Hugo Chávez’s notebook for militants: party-building, revolutionary ethics, and the commune as the material base of people’s power

Edited by Prince Kapone •

Introduction

Socialism of the 21st Century is not a memoir, a slogan, or a museum piece. It is a field manual for a revolution under siege — a set of sharp, living interventions by Hugo Chávez Frías to militants, cadres, and public officials tasked with doing the hardest thing politics ever demands: changing the social order while the old order fights back.

Published in January 2011 by Venezuela’s Ministry of People’s Power for Communication and Information as part of the “Notebooks for Debate” collection, this volume gathers selected excerpts from speeches, assemblies, and “Aló Presidente Teórico” sessions delivered between 2006 and 2010. The purpose is explicit: to turn revolutionary experience into collective study, and study into collective power.

The threads Chávez ties together are the threads that decide whether a revolution consolidates or collapses: the Party as an instrument of permanence; the war against bureaucratism, corruption, and the quiet creep of petty-bourgeois ideology; the construction of communes as the material and political base of people’s power; and the push to replace a rentier capitalist economy with a socialist productive model oriented toward need, not profit.

Throughout, Chávez situates Venezuelan socialism inside a wider lineage of emancipatory struggle — invoking Bolívar, Simón Rodríguez, Marx, Lenin, and Che — while insisting that socialism is not imported as a finished product. It must be invented within concrete national conditions, but invented with discipline: grounded in history, guided by theory, and proven in practice.

Read this text as it was intended: not as commentary from above, but as a conversation inside the struggle — a set of arguments meant to harden the revolution’s moral spine, clarify its strategic lines, and deepen its wager that only organized people can defeat organized power. Or, as the book’s own spirit declares in one sentence: socialism is not decreed — it is built.

Hugo Chávez Frías

Socialism of the 21st Century

Hugo Chávez Frías — Socialism of the 21st Century
Collection: Notebooks for Debate
Ministry of People’s Power for Communication and Information;
Av. Universidad, El Chorro Corner, Ministerial Tower, 9th and 10th floors. Caracas, Venezuela.
www.minci.gob.ve / publicaciones@minci.gob.ve
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Directory
Hugo Chávez Frías — President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Andrés Izarra — Minister of People’s Power for Communication and Information
Alejandro Boscán — Vice Minister for Communication Strategy
Lídice Altuve — Vice Minister for Communication Management
Roberto Malaver — General Director of Outreach and Advertising
Gabriel González — Director of Publications
Francisco Ávila & Michel Bonnefoy — Copyediting and editing

Printed in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Legal Deposit: lf87120103204443
January 2011

Presentation

In these selected texts, President Hugo Chávez Frías reflects on the Party as a fundamental piece in the process of constructing socialism, and he also invites its militants to multiply their efforts across the different areas of revolutionary theory and praxis. To develop his analysis, he evokes great historical figures who have enriched transformative thought: Bolívar, Marx, Lenin, Che, among others.

Likewise, he covers topics as varied as the socialist ethic and the struggle against corruption and waste; the formation of communes and people’s power; the problem of bureaucratism; the international political conjuncture; socialist modes of production; the networks of communal councils as bridges between countryside and city, among other ideas that serve as a guide to confront capitalism.

“Socialism will save the peoples of the world from misery, poverty, hunger, and inequality.”
— Hugo Chávez Frías

The Bolivarian Revolution and Socialism

An emancipatory and authentic revolution

Our revolution was the last revolution of the 20th century, at a time when revolutionary paths had been nearly closed off; when almost all the lights on the global horizon had been extinguished and the Hegelian thesis of the “end of history” was proclaimed from the think tanks of imperial hegemonic power.

And, from the standpoint of development, something even more important: our revolution is the first of the 21st century.

We are obliged to preserve it. That obligation is more important than anything else in our lives: to preserve it, strengthen it, nourish it, leave it for tomorrow, for always.

This revolution must become more real, more authentic every day.

We are the sons and daughters of the giant Bolívar. And as such, we have a great commitment — far greater than ourselves.

We will expend ourselves entirely and gladly, but we will fulfill the task.

A revolution cannot be made without true revolutionaries.

They will not be able to halt the revolutionary current

The global crisis of capitalism must be, in Venezuela, an opportunity to accelerate the dismantling of the capitalist system and, at the same time, to accelerate the construction of Bolivarian socialism.

That is a strategic line of work, of thought and action in the national government, in local and regional governments, in the communities and, of course, in the Party. It implies certain structural upheavals. Well then, who said this was a garden-path? As the great Argimiro Gabaldón said, the road is hard and difficult — but it is the only road that will lead us to the construction of the socialist homeland.

There is a continental strategy by the right and far-right to try, by all possible means, to stop this revolutionary, socialist, popular current that has been unleashed in Latin America and has made us the epicenter of great changes underway in the world.

All eyes of the global far right are directed, first of all, at Venezuela — but they will not be able to defeat our people, our Party, our Government, our Revolution.

A revolution that is humanly gratifying

The model we propose as an alternative to capitalism must be assumed and felt by the people. That is what the writer István Mészáros calls the “humanly gratifying.”

We must understand what “humanly gratifying” means. First, that one feels morally and spiritually fulfilled, socially useful — and for that, consciousness is required. We are not talking about gratification because we drink whiskey every night or live the dolce vita, or earn a million-dollar salary or have the latest car model and a mansion. That is what is “gratifying” in the capitalist model, per capitalism’s values.

The challenge is to create other values that human beings recognize as gratifying. But certainly, there are basic needs essential for life: housing, health, education, services, potable water, energy — and socialism must solve these. It must be humanly gratifying.

The beginning of a new era

Today marks ten years since the beginning of the Revolutionary Government in Venezuela — ten years since the beginning of a new era in Latin America and the Caribbean.

As Father Bolívar wrote in the Jamaica Letter: “We are neither North Americans nor Europeans. We are a mixture of African black, European white, and the Indigenous peoples of this heroic land of the Americas…”

If one compares what Venezuela was ten years ago with what our homeland is today; what Latin America and the Caribbean were ten years ago with what they are today, one can see the gigantic changes that have begun.

A new political, economic, and geopolitical map is taking shape in Latin America.

Ten years ago, Latin America and the Caribbean were almost completely kneeling to the mandates of the North American empire. One could rightly use that old phrase: Latin America was the backyard of the North American empire.

Today the situation has changed radically. The region has freed itself from the imperialist yoke that lashed us for so long.

And with each passing day, Latin America and the Caribbean will be more free, and we will be building the new homeland with greater strength — because, as you know, comrades and compatriots, the homeland is either one and great or it is neither homeland nor anything.

Creation of the socialist productive model

I ask that we accelerate the creation of the socialist economic model — the socialist productive model; that we accelerate the activation of social property, of a new socialist mode of production, of new socialist modes of distribution aimed at satisfying needs.

If we do not structurally transform the capitalist rentier model that has always prevailed in Venezuela into a diversified, socialist, productive model, we will never be in a position to meet the people’s needs.

If we do not change the economic structure to generate a different model, we will never be able to solve the heavy legacy of poverty and exclusion that our people have carried with great effort on their shoulders, on their souls.

Our socialism is based in science and history

While it is true that we must invent our 21st-century socialism in Venezuela, it is also true that any socialist invention must be grounded in scientific principles.

We are not going to invent socialism from nothing, as if it were totally new; as if history did not exist; as if there were not so many wonderful revolutionary experiences of the past and present; as if there were not, since the days of Christ, a significant number of great socialist thinkers.

The issue remains ideological — the formation and configuration of ideology. Some Catholic hierarchs get annoyed when I say this, but I say it because I believe it: Christ, for me, was and is one of the greatest actors and thinkers of socialism in our history.

For me, Christianity is either socialist or it is not Christianity. Christianity is eminently socialist.

We must read the discourses of Christ and his lived action — anti-imperialist, confronting the economic, political, and religious elites of his time. He proclaimed equality, human freedom, human dignity, the ennoblement of the human being. He ended up martyred for the poor of the Earth.

Let us remember what Christ said: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of equality, the kingdom of justice, the kingdom of Christ.”

The true kingdom of Christ is socialism; the true ideal of Christ is socialism; the true ideal of Bolívar is socialism; of Simón Rodríguez, socialism.

Later came Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ‘Lenin’, and many other thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries who shaped scientific socialism — historical materialism.

We cannot ignore that contribution, nor the experience of the Soviet Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, much closer to us in space and time, in character and roots.

That is why we must study a lot. We must read a lot, discuss and read socialist theses — and upon that body of knowledge invent socialism with Venezuelan characteristics, in this time and in this place.

Anti-imperialist and socialist revolution

Beginning in 2002, our process began to radicalize. The counterrevolutionary and fascist whip pushed us forward. This is the only way for a revolution to truly be a revolution and succeed: by strengthening, deepening, sharpening its strategies, its program, its lines, its fire, its force.

The other path leads to weakening, to agony, to death. When the revolutionary fiber of the masses awakens, it erupts — but that alone is not enough for a revolution to succeed.

Here we deepened, and in 2003 the Bolivarian Revolution declared itself anti-imperialist in response to the empire’s aggressions. Never before had we proclaimed the anti-imperialist character of our revolution.

We could say that in that first stage it was an innocent revolution, with many contradictions; later we raised the anti-imperialist banner, and in 2005 we raised the second banner: socialism. These two banners are decisive. This revolution will be more anti-imperialist and more socialist every day.

The seven strategic lines of the Simón Bolívar National Project and the socialist Venezuela

Within these seven lines, the battle of ideas that begins tomorrow will unfold, against the ideological lines of the counterrevolutionary opposition, which is being financed and driven from Washington and, here inside, by the apátrida fifth column we have.

Let us recall the seven strategic lines:

  1. The new socialist ethic. Each of us must cultivate, day by day, greater socialist and humanist consciousness and selflessness: put aside personal interests. Let us detach from ourselves — that is the Bolivarian socialist ethic.
  2. Achieving the greatest social happiness. This is Bolívar’s expression. When he spoke of the “greatest possible sum of happiness,” he was speaking of a political concept, a political pursuit — and today we are clear: the only way to achieve the greatest sum of happiness for a people is through socialism. In capitalism, what is achieved is the greatest sum of unhappiness for peoples, societies, and human beings.
  3. Revolutionary protagonistic democracy. It consists in the people having power, progressively assuming it and building new popular power.
  4. The socialist productive model. The only way to achieve the greatest social happiness is by constructing a socialist economic model, a socialist productive base.
  5. The new national geopolitics. The new geometry of power.
  6. The new international geopolitics. Venezuela added to the process of giving form and solidity to a multipolar world — South American union, for example — processes in which Venezuela must continue playing a role which, though modest, is important for the integration of the peoples of Our America, as José Martí defined it.
  7. Venezuela, a world energy power. That is the path we are on.

Capacity to respond to historical opportunities

In Venezuela, beyond theory, we have a reality in motion: constituent power is and must be a permanent, transformative force — a revolutionary injection to reactivate our Bolivarian process — a capacity to respond.

I took this expression from Toni Negri: “Capacity to respond continually to a historical opportunity.” I would say not to one, but to the historical opportunities that present themselves along the way.

We are simple representatives of the people, simple representatives of the original constituent power to which we owe ourselves. That power is the owner of the Republic — not us, governors, mayoresses and mayors, ministers, deputies.

The three axes of the triangle or government project

First axis: the government project

The triangle of government has three variables. One: the Government project. The project is of utmost importance: where we are going, what our objectives are, what the great objective is. Bolívar defined it in Angostura: “The most perfect system of government is that which gives its people the greatest sum of political stability, the greatest sum of social security, and the greatest sum of possible happiness…” That is the great objective.

No one may or should have personal projects. Whoever has a private project works against the general project. No one can be obeying other projects dictated from other command posts, whatever they may be called — economic groups, political parties, specific regions — no. There is one captain, one project, one ship we are on.

Second axis: governability or environment

The second variable of the triangle is governability — the environment. The more demanding the project is, the more governability tends to become complex and difficult. We already experienced this in 2001, 2002, 2003. At one point we were against the ropes, attacked from within and without; there were a thousand political, military, economic conspiracies — sabotage, terrorism. Of course — because we chose that path. Had we not chosen that path, that objective, that project, that direction on the compass, what happened would never have happened, nor what continues to happen — the threats that continue to be activated in different spheres.

Third axis: the capacity to govern

Individually, but above all collectively, comrades in the cabinet, we can influence all three variables — some more, some less. On the project, without a doubt, we can influence; we are and will continue influencing the project’s design, its stages, its leaps.

Dialectic of democracy and revolution

We are representatives, but we have sworn to give life to a participatory — and beyond that, protagonistic — democracy, not a representative democracy. We are a contradiction, because if we are to speak of democracy, we must recall the liberal democracy imposed on all these countries and horribly copied — still copied and intended to be copied — by the elites of our countries: a democracy that in the end is not democracy.

We must work on this great contradiction: how to overcome the barriers that oppose the advance of true democracy — participatory, protagonistic — so that it is revolutionary? Because elite, representative democracy is counterrevolutionary. A National Assembly enclosed within four walls; a government closed within four walls, making decisions based on the representation a people gave it, expropriating its sovereignty — that is counterrevolutionary.

This is not a democratic revolution. It is not the same to speak of a democratic revolution as of a revolutionary democracy. The first concept has a brake — like a horse: it is a revolution, but democratic. It is a conservative brake. The other concept is liberating — like a shot, like a horse without a bridle: revolutionary democracy, democracy for the revolution.

Revolutionary democracy must necessarily be a strong democracy — a powerful democracy. It must be filled every day with greater force, greater power. It cannot be a weak, languid, insipid, naïve democracy. I invite all of us to think, design, and put into practice actions in all spheres to strengthen and fill revolutionary democracy with transformative power.

Powerful democracy

The key is power. We must ask: what kind of power is force?

The first great power is moral power. It is not the power of the empire that bombs and tramples and destroys — the power of immorality, the power of evil.

Let us make our Revolution more powerful every day — our revolutionary democracy. A powerful democracy that has the power to transform; that has popular power in motion — economic power, social power, popular power, moral power.

We must recognize the obstacles that slow the revolutionary impulse of a powerful democracy — that tend to weaken it and rob it of strength, of power, and open breaches — that endanger revolutionary democracy.

About Revolutionary Ethics

“Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”
— Ernesto Che Guevara

Let’s put an end to the vices of the old political class

Karl Marx says: “The new society is born contaminated…”

We must be conscious of this, to attack the vices of the old political class that remain here and seek to infiltrate from all sides: petty calculations, individual or group interests, personal ambitions; interests of certain capitalist sectors that seek to infiltrate revolutionary movements to neutralize or halt them.

Anarchist currents, old vices of left and right… I ask us to raise ourselves up and to have the individual and collective resolve to crush those old vices.

Let us strip off other things that not only fail to serve us, but are like a burden that keeps us from flying. I ask the collective to be vigilant against any of these vices seeking to infiltrate here and to pulverize them, to attack them head-on in internal debate.

Example of true revolutionaries

You live in a society bombarded by the perverse values of capitalism. Fight the cultural battle every day — the battle of love against hate. Capitalism has its values — negative ones — and socialism has its values — sublime ones.

Capitalism projects individualism and thus the division of society.

We socialists must carry love, the life of the collective body, the collective mind, solidarity, commitment, and the consciousness of social duty. And you must be better than us — a thousand times better — examples of true socialist revolutionaries.

That is not a task for the future — it is a task for the present. You must do as Christ said: multiply. He said: “Go and be the light of the world and the salt of the earth.” Salt to prevent the world from rotting, to heal what is rotten; light to illuminate with your own light — individual and collective.

The collective must be above the individual. Let there be no selfishness in you, no base ambitions, no ambition for material profit or wealth — which inevitably leads to corruption. Detach from yourselves. Be like Che, like Christ, like Bolívar.

Humanist values and material liberation

For there to be socialism, many things are required. I want to insist on consciousness of social duty. The first revolution is inside, in the spirit. Be a good child because you love and respect others, because you feel part of a community and responsible to it — because you love — be loving.

Let us remember Christ: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” That is fundamental for socialism. In capitalism, we are set to hate one another — why? Because capitalism puts us in the jungle: every man for himself. We end up hating and competing to see who survives.

Socialism is love. That is why I say the principal nutrient of the Bolivarian socialist project must be love; therefore love must be nourished in many ways.

Love of nature, of the homeland, of the flag, of yourself — but without egoism.

True socialist values

The values of socialism are, for me, the very principles of true Christianity: equality, love for others, the willingness to sacrifice oneself for others.

That is impossible in capitalism; that is why I believe Christ was one of the greatest socialists in history.

Socialism vs. individualism

The culture of individualism is very strong in the world, in our peoples, in our lands.

The word privada (private) comes from there: “to deprive others of.” Private property is that which belongs to someone who deprives others. You are deprived because it is mine. Its foundation is egoism, and this has penetrated deeply into the metabolism of the social body.

Therefore the battle is not against some opposition mayor or candidate of another party — call him whatever you like. That is not the problem.

The battle is ideological, cultural; the battle is great, the challenge infinite.

The moral strengthening of the Revolution

We need a revolutionary acceleration. We need a revolution within the revolution — a moral strengthening of the revolution; a battle that we must all wage against the deviations that still persist; a fight to the death against corruption everywhere, in whatever disguise; a fight to the death against waste and unnecessary spending; a fight to the death against inefficiency, against bureaucratism; a battle to give body to the spirit of socialism.

We must be conscious of the following: what happens in Venezuela will influence in many ways what continues to happen in Latin America and the world. The fate of humanity may depend on the Bolivarian Revolution — let us say it that way, with all the letters, without vanity and with humility — but it is the truth.

Today the Bolivarian Revolution has become a universal reference — that is why imperialism strikes us so hard and will continue trying to stop us. Only that imperialism will have fewer teeth and fewer fists with each passing day.

US imperialism approaches what Mao Zedong once said: imperialism, a paper tiger strategically — and it will be a paper tiger tactically as well. And we are obliged to become true tigers of steel, strategically and tactically.

Moral and political leadership

A leadership that is devoted, true, selfless — a moral leadership of transition. What force moral leadership has! In this case moral and political, because there are people who have moral leadership but are off in a cabin somewhere writing — they are examples, symbols.

Gandhi — that is the kind of leadership we need: moral and political, mobilizing; Martin Luther King, an impressive personality; Mandela; Bolívar; Christ.

All of us here must be leaders, act as leaders, behave as leaders. It is necessary to catalyze, through civic education, true leaderships. The true leader is a great civic, moral, and political educator — a guide.

The Revolutionary Party of the People

PSUV Anthem

The PSUV, united with passion,
takes up the Liberator’s dream and embodies it, lifts its gaze,
and builds the socialist homeland.
We are millions, a single voice, a people free in revolution.
We are the present, the great tomorrow;
we are forging the sovereign homeland.

Let’s not be an electoralist party

We cannot let ourselves be carried away by “electoralism” — if the word is valid — and end up a purely electoralist party. Beware! Or an electoralist leader, an electoralist president, an electoralist governor. That is not the essence of the path; nevertheless, it is a factor of utmost strategic importance, because we are obliged to win elections, one after another, to guarantee the continuity and deepening of the Bolivarian Revolution.

We are obliged not to forget this factor — and that is one of the things happening to us: we remember elections only when they are already upon us. We start running around, creating patrols and rushing, the campaign and the caravan… but by then very little time is left.

We must translate, convert every man and woman, every militant and every sympathizer — not into a potential vote but into a disciplined vote — even when critical, disciplined — responsible, strategic, permanent, secure.

The counterrevolution has managed to inject hatred and force into its followers — hatred moves. We must relaunch love, strengthen the people’s love for the Bolivarian Revolution, for socialism — and let it be more powerful than the hatred felt by the counterrevolution.

In conclusion, we are obliged to translate the people’s love, joy, and hope — more than love, frenzy — and translate that frenzy into a strategic, permanent, firm vote.

The revolution cannot betray hope

A revolution must learn to pick up the garbage. A revolution must fill potholes in the streets; it must address the smallest needs of the people. It cannot remain only in the radical discourse of the barricades.

A revolution must cling to the poor, to the most needy, to their drama, their pain, their love and their hope.

We must not let ourselves be kidnapped by the comforts of the palace, the office, the air-conditioned car — by bourgeois life. We must shake that off. That is part of the self-criticism that must be directed inward — relentless.

A vanguard party, with effectiveness and quality

Alfredo Maneiro said that every political organization must have the highest degree of political effectiveness and revolutionary quality: “By political effectiveness we mean an organization’s capacity to become a real alternative for government and, eventually, to come to lead it.”

We might add more: it is not only about becoming a real alternative and coming to lead — but about keeping power and transforming its form and substance — the structures of the government and the State.

This must indeed be ended as soon as possible: the parasitic State, the bourgeois State, the capitalist State — and we must create a new State: a revolutionary, socialist State that is a machine for constructing socialism.

We have managed to occupy important spaces in Government; therefore, we must conserve them in order to continue transforming them — Government and State as instruments of policy; in this case, a popular, liberating State, not an oppressive, repressive State subordinated to the bourgeoisie, subordinated to imperialism.

That is the State we must end: the bourgeois State, the pitiyanqui State, used by the dominant classes to trample the working class, the workers, and the people — and to protect their interests, as occurred here. We still have parts of that State intact — not only the nation-state but its local and regional projections.

Therefore, there cannot be a single socialist mayor, PSUV governor or mayoress, president, minister, or high official who arrives in office to strengthen the old State, the old way of doing politics, or to leave intact the networks through which the bourgeoisie, for many years, ensured the capture — the expropriation — of national wealth for its benefit.

There are many mechanisms still intact at national, regional, and local levels; and our Party must tackle that debate, and do so openly with the country, with the workers, with the people. A vanguard must seek answers — with the government, with State institutions — and must finally detach itself from the bourgeois condition of the State — made to defend the interests of the bourgeoisie, to repress the people, and to strengthen the appropriation of national wealth by a minority.

Zero divisionism!

I congratulate the delegates from my heart, and I demand the utmost dedication, morality and ethics, the highest revolutionary quality — zero divisionism. Unity, unity. I want to recall how much damage division has done to our people!

Division has been a common factor in Latin America. The empire has always known how to prevent our true unity; now it makes desperate efforts to do so again, with the coup in Honduras, U.S. bases on Colombian territory, daily conspiracies throughout the continent — trying to generate conflicts among us and internally in each country and in our homeland.

Bolívar was a victim of divisions. Let us remember that Bolívar resigned from the government of Gran Colombia; no one heeded him — neither Páez here, nor Santander there. They ordered him killed. The Peruvians invaded Ecuador; Bolívar grew tired; conspiracies were daily — they nearly killed him that night; Manuela Sáenz saved him. Hence he says:

“I believe everything lost forever; the homeland and my friends plunged into a sea of calamities. If there were only one sacrifice to make, and it were my life, or my happiness, or even my honor… believe me, I would not hesitate. But I am convinced this sacrifice would be useless, because a poor man can do nothing against a whole world…”

That is how Bolívar died, comrades: proud and alone.

A Party that generates cadres

There would be no revolution if we did not form ourselves — not only the cadres, but the Party as a whole, the people as a whole.

Cadres are activators, generators, drivers, engines. Let us recall Antonio Gramsci’s thesis: the mass party that we are must not only be of the masses; that is not enough — it must be a mass party that generates its own cadres. In other words, the Party must be a generator of cadres, of leaders.

All of this has to do with the School of Cadres and formation, with awareness of the role we are playing within the historical framework of the last 200 years.

Socialist morality against corruption

Within this topic, socialist morality is fundamental — that we be examples. I call upon you to wage the supreme battle against corruption, which has many disguises and hiding places — a fight to the death against waste.

Know that the world is in an economic crisis; and what has happened is that thanks to the Bolivarian Revolution’s arrival in time, that crisis has not struck Venezuela; but a crisis of such magnitude, depth, and global impact — we can hardly say it will not affect Venezuela.

So it is necessary that we begin this new period and these new governments curbing waste: let us spend only what is necessary, save as much as we can, and focus on what is necessary — pushing this project forward, within the five lines I have already mentioned. Let us be like Bolívar — examples of dedication, of struggle against corruption.

Revolutionary consciousness and self-criticism

A sleeping people will never achieve glory. Let us take advantage of the electoral campaign to revive criticism, self-criticism, ideology, the debate of ideas. Listen closely to the people.

Candidates must prepare to govern obeying the mandate of the people, of the communal councils, of the popular currents, of the workers.

If we review the last ten years, we have more than one deserter.

Everything has an explanation. What is the fundamental cause of the desertions we have had? It is ideological.

We need to strengthen revolutionary ideology. Let us do it!

If consciousness is nourished by knowledge, we need a lot of knowledge — that is, a lot of study — and I am not talking about doctorates. I am talking about the study of the reality that surrounds us — realizing through observation, analysis, debate, reading, ideological work. Only thus can we increase knowledge, revolutionary consciousness, socialist consciousness.

“Do not let yourselves be captured by power”

I tell today’s candidates — tomorrow’s governors and mayoresses and mayors — I beg you: not one more betrayal of our people.

The problem is ideological. Do not let yourselves be surrounded by the petty bourgeoisie! Do not become petty bourgeois. Petty-bourgeois ideology destroys the Revolution.

Let us not become petty bourgeois. Let us finally purge the poison of greed, of personal ambition for wealth, which leads us straight to corruption and betrayal.

Beware of those circles of local, national or international power that begin to study each of us — to study our vulnerabilities — and begin their attack to encircle us, to separate us from the people, to place us at the service of imperialism and the creole bourgeoisies.

In truth, for us there are only two options: the socialist homeland or death. There are no others.

The Party and the Revolutionary Impulse of the Masses

Strategically, the Party, as a guarantee of revolutionary permanence, is an example of how a political force is united — because for a revolution to occur, it is indispensable that the impetus, the revolutionary impulse of the masses be awakened.

But if that revolutionary impulse is not simultaneously guided by a political leadership, driven and sustained by a political program — if these components do not appear — the revolutionary impulse of the masses will be destined to disappear and get lost along the way.

A single man or woman cannot carry the revolutionary impulse of the masses upon their shoulders. There must be a vanguard, a party of the masses and of cadres, a revolutionary party — and a party must be much more than a machine: it must be a project, a strategy, and a political direction.

This past year, the Party has emerged: more than 14,000 socialist battalions consolidated across the country; millions of militants and aspiring militants who tomorrow will go, from the grassroots, for the first time in Venezuela’s political history, to elect their candidates for mayors’ and governors’ offices — their leaders.

You, candidates — regardless of tomorrow’s results — make up the vanguard, the cadres, the backbone of the Party. (…)

The Party must branch out through the working class, the youth, the peasants, the social movements, and on an international scale.

Will and consciousness to build socialism

Socialism is only a possibility, and therefore, as a possibility, it depends to a great extent — among other things — on our will. It is not going to come like the rain, or like earthquakes arrive — it depends on us.

Because it depends on us, our Party must be a school that forges will; each one of us must be a solid column of will — iron will — to build Bolivarian socialism. And we must build it — we cannot fail — a school of wills.

For there to be will, consciousness is indispensable, and — I will repeat it with Victor Hugo of Les Misérables — “consciousness is nothing but the sum of the sciences and of knowledge.” “He who does not know is like he who does not see,” the people say in the streets. Hence the importance of study, individually and collectively; hence the vital importance of knowledge, education, culture, consciousness of who we are.

Corruption is counterrevolution

Beware in our ranks of a Bolivarian oligarchy! We do not want new oligarchies, new bourgeoisies here. That is one of the Party’s struggles: to strengthen revolutionary values.

A so-called revolutionary who is always asking “what’s in it for me,” how much money will I get — that is no revolutionary; that is a counterrevolutionary.

The corrupt person is a counterrevolutionary sometimes disguised as a revolutionary.

They ran an intense campaign against me — the oligarchy, not only the domestic oligarchy, but the empire — a campaign to try to win me over, to attract me. They simply failed — and because they failed, they later tried to kill me — they overthrew me.

People’s Power in Revolution

“Innocence does not kill the people, but neither does it save them — what will save them is their consciousness…”
— Alí Primera

The people’s creative power

I will paraphrase Che Guevara: with the blunted weapons of capitalism, socialism can never be built. With capitalism’s blunted methods, the drama of poverty and inequality cannot be solved. Only with new, creative weapons, the product of the people’s creative powers, will we solve these problems.

Only the people save the people

The organized community, popular knowledge — it is an awakening of knowledges, of participation. Here we are breaking — pulverizing — the paradigms of false democracy in the political, economic, social, and ethical spheres. They — the sovereign — are taking power… It is the people; only the people save the people.

What role is Bolívar’s people called to play at the start of the 21st century?

We must create and increase the sense of belonging — and from there, consciousness — to know what one belongs to. Knowledge is fundamental. Scientific knowledge to situate oneself in time.

One of the challenges of historical time — as Mészáros puts it — is the need for us to connect with the reality of the circumstances we are living. What he calls the limited time of human life must be connected to historical time, the frame of history. Hence the need to place ourselves in a historical perspective — to understand what it is about, what our role is — and to understand what the poet Andrés Eloy Blanco says: the Venezuela I dream of I will not see — but what does it matter? It is enough to know that in the eyes of those who will see it, my blood will pulse; I will pulse there, in the eyes of my children, in the eyes of our grandchildren.

So let us fulfill our task even if we end up minced to pulp. What matters is the historical perspective of building a homeland. Looking back: Bolívar did his part — to cite only Bolívar, but we could say Luisa Cáceres or any other hero. (…)

Whoever has within themselves that sense of belonging, whoever manages to sow consciousness into their very marrow — becomes an unbeatable force; nothing will stop them. Nothing and no one — well, death — and even then, a trace will remain.

Let us become that — true high-power engines driven by consciousness of belonging to a historical axis, to a long battle that will outlast our lives, as the lives of Che, Bolívar, Manuela, and all did.

A life is nothing — barely a point on a line that vanishes into centuries upon centuries. Let us be conscious of that, and then we will be ready to fight the great battle every day of the lives we have left — to free the homeland and to create the great socialist homeland.

Bolívar said: “If we want a homeland, let us have patience and more patience, constancy and more constancy, work and more work to achieve our goal.”

Building the material base

How can the people build the material base? By becoming owners.

If the people — if you — have neither a piece of land, nor a machine, nor capital; if you only have your labor power — I have nothing else, no housing, no land, no machine, no… little money — nothing; what do you end up doing? Selling your labor power. To whom? To the capitalist who buys it and pays you poorly, exploits you so he becomes rich. Then we must liberate the worker. How? By giving and supplying the means of production.

The communes and the five fronts for building socialism

These socialist communities must be the communes. The commune must be the space where we give birth to socialism. Socialism must arise from the base — it is not decreed; it must be created. It is a popular creation, of the masses, of the nation — a “heroic creation,” as Mariátegui said. It is a historic birth, not something from the Office of the Presidency.

The theme of the communes must be transversal; it calls to all spheres. The commune is everyone’s responsibility. Here I insist on a theoretical line: we must arm ourselves with a holistic vision. Holism is the integral vision. We must look at reality as a whole and assume it as such.

Because the Revolution is that: the first organizations that arose were the technical water tables in Hidrocapital ten years ago; then came urban land committees, then health committees, and from there communal councils, communal banks.

It is the people who decide — the community — not us. It is not Chávez who will decide. Chávez can give his opinion, like anyone else, but the decision belongs to people’s power, to direct democracy, through popular assemblies and participation.

A commune must be a cell. But who has seen a cell alone? A cell must be alongside another, and another, to form the body, the tissue, the human body. It must be an integrated system of communes, not isolated communes. And that is valid right now for the communal councils, which are nuclei.

You know I have suggested talking about socialism on five fronts of battle. Let us take that as a reference — I suggest it. Let us work on those five fronts in the commune.

First front: moral and ethical

The first front to work in the building commune is moral. We could sum it up in one phrase: consciousness of social duty. Or, in Christ’s words: “Love one another.” That is social love, not egoism — the moral codes and principles of life: the principles of socialism. “Morality and enlightenment are our first needs.”

You must begin from below, empowering social love, the consciousness of social duty. That is my summary.

Second front: social

The cornerstone of our system rests on equality, as Bolívar said — established and practiced in Venezuela, wherever we are, in the territory of the commune. We must all be equals and practice equality, not only proclaim it.

There is a principle: from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs. That will progressively equalize us. From those who can give more, ask more; those with greater needs, support more. We are unequal by nature — Bolívar and Marx said so. Socialism seeks to place us in a sphere of equality in society — a social, political, ethical equality.

Though we are born unequal and diverse — we are not automatons or robots to be identical — later come the laws, said Bolívar — the arts, knowledge, education, culture, industry — and they place us in a climate of equal living conditions.

That is the social front. Let us work on that in the commune — the social, the equality — the two are closely related.

In a commune under construction, for example, the communal members must go find the poorest and weakest and extend a hand. That has to do with the first front — moral — but not a puritanical, theoretical morality; it is morality in practice, revolutionary ethics in practice, revolutionary praxis. Let us not be like those false Christians who go every Sunday to pray and beat their chests, and then leave church and do nothing to help someone who suffers, even when that person is nearby. Those are not Christians — they are hypocritical Pharisees.

Third front: political

The awakening of people’s power — self-government — to sum it up that way. You must be the government there. Not the mayor, nor the governor — much less so. Those are spheres of government we will not eliminate. You must generate, in the spheres of the building communes, ever greater levels of people’s power and self-government — what István Mészáros calls in his wonderful book Beyond Capital social oversight and general self-management — popular governments.

In a well-organized commune, the people will be able, in the future, to legislate for the commune, always within the framework of the National Constitution, national laws, national projects, and national integration.

This legislation — which does not appear in the Constitution (nor will it ever), nor in laws or regulations — affects the daily life of a community, of a collective; the use of spaces, for example; customs; communal and social life; rules of coexistence.

For example, I believe one of the factors that most influences insecurity in the streets is the shameless and open consumption of alcohol everywhere, as if it were a soda or sugarcane juice. The people should not allow that. You, the communes, should not allow it. You can regulate that — it can be a communal regulation, a communal law.

Suppose a mayor — or Chávez — issues a permit to build a private enterprise on this land, a big building. But why would Chávez do that if we are here — the commune? Chávez, you cannot do that — you have to send someone to talk to us.

It is not about opposing State decisions, but demanding respect for the opinion and everything that affects the community.

In short, we must go beyond the communal council. The communal council is an organ of people’s power, but there are also water committees and the communal bank. We must move to a higher level of government in the commune, where the communal council will be part of the communal organ — an arm — and there are also the legs: the urban land committees. We must advance to communal government, to the structures of communal power, of people’s power, of self-government, of social oversight and general self-management.

Fourth front: economic

This is also very important. It is like a table with five legs — if one is missing, the table falls, it goes out of balance, loosens, and collapses. There is a lot to do there as well.

The economic sphere is complex. Know — I repeat with Mészáros — nothing is more difficult, in terms of social processes, than constructing the alternative to capitalism. I would summarize the economic front this way: communal ownership of the means of production — social property in different combinations. And that has to do with creating a new economic model in the commune — the socialist economic model — which must start from primary activity, the production of raw materials.

Perhaps we have a commune in 23 de Enero that will not produce timber — but we can bring it from Proforca, in Uverito. We cannot let the commune go to the capitalist market for timber. The commune must link to the primary sector of whatever economic activity it requires — in this example, timber.

Consider this: why couldn’t a commune from 23 de Enero have a presence — if it is going to work with timber — in the pine forests of Uverito? Why not? Why couldn’t a 23 de Enero commune have a work group there, where the pine reserve is — 600,000 hectares — since that pine reserve is social property? And not only extracting pine — but reforesting as well.

And since it is social property, different communes can also have a presence — not only Proforca, which, otherwise, tends to become a company like any capitalist one that will exploit the pines to sell them at high prices.

This way we begin to break the chains of capitalism — capitalist domination. That is why I say the economic front has to do with the primary sector.

You know about our large gold reserve. We have been fighting against illegal mining, and extremely respectful of the environmental balance. Why couldn’t a commune here in San Agustín specialize in goldsmithing? A group of women and men could take courses at INCES, for example, and then set up a goldsmith’s workshop to make gold objects and jewelry. A good part of that gold is smuggled out — and that gold belongs to the people, not only to those exploiting it there.

We are talking about the economy — made up of the primary sector (production of raw materials), the secondary sector (industries of social property), and then the distribution of products. That is another issue the commune must take on: a commerce different from the capitalist — a popular, fair, solidary commercial activity, not to rob the neighbor or the people.

We must set a fair, solidary price, like Mercal — a good example. But this can also apply to consumer goods — individual, family — like the Vergatario phone.

A commune without a factory, without farmland, without socialist commerce — is not a commune. It is missing a big leg. If in that commune the government helps to build, for example, a furniture factory, a coffee roaster like in Boconó, Trujillo, or the instant coffee factory we are recovering — we take it back, repair it, invest money — the commune would take charge of the roaster. But if there are no moral principles — the first front — that roaster will end up capitalist, and the commune will end up not a commune but a “devil-munne.”

That is why all the legs of the table are needed — because that factory is not to get rich, no; it is to produce food, goods, or services to satisfy the real needs of our community and other communities — for necessary consumption, not consumerism, or what Marx called “prestige consumption.”

The economic sphere must even encompass a new culture of consumption. Take responsibility for this in the communes. We must even change consumption patterns.

Fifth front: territorial

We will build socialism on the territory, in the commune, across these five spheres.

The territory corresponds to space, land. Let us not permit latifundio — neither in the countryside nor in the cities. A commune cannot permit, for example, that in the middle of a city, in a neighborhood, there is — as there still is here in Caracas and elsewhere — a junkyard, that heap of polluting scrap.

We must take possession of the space — legislate over the territory, the environment, the ecology, over solid and liquid waste produced by human life and social dynamics in the territory. The fight against garbage, for example, must be an intense task of the commune. The recovery of forests, nature, rivers, ravines; the prevention of the territory’s own threats — in short, preserving the balance not to harm the space.

The ideological bases of people’s power

That is for the political sphere — and it also touches the ideological: the study of socialism. There are still people confused about us. We must work with those people.

If not for so much media disinformation, and aside from the errors we commit and have committed and continue to commit, I believe that even with that terrifying campaign, our support would not fall below 80%. Solid support. That is where we must go.

The social front has much to do with education and culture. Let us remember what Martí said: “A people must be cultured to be free.”

This is about study, consciousness, knowledge — and that must be a task of the commune: culture. Let our people shine for their brilliance, for their culture, for their cultural wealth — more than for the mountains of gold and silver we possess, said Bolívar.

Transformative praxis and communal empowerment

I call upon communities for all of us to get involved. Beware of sectarianism. If there are residents who do not participate in politics, who do not belong to any party — it doesn’t matter — welcome.

If there is someone from the opposition living there, invite them too — let them come to work and be useful. The homeland is for everyone, and spaces must be opened. You will see that with praxis many people transform — because praxis is what transforms us.

Books are fundamental; theory is fundamental. But we must take it to practice. Praxis transforms the human being.

Accelerate the construction of the communes

Politically, I instruct my Vice President of Government, my ministers, and I ask — urge, encourage — governors, mayors, and regional legislatures to accelerate, from this moment, the birth of communes — popular communes, socialist communes — in cities and in the countryside. A mayor must be a facilitator of people’s power, not a kidnapper of people’s power.

Where the communal councils have been installed with greater success — there are the vanguard points where the communes should be born, through the aggregation of communal councils over a given territory. The communes do not have to be confined by the classic political-territorial division of the country.

We can make proposals — we must guide the people — the Party and the Government — but finally it is the people who must decide and form the communes, where communal power and communal self-government must be strengthened. And the mayors, instead of blocking them as has happened in some cases, should become facilitators, promoters, and guides of the birth and strengthening of the communes and people’s power in the political sphere.

Communal government

We must transfer powers and responsibilities to the communes — transfer power to the communes — so that consciousness, knowledge, and people’s power are strengthened; transfers so that they assume ever greater responsibilities in the political and administrative spheres, in the maintenance of installations, in the activation or installation of new public services that will arise. The Revolution will provide more services every day to our people.

There are many powers currently held by the mayoralties that can perfectly be transferred — such as resource administration — to the communes. This will give the people a greater burden of responsibility, participation, and protagonism.

Let us be more socialist

Every day we must be more socialist, authentically socialist. Governors, mayors, deputies, people — let us dedicate this period now beginning, 2009 to 2019, to the consolidation of the Venezuelan socialist project — our democratic, Bolivarian socialism — full democracy.

Development, freedom, equality, love among us — because this project is the project of love.

We must buttress and strengthen the essence of socialism there — in the political, economic, social, territorial, and geopolitical spheres. And much of that task falls to governors, mayors, ministers, vice presidents — and to me — guiding and facilitating the people’s construction of socialism.

Let us not forget that it is the people who command. We will always obey the people’s will — because that is the essence of social power, socialist power, national power.

Socialism from the people’s base

Socialism will not fall on us from a cloud in the sky. Socialism must be created from the people’s base — from the parish, from the commune, from the municipality, from the regional state, from all the peoples, from all the cities.

Therefore, you — mayors, candidates — in these days, find time every day to read; find good advisers, true advisers who can help you extract and spread socialist thought and the foundations of our socialist thought.

Go to discuss and listen to the battalions — discuss socialism — how the people conceive socialism, what the people’s socialist ideas are — there in the depths of the popular soul; it is a seed sprouting everywhere.

Socialism must have — from my very modest point of view — something like a spirit — the socialist ideal. The 1848 Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels begins with a phrase: “A specter is haunting Europe…”

We could also say: a spirit is roaming our fields, our towns — from the Caribbean islands through Venezuela, across the Amazon, along the Andes’ spine, to the Río de la Plata. It is the spirit of socialism.

If that spirit or specter does not embody itself in a material base, it suffers the fate of any specter or spirit — it fades, dims, time and wind carry it away and it disappears, because the historical adversary is very strong — the historical adversary of socialism has managed to embody itself deeply in the land, in the people, in consciousness, in culture — the culture of egoism is very strong.

Consultation with the masses, not the elite

As Bolívar wrote in Lima in a profound 1824 text I have cited on several occasions — a text that captures Bolívar’s deeply democratic, popular, and revolutionary thought: “Nothing is more consonant with popular doctrines than to consult the nation as a whole on the fundamental questions of government, of the State, of the laws, of the supreme magistrate…” He later added: “Consultation with the masses, not the elite,” is full, popular, participatory democracy.

You see we face a challenge that Bolívar already posed: how to transcend representation and move to participation? Through what mechanisms? How to solve the problem of proportion and representation and convert it into mass participation, and not end up becoming a disgusting elite — a new elite, a new political class far from the yearning masses that are the life of this project?

The Enemies of the People

The enemies of the Revolution — the enemies of the people — the bourgeoisie, the rich and the super-rich — spend their time trying to convince the people of a rosary of lies, like that the Revolution will take away private property. You are the ones, bourgeois, who took everything from the people — who expropriated the people always.

The empire will not rest

We are in the eye of a hurricane. The far right will never abandon the coup card. Its nature is fascism, an ever-greater hatred against our people and its leaders.

Imperialism will not leave us in peace. The pitiyanqui Venezuelan bourgeoisie will not leave us in peace. Let us get used to living in permanent conflict.

If the bourgeoisie took back the government — whether the legislative or executive — the horizon would darken; the great gate we have opened would shut.

What we are going to defend is not even what we have done — it is the immense horizon that is open.

The international right fears the Bolivarian Revolution. And as we advance further, especially in the economic sphere; as they see how the PSUV has been congealing; as imperialism, its intelligence agencies, and its fifth column infiltrated in Venezuela see the advance of popular consciousness — the advance of our youth, our students, our peasants, social organizations — as they see that advance in consciousness, the more they worry, the more they despair. And they come with everything — and we go with everything!

Capitalism: the realm of the rich, the hell of the poor

Capitalism turns property into a privilege. The rich end up concentrating property. They take it from you and accumulate everything. And of course they become rich and the rest — expropriated.

Socialism does not. Socialism distributes property equally. It is individual and social/collective property. A harmonious, balanced world is achieved, as Bolívar said.

We have all been, in one way or another, slaves of capitalism. Capitalism is the realm of the rich — who impose misery on the rest; they take away even parental authority — even your children are taken, often destroyed, enslaved; they take away the right to study, to culture, to health.

In capitalism, if a kilo of coffee costs one bolívar to produce, for example, the capitalist wants to sell it to you for ten bolívares. That is the reason for capitalism’s tragedies: everything is turned into a commodity, and everything is given a price.

With human beings there was born the practice of common property — social property; later came private property, through which a minority took everything and left the majority with nothing.

That is what the bourgeoisie defends. We defend social property, the people’s property; personal property, honest property, the property of your work, the property of your home, the property of yourself, the property of your personal goods, family property, communal property.

That is the property we defend — not the gross property of the bourgeois who want to own everything.

For the bourgeoisie, the people are just a pile of backs

I was remembering the Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton, in a beautiful poem that says: “They — the bourgeoisie — have always seen the people as a pile of backs on which to unleash their fury.” They have always seen the people that way — and sadly, the Venezuelan people were that on February 27 and 28, 1989 — a pile of backs — thousands and thousands of backs running — and upon them this abject bourgeoisie, using the weapons of the Republic, the soldiers of the Republic and the people, the police and all so-called security forces — unleashed its fury.

Today — and I am not exaggerating — the people are not a pile of backs to be mowed down. Today, the Venezuelan people are a pile of chests racing toward the future — millions of open chests running toward a future.

The media threat

Another threat to our democratic process is the media. We must not lose sight of it — we must recognize it, evaluate it, and work on it. And the National Assembly has a very important role to play there — alongside the Government and the country. The media issue: that daily drip does damage. Let us not neglect this permanent attack on the nation and its institutions.

Permanent counterattack at the national and international levels is one of the obstacles we face and one on which we must always be working.

Interventions by President Hugo Chávez from which excerpts were selected

  • Meeting of the leadership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and its president, Hugo Chávez Frías, with the 98 PSUV deputies elected to the National Assembly — Caracas, October 2, 2010.
  • Visit by President Hugo Chávez to the communities of 23 de Enero and Antímano — Caracas, August 30–31, 2010.
  • Special session of the National Assembly for the annual message of the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez — Federal Legislative Palace, Caracas, January 15, 2010.
  • Aló Presidente Teórico No. 6, 1st National Meeting of Socialist Formation Simón Rodríguez, Los Caracas Vacation Complex, Vargas State — August 6, 2009.
  • Aló Presidente Teórico No. 3, Teresa Carreño Theater, Caracas — June 25, 2009.
  • Aló Presidente Teórico No. 2, Cacique Tiuna Socialist Commune, La Rinconada, Caracas — June 18, 2009.
  • Aló Presidente Teórico No. 1, Teresa Carreño Theater, Caracas — June 11, 2009.
  • Massive rally celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Bolivarian Government — Paseo Los Próceres, Caracas — February 2, 2009.
  • Practical-Ideological Workshop Socialism and the Third Period of the Bolivarian Revolution, Military Academy Theater, Caracas — December 7, 2008.
  • Celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Bolivarian Revolution — Miraflores Palace, Caracas — December 6, 2008.
  • Start of the electoral campaign for the 2008 gubernatorial and mayoral elections — Poliedro de Caracas, September 28, 2008.
  • Commitment meeting of PSUV candidates for mayoralties and governorships with the Simón Bolívar National Project, Teresa Carreño Theater, Caracas — May 31, 2008.
  • Installation of the Foundational Congress of the PSUV, San Carlos Barracks, Caracas — January 12, 2008.
  • Swearing-in of the 2007–2013 presidential term — Federal Legislative Palace, Caracas — January 10, 2007.
  • Address at the opening of the ordinary sessions of the National Assembly, January 2006, Legislative Palace, Caracas.
  • Swearing-in of several ministers — Miraflores Palace, Caracas — February 24, 2006.

Contents

  • Presentation — 7
  • The Bolivarian Revolution and Socialism — 11
  • About Revolutionary Ethics — 35
  • The People’s Revolutionary Party — 49
  • People’s Power in Revolution — 71
  • The Enemies of the People — 105

In this compilation of texts, President Hugo Chávez Frías addresses PSUV militants and Bolivarian officials, urging them to overcome petty-bourgeois deviations and to strengthen revolutionary morality and ethics. He calls for the struggle for unity and for preserving the humanitarian values of socialism, emphasizing the social organization of the communes and the socialist economy.