http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2015/images/golpe_de_timon.jpgThe metaphor of making a "strike at the helm" is a mainstay of the Chavist left wing's discourse, but few take the time to ask if the Bolivarian movement really is a craft that has a rudder or wheel. In fact, Chavism is not a boat with a rudder -- or any other effective steering mechanism -- but much more like a raft or barge: it is a heterogeneous and amorphous movement that, if not totally adrift, does indeed float on the tides and currents of the world economy and is always at the mercy of changing correlations of forces between social classes inside the movement. Chávez himself recognized this problem in the years 2006 and 2007 and he tried to correct it by forming a revolutionary party . . . but without much success. When re-baptized as "PSUV-United Socialist Party of Venezuela," the Chavist movement did not overcome its raft-like character: the new organization is capable of carrying out electoral tasks but it is too loose and unstructured to qualify as a steerable boat. . . . If a leader with Chávez's extraordinary ability failed to change course where he saw a problem emerging, one can hardly be surprised that Nicolás Maduro cannot do so either (assuming he actually wants to). In recent months, the government has taken steps to further liberalize the economy and has opened the Orinoco Oil Belt to massive international "participation." These are terrible, drastic measures, and they would amount to treason if there were another option. But is it possible to imagine that the Chavist raft could really take a different tack? Could our loose movement do something other than float with the rising and falling of the world economy, buoying up during bonanzas and then drifting in times of crisis? The truth is that a rudderless boat has very few options beyond cycling between populism in good times and neoliberal belt-tightening in times of global crisis: the phase of the global economy will determine which option is applied. To counteract this logic, the Chavist left wing needs to organize itself.

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