Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Venezuela
To the Working Class, To the People of Venezuela
We inform the people of Venezuela, the working class, the peasantry and the revolutionaries of the world of the emergence of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Venezuela (PCMLV). The Party has emerged from the heart of the proletariat to guarantee its fighting organisation, based on democratic centralism and the ideology of the vanguard class in struggle against the bourgeoisie and its ideological expressions.
The PCMLV emerges as a necessity for the working class, which lays claim to the postulates of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. It emerges to strengthen the organisation of the class and to defend the democratic advances that are taking place in Venezuela and Latin America from the patriotic processes, allowing us to open spaces to guarantee the leading role of those who really produce the wealth: the wage workers and the peasantry. They are the ones who through their daily effort transform nature to guarantee all the material goods, without which life in society would be impossible.
We lay claim to the theses of the founders of Marxism-Leninism and fight to make a reality of the role of the vanguard of the proletariat, the class called upon to destroy capitalism and with it the conditions of exploitation under which humanity has developed since the emergence of society divided into classes until the present day.
The strategic objective of the PCMLV is the seizure of political power. To achieve this task it is not enough to advance in the trade union, peasant and popular movement; it is also necessary to form a political leadership with a profound class consciousness and clarity of the strategic objectives. This is only obtained through organisation and work, following the example of the great revolutionaries who achieved victory through the application of Marxism-Leninism as a guide to action, preserving its fundamental principles.
The present deep crisis of imperialism creates the conditions for its destruction, and the law of uneven development creates the possibility of the victory of the revolution in one country or group of countries where the objective and subjective conditions exist, where the organisation of the working class, the peasantry and other exploited sectors under the leadership of the vanguard Party make possible the seizure of power. In these circumstances we are making public the existence of the PCMLV, which is acting consistently with the principle of the proletarian internationalism and counting on the force of genuine Marxist-Leninists and the experience of the international communist movement, we are joining the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations.
Socialism can only be built with the worker-peasant alliance in power and the people in arms!
Long live proletarian internationalism!
Workers and peasants, join the PCMLV, your party.
Central Committee of the PCMLV
March 2, 2009.
On February 15, 2009, a referendum was held in Venezuela asking for approval of re-elections without term limits for government officials, from President Chavez on down. The Yes vote upholding the right to re-election was approved by 54% of the voters. A similar referendum on the right to re-election had been turned down by 50.7% of the voters on December 2, 2007. The Political Resolution of the PCMLV is from January, 2009, before the latest referendum – translator’s note.
Excerpts from the Political Resolution of the Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Venezuela
The National Situation
In the present national situation, the amendment to the constitution of the republic, which allows any government official to run for re-election continually, represents a political element of greatest importance. This proposal is opposed to the concept of alternation in office, a concept of bourgeois democracy, which reduces democracy to a change of personalities of the system, but is designed to maintain and deepen capitalist relations of production with an appearance of ‘change,’ so that nothing changes and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is perpetuated.
For us the struggle is to remove the bourgeoisie, to seize power and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat as a form of government appropriate to socialism. We consider this amendment as positive since it contributes to sharpening the contradictions where they are expressed: the interests of imperialism, represented by the tendency that is opposed to the amendment as a way to close the road to the permanence of Chavez. These, with the full support of imperialism, are trying to confuse the people and, by means of terrorist measures, of manipulation of the news and psychological warfare, are trying to impose the NO option. Their plan is to call immediately for a referendum to revoke Chavez. This would imply, if the amendment is not approved, a strong internal struggle to find a substitute for Chavez, strengthening the division and backward motion of the Bolivarian process. The landowners and sectors of the ‘native’ bourgeoisie are also pushing forward their policy in alliance with imperialism but they are playing a game of pawns and are following a policy of sabotage but without their own plan, their area of influence is among sectors of the parasitic and bureaucratic petty bourgeoisie.
On the other hand, the convergence of the revolutionary, patriotic, popular and proletarian sectors are joined in a left-wing tendency that supports the Bolivarian process and that is based on the proletariat and the peasant masses, with the presence of certain revolutionary intellectuals and a few elements of the ‘national’ bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie. They support the amendment as a form of giving continuity to the Bolivarian government without risking the possibility of splits in an electoral scenario without Chavez given his influence.
For these reasons we consider the proposal for the amendment to the constitution to be positive and we are taking up the task of winning the support of the majority. This is an activity that must be taken up by our mass organisations to mobilise them, making use of these events for the political organisation and education. It is necessary to overcome the weaknesses shown in previous electoral processes, given the influence of opportunism and the petty bourgeois tendencies that have taken advantage of their pre-eminence in Chavez’s government and party.
At the present time, with the level of development of the struggles in Latin America, the presence of leaders of the left-wing tendency, which has anti-U.S. positions and great national and international influence, make it possible for the revolutionary forces to continue advancing and consolidating spaces to build bases for the revolution and socialism. In this we Marxist-Leninist parties have a role to play, strengthening the party and building spaces of direct ties with the masses to find the road to the genuine revolution and socialism. We understand that these processes only represent a bourgeois democratic expression, which has points of contradiction with imperialism, in particular U.S, imperialism, and neo-liberalism, but supported by social-democratic, Keynesian and reformist thought that are of a populist and anti-communist nature.
It is important to note that this process of the constitutional amendment is developing in an atmosphere marked by the sharpening of the general crisis of capitalism, which has struck the world economy hard. The Venezuelan economy will not be able to escape the totality of its effects since there will be many confrontations despite the governmental talk that ‘we are armour plated.’ The class struggle will become serious and in our specific case the amendment will sharpen the contradictions; if the YES wins, reaction will continue to develop its policy of confrontation supported by the governors and mayors that it controls today, trying to surround Caracas, with support from Miranda, Carabobo and the border with Colombia in a long-range policy. If the NO wins, the advance of the right wing can accelerate its offensive, resorting to fascist violence supported by the favourable results, the accumulated force to revoke the government immediately, taking advantage of the internal struggle that would take place among those who support the government (mainly within the PSUV [United Socialist Party of Venezuela, Chavez’s party – translator’s note]) to succeed Chavez in the next presidential elections. This would lead to open betrayals, dissents and leaps into the enemy camp. Either way, the result of the amendment will be decisive for the future; in the regions controlled by the right wing the clashes will be more acute, especially around Caracas.
All this provides us with a panorama of greater political instability, where the need for the class vanguard is essential and our young Party will need to take up a determining role for which it must prepare all the forces at its disposal.
Central Committee of the PCMLV
January 2009
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