[AUDIO, VIDEO] Lebowitz, Socialism of the 21st Century, Build it Now in Venezuela Event in Toronto

On Sunday 17th June, Marxist writer Michael Lebowitz spoke to an audience of just over 100 in Toronto. It was a very successful event, meant to promote Lebowitz's new book Build it Now. Michael spoke about the progress of socialism of the 21st century in Venezuela, starting from the development of the "social economy" in the period 2001-2007 which was still capitalism (but not "neo-liberal" capitalism) which resulted in an extreme response from the reformists in the Bolivarian movement and the Venezuelan Oligarchy. Parts of Chavez's coalition split away to join the opposition once they realized that Chavez was serious about his reforms. Together with the Oligarchy they thought they could crush the movement with the 2002 coup and lockout. But every time they attacked, the workers and poor fought back, and this is something the reactionaries did not count on. Lebowitz detailed how the response of the people to the attacks (coup, lockout, recall referendum) marked the main advances of the revolution.

Lebowitz detailed that after the victory of the December 2006 presidential election, where socialism was an explicit part of the campaign, Chavez announced the Five motors of Socialism:

1) The enabling law in implement strategic laws
2) Constitutional change
3) Morality, education and ideology
4) Changing the geometry of political sub-divisions in the country to ensure equal representation
5) The explosion of communal power

Lebowitz put particular emphasis on the 3rd motor as it is about spreading new values and creating new human beings, and linked this with the 5th motor on building communal councils as an extension of the new state. The slogan "all power to the communal councils" highlighted how important this motor is. A rumoured 6th motor on the economic sphere was also talked about but has yet to be released.

The revolution is now moving towards social production and property for communal needs and purposes. There has been an enormous expansion of the state sector (nationalization of CANTV, the electric power company, reclamation of oil, reclamation of latifundia, democratization of media). Only last week Chavez was talking about planning the economy by sectors.

An important part of the talk was devoted to identifying the obstacles to the revolution. This was particularly refreshing as it allows solidarity activists to gain an honest appraisal of the progress and challenges facing the Venezuelan people rather than presenting Venezuela in an idealized fashion. Lebowitz identifies the following obstacles:

1) US Imperialism which was clearly involved in the 2002 coup. Eva Golinger has also revealed new information detailing how RCTV and Globovision journalists were on the US payroll and students in RCTV protests got money and training from the National Endowment for Democracy, which is well known as a CIA front.
2) The Oligarchy, which still holds key sectors of the economy such as banking in their hands
3) Corruption and clientilism. People put into positions in return for past political favours are now either sabotaging the public enterprises or are incompetent. In many ways the Missions were created to bypass this corruption in the state. Lebowitz said that there needs to be some big corruption trials of leading figures to help end this corruption.
4) A growing new Chavez Oligarchy. Some "Chavista's" are involved in capitalist enterprises through front men and are putting around the belief that the revolution cannot go to socialism as it has to stand on two feet, one being the people and the other being the capitalists. Michael mentioned that you cannot stand on 2 feet when they are heading in different directions.
5) Statist top-down tendencies in the government, especially in strategic sectors such as Oil, Energy and Power. A hierarchical structure in the oil industry has been imposed over workers committees formed during the 2002 lockout. This leads organized workers to disengage and just ask for higher wages (Lebowitz critiqued "militant" left groups organizing the movement for higher wages as effectively supporting an aristocracy of labour separate from informal sector workers). The UNT leadership hasn't helped due to its disunity and this has reduced the role of the working class in the revolution.

Despite all of these obstacles the revolution is moving forward due to the dialectical interaction between leadership and masses. Lebowitz ended his talk by highlighting the need to build socialism not just in Venezuela but in Canada and internationally.

The discussion period was wide-ranging and very enlightening. Issues that came up for discussion were the movement for workers control and nationalization plus the opportunist elements in the bolivarian movement. Lebowitz focused his critique on the reformists in the movement which he identified as the main brake on the revolution. He insisted that the main task must be to remove the stranglehold of these people and that recall referendums were in preparation against ex-Chavista mayors. Over 5 million people have joined the new united socialist party and hopefully this will be a vehicle for the rank-and-file to control the revolution from the bottom up.

All in all it was a very successful and educational event which highlighted the lessons that activists from around the world can learn from the Venezuelan revolution.

Michael Lebowitz and 21st Century Socialism
Introductions by Daniela Chacon and Greg Albo - (11:10),
• Michael Lebowitz: background, what is 21st century socialism... - (32:48),
the five motors of socialism - (28:09),
q+a first round - (18:13), q+a second and third rounds - (33:20).

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