Bolívar and “The Mysterious Unknown…”
It is amazing how deep our father Bolivar stirred around in the search of the revolutionary essence; just as he said in “the finding of the mysterious unknown of the free man.” In this huge task he put forward his thoughts before those of the great intellectuals and philosophers of the last two centuries. It is truly amazing how his most advanced ideas form a great slope, whose waters empty into that wonderful river called socialism.
This is exactly what happens with the equality issue. Let’s take a tour of two hundred years to confirm it.
Brazilian thinker Theotonio Dos Santos, in his book Concepto de clases sociales (Concept of social classes, printed by El Perro y la Rana editorial), says “The representation of bourgeois society as a basic group of individuals who can differentiate into groups must be part of bourgeois ideology (…) This representation expresses exactly the essential interest of the bourgeoisie to hide the class nature of its society and postulate its society as offering equal opportunities to all individuals.”
Equality of opportunity, true, but increasingly based on the growing inequality of economic and legal power, as well as material privileges that excessively reproduce the inequality of conditions.
One hundred and twenty years ago, Karl Marx said it in the Critique of the Gotha Program, written in 1875:
“Paradoxically, what appears as the end of socialism is, precisely, the integral development of unequalness among men, unequalness of their aspirations and capacities, the unequalness of their personalities. But this personal unequalness will no longer mean a difference of economic power or inequality of material rights or privileges. It can only be extended in an atmosphere of material and economic equality.”
And our Bolívar, fifty six years before Marx, pointed out with meridian clearness in Angostura, in 1819:
“In my opinion, Legislators, the fundamental principle of our system depends immediately and exclusively on equality established and exercised in Venezuela. (…)Nature makes men unequal in terms of their genius, temperament, force, and characters. Laws correct this difference by giving man a place in society so that education, industry, service, virtue may give him a fictitious equality, properly called political and social equality. The bringing together of all classes in a State is an eminently beneficial inspiration, where diversity multiples in proportion to the propagation of the species. By this single step, cruel discord has been torn out by the roots. How much jealousy, rivalry and hatred have been thus avoided!”
These are the reasons why, the more we study the history of ideas, the more we deepen and understand the great thinkers of and for humanity, starting from (Jesus) Christ up to Fidel. This is why, every day, with more strength and obligation, our revolution is more Bolivarian than ever!
Christ, as I have said, was a true socialist thinker. And even more important, he was a consistent socialist fighter up to his last song: “Everything is consummated.”
From an old encyclopaedia that I carry with me since my days as lieutenant of the Armoured Batallion Bravos de Apure, during those days when a small group of young patriotic officers of the Army (including myself) started to create the first cells of the Bolivarian Movement, I draw out the following passage:
“In times of great internal and external severity, in view of the growing misery of the poor people and the greatest concentration of wealth in few hands, the great prophets appeared and urged the revision of this situation. In 765 BC, Amos, the most ancient and probably the greatest of those prophets, appeared and launched on behalf of Jehovah his curse against the rich people: But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem… because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes; that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek, (Amós, 2, 5/7)”.
Afterwards it reads as follows:
“We have found identical tones in Oseas and, especially in Isaiah: ‘Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! (Is., 5, 8)”
And the Jesus arrived to condemn the rich people. Here you have the Sermon of the Mount:
“Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. (Luke, 6, 20-25).”
For you compatriot, man, woman, youth, who read my Sunday lines, the last day of May I tell you: Let he who has eyes see, and he who has ears, hear!
Capitalism proclaims to the four winds the non-existence of classes nor inequality; since there is an alleged equality of opportunity that guarantees all the enjoyment, privileges, and rights to all the persons on earth, when we know that all its perversity is precisely based on breaking every possible balance between legality and justice. In crisis times, even more, when masks fall, disclosing many capitalists as true mafia bosses. An expensive propaganda campaign has been launched by all the media outlets in order to make believe that our Bolivarian Revolution will deprive you of your car, your apartment, warehouse, arepera[1] and everything you own thanks to your effort and work.
But the truth is that, those who proclaim it are the same ones who have literally hoarded vehicles and speculate barefacedly with the sale and rent of real state. If during the last ten years these oligarchs living in our country have dared to attempt against the sacred right of our people to food, education, and health; it is not surprising that they will likewise attempt against Venezuelans' right to have property. While we struggle for pulling out the cruel conflict, as Bolívar said, the media outlets at the service of the empire and the most corrupted oligarchical sector of the country promote it in order to, precisely, hide their felonies.
This is why I urge people to be on the revolutionary alert and watchfulness, even those compatriots who – even not being part of our Revolution – suffer because of the overflowing perversity of those who boast about being their defenders and representatives. It is up to us to keep working to establish and practice equality, getting it under the following principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” a Christian principle that sinks its roots in the most distant but alive primitive Christianity.
Time and the passing of history have demonstrated that there is a maturation process of the people; that the current political, organizational, and ideological maturity is not the same as ten years ago. Today, there is a common, popular, and Venezuelan sense that never existed before; as well as an eternal solidarity and a way of organizing and understanding their street, their parish, their barrio, and their history.
Events in the midst of development, as Walter Martinez would say, show that governments must always adapt themselves to the maturity and level of the people they work for. Learning is permanent, and we have had hard but valuable lessons. Venezuela has constructed a history of dignity and struggle, in spite of so many difficulties. And facts have demonstrated the mature degree of this people; the maturity to rule and decide in the name of the people. We are confirming that the creative powers that the great Aquiles Nazoa recognized in us.
It’s time to give substance, strength, and movement to the communal democracy, the democracy communard of Kléber Ramírez. The new phase starts now in Venezuela, developing a strategy focused on “producing food, science, and dignity” and strengthening the dynamism of the participative and socialist democracy.
The time for the community to start its movement towards the full exercise of its power and its political responsibility has come. We have walked far, but there is still path left to walk, let’s go on creating, as Mészaros would say in The Challenge and the Burden of Historical Time: “The creation of a truly equal society demands the radical downfall of the exploitative structural hierarchies that were established during thousands of years.”
But the communal model must be ours; it must emerge from popular wisdom, from the clear understanding of their territory; of their connection with their history and country. From everything that causes us to be called Venezuelan people.
We must speed up the structure of the communal councils, the technical tables, increasing their participative power and transforming the community into a reason of state; this is the path; always together with Simón Rodríguez and Bolívar.
“If we do not learn a dynamic lesson from history, there is no reason to suppose that we will find it in another place,” says the great master and Bolivarian August Mijares: it is all about raising people's consciousness, “the affirmative Venezuelan aspect.”
In history, we have great examples that must be useful as objective references. The Commune of Paris, the experience of the agrarian commune in China; the indigenous Venezuelan, Colombian, Paraguayan communards are all models that offer keys for us to do what we have to; being original, as the socialist Master of America, Simón Rodríguez, who proposed an original Toparquía (small dominion) for our America. But one thing is certain and Lenin said so in a short article called, "In Memory of the Commune": “The cause of the Commune is the cause of the social revolution; it is the cause of the complete political and economical emancipation of workers; it is the cause of the world proletariat. And in this sense it is immortal.”
Bolivarian and socialist communards: let’s continue clearing up “The Mysterious Unknown…”
With Christ, with Bolívar, with Fidel:
¡We will win!
Hugo Chávez Frías
Note:
[1] Arepera: sort of restaurant where you can buy Arepra. The word "arepa" may originate from the language of the Caracas natives (north coast of Venezuela) that means "maize." An arepa is a bread made of corn originating from the northern Andes in South America, and which has now spread to other areas in Latin America.
