The Venezuelan People Support the Constitutional Reforms

Heinz Dieterich

Contrary to his promise, HD promptly begins making a flimsy “Defense” exclusively for renegade Baduel in all of the remaining paragraphs of his piece.
 
There is nothing “progressive” about the views HD expresses in his piece. The gist of the piece is HD’s attempt to portray himself and Baduel as bourgeois centrists, rather than as the rightwing converts and darlings that they now are.
 
It’s too bad HD has a “personal relationship” with Chavez and Baduel, for otherwise we would know definitively what HD really thinks about the split between Chavez and Baduel. But now, that HD is a mouthpiece for turncoat Baduel, it is unlikely that there is still a “personal relationship” between HD and Hugo Chavez.
 
The “solution” that HD proposes, as a result of his so-called “rational analysis, is that Baduel turncoat  … once again … but this time on his new reactionary friends if the constitutional reform passes.

Raul Isaias Baduel

“The accusations that Baduel has sold out to the extreme right, that his anti-communism has got the better of him, or that he is a traitor, do not get to the heart of the problem. Ever since he was commander of the 42 Infantry Parachute Brigade, there have been many attempts to bribe him and several plots to assassinate him and he did not give in. He is a man who acts on conviction, not expediency, and that is why he confronted the coup of April 11, although the putschists tried to bribe him to work with them. And the fact that he did not participate on February 4 and November 27 has an explanation, which the leaders involved know and one day will be made public,”

- Heinz Dieterich

Before he became a renegade, Baduel never moved beyond the limits of a patriotic and liberal bourgeois, but Baduel’s former stance as a bourgeois liberal with a streak of patriotism does not wash away the fact that today this ex-liberal has allied himself, like HD, with extreme rightwing forces.
 
A “coup” is chiefly a domestic, internal, native, and home-grown revolt. The April 2002 overthrow of the Venezuelan government was planned, financed, coordinated, and supervised by the US imperialists.  So, that 2002 overthrow wasn’t a coup, except in name.
 

President Chavez with Raul Isaias Baduel

And as for “April 11,” the violent overthrow of democracy is often repugnant to bourgeois liberals as well as to proletarian revolutionaries with democratic values on the same cherished grounds of the rule of law and unconstitutionality. Baduel’s praiseworthy opposition to the April 11 overthrow of the Venezuelan government establishes that he once had some regard for the rule of law and the constitution, but his opposition to the rightwing 2002 overthrow of the government does not establish that he is or ever was a revolutionary, fighting for the complete passing of state power from the bourgeoisie, including its liberal sector, to the revolutionary sector of the working class.

“The assertion that he excluded himself from the Bolivarian project of the President, by positioning himself against reform on November 5, is the key to understanding the current situation. Baduel was unable to accept the government project because he was already excluded. He was marginalized, and the primary responsibility for this marginalization was that of the government,”

- Heinz Dieterich

So, it seems, Baduel can’t accept a project from which he is excluded, regardless of the merits of the project that allegedly marginalizes him by exclusion. Perhaps, if Baduel, the irrepressible egotist, had been included in the meetings to draft the constitutional reforms, he would today accept the project.

“However, those observers are quite right who noted that Baduel had shown unmistakable signs of public concern at the evolution of the Bolivarian project that he saw: such as the scant will to fight against corruption, the inflationary development of the economy, the discretional use of the revenues from PDVSA and the lack of definition of the institutionality of Socialism of the XXI Century,”

- Heinz Dieterich

If Baduel is concerned about corruption, then why does he ally himself with reactionary bourgeoisie of Venezuela,  one of the most corrupt aggregations that the world has ever witnessed. The aim of corruption is to divert cash and other resources from the urban and rural proletariat to privileged and corrupt sectors and strata of the middle class and bourgeoisie.  Notwithstanding the corruption, the Venezuelan proletariat is getting more resources and cash than it has ever gotten or ever dreamt that it would get. Plus, under the constitutional reforms, more funds and resources will go directly to the masses for communal self-administration of programs by the voters, thus bypassing the corrupt middle class and bourgeois thieves in the bureaucracy … the “middle man” … between the state and the voters.
 
There are many things behind current inflation. Most of them predate the current government. But three of them seem particularly relevant to current phase of the inflationary trend.
 
First , the Venezuelan economy is making too much money and spreading the money around so widely, including cuts of the money for the urban and rural proletariat, the middle class, and the bourgeoisie. In the past, only the bourgeoisie, imperialists, and the middle class got a cut. Some of the bourgeois regimes that preceded Chavez believed it was wise to cut back on the amount of money the economy made by the exceeding the OPEC production quota for crude, thus lowering the price of oil and the government revenues from oil sales. Today, only Venezuelan reactionaries and, of course, the US imperialists believe this course of action is wise.
 
Second the middle class and bourgeois business people are marking-up their prices shamelessly and disgracefully, trying to gouge everybody. They are also hoarding food to drive up prices and to destabilize the state. But these are the scoundrels that Baduel and his mouthpiece HD are joining.
 
Third, the interminably falling US dollar fuels inflation all over the world, including the USA and Venezuela. It’s unfair to blame Venezuela for the worldwide fall of the dollar because Bush has more to do with it than Chavez.
 
The discretional use of the revenues from PDVSA is chiefly for lifting the living standard of the people by social programs in education, health care, nutrition, and housing. The people of Venezuela, for the most part, welcome the exercise of “discretion” in this manner. Before Chavez, the revenues from PDVSA were subject to “discretional use,” but,  back then, the big shots at the oil company exercised their discretion and gave most of  the money to the US imperialists.
 
Baduel’s regrets over the lack of definition of the institutionality of Socialism of the XXI Century is incompatible with his closer relationship with the Venezuelan bourgeoisie and imperialists, both of which are savagely hostile to all forms of socialism, regardless of the century in which it emerges. Obviously, HD imputes some his own personal complaints about the Venezuelan process to Baduel.

“The field of political battle chosen by the General was constitutional reform and the time, the start of the official campaign for the Yes vote and the violent protests on the right. Raul Baduel is an extraordinary military man with strategic vision which explains the content and timing of his public statement. Contrary to what the official propaganda and sectarianism say, he is not a man of the extreme right, which by definition is extra-constitutional, but a man of the Law. His pronouncement in favor of the Constitution of 1999, against the excessive concentration of power in the executive branch, is the kind of speech that aims to occupy the political centre of the country, “

- Heinz Dieterich

One of the many peoples' marches in recent months - all in support of the Chavez Administration and Constitutional Reform

Is this the center of the working class or the center of the bourgeoisie? The center of the working class, along with left sector of the working class, largely supports the constitutional reforms. So, Baduel doesn’t seek to occupy the proletarian center. He therefore must be after the bourgeois center, if such a political spot exist in Venezuela. The bourgeois center is a lot further to right than the proletarian center.
 
HD seems to concede that Baduel has shifted from the position of a bourgeois liberal to a bourgeois centrist, a big step to the right, but a step that makes Baduel more palatable to the reactionaries.
 
The excessive separation of powers is not necessarily the mark of a bourgeois centrist or liberal. In the main, the extreme rightwing often demand a weak executive branch, preferring to let the market decide everything.

Lacking a national organization and adequate funding to launch a national political campaign, the General transformed the growing controversy about the content and procedures for constitutional reform into the equivalent of what is in military terms the strategic reserve of a belligerent: a pre-organized force in stand-by for any offensive or defensive purposes. In the dramatic situation on Monday, after the demonstrations for and against the reform, a statement of the kind that he made, would give him an immediate global media forum, and within Venezuela, leadership of the political centre, which the country now does not have,”

- Heinz Dieterich

This “controversy about the content and procedures for constitutional reform “ is a class struggle chiefly between the reactionary bourgeoisie and the revolutionary proletariat. Neither side of this controversy will even consider being a strategic reserve of a bourgeois “centrist” (that is, a closet reactionary) like Baduel. Baduel hasn’t “transformed either side of the controversy into anything. Rather the reactionary side of the controversy has begun the process of transforming General Baduel into one of its foot soldiers.
 
Only the reactionary sector of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie has a tail that reaches down into the middle and working classes. The centrist and liberal sectors of the bourgeoisie are comparatively small and politically isolated. The new Baduel wouldn’t waste his time leading such insignificant and irrelevant forces as the bourgeois centrists and liberals.

“The statement by the General does signify, of course, an open break with the President and the Bolivarian project, which the chief of state has been shaping from 2003 to date. The timing may seem brutal, because it launches a "war" with no quarter, in the style of Bolivar. The immediate withdrawal of the bodyguards of the General and his family by the Ministry of Defense, at the end of the press conference, is one example of this situation. But it is obvious that Baduel considered all the bridges were burnt and that, in going on the offensive, he decided that maximum force had to be used,”

- Heinz Dieterich

The timing seems “brutal” for Baduel. It seems he has shot himself in the foot. Political struggle within the “system” is mainly electoral or legislative. Constitutional reform is both electoral and legislative. It is amateurish of Baduel to throw his hat into the ring in what is essentially a legislative struggle like a constitutional reform.
 
If the reactionaries win the referendum and the reform fails, Baduel, a mere anti-reform propagandist, will not get any praise. Again, if the reactionaries win, it will because of their mass mobilizations and Baduel had nothing to do them.
 
If, on the other hand, the reactionaries lose and the reform passes, the reactionaries, renown for their contentiousness, will brand Baduel another loser and dump as much of the blame on him as possible.
 
Baduel’s blunder is that he entered a fray in which he is not in command of forces on his side, an inexcusable error by a “general.” As a candidate in an electoral struggle, say at the governor or presidential level, Baduel presumably would be in charge of his campaign.

“The intervention of the General amounts to a decisive battle, because if the President does not win the referendum, or if he does not win at least 60% of the votes, he would be forced to call new elections. That is, the call for a "no" vote is much more than a simple electoral issue or a debate on the constitutional prerogatives of the state and people: it is, for now, the decisive battle on the kind of country created by the President in the last four years from the proclamation of "Venezuelan socialism" to the fundamental changes that he is trying to introduce to the Constitution of 1999,”

- Heinz Dieterich

HD seems to be daydreaming about the prospects for a reactionary Dec. 2 victory, here.
 
It’s not clear what kind of elections, HD has in mind, that Chavez will be “forced” to call if the referendum fails.
 
The time for holding elections is largely set by the Constitution and by law and the Constitution has no provision that calls for elections in the event a constitutional reform fails. So, calling election merely because the reform failed would be unconstitutional.
 
HD says Chavez will be “forced” to call elections. Who can “force” the indomitable Hugo Chavez to violate the Constitution? Certainly,  a bunch of sniveling college students from the  middle class can’t “forced” Chavez to violate the constitution and renegade Baduel can’t do it either.
 
HD further says that if the reform passes by less than 60 percent, Chavez will be “forced” to call some kind of election.
 
Article 345: of the 1999 Constitution says “The constitutional reform shall be declared approved if the number of affirmative votes is greater than the number of negative votes. A revised constitutional reform initiative may not be submitted during the same constitutional term of office of the National Assembly.”
 
So, according to the first sentence of Article 345, the reform is approved if at least 51% of participating voters vote “yes.” I don’t know where HD gets his arbitrary requirement that the reform needs 60 percent or more than 60 percent in order to win.
 
The second sentence of Article 345 says nobody can call another constitutional reform election during the same legislative term, that is until 2011 in this case.
 
Contrary to the predictions of the “cappie” or capitalist opinion polls, it is a near certainty that at least 51% of the participating voters will vote “yes.”
 
But the bourgeois-dominated opposition have had some successes this year in the class struggle of the capitalists against the workers.
 

Day after day a small fraction of Venezuela's university students continue to engage in violent protests while the police and national guard contain them. The restraint exercised by the police and National Guard is exemplary.

The defections of PODEMOS, the leftwing middle class party, and the renegade Baduel from the revolutionary struggle and the impressive mobilizations of the middle class college students against the government will no doubt result in an increased amount of crossover and of abstention on the part of liberals who before now more or less sided with the revolution. Since the political and ideological division of the Venezuelan electorate is about 40% for the various reactionary forces and about 60%, broadly speaking, for the revolutionaries, on Dec. 2, the reactionaries therefore need a crossover and/or abstention on the revolutionary side of about 20 points. The electoral damage done by PODEMOS, Baduel, and the middle class students is no where near that serious. An extremely and unrealistically optimistic estimate of the crossover/abstention on the revolutionary side is about 10 points which will result in something like 53 percent to 47 percent vote in favor of the reforms if the bourgeois-dominated opposition doesn’t itself suffer a substantial abstention.
 
A more realistic projection of the Dec. 2 results is that the revolutionaries will lose the 5 points that they picked up between the 2004 recall referendum and the 2006 presidential election. So, the result of Dec. 2 is more likely to be somewhere around 58% to 42% in favor of the reforms. This 5 point diminution of revolutionary support reflect the vacillating and unstable elements, mostly confused liberals, who in recent years crossed over from the reactionaries. So, given both the unrealistically optimistic estimate for the reactionaries and the realistic one, we should expect the vote to be in the range of  53% and 58% for the reforms.

(Vive TV archive photo)

 “There is no doubt that the intervention of the General has caused two important effects: a) has reinforced all the forces of the "No" vote, from the radicals to moderates; this is a historic responsibility of enormous dimensions that undoubtedly will weigh on the conscience of General until the end of his life, and b) has ruled out abstention as an option,”

- Heinz Dieterich

The “intervention of the General” has also “reinforced” the revolutionary hard-core who are outstanding in electoral combat. The mentioned “radicals” … whom the General reinforced …  are the extreme right. Since the bourgeois-dominated opposition owns about 40 percent of the electorate, even if a reactionary abstention is ruled out … as HD presumes … the reforms will pass unless the revolutionaries suffer something like an unlikely 20 point cross/abstention.

“However, it is difficult to predict accurately the consequences. Raul Baduel has undoubtedly lost the great support that he had within the ranks of hardline "Chavismo." We will have to see if the support he wins among the Centre and disappointed Bolivarians can compensate for this loss of political capital. On the part of the President, it remains to be seen if he can mobilize electoral forces which were previously undecided or inert in his favor, “

 - Heinz Dieterich

This “centre” is more myth than reality. The main political and ideological forces in Venezuela are the revolutionaries and the reactionaries, not the “centre,” if any, between them.

“Within this calculation it is necessary to remember that one of the characteristics of Venezuelan politics is that from 1999 onwards, the government has failed to reduce the opposition bloc, which has a hard core of around 35% to 40% of the population, which is a fairly high platform for any government to jump in a crisis, “

- Heinz Dieterich

Between 2004 and 2006 elections, the government reduced the opposition bloc by 5 points. But on Dec.2, the opposition bloc may get its 5 points back.
 
True to their deceitful custom and habits, a number of bourgeois pollsters are forecasting a win by the reactionaries on Dec.2.
 
Anti-Chavez pollsters and the bourgeois media that promotes them have a history of extreme dishonesty.
 
We'll see if latest one, Datanalisis, has finally joined the pack of lying cappie pollsters.
 
["Cappie" is the charming diminutive for capitalist.]

“The danger of defeat, absolute or relative, of the "yes" vote, opens once again a chronically chaotic phase in Venezuela that in a few years could finish the government of Hugo Chavez. And if Chavez leaves the Miraflores Palace, the integration of South America could be halted. That is what is at stake,”

- Heinz Dieterich

This “relative” defeat is HD’s nonsense that if the bourgeois-dominated opposition does not lose big on Dec. 2, then it wins on Dec. 2 because of a close vote. In reality, if the opposition loses on Dec.2 either “absolutely or relatively,” then it loses period. And all of the sniveling, whining, and bitching of the opposition, HD included, won’t change the reality and the significance of the loss. 

“To avoid this uncertain future and prevent the right and imperialism from taking power in Venezuela, it will be necessary for Chavez and Baduel to reach a negotiated settlement that is based on a strategic alliance between the country's political centre and Bolivarianism. It would be convenient to stop seeing the new constitution as a sacred cow and see it for what it is: a legal modus vivendi built on the correlation of forces in a given historic moment. Otherwise, we run the risk of paying the political price being paid by Evo Morales in Bolivia, as a result of the Constituent Assembly,”

- Heinz Dieterich

A “strategic alliance” that includes the renegade, turncoat, and crossover Baduel magnifies the degree of uncertainty that the future contains. An alliance with Baduel does not “prevent the right and imperialism,” rather it invites the “right and imperialism,” especially those “radicals” … the extreme tight … whom Baduel recently “reinforced.”

“It is obvious that the new Constitution is not necessary to advance the anti-imperialist and popular Bolivarian process headed by the President at the national and international levels, nor is it necessary to progress towards Socialism of the XXI Century. And it is equally obvious that the current model has a number of structural weaknesses, which can cause crises in the coming year, particularly in the economy and the absence of dialectic in the organs leading the country,”

- Heinz Dieterich

The reform may not be “necessary,” but they sure seem useful in advancing the process. Of course, there are “structural weaknesses.” If there were no “structural weaknesses,” there would be no need for a transition in the content of the state from a bourgeois to proletarian. And there would be no need for the transformation of the economy from capitalist to socialist. And even after these transitions and transformations, there will still be “structural weaknesses,” but these weaknesses do not justify a “strategic alliance” with the right and imperialism which now uses Baduel as their mouthpiece and water-boy.

In effect, Baduel and Dieterich have crossed the barricades to join wealthy student protesters who choose violence over the vote - like these, photographed by Reuters at Central University in Caracas 2 weeks ago.

“In the light of what is at stake for the people of Venezuela and the peoples of Latin American, a strategic compact between the two forces is not only necessary to protect the process, but also, to go back to the original collective democratic spirit of the Saman del Guere. Anyone who thinks that this is impossible after the declaration of Raul Isaias Baduel is forgetting the conflict between Lieutenant Colonel Arias Cardenas of the MBR-200 and President Hugo Chavez,”

- Heinz Dieterich

If Baduel turns his present rightwing and imperialist coat like he recently turned his liberal coat, then … sure … he can come back, like the prodigal son. The revolution will welcome Baduel and HD back with opened-arms.
 
For surely, Heinz Dietrich … our famous founder … knows that his very own socialism of the 21 century is magnanimous.

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