The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 72/No. 47      December 1, 2008

 
Venezuelan publisher launches
booklet on U.S. class struggle
(front page)
 
BY PATRICK BROWN  
CARACAS, Venezuela—“We have hope—not an illusion, fantasy, or dream, but soundly based hope—that an organized people can achieve a revolution,” said Carolina Alvarez.

Alvarez was speaking November 14 at a presentation during the Venezuela International Book Fair on the pamphlet Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? The pamphlet answers “yes” to the question posed in its title. “I believe that is an important message,” said Alvarez, editorial director of the Venezuelan publishing house Monte Avila. A Spanish-language edition of the pamphlet has been published by Monte Avila for distribution in Venezuela and 1,000 copies of a special printing of it were distributed free to book fair participants.

Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? addresses the topic that was debated by more than 20 speakers during the Central Forum at the 2007 Venezuela book fair. That rolling discussion spanned several days. The pamphlet is based on the contribution of Pathfinder president Mary-Alice Waters at the forum’s first session.

More than 50 people attended the presentation of the pamphlet during this year’s book fair.

Beside Alvarez, the panelists were Erick Rangel, a student and member of the national leadership team of the JPSUV, the youth organization of the governing party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela; José González, the president of the ALBA Cultural Fund, a joint publishing project initiated by the Venezuelan and Cuban governments and now involving Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua as well; and Waters, the author of the pamphlet. The meeting—jointly sponsored by the two publishing houses—was chaired by Róger Calero for Pathfinder.

“This is the third book we have published in collaboration with Pathfinder,” Alvarez said. “It brings together the experiences of the Central Forum at last year’s book fair which focused precisely on the possibilities of making a socialist revolution in the United States.” Previous Spanish-language Pathfinder titles published by Monte Avila were Cuba and the Coming American Revolution, by Jack Barnes, and Malcolm X Talks to Young People.

José González, who chaired one of the sessions of the Central Forum last year, also recalled the importance of that event in his opening remarks.

“The rise of a socialist revolution is not just happenstance, something born out of a conjuncture,” González said, “It has to be a social process where objective and subjective conditions come together. The world is going through a very special conjuncture, one that can have unforeseen consequences,” he said.

Erick Rangel, who is a student at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, said when he first read Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? he was struck by the fact that a revolution in the United States “is not only possible, but necessary, because of the hardship, poverty, and affronts to dignity facing millions of people there.”  
 
‘Potent force within labor’
Rangel noted the description of the demonstrations on May 1, 2006, and following years, “when immigrants and workers marched to demand their rights.” He said that it showed that “immigrants are a potent force within labor.”

He added that “the financial crisis shows that capitalism doesn’t have the political, social, or economic resources to sustain itself,” suggesting that it will “fall under its own weight.”

Waters said that in rereading the presentation made a year ago, what she found most striking was “the list of assumptions one would have to make to reach the conclusion that socialist revolution in the U.S. is not possible,” and then thinking about the deepening economic crisis that has unfolded in the last year.

Pointing to the fact that it took the global carnage of World War II, with its massive destruction of capital, to get out of the Great Depression of the 1930s, Waters called attention to the observation made by V.I. Lenin, the central leader of the Russian Revolution, that there is no hopeless situation for capitalism. Unless workers successfully take state power from their hands, the capitalists will recover. “The only question is the price the toilers will be made to pay,” she emphasized.

“We have already seen the opening skirmishes of a fighting vanguard of the working class” within the United States, Waters said, noting that this vanguard “is strengthened by its increasingly international character.” (See above for the full text of Waters’ remarks).  
 
Questions about Obama
Hands shot up as the discussion period opened. Responding in part to remarks by several of the speakers, a student asked whether U.S. president-elect Barack Obama could lead a revolution in the United States. In her opening remarks Alvarez had said, “The idea that the North American people have voted for a revolutionary candidate is an illusion.” Waters had stated that Obama was “cold-bloodedly selected” by the U.S. rulers as “the best man for the job right now.” González had described Obama “as a symbol that a great majority of the people in the United States want change.”

“If you listen to Obama’s speeches,” said Rangel in answering the student, “you can see that his policies are not different from those of [defeated Republican candidate John] McCain. The important thing is struggle in the streets.”

“The two-party system of the Democrats and Republicans is the biggest political obstacle to independent working-class political consciousness and action in the United States,” said Waters.

When Alvarez said that in covering the U.S. elections the big-business media ignored all but the two big capitalist parties, and asked the U.S. participants on the panel to talk about the socialist alternative, Waters invited chairperson Calero, who was the Socialist Workers Party candidate for president in 2008, to join the discussion.

“We presented a workers’ alternative in the elections,” said Calero. “The class character of the campaign was important; just having a third candidate is not enough. We got a hearing from thousands of working people and young people. And for us the campaign does not end on election day.”  
 
Conspiracy theories vs. science
When a participant asked for comment on conspiracy theories and other alternatives to a scientific view of history and politics, Alvarez noted that Monte Avila receives many manuscripts along those lines. “We need science, not talk of hidden forces,” she said. “They don’t go to the heart of the matter. We must offer scientific, historical explanations.”

What would be the impact on Cuba and Venezuela of a successful socialist revolution in the United States? asked another participant.

González responded that the impact would be so great as to be almost unimaginable. “Cuba has faced 50 years of conflict with governments in the United States,” he added, “but it’s never been a conflict between the peoples of North America and Cuba.”

“I think that a union of solidarity between the Venezuelan and U.S. peoples would bear fruit for both,” added Alvarez, who had earlier paid tribute to Cuba for its example and the fighting spirit of its people, in spite of the difficulties they face. She pointed to Venezuela’s links with Bolivia as an example of real, not sentimental, solidarity.

Such a victory would mean “a very big change,” said Rangel. “It would be a change to a civilized world. It’s what humanity needs.”

Would the U.S. rulers give up power peacefully, given the military might of the armed forces in their state? asked another participant.

“The history of the U.S. class struggle is a very violent one,” answered Waters. “And no ruling class ever cedes power peacefully. But the working class learns how to defend its strikes and its organization in the course of struggle. We have seen the revolutionary capacity of the working class in the United States to defend itself in massive struggles, like the battles in the 1930s to build an industrial union movement. And we will see that again,” she noted.

“Through a socialist triumph in the United States workers and farmers there will place themselves and their enormous productive capacities on the side of all humanity’s future.”

As organizers of the next session moved into the meeting space, a number of participants stayed a while longer to continue the discussion with the speakers. Many held copies of Pathfinder’s edition of Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? It was the most popular item at the Pathfinder booth at the fair, with sales topping more than 250 copies.
 
 
Related articles:
‘Socialism in United States is not only possible, but necessary’
New Venezuelan release of ‘Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible?’ presented at 2008 Venezuela International Book Fair  
 
 
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