Fourth National Meeting of Commune Members Ends Successfully

From 29 to 31 of July, the Fourth National Meeting of Commune Members was held in the municipality of Torres, state of Lara, with over 300 delegates representing some 70 communes from 13 of Venezuela’s states.

Present at the closing ceremony was Isis Ochoa, Venezuelan Minister for the Communes, who said she instructed to attend the event by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Ochoa emphasized the importance of an event organized by people’s power, saying those present represented the vanguard of the Venezuelan people, since their efforts (to form and consolidate communes) are dedicated to the construction of a new state that needs to be born. She proposed to undertake a search for points of convergence between the government programs and those of the communes, so as they may become a unified force.

The most notable conclusions of the event include:

The progressive dismantling of the Liberal Bourgeois State, and the construction  of a new type of popular government by the people – the Socialist Communal State; that recuperates the historical project cut short in 1498 by the arrival of the Spanish conquest and is built in the image of the communes.

• The development of the self-governing capacities of the people as a central element for the exercise of communal and revolutionary self-government, the government of the people, in which decisions are made collectively and democratically.

• The continued development of the process of popular constituent power; moving beyond the Venezuelan Constituent Assembly as an historical event, and attempting to deepen the constituent power of the people.

•  The take control of planning the productive cycle (planning, transformation and distribution) by self-governing communes, along with bringing about the necessary shift in cultural patterns of consumption and consumerism.

• The accumulation of the technical and grassroots forces so that the means of production can progressively come under the control of the workers (worker’s councils) and the communes in their different levels of organization, allowing for the development of a communal economy in the transition towards Bolivarian Socialism.

• The development of an educational model that helps push forward the birth of the new man and new woman, with class consciousness, who will contribute to the transformation of the existing educational system that maintains conservative elements and reproduces the logic of capital. To do so, the Communal School is proposed, a school based on a popular and liberating education founded in revolutionary praxis.

•  The taking on of the responsibility for territorial security and defense, forming militias and communal combatant forces with the aim of guaranteeing the strategy of occupying, producing and defending.

• The development of a unitary policy among all of the patriotic and revolutionary forces under a revolutionary program that is anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, and that fully allows for constructive criticism and self-criticism so as to secure the revolutionary transformation of the existing state into a state at the service of the people.

• The active participation in the creation of new revolutionary rules and laws required for the popular povement, developing initiatives and efforts with the National Assembly and its Commission of Popular Participation.

• The proposal, which will be made to the Ministry for the Communes, that born of the existence and reaffirmation of our communes joined together in the National Network of Commune Members, we be recognized as a political and social force of the revolutionary process and that a unitary policy be developed based on the principles of the Bolivarian Revolution, the leadership of our Comrade President, Commander Hugo Chavez Frias, and mutual confidence and respect.

 Among the concrete agreements reached:

•  The establishment of the National Network of Commune Members via the creation of the National Council of Commune Members and the National, Regional and Local  Commissions for: Organization, communication, education, defense, planning and communal projects.

• A follow-up meeting will be held with the objective of creating the COMMUNAL SCHOOL, linking those educational spaces that already exist. To achieve this, at the end of August, political education spokespersons from each commune will meet in the state of Apure. 

• The organization of a march of the National Network of Commune Members, to be held on 8 October – the Day of the Heroic Guerrilla (Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara) – to demand the “deepening of the Bolivarian revolution and the Communal State.”

• The Fifth National Meeting will be held in the state of Barinas, and the Sixth National Meeting will be held in Anaco, state of Anzoategui.

 And finally, it is important to highlight the exchanges carried out by the communes in Carora. Experiences were shared on the fabrication of adobe tiles, in goat rearing, the production of artisanal products, and in the cultures of each communal experience.

Translated by Juan Reardon for Venezuelanalysis.com