By Nick D.
On 21 April, millions of Venezuelans mobilised for the National Popular Consultation held in 4,500 communes across the country. A demonstration of Bolivarian people’s power, over 25,000 different proposals had been developed by communities throughout Venezuela.
From health and education to security and recreation, the social projects will be financed by the Bolivarian Government and implemented by organised communities. The Red Ant Collective was invited to observe the process across four communes in Miranda State, joining more than 200 international representatives across four states.
The Commune Movement in Venezuela
In many of the communes in Miranda State, the people chanted, “Commune or Nothing, that is the mission, as Chavez said in the change of direction!” [Comuna o nada! Es la misión! Lo dijo Chávez en el golpe de timon!]. This refers to the “Strike at the Helm” address given by Hugo Chavez on 20 October 2012 to the council of ministers in which he called for a strengthening of communal power, with the enduring cry “commune or nothing!”
Prior to this, during the 11 June 2009 edition of Alo Presidente [Hello President] – a weekly talk show that ran from 1999-2012 – Chavez had declared, “we have to build the commune as a revolutionary entity, as a territorial, social, political, moral base…the commune is the space from where we are going to generate and give birth to socialism.” The legal basis of this was formalised with the 2009 Organic Law of Communal Councils and the 2010 Organic Law of Communes.
The 2024 National Popular Consultation is the culmination of over a decade-long focus on building and strengthening communes in Venezuela, which are defined by Venezuela Analysis as, “democratic, assembly-based, self-government organisations in the territory with the long-term goal of assuming ownership of means of production and public services.” Importantly, each commune is part of a broader web of people’s power, extending from the local to the national level.
Since Chavez delivered the Strike at the Helm speech, 3,600 communes have been registered by the Ministry of Popular Power for the Communes and Social Movements, with 60 communes forming the Union Comunera (Communard Union) in March 2022 to unify and coordinate the commune movement.
The 2024 National Population Consultation
In a background session for international observers on 20 April 2024, Executive Secretary of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), Jorge Arreaza, explained that the idea for the National Consultation originated from consultations initiated during 2022 and 2023 in Miranda State. The April 2024 vote was the first national-level process.
Arreaza explained that in March 2024, community peoples power assemblies were held to debate, develop and nominate up to seven proposals. In total, 28,305 communal councils – which are smaller units within communes – held assemblies in March, involving 232,116 people and producing 27,156 proposed projects. Each project chosen will be funded US $10,000 by the central government.
Examples of proposed projects developed by two of the communes in Miranda state included a Communal plant nursery with a supply store, a training and recreation space, a rehabilitation healthcare centre, a venture for the sale of protein products and sausages in the territory of the commune, improvement and repair of of public spaces within the commune and purchase of materials and equipment for the community headquarters.
On Sunday 4,500 communal projects were decided by voting held in 15,000 electoral centres across the 23 states of the country and the Capital District. Voting was open to anybody over 15 years and according to the Ministry of Popular Power for Communes and Social Movements, the Consultation saw the participation of 49,000 Communal Councils with more than 1 million 300 thousand spokespersons.
International Observers Process
The Red Ant Collective observed the consultation process and on 21 April joined a group of 15 observers from Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and Europe. This began in the Antonio Jose commune in South Petare, a neighbourhood in the municipality of Sucre within the greater Caracas region.
Amid the many camera crews covering this visit by international observers, a steady stream of people squeezed past and into the classroom where National Electoral Council (CNE) booths were set up. The three proposed projects developed by Antonio Jose de Sucre Commune were restoration of the alley facade, recovery of Barbaro Street and acquisition of security grills for the El Tunitas Sector.
A short drive away in Vamos con Todo commune in North Petare, CNE booths had again been set up in a school and the group was given an impromptu tour by the dean. Women played the leading role, although men, women and children had all gathered.
In the classrooms hung portraits of the chain of command; Simon Bolivar, Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. The most pictures were of Bolivar, but Chavez featured prominently as well. One poster read “A revolutionary cannot take refuge in excuses to not fulfill his tasks, you have to be a true soldier. An official who is negligent has to go”.
After visiting the commune Vamos con Todo, the group moved away from the denser urban neighbourhoods of Petare. Among hills and Araguaney trees we visited a third commune located in a large apartment complex at U.E.P. Fe y Alegria Padre Joaquin Lopez. Here, all three proposed projects were recreational: a baseball diamond, basketball court, or football field. Supporters of the football field seemed quite organised, with their posters pasted up near the main staircase.
On the edge of the basketball court, commune members taught the Strike at the Helm chant to our observer group.
A different type of democracy
Observing the National Consultation process in Miranda State was a lesson in people’s power democracy. I was only in Venezuela for a very short amount of time, but the process I saw was completely different to Australian bourgeois democracy.
My experience of formal politics in Australia (and other parts of the world), is of the ruling class actively working to exclude people from political activity. Particularly in the neo-liberal era most of the population are almost completely unorganised. From the local to the national level, people do not have a real say in the decisions that are made – especially issues that directly impact them – let alone their design and implementation.
In Venezuela, I saw representatives from the country’s leadership pushing the popular classes to be involved in the political process. In this way, it was a continuation of Chavez’s declaration of 2009 that “socialism has to emerge from the grassroots. It can’t be decreed; you have to create it. It is a creation of the people, of the masses, of the nation.”
The National Consultation itself was also to strengthen local self-government, with people at the grassroots level responsible for discussing the key issues impacting them and working to overcome them collectively. In all of the communes, women played a central role.
As an outsider to Latin American history and politics – it struck me that this is a revolution under siege and a country trying to build socialism under exceptionally difficult conditions. It demonstrated the realities of what it takes to build a socialist project in the 21st century, in a Global South country facing extreme aggression by the imperialist bloc. Central to this was unity, organisation and the consciousness of the popular classes.
I will remember the sentiment of Genesis Garvett, head of the Grand Venezuelan Youth Mission and representative of the National Assembly, who spoke to youth International Peoples Assembly (IPA) delegates of the Anti-imperialist Youth in Struggle and for Solidarity session on Saturday 20 April. She outlined five generations of the Bolivarian Revolution – starting with Simon Bolivar and followed by the founding generation and the first young generation of the Revolution.
She said that is her generation – the fourth – spent their teenage years under intense US aggression and whose grandparents were taught to read for the first time in their life because of the Bolivarian Revolution. The future of the revolution, however, lies ultimately with the “unformed,” coming generation: the fifth in a revolutionary chain after the Great Liberator.
RED ANT 