He is DE-centralizing power down to the community council level, and wants to enhance this de-centralization with several of the amendments that his government has proposed. This policy is, in fact, an anti-Stalinist policy--devised to COUNTER Stalinism (too much power concentrated at the top levels of government, in too few hands). Local community councils encourage participatory democracy with maximum citizen participation, and they have real power. THEY decide how federal money is spent in their communities. The constitutional amendments formalize community councils and guarantee funding for them. This is a means of BY-PASSING corrupt local elites, who would use the money to line their own pockets and produce nothing useful for the community, and a means to insure that federal funds are spent on real needs. Another amendment cuts the work week. Stalin would never do that. He wanted slave labor. Another amendment provides benefits to workers in the informal business sector (big in Venezuela), which will HELP a variety of small businesses, and they already have a program of grants and loans to small businesses and worker coops.
Chavez and his government certainly have some of the same problems that Stalinist/communist Russia faced--for instance a prior oligarchy that had completely neglected the nation's manufacturing sector. Venezuela's automobile and tractor factories were begun and then abandoned in favor of imports. Venezuela imports many of the machine parts and materials used by its oil industry, and generally imports all the things it should be, and could be making, and imports much of its food as well. These are signs of a completely IRRESPONSIBLE ruling class. But Chavez is NOT centralizing control and commandeering labor to force industrialization, as Stalin did. His government has a much more creative, multi-pronged approach, which is why they've shown such dramatic growth with the greatest growth in the PRIVATE sector.
Here's an excellent article on the Chavez government and industrialization...
The Struggle to Industrialize Venezuela
October 5th 2007, by Chris Carlson – Venezuelanalysis.com
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2689And here's an article that rips the NYT for its lies about Chavez management of Venezuela's oil...
NYT's Tina Rosenberg Goes to School on Venezuela's Oil, and Flunks
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2808If you think of an economy as a machine, I would say what Chavez is doing is greasing all the wheels, and replacing some old and rusty parts, and trying to get it to GO, meanwhile trying to redesign and modernize it, WHILE it is working. You can't force a broken machine to go. Well, you can do what Stalin did, and kick it, and rage at it, and force its rusty parts to turn over, but there is no smoothness and precision, and it will eventually get overburdened and break down (as happened with the Soviet economy). The Chavez government is trying to do that kind of quick industrialization with worker happiness and democracy built into it from the beginning. It's quite a balancing act. Some things DO need to be centrally directed, but if you want creativity, enterprise, variety and worker- and citizen-control, you have to be flexible, you have to yield, you have to trust in people. I think this is the line that separates socialist economic engineering, of the kind we are seeing in Venezuela, from Stalinism (which resembles fascism in so many ways): trust in people, in their native desire to be enterprising and innovative. The grease is, literally, oil profits, but it is also trust, faith in people, belief that, given a chance--with education, with loans, with help--they WILL build a healthy economy.
The people are also demanding it. It's not all up to Chavez. It is a grass roots driven movement. This is what people do in a REAL democracy: they demand that the country's resources be used to benefit everyone, that real needs be met, that problems be solved, and that peoples' natural creativity and energy not be dissipated--by greed, by corruption, and by elitist rule. And I think it's ironical and amusing, this CIA "talking point" that Chavez is a "dictator"--supposedly "dictating" to this determined and headstrong, and passionately democratic, people. They got rid of the dictators! This is THEIR government, in ways that we will never see here in our lifetimes, sad to say.
"Crypto-Stalinist"? No, I don't see that at all. And Venezuelans wouldn't tolerate it. I see a largely self-educated man, risen from poverty and out of a military background (--a rather different kind of military than we know, in which he would talk politics and philosophy late into the night with his LEFTIST military buddies), and who has strongly identified with "the man in the street"--ordinary, poor people. So his talk is not polished and diplomatic--it is blunt, practical and to the point. He is not speaking to, or for, the smooth-talking elites of this world. He is speaking to, and for, those who never get a say--the ignored, marginalized majority. I don't see any of the deviousness, or paranoia, or viciousness, or violence of Josef Stalin. Wanting power is not inherently bad. You can't do anything without it--certainly not rebuilding a broken economy (ask FDR!). Where does the power come from?--that is the question. From the secret police? From violent purges? From imprisonment, torture and assassination? In the case of Chavez--as with FDR--the power does not come from these dark sources; it comes from the PEOPLE. And you can see that in Chavez's face, just as you can see Stalin's dark disease in his--in so far as one can make a judgment of people from a distance, in photographs. I do not see "dictator" in Chavez's face, nor has that accusation been borne out in ANY of his actions. I see stubbornness and strength in Chavez, but I get NO fear vibes at all. I would be terrified to be near Stalin. He was a scary vicious man. Chavez, on the other had, is someone I would like to have over for dinner. I wouldn't fear him at all. I think he would be interesting to talk to, and humorous and entertaining.
Phrases like "crypto-Stalinist" and "dictator" evoke horrors, such as those committed by Stalin, and by RIGHTWING dictators in South America. Where is the horror in Chavez? There is simply no evidence to support it, and overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
I would be careful about tossing out phrases like this ("crypto-Stalinist"), especially with that smeary word "tendencies" ("crypto-Stalinist TENDENCIES"). What does that mean? And how can anyone counter such an accusation--that he has "tendencies"? We ALL have "tendencies." It's what we DO that matters. So, what has Chavez DONE to deserve such a phrase? Has he "tended to" assassinate his friends? Has he "tended to" force tens of thousands of people into slave labor camps? What? What horrors has he committed, or even threatened to commit, that provide even the slightest indication that he "has tendencies" to become a crazy, blood-drenched Stalin? I can think of some people closer to home who are crazy and blood-drenched, and not just "tending" toward it. And, oddly, it is they who are calling Chavez a "dictator."