new pamphlet on chávez’s venezuela

We are pleased to announce the publication of our seventh pamphlet, “The revolution delayed: a decade of Hugo Chávez”.

The pamphlet features the translation of an interview conducted with El Libertario in Caracas by the French anarchist ‘Charles Reeve’, alongside an interview with Loren Goldner, author of Ubu saved from drowning: worker insurgency and statist containment in Spain and Portugal. These documents are prefaced by a chronology of recent developments in Venezuela. Click the image below to read it online.

You can order the pamphlet for £1 + postage by writing to uncaptiveminds@gmail.com or The Commune, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY.

the revolution delayed: 10 years of hugo chávez’s rule

This month marks the tenth anniversary of Hugo Chávez’s coming to power in Venezuela, and ten years of the “Bolivarian revolution”. This process has included waves of state intervention in the economy and fervent rhetoric against US imperialism. But while some on the  left see this Chavista movement as the new “socialism for the 21st century”, groups such as ours have argued that it is actually more like an old-fashioned attempt at modernisation by a technocratic élite; that  increased bureaucratic power over capital is not inherently progressive;  and that the “revolution” in Venezuela allows for very little working-class control or initiative from below.

Here we present a translation of a March 2008 interview conducted by the French anarchist ‘Charles Reeve’ with two members of the El Libertario group in Caracas, the nation’s capital, which offers some stark insights into the reality of the situation. Looking at various aspects of the Venezuelan economy and living standards in the country, it argues that Chavismo and the mythology of the “Bolivarian revolution” conceal a raft of neo-liberal reforms and attacks on workers’ rights, and that we must break out of the dynamics of Chávez vs. the opposition in order to build an autonomous working-class alternative.