A-Infos (en) Anarkismo.net: Venezuela and the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’: Beacon of hope or smoke and mirrors? by Shawn Hattingh - ZACF - III. (3/3)

The state has responded to such strikes in typical ruling class fashion: with a 
combination of some concessions and a dose of repression. While sometimes claiming that 
the issues that have been raised by workers will be looked at, many of the workers 
involved have been arrested. Workers that had embarked upon strikes and protests have also 
been threatened with redundancy. At the height of the strikes in state-owned industries in 
2009, Chavez also verbally launched an attack, ridiculing the demands of the workers and 
threatening that he would send the police in to deal with them [138]. In fact, he stated 
that: “If they threaten to stop work or they do stop work, I will deal with them 
myself...people who go on strike in a state enterprise are bothering the President of the 
Republic” [139].

The state’s willingness to use violence against strikes in state-owned industries has been 
evident in recent years. In 2009 alone more than 40 strikes and occupations were attacked 
by state forces, leading to over 100 people being injured. Some workers identified as 
ringleaders in these strikes or protests were sentenced to long terms in prison [140]. 
Some of the victims of this state repression have been grassroots Chavistas. A member of 
the PSUV and unionist, Ruben Gonzalez, was sentenced to 7 years in prison by the state, 
which accused him of violence during a strike at the state-owned Ferrominera Orinoco 
[141]. After over a year behind bars he was eventually released following large-scale 
protests and the threat of a general strike should he continue to be held in prison. Upon 
release, severe restrictions continued to be placed on him and he has to report every 15 
days to the authorities. The plight of Gonzalez is not an isolated incident. Reportedly, 
at least 125 worker militants remain in prison for being involved in various strike 
actions or occupations [142]. The unionist and steelworker, José Rodríguez, perhaps summed 
up the situation when he said: “we are convinced that this is not just an isolated policy; 
it is a state policy, which we call criminalisation of our struggle” [143].

While the state has sometimes heeded calls by workers to nationalise factories, especially 
when they have been the factories of the Bolivarian elite’s intra-ruling class rivals, the 
state in many instances has firmly aligned itself with private corporations against 
workers. This has been prevalent in cases where such capitalists have had links to the 
state elite or when the companies involved have been seen as key investors. For example, 
in 2009 after a series of battles, workers at Mitsubishi-Hyundai factory decided to occupy 
the plant to try and win unpaid salaries and to try and ensure contract workers were 
employed directly by the company. The state, far from supporting the workers, moved 
swiftly and strongly against them. Special forces were deployed to evict the occupiers and 
restore operations. In the process, they shot dead 2 workers and seriously injured another 
6. The reason why the state moved so swiftly and ruthlessly was because Mitsubishi-Hyundai 
was identified as a key investor. Clearly, favoured capitalists and prominent investors 
take precedence for the state when compared to workers.

The Chavista parties, including the PSUV, also have a long history of attempting to 
establish unions under their control, which are aimed at smothering genuine workers’ power 
and the prospect of widespread struggles. In using this strategy, the ‘Bolivarians’ have 
been no different to past ruling parties; who wanted compliant unions to blunt any 
possible threat posed by the working class. All of the ‘Bolivarian’ initiatives to set up 
unions have, as a result, been top down. According to a leftist union based group, Opcion 
Obrera, this has seen the Chavista elite using underhanded methods to keep control of the 
newer unions, and also using unions as vote gathering machines for the Party. Part of the 
desire to control unions by the ‘Bolivarian’ elite is also to ensure they remain loyal and 
unquestioning towards the state. In the light of this it is perhaps no surprise that 
corruption, rather than widespread and real workers’ power, has marked the ‘Bolivarian’ 
unions. Considering too that loyalty to the state is seen as a priority, it is not 
astonishing that 243 collective bargaining agreements with the state had expired and had 
not been renegotiated in 2007 [144].

It seems Chavez and the ‘Bolivarian’ elite are afraid of the idea of worker controlled 
independent unions being formed because it would undermine the state’s abilities to keep 
the struggles of workers in check. Chavez openly admitted this by stating that: “the 
unions should not be autonomous…it is necessary to do away with this” [145]. At the partly 
state-owned Velteca, the management have echoed this sentiment. When workers tried to set 
up an independent union in the aftermath of a protest action the management immediately 
blocked this. The justification for doing so was that “the word ‘union’ does not fit 
within a socialist company…within a socialist system there is no need for a union” [146].

This atmosphere of oppression towards worker militants, and fear of genuine working class 
power, by the ‘Bolivarian’ state has led long time left worker activist, Orlando Chirino, 
to comment that he has “never seen the extreme to which we’ve arrived today with the 
criminalization of protests…when you’re… handing out flyers at a factory gate, speaking 
through a megaphone, participating in an assembly, they use repressive bodies of the state 
to detain the leaders, take them to jail, and while in jail they accuse them. This ends up 
with union militants being prohibited from going near the businesses where they do their 
political work” [147]. Far from allowing worker self-management to genuinely emerge from 
below, the ‘Bolivarian’ state has constantly initiated top down plans, often aimed at 
curtailing genuine workers’ power, and has even waded in to suppress strikes in the name 
of protecting state-owned or private property.

Community ‘democracy’ and welfare

Whilst it is clear that worker control and any semblance of worker self-management does 
not exist within the vast majority of Venezuelan workplaces, nor in the economy as a 
whole, numerous leftists internationally have argued that direct democracy and 
self-management exists in poor neighbourhoods and communities. More specifically, it has 
been argued that the community councils, which have been set up in neighbourhoods, form 
the basis of this “direct democracy and power at a grassroots level” [148]. Like in partly 
or fully nationalised factories, however, when the rhetoric is compared to the practice; 
the state’s initiatives around community councils are found wanting.
The most important point is that the community councils did not develop organically nor 
were they created directly by communities themselves. Rather, the state created them 
through a top down process. An army general, Jorge Luis Gracia Carnerio, was given 
responsibility for their initial establishment. To set up community councils it was 
decided that up to 200 families would be grouped into each community council. The main 
task assigned by the state to these community councils was to identify and apply for 
funding for local community projects, and to identify ‘housewives’ that would be given a 
wage by the state. Certainly many local projects have been built under this scheme, like 
parks and sports fields. Funds for these projects, nevertheless, are held by the 
President’s Office and distributed via regional and national ‘committees’ that are tied to 
the state [149]. The state, therefore, has the final say over which projects to fund (each 
project can receive up to US $ 13 000). This has meant that from the beginning the state 
played a major role in decision making; and it has not been the community councils that 
have the final say over what is and is not funded.

The state moreover has used the projects associated with the community councils to 
engender a sense of loyalty to it amongst communities. This has even seen the state trying 
to draw some community council members into its intelligence gathering network. At one 
meeting hosted by DISIP – the state political police – 450 community council members were 
encouraged to become involved in gathering information for state intelligence branches 
[150]. Such practices are totally incompatible with building genuine direct democracy, and 
are rather about building loyalty to the state and monitoring people, including leftists, 
that may be dissidents.

The reality that ultimately the state can decide which projects to fund, or not, has also 
left the community council projects open to party political manipulation, even beyond 
trying to ensure loyalty to the state. Projects proposed by PSUV members have almost 
inevitably been funded; while those put forward by non-PSUV members have often been 
rejected. The community councils have also reportedly come under pressure from the state 
managers to integrate themselves into PSUV in terms of gathering votes for the Party and 
training cadre. The reality that the state decides on what projects to fund, and uses this 
power to practice political patronage, has also created a situation whereby corruption is 
rife within some community councils [151].

The state’s hierarchical and controlling logic has proved incompatible with direct 
democracy and people in the community councils having real control over their lives. 
Direct democracy either involves communities having full control over their lives and 
having the ability to decide collectively and democratically on all important matters that 
affect them and the ability to implement those decisions without rulers; or direct 
democracy does not exist. As a state always involves the delegation of power into the 
hands of a few; its very logic violates any notion of equality, freedom and direct 
democracy. Those who make up the governing bodies and departments of a state, as elected 
representatives and unelected bureaucrats, have real power. They have the ability to make 
decisions on behalf of the population. As such, the state is the antithesis of equality, 
and does not allow for direct democracy to truly exist in the entities it controls. The 
state’s very existence also ensures that the existing divisions in society, defined by 
those who give orders and those who are expected to obey them are not broken down [152]. 
It is farcical to claim, consequently, that direct democracy and self-management is 
present in the institutions that the state ultimately controls, like community councils.

Many leftists will not admit that direct democracy does not exist in Venezuela’s community 
councils. This is because they fail to see that a hierarchical institution, like the 
state, cannot by its very nature bring freedom. It cannot allow genuine direct democracy 
to flourish, which would entail people self-governing using direct democracy, mandates, 
rotating and recallable delegates through federated assemblies and councils. Placing power 
in the hands of a few, and using state structures that are hierarchical, ensures that this 
won’t happen and that freedom and socialism will be postponed rather than prepare for 
[153]. Indeed, if people genuinely self-governed and self-managed society there would be 
no need for a state as there would be no rulers and no ruled. In a society that is 
genuinely equal, hierarchical institutions were a minority have power like the state would 
be obsolete and, in fact, counter-revolutionary.

The ‘Bolivarian’ missions

Due to being blinded to the reality that a state can never be an emancipator, many 
leftists have come to see welfare and the ‘missions’ in Venezuela, provided and run by the 
‘Bolivarian’ state, as being building blocks of socialism and an attempt to create a 
participatory society [154]. The missions, though, were not established by the state to 
create socialism; but to provide the poor with access to primary healthcare, housing, 
improved basic education, and subsidised foodstuffs within capitalism. This is not to deny 
that the missions have had some benefits. According to the UNDP, Venezuela has a 95% 
literacy rate and its Human Development Index improved from 0.656 in 2000 to 0.735 in 2011 
[155]. Millions of people too have access to subsidised basic foodstuffs through the 
missions; while unemployment, in the narrow sense, dropped from 13.2% in 2000 to 6.9% in 
2009 [156]. The fact that there have been improvements in the lives of the poor should not 
be dismissed or minimised, but it should also not be claimed that this is socialism or 
exaggerated.
It also needs to be recognised that extremely high oil prices have given the state the 
space to role out the missions. This means many people have had some improvements, even if 
limited, in their lives without the state ever having to go against its own real interests 
or jeopardise the ruling class’s position at the apex of society. High-ranking state 
officials and capitalists in Venezuela continue to enjoy exceptionally lavish lifestyles. 
The poor, despite getting some assistance, still live in poverty and this is not being 
overturned by the state. Only a social revolution will alter this, as only a genuine 
social revolution would be capable of creating genuine equality and establishing a society 
in which all people’s needs can be met.

Another important consideration with regards to welfare in Venezuela is to realise that 
the working class through historical and current struggle have won and defended the right 
to at least get some welfare from the ruling class. Massive struggles like the Caracazo 
played a huge part in this. As such, it needs to be recognised that welfare is also a 
concession that has been forced upon the Venezuelan ruling class, including the 
‘Bolivarian’ elite. By using populist rhetoric, to get re-elected, the PSUV elite also 
have to try and continue to maintain the missions. Without them, they would have 
absolutely no credibility and their self-interest and pro-business policies would become 
clearly evident to all.

In providing welfare, the Venezuelan state is not unique. Under pressure, all states 
provide some welfare, but they cannot end the system that generates the need for welfare. 
This is because states cannot end capitalism and class rule, which are the reasons why 
there is a need for welfare in the first place. In exploiting and oppressing people, 
capitalism and class rule will always generate and maintain a situation whereby some 
people have very little. Linked to this, the fact that a minority of people under 
capitalism have a monopoly over the means of production, through property rights that the 
state enforces, leads to a majority of people being dispossessed and even unemployed. The 
state, in order to maintain class rule and a semblance of stability, has to intervene to 
alleviate some of these problems that capitalism and class rule generates. If it did not, 
it would become clear to the working class how unfair the rule of the elite really was; 
and the possibility of revolution would be opened up. Thus, states provide some welfare to 
try and maintain the status quo, defined by an elite exploiting and ruling over the 
working class. This, unfortunately, applies to Venezuela too.

Welfare provision in Venezuela as elsewhere, consequently, is a victory for the working 
class as well as a sign of the exploitation and domination waged on the working class. 
States always, nevertheless, try to make propaganda mileage out of the fact that they 
provide welfare, yet they are part of the system that leads to the need for welfare. When 
states deliver welfare they claim to be acting as the servants of the poor and workers; 
while in reality they facilitate their exploitation and oppression. It is this duplicity 
that led Malatesta to argue that the state: “cannot maintain itself for long without 
hiding its true nature behind a pretence of general usefulness; it cannot impose respect 
for the lives of the privileged people if it does not appear to demand respect for human 
life, it cannot impose acceptance of the privileges of the few if it does not pretend to 
be the guardian of the rights of all” [157]. Forced to provide some basic welfare, the 
state then pretends to do so out of kindness. Via its policies, the Venezuelan state too 
rules in the interests of an elite (especially a ‘Bolivarian’ aligned elite), whilst 
handing out some welfare to try to mask this reality and alleviate the worst impacts of 
continued class rule.

Despite the benefits that have come with the missions, along with the propaganda mileage 
the state has made out of it, there have also been major problems. The missions are 
defined by hierarchical relations with current and former members of the armed forces 
playing a prominent role in their planning and administration. This has left the missions 
open to corruption. Private building companies owned by, or with links to, key current or 
ex high-ranking military officers have reportedly been the main beneficiaries of state 
contracts to build houses and healthcare centres linked to the missions. In the process 
under-handed dealings, bribes, abuse of power and kickbacks have been rampant. The reality 
that corruption is rife within and around the missions has also meant that millions of 
people lack adequate and safe housing. This backlog is being addressed at a snails pace – 
slower according to some than it was under previous administrations in the 1990s - by the 
contractors hired by the ‘Bolivarian’ state [158]. With regards to the healthcare mission 
(Barrio Adentro), the costs of the buildings have reportedly also been inflated by 
contractors. Some of the centres have cost almost five times more than buildings of a 
similar size [159]. Thus, while some benefits have flowed from the missions to the poor, 
high-ranking state officials and private companies have been milking the system and 
reaping the real financial rewards.

Many of the problems faced by communities have not been effectively addressed by the 
missions. While much money has been spent by the state on Barrio Adentro, to provide 
primary healthcare and pay for the building of the centres, secondary and tertiary 
hospitals remain under-funded and on the verge of collapse [160]. According to some left 
critiques only just over half of the approximately 8 500 planned primary healthcare 
centres associated with Barrio Adentro had been built by 2007 (3 years after the mission 
was initiated) [161]. While spending money paying private contractors, many of the Barrio 
Adentro healthcare centres have also lacked adequate staff [162].

Within the nutrition mission, up until his arrest – and consequently the nationalisation 
of his company – Ricardo Fernandez Barrueco was the main beneficiary as he made a fortune 
supplying the state-owned supermarkets, Mercal, with goods [163]. Even today, most of the 
food in the state-owned supermarkets is derived from capitalist companies [164]: meaning 
even though the state subsidises basic foods it is the private suppliers that are reaping 
profits. Most of this food is also imported from companies in the US, Brazil, and 
Colombia. In actual fact, the Venezuelan state spends US $ 8 billion annually importing 
food from private companies [165]. Some of the stores and logistics associated with the 
nutrition mission, and the state’s other supermarket network PDVAL – due to the state 
bureaucracy – are a shambles with goods often going off in uncollected containers [166]. 
Many of the stores are under-resourced, often lack an adequate supply of goods and low 
level workers complain of bad and dangerous working conditions [167]. This, unfortunately, 
is to be expected in any top down state-led bureaucratic initiative.

Welfare provision by the state is simply not living up to the expectations of many workers 
and the poor. This can be seen in the large number of protests that have erupted in 
communities. Over the last few years there have been hundreds of protests, for example, 
over a lack of proper housing [168]. During such protests people have blocked roads, often 
with trees and debris. In response the state has encouraged police to take action in the 
name of restoring ‘stability’. As part of this crackdown, Chavez stated in January 2009 
that: “From now on anyone setting ablaze…trees or blocking a street shall learn how good 
our tear gas is and then be arrested” [169]. In this type of atmosphere it is not 
astonishing that hundreds of activists involved in protests in poor neighbourhoods have 
been arrested, imprisoned and some even killed by the police, including grassroots 
Chavistas [170].

Although there have been protests over bad service delivery; it cannot be denied that the 
missions have been popular with many workers and the poor. However, the missions and a 
veneer of welfare have provided leaders within popular movements with a rationale for 
maintaining their links with the PSUV and the state. This has seen many left leaders using 
the initiatives such as the missions to justify the need for an alliance, and what amounts 
to a cross-class alliance, with the military derived section of the ‘Bolivarian’ ruling 
class. This is a barrier and hindrance to genuine working class power and struggles.

In fact, many leftists have entered into the state. Through doing so, and despite what may 
have even been good intentions, they have joined the ‘Bolivarian’ section of the ruling 
class. Many hold top positions in state departments or parliament, and thus form a central 
part of the hierarchical state system. They have themselves, consequently, become part of 
the elite in the state who govern and give orders to others. They too, due to their 
positions, live in vastly different material conditions to workers and the poor. Being 
part of a few who have the power to make decisions for others, and the ability to enforce 
those decisions, creates a privileged position. As such, the centralisation of power, 
which defines states, generates an elite and a bureaucracy. The reason why the state 
generates a bureaucracy is because centralised bodies need information to be collated and 
gathered so that decisions can be made by a few who hold power in these bodies. The 
bureaucracy that emerges from centralisation also develops its own interests, like 
maintaining the power and material privileges it has [171]. It is, therefore, preciously 
because of state centralisation in Venezuela that the size and power of a bureaucratic 
layer has been growing. It is for such reasons that anarchists have pointed out that the 
state itself generates a ruling elite and an unaccountable bureaucracy. This means states 
too cannot evolve into organs of direct democracy. As Bakunin stressed, when former 
workers or activists enter into high positions in the state they become rulers and get 
used to the privileges their new positions carry, and they come to “no longer represent 
the people but themselves and their own pretensions to govern the people” [172]. History 
has shown repeatedly that Bakunin’s analysis was correct, and it is being proven to be 
insightful yet again in the case of Venezuela. History has also shown, and the case of 
Venezuela confirms this, when ex-workers and ex-activists enter into the state, and become 
part of the ruling class, they have few qualms about using the power of the state to 
attack the working class when their new interests diverge from those of this class. It is 
this too that explains why the ‘Bolivarian’ state, despite having (ex-)leftists in it, has 
often moved so swiftly and decisively against workers when the state’s, or its capitalist 
allies’ interests, have been threatened.

Bakunin foresaw the possibility of such a situation arising in cases where national 
liberation was based upon the strategy of capturing state power. Bakunin said that the 
“statist path” was “entirely ruinous for the great masses of the people” because it did 
not abolish class power but simply changed the make-up of the ruling class [173]. Due to 
the centralised nature of states, only a few can rule – a majority of people can never be 
involved in decision making under a state system. As a result, he stated that if the 
national liberation struggle was carried out with "ambitious intent to set up a powerful 
state", or if "it is carried out without the people and must therefore depend for success 
on a privileged class" it would become a "retrogressive, disastrous, counter-revolutionary 
movement” [174].

Conclusion

It is clear that an argument can’t be sustained that Venezuela is heading in a socialist 
direction. Wealth and the means of production are still owned and controlled by a 
minority, whether capitalists or high-ranking state officials, not by the working class. 
Linked to this, oppressive relations of production remain including in partly or fully 
state-owned corporations. There is no real self-management or direct democracy in 
workplaces or in the state developed community councils.
Nationalisation in Venezuela, as elsewhere, does not equal socialism. Certainly a 
nationalist section of the ruling class has come into state power, in the guise of 
Bolivarianism, but class rule remains firmly in pace. Indeed, the Bolivarian elite have 
been the main beneficiaries of the Bolivarian ‘process’. Their lifestyles, and those of 
‘leftists’ that have joined them in the ruling class, are opulent, but the lives of the 
working class continue to be defined by poverty, inequality, oppression, and exploitation.

Elements of neo-liberalism still also pervade the Venezuelan economy. The interests of 
multinational corporations, especially those that are seen as important investors, are 
protected and furthered by the state. Capitalists with close links to the state have also 
enjoyed the benefits of the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ at the expense of workers and the 
poor. Even in the oil industry, multinationals are welcomed and public private 
partnerships are the norm. Outsourcing, casualisation and lean production are also common 
practices even in fully or partly nationalised factories.

The state too has not been shy to attack workers and the poor when its interests have 
diverged from this class. Despite some welfare, vast inequalities and oppression still 
exist and are not being eroded away. Workers and the poor are still wage slaves with 
capitalists and the state attempting to continuously deny them real power. This has seen 
the ruling class also often trying to squash working class protests and strikes. As such, 
the logic of a hierarchical state – which is defined by a drive to control, maintain its 
power and limit any dissent by the working class – is proving to be the antithesis of 
socialism and freedom in Venezuela.

It cannot, though, be denied that Chavez and the PSUV are popular amongst sections of the 
workers and the poor. However, loyalty to a party, politician and the state does not equal 
freedom, justice and equality. It certainly does not amount to worker and community 
self-management nor socialism. Many capitalist politicians and even dictators, at certain 
times and places in history, have been popular. Certainly, while there have been 
politicians and states that have been popular, history has also shown us that they will 
not go against their own interests and grant the working class freedom and equality. It 
has, therefore, long been pointed out that the emancipation of the working class will have 
to be carried out by the working class itself.

There are some hopeful signs. Sections of the Venezuelan working class have been willing 
to protest and go out on strike when they have felt that they have been attacked, or their 
interests undermined, by the state, capitalists, the PSUV and the ‘Bolivarian’ elite. It 
is here that the hope for the future of working class struggles in the country lies. If a 
genuine social revolution is to come about such struggles are going to have to be built on 
and transformed into a counter-power that can challenge the pro-US faction of the ruling 
class, imperialism and the ‘Bolivarian’ ruling class faction. This can be done by winning 
reforms today from the state, local capitalists and corporations from imperialist powers, 
and building on them so that momentum is gained in a revolutionary direction. By 
definition this also means such struggles will have to break with the state and organise 
outside and against it. The working class, therefore, needs to organise against the state 
and capitalists to force concessions from them; and not go down the path of embracing 
sections of the elite in the name of ‘Bolivarianism’. It is, for that reason, vital that 
the working class identify the ‘Bolivarian’ elite and the state as class enemies, and 
recognise the state for what it is: a central pillar and instrument of the ruling class, 
which can and does also generate an elite from its ranks.

If such independent struggles are to grow in Venezuela, it is also crucial that they have 
some basic vision of what to replace the state and capitalism with when a revolutionary 
period opens up. If they do not, it is likely that they will again slip into trying to use 
the state as an instrument of emancipation. In such a case, it is probable that a new 
elite will once more emerge around the state, and genuine working class power will yet 
again be delayed. It is, as a result, important that struggles take up a vision of 
replacing capitalism with a genuine form of socialism, marked by a situation where 
property becomes collectively owned by everyone, where there are no bosses, and where 
production and the whole economy is planned through worker and consumer assemblies and 
councils based on direct democracy to meet the needs of all. Likewise, it is an imperative 
that a vision of replacing the state with structures of direct democracy – based, for 
example, on assemblies and councils that are federated together, where power remains at 
the base and where there are no politicians or bureaucrats – is developed. Obviously, if a 
genuine revolution does occur in Venezuela, it will have to be defended against the 
Venezuelan ruling class (including elite ‘Bolivarians’) and imperialism. It is crucial 
that structures based on direct democracy be developed that can do this. Without such a 
vision based on self-management it is likely past mistakes that have marked previous 
revolutions will be repeated over and over. Whether such a libertarian vision will become 
prominent within the working class struggles in Venezuela is open to debate, but hopefully 
it will and true freedom, equality and justice will come to exist and replace the current 
state of affairs marked by a ‘Bolivarian’ elite using smoke and mirrors to block genuine 
socialism.
Notes:
1. Mark Jauch, H. 2009. The Search for Alternatives: Venezuela’s Participatory Democracy. 
Paper Deliver at the RLS Conference ‘The Global Crisis and Africa: Struggles for 
Alternatives’.
2. Burbach, R, & Pineiro, C. Venezuela’s Participatory Socialism 
http://sdonline.org/45/venezuela%E2%80%99s-participatory-socialism/
3. http://www.zcommunications.org/venezuelas-choice-by-michael-albert 30th September 2010
4. This author too initially incorrectly praised the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ – with some 
reservations - largely due to having been influenced by Marxism at the time, and due to 
having to rely on secondary sources that exaggerated the gains of the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’
5. Borges, S.P. Sidor Nationalisation Marks ‘New Revolution Within Revolution’ 
http://links.org.au/node/363 19 April 2008
6. Suggett, J. ‘New Offence’ on Land Reform. www.greenleft.org.au/node/45730 17th October 2010
7. Jara, M.K. & Satgar, V. 2009 Coops: International Cooperative Experiences and Lessons 
for the Eastern Cape Cooperative Development Strategy. ECSECC Working Paper No. 5 pp. 15-17.
8. Jauch, H. 2009. The Search for Alternatives: Venezuela’s Participatory Democracy. Paper 
Deliver at the RLS Conference ‘The Global Crisis and Africa: Struggles for Alternatives’.
9. Amandla Editorial Staff. 2009. Can Nationalisation be Done? Amandla Issue 9 pp. 16.
10. www.ycl.org.za/docs/congress/2010/int_report.pdf
11. www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=52656
12. Azneras, C. During the time of the people, always onwards Comandante Chavez 
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6329 5th July 2011
13. Golinger, E. Inspiration South of the Border. 
http://www.zcommunications.org/inspiration-south-of-the-border-by-eva-golinger 25th 
November 2011.
14. http://venezuelasolidarity.org/?q=node/294
15. Golinger, E. Victory in near. 
http://www.zcommunications.org/victory-is-near-by-eva-golinger 26th September 2010
16. Janicke, K & Fuentes, F. Venezuela: Danger signs for the revolution. 
http://venezuelasolidarity.org/?q=node/265 22nd February 2008
17. http://www.marxist.com/interview-alan-woods-venezuelan-revolution180607.htm
18. http://arizona.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/39404.php
19. Wilpert, G. Venezuela’s New Constitution. http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/70. 
27th August 2003
20. http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet051.html
21. http://venezuela-us.org/inversion-extranjera-en-la-republica-bolivariana-de-venezuela/
22. McKay, I., Elkin.G. Neal, D. & Boraas, E. 2009. The Anarchist FAQ. 
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/The_Anarchist_FAQ_Editorial_Collective__An_Anarchist_FAQ.html
23. Malatesta, E. 1995. The Anarchist Revolution: Polemical Articles1924-1931. Freedom 
Press: United Kingdom, pp. 113
24. www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=3378
25. Gott, R. 2005. Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution. Verso Books: United Kingdom
26. http://venezuela-us.org/inversion-extranjera-en-la-republica-bolivariana-de-venezuela/
27. http://venezuela-us.org/inversion-extranjera-en-la-republica-bolivariana-de-venezuela/
28. Schmidt, M. & van der Walt, L. 2009. Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of 
Anarchism and Syndicalism. AK Press: United States, pp. 52
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