By JEAN MARC VON DER WEID*

In the pro-Maduro arguments, here in Brazil, I am intrigued by the classification of the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela as being on the left. What does it mean, after all, to be “left-wing”?

1.

The elections in Venezuela caused more ink than blood, fortunately, although the dead in that country already number in the dozens, the injured in the hundreds and those arrested in the thousands. I read countless articles and messages, expressing opinions from various sides, the majority defending, to a greater or lesser degree of sympathy, the positions of Nicolás Maduro's government.

Many of the authors are my acquaintances, friends and companions from many years of struggle and I fear that I will lose some of the most vehement ones, after reading this article. But, after hesitating a bit, I decided to face the storm, motivated by the need to discuss the subject, not so much by my specific interest in Venezuela or Nicolás Maduro, but by the way of thinking of my political generation.

What leads some of the writers and commentators in WhatsApp groups to fully assume the narrative adopted by the Nicolás Maduro regime? How is it possible for the government version to be considered true?

Individual motivations can be speculated, but only an in-depth debate with each person could, perhaps, identify them. There is one aspect that can be explained by tortuous reasoning, which has as its starting point the axiom attributed to Machiavelli: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Based on this principle, the resulting sophistry is used: American imperialism is the enemy of Nicolás Maduro; the Brazilian left is the enemy of American imperialism; ergo: the Brazilian left is (or should be) friends of Maduro.

Although the sophistry is debatable, Nicolás Maduro's defense does not require signing under everything the Venezuelan president says, much less what his regime does. There is no need to adopt the defense of a dictatorship as if it were a democracy, with more sophistry about the “relativity” of democracy. One can condemn the imperialist rants against Venezuela (or Cuba, China, Russia, etc.) without corrupting the truth, stating that it is an exemplary democracy.

Some articles go in this direction by escaping the specific discussion about the legality and fairness of elections to discuss “geopolitics”. It is a more prudent position, but it leaves the so-called “democratic issue” silent and this, although it has no effect on the Venezuelan crisis, weakens the authors' defense of democracy in Brazil.

It is embarrassing to watch militants persecuted by the military dictatorship in Brazil, claiming that Nicolás Maduro's actions are supported by Venezuelan laws, that the electoral body is “independent” and that the right-wing Corina was blocked by legal impediments, as well as many other pre -candidates. Or that there is unlimited freedom in the country (“within the law”). The military dictatorship did not use different arguments to defend the image of a “democratic” Brazil, between 1964 and 1985.

The argument that Corina, Capriles and other opposition leaders are right-wing or fascists, financed by the CIA, is also symptomatic, implying that anything goes against “certain positions” to prevent them from reaching the government. Corina is no worse than Bolsonaro, and one cannot question the fact that the energúmeno won one election and came close to winning another. And that he legitimately governed (or misgoverned) Brazil. This is an axiom of democracies: the alternation of power.

It is true that “democracies” only accept the application of the axiom when the power of the dominant classes is not threatened by this alternation and that this would justify a “left-wing” power using the same criterion. In Brazil, despite right-wing terrorism in 2002, with several threats against Lula's election, the alternation was respected. In 1961 and, more radically, in 1964, it was not.

On the first date, the “solution” was the parliamentary coup that castrated Jango’s power, establishing parliamentarism. In the second, with the president recovering full powers, democratic legality was broken with the military coup. All of this serves to show that the “relativity” of democracy is a reality, but not that democratic principles should be abandoned.

When it is said that democracy is “relative” and comparisons are made between Venezuela in the 20st century and Athens in the XNUMXth century BC (“only XNUMX% of the adult population voted”) or the United States (“Bush and Trump were elected with fewer total votes than their opponents”), what is ignored are not the historical peculiarities and imperfections of the electoral processes, but the fact that rules recognized by all are applied and the results accepted by all. In the Venezuelan case, the rules are not legitimate and are not applied impartially. And even with all this, if the electoral results are not to the government's liking, a “legal” twist is applied and the defeated become victorious.

Believing that the minutes of the electoral tables cannot be presented because of an attack hacker is to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Saci Pererê. In the Venezuelan electoral system, each electronic vote is accompanied by a paper vote that is kept in a ballot box and can be verified, if necessary. The fact that the electoral records were not presented, nor was a recount sought fifteen days after the elections, leaves more than one doubt about the fairness of the election, worsened by the hasty proclamation of victory and the inauguration of the “elected”.

If it were “just” the imbroglio of the minutes, everything would already be quite murky, but the closure of borders, the impossibility of participation by voters from abroad, the vetoes on the candidacies of all the best-known opponents, the difficulties of opposition propaganda, the hostility at polling places, reported by one of the few independent observer entities accepted by the government, the Carter Center, and the history of repression and arbitrary actions over many years leave no room for doubt: the opposition, with all the limitations and inhibitions it suffered, He must have won this election by a good margin.

I have read that the opposition received money from the USA, that its activists attacked Madurista voters, among other barbarities. It is quite possible, but whoever has the powers of the State (police, militias, armed forces) is the government and its candidate president. The correlation of forces is totally unequal.

It is worth remembering that, if the right-wing Corina was the greatest expression of electoral opposition against Maduro, the Venezuelan Communist Party also had a candidate for president, as did some other left-wing or center-left parties. And everyone is questioning the results. And that, in publications on social media, Chavista sectors in rupture with Nicolás Maduro spoke out against his re-election.

2.

I am intrigued by the pro-Maduro arguments, here in Brazil, the classification of the leader of the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) as being left-wing. What does it mean, after all, to be “left-wing”?

Despite the many nuances and changes over time, there is a permanent mark on the left: it defends, in very generic language, “social causes”. This ranges from workers' rights to their political empowerment, covering countless topics.

In a leftist definition, however, we do not find a clear democratic identity. Yes, the left (or rather, in the plural) tend to defend democracy when they are on the defensive under the yoke of dictatorships or even more restrictive democratic regimes. But, once dictatorial or autocratic regimes were overthrown, the left tended to divide between those who sought a dictatorship “of the proletariat”, and those who accepted the democratic electoral game.

In the Russian revolution, the democratic question pitted the Mensheviks and a whole range of other currents against the Bolsheviks. The installation of the Constituent Assembly was abandoned when the Bolsheviks were in the minority among the delegates, while they had control of the armed force, at least in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. “All power to soviets” also remained behind, once control of the State apparatus was consolidated. From then on, repression continued to escalate until the Stalinist regime.

In China it was no different, with power being taken by the red army in 1949, and the communist party assuming power without limits and without space for other currents. The other revolutionary episodes do not deviate from this rule: once in power, the left forgets about democracy. And don't tell me that only the bourgeois concept of democracy has been abandoned. The so-called “dictatorship of the proletariat” was just a dictatorship and the proletariat suffered it, like the other classes.

On the other hand, with each more or less advanced attempt at social reforms threatening the interests of the dominant classes of a given country or those of some empire (English, French and more recently the American) the result was a more or less extensive or ghastly violation of democracy. In other words, for the right and the ruling classes, democracy is only valid as long as it guarantees their interests. And the accusations of anti-democratism made against left-wing activists are pure cynicism.

3.

How to position yourself in this historic political impasse?

In my opinion, there is a gap in conceptual and historical debate regarding the topic of democracy. The left did not carry out a broad review of the concepts in light of their application in the concrete reality of the countries where revolutions took place. The prediction that “democratic centralism” would lead to the end of internal democracy in Leninist parties, generating the dominance of the party apparatus by increasingly restricted groups (until reaching the control of a single leader) was fulfilled.

The prediction had a corollary that was little highlighted, except perhaps by anarchists, in the first years of the Russian revolution: the single party (“true representative of the interests of the proletariat”) eliminates the manifestation of the immense majority of the population and its expression in other forms of party organization. . The same goes for the forms of manifestation of class entities, such as unions.

I heard, throughout my long years of activism, the repeated argument that restrictions on democracy, both in society as a whole and within the revolutionary party, were an inevitable contingency of the process of taking power in the name of the working classes. Both Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin applied this principle, which finally turned against the latter, after the death of the great leader. And repression, even from the most tenuous of contradictory positions, was never abandoned, always under the pretext of the logic of permanent class struggle.

Is there a solution capable of reconciling the processes of transformation and the maintenance of democracy? Anyone who thinks this is a “class illusion” and defends the principle of “dictatorship of the proletariat” will live in permanent contradiction between the conjunctural and tactical defense of democratic freedoms accepted by the ruling classes and their strategic convictions.

The right, here or anywhere, does not and will not fail to point out this contradiction and brand the left as false and cynical. And I don't see anyone crazy enough to defend the end of democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat (I'm speaking symbolically, class divisions today are more complex) because they would be politically isolated.

Anyone who thinks that the right to express all opinions should be guaranteed as a premise of a libertarian regime, has to reflect on what democracy we want, not just tactically, but as a basic principle of social organization.

The more democracy the better, is the only answer. If the situation only allows the electoral game, we will play it, trying to expand it. But we should, as a left, seek all forms of social participation in collective decision-making processes at all possible levels. From the neighborhood to the neighborhood, from the community to the territory and from there to the states and the country. From local to broader issues, we must look for consultation mechanisms and participatory forms of decision-making and execution. And improve electoral and legislative processes.

This is not enough, of course, both theoretically and practically. But it is a starting point. It is also worth, in this initial definition, indicating that the decentralization of power will be a vital necessity in the reorganization of society that will result from the collapse of globalization under the impact of combined crises: environmental, energy, food, health, manifestations of the terminal crisis of capitalism.

The fragmentation of economic and social spaces can only be addressed by strengthening the processes of economic and social collaboration in territorial spaces much smaller than countries and even provinces. All of this points to the strengthening of local decision-making spaces that are much more significant than national and international ones. And it points to the need to radicalize and deepen the concept of democracy.

4.

To complete, I would like to speculate on the nature of Nicolás Maduro's bets with these elections. The president has already shown that he is capable of dominating the country's power structures and making them work as he sees fit. It wouldn't be the first time he lost an election. Two elections ago, he lost control of the legislature and was unable to turn the tables, closing congress or canceling the majority, in the style of our military.

But he called another election and maintained an incredible system of two congresses, one dominated by the opposition and the other by the government. As real power rested with President Nicolás Maduro, the parallel congress was emptied. After that, the controls became stronger and the opposition began to abstain, to Maduro's peace of mind.

Why did Nicolás Maduro take risks in these elections? International pressure, including economic blockades, certainly weighed on the acceptance of the Barbados pact. But Nicolás Maduro did not respect the pact and heavily interfered in the process, blocking candidates and restricting opposition propaganda. He probably thought that Corina's dog tie wouldn't be able to beat him and then he made a total mistake in his assessment.

Corina's “pole” was just a symbol and it was enough for a country with 50% unemployment, 20% of the population emigrated and with rising food costs. This and more Chavista dissent gave the basis for a protest vote, unfortunately for the fascist one at the time. Nicolás Maduro was not prepared for this eventuality, or he would have found a way to tidy up the minutes and maintain the appearance of democracy. Is this what they are doing in these post-election moments? The credibility of any minutes presented becomes more doubtful with each passing day.

In this imbroglio, not all the good will of Celso Amorim and Lula will be enough to give legitimacy to the regime. The negotiated solution of Maduro's departure and a regime transition is on the agenda and Brazil's role could be fundamental for a less catastrophic end than what is shaping up. Amorim's proposal for a “second round” under international surveillance could even be adopted by Lula, Petro and Obrador and supported by Biden and the European Union. It is difficult for Maduro (and Corina) to accept the proposal.

5.

I want to end this article with a personal touch. When I became a left-wing activist, between 1964 and 1966, I joined a political current without origins in the communist movement, Popular Action. Popular Action did not have a position on democracy or the dictatorship of the proletariat. But I was not a supporter of the Soviet regime and this attracted me because it was in the same direction as my readings (one book really impacted me, in particular: Zero and infinity, by Arthur Koestler). He was vaccinated against the Stalinist regime, but it took much more study and reflection to admit that Lenin (and Trotsky) already anticipated many of the hallmarks of what became Stalin's regime.

Popular Action had a moment of rapprochement with the Cuban revolution, but it distanced itself from it not because of its anti-democratic character, but because of the organization's adherence to the Chinese revolution. The repressive nature of the latter was not well known (or recognized by me) and my “resistance to Maotsetung thought” in the internal struggle of Popular Action was more due to the dogmatic nature of Maoism. It took years of study to face the facts of the reality of Chairman Mao's China.

I was not, I am convinced, a special case in my generation. Our fight was democratic, against the military dictatorship and we didn't have time to discuss what political regime we wanted for Brazil. We were libertarian in our slogans in the concrete struggle and, almost all of us, affirmed the values ​​of democracy as the objective to be achieved. How many of us saw this goal as just a tactical step towards the seizure of power by revolutionary forces and the implementation of a “dictatorship of the proletariat”?

Probably many. But with time and the maturation of ideas, we became more convinced of the importance of libertarian and democratic values ​​and more skeptical about authoritarian solutions, even if popular or left-wing.

*Jean Marc von der Weid is a former president of the UNE (1969-71). Founder of the non-governmental organization Family Agriculture and Agroecology (ASTA).

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