Venezuelan+Communist+Jeronimo+Carrera+interviewed+in+Morning+Star

__ Bolivarian Revolution__
=Interview with **JERONIMO CARRERA**=

(from **Morning Star**, Monday 29 October 2007)


 * by JAMES TWEEDIE**


 * //Veteran Venezuelan communist JERONIMO CARRERA gives his take on President Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian revolution//**

JERONIMO Carrera knows a thing or two about the struggle of the poor against capitalism and imperialism.

The president of the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV) and former editor of the weekly communist party newspaper Tribuna Popular has stayed true to the cause of socialist revolution for over 60 years.

At 85 years old, he still contributes to Tribuna Popular and, for the past 10 years, he has had a weekly column in the national newspaper La Razon.

He has seen defeats and victories, a US-backed coup and the banning and persecution of his own party.

But, today, he is confident and optimistic about his country's future and the Bolivarian revolution led by President Hugo Chavez.

"We think that it is a very positive thing for our people, for Venezuela, to have a man like Chavez, because we consider him to be honest," says Carrera.

"We feel very optimistic, in that the internal factor is on our side. Chavez has been able to maintain extraordinary support of about two-thirds to 70 per cent of the electorate.

"About 10 per cent of the people are not on one side or the other. They like some things about Chavez, but they dislike other things. But even the majority of people in the opposition don't want to go back to the old situation," he asserts.

"The people who were in government in the 40 years from 1958 until the moment Chavez came, they did so much harm to the country that practically no-one wants to go back."

Carrera sets his analysis of the present developments in Venezuela in the context of the history of the Americas as a whole.

"This is a 200-year-old history, from the moment the United States separated from the British crown. A few years later, our people separated from the Spanish crown.

"What was the position at that moment? One theory, what we call the Bolivarian ideology, was that all countries should unite, but leaving out the US.

"Bolivar wrote that they are very different from us. They belong to another world. We here have in common not only language but traditions, origin, and economy.

"This is the theory which Bolivar presented in 1826 at the congress of Latin America in Panama. And Washington said: 'No, we should all unite, the extreme north with the extreme south'," explains Carrera.

"This is what is called pan-Americanism. And it was James Monroe, president of the USA at the time, who proclaimed the Monroe doctrine."

Monroe's infamous 1823 declaration to the US Congress heralded an era of US intervention in Latin American politics that continues to this day. Effectively, it meant that the US gave itself the right to act as colonial power over its southern neighbours under the guise of "pan-Americanism."

Carrera elaborates: "If you study our history, you see that you cannot have one and have the other at the same time. If you choose pan-Americanism, you have to accept that the US has the leading role. If you take Bolivarianism, you leave the US out and then we are all free to decide for ourselves.

"This is the great merit of Hugo Chavez. For the first time since that period, we have a president who has been clever enough, who has the courage of proclaiming this theory."

But what is modern Bolivarianism?

Carrera replies: "Chavez has mixed Bolivarian thought with Christianity, because he is Christian, and, on top of all this, some Marxist ideas. So, this revolution is a mixture of those three ideological building blocks.

"That's why we came to the conclusion that we cannot say that this is a proletarian revolution, but it is not a bourgeois revolution. It's not even a peasant revolution. It's a Bolivarian revolution, a new kind of revolution.

"That is the exact name for it, 'revolucion Boliviarana,' because it explains how you can mix different sources of thought to build up such a strong feeling in the Venezuelan people.

"It is not a national liberation revolution, even if some of our comrades still speak about national liberation. It is wider. It means everything from Mexico down to Argentina and Chile. Even the West Indies."

Last December, Chavez announced the formation of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), to bring together the 22 parties of the Coalition for Change under one banner.

The PCV held a special congress in March to discuss whether or not to merge with the PSUV. The conference voted overwhelmingly to keep the party independent.

Carrera explains: "We cannot dissolve our party, a party which was founded in 1931, which has undergone very difficult situations, which does not just belong to us who are here at the moment but to three generations of Venezuelan communists who have held on to this banner under extremely difficult conditions."

The decision that it faced, he says, was whether, in historically favourable conditions, "they were going to give away the party" when members over the years had defended the party through the hard times.

"We feel we have no right to do that," says Carrera.

"We feel that the best thing we can do for Chavez, for the Bolivarian revolution, is to act as a guarantee in the international field with other communist parties.

"Maybe they don't know who Chavez is or what he is doing, but, when they see that the Venezuelan communists are supporting Chavez, they will say: 'They must know what they are doing'.

"Only in the communist movement can you find such solidarity. And Chavez has seen this, because the communist movement in the whole world is supporting Chavez. There is not one single communist party in the world now that expressed any doubts about this."

The last few years have seen a growing current of solidarity with Venezuela in the British labour movement and the broader left. But Carrera points out that British solidarity with Venezuela did not begin in the 21st century.

"The independence revolution at the beginning of the 19th century depended very much on Britain," he explains. "It was with British help that Bolivar finally defeated the Spaniards.

"Do you know that Bolivar gave a special order that British troops could parade with arms in Venezuela? That was on account of the battle of Carabobo in 1821. This was the final battle in Venezuela, where the Spanish were defeated.

"In this battle, there was a British Legion formed by British soldiers with British officers which played a very decisive role. They were volunteers, what they now call in Spain the international brigades. People from Britain enrolled and went over to Venezuela to fight on the revolutionary side.

"So, we expect now, 200 years later, that the British people, especially the working class, will give support to the Venezuelan revolution to consolidate this friendship that started 200 years ago.

"These relations are old relations. We have been connected for two centuries. I hope that, in Britain, people will understand that we need British co-operation if we want to face the US.

"More important than co-operation from Spain or Italy or even France is British co-operation. If the British government will act in the sense of saying No, you cannot act against Venezuela, this will be the most extraordinary help."

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