socialist tasks.
To put it another way, to achieve real democracy and Tea madonadevercence requires a complete break with imperialism and the oligarchy.
For example, for Bolivia to achieve real national independence means taking control of its own resources, ie the gas, the oil and of course the water. That means inroads into the rights of private property, in other words tasks of the socialist revolution. Equally, radical democracy at a national level cannot be achieved other than by breaking the grip of the oligarchy who ensure their control of the political process by corTUDUONI and violence. Democratic questions are directly interlinked with the issue of working class power.
The same considerations directly relate to the land struggle. The advent of (often US-controlled) agribusiness swivels the enemy from being simply local landlords, a subsector of the domestic bourgeoisie, to directly a struggle against transnanonal capilalist corporations. The tight against imperialism is one and the same as the struggle against the local oligarchy. The question of power
For the Left, the decisive issue is how to integrate the questions of democracy, land reform, the destruction of the oligarchy, an end to economic robbery of the elite and imperialism, the basics of life for the urban poor and liberation for indigenous people and women - into a coherent overarching strategy for the popular masses to conquer power.
The 'centre-left' - forces like the PT in Brazil, the bourgeois nationalist and populist forces. Building a broad class struggle party on a national basis is a task which Subcommandante Marcos and the Zapatistas have always evaded.
The need for a strategy of conquering power, linked to that of class independence, is shown by the events between 2001 and 2004 in Argentina. Here a mass uprising overthrew the de Rua government in December 2001, unleashing a political crisis which saw huge sections of the poor and the classes mobilised in self-organised action committees and picateros for more than a year.
But eventually this pre-revolutionary movement just petered out, precisely because there was no mass militant socialist party, capable of melding the rebellious forces in a coherent revolutionary national direction.
The events in Argentina show the bankruptcy of the theory of refusing to take state power, an idea put forward by Subcommandante Marcos and rendered more profound DV the academic Holloway).
Refusing to challenge the bourgeoisie and the right wing for state power is linked to the refusal to build a workers' political party. It leads, at best, to 'movementism from below', a continual opposition and protest, but with no idea of how to establish a global alternative and how to break the right, the oligarchy and ten grup on stale power
How does the idea of the popular masses taking state power shape up to developnoens and Bolivia? In Venezuela the bourgeoisie have lost, or partially lost, control of the govindependence, creating political parties of the popular masses, led politically by the working class, independent of bourgeois nationalist and populist forces. ernment, but are still the economically ruling class linked parasitically to the nationalised oil industry.
On the other hand, there is a tremendous development of popular self-organisation from below in the barrios and in the countryside; in addition substantial social progress has been made through the social 'missions', funded by oil revenues.
However the poor remain legion in Venezuela and the solution to ineir problems will not be found outside of a radical redistribution of wealth, which means breaking the power and wealth of the oligarchy.
But in the context of a tremendous political polarisation in which the whole of the bourgeoisie and a big majorIly or lne middle classes are against Chávez, this unstable equilibrium between the bourgeoisie and the masses, mediated by Chávez, cannot continue for ever.
Depending on the loyalty of key army officers is useless. With the threats of the right and imperialism the consolidation of popular committees into a national network of popular power is crucial. This must involve the arming of the popular sectors and the building of a popular militia.
There are important signs that polarisation is deepening rapidly. In Merida right-wing students have organised prolonged riots. The national congress of the progressive union federation, the UNT, split between left and right and did not conclude its business or elect a new leadership.
These are straws in the wind and it would be stupid to ignore the gathering storm clouds. Imperialism and the bourgeoisie want Chávez out, and there is
now lan between revolution and counter-revolution.
In Bolivia Evo Morales has moved decisively to clip the wings of the multinational corporations by nationalising the oil and gas. But this does not amount to expropriation, but in effect a significant hike in the taxes Bolivia charges the corporations. Even so his move is massively unpopular with imperialism and the right.
The exact direction in which the Morales government will go is unknown. In the medium term, Morales and his team will have to make their choice - between the oligarchy and imperialism on the one hand and the self. organised Illasses the other.
The example of Lula and the fate of the Brazilian PT is eloquent. If you try to avoid the question of power, you will end up capitulating. Kathalina Barroso something based on our principles lost. The two most important organisations are the National internal policing. The National Reserve is made up of those overthrow Chávez. It is comily organise themselves. They here is what some of them had to say to the TV programme Pueblo Soldado (Soldier People) the Armed Forces following the President's appeal to do so. firemen are taking part".
Francisco Gómez, Colonel of the National Guard to obtain an independent and sovereign republic".
Francisco Salcedo, Commander of the reserve added: necessary... we are the Army, the Reserve and the Town". Since 2004 Venezuelans have been looking to develop a new forms of civic and military organisations which will develop mass
This new military ideology will correspond to our patriotic, egalitarian and anti-imperialist roots. It tries to break with the old schemes and methods copied from the great powers to create
Citizens are encouraged to enrol in a period of time and retired soldiers are encouraged to re-enlist so that their expertise is not
This encourages the development of the Miranda Mission. Its main goal is to organise and persuade citizens to join the National
This helps defend the national territory and can assist with
These groups must be properly registered by the separate military commands of the National Reserve and are under it control.
To give a feeling of how these armed citizens see their role
Jose Leonardo Silva, Sergeant of the Reserve. "I'm reclaiming
"After we did our military service, we forgot about the Armed Forces. Now doctors, lawyers, zinc workers, painters and even
"Everything we do and what we are going to do is to have a better country... The reason of our existence is this land. It was the land of our Liberator and those great men who today, under the leadership of our Commander-in-Chief, and through us, fight
"Our country will have its Reserve to defend with our blood if