By Armiche Padrón*
The diversity of positions before concrete problems on the part of Communist Parties over the last decades is an expression of the worst crisis of the labor movement since it saw the light of day in 1831. The case of the last presidential elections in Venezuela, of course, has also been the object of controversy. More than a few have declared their support for the “victory” of Nicolás Maduro and, without further ado, present it as an “anti-fascist” and “anti-imperialist” triumph. But, what is the nature of Maduro’s discourse?
In essence, it is a pseudo-dialectic discourse, with deep reactionary roots and based on the sum of sophistry (false reasons and arguments with the appearance of truth); a discourse based on apologetic conceptions of capitalism (hiding the contradictions inherent to the system so that they are maintained) and the permanent use of political myths. Thus, we can place Madurismo in the same family of the “progressive” organizations of the “new left” (Syriza, Podemos, Morena, etc…), which function as appendices of the woke ideology developed in the Anglo-Saxon world and, in turn, carry anti-communist and revisionist positions promoted by the Frankfurt School (financed by the apparatuses of Yankee imperialism).
This school, founded in 1923 in Germany and later moved to the United States, formally embraces Marxism but in essence rescues the approaches and categories of irrationalism (the most reactionary of the bourgeois philosophical currents and whose most outstanding “product” was Hitler) to formulate positions based on a critique of “Western Civilization” (capitalism is diluted) as the only “guilty” party of all forms of existing domination and before which, the only way out is to reverse Marx’s maxim that social being determines social consciousness.
In such a way, the heirs of Frankfurt’s theoretical legacy dedicate themselves to destroy “Western values” and structure “new discourses” aimed at “new political subjects” (goodbye to the proletariat! hello to “collective identities”). That is to say, from the “world of ideas” it is possible to transform society and, according to Herbert Marcuse in his work Repressive Tolerance (1968), whoever does not assume this criterion must be fought as a fascist. This last element explains why we communists who uphold the banners of Marxism-Leninism are so deplorable for Madurismo and how our class-conscious positions are openly condemned in instruments such as the so-called law “against fascism”, already approved in first discussion in the National Assembly.
This is in line not only with the considerations of one of the exponents of the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer, who, questioning the existence of the right-left range, went so far as to propose the coincidence between fascism and communism, nowadays so fashionable. But the far-from-innocent equation made by this supposed Marxist is nothing more than an offshoot of the formulation initially made in the late 1950s by Jimmy Carter’s ultra-reactionary advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
In the case of the “anti-imperialist struggle”, the Frankfurt School, by homogenizing the forms of domination throughout history, does not end up differentiating between traditional empires (based on tribute) and imperialism as a superior phase of capitalism. This discourse served as an exhibitionist guideline to capture the unwary and has its repercussions to this day: on the same day, Nicolás Maduro and the corrupt leadership of the Government party can meet with pro-Zionist evangelical churches to receive blessings while handing over PDVSA to the gringo transnational Chevron; disguising both actions as a “tactical game” of their “geopolitical strategy”.
José Mariátegui said it well: “the leap to power by anti-imperialism as a populist demagogic movement (…) never represents the conquest of power by the proletarian masses, by socialism”. Everyone has the right to assume political positions; to show automatic solidarity based on the “calculation” (opportunism) that (reactionary) pragmatism imposes. What cannot be accepted is that these positions are raised from Marxism-Leninism, when the truth is that they are not based on class analysis. So it is necessary to remember some lines of The Manifesto of the Communist Party: “The theoretical propositions of the communists do not rest far from ideas, from principles forged or discovered by any redeemer of humanity. They are all generalized expressions of the material conditions of a real and lived class struggle, of a historical movement that is unfolding in full view of all.”
Madurismo does not aim to overcome capitalist society, nor is it anti-imperialist; it is a bird of prey that disputes with other sectors the spoils of Venezuelan income. The incomprehension of this phenomenon on the part of some communist parties is a retrograde tendency which expresses ─as we have already pointed out─ the material conditions of existence of the proletariat at present and of the crisis of the workers’ movement, which lead the communist parties to this type of “pathologies”: a kind of ideological and political anemia.
On this anemia gravitate some elements: first, the demarcation between Marxism and the workers movement caused by the dispersion of themes and the idealist hierarchies that ─promoted by revisionism─ end up trapping the Leninist organizations in an erroneous strategy to “conquer” the masses. Second, over-dimensioning demands and interests of the moment and of partial subjects (collective identities) while postponing the broad ideals of emancipation that are the basis of Marxism-Leninism. Third, the ignorance of the history of the revolutionary movement, particularly of the Venezuelan one in the case at hand. The attraction unleashed by fashionable theories and fetished clichés by the incendiary discourses of the salon, not studied from a materialist, dialectical and class perspective. Fourth, an infantile pretension of originality that leads to coinciding with classic positions of historical revisionism (Eurocommunism or “social-democratic anti-imperialism”). These are the causes and elements that define the “Leninist anemia” of today and in the face of which it is necessary to act immediately.
This school, founded in 1923 in Germany and later moved to the United States, formally embraces Marxism but in essence rescues the approaches and categories of irrationalism (the most reactionary of the bourgeois philosophical currents and whose most outstanding “product” was Hitler) to formulate positions based on a critique of “Western Civilization” (capitalism is diluted) as the only “guilty” party of all forms of existing domination and before which, the only way out is to reverse Marx’s maxim that social being determines social consciousness.
In such a way, the heirs of Frankfurt’s theoretical legacy dedicate themselves to destroy “Western values” and structure “new discourses” aimed at “new political subjects” (goodbye to the proletariat! hello to “collective identities”). That is to say, from the “world of ideas” it is possible to transform society and, according to Herbert Marcuse in his work Repressive Tolerance (1968), whoever does not assume this criterion must be fought as a fascist. This last element explains why we communists who uphold the banners of Marxism-Leninism are so deplorable for Madurismo and how our class-conscious positions are openly condemned in instruments such as the so-called law “against fascism”, already approved in first discussion in the National Assembly.
This is in line not only with the considerations of one of the exponents of the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer, who, questioning the existence of the right-left range, went so far as to propose the coincidence between fascism and communism, nowadays so fashionable. But the far-from-innocent equation made by this supposed Marxist is nothing more than an offshoot of the formulation initially made in the late 1950s by Jimmy Carter’s ultra-reactionary advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
In the case of the “anti-imperialist struggle”, the Frankfurt School, by homogenizing the forms of domination throughout history, does not end up differentiating between traditional empires (based on tribute) and imperialism as a superior phase of capitalism. This discourse served as an exhibitionist guideline to capture the unwary and has its repercussions to this day: on the same day, Nicolás Maduro and the corrupt leadership of the Government party can meet with pro-Zionist evangelical churches to receive blessings while handing over PDVSA to the gringo transnational Chevron; disguising both actions as a “tactical game” of their “geopolitical strategy”.
José Mariátegui said it well: “the leap to power by anti-imperialism as a populist demagogic movement (…) never represents the conquest of power by the proletarian masses, by socialism”. Everyone has the right to assume political positions; to show automatic solidarity based on the “calculation” (opportunism) that (reactionary) pragmatism imposes. What cannot be accepted is that these positions are raised from Marxism-Leninism, when the truth is that they are not based on class analysis. So it is necessary to remember some lines of The Manifesto of the Communist Party: “The theoretical propositions of the communists do not rest far from ideas, from principles forged or discovered by any redeemer of humanity. They are all generalized expressions of the material conditions of a real and lived class struggle, of a historical movement that is unfolding in full view of all.”
Madurismo does not aim to overcome capitalist society, nor is it anti-imperialist; it is a bird of prey that disputes with other sectors the spoils of Venezuelan income. The incomprehension of this phenomenon on the part of some communist parties is a retrograde tendency which expresses ─as we have already pointed out─ the material conditions of existence of the proletariat at present and of the crisis of the workers’ movement, which lead the communist parties to this type of “pathologies”: a kind of ideological and political anemia.
On this anemia gravitate some elements: first, the demarcation between Marxism and the workers movement caused by the dispersion of themes and the idealist hierarchies that ─promoted by revisionism─ end up trapping the Leninist organizations in an erroneous strategy to “conquer” the masses. Second, over-dimensioning demands and interests of the moment and of partial subjects (collective identities) while postponing the broad ideals of emancipation that are the basis of Marxism-Leninism. Third, the ignorance of the history of the revolutionary movement, particularly of the Venezuelan one in the case at hand. The attraction unleashed by fashionable theories and fetished clichés by the incendiary discourses of the salon, not studied from a materialist, dialectical and class perspective. Fourth, an infantile pretension of originality that leads to coinciding with classic positions of historical revisionism (Eurocommunism or “social-democratic anti-imperialism”). These are the causes and elements that define the “Leninist anemia” of today and in the face of which it is necessary to act immediately.
* Director of the “Olga Luzardo” National School of Cadres
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