Organization, Participation and Popular Mobilization: Another Achievement of the Bolivarian Revolution

Published at: 19/07/2024 07:00 PM

Since the arrival of the Bolivarian Revolution, fundamental changes have been made that have the potential to contribute to far-reaching transformation, one of these has been the political formation of the People; so today we will analyze participation and mobilization to achieve, once again, electoral victory.

For this analysis, we bring the opinion of the professor of Economic History and Political Science at the Universidad de Oriente (UDO), Steve Ellner, who published in October 2010 a book called “The Latin American Left in Power”, in which he described that “a balance of socialist experiences since 1917 leads to conclusions of those that demonize or glorify a system that they would undoubtedly reject: it is nothing other than while socialist nations have excelled notably on the social front, the stimulation of the production of consumer goods has proved to be an important point, taking into account the habits of empires to sanction and block socialist governments”, the Venezuelan experience in its economic and social performance coincides with this historical trend.

The different criteria used to evaluate the Venezuelan political system since the time of Chávez lead to different evaluations of his government. “On the one hand, liberal democracy emphasized controls and imbalances in the rights of the minority. On the other hand, radical democracy emphasizes a majority government in which the primary thing is the direct participation of the people in decision-making. While the Chavistas embrace radical democracy, or what they call participatory democracy, the Venezuelan opposition attacks the Government based on hypotheses related to liberal democracy,” explained historian Ellner.

Judging by the criteria associated with radical democracy, the Venezuelan political system implemented during the Chávez administration performed better. This type of democracy emphasizes the rule of the majority, in contrast to the rights of the minority, attaching paramount importance to the participation of underprivileged sectors of the population.

During the administration of Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, significant progress has been made on these fronts, thus consolidating mechanisms to facilitate internal critical discussion, organizational strength and the institutionalization of the new rules of the game that define daily participation.

In this same vein and as proposed at the time by the philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, in his book “The Social Contract”, regarding the importance of participation, he explained that “a key component of radical democracy is the mobilization of the popular classes, which in turn leads to the sense of political learning, empowerment, incorporation, participation and organization of the historically excluded”, this is undoubtedly one of the most important achievements of the Revolutionary Government.

Another important achievement of the Bolivarian Revolution is mobilization, particularly when it leads to empowerment and political learning, which at the same time contributes to organizational growth. Never in the history of Venezuela had a massive number of people participated in marches and rallies over such a long period of time as during the Chavista governments.

In fact, in the face of the aggressive and violent tactics of the opposition that began at the end of 2001, the power of mobilization was demonstrated, when hundreds of thousands of people from the neighborhoods surrounded the Presidential Palace and military bases in response to the coup d'etat of April 11, 2002, it made possible the return of Chávez to power. In contrast to the street mobilizations of that day, the participation of the large number of Chavism supporters in the numerous electoral campaigns since 1998 has required a certain degree of organization.

In this way, we can review the evolution of the organization and the popular mobilization for electoral events, they were conceived as part of a bottom-up effort. They included the Electoral Battle Units, created for the recall referendum campaign in August 2004, the battalions, platoons and squads formed for the presidential campaign of December 2006, the socialist battalions of the newly created United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), who campaigned for the constitutional reform in the referendum held in December 2007 and for the Chavism candidates in the municipal and governor elections of November 2008, and the patrols of 20 to 30 members that the PSUV created in 2009 to replace the battalions that were much larger units.

Also on the same topic, professor and researcher Carmen García Guadilla, in 2003, explained that “the key role of popular mobilization in the political strategy of Chavism and its decision to place the people as the protagonists of their destiny, as stated in the Constitution of 1999, have contributed to a sense of empowerment among those who for decades had been largely excluded from the takeover of decisions” adding that “political victories have also encouraged the base of the Chavista movement. Mobilization and empowerment have influenced general attitudes toward Venezuelan democracy.”

This political power that the Venezuelan people have assumed translates into phenomena as we saw in 2006, for example, when, according to figures presented by Latinobarometer, the continent's average electoral participation was 58 percent, 12 points lower than that of Venezuela.

This is why until now, the Venezuelan right will never be able to reverse the decision taken by the People, because it has failed to understand or decipher the importance of the political evolution that we have acquired with regard to the increasingly perfect capacity for organization, participation and mobilization, and we learned this with Chávez .

AMELYREN BASABE/Mazo News Team