Franz J.T. Lee, January, 2011
You cannot poison the viper with its own venom
"Revolution" is indeed 'plowing in the sea' (Simon Bolivar) of corporate, imperialist, global capitalism. It is the historic process of globalization as explained by Marx and Engels in the 'Manifesto of the Communist Party' (1848)
What is on the order of the day, especially in Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, is urgently to transcend capitalist revolution towards Human Emancipation.
Concerning 'revolution' as the most formidable weapon and defense of world capitalism, on December 6, 2010, I wrote: "However, we should recall that bourgeois capitalist history has demonstrated that one of the most complicated things to make is a global revolution. The current mode of production which today is annihilating itself systematically, was born in Miletus nearly three millennia ago: only now it is full grown, or using the words of Immanuel Kant, has transformed itself to full recognizability.
Whoever cannot see it now, will not have much time left to learn to see it in the near future. The capitalist revolution has been the formidable weapon of revolutionary capitalism. By careful study we would note, that not socialism but its negation, capitalism, is revolutionary.
Now, concerning the current political moment that the Bolivarian Revolution, its leader Hugo Chavez Frias and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela are experiencing, what is going on?
What is going wrong?
For now and to start with, we can only deal with the concept of revolution, by trying to place it under a macroscopic critique.
Why is it only now, that many a concerned observer would suddenly note that something is going wrong with our Bolivarian Revolution? Why does it go unnoticed that something was going wrong with all the past and current revolutions undertaken in the name of the 'wretched of the earth'? In whose interest have revolutions really materialized? Who benefited or benefits, as the Latin question 'cui bono' asks? In whose class interest is it to 'radicalize' the Bolivarian Revolution and which class would rather be interested in getting rid of president Chavez and the PSUV? Then, whose interests is the PSUV defending? Why has there been an avalanche of warnings and calls for self-critique and rectification? Who really cares about socialism in Venezuela?"