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Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in Venezuela
Ellner, Steve. NACLA Report on the Americas; New York49.1 (Spring 2017):
118-120.
Building the Commune is a provocative and superbly written book with a
well-defined thesis. Ciccariello-Maher argues that given the
deficiencies and underperformance of established institutions in
Venezuela-including the country's governing Partido Socialista Unido de
Venezuela (United Socialist Party of Venezuela, PSUV), the military, and
the state's executive branch-the best hope for the political survival of
the Chavista government and the achievement of its long-term socialist
goals is the commune system. As the author succinctly states in the
book's last paragraph: "The time has come to bet it all on the communes."
The communes were promoted by the government of Hugo Chávez through the
Law of the Communes in 2010 in order to bring together adjoining
community councils for the purpose of undertaking public works projects
on a wider scale. The communes and community councils apply for state
funding for projects, monitor their progress, and select their work
lorce from members of the community. In addition, the communes are
designed to encourage the formation of community enterprises known as
"social production companies" (EPSs). For the Chavistas, the communes
represent the germ of the new society they are trying to create.
The book's narrative about Venezuela's communes is rich in detail.
Ciccariello-Maher provides a vivid account of the economic and cultural
activities of various communes in both urban and non-urban areas. The
economic and cultural focus is strengthened by conversations with
Reinaldo Iturriza, who after heading the country's Communes Ministry,
was appointed Minister of Culture in 2014. Communes described in the
book include the El Maizal Commune in western Venezuela, whose
agricultural output is allegedly twice the nation's average; the Ataroa
Commune in Barquisimeto, which manages a cement block EPS and is
committed to the "ethos of sustainability"; and the El Panal Commune in
Caracas' famed 23 de Enero neighborhood, which runs a bakery,
sugar-packaging plant, and supermarket.
Ciccariello-Maher writes in the tradition of bottomup historian E.P.
Thompson, as can be deduced from the title of his previous book We
Created Chávez: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution,
published in 2013. Ciccariello-Maher argues that the 2010 Law of the
Communes served to "legally recognize''-and help consolidate and
expand-the communes, but notes that the commune movement had emerged
from the grassroots in previous years. The author presents several
examples of this pattern of initiative and innovation from below-for
example, the case of a group of neighbors in Caracas whose houses were
destroyed by a landslide and who seized an abandoned building "before
pressuring the government to expropriate it.''
Ciccariello-Maher ends the book pointing out that the mainstream press
got it wrong when they predicted the demise of the Chavista revolution
following the death of Hugo Chávez in 2013. Chavismo was never "a
one-man show," he argues, and "to suggest otherwise is an insult to
those who were building the revolution decades before Chávez, and...to
those who continue to build revolutionary state power today."
In this way, the author departs from orthodox Marxist thinking by
defining socialism along political rather than economic lines. For
Ciccariello-Maher, the essence of socialism in Venezuela is "radical
democracy." Building the Commune says little, for instance, about the
elimination of powerful monopolistic or semi-monopolistic economic
groups-goals prioritized by the traditional Left. In accordance with the
concept of "dual power" originally proposed by Lenin, Ciccariello-Maher
envisions a new state that battles an old one. The former consists of
communes and other institutions of direct popular participation
underpinned by social movements, while the latter takes in
representative institutions such as municipal and state governments.
According to the author, himself a political theorist, the goal of
twenty-first century socialism "was to transform political power
itself." With regard to the economy, Ciccariello-Maher asserts that
"production is only a means, not the end. The goal is selfgovernment."
Elsewhere, Ciccariello-Maher points out that for Chávez, what he called
"communal culture" was the most important aspect of the commune.
An alternative view of the state put forward by Marta Harnecker and
Greek Marxist Nicos Poulantzas is that the old state is not enemy
territory but rather, in the words of Poulantzas, a "strategic
battlefield." This is particularly true when progressives are in power.
According to both writers, popular sectors establish an important
presence in three arenas-the old state, emerging new state structures,
and autonomous social movements-and it is in these spaces where they
wage struggles that will determine the ultimate makeup of the state.
As applied to Venezuela, this theory gives greater weight than does
Ciccariello-Maher to the initiatives originating from above-specifically
those emanating from the central government-in the transformation and
radicalization of the nation since 1998, when Chávez was first elected
to power. Numerous examples of the interplay of top-down and bottomup
initiatives are worth considering. One is the state's expropriation of
the steel company Sidor in 2008 and the establishment of worker
decision-making mechanisms known as the Plan Socialista de Guayana in
this same industry the following year. More recently, the neighborhood
food distribution program known as the Comités Locales de Abastecimiento
y Producción (Local Supply and Production Committees, CLAP) has shown
itself to obey the same dynamic: a potentially far-reaching government
measure that emerges in response to rank-and-file sentiment and pressure.
To be sure, Ciccariello-Maher recognizes the positive role of the state,
but he does so in a more limited way. He correctly observes that
government support invigorates popular organizations, but "if state
funding becomes a substitute for grassroots organizing" it, in the words
of scholar Andrés Antillano, "'very quickly undermines [the]...very
organization it helped to create."' In another break with orthodox
Marxism that favors the prioritization of the commune, Ciccariello-Maher
questions "traditional Marxist dogmas about the revolutionary working
class." Rather than positing the fundamental importance of centers of
production, namely factories, he praises the model of "Venezuela's
distinctively territorialized socialism."
Ciccariello-Maher's upbeat account may be open to question, even while
the developments he describes undoubtedly leave room for a degree of
optimism. He claims that after Chávez's death in 2013 and under the
direction of Communes Minister Iturriza, "there was a dramatic expansion
of the communes," citing the official statistic that 1,546 communes
exist in the country. But it is unclear how many of the communes
approximate the productivity and sustainability of the ones he selected
to describe in detail. A related issue is Ciccariello-Maher's rosy
account of subjective conditions-that is, the degree to which people
favor and are committed to the changes being proposed-and just how
widespread the zeal of the communal members he interviews actually is.
Admittedly, no easy measuring rod or quantitative methodology
facilitates the evaluation of subjective conditions, but the issue is
far from academic as it is central to any political strategy for change.
Even without such precision, Building the Commune represents an
invaluable contribution to the analysis of twenty-first century
Venezuelan politics from a critical leftist perspective and is original
in its framing of key issues related to the future direction oí the
Chavista movement. Ciccariello-Maher's insights could not come at a
better time given the corporate media's distortion of recent political
developments that threaten the Chavistas5 retention of power. Most
important, the book clearly demonstrates two outstanding achievements of
Chavista rule: the stimulation of popular participation and empowerment,
both of which are downplayed-if not completely ignored-by the
adversaries of the Venezuelan process of change.
Author Affiliation
Steve Ellner, a frequent NACLA contributor; has taught at Venezuela's
Universidad de Oriente since 1977. He is currently coordinating an issue
of Latin American Perspectives titled "Progressive Governments and Class
Strategies in Latin America: Populist and Pragmatic Policies in a
Broader Context
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