Imperialism and its friends carried out a classic military coup in April 2002. The next coup they have been attempting in the form of the bosses lockout to break down the economy and retake the levers of full control.

Now the same politics is being carried out with this plebiscite, supported by the monopoly
of information owned by Cisneros and the sleazy coup bunch, favored by lack of decision of
Chavez to cut off the head of the dragon and expropriate the means of communication that
support the coup.

Chavez has proposed the plebiscite in clear terms: Either one votes for Bush or Chavez. And this polarization is the similar or even greater than that expressed in February 1946 when it was "Braden or Peron."

The Revolutionary Socialist League (L.S.R.) is in solidarity with everything the worker and the poor have to do to crush with an avalanche of votes Bush and his native partners. In the immediate task in front of us, revolutionary socialists cannot be neutral faced by this challenge. On the contrary, we need to use all our effort to win it. This is necessary, the bourgeois Chavez leadership makes it difficult, as he impedes practical actions against Bush's partners.

The problem does not end of August 15th, even if Bush and the coup plotters are defeated at the ballot box.

In such case, though, we will have won one round in a battle that continues. This battle is not resolved with elections.

Ex-President Carlos Andres Perez, who was guilty for the murder of 1000 people killed during the "caracazo", is already aware of possible electoral defeat, has now announced that the Chavez regime will be overthrown with violence. They are not just words; it is a strategy he is announcing.

By definition a bourgeois politician is he who physically defeats the exploited, not just to overthrow Chavez in favor of Bush but to hand over one of the five most important reserves of petroleum in the world to imperialist profit while cutting off Cuba’s oil supply.

WE NEED TO BITE AND NOT LET GO

We are also facing a strategic problem. The battle will only be resolved by crushing economically, socially, politically and militarily Bush and his native partners. This struggle will spread out in the streets. and requires a Latin American and international strategy as a condition for victory by attacking this enemy in Latin America and throughout the world.

This means taking immediate practical steps. Among them, expropriating the monopolies (including the press) and organizing peoples armed militias, based on the Bolivarian circles and other organizations of the workers and people which has to impel a power which is parallel to the existing capitalist power. This includes the organization of the troops and officers who opposed the coup of April 2002. Also cutting out all those in the nationalized oil industry PDVSA, removing the management who support the coup, even if they are not the top ones, and establishing workers control over the process.

What has to be done is what Chavez has not done in all these years with the result that the struggle is on the terrain least favorable for workers and the people, that is, a plebiscite, supported by signatures that may have bee falsified. This without having advanced against the supporters of Bush.

This strategy is not easy to carry out, and besides, revolutionary socialists are a small minority in relation to Chavez, who is the bourgeois leader of great movement of exploited masses. That is why it is absolutely essential to have unity of action to confront Bush and his people, knowing that this gigantic task is way beyond Chavez and all his predecessors in the last half century in the region.

Revolutionary socialists should act together with Chavez and the Chavistas against the imperialists and their partners. But also we need to dispute the hegemony of this movement, utilizing every necessary tactic. We must flee from the disease of reactionary sectarianism as well as from the infantile illusion of trusting Chavez and the "patriotic" capitalists. It would be like playing Russian roulette with a gun that is completely loaded.

Venezuela not only is facing its destiny as a country and its exploited. Cuba also is facing its destiny and its supplies of petroleum. What is in play is a continental confrontation between revolution and counter-revolution that will have repercussions among the giants of the sub-continent.

Latin America, in our opinion, within the world context and because of its own history, is today the weakest link in the capitalist chain...as a region and not just the sum of countries. Within that context, Venezuela perhaps shows the tendency-not yet finalized-from which the next period will begin marching from.

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