The elections on December 3 are decisive for the future of the revolution. The historic mobilisation on Sunday, November 26 showed the unequivocal willingness of the youth, the workers, peasants and the immense majority of the Venezuelan people to re-elect President Chavez, defend the revolution and take it to the end, to radicalise it after the elections. In reality, it was not a march, as it was not possible to march with so many people on the streets! It was an entire people who decided to dress in red and take the streets to tell the imperialists and the oligarchy... if you dare you will lose.
Continue the mobilisations, remain vigilant and organised
However there is a danger: and we believe the only way to overcome it is to demonstrate that we are more. If anyone had any doubts, the mobilisation on November 26, clearly showed who is stronger. However, in order to win we must organise and mobilise our force permanently, and prepare it for the battle and make it conscious of its tasks. The counter-revolutionary opposition and the imperialists are mobilising the same counter-revolutionary social base as they did in April and December 2002. They know that they have absolutely no chance of winning the elections. However this is not even their objective. Their objective is to radicalise the right-wing and launch a new counter-revolutionary offensive as soon as possible. If they believe that they could do this on December 3, they will. For that reason it is not enough to take the streets for the first few hours of the vote. We must be organised and vigilant in the streets for the whole day, near voting centres and near all strategic points (centres of communication, the neighbourhoods, main economic centres, centres of oil production, electricity, the big factories and enterprises) and to act before an counter-revolutionary manoeuvres.
History is full of examples of small but well organised armies, with a prepared leadership with clear objectives, that have been able to defeat larger armies without a clear plan. Unfortunately, we have also seen this in the history of revolutions. We must remember Chile in 1973, to mention just one of the most painful examples.
The Red Tsunami has undoubtedly frightened and caused splits in the leadership of the counter-revolution. But we must understand that the oligarchy and imperialism will never accept the revolution and will attempt to use any relaxation, any error, and any opening we give them to attack. There is disturbing news coming from high officials, and we cannot be certain whether other sectors of the state are acting together with the enemies of the revolution. We have also seen reports on various newspapers and magazines financed by imperialism (Newsweek, The Miami Herald, The Centinel) which are undoubtedly preparing the ground for a new counter-revolutionary offensive, both nationally and internationally.
A victory for Chavez will push the struggle against imperialism and capitalism forward throughout the world
The Venezuelan revolution and President Chavez are a point of reference for workers and youth, not only in Latin America, but throughout the world. A massive electoral victory will be a defeat for imperialism and will push the struggle of the masses against imperialism and capitalism forward throughout the whole world. The counter-revolution will do everything in their power to stop this victory, and if they cannot do that, everything they can to distort it. But this would only be the first step towards crushing the revolution in any way they can. The only way to prevent them from mobilising their social base and defeating any counter-revolutionary attempts against the revolution is to make it clear to all sectors ready to defend the revolution that we must be break with capitalism and quickly advance to socialism. We are more, and we are ready, united, and organised around a plan of struggle.
"Oligarchs tremble!" - If they dare they will regret it
For these reasons the Revolutionary Marxist Current (CMR) and the Revolutionary Front of Occupied Factories (FRETECO) have joined Plan "Oligarchy Tremble" which several organisations, capable of mobilising the revolutionary left, such as the National Peasant Front Ezequiel Zamora (FNCEZ), the Venezuela Popular Unity (UPV), the Alexis Vive Front, Simon Bolivar Committee, have organised. These organisations, while maintaining their differences and their different political and ideological programmes have agreed to act in unity in defence of the revolution and for the advance of the revolution against any counter-revolutionary attempt
On election day the CMR proposes
1. To begin mobilising from dawn, as Chavez has urged, for a massive vote.
2. To stay in groups and alert at all centres of popular organisations, workplaces, the media and the state, the occupied factories, the agrarian cooperatives, etc. which are near the voting centres. All revolutionary organisations must stay in constant communication with each other as well as with the Sala Situacional of the Plan "Oligarchy tremble".
3. FRETECO has called upon all workers in occupied factories or factories under cogestión to be prepared to defend their factories against any attack as well as to be prepared to respond to any revolutionary offensive that takes place.
4. We call upon all the different currents in the UNT to call upon the rest of the workers to be vigilant at their workplaces, and at all media centres, strategic locations to defend against any attempt at economic sabotage or a coup. The workers must be prepared to occupy these strategic centres and run them under workers' control, as was done in December 2002 during the bosses' lockout.
5. The coordination organised between the above mentioned organisations must be extended to all revolutionaries that want to defend the revolution and take it forward. If the counter-revolution moves, we propose that all revolutionary collectives, social movements, communal councils, militant trade unions, form united committees and assemblies to organise the united action of the entire revolutionary movement.
6. We must respond in unity and massively against any attempt of the counter-revolution without giving in to any provocations. We must call upon the government to base itself on the mobilisation and organisation of the people in unity with the revolutionary sectors to defend the revolution.
7. In order to do this it is also necessary that revolutionary sectors in the armed forces get organised and form Action Committees to isolate and neutralise infiltrators and counter-revolutionaries and to coordinate their actions with the working class and the organised people. It is essential that the government guarantee that the different revolutionary organisations and popular assemblies can create a mass movement in order to defeat a possible coup attempt and allow them to take the necessary measures to defend the revolution.
If we are prepared, and act decisively and make it clear from the beginning that the counter-revolution has everything to lose, the immense majority of their social base will not dare to face the organised people. One thing is clear: whether they decide to accept the victory or manoeuvre against it (fraud, a coup, or a combination of the two), the vote for Chavez on December 3 is only the first essential step in the struggle. After the victory on December 3 there is only one alternative before us: the revolution advances decisively towards the expropriation of the capitalists and resolves the problems capitalism has condemned us to face such as the lack of decent housing, unemployment, poverty, etc. or, if the sabotage of the capitalists continues and the bureaucrats and reformists continue to put the brakes on the revolution, the revolution can be seriously threatened and the masses can begin to fall into demoralisation and frustration. This is the greatest danger facing any revolution.
10 million reasons to expropriate the capitalists
The sabotage of the capitalists is permanent. It is expressed in the shortage of supplies, price hike, investment and credit strikes, the sabotage of the progressive plans of the government, the closing or under utilisation of factories and companies. The latest example is the closing of Sanitarios Maracay. The whole of the workers' movement must respond as the workers of Sanitarios Maracay did. They occupied their factory, running it under workers'control, they are selling their products to the community at solidarity prices and have elected a Factory Council of recallable representatives so that they themselves can manage the factory while at the same time demand its nationalisation under workers' control. This is the road that the revolution must take after the elections.
The banks, the big factories and companies, and the land must become the property of the state, However, the state must be controlled and run by the workers and not by a bureaucracy against the masses. After the victory on December 3, it is essential that the present state apparatus and all the capitalist laws that put the brakes on the advance of the revolution are replaced with a genuine revolutionary state based on elected recallable representatives of revolutionary assemblies of the workers, peasants together with the revolutionary people. Only in this way can we make a democratically planned socialist economy a reality and solve the social problems and open the road from Venezuela to a socialist Latin America, and a socialist world.