Eugenio Montejo
We’ve lost Eugenio Montejo, one of the noblest voices amid the poetry written in the tongue of those who pray to God in Spanish – as Rubén Darío said in one of his verses. However, this mini-columnist cannot speak of the poet. Others do so today with superior knowledge than my own. Instead, I have to say something about Eugenio Montejo the citizen. A citizen of this republic whose torments were never foreign to him. Dante reserved one of the worst places in hell for those who during times of profound moral crisis opted for the comfortable posture of silence or for an accommodating “neutrality.” Montejo wasn’t one of those. A profound sense of moral duty, much more than a political one, made him negate all pretensions that his work be used as an instrument by a regime that, without gesticulations and from his discrete position in public life, he rejected with absolute firmness as an expression of a moral decadence that repulsed him. This country is fortunate that it can depend on poet-philosophers – as Francisco Rodríguez so accurately describes them – such as him and Rafael Cadenas, who are able to give sustenance, with their mere conduct as citizens, to the deep moral revulsion these Venezuelan times inevitably generate in all good people. Of the poet, his pure verses remain, with their robust simplicity and density, along with the sage chronicles of his various heteronyms and the example of his moral rectitude. This is no minor legacy for the country he loved.
{ Simón Boccanegra, Tal Cual, 9 June 2008 }
Showing posts with label Teodoro Petkoff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teodoro Petkoff. Show all posts
6.10.2008
4.21.2008
Stalinismo tropical / Teodoro Petkoff
Tropical Stalinism
This year the government’s celebration of the events of April 2002 had a precise objective: to destroy the figure of general Raúl Baduel. The vast amounts of hot air spent during those days, Yo El Supremo’s superfluous speeches broadcast on required TV and radio bulletins, the liturgy of Puente Llaguno and general García Carneiro’s intervention, all had a guiding thread: to demonstrate that Baduel had nothing to do with the president’s return to Miraflores Palace and that this “Hero of the Revolution” is actually nothing more than a traitor.
The procedure recalls the manipulations of history that took place in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s era and which always ended, after a certain amount of time, not only with the death but also the disappearance from history of the people Stalin condemned. It would begin with a campaign of insults against the “enemies” that covered them in mud, in order to then, once they were sufficiently destroyed politically and morally in the eyes of the citizenry, not only execute but also erase them from history with impunity. Stalin dedicated himself with zeal to destroying in this manner the entire Bolshevik elite who led the revolution of 1917. In this manner the great leaders of the Bolshevik assault, along with thousands of old revolutionary fighters, were erased from history, including Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin and finally Leon Trotsky himself. The slaughter had a quality that could seem comical if it hadn’t been such a tragedy: each time Stalin liquidated a member of the communist directorate of 1917, that individual was eliminated from the photographs where he appeared as a leader. So every year the official photographs had to be retouched.
Fidel Castro has also been given to these types of exercises, although with less amplitude than what was done in the USSR. There is a famous photograph of Castro with Carlos Franqui, the director of Radio Rebelde in the Sierra Maestra mountains and later one of the first dissidents, standing to his right. After Franqui left Cuba, he too was taken out of the photo.
This constitutes one of the profound differences between a democratic conception of life and a totalitarian one. A democratic vision of history assumes contradictions. No one would think of erasing general Manuel Piar from our history. A totalitarian regime, on the other hand, is proud of projecting a monolithic image. Both the part relating to past history, of which it claims to be a descendant, as well its own, cannot present fissures or contradictions, and much less positions countering the leader.
We continue to be perplexed by the effort to copy practices that are not just aberrant but frankly stupid, such as the notion of writing history to please the chief. But, on the other hand, if this Stalinist campaign against him demonstrates anything, it’s the importance of having the name Raúl Baduel.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, Tal Cual, 21 April 2008 }
This year the government’s celebration of the events of April 2002 had a precise objective: to destroy the figure of general Raúl Baduel. The vast amounts of hot air spent during those days, Yo El Supremo’s superfluous speeches broadcast on required TV and radio bulletins, the liturgy of Puente Llaguno and general García Carneiro’s intervention, all had a guiding thread: to demonstrate that Baduel had nothing to do with the president’s return to Miraflores Palace and that this “Hero of the Revolution” is actually nothing more than a traitor.
The procedure recalls the manipulations of history that took place in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s era and which always ended, after a certain amount of time, not only with the death but also the disappearance from history of the people Stalin condemned. It would begin with a campaign of insults against the “enemies” that covered them in mud, in order to then, once they were sufficiently destroyed politically and morally in the eyes of the citizenry, not only execute but also erase them from history with impunity. Stalin dedicated himself with zeal to destroying in this manner the entire Bolshevik elite who led the revolution of 1917. In this manner the great leaders of the Bolshevik assault, along with thousands of old revolutionary fighters, were erased from history, including Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin and finally Leon Trotsky himself. The slaughter had a quality that could seem comical if it hadn’t been such a tragedy: each time Stalin liquidated a member of the communist directorate of 1917, that individual was eliminated from the photographs where he appeared as a leader. So every year the official photographs had to be retouched.
Fidel Castro has also been given to these types of exercises, although with less amplitude than what was done in the USSR. There is a famous photograph of Castro with Carlos Franqui, the director of Radio Rebelde in the Sierra Maestra mountains and later one of the first dissidents, standing to his right. After Franqui left Cuba, he too was taken out of the photo.
This constitutes one of the profound differences between a democratic conception of life and a totalitarian one. A democratic vision of history assumes contradictions. No one would think of erasing general Manuel Piar from our history. A totalitarian regime, on the other hand, is proud of projecting a monolithic image. Both the part relating to past history, of which it claims to be a descendant, as well its own, cannot present fissures or contradictions, and much less positions countering the leader.
We continue to be perplexed by the effort to copy practices that are not just aberrant but frankly stupid, such as the notion of writing history to please the chief. But, on the other hand, if this Stalinist campaign against him demonstrates anything, it’s the importance of having the name Raúl Baduel.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, Tal Cual, 21 April 2008 }
4.08.2008
Monte Ávila, Rafael Cadenas, Carlos Noguera / Simón Boccanegra
Monte Ávila, Rafael Cadenas, Carlos Noguera
Assuming as reliable the information provided by a professor at UCV’s Escuela de Letras regarding a supposed veto against the work of Rafael Cadenas by Monte Ávila, this mini-columnist made the mistake of publishing a critical note about the matter, revealing my surprise about such behavior coming from Carlos Noguera, the director of the State’s publishing house. Well, the information I commented on doesn’t coincide with the truth. The exact opposite is the case. It is Cadenas himself, along with Eugenio Montejo, who refuses to publish his work with Monte Ávila. Moreover, Noguera has made efforts to publish the verse of the great poet from the state of Lara. So, I apologize to Carlos Noguera for having attributed a censor’s spirit to him. Having received the information, it left me a bit perplexed because I know Noguera well enough to realize that intolerance isn’t one of his characteristic traits. Forgive me, my friend, but in such singular times as these, when the weirdest things happen, and after one has seen so many old friends, once furious critics of Stalinism, who become mute when faced with Farruco [Sesto]’s abuses and other excesses in the cultural landscape, I attributed to you a responsibility that isn’t yours. I’m happy to know you don’t run with that crowd.
{ Simón Boccanegra, Tal Cual, 8 April 2008 }
Assuming as reliable the information provided by a professor at UCV’s Escuela de Letras regarding a supposed veto against the work of Rafael Cadenas by Monte Ávila, this mini-columnist made the mistake of publishing a critical note about the matter, revealing my surprise about such behavior coming from Carlos Noguera, the director of the State’s publishing house. Well, the information I commented on doesn’t coincide with the truth. The exact opposite is the case. It is Cadenas himself, along with Eugenio Montejo, who refuses to publish his work with Monte Ávila. Moreover, Noguera has made efforts to publish the verse of the great poet from the state of Lara. So, I apologize to Carlos Noguera for having attributed a censor’s spirit to him. Having received the information, it left me a bit perplexed because I know Noguera well enough to realize that intolerance isn’t one of his characteristic traits. Forgive me, my friend, but in such singular times as these, when the weirdest things happen, and after one has seen so many old friends, once furious critics of Stalinism, who become mute when faced with Farruco [Sesto]’s abuses and other excesses in the cultural landscape, I attributed to you a responsibility that isn’t yours. I’m happy to know you don’t run with that crowd.
{ Simón Boccanegra, Tal Cual, 8 April 2008 }
1.24.2008
¿Otra dictadura? ¡Jamás! / Teodoro Petkoff
Another Dictatorship? Never!
Half a century ago, on a day like yesterday, an uprising of the Venezuelan masses, represented by the residents of Caracas, overthrew the military dictatorship of [Marcos] Pérez Jiménez. In order to produce that result, three central factors converged. First, the unifying agreement of that era’s political forces, who created the Junta Patriótica as an organ to direct the joint effort; second, the uprising of the Caraqueño masses, which began with the general strike on the 21st; third, the final intervention of the Armed Forces (already fractured internally, as evidenced by the February 1st rebellion), who when faced with the political bankruptcy of the dictatorship, took out the chair from under the feet of the General who had ruled in their name, forcing him to stand in the dust.
One historical lesson remains from that day and the events leading to it: the Venezuelan nation is not willing to tolerate an indefinite confiscation of its freedoms by a dictatorship. The people rose up because of apparently abstract things such as freedom and democracy. It’s relevant to remember that the popular revolt began to brew when the dictator tried, by means of the artifice of a plebiscite, to give his mandate a continuity beyond the period established by the Constitution. Ironically, Pérez Jiménez was strangled by his own Constitution. So, it wasn’t necessarily due to strictly material reasons – though these did contribute to the climate that made the insurrection possible – but instead to a democratic complaint: the right to choose; to choose in the widest sense and not only in the political sphere, which had been severely wounded by a dictatorship that made law of the General-dictator’s will.
This is what establishes a link between 23 January 1958 and 2 December 2007. On the latter date, less than two months ago, the nation gave a “back off,” this time peaceful and electoral, to the attempt to eternally install a political regime by means of a constitutional reform that attacked not only the right to choose but would have also transformed into constitutional norm a project that gave the State an invasive power in the private lives of citizens, a move that can only be described as totalitarian. On this occasion, Venezuelans once again came out to defend democracy’s substantive values. On December 2nd, just like fifty years ago, the people mobilized again behind the flag of freedom. Those who aspire to give orders for life should never forget the words of Alonso Quijano, known as Don Quixote: “For the sake of freedom, Sancho, as well as for honor, one can and must venture for the sake of life and, conversely, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall men.” This is what the Venezuelan masses believe in.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, Tal Cual, 24 January 2008 }
Half a century ago, on a day like yesterday, an uprising of the Venezuelan masses, represented by the residents of Caracas, overthrew the military dictatorship of [Marcos] Pérez Jiménez. In order to produce that result, three central factors converged. First, the unifying agreement of that era’s political forces, who created the Junta Patriótica as an organ to direct the joint effort; second, the uprising of the Caraqueño masses, which began with the general strike on the 21st; third, the final intervention of the Armed Forces (already fractured internally, as evidenced by the February 1st rebellion), who when faced with the political bankruptcy of the dictatorship, took out the chair from under the feet of the General who had ruled in their name, forcing him to stand in the dust.
One historical lesson remains from that day and the events leading to it: the Venezuelan nation is not willing to tolerate an indefinite confiscation of its freedoms by a dictatorship. The people rose up because of apparently abstract things such as freedom and democracy. It’s relevant to remember that the popular revolt began to brew when the dictator tried, by means of the artifice of a plebiscite, to give his mandate a continuity beyond the period established by the Constitution. Ironically, Pérez Jiménez was strangled by his own Constitution. So, it wasn’t necessarily due to strictly material reasons – though these did contribute to the climate that made the insurrection possible – but instead to a democratic complaint: the right to choose; to choose in the widest sense and not only in the political sphere, which had been severely wounded by a dictatorship that made law of the General-dictator’s will.
This is what establishes a link between 23 January 1958 and 2 December 2007. On the latter date, less than two months ago, the nation gave a “back off,” this time peaceful and electoral, to the attempt to eternally install a political regime by means of a constitutional reform that attacked not only the right to choose but would have also transformed into constitutional norm a project that gave the State an invasive power in the private lives of citizens, a move that can only be described as totalitarian. On this occasion, Venezuelans once again came out to defend democracy’s substantive values. On December 2nd, just like fifty years ago, the people mobilized again behind the flag of freedom. Those who aspire to give orders for life should never forget the words of Alonso Quijano, known as Don Quixote: “For the sake of freedom, Sancho, as well as for honor, one can and must venture for the sake of life and, conversely, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall men.” This is what the Venezuelan masses believe in.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, Tal Cual, 24 January 2008 }
11.08.2007
Los estudiantes / Teodoro Petkoff
The Students
The students, ah the students. You can imagine the bitterness of the leader of the “revolution” and “socialism” now that he’s facing off against the students. The man who has managed the power of symbols so efficiently, who has created so many symbolic images (“missions,” “Santa Inés,” “Maisanta,” “squalid ones,” and many others) that trap the minds of his followers and inflame their hearts, he knows perfectly well the symbolic value of young people – the country’s future, as the saying goes – rejecting his regime. That’s why he seems to be so out of his wits. Chávez understands perfectly well that when the kids are marching on the streets and the government has nothing else to use against them but tanks, national guards and police, the “revolution” ends up looking “skinny, wilted and undone.” The “revolution” has already become an anachronism, it’s stuck in the past, it lost the future and its present is an ancient, vacillating, erratic, shaky old lady. For the first time in this war of symbols – which has been waged these past eight, almost nine, years –, Big Papi is on his knees.
This is no longer the government of a revolution, it is simply just another government, the same as so many others we’ve had before, whose response to the students on the street is the same as yesterday’s: batons, water cannons, tear gas, sadistic brutality. In his desperation, conscious of the effect of the powerful image of thousands upon thousands of defiant girls and boys, throughout the entire country, Chacumbele tries out that same old, worn-out trick. “Mama’s boys,” “rich kids,” “puppies of the oligarchy,” these are the insults he expels through his mouth in a pathetic attempt to disqualify his opponent, who now steps onto his terrain. But there’s no way for him to downplay his opponent’s gains. The students have always been loved in Venezuela. There hasn’t been a dictatorship that didn’t have them as enemies, and the masses have always felt themselves represented by them.
He had to swallow the threats he made on Sunday. He thought he’d be able to intimidate the students and their answer was a proud, “Who said fear!” There’s a new political actor on the scene. He’s been absent for over two decades, but he has reappeared, with a full tank, the vanguard of a country that today, even within the ranks of the masses who vote for Chávez, honestly asks itself what abyss the President intends for us. The NO to the constitutional referendum grows gigantic. The disposition to defeat the self-continuing and totalitarian intent, with vote in hand, is receiving a formidable impulse. The battering ram emerges from the classrooms.
*
Wednesday’s march was majestic. Well organized, with the students themselves preventing any actions by provocateurs or hotheads. They accomplished their objective to reach the Supreme Court. The response from the regime’s fascist-gangster squads was the assault on the Universidad Central de Venezuela [when students returned from the march], with its sum of students wounded by gunshots. Desperation is beginning to take hold of the Constitutional “reformers.” Their masks are falling off, in effect; the masks of those who lack any reason besides brute force. They’re hoping for a pretext to take over the university. They provoke violence so as to invoke government violence. What a contrast between the students’ march and the treacherous, cowardly and armed attack against the students and the university! The attack is the echo of Chávez’s speech last Sunday.
[Photo: Saúl Uzcátegui / Tal Cual]
{ Teodoro Petkoff, Tal Cual, 8 October 2007 }
The students, ah the students. You can imagine the bitterness of the leader of the “revolution” and “socialism” now that he’s facing off against the students. The man who has managed the power of symbols so efficiently, who has created so many symbolic images (“missions,” “Santa Inés,” “Maisanta,” “squalid ones,” and many others) that trap the minds of his followers and inflame their hearts, he knows perfectly well the symbolic value of young people – the country’s future, as the saying goes – rejecting his regime. That’s why he seems to be so out of his wits. Chávez understands perfectly well that when the kids are marching on the streets and the government has nothing else to use against them but tanks, national guards and police, the “revolution” ends up looking “skinny, wilted and undone.” The “revolution” has already become an anachronism, it’s stuck in the past, it lost the future and its present is an ancient, vacillating, erratic, shaky old lady. For the first time in this war of symbols – which has been waged these past eight, almost nine, years –, Big Papi is on his knees.
This is no longer the government of a revolution, it is simply just another government, the same as so many others we’ve had before, whose response to the students on the street is the same as yesterday’s: batons, water cannons, tear gas, sadistic brutality. In his desperation, conscious of the effect of the powerful image of thousands upon thousands of defiant girls and boys, throughout the entire country, Chacumbele tries out that same old, worn-out trick. “Mama’s boys,” “rich kids,” “puppies of the oligarchy,” these are the insults he expels through his mouth in a pathetic attempt to disqualify his opponent, who now steps onto his terrain. But there’s no way for him to downplay his opponent’s gains. The students have always been loved in Venezuela. There hasn’t been a dictatorship that didn’t have them as enemies, and the masses have always felt themselves represented by them.
He had to swallow the threats he made on Sunday. He thought he’d be able to intimidate the students and their answer was a proud, “Who said fear!” There’s a new political actor on the scene. He’s been absent for over two decades, but he has reappeared, with a full tank, the vanguard of a country that today, even within the ranks of the masses who vote for Chávez, honestly asks itself what abyss the President intends for us. The NO to the constitutional referendum grows gigantic. The disposition to defeat the self-continuing and totalitarian intent, with vote in hand, is receiving a formidable impulse. The battering ram emerges from the classrooms.
*
Wednesday’s march was majestic. Well organized, with the students themselves preventing any actions by provocateurs or hotheads. They accomplished their objective to reach the Supreme Court. The response from the regime’s fascist-gangster squads was the assault on the Universidad Central de Venezuela [when students returned from the march], with its sum of students wounded by gunshots. Desperation is beginning to take hold of the Constitutional “reformers.” Their masks are falling off, in effect; the masks of those who lack any reason besides brute force. They’re hoping for a pretext to take over the university. They provoke violence so as to invoke government violence. What a contrast between the students’ march and the treacherous, cowardly and armed attack against the students and the university! The attack is the echo of Chávez’s speech last Sunday.
[Photo: Saúl Uzcátegui / Tal Cual]
{ Teodoro Petkoff, Tal Cual, 8 October 2007 }
11.07.2007
Contragolpe de Baduel / Teodoro Petkoff
Countercoup by Baduel
Coherence is one of Raúl Baduel’s virtues. His speech yesterday is absolutely coherent within the context of his institutional career. The citizen Raúl Baduel who yesterday assumed the defense of the Constitution, rejecting Chávez’s reform, is the same general Raúl Baduel who in April 2002, also in defense of the Constitution, was the decisive factor in the defeat of the coup and the return of the president to Miraflores Palace. And he is the same general Raúl Baduel, commander of the Army and later Minister of Defense, who always maintained his institutional role, expressing his disagreements through regular channels, without ever breaking away from the discipline and obedience that bound him to his hierarchical superior. It is the same general Raúl Baduel who, when he handed over his ministry last summer, gave a historic speech where he already announced his differences with the Chavista project, which were reaffirmed in his words yesterday. Baduel is a democratic officer, not a coup plotter and his conduct cannot be judged with the reigning view among certain sectors who intend to make impatience a policy, and who have scolded him for not speaking out earlier. He spoke when he needed to, free from the disciplinary constriction imposed on him by his condition as a soldier. Precisely because he is a professional – which is what a member of the Armed Forces should be – and not a politician, he didn’t use the military tribune for political plans, which in his case would have been a coup plotting plan.
Faithful to himself and to his civil and democratic convictions, committed, as we can see he continues to be, to a project of social change, yes, but unavoidably democratic, he drove home his declaration by calling on Venezuelans to use the path of the vote to defeat Hugo Chávez’s self-perpetuating and neo-totalitarian aspirations. He called on people to vote NO in the referendum. He spoke for the National Armed Forces, of course, but as a part of the country, not as a guide for them, so they might reflect alongside millions of Venezuelans who hold in their hands the power to prevent Hugo Chávez’s reactionary and proto-totalitarian project from consolidating itself, by defeating it in the referendum.
The impact of his speech is measured by Chávez’s reaction. First he placed his usual worshipers, the deputies of his power, to try and refute Baduel, and later on he dusted off two of his former Ministers of Defense so they could babble a few trivialities against Baduel. It will be useless. The rejection of the Constitutional reform is a stream of gunpowder.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, Tal Cual, 6 November 2007 }
Coherence is one of Raúl Baduel’s virtues. His speech yesterday is absolutely coherent within the context of his institutional career. The citizen Raúl Baduel who yesterday assumed the defense of the Constitution, rejecting Chávez’s reform, is the same general Raúl Baduel who in April 2002, also in defense of the Constitution, was the decisive factor in the defeat of the coup and the return of the president to Miraflores Palace. And he is the same general Raúl Baduel, commander of the Army and later Minister of Defense, who always maintained his institutional role, expressing his disagreements through regular channels, without ever breaking away from the discipline and obedience that bound him to his hierarchical superior. It is the same general Raúl Baduel who, when he handed over his ministry last summer, gave a historic speech where he already announced his differences with the Chavista project, which were reaffirmed in his words yesterday. Baduel is a democratic officer, not a coup plotter and his conduct cannot be judged with the reigning view among certain sectors who intend to make impatience a policy, and who have scolded him for not speaking out earlier. He spoke when he needed to, free from the disciplinary constriction imposed on him by his condition as a soldier. Precisely because he is a professional – which is what a member of the Armed Forces should be – and not a politician, he didn’t use the military tribune for political plans, which in his case would have been a coup plotting plan.
Faithful to himself and to his civil and democratic convictions, committed, as we can see he continues to be, to a project of social change, yes, but unavoidably democratic, he drove home his declaration by calling on Venezuelans to use the path of the vote to defeat Hugo Chávez’s self-perpetuating and neo-totalitarian aspirations. He called on people to vote NO in the referendum. He spoke for the National Armed Forces, of course, but as a part of the country, not as a guide for them, so they might reflect alongside millions of Venezuelans who hold in their hands the power to prevent Hugo Chávez’s reactionary and proto-totalitarian project from consolidating itself, by defeating it in the referendum.
The impact of his speech is measured by Chávez’s reaction. First he placed his usual worshipers, the deputies of his power, to try and refute Baduel, and later on he dusted off two of his former Ministers of Defense so they could babble a few trivialities against Baduel. It will be useless. The rejection of the Constitutional reform is a stream of gunpowder.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, Tal Cual, 6 November 2007 }
8.02.2007
El socialismo irreal
[Oswaldo Barreto & Teodoro Petkoff, Caracas, 17 July 2007. Photo: Saúl Uzcátegui for Tal Cual]A couple weeks ago I attended the presentation for Teodoro Petkoff’s new book, El socialismo irreal (Caracas: Editorial Alfa, 2007), at the Alejandría III bookstore in Chacaíto, Caracas. The book was presented by Petkoff’s friend and colleague at his newspaper Tal Cual, the sociologist and professor Oswaldo Barreto. Petkoff also spoke about El socialismo irreal [Unreal Socialism], which is a republication of two texts from the 1970s, Checoeslovakia, el socialismo como problema (1971) and Proceso a la izquierda (1976). These essays were very influential when they were first published and have been out of print for several years. They represent Petkoff’s effort to forge a theoretical path away from the armed insurrection he led in the 1960s, as well as his formal break with the Venezuelan communist party (PCV) after his repudiation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. As Barreto and Petkoff both pointed out, the topic addressed in these essays, namely, the possibility of creating a space for democratic socialism, remains a vital issue in Venezuela, as the country endures a prolonged political labyrinth under Chavismo with no foreseeable resolution.
The small bookstore was packed for the event, yet another sign of Venezuela’s thriving literary world, with bookstores full of new publications, reading groups sprouting up, and presentations & readings taking place on a weekly basis. Among the poets, novelists, historians, journalists and political figures in attendance that night (that I noticed) were Elizabeth Burgos, Inés Quintero, Ibsen Martínez, Alberto Barrera Tyszka, Rafael Cadenas, Pompeyo Márquez, Manuel Caballero, Sergio Dahbar, Elías Pino Iturrieta, Mayé Primera Garces, Alonso Moleiro and Américo Martín. The large and enthusiastic audience reflects Petkoff’s ability to gather an astonishing array of writers around his small newspaper, which in seven years has become a crucial forum for critiques of Chavismo from the left and center. Petkoff’s daily editorials, along with the op-ed pieces of Tal Cual’s columnists, continue to offer insights on Venezuela’s convoluted political and cultural landscape. Although the Venezuelan government has already tried to silence Tal Cual, the newspaper remains a vibrant reference point for many Venezuelans on all sides of the political divide.
I’ve been a close reader of Barreto’s two Tal Cual columns, “Pórtico” and “Balanza de Palabra,” and I've been translating selections from them into English at this blog for several years now, so it was a pleasure to have the chance to hear him speak. Standing with Petkoff on a banister overlooking the audience, he read from a three-page essay with a slow cadence attuned to his rich and allusive prose style. He began with a comment citing Petkoff’s demand of his Tal Cual writers that their texts be succinct. He evoked a decades-long friendship with Petkoff, dating back to their clandestine efforts against the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez in the 1950s and their militancy as members of the PCV and the guerrilla insurgency during the presidency of Rómulo Betancourt in the 1960s. Barreto spoke of these essays as crucial moments that signaled a shift away from armed combat for many Venezuelan communists, as well as a lucid critique of Soviet policy in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere. For him, these two essays are now autonomous entities, free from their author and the period from which they sprouted. They now exist in this new edition to help create problems and solutions for readers, particularly for those of us from younger generations.
Without being nostalgic, Barreto described the utopian ideals that moved them in the 1950s and 60s and how those values underwent a gradual transformation that has yet to conclude. He finished his essay, read with a cadence and intonation that at times brought to mind declaimed poetry, with an anecdote about Petkoff’s friend Gabriel García Márquez. It concerned a Venezuelan graduate student who visited García Márquez in Barcelona, Spain to discuss her dissertation on his work. In response to her questions about his novels, García Márquez told her that his character Colonel Aureliano Buendía was a “son of a bitch” and that he didn’t really like him, that his characters weren’t always under his control. Barreto’s anecdote was a way to remind us of a text’s independence from its author, how our own words can shift and take on a life of their own.
In his Friday column later that week, Barreto addressed the book further, writing:
“ (...) In the end every book is always susceptible to new readings, even on the part of a single person, since, parodying the most famous of Heraclitus’s fragments and inverting it, we can be sure that no book presents itself twice in front of the same pair of eyes. Thus, today we can find in the pages of El socialismo irreal what we didn’t see back then or what we didn’t suspect until today might be hidden within them.
For example, we can read luminous observations about the fatal nexus between imposed socialism and dictatorial forms of government, or about the inevitable rise and expansion of enormous state bureaucracies to which the government adjudicates the task of building intended forms of socialist life that no one is seeking or desiring.
(...) What El socialismo irreal highlights with unquestionable rigor and depth, is fundamentally aligned with the relations that exist between ideas and the possibility of realizing them, or between thought and will. The imagined project is one thing and the possibility of its realization another. What Teodoro saw in his passionate analysis and what he has communicated to us about situations with no exit, the great failures to which we can be led by the desire to impose certain ideals where the material and spiritual conditions don’t exist for men to experience them as their own, well, of course this speaks to directly and eloquently to all of us Venezuelans today.” (“Actualidad de El socialismo real,” Tal Cual, 20 July 2007)
Petkoff’s comments began with an observation on the generational gap he sees in Venezuela, and that he hoped these two essays might serve as an entry point for younger people to study the debates surrounding socialism, a concept now being used for authoritarian purposes by the Venezuelan government. He mentioned the experience of his daughter, in attendance that night, who was born in Bulgaria (Petkoff is the son of Bulgarian immigrants to Venezuela). When she left Bulgaria in her teens she was forced to endure an excruciating and Kafkaesque series of interviews and bureaucratic travails in order to be issued a passport. For him, Kafkaesque is a word that describes much of what’s happening in Venezuela under Chavismo. He wondered if the word “socialism” could ever be recovered from the horrible uses it was given throughout the 20th century. Petkoff suggested that socialism would carry the weight of its past mistakes for a long time, making an exploration of its definition a painful and difficult process.
In the prologue to this new edition, he situates his two essays within the context of Venezuela’s political map and what he sees as a disappearance of the ideal of a humane socialism:
“El socialismo irreal speaks, then, of what could have been socialism with a human face which was tragically frustrated in Prague and vanished definitively from the historical horizon, once the vices we’ve addressed here were not able to be corrected – without, on the other hand, any pretense of originality, but with the will to reveal them completely, even if their nakedness might cause us pain and fear.” (8-9)
Petkoff’s introduction to the 1991 edition of Checoeslovakia, el socialismo como problema, included in this volume, addresses the danger of the authoritarian impulse in socialist experiments of the 20th century. He notes a continuity of themes leading from the Prague spring of 1968 to the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989. In his words, one finds the uncanny repetition of history that equates aspects of Prague and Moscow then to Caracas today:
“An autocratic political regime, but, above all, totalitarian, according to the Soviet model, inexorably leads to the isolation of leaders from their own people. The lack of democratic and plural institutions for deliberation makes a dialogue with the nation impossible. The leader only hears his own voice, reproduced in monochromatic parliaments, which gather a few days per year to approve, always unanimously, what the leaders--when not the leader--have decided. No feedback exists between government and nation. No institutional mediation exists between the masses and the heights of power which might create a canal that allows for the circulation of information in both directions. If we factor in the uniformity and control by the state of the means of communication, what is then achieved is the disarticulation of public opinion, which ceases to exist as an operative force of society. It becomes clandestine. At the same time, the regimentation of cultural life drowns the critical role that, in general, is usually played by intellectuals. With this situation the system loses one of its most important vaccines against sclerosis. Intellectuals then become either conformists or they “exile” themselves within their own country, or they abandon it. Or they invent the samizdat, which like a dark spinning top continues to feed the spirit that suddenly produces “springtime” explosions.” (30)
A week after the presentation of El socialismo irreal, the lawyer and analyst León Arismendi wrote about the evening for Tal Cual. He brought up the issue of generational conduits and history’s vicious repetitions.
“ (...) Teodoro’s brief words for this event couldn’t have been more heartrending and in them, as in Oswaldo’s, I can’t help noticing the existential drama of a generation that, to say it with one of Alfredo Padilla’s genial “self-critical” phrases, spent half a life fighting on behalf of communism and the other half, having realized the failure of that endeavor, toiling for a rectification.
It’s significant and seems to be the result of a fatality, that after long and torturous debates, after so many encounters and separations; after the majority of the Venezuelan left had broken ranks with the Soviet anachronisms and had understood that democracy and socialism should integrate into an inseparable juncture; after a great deal of intellectual and practical effort, we now see the rebirth of the totalitarian specter and its deeds, as if everything that had been said and done had fallen into an abyss.
The spokesmen for Chavismo, with their leader at the front, repeat the old communist discourse as though they were reinventing the wheel and they have all the intentions of imposing such a thing on Venezuelan society. All you have to do is listen to the young defenders of the proceso speaking to discover the source that inspires them. Even the tone of their voices sounds Cuban. Would it be too much to ask them to read El socialismo irreal?” (“El socialismo irreal,” Tal Cual, 23 July 2007)
I’ve just begun reading the book, so it will be a while before I can comment on it here. What remains indelible for me is the enthusiasm in the bookstore that evening, as people bought books, drank wine and talked. My father recognized many faces he hadn’t seen since his days as a student at UCV in the 1960s. People were laughing & smiling, unphased by the TV and radio cameras there to record the presentation. My father and I left the mall as the event was dwindling, walked through the trees and benches of Plaza Brión and went to eat arepas at a late-night café a few blocks away. Literary production and conversation as two modes of understanding an irremediably convoluted country.
5.17.2007
El gran gurú / Teodoro Petkoff
The Great Guru
A young man by the last name of Monedero, who belongs to a Spanish political group called Izquierda Unida, which never receives more than 5% of the votes in that country, seems to be the new ideological guru of “the process” in Venezuela. In this position he succeeds Norberto Ceresole and Heinz Dieterich, that pair of charlatans who’ve already been exiled by Chávez from his ideological library of mummies. In the interview conducted by Alejandro Botía, published last Monday here in TalCual, Monedero taught us how the social democratic models of Europe cannot be repeated in Latin America: “The European welfare system, as I’ve been explaining, functions with certain previous elements that aren’t viable in Latin America.”
There’s a supremacist stance in this attitude, an ethnocentric, European arrogance, an imperial and discriminatory world vision that, like all the radical leftists from over there, Monedero never manages to conceal. Democracy, a mixed economy, the balance of State and market, social security, in sum, social democracy – Monedero tells us –, is something that belongs to us white people, the educated, the inheritors of two millennia of Judeo-Christian civilization, but you Latin American mestizos, Venezuelans, Caribbean people, loudmouths, precariously educated, inheritors of caudillos and rebel armies, who, moreover, never lived through two world wars, what you end up with is Chávez. He doesn’t even try to camouflage it. In another part of the interview, which we’ll soon publish, in a Homeric moment of sycophancy, he let loose this marvel about indefinite re-election: “Can we, by means of something that is correct in theory, which is term limits, sacrifice the possibility a country has, right now, to escape the 19th century and which is called Hugo Chávez?” How about that? To establish term limits is a “correct theory” for us politically sophisticated Europeans; you Latin American pieces of shit, you have to accept your caudillos for life or else you’ll never escape 19th century backwardness. Monedero adds: “The president knows that he’s an essential factor, and that’s how the masses see him, in order to escape the 19th century and truly belong to the 21st century.” Someone in his entourage should inform him that Vallenilla Lanz (1) used this type of idiocy to validate the tyranny of Juan Vicente Gómez, the “necessary policeman.” It’s impossible to be more of a caveman.
But there’s more. Speaking of decentralization, he puts himself in the frame of mind of the Spanish People’s Party, of another Jurassic type, Aznar’s party, and he once again denies our access to it. “Regional autonomies” are for us, the civilized Spaniards; “It will be hard for you,” Venezuelans, “to understand what’s happening now if you don’t establish where you come from.” And immediately, putting on an eye patch and a peg leg, with a parrot on his shoulder, he informs us where we come from: “You come from a political model where, in the name of decentralization, what was generated was the country’s fragmentation and the abandonment of a large part of the population in the name of that democratic principle, decentralization.” How’s that seem to you, readers? One would imagine Aznar is speaking about all the calamities Spain will undergo because of its autonomous “decentralization.” It turns out, then, that this ultra-centrist republic, whose provincial administration – and with it the quality of life of a portion of Venezuelans – improved somewhat with the timid decentralization that was implemented starting in 1989 – after almost a century of hyper-centralization –, would have “become fragmented” beginning in that year, when we started to elect governors and mayors. So, how many fragments did we break into, kid? Venezuelan poverty and inequality are somehow related to decentralization? The centralization imposed by Franco, according to Monedero, is unacceptable, but the one imposed by Chávez, oh, that’s something else. It’s revolutionary and, above that, it’s Third World-ist. And we all know that when a radical European leftist discovers “anti-imperialist” guerrillas or colonels in the Third World, he has an orgasm. And he comes running to teach us the secrets of revolution.
(1) By the way, Monedero, Laureano Vallenilla Lanz was a Venezuelan positivist from the previous century who believed in providential men who remained in power for life.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, TalCual, 16 May 2007 }
A young man by the last name of Monedero, who belongs to a Spanish political group called Izquierda Unida, which never receives more than 5% of the votes in that country, seems to be the new ideological guru of “the process” in Venezuela. In this position he succeeds Norberto Ceresole and Heinz Dieterich, that pair of charlatans who’ve already been exiled by Chávez from his ideological library of mummies. In the interview conducted by Alejandro Botía, published last Monday here in TalCual, Monedero taught us how the social democratic models of Europe cannot be repeated in Latin America: “The European welfare system, as I’ve been explaining, functions with certain previous elements that aren’t viable in Latin America.”
There’s a supremacist stance in this attitude, an ethnocentric, European arrogance, an imperial and discriminatory world vision that, like all the radical leftists from over there, Monedero never manages to conceal. Democracy, a mixed economy, the balance of State and market, social security, in sum, social democracy – Monedero tells us –, is something that belongs to us white people, the educated, the inheritors of two millennia of Judeo-Christian civilization, but you Latin American mestizos, Venezuelans, Caribbean people, loudmouths, precariously educated, inheritors of caudillos and rebel armies, who, moreover, never lived through two world wars, what you end up with is Chávez. He doesn’t even try to camouflage it. In another part of the interview, which we’ll soon publish, in a Homeric moment of sycophancy, he let loose this marvel about indefinite re-election: “Can we, by means of something that is correct in theory, which is term limits, sacrifice the possibility a country has, right now, to escape the 19th century and which is called Hugo Chávez?” How about that? To establish term limits is a “correct theory” for us politically sophisticated Europeans; you Latin American pieces of shit, you have to accept your caudillos for life or else you’ll never escape 19th century backwardness. Monedero adds: “The president knows that he’s an essential factor, and that’s how the masses see him, in order to escape the 19th century and truly belong to the 21st century.” Someone in his entourage should inform him that Vallenilla Lanz (1) used this type of idiocy to validate the tyranny of Juan Vicente Gómez, the “necessary policeman.” It’s impossible to be more of a caveman.
But there’s more. Speaking of decentralization, he puts himself in the frame of mind of the Spanish People’s Party, of another Jurassic type, Aznar’s party, and he once again denies our access to it. “Regional autonomies” are for us, the civilized Spaniards; “It will be hard for you,” Venezuelans, “to understand what’s happening now if you don’t establish where you come from.” And immediately, putting on an eye patch and a peg leg, with a parrot on his shoulder, he informs us where we come from: “You come from a political model where, in the name of decentralization, what was generated was the country’s fragmentation and the abandonment of a large part of the population in the name of that democratic principle, decentralization.” How’s that seem to you, readers? One would imagine Aznar is speaking about all the calamities Spain will undergo because of its autonomous “decentralization.” It turns out, then, that this ultra-centrist republic, whose provincial administration – and with it the quality of life of a portion of Venezuelans – improved somewhat with the timid decentralization that was implemented starting in 1989 – after almost a century of hyper-centralization –, would have “become fragmented” beginning in that year, when we started to elect governors and mayors. So, how many fragments did we break into, kid? Venezuelan poverty and inequality are somehow related to decentralization? The centralization imposed by Franco, according to Monedero, is unacceptable, but the one imposed by Chávez, oh, that’s something else. It’s revolutionary and, above that, it’s Third World-ist. And we all know that when a radical European leftist discovers “anti-imperialist” guerrillas or colonels in the Third World, he has an orgasm. And he comes running to teach us the secrets of revolution.
(1) By the way, Monedero, Laureano Vallenilla Lanz was a Venezuelan positivist from the previous century who believed in providential men who remained in power for life.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, TalCual, 16 May 2007 }
2.13.2007
Socialismo del siglo XXI (y IV): ZOOCIALISMO REAL / Teodoro Petkoff
XXI Century Socialism (and IV): ACTUALLY EXISTING ZOOCIALISM
If Chávez’s plans were to be accomplished they would create an institutional and political context that would allow him to accelerate processes already in motion, by which the State and the government have been invading social spaces where, up to now, State tutelage has been discreet and even nonexistent. The State control of sports, which already took the step of joining the National Sports Institute with the private Venezuelan Olympic Committee, under the aegis of the Ministry of Sports; the progressive regimentation of cultural affairs set forth by the Ministry of Culture; the supervision and control of NGOs, in particular those concerned with Human Rights, which already have under approval a law in its early stages that annuls them and subordinates them to the State; the utilization of the educational system to indoctrinate students, which will undoubtedly receive a boost with the designation of Adán Chávez to that ministry and with the approbation of the Education Law; the increasingly concrete threat of eliminating the autonomy of universities, which they will attempt to concretize with the Higher Education Law; the definitive transformation of the Armed Forces into an institution belonging to one party, thoroughly immersed in the ideology of the supposed “values of the revolution;” the increasingly major reduction of spaces for the exercise of freedom of expression, which will obviously increase twofold with the cancellation of the broadcast license of RCTV – where would all this take us, if not to the reproduction of what was called with involuntary irony “actually existing socialism”?
It could be that Chávez will insist with his words that this is not what he wants, but the inertia of his actions guides him, if the country does not stop him, toward the materialization of this somber landscape. The conjunction of the regime’s militaristic nature with the shipwrecks of the Marxist-Leninist left – which by nature is authoritarian and even dictatorial –, united with the increasingly visible fascist inspiration, indelibly marks the Chavista project. No democratic design can emerge from that amalgam.
And it turns out that historical experience loudly demonstrates that without the instruments of democracy, including those disparagingly called “formal,” the power of the people, for the people and by the people, which is supposed to be consubstantial to socialism, becomes a fiction. Even worse, with the representative and/or participative mechanisms being fictional, there are no means of correcting errors – especially the economic ones, which can be so serious. Each “collectivization,” each “sugar cane harvest of ten million,” each “cultural revolution” left the masses in greater poverty. Power only hears itself and only hears what it likes. That is the source of the economic and social catastrophes that have characterized the totalitarian “socialisms.” There is no democracy nor is there any well-being. There is no liberty nor is there any justice either. Poverty, backwardness, underdevelopment, injustice, the police State and fear have all been historical constants in countries where in the name of socialism there was an attempt to create that mythical abstraction denominated as the “new man.” Which has definitely ended up being the same one as always, but worse.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, TalCual, 12 February 2007 }
If Chávez’s plans were to be accomplished they would create an institutional and political context that would allow him to accelerate processes already in motion, by which the State and the government have been invading social spaces where, up to now, State tutelage has been discreet and even nonexistent. The State control of sports, which already took the step of joining the National Sports Institute with the private Venezuelan Olympic Committee, under the aegis of the Ministry of Sports; the progressive regimentation of cultural affairs set forth by the Ministry of Culture; the supervision and control of NGOs, in particular those concerned with Human Rights, which already have under approval a law in its early stages that annuls them and subordinates them to the State; the utilization of the educational system to indoctrinate students, which will undoubtedly receive a boost with the designation of Adán Chávez to that ministry and with the approbation of the Education Law; the increasingly concrete threat of eliminating the autonomy of universities, which they will attempt to concretize with the Higher Education Law; the definitive transformation of the Armed Forces into an institution belonging to one party, thoroughly immersed in the ideology of the supposed “values of the revolution;” the increasingly major reduction of spaces for the exercise of freedom of expression, which will obviously increase twofold with the cancellation of the broadcast license of RCTV – where would all this take us, if not to the reproduction of what was called with involuntary irony “actually existing socialism”?
It could be that Chávez will insist with his words that this is not what he wants, but the inertia of his actions guides him, if the country does not stop him, toward the materialization of this somber landscape. The conjunction of the regime’s militaristic nature with the shipwrecks of the Marxist-Leninist left – which by nature is authoritarian and even dictatorial –, united with the increasingly visible fascist inspiration, indelibly marks the Chavista project. No democratic design can emerge from that amalgam.
And it turns out that historical experience loudly demonstrates that without the instruments of democracy, including those disparagingly called “formal,” the power of the people, for the people and by the people, which is supposed to be consubstantial to socialism, becomes a fiction. Even worse, with the representative and/or participative mechanisms being fictional, there are no means of correcting errors – especially the economic ones, which can be so serious. Each “collectivization,” each “sugar cane harvest of ten million,” each “cultural revolution” left the masses in greater poverty. Power only hears itself and only hears what it likes. That is the source of the economic and social catastrophes that have characterized the totalitarian “socialisms.” There is no democracy nor is there any well-being. There is no liberty nor is there any justice either. Poverty, backwardness, underdevelopment, injustice, the police State and fear have all been historical constants in countries where in the name of socialism there was an attempt to create that mythical abstraction denominated as the “new man.” Which has definitely ended up being the same one as always, but worse.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, TalCual, 12 February 2007 }
2.12.2007
Socialismo del siglo XXI (III): “EL PODER sin máscara” / Teodoro Petkoff
XXI Century Socialism (III): “POWER without a Mask”
The reform of the Constitution points toward erasing any vestige of institutional counterweights to central Executive Power and toward extending its radius of action, taking its autocratic condition to the compatible limit, while preserving a democratic image internationally for the regime (the President is careful about this). After eight years the Venezuelan State can already be defined as an autocracy. All powers are concentrated, more than just in the Executive, in the fist of Hugo Chávez. Legislative, Judicial, Citizen or Moral (Attorney General, Controller and People’s Defense) and Electoral powers all respond to the will of the President. The aspiration would seem to be, however, to eliminate whatever might be left in possible counterweights to supreme power and the consolidation of autocracy and with this of authoritarianism and militarism.
The now formal liquidation of the autonomy of the Central Bank would constitutionally eliminate the possibility of a Central Bank that could eventually contradict official policy – one less “annoyance” –; the possibility of demoting state governors – which would obviously entail their previous appointment by hand –, which would definitively revert the decentralization of the State and eliminate governors that would soon be able to act as alternative references to central power; the indefinite reelection of the President of the Republic, which would constitutionally consecrate the possibility of a leader for life; the subordination of Popular Power to the Presidency of the Republic, which would definitively castrate the so-called “empowerment” of the masses, these are some of the aspects that constitutional reform would contemplate – just as Chávez himself has suggested several times –, directed at granting him truly imperial powers.
The Enabling Law, on its own, would allow him to establish by decree the institutional bases of “socialism,” being able to develop the constitutional norms restrictive of democratic life, without being tied to “delaying” procedures and the Parliament’s own slowness – even with a National Assembly totally subordinated to presidential will. Chávez appeals to extraordinary powers for the purpose of taking advantage of the impulse he was given by the recent electoral results, without running the risk of that impulse falling into the “constitutional trap” he made reference to in his inaugural speech of 1999, when in an unheard of manner he brought up the example of Hitler freeing himself from the “bothersome” parliamentarian procedures of the Weimar Republic.
The circle would be closed with the creation of the single party of the revolution. That would be the tool for solving “with discipline” the contradictions within Chavismo’s own field, in order to straighten and regiment its members and activists, eliminating any potential dissident or critic. And to complete the process, as described by Rosa Luxemburg, through which the party replaces the masses, the party directorate replaces the party and finally the leader replaces the directorate, all consolidated into a single entity: party, State and government, all consonant with the familiar architecture of totalitarian power, where party leader, State leader and government leader – besides being the leader of the armed forces – are all one and the same.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, TalCual, 8 February 2007 }
The reform of the Constitution points toward erasing any vestige of institutional counterweights to central Executive Power and toward extending its radius of action, taking its autocratic condition to the compatible limit, while preserving a democratic image internationally for the regime (the President is careful about this). After eight years the Venezuelan State can already be defined as an autocracy. All powers are concentrated, more than just in the Executive, in the fist of Hugo Chávez. Legislative, Judicial, Citizen or Moral (Attorney General, Controller and People’s Defense) and Electoral powers all respond to the will of the President. The aspiration would seem to be, however, to eliminate whatever might be left in possible counterweights to supreme power and the consolidation of autocracy and with this of authoritarianism and militarism.
The now formal liquidation of the autonomy of the Central Bank would constitutionally eliminate the possibility of a Central Bank that could eventually contradict official policy – one less “annoyance” –; the possibility of demoting state governors – which would obviously entail their previous appointment by hand –, which would definitively revert the decentralization of the State and eliminate governors that would soon be able to act as alternative references to central power; the indefinite reelection of the President of the Republic, which would constitutionally consecrate the possibility of a leader for life; the subordination of Popular Power to the Presidency of the Republic, which would definitively castrate the so-called “empowerment” of the masses, these are some of the aspects that constitutional reform would contemplate – just as Chávez himself has suggested several times –, directed at granting him truly imperial powers.
The Enabling Law, on its own, would allow him to establish by decree the institutional bases of “socialism,” being able to develop the constitutional norms restrictive of democratic life, without being tied to “delaying” procedures and the Parliament’s own slowness – even with a National Assembly totally subordinated to presidential will. Chávez appeals to extraordinary powers for the purpose of taking advantage of the impulse he was given by the recent electoral results, without running the risk of that impulse falling into the “constitutional trap” he made reference to in his inaugural speech of 1999, when in an unheard of manner he brought up the example of Hitler freeing himself from the “bothersome” parliamentarian procedures of the Weimar Republic.
The circle would be closed with the creation of the single party of the revolution. That would be the tool for solving “with discipline” the contradictions within Chavismo’s own field, in order to straighten and regiment its members and activists, eliminating any potential dissident or critic. And to complete the process, as described by Rosa Luxemburg, through which the party replaces the masses, the party directorate replaces the party and finally the leader replaces the directorate, all consolidated into a single entity: party, State and government, all consonant with the familiar architecture of totalitarian power, where party leader, State leader and government leader – besides being the leader of the armed forces – are all one and the same.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, TalCual, 8 February 2007 }
2.11.2007
Socialismo del siglo XXI (II): SOCIALCHAVISMO / Teodoro Petkoff
XXI Century Socialism (II): SOCIALCHAVISMO
Chávez tends to say that “his” socialism will be built on the road itself and that it won’t repeat the Soviet or Cuban models. The facts, however, seem to contradict him. What is occurring in our country points more toward the totalitarian and failed experiences of the XX century than to the democratic and successful ones. It doesn’t matter what Chávez and his few spokesmen might say regarding these matters. Those are words, mere words. Facts are much more eloquent.
For the moment, let us obviate what pertains to the eventual economic characteristics of the Chavista model. It’s not that this isn't important, but apart from the announced nationalizations (which can be implemented by any type of regime) and the pathetic and shipwrecked experiments in cooperatives and co-management, in terms of the economy, the project is still highly confused and gaseous. But it isn’t in terms of the institutional and political boundaries Chávez considers necessary for the goal he has proposed for himself. In this particular aspect, a concrete politics does exist, even if this was at first not explicitly oriented toward the socialist objective and keeping in mind that much of what has happened obeys the contingencies of the difficult political confrontation of these years and their results.
In light of recent history, what Chávez denominates “XXI Century Socialism” is oriented toward utilizing the authoritarian, autocratic and militaristic qualities already present in the regime, in order to found its base on the deepening and strengthening of such profoundly antidemocratic traits.
The key to his recent announcements is found in the articulation of three cardinal intentions: the creation of a single party of the revolution, the enactment of the Enabling Law and a constitutional reform, so that, by means of these, he might consolidate, deepen and armor his political power – in actuality, his personal power, which Chávez considers the necessary instrument for making “his” socializing process advance. Were this operation to congeal, we would witness a total concentration of power in the hands of the President, much more than what already exists, and the definitive reduction of all the other State powers to an absolutely formal and decorative function. This autocratic concentration of political power has been a dominant feature in the totalitarian “socialist” regimes of the XX century, regimes that, in the name of “surpassing” “bourgeois” or formal democracy, destroyed any form of democratic life. That is what actual Chavista practice evokes, beyond its rhetoric.
To such effect, the idea is to eliminate, by means of constitutional reform and rule by decree, the essential attributes of liberal democracy (which Chávez perhaps would prefer to call “bourgeois”), those that by separating public powers and installing mutual controls among them, protect society from the tyranny of the majority – to which the democratic golden rule concedes power – but guaranteeing that not only will the minority not be squashed and annulled by the majority, but also conserving the scene so that it might express itself freely and eventually transform itself into a majority. That is to say, so that the democratic fluidity that is indispensable to civilized living might be maintained, a sine qua non condition for social change to translate into power for the masses and not just for a clique – or, as we’ve already seen, for a “providential” leader – that not only “represents” them but substitutes them.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, TalCual, 7 February 2007 }
Chávez tends to say that “his” socialism will be built on the road itself and that it won’t repeat the Soviet or Cuban models. The facts, however, seem to contradict him. What is occurring in our country points more toward the totalitarian and failed experiences of the XX century than to the democratic and successful ones. It doesn’t matter what Chávez and his few spokesmen might say regarding these matters. Those are words, mere words. Facts are much more eloquent.
For the moment, let us obviate what pertains to the eventual economic characteristics of the Chavista model. It’s not that this isn't important, but apart from the announced nationalizations (which can be implemented by any type of regime) and the pathetic and shipwrecked experiments in cooperatives and co-management, in terms of the economy, the project is still highly confused and gaseous. But it isn’t in terms of the institutional and political boundaries Chávez considers necessary for the goal he has proposed for himself. In this particular aspect, a concrete politics does exist, even if this was at first not explicitly oriented toward the socialist objective and keeping in mind that much of what has happened obeys the contingencies of the difficult political confrontation of these years and their results.
In light of recent history, what Chávez denominates “XXI Century Socialism” is oriented toward utilizing the authoritarian, autocratic and militaristic qualities already present in the regime, in order to found its base on the deepening and strengthening of such profoundly antidemocratic traits.
The key to his recent announcements is found in the articulation of three cardinal intentions: the creation of a single party of the revolution, the enactment of the Enabling Law and a constitutional reform, so that, by means of these, he might consolidate, deepen and armor his political power – in actuality, his personal power, which Chávez considers the necessary instrument for making “his” socializing process advance. Were this operation to congeal, we would witness a total concentration of power in the hands of the President, much more than what already exists, and the definitive reduction of all the other State powers to an absolutely formal and decorative function. This autocratic concentration of political power has been a dominant feature in the totalitarian “socialist” regimes of the XX century, regimes that, in the name of “surpassing” “bourgeois” or formal democracy, destroyed any form of democratic life. That is what actual Chavista practice evokes, beyond its rhetoric.
To such effect, the idea is to eliminate, by means of constitutional reform and rule by decree, the essential attributes of liberal democracy (which Chávez perhaps would prefer to call “bourgeois”), those that by separating public powers and installing mutual controls among them, protect society from the tyranny of the majority – to which the democratic golden rule concedes power – but guaranteeing that not only will the minority not be squashed and annulled by the majority, but also conserving the scene so that it might express itself freely and eventually transform itself into a majority. That is to say, so that the democratic fluidity that is indispensable to civilized living might be maintained, a sine qua non condition for social change to translate into power for the masses and not just for a clique – or, as we’ve already seen, for a “providential” leader – that not only “represents” them but substitutes them.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, TalCual, 7 February 2007 }
2.10.2007
Socialismo del siglo XXI (I): ¿Socialismo o SOCIABISMO? / Teodoro Petkoff
XXI Century Socialism (I): Socialism or SOCIABYSM?
No serious debate about socialism can be developed as if we were still in the XIX century, when there still hadn’t been any concrete experience of it anywhere. Not now. It is impossible, at the dawn of the XXI century, to talk about socialism while making an abstraction of what was advanced in its name throughout the XX century. What lessons does history throw our way?
On one hand, in the former Czarist Russian empire, Leninist-Stalinist practice made the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics a monstrous abortion of history, which ended up sinking itself, a victim of its own contradictions – in an ironic compensation for the ineffable “sinking of capitalism,” which at one brief moment Marx himself theorized as a possibility. Likewise in China, the Maoist practice led to another “museum of horrors” and almost collapsed the country, while in Cuba, the Fidelista practice has given as a result a sick society, one that is morally driven mad, socially and economically ruined and put under the submission of the iron will of its all-powerful “comandante in chief” for half a century. These three cases, to which we must add all those that were aligned with them, led to economic bankruptcy and social impoverishment, to tyranny and totalitarianism. The old social contradictions were substituted by new social contradictions. The nomenklatura occupied the space of the bourgeoisie and land owners, while workers and farmers went on to become vassals of the State, just as exploitative as ever. New privileges and abuses of power occupied the place of the old ones; new inequalities substituted those they intended to overcome; dullness and cultural poverty became proverbial and sports were transformed into a peculiar substitute for the “opiate of the masses” that Marx saw in religion, which was itself also substituted by its lay version, Marxist-Leninism. All of this was sustained by police and military apparatuses that made terror the axis of internal politics in each one of those countries, annulling any human rights and democratic conquests that were the product of the secular civilizing process of humanity, and of popular struggles. The global balance of these models is counted among the greatest tragedies of a century like the previous one, which was particularly generous with them.
On the other hand, also in the name of socialism, we have known the experiences of social democracy’s advanced reform, particularly in Europe. While admittedly these have not “flipped the omelette,” they have provided important advances, each time greater, in the quality of material and spiritual life throughout society, amplifying and deepening democracy and with it the deciding power of workers and of the poorest in general. They didn’t and don’t have the romantic allure of revolutionary adventures, but when their achievements are compared to those reached by their Bolshevik, Maoist and Fidelista “brother-enemies,” Bertolt Brecht’s brilliant paradox comes to mind: “Only the land that needs no hero is happy.”
The shadow of both historical experiences hovers over those who occupy themselves with these topics in this XXI century. Toward which of these versions could what we are now living in Venezuela be moving?
Translator's note: This is the first in a series of articles on XXI Century Socialism written by Teodoro Petkoff for his newspaper TalCual in Caracas this week. I will translate the following parts over the next few days.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, TalCual, 6 February 2007 }
No serious debate about socialism can be developed as if we were still in the XIX century, when there still hadn’t been any concrete experience of it anywhere. Not now. It is impossible, at the dawn of the XXI century, to talk about socialism while making an abstraction of what was advanced in its name throughout the XX century. What lessons does history throw our way?
On one hand, in the former Czarist Russian empire, Leninist-Stalinist practice made the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics a monstrous abortion of history, which ended up sinking itself, a victim of its own contradictions – in an ironic compensation for the ineffable “sinking of capitalism,” which at one brief moment Marx himself theorized as a possibility. Likewise in China, the Maoist practice led to another “museum of horrors” and almost collapsed the country, while in Cuba, the Fidelista practice has given as a result a sick society, one that is morally driven mad, socially and economically ruined and put under the submission of the iron will of its all-powerful “comandante in chief” for half a century. These three cases, to which we must add all those that were aligned with them, led to economic bankruptcy and social impoverishment, to tyranny and totalitarianism. The old social contradictions were substituted by new social contradictions. The nomenklatura occupied the space of the bourgeoisie and land owners, while workers and farmers went on to become vassals of the State, just as exploitative as ever. New privileges and abuses of power occupied the place of the old ones; new inequalities substituted those they intended to overcome; dullness and cultural poverty became proverbial and sports were transformed into a peculiar substitute for the “opiate of the masses” that Marx saw in religion, which was itself also substituted by its lay version, Marxist-Leninism. All of this was sustained by police and military apparatuses that made terror the axis of internal politics in each one of those countries, annulling any human rights and democratic conquests that were the product of the secular civilizing process of humanity, and of popular struggles. The global balance of these models is counted among the greatest tragedies of a century like the previous one, which was particularly generous with them.
On the other hand, also in the name of socialism, we have known the experiences of social democracy’s advanced reform, particularly in Europe. While admittedly these have not “flipped the omelette,” they have provided important advances, each time greater, in the quality of material and spiritual life throughout society, amplifying and deepening democracy and with it the deciding power of workers and of the poorest in general. They didn’t and don’t have the romantic allure of revolutionary adventures, but when their achievements are compared to those reached by their Bolshevik, Maoist and Fidelista “brother-enemies,” Bertolt Brecht’s brilliant paradox comes to mind: “Only the land that needs no hero is happy.”
The shadow of both historical experiences hovers over those who occupy themselves with these topics in this XXI century. Toward which of these versions could what we are now living in Venezuela be moving?
Translator's note: This is the first in a series of articles on XXI Century Socialism written by Teodoro Petkoff for his newspaper TalCual in Caracas this week. I will translate the following parts over the next few days.
{ Teodoro Petkoff, TalCual, 6 February 2007 }
4.22.2006
Una de Teodoro / Alexis Márquez Rodríguez
One About Teodoro
To my friend Eduardo Mendoza Goiticoa
January 1958. The general strike against the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship was being organized, it was supposed to start on the 21st of that month.
With Dr. Antonio Requena, a well-known doctor, at the head, a committee of people from diverse sectors had been organized, in order to coordinate participation in the strike. The support of the businessmen was decisive in assuring that commerce and industry close their doors.
We would meet at Dr. Requena’s house, in a little street in the Country Club neighborhood. Among the representatives of the businessmen were Eduardo Mendoza Goiticoa, Oscar Machado Zuloaga, Alfredo Rodríguez Delfino and a few others.
By chance it was up to me to be the link between the business group and the Junta Patriótica, which was promoting the strike from its clandestine places. The contact was through Fabricio Ojeda, a reporter for El Nacional. My ties with that newspaper made it easier for me, since my presence there raised no suspicions. Of course, I didn’t know that Fabricio was from the Junta Patriótica, nor that he was its president, a position they rotated among themselves.
One day Dr. Requena tells me that an individual is offering the Junta Patriótica three radio stations, designed so as to not be easily found. I give the information to Fabricio. Soon he tells me that tomorrow, at noon I should meet someone on the bridge for the Country Club’s Avenida Principal, to then go see Dr. Requena. I ask him about who I’m going to meet and he tells me: “I can’t tell you. But when you see him you’ll know.”
In effect, on the next day at 12 sharp I’m crossing the bridge in my car, and already emerging from it appears, from I don’t know where, Teodoro Petkoff.
We go to Dr. Requena’s house. After the introduction and rigorous greetings, Requena says to Teodoro: “Tomorrow at 3 in the afternoon, in the atrium of the church of the Las Mercedes neighborhood, you will meet up with Dr. Francisco De Venanzi, who will explain to you about the radio stations.”
Teodoro responds: “Alright, I’ll be there. But I don’t know Dr. De Venanzi. I’ve never seen him and I don’t know how to recognize him.” To which Requena replied: “No one else will be there at that time. But if anyone else is there, you pay attention, and when you see a man with an idiot’s face, that’s Dr. De Venanzi.”
We all laughed, of course. I took Teodoro back to the place where we met and each one went his own way.
The handover of the radio stations was successfully accomplished, and the transistors were very important in calling together the general strike, which ended on January 23 when the dictator fled.
Thirty years later I was at El Nacional one day, with other people, in the Brujoteca as Oscar Guaramato called the cubicle of the legendary Arístides Bastidas, already in a wheelchair and a victim of all the plagues of Egypt, and I don’t know how the topic came up. I narrated the episode, and when I was finished Arístides said to me: “You were in on that too? I was the one who received the radio stations and handed them over to the Junta Patriótica.” Neither of us knew we had both participated in that episode. A living testimony of a well-done political job, impeccable and thus successful, the product of a mysticism and discipline that, unfortunately, were lost forever after the 1960s.
{ Alexis Márquez Rodríguez, TalCual, 21 April 2006 }
To my friend Eduardo Mendoza Goiticoa
January 1958. The general strike against the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship was being organized, it was supposed to start on the 21st of that month.
With Dr. Antonio Requena, a well-known doctor, at the head, a committee of people from diverse sectors had been organized, in order to coordinate participation in the strike. The support of the businessmen was decisive in assuring that commerce and industry close their doors.
We would meet at Dr. Requena’s house, in a little street in the Country Club neighborhood. Among the representatives of the businessmen were Eduardo Mendoza Goiticoa, Oscar Machado Zuloaga, Alfredo Rodríguez Delfino and a few others.
By chance it was up to me to be the link between the business group and the Junta Patriótica, which was promoting the strike from its clandestine places. The contact was through Fabricio Ojeda, a reporter for El Nacional. My ties with that newspaper made it easier for me, since my presence there raised no suspicions. Of course, I didn’t know that Fabricio was from the Junta Patriótica, nor that he was its president, a position they rotated among themselves.
One day Dr. Requena tells me that an individual is offering the Junta Patriótica three radio stations, designed so as to not be easily found. I give the information to Fabricio. Soon he tells me that tomorrow, at noon I should meet someone on the bridge for the Country Club’s Avenida Principal, to then go see Dr. Requena. I ask him about who I’m going to meet and he tells me: “I can’t tell you. But when you see him you’ll know.”
In effect, on the next day at 12 sharp I’m crossing the bridge in my car, and already emerging from it appears, from I don’t know where, Teodoro Petkoff.
We go to Dr. Requena’s house. After the introduction and rigorous greetings, Requena says to Teodoro: “Tomorrow at 3 in the afternoon, in the atrium of the church of the Las Mercedes neighborhood, you will meet up with Dr. Francisco De Venanzi, who will explain to you about the radio stations.”
Teodoro responds: “Alright, I’ll be there. But I don’t know Dr. De Venanzi. I’ve never seen him and I don’t know how to recognize him.” To which Requena replied: “No one else will be there at that time. But if anyone else is there, you pay attention, and when you see a man with an idiot’s face, that’s Dr. De Venanzi.”
We all laughed, of course. I took Teodoro back to the place where we met and each one went his own way.
The handover of the radio stations was successfully accomplished, and the transistors were very important in calling together the general strike, which ended on January 23 when the dictator fled.
Thirty years later I was at El Nacional one day, with other people, in the Brujoteca as Oscar Guaramato called the cubicle of the legendary Arístides Bastidas, already in a wheelchair and a victim of all the plagues of Egypt, and I don’t know how the topic came up. I narrated the episode, and when I was finished Arístides said to me: “You were in on that too? I was the one who received the radio stations and handed them over to the Junta Patriótica.” Neither of us knew we had both participated in that episode. A living testimony of a well-done political job, impeccable and thus successful, the product of a mysticism and discipline that, unfortunately, were lost forever after the 1960s.
{ Alexis Márquez Rodríguez, TalCual, 21 April 2006 }
4.11.2004
Teodoro Petkoff in Boston
On Friday evening (April 9) the journalist and political analyst Teodoro Petkoff presented a lecture at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge. The JFK School website describes Petkoff in the following manner:
"Teodoro Petkoff is one of the leading political figures in recent Venezuelan history. His career began in the left-wing rebellion movements during the 60s as a member of the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV). He led a groundbreaking reform of the left in Venezuela assuming a critical stance toward left-wing authoritarianism and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968) with the foundation in 1971 of the party Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS). An economist graduated from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, Mr. Petkoff has been member of the MAS national directive, presidential candidate, and elected congressman in many occasions. In 1996 he became Minister of Economic Planning under the presidency of Rafael Caldera. After his tenure in the Caldera administration, he became director of the newspaper El Mundo and then founder and director of the newspaper Tal Cual ."
I jotted down some notes about the lecture later that night. What follows are excerpts from those notes.
*
Petkoff was introduced by the journalist Ana Julia Jatar, who is currently a Visiting Scholar at Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American studies. Jatar mentioned that she first met Petkoff when he was one of her father's students at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Jatar's introduction included an excerpt from a portrait of Petkoff that Gabriel García Márquez wrote in 1982.
According to Petkoff, there have been three historic ruptures in Venezuelan history:
1. When the Liberals overthrew the Conservatives in the 1800s, soon after Venezuela achieved independence from Spain.
2. When Liberals were overthrown by the military at the very beginning of the twentieth century (1900).
3. When the military were overthrown by political parties in 1945. (Petkoff includes the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez after this third rupture.)
Hugo Chávez's presidency represents a fourth major rupture in Venezuelan history.
Petkoff's comments had two goals:
1. "Definir." To define who Chávez is and what his ideas represent. ("Tenemos que definir exactamente qué es Chávez.")
2. "Terreno." To define exactly on what grounds the opposition needs to challenge Chávez. Petkoff emphasized that the fight against Chávez must remain within the boundaries of a democratic process. To allow ourselves to be drawn into an armed conflict against Chávez would serve no viable purpose. ("¿Cual es el terreno en donde enfrentamos a Chávez?")
Regarding the appearance of Chávez on the political scene, Petkoff outlined three major warning signs in recent Venezuelan history. These warnings went unheeded, for the most part, by politicians and analysts in Venezuela. These three political events can now be interpreted as warnings that Venezuela's democracy was in trouble.
1. 1989: El Caracazo. (When there were major disturbances throughout Caracas, during which hundreds of people were killed by the National Guard.)
2. 1992: The two coup attempts by members of the military against the presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez.
3. 1994: When Rafael Caldera left his political party (COPEI) and won the presidency as an independent candidate. For Petkoff, this event highlighted the bankruptcy of Venezuela's leading political parties.
Petkoff sees a solution to today's crisis as emerging from a center-Left position (his own). Extremists in the opposition from the far Right (Pedro Carmona, for example) only end up playing into Chávez's strategies.
Petkoff reiterated several times that night that Chávez rules his political party (Movimiento Quinta Republica, MVR) and the country as the "alpha and omega." In this manner, Chávez has discouraged and prevented any democratic tendencies that might exist within chavismo.
One major critique Petkoff makes of the opposition is that they have not sufficiently attacked Chávez's policies in a coherent, thorough manner. By focusing on his personality, they end up not offering a viable alternative plan to chavismo.
Regarding the Cuban presence in Venezuela, Petkoff said that he was sure that there are indeed Cuban police and military advisors in Venezuela today. These police and military are in Venezuela secretly, unlike the Cuban doctors, teachers and sports trainers, who are openly discussed by the Venezuelan government.
Petkoff emphasized the need to distinguish between a totalitarian regime (such as Cuba, China, the Soviet Union) and a more or less typical Latin American dictatorship (Pinochet). Chávez is somewhere between the two. He believes it is foolish and counterproductive for the opposition to label Chávez a dictator or a fascist, even though he does have those tendencies. Petkoff believes that up until now Chávez has been weaving through the fine line between a democracy and a dictatorship. Until he becomes an outright dictator, it does not benefit the opposition to call him a dictator. Petkoff acknowledged that this is difficult, since the line between the two is often blurred by Chávez.
Petkoff sees Chávez's undeniably autocratic methods (very similar to those of 19th century caudillos) as being kept in check by Venezuela's democratic traditions (going back more than forty years). In this sense, Petkoff does not see a "Cubanization" ocurring in Venezuela. Today in Venezuela there is a unique and unprecedented context.
Petkoff believes that Venezuelans today are suffering from a hyper-politicization. It is important to be politicized, particularly for Venezuelans, who for many years were indifferent to politics. But at this current historical moment, we Venezuelans are suffering from a pathological hyper-politicization. This is evident in the fact that whenever any Venezuelans sit down to talk nowdays, the topic always ends up returning to Chávez. Petkoff sees this as an unhealthy situation which we will have to move beyond.
The situation in Venezuela is extremely complex. On the one hand, Chávez has returned us to the era of caudillismo. But the one thing that the opposition has failed to do is connect politically with the many Venezuelans who have historically always been excluded by Venezuela's leaders. While Chávez's policies are not necessarily actually helping the poor, his discourse is geared toward them, and he offers them a sense of inclusion. Even if this inclusion is not supported by material improvements in their lives, it has allowed him to sustain the approximately 25 percent of Venezuelans (a large amount) who still support him.
Petkoff does believe that Chávez's discourse will eventually not be enough to maintain that support. But for now his political discourse is reaching a group that responds to his attention.
At one point during the question & answer session, two members of Boston's Bolivarian Circle (there were six members there, according to my count) tried to challenge Petkoff and disrupt his lecture with rambling, unclear questions. The first one, for instance prefaced his question with the following comment: "I was born in Venezuela but I have lived here for thirty years..." His question covered a point that Petkoff had already gone over earlier. Petkoff disposed of these chavistas' predictable questions eloquently and forcefully. From what I could tell, only two of the six members of Boston's Bolivarian Circle were Venezuelan.
Petkoff spoke for over two hours. After presenting his commentary, he answered a wide range of questions from the audience, which seemed to be almost entirely Venezuelan. One of the last things he said was: "Estoy feliz con mi periodiquito" (I'm happy with my little newspaper). It was fascinating lecture by a brilliant intellectual.
"Teodoro Petkoff is one of the leading political figures in recent Venezuelan history. His career began in the left-wing rebellion movements during the 60s as a member of the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV). He led a groundbreaking reform of the left in Venezuela assuming a critical stance toward left-wing authoritarianism and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968) with the foundation in 1971 of the party Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS). An economist graduated from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, Mr. Petkoff has been member of the MAS national directive, presidential candidate, and elected congressman in many occasions. In 1996 he became Minister of Economic Planning under the presidency of Rafael Caldera. After his tenure in the Caldera administration, he became director of the newspaper El Mundo and then founder and director of the newspaper Tal Cual ."
I jotted down some notes about the lecture later that night. What follows are excerpts from those notes.
*
Petkoff was introduced by the journalist Ana Julia Jatar, who is currently a Visiting Scholar at Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American studies. Jatar mentioned that she first met Petkoff when he was one of her father's students at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Jatar's introduction included an excerpt from a portrait of Petkoff that Gabriel García Márquez wrote in 1982.
According to Petkoff, there have been three historic ruptures in Venezuelan history:
1. When the Liberals overthrew the Conservatives in the 1800s, soon after Venezuela achieved independence from Spain.
2. When Liberals were overthrown by the military at the very beginning of the twentieth century (1900).
3. When the military were overthrown by political parties in 1945. (Petkoff includes the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez after this third rupture.)
Hugo Chávez's presidency represents a fourth major rupture in Venezuelan history.
Petkoff's comments had two goals:
1. "Definir." To define who Chávez is and what his ideas represent. ("Tenemos que definir exactamente qué es Chávez.")
2. "Terreno." To define exactly on what grounds the opposition needs to challenge Chávez. Petkoff emphasized that the fight against Chávez must remain within the boundaries of a democratic process. To allow ourselves to be drawn into an armed conflict against Chávez would serve no viable purpose. ("¿Cual es el terreno en donde enfrentamos a Chávez?")
Regarding the appearance of Chávez on the political scene, Petkoff outlined three major warning signs in recent Venezuelan history. These warnings went unheeded, for the most part, by politicians and analysts in Venezuela. These three political events can now be interpreted as warnings that Venezuela's democracy was in trouble.
1. 1989: El Caracazo. (When there were major disturbances throughout Caracas, during which hundreds of people were killed by the National Guard.)
2. 1992: The two coup attempts by members of the military against the presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez.
3. 1994: When Rafael Caldera left his political party (COPEI) and won the presidency as an independent candidate. For Petkoff, this event highlighted the bankruptcy of Venezuela's leading political parties.
Petkoff sees a solution to today's crisis as emerging from a center-Left position (his own). Extremists in the opposition from the far Right (Pedro Carmona, for example) only end up playing into Chávez's strategies.
Petkoff reiterated several times that night that Chávez rules his political party (Movimiento Quinta Republica, MVR) and the country as the "alpha and omega." In this manner, Chávez has discouraged and prevented any democratic tendencies that might exist within chavismo.
One major critique Petkoff makes of the opposition is that they have not sufficiently attacked Chávez's policies in a coherent, thorough manner. By focusing on his personality, they end up not offering a viable alternative plan to chavismo.
Regarding the Cuban presence in Venezuela, Petkoff said that he was sure that there are indeed Cuban police and military advisors in Venezuela today. These police and military are in Venezuela secretly, unlike the Cuban doctors, teachers and sports trainers, who are openly discussed by the Venezuelan government.
Petkoff emphasized the need to distinguish between a totalitarian regime (such as Cuba, China, the Soviet Union) and a more or less typical Latin American dictatorship (Pinochet). Chávez is somewhere between the two. He believes it is foolish and counterproductive for the opposition to label Chávez a dictator or a fascist, even though he does have those tendencies. Petkoff believes that up until now Chávez has been weaving through the fine line between a democracy and a dictatorship. Until he becomes an outright dictator, it does not benefit the opposition to call him a dictator. Petkoff acknowledged that this is difficult, since the line between the two is often blurred by Chávez.
Petkoff sees Chávez's undeniably autocratic methods (very similar to those of 19th century caudillos) as being kept in check by Venezuela's democratic traditions (going back more than forty years). In this sense, Petkoff does not see a "Cubanization" ocurring in Venezuela. Today in Venezuela there is a unique and unprecedented context.
Petkoff believes that Venezuelans today are suffering from a hyper-politicization. It is important to be politicized, particularly for Venezuelans, who for many years were indifferent to politics. But at this current historical moment, we Venezuelans are suffering from a pathological hyper-politicization. This is evident in the fact that whenever any Venezuelans sit down to talk nowdays, the topic always ends up returning to Chávez. Petkoff sees this as an unhealthy situation which we will have to move beyond.
The situation in Venezuela is extremely complex. On the one hand, Chávez has returned us to the era of caudillismo. But the one thing that the opposition has failed to do is connect politically with the many Venezuelans who have historically always been excluded by Venezuela's leaders. While Chávez's policies are not necessarily actually helping the poor, his discourse is geared toward them, and he offers them a sense of inclusion. Even if this inclusion is not supported by material improvements in their lives, it has allowed him to sustain the approximately 25 percent of Venezuelans (a large amount) who still support him.
Petkoff does believe that Chávez's discourse will eventually not be enough to maintain that support. But for now his political discourse is reaching a group that responds to his attention.
At one point during the question & answer session, two members of Boston's Bolivarian Circle (there were six members there, according to my count) tried to challenge Petkoff and disrupt his lecture with rambling, unclear questions. The first one, for instance prefaced his question with the following comment: "I was born in Venezuela but I have lived here for thirty years..." His question covered a point that Petkoff had already gone over earlier. Petkoff disposed of these chavistas' predictable questions eloquently and forcefully. From what I could tell, only two of the six members of Boston's Bolivarian Circle were Venezuelan.
Petkoff spoke for over two hours. After presenting his commentary, he answered a wide range of questions from the audience, which seemed to be almost entirely Venezuelan. One of the last things he said was: "Estoy feliz con mi periodiquito" (I'm happy with my little newspaper). It was fascinating lecture by a brilliant intellectual.
3.25.2004
Preguntas ingenuas / Teodoro Petkoff
Simple Questions
In the interview with the poet Luis Alberto Crespo that Tal Cual published yesterday, amid the many interesting and serious things he said, and which I agree with, he commented in ambiguous terms, however, about the Cuban poet Raúl Rivero's prison sentence. Although he condemned "on principle all prisons," he asked how they had jailed Rivero, whether as a poet or as a politician, adding that "the matter is part of the laws over there." Of course, poet, the Soviet gulag was also a part of the laws "over there," of the former Soviet Union. The Nazi concentration camps and the "final solution" against Jews were also very established in a Germanic manner within the laws "over there." The prisoners of Guantanamo (a naval base for North American imperialism located in Cuba, whose contract was automatically renewed in 1999 by Fidel with no added anti-imperialist words) are there "legally." In general, serious governments (and surely the Nazis and the Soviets were serious, as are the Americans) attack human rights while paying close attention to legal formalities. But tell me one thing, poet. By chance, is there a Venezuelan law that prohibits the granting of a passport to those people who oppose the Chavista regime? Or do we simply violate human rights here in the manner of a banana republic, just for the sake of the commander's pure cojones?
{Teodoro Petkoff, Tal Cual, 25 March 2004}
In the interview with the poet Luis Alberto Crespo that Tal Cual published yesterday, amid the many interesting and serious things he said, and which I agree with, he commented in ambiguous terms, however, about the Cuban poet Raúl Rivero's prison sentence. Although he condemned "on principle all prisons," he asked how they had jailed Rivero, whether as a poet or as a politician, adding that "the matter is part of the laws over there." Of course, poet, the Soviet gulag was also a part of the laws "over there," of the former Soviet Union. The Nazi concentration camps and the "final solution" against Jews were also very established in a Germanic manner within the laws "over there." The prisoners of Guantanamo (a naval base for North American imperialism located in Cuba, whose contract was automatically renewed in 1999 by Fidel with no added anti-imperialist words) are there "legally." In general, serious governments (and surely the Nazis and the Soviets were serious, as are the Americans) attack human rights while paying close attention to legal formalities. But tell me one thing, poet. By chance, is there a Venezuelan law that prohibits the granting of a passport to those people who oppose the Chavista regime? Or do we simply violate human rights here in the manner of a banana republic, just for the sake of the commander's pure cojones?
{Teodoro Petkoff, Tal Cual, 25 March 2004}
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