Socialism - Now or Never April 20th 2007

In December last year, President Hugo Chavez called for the setting up of a new united socialist party and urged all Venezuelan revolutionaries to join. The Communist Party of Venezuela has since been engaged in an internal debate about whether to dissolve and join, or continue as an independent party. In the statement below, 14 members of their Central Committee argue that not to join the united socialist party would be to abandon the existing revolution for the sake of a hypothetical future revolution.

In transition to Socialism, the national liberation revolution demands the urgent unity of the revolutionary forces against a powerful Yankee imperialism and its Venezuelan servants.

This has been the strategic aim of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) since its foundation in 1931, ratified at its 13th Extraordinary Congress that took place on the 3rd and 4th of March this year under the following premise:

"The advance towards socialism demands the simultaneous construction of a revolutionary party that will group together those parties that have expressed the most consistent stance towards both the social classes and the sectors historically engaged in the revolution and socialism"... "To this end, the Communist Party and the Young Communist League have stated their firm decision and intention to pave the way for the joint and organic unity of the revolutionary peoples, to be used as an instrument of collective political management for the construction of socialism".

The formation of a socialist party requires a very serious effort in order to imbue it with an ideological, political and organisational structure that will accord with the socialist objective. Therefore it is paramount that the party represents the exploited classes, and first and foremost the working class. In 1936 and the years that followed, this was the hot topic of discussion. Acción Democrática [a now largely defunct social democratic party], which was defined as a multiclass party, is an example of how disastrous this concept proved for the Venezuelan people. This is not to say that we should shut out people from other social strata, but in order to participate they must comply with the ideology and the policies of the exploited classes, as well as their organisational structure. In addition, we Marxists have always recognised the revolutionary values of original Christianity, as President Chavez does in our times.

The united revolutionary party is the culmination of a 76 year-long struggle by the Venezuelan communists for national liberation and socialism. The revolution that we have advocated is on the march and we can not avoid making this commitment.

Our responsibility is to strive, alongside the popular masses, for the formation a party that represents the exploited classes, one capable of achieving proletarian internationalism; that will promote the independent development of our country; one that will strive for full socialism and the liberation of oppressed people, and that will fight corruption and bureaucracy.

If we do not go down this path, we would be abandoning the current revolution for the sake of a hypothetical future revolution.

It's now or never!

The rallying cry that gathers us all here today is:

Fatherland, Socialism or Death!

Caracas, 17th April, 2007

The statement is signed by the following members of the PCV Central
Committee:

Roberto Hernández Wohnsiedler, Jesús Germán Faría, Carlos Del Vecchio, Tatiana Delgado, Johnny Niño, Omar Marcano, Euro Faría, José Laguna, Iván Delgado, Freddy González, Leopoldo Niño, Enrique Franco, Juana García, Getulio Fonseca.

Article translated from Spanish by James Walsh and Rafael Lafuente