Venezuela in Transition

...The oil fields around Maracaibo, the great Guiana mining complex, the immense car park and ribbons of motorway which straddle the approaches to Caracas—all testify to the wealth and modernity of Simon Bolivar's native land...

...If we are to believe the economists, the gross income of the Venezuelan citizen approximates that of an inhabitant of Norway and is slightly lower than a Canadian's...

...At Caracas, moreover, the home of "Socialism" is the university...

...Disregarding the provinces of the interior, where living conditions and the very rhythm of life have changed little since the 19th century, the outlying districts of the capital itself are eloquent of their inhabitants' misery, penury and destitution...

...The large industrial enterprises established in Venezuela often work with local capital, but they export the benefits...

...The FALN—formed in spite of the Communist party, which did not rally to its cause for fear of being swamped—finally fell prey to its own social composition...

...In the absence of any basic organizations, this revolution and reconstruction is being wrought at the top, bringing mistakes, defects and crises in its wake, engendering new privileges and throwing up new ruling classes...

...Today, with the momentum of direct action waning and the prospect of a new industrial upswing in sight, with a tentative but sustained policy of agrarian reform bearing its first fruit and the public purse showering its contents unceasingly on capital and provinces alike, the parties are negotiating for a share in government and opposition, conforming to arrangements which will leave no political machine or electoral pressure-group unrewarded...

...Thousands of homeless children wander through them, and in many of the suburbs the night belongs to those who carry a knife or pistol...

...For some, it is the North American imperialists—i.e., the oil companies —who are at the bottom of these social inequalities: "Rifling the nation's resources and only parting with just enough to sustain their political henchmen, the Yankees dominate and exploit the country, which will never be truly free, independent and stable from the economic and social aspect until the last Washington businessman has gone home...

...A strong-man secured public order, guaranteed peace and integrity for all, kept an eye on major national projects and eliminated influencepeddlers...

...What unites them is a strong sense of nationalism—a conviction that the country possesses sufficient material and human resources to enable it, if resolutely handled and methodically exploited, to advance rapidly into the era of Socialist abundance...

...The so-called free markets offer suspect meat and fly-blown fish to the thousands who have remained on the fringes of the economic boom...

...They call themselves Marxists, though their analysis of Venezuelan society does not extend beyond political considerations...

...Public services are characterized by their lackadaisical attitude...

...Today, two out of every three live in towns...

...But all these factors combined cannot disguise a phenomenon of quite another order: the transition from a subsistence economy which exported a few agricultural products to a modern economy...

...The vigorous efforts made by a nucleus of young intellectuals to establish themselves as a new ruling class have not, however, borne fruit...

...The Castro approach appealed to them as a demonstration of the practicability of their plans and of the wide variety of support which a competing world can offer a budding new regime...

...No trade union movement or peasant league powerful or imaginative enough to demand basic socialization exists...

...It discloses the harshness of the conflict between generations, the technical nature of revolutionary methods, the schematism of social conceptions and the relativity of ideologies...

...Attempts to split the trade unions and peasant associations met with failure, and ex-President Romulo Betancourt's adroitness prevented the chaos caused by terrorist action from provoking a reaction on the part of military and Right-wing cliques —which was the FALN'S avowed intention...

...This simple statement implies a host of problems which add up to a revolution...

...from a comic-opera elite to a ruling class which is tackling novel problems and situations...

...e.g., if meat is expensive it is because the market has been cornered by a mafia—composed, needless to say, of Italians...

...Immediately after World War I, four Venezuelans out of five lived in rural districts...

...Luis Vega, a new contributor, specializes in Latin American affairs...

...For others, it is the political regime which is the root cause of social tensions: "In the days of dictator Perez Jimenez, offenders got such a thrashing that they didn't feel like having another go...

...There is a grain of truth in all these oversimplified theories...

...The literature clandestinely but abundantly distributed in student centers by the Armed Front for National Liberation (FALN) is significant...

...A new middle class has to be created from scratch out of national resources...

...The road to a share in power lay open to too many middle-class elements and too many intellectuals, with or without university degrees, not to have diverted most of its active members into the parliamentary parties...

...In their eagerness to "clean up" and get back home as quickly as possible, many foreigners rig their balance sheets or make mistakes in adding up...

...The roughest districts of Caracas voted either for Vice Admiral Larrazabal, in memory of his courageous stand against the defunct dictatorship, or for Uslar Pietri, a candidate on the extreme Right of the political spectrum...

...Their sympathy for Russian or Chinese experiments is not unqualified...

...Naturally enough, they themselves would be the administrators and organizers of this planned transformation...

...RICH COUNTRY, POOR PEOPLE Venezuela in Transition By Luis Vega Caracas Within 30 years, Venezuela has progressed from the status of a backward, neglected country to that of a wealthy nation...

...Often, too, wealth has to be distributed which is not the product of long and patient endeavor but has spurted from wells drilled by overseas companies...

...Fidelism" has helped them to formulate rules for the seizure and retention of power...

...The vast majority are young intellectuals who consider the methods employed by the democratic parties inadequate or incapable of solving the fundamental problems of national reconstruction...

...Industrial ventures have to be launched where experienced workers and trained engineers are lacking...

...What is more, the country's solid and substantial resources are not manipulated by some potentate with expensive tastes, but administered by a constitutional government headed by a democratically elected President and subject to the control of a parliament which has been chosen by secret ballot...

...It is convenient, of course, to find someone responsible for this anomalous state of affairs, and scapegoats are not lacking...

...The hills have sprouted a fungoid growth of shanty towns and ramshackle villages which are devoid of drains and surfaced roads...

...They failed because parties like Accion Democratica (Socialist), COPEI (Christian Democrat) and URD (Left-wing but integrated into the parliamentary system) were still young organizations—Accion Democratica was founded only 20 years ago—which had already prospected the main social strata and taken root in them...

...Plenty coupled with political democracy is not, however, enough to make the Venezuelan happy, nor even well-fed, well-clothed and wellhoused...

...The peasant class is dying, and the working class is in the process of formation...

...The militants of the FALN might yet have won the day if they had managed to harness the aspirations of a proletariat-in-the-making and ride to victory on the backs of the disinherited social classes...

...It was not a slow and progressive economic development which modified social structures, imposed a new type of administration and developed an original political system, but a sudden access of wealth which dealt an ancien régime and traditional society its death-blow, and is now demanding a total reconstruction of social life...

...Agrarian reform has to be implemented in areas where young peasants are pouring into the towns and only old people and children remain on the land...

...from an antiquated country to a nation of civil servants and technicians...

...While this procedure is unlikely to inspire any delirious enthusiasm, it may at least enable recently elected President Raul Leoni's Venezuela to progress on an even keel...

...What is regarded here as extremely Left-wing—and thinks of itself as revolutionary— does not stem from the agricultural proletariat or the urban Lumpenproletariat...

...Foreigners," too, are frequently cited...

...Its champions bear a far closer resemblance to those now in power, or on the outskirts of it, than to the unemployed of the towns or the peons of the interior...