Gerardo Rojas is a community organiser in Barquisimeto, Lara, and a Chavista activist, a reference to the political movement of the working-class poor that backed former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. He participated in one of the first urban communes, Comuna Socialista Ataroa (2007) and was a vice-minister in the Ministry of Communes in 2015.
In part two of our interview, Green Left’s Federico Fuentes speaks to Rojas about the current state of community organising in the country under the combined impacts of sanctions, opposition political violence and the Nicolás Maduro government’s shift away from Chávez’s policy of promoting people’s participation. Read part one here.
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Just before he died in 2013, Chávez underlined the importance of the communes as a means for building radical democracy. Why are the communes so important?
If we trace the development of Chávez’s thinking, democracy is among the strategic guiding principles.
Chàvez’s Blue Book, which was written in 1990, describes almost verbatim a communal council, [the grassroots building blocks of the communes] in which communities make decisions for themselves, which the government started promoting in 2006.
The Bolivarian Constitution [adopted by referendum in 1999 after a process of popular consultations] talks about participatory and protagónica [protagonistic or self-reliant] democracy, in which it is not just a question of participating but of being a protagonist.
And if you then go to Chávez’s 2012 speech — known as Strike at the Helm — you will find a strategic continuity in terms of democracy.
So, if we closely follow Chávez’s strategic thought, we can see that he maintained a consistent line in terms of building democracy from the communities.
In one speech, at an event, I think, to enact the constitution, Chávez explicitly said this was not the time for direct democracy; so it was clear that he was at least thinking about this back then in terms of a proposal, a project, a political strategy.
Then, when he launched the communal councils, he said at an event: now is the time for direct democracy. Obviously, he had to accumulate forces, take it step-by-step, advance, retreat, until the communal councils came about.
This led to important advances, which were halted by the defeat [in a national referendum] of proposed constitutional reforms [aimed at deepening the Bolivarian Revolution] in 2007.
This defeat meant having to rethink the issue of communal democracy in the face of the direct and open attacks by the opposition, but also from an important section of existing Chavismo and the institutions.
That is why Strike at the Helm includes very harsh self-criticism, asking: Where are the communes? What has happened? How is it possible that we have laws, resources, institutions, but they are not working?
Well, this was because there has always been a fight within the revolution over this strategy. The communitarian, the communal in the broader sense of the term, was from the start a point of tension, not just with the opposition but also within Chavismo.
That is why, from the first moment, Chávez maintained a harsh internal criticism of the communal question. Deep down, this had to do with the question of building popular participation and democratic hegemony.
I think that is the fundamental key to Chávez, understanding that profound, revolutionary change comes through building a fully rounded democracy, where real power is in the hands of the people.
That is why the commune is important: it is a space from which socialism comes alive.
If we are unable to build spaces of self-government, where people living in that area can come to agreements, beyond any differences they may have, in order to change their concrete reality, it will be difficult to develop humans capable of collectively defending their territory and improving their conditions, both locally and nationally.
On the contrary, we will end up consolidating ideas that are now gaining a lot of traction: that what matters is individually resolving everyday problems and forgetting about politics.
What is the current state of the communes?
Unfortunately, they are very weak in terms of participation, according to figures from the Ministry of Communes. Data on its website indicates that last year, only 20% of [the 3641 registered] communes had registered their Communal Parliament.
This has its explanation. These have not been easy years economically or politically, partly because of the sanctions and the political attacks against the government. There are also the consequences of the emigration [of millions of people] in recent years and governmental errors, as well as corruption. All of this directly undermines the possibility of rebuilding community.
When the economic crisis was really bad and people had to dedicate themselves to ensuring their next meal or resolving essential needs, this caused problems in terms of thinking about community.
So, there are various factors that have helped undermine community. But we also have to say that the government entrenched itself as a means of defence in the face of these harsh attacks.
This had certain consequences in terms of dealing with the crisis caused by the collapse in economic growth and oil production, and the economic blockade, above all from 2016–17 onwards.
A very obvious internal dispute occurred during those years over the way forward. The result was an integral shift in both economic and political terms. It was a gradual but ongoing shift.
There was a readjustment in terms of the new historic bloc of classes — using the president’s words, not at the time, but in more recent years — where capitalists have been positioned as an important factor of revolutionary politics. Of course, that entailed an integral reconfiguration of government policies.
At that time, the communal economy, although still weak, could have been developed as a pathway out of the crisis, even complementing the government’s work with the capitalists.
But much of the means of productions that were in state hands were not transferred to workers or communities; instead they ended up in the hands of capitalists via “Strategic Alliances”, of which little information was made public.
At the same time, the idea that “in a besieged fortress, all dissent is treason” became dominant. This led to closing ranks in defence of the government. But when you close ranks to defend yourself, the next logical step is to continue closing yourself off.
And when you assume that closing yourself off is the best defence strategy, you cut yourself off from an important part of the community, of society — and with that the possibility of constructing democratic hegemony.
In the hardest years, the state basically disappeared in large parts of the national territory. Outside of Caracas — where things were not as affected, although they did affect the poor — there were entire communities with no services or formal presence of any state institution.
In that period we saw the emergence of more hybrid forms of organisations. The community assemblies of the communal councils were relegated in favour of CLAPs [Local Committees for Supply and Production], which the government began promoting in 2016.
These were jointly organised by state institutions, local United Socialist Party of Venezuela leaders and sections of the community to resolve the issue of national food distribution. CLAPs were very useful in what was a difficult period for the country, and continue to contribute.
But they served to displace the food committees, which were the obvious candidate for this role, as they had been elected by the communal council precisely for that type of task.
We can say that the shift in terms of official government policy around participation began with the CLAPs. These were the first device used to gradually relegate community assemblies.
A further step in this direction was take in 2019 when, in clear violation of the Laws of Popular Power, the Ministry of the Communes issued a call to form the “Platform of Revolutionary Forces” to elect new vocerías [spokespersons or delegates] in each communal council and commune using “first, second and third degree delegated methods of voting”, [rather than via community assemblies].
The argument commonly used to justify this shift was that communal councils and communes could not fall into the hands of the opposition, when the objective had always been that they remain in the hands of the people, regardless of their political inclinations.
Community participation does not have the weight today it once had, particularly in urban areas, due to the economic situation and the need to focus on meeting basic needs.
We have to recognise our weaknesses. And one of those weaknesses is generating capacities and possibilities for participation.
There is no doubt that, for this to improve, we need to improve people’s general social, working and educational conditions. Otherwise it will be difficult to create spaces for protagonistic participation, as Chávez proposed and as laid out in the Laws of Popular Power.
[Read the full interview at links.org.au.]