also meant that the left’s hold on power has been quite fragile, requiring a never-ending war of position upon deeply polarized political landscapes.
Nevertheless, the parameters of debate in Latin America moved to the left as neoliberalism lost its hegemony. This was a hard-earned, if partial, victory. The shift has not always translated into dramatic policy changes, and powerful sectors continue to push for a reconstituted form of neoliberal capitalism. Yet, debate has more frequently drifted between two poles: one that envisions a post-neoliberal world defined by a more humane version of capitalism and another that seeks to build socialism in the twenty-first century. This paradigm shift is important, but constantly under threat and deeply contradictory.
On the one hand, it means that the concept of socialism, which had seemed thoroughly discredited, was revived. In Venezuela and Bolivia, discussions about socialism became not only open and central to public debate, but have actually informed policy. In other countries, such as Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, where the balance of forces was less favourable, such debate was less prominent but nonetheless partially shaped discussion about the role of popular movements and the state’s place in the economy. On the other hand, the concept of socialism has often become exceedingly vague, at times meaning little more than a slightly more equitable version of capitalism.
To be sure, opening up the concept of socialism to (re)interrogation has produced some healthy consequences. Sectarianism is less prevalent, the privileged place of a particular revolutionary agent is no longer assumed, and long-held principles – around state ownership of the means of production or the dissolution of the market economy – are points of departure rather than absolute mandates. Yet at the same time, if the old guideposts no longer apply, and new ones remain overly vague, there is also the danger that the demands, goals, visions, and institutions we develop will simply not be up to the task of transcending neoliberalism, let alone capitalism. There is something left in Latin America. It is just not entirely clear what.
If the prospects for revolutionary transformation seemed as bleak in Latin America as elsewhere at the start of the 1990s, the ideological foundation upon which neoliberalism rested was more fragile than it appeared. Part of this underlying instability stemmed from the intensity with which structural adjustment policies had been implemented throughout the region. Latin American political elites embraced neoliberalism, sold it as the only alternative, and imposed a draconian form that was repressive in implementation and devastating in practice. In some countries, like Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, and El Salvador, its implementation required intense repression, while in others it was more successfully sold as a way to reduce inefficient/corrupt governments and grow the economy. Regardless, neoliberalism did not simply decimate labour unions and working-class power. It bestowed a ‘lost decade’ upon the region in which overall productivity stagnated while wealth flowed upward.
What this meant was that organized labour, along with much of the urban middle class, found themselves in increasingly precarious situations. The poor, in turn, not only saw their capacity to subsist severely undermined by policies that drastically shrank the safety net, but growing numbers became altogether irrelevant to the economy. This was true in both rural and urban areas. As more people found themselves politically excluded, economically marginalized, and simply unworthy of exploitation, more traditional struggles over wages and job security morphed into battles over basic survival that challenged the legitimacy of the political system itself.
By the early 1990s this struggle, or rather the success that elites had in implementing a particularly vicious strand of neoliberalism, began to produce a political backlash that served to undermine both neoliberal ideology and the political class itself. Although the 1989 Caracazo in Venezuela can be seen as one of the earlier and more explosive expressions of this popular discontent, it was peasant and indigenous groups who would first animate and sustain the challenge to neoliberalism in the early and mid-1990s. These rural efforts were quickly followed and complemented by the emergence of urban-based irruptions, so that by the late 1990s and early 2000s it seemed as though rebellion was once again sweeping the region.
Initially, it was unclear where this cycle of insurrection was headed. The daily struggle to survive, combined with a broader alienation from all things political, meant that rebellious moments were often local, or at least defensive in nature, focusing on subsistence needs and stressing democratic self-rule at the level of neighbourhoods, communities, and workplaces. In a context where even ‘progressive’ candidates quickly embraced neoliberalism once in office, strategies to bypass state corruption by carving out semi-autonomous spheres at the local level became attractive. Groups could experiment with more democratic and participatory forms of self-rule as they struggled to survive. The Zapatistas were an early and emblematic expression of this tendency, but were hardly alone. On a larger level, the global justice movement which coalesced in the late 1990s reinforced this inclination to seek change without taking state power.
It would not take long however before some of these popular insurrections – most of which had anti-systemic leanings – would coalesce into national-level anti-neoliberal blocs. This was partly due to the fact that political elites refused to ease off on neoliberalism even as its contradictions deepened. In fact they doubled down, ensuring that the ‘political class’ would forever be associated with the neoliberal nightmare. The modest economic upturn of the mid-1990s bought neoliberal regimes some time, but this was followed by five years of stagnation (1997-2002) and then a commodities boom that enriched Latin American elites, delivered few benefits to working people, and further devastated indigenous territories located on mining and oil concessions.1
This explosion of political activity, diverse in both its demands and composition, led more Latin Americans to realize that although ecological and economic devastation was manifested and experienced quite differently across the region, most of these varied symptoms could nonetheless be pinned on neoliberal policies; and they demonstrated that although the traditional agents of progressive change such as political parties, labor unions, and peasant coalitions had been greatly weakened or discredited by two decades of neoliberalism, anti-systemic and even anti-capitalist projects were not completely off the table. The renewal of this possibility, and the growing realization that alternative social actors and projects were viable, encouraged a broader re-thinking of what progressive change might look like and who might be its central protagonists.
The most dramatic and cohesive expression of this emerging anti-neoliberal bloc came in the form of very large anti-systemic movements that removed democratically-elected neoliberal governments from office, in some cases more than once. Ecuadorians occupied public spaces on massive scales during the late 1990s and early 2000s, effectively impeaching three governments in less than ten years (1997-2005) while dealing a significant blow to neoliberalism and a corrupt political class. Although Rafael Correa was largely disconnected from the social movements that drove these popular insurgencies, his election in 2006 was premised on the promise to dismantle neoliberalism, usher in a new political system, and re-take control of natural resources from multinationals. Bolivia experienced its own cycle of mobilization in the early 2000s that saw massive protests against neoliberalism, most conspicuously in the form of large-scale opposition to water privatization and foreign control over natural resources. The protests enjoyed considerable success in that they led to the removal of a neoliberal president and initiated an uneven reversal of neoliberal policies. Venezuelans in some sense started the large-scale backlash against neoliberalism in the streets of Caracas in 1989, even if subsequent expressions were driven as much from ‘above’ as ‘below’ – in part because social movements in Venezuela tended to be more fragmented and lack the organizational infrastructure of counterparts in Bolivia or Ecuador.
Nevertheless, if popular sectors were able to say no to neoliberalism and oust its strongest proponents from presidential palaces, they would find it difficult to develop the political capacity to win elections, and even more challenging to inhabit, transform, and capture state power once in office. Indeed, the transition from popular insurrection to political power proved difficult in at least two senses.
First, despite massive protests that removed neoliberal governments, many of the centre-left coalitions that emerged out of these revolutionary moments, and sought political power through electoral means, produced governments that would share much with their neoliberal predecessors. The left lacked the capacity to push these coalitions in more radical directions. Argentina is an oft-cited example, in that few expected Kirchner to be even remotely revolutionary, but Chile and Brazil clearly fall into this camp as well. Although these moderate shifts to the left were important, both politically and for working people who saw modest benefits, they were nonetheless disappointing given the power of the revolutionary expressions and hopes that preceded them. Such shortcomings ultimately reflected the weakness of left-revolutionary institutions, the level of public consciousness, and the fact that the opposition did not simply give up once people took to the streets. Indeed, it is worth remembering that even the Chávez government was relatively moderate when first elected (i.e. the ‘Third Way’). The electoral coalition that brought him to power in 1998 could not have supported a rapid radicalization regardless of the government’s ideological orientation.
Second, if electing a decently progressive government proved difficult, the political landscape would not get easier once in office. If anything, the fiercest battles began after the votes were counted, as the left in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and elsewhere learned the important distinctions between getting into office, actually wielding power, and then ruling effectively while trying to deepen reforms. Once elected, heterogeneous social movements and political coalitions had to be constantly mobilized and sufficiently unified to effectively confront the opposition and remain in power. And this had to be done while attempting to implement policy that would break from the prevailing political and economic model. In Ecuador, Bolivia, and (to a lesser extent) Venezuela for example, there have been intense debates and divisions within the left over whether to expand natural resource extraction in order to increase social spending, or whether to scale back on mining in order to protect the environment and local populations. Managing such tensions within the left while trying to keep the opposition in check and the government functioning has not been an easy task, and partially explains why many progressive governments pursued relatively moderate reforms and/or lost political ground.
This speaks to a broader challenge and contradiction facing revolution in the twenty-first century. On the one hand, despite the state violence and gross levels of inequality associated with neoliberalism, armed revolution (by the left) has nonetheless become an illegitimate means for pursuing social transformation. This broader discrediting of violent revolution is due at least in part to the institutionalization of liberal democratic norms and human rights practices within Latin America during the last three decades. On the other hand, if we assume that armed revolution is off the table; that socialism has to be advanced (partially and significantly) through the electoral system; and that it will be implemented within a contradictory and unfavorable context of representative democracy, constitutions, legal systems, and property regimes that (in the short to medium term) support capitalism, we begin to realize how difficult it is to push forward revolutionary projects within bourgeois democracy. It requires constantly winning and moving the public debate, persuading, organizing, and mobilizing popular sectors to not only forge viable coalitions to win elections, but to occupy and transform the state while both confronting capitalism directly and creating new sources of popular political and economic power.
As the varied cases of Cárdenas in Mexico, Allende in Chile, and Arbenz in Guatemala all attest, this struggle to carry forth revolution within constitutional boundaries is hardly new, but became salient once again as the left returned to power throughout much of Latin America. And it is worth remembering, as Venezuela amply demonstrates, how incredibly conflictual this process is in practice. Attempting to change the structure, operation, and even personnel of the state while simultaneously confronting capital and putting key sectors of industry, finance, and commerce under social control/ownership produces the fiercest opposition. This is precisely why, as both Chávez and Morales recognized, the process must be accompanied by the creation of alternative organs, institutions, and spaces of working-class power. Collectively, this is an exhausting, difficult to sustain, and yet absolutely necessary series of struggles.
The left governments that came to power in Latin America during the past two decades did not do so through armed revolution, did not seize control of the means of production (on any large scale), and have not been defined by a revolutionary party that controls the political system. Rather, they pushed forth the ‘revolutionary’ process, challenging capital while building alternative economic forms, through a system defined by liberal democratic norms, the electoral process, and a multi-party system – even if their commitment to these norms has at times been both shaky and shaken. This experimental, open, and flexible approach to social transformation, and the constant interrogation of Marxist orthodoxies and understandings of socialism, is hardly unique to twenty-first century socialism. Yet the rapid emergence of left leaning governments through electoral processes across much of Latin America has not only put socialism back on the public radar, but has also demonstrated how difficult it is to build the kind of working-class power necessary for advancing and sustaining significant challenges to capitalism while working within liberal democracy. What is the process by which left governments transcend or transform a system of rule – bourgeois democracy – that represents both the path forward and a profound obstacle to systemic change? How does one transcend bourgeois capitalist democracy through the norms, practices, and institutions of bourgeois capitalist democracy? Is the incrementalist path, by which reform in a highly charged and polarized here-and-now eventually leads to deeper transformation, actually possible?
The fact that consolidating power while deepening the revolution is no easy task does not make it any less essential. Revolutionary transformation may be a process, perhaps even a never-ending one, but if it proceeds too slowly, and loses momentum, it becomes ever more vulnerable to attack. The power of capital must be broken or the bourgeoisie will eventually destroy the revolution. The difficulty is that even in Venezuela, the Latin American country where conditions were the most favorable and where the reforms have been the deepest and most sustained, every effort to challenge capital, strengthen socialism, and re-constitute the state has been met by incredibly stiff opposition on the part of the oligarchy.
Although one could engage in a long debate about which Latin American country got hit worst by neoliberalism during the 1980s and 1990s, there is certainly a case to be made for Venezuela. Due in part to declining oil revenues, Venezuela’s GDP declined at a faster rate – by over 25 per cent – than any other country in the region during this period. Poverty went from under 20 per cent in 1980 to over 60 per cent by the mid-1990s, and the country’s total debt rose from less than 10 per cent of the gross national product to over 50 per cent between 1970 and 1994. By the end of the 1980s, economic decline and crisis had become permanent features of Venezuelan life.2
The situation came to a head with the election of Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1988. Pérez, who had previously been president during the oil boom of the 1970s, campaigned against neoliberalism but then quickly implemented an IMF-stamped structural adjustment programme upon taking office. The public backlash was immediate, particularly among the poor who took to the streets in February of 1989. Hundreds died at the hands of police in what came to be known as the Caracazo, which dealt a blow to neoliberal hegemony and foreshadowed the intense class polarization that would define Venezuela in the coming decades. The stage was set.
Chávez’s coup attempt in 1992 emerged in the aftermath of the Caracazo and within the context of neoliberal disaster. The failed coup turned him into a national, even heroic figure and paved the way for his successful presidential campaign in 1998 and the next decade-plus of Chavismo. The Bolivarian Revolution, which has promoted something of an alternative political and economic model, emerged within a complex and constantly changing terrain of class struggle. The uneven transformations advanced were themselves the product of (1) a differentiated popular base whose interests, contradictions, and internal currents were only partially shaped by the Chávez government, but always challenged, limited, and stimulated the process and pace of change; and (2) an opposition that was heterogeneous and contradictory in composition and deed, but whose reactionary aggression had the somewhat ironic consequence of leading the Chávez government to radicalize the revolution.
The first two years of Chávez rule (1999-2000) were defined by moderation. The immediate focus was on political reforms, with the government leading a critical and broad-based discussion about the existing political system. This debate ultimately produced a new constitution that enshrined the notion of participatory democracy within the body politic and led to modest economic reforms. Subsequent years saw a more direct confrontation with neoliberalism, a process that alienated a portion of Chávez’s middle-class and moderate supporters, many of whom joined the opposition and took to the streets, in effect facilitating the coup in April 2002, the oil industry lock out, and the attempted recall of Chávez in 2004.3
In short, the first years of the new millennium were characterized by intensifying class polarization. The opposition’s hardening stance forced open confrontation and created a situation in which the government could either face defeat or push the revolution forward. With remarkable consistency, the opposition’s aggression led the Chávez government, supported by a mobilized but fragmented base, to push the revolution down more radical paths through a series of electoral victories. It was not simply that the government was able to repel the coup, resist economic sabotage, or defeat the presidential referendum, but that these disruptions created opportunities for the Chávez government to further weaken its opponents and deepen the process of change.4 To a certain extent the government had little choice, and it is quite possible that the ongoing conflict pushed Chávez in more radical directions than he initially envisioned.
This somewhat chaotic method of constantly consolidating power while driving forward transformational processes was remarkably successful. Looking back, one can – as many Venezuelan leftists did at the time – wonder whether the level of popular support might have allowed the Chávez government to push reforms even further and faster, and more deeply cripple an opposition that refused to compromise and whose primary goal was regime change. This decision about how fast and how far to push change is an inherently difficult one and hardly unique to Venezuela. The Allende government in Chile and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, both of whom started with clearer visions about the transition to socialism, wrestled with this as well.
Although by 2005 Chávez could openly advocate for socialism, was in firm control of congress, and faced a divided and weakened opposition, it was always a balancing act. One of the government’s main initiatives during this period, starting in 2003, was the creation of targeted social programmes under the rubric of ‘missions’, often emanating from the presidential palace, designed to meet people’s basic needs and reduce poverty. The missions were immensely successful, both in terms of improving lives and gaining support for the government, but were dependent on state funding that was itself a function of high oil prices. Indeed, the missions only became possible after Chávez got control of the PDVSA and oil revenue in 2002-2003. By lifting a significant portion of the population out of poverty, these social programmes put people in a better position to engage politically, but they did not change the state apparatus, serve as vehicles for mobilizing working-class power, or provide people with self-sustaining forms of livelihood. When oil prices later collapsed it would prove difficult for the government to sustain this level of social spending. The inherent limitations of the missions as engines for driving the revolution forward are no doubt why the Chávez government pursued other paths – experimenting with workers cooperatives, increasing expropriations, bolstering worker presence on state company boards, and eventually spearheading the much larger scale effort to create thousands of communal councils, not to mention, as we shall see below, the creation of a new socialist party.5
As Steve Ellner points out, the development of the Bolivarian Revolution during Chávez’s rule came to be defined by a pattern that consisted of ‘conflict, the exit of moderates, the consolidation of power, and the radicalization of goals’.6 Though broadly successful, this process was also problematic on a number of levels. On the one hand, the process was remarkable in that although Venezuela did not become ‘socialist’, the country nonetheless initiated a process whereby a left-wing government not only managed to acquire and retain (a large degree of) state power over a significant period of time, but actually became more radical over time. As the right hardened its stance, Chávez was effectively forced to push the revolution further, a process that required, drove, and was fuelled by the constant reconfiguration and mobilization of the popular classes (who were internally divided and only partially took their cues from the Chávez government). In short, a certain amount of polarization created opportunities to push the revolution forward.
On the other hand, a number of factors called into question the long-term sustainability of what has been an imperfect, uneven, and somewhat chaotic process characterized by ever-deepening polarization. To begin, as the level of polarization intensified and the opposition dug in, the survival and advancement of the revolution came to require the near-permanent mobilization of mass support, something that is impossible to maintain even with a more unified base. In part because such a high level of mobilization is unsustainable, the Chávez government was often forced to (or at least did) make various concessions to either win over or temporarily appease sectors of the business class. Such compromises, including unholy alliances with a corrupt business class, some of whom enriched themselves through connections with the Chávez-Maduro governments (i.e. the ‘boli-bourgeoisie’), had real costs for the revolution. Nonetheless, these concessions were seen as necessary to ensure a basic level of political and economic stability.7 The opposition, though divided, still possessed the capacity to seriously disrupt the economy, generate political instability, and undermine support for the government. Indeed, this conflict – and the need to deal with powerful reactions by elites – is inherent in any gradual transition to socialism that takes place within liberal democracy.
There is perhaps no better expression of this than the periodic efforts by the business class to create a scarcity of consumer goods by reducing production, selling products in alternative markets, limiting imports, or simply hoarding supplies, in effect promoting economic turmoil in order to foment political instability. Indeed, for years, Venezuelans ‘have acknowledged that scarcity of basic consumer goods spikes around important elections, as businesses seek to pressure voters’ into turning against the government.8 The government’s response to these shortages has been to put price and exchange rate controls in place (starting in 2003) and increase the number of protected products. Such action was to ensure that Venezuelans, especially the poor, had access to affordable goods while also encouraging domestic-oriented industry. The private sector responded by in effect deepening the cycle, further reducing production and/or limiting imports to the domestic market which in turn created more scarcity, hardship, and instability. The government then expropriated companies to ensure continued production and encourage/intimidate other companies to maintain production.9 By making US dollars available at artificially low prices to some sectors in order to sustain imports, increase internal production, and maintain a steady flow of affordable goods, the government also formally expanded the (already unsustainable) system of currency exchange.
To the extent that government expropriations gave the state more control over the economy they could be said to advance socialism. Likewise, the expanded currency exchange system ensured, at least in the short term, that basic goods would remain available at affordable prices. These policies and initiatives did not, however, represent a coherent, planned, or extensive process, so much as a response to a reactionary opposition – a response that simultaneously weakened and fed the opposition. More than this, it has proved hard to get off this downward spiral of politically-driven shortages, difficult-to-sustain government price/exchange controls, disruptive black markets, out of control inflation, capital flight, and all the long lines, corruption, unholy alliances, uncertainty, and turmoil that goes along with it. This contributed to an ever-deepening process of polarization and the perception that the government was incapable of creating a basic level of stability and security.
It is important to remember that although this deepening crisis could be partly attributed to government missteps, the situation itself – and the tough decisions the government faced – were a byproduct of class conflict characterized by open warfare on the part of the business class. Elites defended their interests, the government responded in kind, and the conflict deepened.10 This level of polarization, which both sides fomented, served to mobilize supporters and opponents alike, and at times generated opportunities for the revolution. It also, however, made it difficult to govern, let alone sustain the long-term transformational process that revolution requires.
Recognizing the need to blunt the opposition and limit its ability to destabilize the political system, the Chávez government redoubled efforts to strengthen popular power. This came most forcefully through two initiatives – the creation of communal councils and the formation of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) – starting in 2006 at a particularly opportune moment. Chávez had just been re-elected by a wide margin, was in control of the National Assembly, faced a deeply debilitated opposition, and enjoyed high oil prices.
By the end of 2006, or just months after the initiative had been announced, over 10,000 councils had formed and were receiving a massive infusion of state resources. Tens of thousands more would be created in the following years, eventually reaching over 40,000. The basic idea was that legally-constituted communal councils, representing relatively small communities, would be the building blocks of a more democratic, people-controlled, parallel state. Socialism would emerge out of these local structures, eventually developing on regional (i.e. communes) and national levels, in effect replacing the bourgeois state with a communal state. Unlike the existing state, which was so perverted by capitalism that it had to be transcended, the communal councils would foster the capacity of working-class people, ultimately making the communal state a legitimate expression of working-class power and democracy.11
In practice, councils were eligible for funding directly from the federal government in order to carry out community projects ranging from constructing roads, housing, and community centres to improving health, education, and agriculture – addressing needs as defined by communities. With more than 40,000 councils, this initiative has directly involved millions of people in the organization, planning, and development of their own communities. They created something of a parallel state, allowing the federal government to bypass local governments and put financial resources directly in the hands of ‘the people’. In so doing, they increased popular participation with(in) the Venezuelan state on an unprecedented scale. Not surprisingly, however, there was wide variation in terms of how these councils were run, how well they functioned, how their purpose was understood, how they related to the state – and the extent to which they advanced socialist goals. The council programme, heavily dependent on revenue from oil production, was certainly vulnerable to clientelism and created additional points of contention and bureaucracy between Venezuelans and the state, even apart from problems associated with small-scale development initiatives in general.12
Since 2010, the councils have not only continued to expand in number, but have increasingly become oriented towards the creation of alternative sources of livelihood (i.e. they have branched out beyond supporting state-funded community projects). They have also been organized at higher levels through the establishment of over one thousand communes, which coordinate the efforts of local councils to create socially-controlled production units and increase popular political power at larger scales. Many of these have become focused on limiting the crisis connected to collapsing oil prices, with the idea of providing Venezuelans access to affordable goods through the creation of farms and non-profit food shops. The establishment of tens of thousands of cooperatives has also been part of this broader effort, which in tandem with the councils/communes have bolstered social production through the creation of alternative forms of economy that provide both basic goods and a means of livelihood for thousands of Venezuelans. These initiatives have expanded into virtually every conceivable area of the economy, including not only food-related enterprises but transportation, communications, housing, health, banking, etc.13
And yet, although they have received billions of dollars, the councils have not been able to transform a state that still controls the vast majority of the government’s resources and makes most of the important, national-level, decisions. Even at the local level, municipal governments retained considerable power. Likewise, the attempt to create a more socially-controlled economy through (a) the creation of alternative economic forms such as councils/cooperatives and (b) a fairly limited effort to nationalize, develop, or appropriate various industries and companies has thus far not produced a more mixed economy. Private capital still controls roughly the same amount of the economy as when Chávez first came to office in 1999. In short, the councils did not replace the bourgeois state, create sufficiently powerful alternative economies, or seriously challenge capital. To a large extent, rather than serving as the incubators of a socialist economy, they were dependent on a state flush with oil revenue. This became more apparent as the political crisis deepened, oil prices declined, and funding for the councils became more difficult to sustain.
The local and developing nature of the communal councils is partly why Chávez announced – following his landslide electoral victory in 2006 – the formation of the PSUV, a consolidated political party that was to unite all of the various parties and social forces of the left in support of the Bolivarian Revolution. Chávez urged all parties on the left to dissolve into the PSUV, insisting that it would be run from the bottom-up and become the most democratic party in the history of Latin America. It was a vehicle through which socialism would be energized and advanced, avoiding the one-party pitfalls of bureaucratization and authoritarianism. Ideally, a collective leadership, semi-independent of Chávez and the state, would be elected through democratic channels and facilitate the revolutionary break from capitalist institutions.14
As with the communal councils, the need for a robust and unified party was and is both sound and apparent. It was, however, controversial in theory and complicated in practice. To begin with, there were the practical difficulties of incorporating a wide range of political views and pre-existing bureaucratic structures and personal investments into a single entity. A number of parties and trade unions valued their autonomy and feared not only being subsumed by the PSUV, but by the government and Chávez himself. Issues around internal democracy have been complicated by a level of bureaucratization, corruption, and disorganization.15
The broader issue, however, is that although the emphasis on political participation, internal democracy, and competing within a multi-party system is part of what has made the PSUV attractive (and allows it to avoid charges of trying to develop a single-party political system controlled by a socialist state), it has also meant that the PSUV was trying to get off the ground at the same time as it was fighting struggles on virtually all fronts. Creating a new party within a crowded political landscape, with a functioning infrastructure, that has healthy internal debates and elections, and incorporates diverse organizations and millions of members, is not an easy task under any circumstances. Doing so within the context of constant ‘life or death’ political campaigns, a particularly vicious opposition that foments political instability at every turn, and a deteriorating economic situation that undermines popular enthusiasm for the government has proven more than the party is capable of handling. More than this, because this is not a form of socialism where party functionaries effectively control all levels of the state, the creation of a strong socialist party under liberal democracy does not automatically translate into socialist control of the state by a revolutionary government.
Indeed, well before the death of Chávez, the ambitious aspirations that animated the PSUV’s formation were severely circumscribed. The PSUV began to look more and more like a traditional bureaucratic party that was narrowly focused on the electoral realm, not particularly democratic, and too closely tied to the apparatus of the state; parts of its leadership had become a political caste that negotiated with other party leaders and state officials while promoting their own interests. It lost much of its popular-participatory character, its connection to the mass base deteriorated, and instead of being a semi-independent force that would help democratize the state it became a top-down institution largely controlled by upper echelons of the Chávez-Maduro governments. These shortcomings were partly expressed through, and at times exacerbated by, increasing divisions and departures within/from the party itself – fractures that became even wider and more open after the death of Chávez in March of 2013.16 The importance of these flaws was revealed as the crisis deepened and exposed the need for a more democratic and vigorous political party.
Many of the Bolivarian Revolution’s most conspicuous gains – in poverty reduction, education, healthcare – were direct byproducts of very large public spending increases made possible by the election of a government with decent priorities and a commodity boom that sent oil prices skyrocketing. The Chávez government did not simply pour money into the missions, which lifted people out of poverty and strengthened the Chavista base. It also channelled resources towards the support and creation of popular organizations, such as the councils and communes, which were to provide an alternative base of power. Ideally, these institutions would allow for the transformation of the political and economic system – a force that would theroetically remain at least partially independent of any particular government.
Oil money made these efforts possible, but also obscured some of the limitations associated with them. As long as the state had sufficient revenue to lift people out of poverty, finance popular organizations, and support the (unsustainable) system of currency exchange, the Chávez government was able to keep a handle on the economy and retain sufficient support among its base of working poor. This allowed the government to ignore or not deal aggressively enough with a whole host of problems that simmered beneath the surface (and which have plagued other left governments throughout the region), including: the ongoing erosion of middle-class support, which was somewhat tolerable as long as the working-class base could be sufficiently mobilized to keep the opposition in check and deliver votes in a never-ending string of electoral contests; the ongoing problems of corruption, clientelism, and patronage, all of which not only fed the opposition’s moralizing rhetoric but produced a popular support that could be thin in places and dependent on the continued flow of government largesse; the limitations of missions/councils as vehicles for creating alternative bases of political and economic power; the failure to build state-controlled domestic industries, or other forms of economic activity that could diversify the economy and generate resources without being so heavily dependent on exports; and the broader inability to wrest control of key sectors of the economy from the business class.17
The crash of commodity prices exposed these underlying issues, as government revenue dried up. To be fair, because virtually no one predicted that the price of oil would tumble so fast and so far, assuming prices would remain high indefinitely, there was little sense that the window of opportunity was so small. There was, or seemed to be, time to build the kind of political and economic power that was needed to seriously challenge capital and advance socialism.
What this meant was that as commodity prices collapsed – not long after Chávez died – it became clear that what the Bolivarian Revolution had been able to create in political, economic, and cultural terms was not sufficiently strong to sustain sectors of the working class whose lives and organizations were dependent on government spending, an economy that was under constant attack by the opposition, and a political base that was both fragile and absolutely necessary come election time. These (and other) vulnerabilities became exposed, eroding popular support for the government while re-energizing the right. The partial reversal of neoliberalism clearly improved people’s lives while generating increased support for the Chávez government. Yet although increased spending on social programmes bought the Chávez government some time to develop the working-class power needed to transform the state, challenge capital, and build alternative economic forms, this is not the same as actually doing so. More than this, the window for advancing a deeper challenge to capitalism that this increase in social spending created could not remain open forever, especially as commodity prices began to plunge. Most of the gains with respect to poverty reduction, for example, happened prior to the 2008-09 global recession and the first drop in oil prices. Capacity had to be rapidly built and deployed in such a way that fundamentally altered the developmental model and undermined the oligarchy’s control over the economy.
As the six-year plan (2013-2019) for the Bolivarian Revolution suggests, this point was hardly lost on Chávez:
We shouldn’t let ourselves be deceived: the social and economic system that still prevails in Venezuela is a capitalist and rentier system. This is precisely a program to strengthen and consolidate socialism, looking for a radical suppression of the logic of capital . . . it is necessary to completely pulverize the bourgeois State that we have inherited.18
This did not happen, and the opposition was able to regain its footing after Chavez’s death partly because his absence created a void; partly because opposition efforts to destabilize the government intensified under the presidency of Chávez’s successor, Nicolas Maduro; partly because the inflation and scarcity associated with the system of currency exchange continued to spiral out of control; and partly because oil prices, which had dropped during the recession of 2008-2009 but then rebounded, began to drop quickly in the second half of 2014. Not many governments could have weathered this storm. Even during the collapse of oil prices and state revenue, the Maduro government emphasized the continued importance of the councils to the Bolivarian Revolution and increased the flow of financial aid to the communes.
Inflation, however, which had been increasing at the end of Chávez’s rule, reached triple digits by this time. This was tied to the rising price of imported food due to the shortage of dollars. The exchange rate made dollars artificially cheap, creating an ever-greater demand for dollars, which increased the black market price and drove up the cost of imports and rate of inflation.19 A policy that had been designed to keep the import of basic goods flowing, and even encourage business to invest more in domestic production, ultimately had the opposite effect. As Gregory Wilpert explained right before the fateful December 2015 elections:
A vicious cycle thus began in early 2014, where an ever-widening gap between the official and unofficial exchange rates created ever-greater incentives to profit from that gap, thereby further widening that same gap. The black market exchange rate thus began to increase exponentially in the course of 2014 and 2015 . . . creating a 125:1 ratio between the black market and the official exchange rates. Massive profits of up to 12,500 per cent were thus possible. As a result, more and more people became involved in efforts to acquire dollars at the official rate, mostly by purchasing subsidized goods in Venezuela and (re-)exporting them across the border for enormous profit.20
Much of what Venezuela imported was simply being exported again, creating a greater scarcity of goods and fuelling inflation. Worst yet, the opportunities for speculation and corruption became incredibly tempting as one of the only secure ways to make money, which further undermined confidence in the government and economy. For a time, the Maduro government was able to keep a lid on this downward spiral by stabilizing the black market rate for dollars, but that became increasingly difficult to do as the collapse of oil prices drained government reserves. In other words, as long as the government had dollars that it could give away at a fraction of their value to encourage businesses to import goods, it was at least barely able to keep the problem under control in the short term, even as inflation and an overall reduction in imports caused uncertainty, hardship, and chaos for virtually all sectors (and especially the poor who had limited access to dollars).21 But such policies were not only financially unsustainable, especially as oil prices dropped, they also left control over imports in the hands of the private sector, in effect giving the opposition the power to create a scarcity of basic goods. This broader situation proved impossible to sustain, and in the end Maduro had to choose between further radicalizing the revolution or working with sectors of the business class. Because the government needed to consolidate power in order both to survive and to prevent the opposition from completely reversing the revolution’s gains, Maduro largely chose the latter as the crisis worsened after 2013: cutting taxes and implementing more business-friendly policies, appointing representatives of the business class to key government offices, reducing certain social programmes, expanding mining, and aggressively paying down the national debt. The economic and political crises effectively fed one another, leaving Maduro with few good options.22
In terms of what lies ahead, although neither the communal councils nor the PSUV were able to transform the bourgeois state, create a parallel state, or ensure political stability, much depends on whether they can yet become critical vehicles for driving the revolution forward. Large sections of the state remain hostile to communal power, both as a political force and as productive alternatives. But the councils remain a crucial base of support for Maduro, who has pushed forward the communal process by encouraging the creation of communes and the National Assembly of Communes. Equally important, the councils/communes are the most important expression of popular power that exists independently of the government. For its part the PSUV, although hardly the revolutionary force that Chávez and others envisioned, remains the most significant party in Venezuela. Given the precariousness of the present, and the difficult position of the Maduro government, the path forward absolutely requires building popular power from below through a variety of working-class organizations. How the councils and the PSUV respond to this challenge will be the key to the survival of the Bolivarian Revolution.
The Latin American left has had a rough couple of years. Lula-Rousseff faced indictment, impeachment, and a de facto political coup over a two-year period starting in 2014, Kirchner-Fernandez was defeated in Argentina in 2015, Chávez-Maduro lost a critical legislative election at the end of 2015, and Morales experienced defeat on a 2016 constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to run for a third term. While US imperialism played some role in all of this, the fact is that most of these governments have suffered defeats in the very same way that they came to power in the first place – through the ballot box and institutions of representative democracy.
More than this, the road to ruin, or at least setback, was broadly similar across the region and not all that different from the path to success a decade earlier. The commodity boom delivered, but so too did the bust.23 Left governments came to power in the late 1990s and 2000s through popular insurgencies of varying intensity and composition. Once in office, they focused on consolidating political power both via legalistic measures, most notably through the creation of progressive constitutions, and by continuing to build and mobilize the diverse constituencies that brought them to power in the first place. This process alone was significant. It mobilized people, invested larger numbers in the political process, and in some cases produced important advances for indigenous and Afro-descendant populations. This political process did not, however, necessarily create the basis for radically restructuring the political economy or pose a significant threat to property relations.
In fact at least initially, and in some cases permanently, these newly elected governments pursued a path of development that shared much with the models that preceded them. Dependence on agricultural and mineral exports continued and in many cases even increased as high commodity prices allowed governments to invest in infrastructure, public sector employment, and a range of social programmes. This, too, was significant. By unevenly reversing neoliberalism, increased public spending helped alleviate poverty and improved people’s lives. It also restored, at least partially, faith in the potential role of the state and put ‘socialism’ back on the public radar. And it antagonized elites, who after decades of neoliberalism had come to assume that they would be the primary, if not the only, beneficiaries of state policy.
Yet although the willingness of the new governments to increase social spending produced significant results and was ‘radical’ in relation to the low bar set by two-plus decades of neoliberalism, such spending did not represent the arrival of a new economic model. It was not simply that increased public spending was heavily dependent on high commodity prices, and tended to come with increased patronage, clientelism, and consumerism, all of which served to erode transformative processes and lend credence to the right’s discourse of corruption and inefficiency. It was that this increased spending did not in itself represent a fundamental shift in economic relations, or necessarily provide the basis for pushing forward structural transformation. For the centre-left governments that emerged in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile this appears to have represented the boundaries of change. Social spending was increased, but the basic structure of the economy remained largely untouched.
The governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, and (to a much lesser extent) Ecuador, however, all took steps to deepen the process of change. Flush with oil money, Venezuela went the furthest. But as commodity prices plunged, economies contracted, and inequality once again increased, people protested against attacks on the social-public goods they had won over the past two decades. Popular frustration was now directed at left governments that had come to power on an anti-neoliberal wave, promising to rule on behalf of the nation.
Such setbacks are, however, to be expected in deeply contested class struggles for systemic change within bourgeois democracy. Although the specifics differ, the contentious and polarizing nature of these struggles, the loss of middle-class support, and the difficulty of advancing and sustaining left projects in such circumstances is clearly part of the explanation as to why the left has experienced setbacks in not only Venezuela, but Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. How the Latin American left responds remains to be seen, but the simple fact is that it has become an important force on the political landscape. During the past twenty years in Latin America, progressive forces have discredited neoliberalism and rescued socialism from the sectarian margins, transforming it into a sufficiently broad platform from which a revitalized left has organized around a series of reforms that, if not clearly anti-capitalist, have put an important claim back on the public agenda: The state and political system are important and necessary terrains of collective struggle that working people must (and can) capture if we are to live in a world where social needs are prioritized over market forces. It took decades of neoliberalism, an intense political backlash, and years of sustained organizing to get to the point where something is left. It will take decades more to nurture and channel this public consciousness while building the political forms and institutions capable of consistently and effectively advancing socialism.
1I would like to thank George Ciccariello-Maher, Aviva Chomsky, Steve Ellner, Lesley Gill, and Adolph Reed for commenting on an early draft of this paper.
For capital’s ever-deeper expansion into indigenous territories and the place of indigenous movements and environmental concerns in the emergence of the Latin American left see: Aviva Chomsky and Steve Striffler, ‘Labor Environmentalism in Colombia and Latin America’, Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society, 17(December), 2014, p. 491-508.
2Gregory Wilpert, ‘Venezuela: An Electoral Road to Twenty-First-Century Socialism’, in Jeffrey R. Webber and Barry Carr, eds., The New Latin American Left: Cracks in the Empire, New York: Roman and Littlefield Publishers, 2013, p. 192-3.
3Steve Ellner, ‘Social and Political Diversity and the Democratic Road to Change in Venezuela’, in Steve Ellner, ed., Latin America’s Radical Left: Challenges and Complexities of Political Power in the Twenty-First Century, New York: Roman and Littlefield, 2014, p. 79-102. See also Gregory Wilpert, ‘Venezuela: Participatory Democracy or Government as Usual’, Socialism and Democracy (online), 31 March 2011, available at: sdonline.org; Wilpert, ‘Venezuela: An Electoral Road’; George Ciccariello-Maher, ‘Constituent Moments, Constitutional Processes: Social Movements and the New Latin American Left’, in Steve Ellner, ed., Latin America’s Radical Left; and Steve Ellner, Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict, and the Chávez Phenomenon, New York: Lynne Reiner Publishers, 2007; Jeffrey R. Webber, ‘Where is Venezuela Going’, Solidarity, January-February, 2010, available at: www.solidarity-us.org.
4Steve Ellner, ‘Social and Political Diversity’; Steve Ellner, ‘Setting the Record Straight on Venezuela’, Jacobin, 4 December 2015.
5Ellner, ‘Social Policy and Diversity’; Wilpert, ‘Venezuela: Participatory Democracy’; Roger Burbach and Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, ‘Venezuela’s Participatory Socialism’, Socialism and Democracy, 21(3), 2007.
6Ellner, Rethinking Venezuelan Politics, p. 139.
7For a good discussion of the Boli-bourgeoisie, including the opposition’s efforts to reduce all of Venezuela’s problems to ‘corrupt socialism’, see Steve Ellner, ‘Beyond the Boliburguesía Thesis’, NACLA, June 9, 2016. Available at: nacla.org.
8Ryan Mallett-Outtrim, ‘How Bad is Venezuela’s Economic Situation’, venezuelanalysis.com, 25 January 2016. See also: Peter Bolton, ‘The Other Explanation for Venezuela’s Economic Crisis’, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 24 March 2016, available at: www.coha.org.
9Ellner, ‘Setting the Record Straight’; Steve Ellner, ‘After Chávez: The Maduro Government and the “Economic War” in Venezuela’, New Left Project, 24 December 2014, available at: www.newleftproject.org.
10Ellner, ‘Social Policy and Diversity’; Ellner, ‘Setting the Record Straight’.
11Burbach and Piñeiro Harnecker, ‘Venezuela’s Participatory Socialism’; Ellner, ‘Social and Political Diversity’; Wilpert, ‘Venezuela: Participatory Democracy’.
12Burbach and Piñeiro Harnecker, ‘Venezuela’s Participatory Socialism’; Ellner, ‘Social and Political Diversity’; Wilpert, ‘Venezuela: Participatory Democracy’; Dario Azzellini, ‘The Communal State: Communal Councils, Communes, and Workplace Democracy’, NACLA, 30 June 2013.
13Andrew Kennis, ‘The Quiet Revolution: Venezuelans Experiment with Participatory Democracy’, In These Times, 10 August 2010; John Bellamy Foster, ‘Chávez and the Communal State: On the Transition to Socialism in Venezuela’, Monthly Review, 66(11), 2015; George Ciccariello-Maher, ‘Venezuela: Comuna o Nada!’, 22 March 2016, Roar Magazine, roarmag.org; Frederick B. Mills, ‘Chavista Theory of Transition Towards the Communal State’, Open Democracy, 8 August 2015.
14Burbach and Piñeiro Harnecker, ‘Venezuela’s Participatory Socialism’; Ryne Maloney-Risner, ‘Development of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela’, venezuelanalaysis.com. 12 November 2009.
15Burbach and Piñeiro Harnecker, ‘Venezuela’s Participatory Socialism’; Maloney-Risner, ‘Development of the United Socialist Party’.
16On recent issues within the PSUV see: Eva Maria and César Romero, ‘Chavismo From Below’, Jacobin, 15 April 2016; Ewan Robertson, ‘Venezuela’s PSUV Accused of Expelling Marea Socialista Dissidents’, venezuelanalysis.com, 24 November 2014; Patrick Guillaudat and Pierre Mouterde, ‘Venezuela: Behind the Defeat of December 6, 2015’, Life on the Left, 18 January 2016.
17For example, about two-thirds of the Venezuelan GDP is currently controlled by the private sector, or roughly the same proportion as in 1998 when Chávez was first elected. Guillaudat and Mouterde, ‘Venezuela: Behind the Defeat’.
18‘Venezuela: Hugo Chávez’s Six-Year Plan for Venezuela’, Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal, http://links.org.au/node/3079.
19Mark Weisbrot, ‘How to Fix Venezuela’s Troubled Exchange Rate’, Fortune, 2 August 2014.
20Gregory Wilpert, ‘The Roots of the Current Situation in Venezuela’, Telesur, 22 November 2015.
21On crisis also see: Victor Alvarez, ‘What is at stake is not the stability of a government but the viability of a nation’, Venezuela analysis, 23 March 2016, venezuelanalysis.com; Ryan Mallet-Outtrim, ‘Does Venezuela’s Crisis Prove Socialism Doesn’t Work’, Counterpunch, 25 May 2016, available at: www.counterpunch.org.
22Eva Maria and César Romero, ‘Chavismo From Below’; Steve Ellner, ‘Las expectativas falsas de la estrategia negociadora en Venezuela’, Aporrea.org, 5 March 2016.
23For a good discussion on the region’s continued dependence on export-oriented extractivism see: Claudio Katz, ‘Is South America’s “Progressive Cycle” at an End: Neo-Developmentalist Attempts and Socialist Projects’, The Bullet, 4 March 2016, available at: www.socialistproject.ca.