[Martha Lia Grajales is part of the Surgentes Collective (a human rights organisation) and a founding member of the San Agustin Convive cooperative in Venezuela. She is a lawyer, and has a master’s degree in human rights and democracy. In this interview, we ask her questions about the relationship between state power and popular organisation, with a view to understanding how grassroots initiatives might breath new life into the socialist project.]

 

Cira Pascual Marquina (CPM): From the beginning, the Chavista movement had two ways of understanding and carrying out politics: on the one hand, there was popular protagonism, direct democracy and grassroots organisation. On the other hand, Chavismo also pursued state and institutional power. This double approach was productive for a time, and it opened the way for unforeseen expressions of popular power. Now, however, there seems to be a clear prevalence of state-level politics over popular power and grassroots organisation. What’s going on?

 

Martha Lia Grajales (MLG): The state is a disputed territory, and entering into it is necessary if we want to promote popular interests, but state power is not in any way the goal. In any effort to build popular power, there must be synergy between the bottom and the top. The key issue here is that what is done “from above” must strengthen popular power from below.

 

We can’t ignore the important role that the government has played in fostering spaces of participation and political organising for subaltern groups. Expanding and deepening popular organisation in Venezuela has been, without doubt, one of the Chavista government’s goals, and we can count the build up of grassroots organisations on a large scale as one of its big successes.

 

What is the problem then? First, the work that is done ‘from above’ should not replace or appropriate that which is done ‘from below’. That’s to say, state institutions shouldn’t manage or instrumentalise (that is, trivialise) popular power.

 

There are many conceptions of popular power, and one of them considers it simply as an instrument for seizing state power. However, once the power is in your hands, then you appeal to ‘historical necessity’ and ‘national interest’ to justify centralising power. In this way, the party and the state gradually supplant popular projects and the autonomous organisations of the oppressed classes.

 

The other conception of popular power, which is the one we believe in, considers popular power to be both a means and an end. Popular power is about creating a new set of social relations that are outside the logic of capital, and the aim is self-government. Chávez warned that the state or party should not institutionalise or co-opt popular power. That, obviously, does not mean we should take an isolationist attitude and cut off all relations with the state for fear of losing autonomy. As I said earlier, the state is a disputed terrain which the popular movement must not ignore, but it shouldn’t be considered the main objective.

 

Thus, the problem is not that popular power has been promoted from above. The problem is that often those operating in the government conceive of popular power as something that is merely auxiliary and which is only good for maintaining formal or traditional power. This conception strips popular power of all of its transformative potential. It treats the masses as passive recipients rather than as political subjects with the capacity and power to guide the revolutionary process.

 

But it should be said that this is not only a question about how the state does things. Popular forces also need to strategise their approach, the most important requirement being that they need to develop economic autonomy, which not only politicises their movements but also limits the possibility of state co-optation.

 

A popular movement that does not have its own economic muscle and depends completely on state resources is very vulnerable. If it does not behave as the state expects it to, it will lose support and its organisational work can easily collapse. Or when the government, wanting to support the initiative, is lacking in resources, that can also lead to the collapse of the movement’s organisational efforts. So when popular power builds a relationship of dependence on the state, that reduces its capacity to self-govern.

 

Obviously, all this doesn’t mean that popular organisations should reject state support, but it does mean that when support is received, it must be oriented towards collectively developing and collectively owning the means of production according to a logic that is different from capital, and which must be sustainable without the state’s intervention. Otherwise it will be impossible to advance on the path of self-government and transitioning to socialism.

 

This is a complicated business, because here the government must support the initiatives for building of popular power that should gradually replace the government itself. In that process, we will naturally run into resistance from constituted power, which does not want to be replaced. However, it is only if this transfer of power takes place, that we can advance toward socialism.

 

The role of a popular government is to contribute to building power from below, fostering a constant modification in the relations of power in favour of the people. There must be a process of permanently generating conditions for the growth of popular power. Paraphrasing Miguel Mazzeo (noted Argentine intellectual–activist) : those from above should foment, not replace popular power.

 

CPM: You have claimed that the Chavista popular movement needs to organise all of its forces, with the aim of reorienting the Bolivarian Process. The popular movement—consisting of people organised in communes, cooperatives, worker councils and autonomous feminist organisations—must become something that can guide the masses. This requires a great deal of collective work but also, and very importantly, an effective communications strategy.

 

MLG: The crisis in Venezuela is much more than a struggle to maintain state power. It is about the struggle to maintain socialism as a strategic goal, not only in Venezuela but in the continent as a whole.

 

In this regard, in the midst of the brutal blockade and with internal errors having been made in the direction of the political process, there is now a strong national and international tendency claiming that Venezuela’s attempt to build an alternative to capitalism is a huge failure. Moreover, it is said that the problems that we are now experiencing are associated with the socialist model. This view associates socialism with scarcity of food, widespread impoverishment, the restriction of political rights, corruption, etc., and uses this a reason to reject it as an alternative to capitalism.

 

So when I talk about the need for the Chavista popular movement to organise and reorient itself, one of the things I’m talking about is publicising and popularising all those grassroots projects that have taken shape during the emergency—all those communal projects that, in the midst of this crisis, cast their lot with building alternatives to capitalist relations, to colonialism and to heteronormativity (the belief that heterosexuality is the norm – Editor)—and which layout the path to socialism as a strategic horizon.

 

In the midst of this profound crisis, these grassroots efforts expand and enrich participation in politics. They also produce and guarantee food in a sustainable and sovereign way. In other words, those who are self-organised and collectively manage shared assets are more protected. These grassroots experiences are living proof that the socialist model hasn’t failed. Quite the contrary, these projects go to show us that the way out of the current crisis involves placing our bets on a truly emancipatory course of action.

 

There are so many projects that show this. Plan Pueblo a Pueblo is a project involving some seventy small campesinos—essentially farming families—and it manages to distribute food to more than 1,200 urban families every week. In three years, they have produced more than 1,000 tons of fruits and vegetables on their own. They are also recovering native seeds and agroecological practices, while promoting campesino organisation not only for the sake of food sovereignty, but also with a view to building an independent distribution network. This initiative generates new fraternal relations between the people of the countryside and the city, and productive relations geared towards common welfare and towards eliminating intermediaries.

 

Pueblo a Pueblo’s internal organisational process helped raise the small farmers’ capacity to grow and distribute in an independent and autonomous manner, which in turn helped them get better pay for their labour. At the same time, the organised buyer communities are able to purchase food with around 60% savings when compared with standard market prices. All this happened in the midst of a terrible crisis, and it was made possible, first, by planning production; second, through the organisational work both in the countryside and in the city; and, third, by eliminating intermediaries from the productive chain. This shows that organisation can not only help us overcome the crisis, additionally, it’s also a game-changer, allowing us to avoid capitalist pragmatism, and deepening our commitment to socialism as a strategic goal.

 

So we have to question both the usual explanation of the causes of the harsh situation that we are currently facing and at the same time publicise all those practices that are led by subaltern groups: projects that will allow us to find a way out of this crisis while radicalising the process.

 

This, however, requires a big effort on the part of the popular movement to generate spaces of articulation. That’s because, whenever these initiatives get going, pragmatists will always say that one truck of produce by a cooperative will not solve the huge difficulties that we are living.

 

When faced with such arguments, I would answer in two ways. First, this is not only about the collective effort that is promoted at a local level, because undoubtedly such an effort taken in isolation is absolutely insufficient. The aim here is to multiply the local productive projects based on the characteristics of each territory and what is needed for reproducing life there. The local projects should also be linked to other such projects, allowing for the growth of what Chavez called a great spider web: a new geometry of power. This new power might well have its epicenter at the local level, but its true power consists in the capacity to connect people and communities across the entire region. It is in this way that what might seem insignificant at a local level can contribute to new practices, new policies and new economic relations which could meet the most serious needs of the people.

 

Thus, the objective is not only generating local productive projects, it is also to generate spaces of encounter, articulation and collective action that must be promoted beyond the local level where each initiative is taking place.

 

I would also like to add something in response to those who think that it’s naïve to imagine solving crisis from below, from the local level, and step by step. Well, we are not naïve, we are not forgetting the struggle that must take place at the level of state politics. But it is precisely by accumulating grassroot force—through organisational work and forging alternative productive chains—that we can develop real capacity to exert our influence at the level of state politics.

 

CPM: In the face of the crisis (and governmental responses that often involve reducing popular participation) new grassroots projects have been emerging. These projects are often self-managed and try to solve problems outside the logic of capital. We have seen people using new organisational forms that are much more democratic and horizontal. These spaces have been important for re-politising people during the crisis and in the face of imperialist aggression.

 

MLG: As a result of the multi-dimensional crisis that we are facing in Venezuela, many people from the popular classes no longer involve themselves in state-sponsored organisations. In some cases, this is due to their understandable anger with the government—both with regards to the overall orientation of its national policies, and the behaviour of its local representatives in the local territory, particularly the people assigned from above to head the CLAP (Local Food Production and Provision Committees, which organise the distribution of subsidised food) or the UBCh (Bolivar-Chavez Battle Units, which are the basic organisational structures of the Socialist Party of Venezuela at the local level). In other cases, it’s simply because solving day-to-day problems takes a lot of time and effort, due to the crisis.

 

However, it’s a different story with the organisational efforts that are being made to respond to the crisis, such as: the projects that operate outside the logic of capital and address people’s material needs, such as food, and do this with a practice that turns people into protagonists and political subjects again, as opposed to the clientelistic logic promoted by the government; the projects that question the logic of privileges in the distribution of scarce resources; the initiatives that promote relationships built on transparency and equality. These kinds of organisational initiatives have managed to maintain themselves and grow, not only from an economic standpoint, but also politically. These organisations have not only survived, they have also been growing and getting stronger.

 

This shows that it’s not just about solving the food issue (which is what the CLAP tries to do), but also about doing this in ways that are opposed to the logic of capital, through methods that are collective and democratic. In the words of Mazzeo, it’s about government by an entire class and not by an elite.

 

Those efforts seeking to build popular power from below—and that do so by developing forms that allow for a more collective and democratic way of doing politics, while also addressing people’s material needs—work to re-politise the population and raise public morale. This recharges and strengthens the mass organisation, while maintaining socialism as a strategic goal. Even though they don’t actually get us to socialism, they work to build conditions for it.

 

CPM: Finally, I would like to ask you about Unidos San Agustin Convive, as a concrete self-organised project. If you could describe it, that would help us to understand the practical experience and its political reverberations. We would also like to learn how this experience re-politises people and raises morale, and how it belies the claim that socialism has failed and the only solution now is privatisation.

 

MLG: San Agustín Convive is a cooperative formed mainly by women from 13 communal councils in the San Agustin del Sur barrio in Caracas. It got going in August almost three years ago. The cooperative took shape to deal with the issue of food. When it started in 2016, there was one hub made up of five communal councils, and now there are three hubs bringing together people from 13 communal councils. Besides the distribution of food in collaboration with the Plan Pueblo a Pueblo, the cooperative is also taking steps to develop textile and food production; the making of sauces, jams, and ice cream; and children’s social and leadership activities—all this through a self-managed and deeply democratic process involving collective organisational forms. It is an attempt to develop revolutionary theory through practical work. Thus, it is not just an effort aimed at meeting specific demands, it is also about building the conditions for socialism to take shape, starting at the local level.

 

How does it re-politise and re-mobilise people? Well, it re‐politicised people through practical experience that showed that cooperative and collective action can protect us, in the midst of Venezuela’s deep crisis. Thanks to the organisational work we have done, people in the cooperative have access to food with more than 60% savings compared with the regular market prices (which, in turn, means that we are likely to be eating more and better). The cooperative also decreases our level of dependence, making us more autonomous and less vulnerable. Finally, the experience demonstrates, in the midst of a brutal crisis, that the only way out is through collective projects, not through capitalism.

 

The project re-mobilises us because, to build our non‐capitalist alternative, we have had to overcome the condition of being merely dependent ‘recipients’ and remake ourselves as political subjects capable of critically addressing our reality and of organising to transform it. It is not about waiting for the solutions to arrive from above, it is about building them from below. Of course, for something like this to work, everybody has to participate and get involved.

 

(Cira Pascual Marquina is Political Science Professor at the Universidad de Bolivariana de Venezuela in Caracas and is staff writer for Venezuelanalysis.com.)