Alan Woods at the Bolivarian University in Maturín - 200 students and lecturers attend

On Thursday June 19, another meeting was held as part of Alan Woods' visit to Monagas. In the beautiful building of the Bolivarian University in Maturín, Alan Woods held the third launch meeting of his book "Reformism or Revolution. Marxism and Socialism of the 21st Century (a reply to Heinz Dieterich)" with about 200 students and lecturers attending.

Maturin On Thursday June 19, another meeting was held as part of Alan Woods' visit to Monagas. In the beautiful building of the Bolivarian University in Maturín, Alan Woods held the third launch meeting of his book "Reformism or Revolution. Marxism and Socialism of the 21st Century (a reply to Heinz Dieterich)" with about 200 students and lecturers attending.

Alan started by unravelling what is behind the general increase in prices and particularly of food prices. Part of the inflation that Venezuelans are suffering is caused by speculation on food by capitalists and the multinationals. He pointed out that the rise in the price of food is not due to a shortage of food. On the contrary! The price of rice for instance has gone up in the last period by 162%, which will mean hunger for millions of people around the world. According to The Economist, the Japanese hold stocks of 2.3million tonnes of rice which they cannot release onto the world market. It is calculated that if these stocks (and stocks in other countries) were sold, the price of rice would fall by 50%. "What is the reason why the Japanese are not selling this rice? Because they bought it from the US and according to the rules of the WTO they cannot sell it without permission from the US, and the Bush government is refusing to allow this in order to protect the profits of the capitalist agribusiness and the US food multinationals" said Alan. "This in itself shows that capitalism is a senile system, which has become an obstacle for the development of humanity. This system must be overthrown."

Maturin Among other ideas, Alan criticised the position of the reformists within the Bolivarian revolution, pointing out that what they are saying is that "in 50 or 100 years we will wake up from bed and will be under socialism. These kinds of ideas are the same as those that were defended by the reformists before the First World War with disastrous results."

At the end of his speech the floor was open for questions and debate from the students and lecturers. One of those present asked whether, as the reformists say, we had not gone too far too quickly. Alan replied that in his opinion "we have gone too slowly and not far enough", which was received with applause.

At the end of the meeting, after an hour and a half, Alan signed copies of the book for those present, who were very pleased and enthused by the ideas he had put forward.

For more photos visit the gallery

See also: