Socialism: human beings first

Caracas, Feb 26 ABN (Nancy Mastronardi).- Just as the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías, said, socialism places the human being over everything else, it is to say, citizens and their social welfare are top priority.

During his Sunday program number 305, Chávez Frías called Venezuelans to build socialism and to not reinforce the capitalist theory.

Now, before tackling with the socialist model began in Venezuela, let's take for reference the concept offered by the Real Academia Española (Spanish for 'Royal Spanish Academy'; RAE) at its digital version, “socialism is a system of social and economic organization based upon collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and regulation of the economic and social activities on behalf of the State, and the distribution of
goods.”

Other dictionaries indicate that socialism is a political ideology that fix the theories and political actions which advocate an economic and political system based upon the ownership or democratic possession of the means of production and its administrative control on behalf of the producers or workers themselves, and of the democratic control of the civic political structures on behalf of citizens.

Some of them also affirm, “For that reason, socialism is linked to the seek of collective good, development in cooperation and even social equality, however, the concept of these aspects of socialism may drastically vary.”

XXI Century Socialism

“Without democracy there would never exist socialism; on the contrary, capitalism destroys democracy.”

Hugo Chávez issued this statement on July 28th 2007, during his participation at the assembly of applicants to be militants for the Socialist United Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in Caracas, where he also indicated the socialist components which should be oriented towards the ethic-moral, social, political, geographic and economic areas.

In this assembly, regarding the socialist ethic, the President indicated that “there will be no socialism without ethic, if we do not begin a moral revolution, setting the example of socialist ethic, unselfishness, solidarity and love among us, we will never begin socialism, it would be a complete farce.”

Concerning social socialism, the president invited the applicants for this new political organization to fight for a society with equality, inclusion, satisfaction of human necessities as feeding, health, education, moral, housing and work, which are essential as well.

Likewise, in order to explain political socialism, Chávez commented that it comprises democracy, “Without democracy there would never exist socialism; on the contrary, capitalism destroys democracy.”

“One of the wiles of our opponents, the capitalists, is that I am here to destroying democracy, that we are dismantling the institutions, that we are starting a dictatorship in Venezuela. It is the other way around. They have a global dictatorship against democracy, which is not the model praised by the president of the United States of the North American empire, nor the elites from the Latin American countries, the oligarchies and bourgeoisies.”

President Chávez explained that geographic socialism “is quite more complicated, but it is not difficult at all. We just have to find a way to understand it well; it deals with a new vision of the Reconfiguration of State Power, what we have called the Fourth Constituent Engine.”

Geographic socialism should “release spaces in order to make us equal,” because, as he said, the poor people who live in shantytowns deserve to have decent homes, grassy areas and other benefits.

Regarding economic socialism, Chávez stated that “nobody should think that socialism begins in solidarity; it is part of the effort to build socialism, but we have to change capitalist for socialist.”

He expressed that it tackles with revising concepts and besides he clarified that bolivarian socialism does not envisage eliminating or banning of private property, “it only deals with the means of production ownership.”

“We have to progress, gradually creating new ways of production; first of all of property, and battalions can carry out an exceptional work regarding the economic matter,” he said.

PSUV, an alternative for socialism

On December 17th 2006, the Venezuelan president argued that “for this new era, we need a political structure not at the service of parties and colors, but at the service of the people and the Revolution.”

Therefore, he expressed that “We need a party, not a word search with which we would be lying to ourselves and deceiving the people.”

Thus, according to Lisandro Pérez, parish council chairman of the 23 de Enero (in Caracas ) and leader of the PSUV Battalion from that area, political parties in the fourth republic always began in privileged and elite groups.

“The Venezuelan revolutionary process has initiated the change for the creation of a party which comes from the opinion of the community and the daily debate of Venezuelans, from the bolivarian groups and with the only condition of being socialists and revolutionaries,” added Pérez.

Furthermore, he indicated that the bolivarian socialism starts in the union of
all the sides of society.

“At the Soviet socialism, only the Soviet party set the standard. In ours, the standard is set by the communal councils and, besides, as revolutionaries, we respect private property. It involves the meaning of individual. Human matter is top priority in our socialism.”

The party's promoter commission estimates that the board of directors of the political organization might be designated before March 10th.

Likewise, the president of the PSUV Promoter Commission, Jorge Rodríguez, indicated that in order to select the members of the national board of directors, each of the delegates who attended to the party's congress on February 23rd will present a series of applicants who might form the board.

In the process of electing the PSUV national authorities will take part the five representatives of each of the 14,318 socialist battalions previously
conformed.

The deputy spokespeople from the socialist battalions are also called for the electoral process, which means an electorate of around 100 thousand applicant to
militants.

The election of the board of directors, as it occurred with the registration of applicants to PSUV militants, will count with the collaboration of the National
Electoral Council (CNE) as well.