What will hold back the right in Venezuela?

IT IS an open secret that the Venezuelan right wing, with generous support and funding from the Obama administration, aims to reestablish control over Venezuela's oil resources and profits.

Why has the U.S. government supported coup attempts, sent its warships into the Caribbean and egged on its ally Colombia to militarize its border with Venezuela? Two central reasons: First, President Hugo Chávez and his handpicked successor Nicolás Maduro have flaunted U.S. authority in a region long-considered "America's backyard" by Washington. Second, to point to the cruder reason, Venezuela is the fourth-largest exporter of crude to the United States.

The right's latest attempts to destabilize Venezuela began after the presidential elections last year, in April 2013, when Maduro ran against Henrique Capriles Radonski.

After losing for the second time in the presidential race, Capriles called for his supporters to riot in the streets against what he called "election fraud"--even though international monitors agreed fraud was not an issue in the election's outcome. People in more well-off areas of Venezuela accepted Capriles' challenge, and subsequent violence led to the death of nine government supporters--Chávistas as they are often called--including a 9-year-old child, while many others were wounded.

All in all, over 150 people have been killed in the unrest. Capriles later retracted some of his most inflammatory statements and his faction, the "soft" right, has been participating in so-called Peace Conference with Maduro since April of this year. Capriles and his party Primero Justicia (First Justice) would prefer to beat Maduro through elections, but failing that, they hope to maneuver him into accepting a political and economic pact with the best possible terms for their wealthy patrons.

Another conservative faction, the "hard" right, led by Leopoldo López, María Corina Machado and others, lost patience with the electoral process after Capriles lost the election for the second time. This faction escalated its confrontational tactics, beginning in February 2014, and the chaos has continued since. López and Machado have called for people to stay out in the streets until Maduro resigns.

Machado's and López's action plan was outlined with the help of top business officials and groups with interests in South America. This entity includes former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez and a U.S. firm, FTI Consulting, headquartered in West Palm Beach, Fla.

On June 13, 2013, Mark Feierstein, associate administrator for USAID, joined this group and, along with top opposition figures from Venezuela, met to lay out a "soft coup" strategy in Venezuela to disrupt the economy and stoke resentment against Maduro, all aimed at restoring neoliberal policies and speeding up privatization.

On November 7, 2013, Maduro's government made public a document called the Strategic Plan for Venezuela, in which elements of the right outlined the steps they would take to destabilize the country (click here to read the full document in Spanish and click here for an English translation).

TODAY, VENEZUELANS all over the country are dealing with the consequences of this coordinated action.

In mid-February, Maduro responded by expelling two U.S. diplomats, claiming they were assisting the right in a coup attempt. The opposition used this incident to paint Maduro in the corporate press as an unstable dictator, bent on expelling the forces of "democracy" from the country.

Along with sabotage to the infrastructure, hoarding of goods and power outages, the hard right floods private news channels inside Venezuela with coverage laying the blame for instability and crisis on the government. Most television and radio stations in Venezuela are private. While there are three government-owned television stations, the privately run stations have significantly higher ratings, making it difficult for Maduro and the Chávistas to counter these allegations.

The hard right has also been setting up roadblocks, where they pelt police and other representatives or supporters of the Maduro government with rocks and petrol bombs. They have thrown oil on some roads and stretched barbed wire across streets, which has caused several injuries and deaths, including the decapitation of a motorcyclist. They burn tires, chop down trees and camp out to cause the most disruption possible. They have set fire to several federal government buildings and burnt or damaged more than 100 public buses, just in Caracas.

It is quite telling that these protests are occurring in the richest parts of Caracas, specifically Plaza Francia in the Altamira district. These fiery roadblocks have been dubbed "Guarimbas" and those who create them are "Guarimberos."

Maduro has been trying to curb the protests by bringing the more "soft" right oppositionists into meetings and the much-touted Peace Conference in order to try to marginalize the Guarimberos.

Capriles, however, responded to Maduro's request to join that talks with disdain, stating, "I am not going to a meeting with the federal council to help him save face. I'm not going to be like the orchestra on the Titanic. The boat is sinking, and I am the one who is playing the music? No, Mr. Nicolás, you are not going to use me." Nevertheless, some of Capriles' allies did take their seats at the table, and the talks have been ongoing.

THE RIGHT wing didn't cause all the economic problems in Venezuela, but it has definitely exacerbated them--and used them to their advantage.

Venezuela was hit hard by the worldwide economic crisis. Many Venezuelan firms enjoy monopolies over the production of basic goods, so when it is time to negotiate with the government over prices, they manufacture scarcity. Companies in Venezuela also tend to sell relatively few goods for the highest price, rather than the U.S. model of many goods at a low price. Electronic chains DAKA and Cyberlux were found to be selling TV sets and other electronics at 1,000 percent margins (this is not a typo). The government has also found many a stocked warehouse of essentials--clear evidence of hoarding and price gouging.

The capitalist class's creation of structural shortages in the economy has created a whole range of smaller spin-off operations of middlemen and price fixers. Some better-off individuals hoard products when they hear there may be a shortage, or they find an item that was scarce in the past, and they stock up, only to turn around and sell it to their poorer neighbors in need, for a high price. In some cases, retail employees buy stocks of goods before they are put on the shelves, in order to resell them later.

There have even been instances of professional resellers (who manage networks of street vendors) getting advance notice of when a certain product will arrive at a store, and then sending dozens of shoppers to storm the store as soon as it opens, and buy all the products before normal shoppers can get to them. Those products end up hours later in the hands of the street vendors, retailing for three times the normal price or more.

Currency exchange restrictions have also driven up inflation. Since the paperwork to exchange money with the government is so time-consuming, most people and companies exchange on the black market at a 10 percent markup or higher.

Since food is heavily subsidized in Venezuela, vast networks of smugglers have formed in the last 10 years, taking a significant percentage of local items to neighboring Colombia, where they can be sold at 10 times the price. Many working-class families who live along the border zones depend entirely on smuggling-related activities. Many of them are only in charge of buying lots of items and storing them until the smugglers come pick them up. Since profits are so high, it is a very attractive economic activity, and attempts to address it by the government have generated social tension in those states.

All of this, especially when added to a dangerous increase in violent crimes, such as kidnappings, murders, etc., has only served the right in its attempts to show the government as incompetent and weak.

IT IS necessary to examine the actions taken by Maduro in the face of this situation, as well as critiques put forward by sections of the revolutionary left in Venezuela.

Maduro called a "peace conference" in February of this year, hoping to come to some sort of settlement with some sections of the right--in the hopes of calming the country by negotiating with the "soft" right, while marginalizing the "hard" right.

The conference, which began in late February, got a lot of attention in the U.S. financial press, as well as among left-wing analysts. And in Latin America, this was big news, with the beginning of the conference reported on across the region. The talks have continued since February, with the most recent discussion being held on May 15.

The revolutionary socialist left in Venezuela has criticized Maduro, arguing that the peace conference will only benefit the ruling class. No workers, workers' representative or representative of any community organization was invited to join the negotiations. On the other hand, Jorge Roig, the head of Fedecamaras, the most important Venezuelan business federation; and billionaire beverage magnate Lorenzo Mendoza, whose international partners include PepsiCo; were both welcomed.

Mendoza used the media buzz around the peace conference to place all the responsibility for the economic crisis on Maduro's shoulders, telling reporters, "Shortages are the result of attacks against industry, expropriations, freezing of prices, and new restrictions on currency purchases."

Maduro correctly counters with the fact that the right is committing sabotage in order to anger the Venezuelan population, so it will lose confidence in his government. All of this seems to flow directly from the soft coup course laid out in the Strategic Plan for Venezuela referenced above.

Gonzalo Gómez, co-founder of the news site Apporrea.org and a member of the revolutionary group Marea Socialista (Socialist Tide), as well as a delegate to the (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) PSUV founded by Chávez and now led by Maduro, said of the ongoing peace conference:

Even though the violence is not widespread, and the Guarimbas don't have much support, in the actual conference, there is no real peace either. There, the "economic war" continues with the appearance of "consultation" and "consensus," with the actors that hide their fist under their sleeves.

Physical and economic violence are part of the blackmail that has both hands around our collective throat. The violent and moderate/pacifist assumptions [of different sections of the right] don't have to align with their tactics. They have class interests in common. The different tactics combine in reality, in the service of the same strategy: to put an end to the Bolivarian revolution.

Gómez and others, such as left wing journalist Heiber Barreto, complain that the government is now referring to the business sector as "the productive sector," as opposed to calling them the "parasitic bourgeoisie," as Chávez and Maduro used to label them.

Among the outcomes of the negotiations, even as they continue are: increases in prices due to speculation, without extra compensation for employees; more dollars to be made available for business without restrictions; a bigger portion of the petro profits for the bourgeoisie; elements of labor flexibility in the revision to the Ley Orgánica del Trabajo, los Trabajadores y Trabajadoras (Organic Law of Work and Workers); and more state financing and relaxing of contracts for private companies.

What Maduro is attempting is a partnership between the state and business. This was articulated in absurdly confused terms by Vice President Jorge Arreaza, when he cited the Hegelian and Marxist dialectic to claim that "it is from within contradictory points of view, in debate, in dissent, where we can advance to achieve the synthesis which allows us to advance, taking steps together."

Marea Socialista's Gómez's sharply criticized Arreaza's musings:

"Synthesis" and "taking steps together" with capital is simply a caricature of socialism, because this path will only bring us more capitalism...In the peace conference, the stick is in the hands of business; worker-popular participation is just padding and does not set the tone of the discussion. The concessions are in favor of capital, not of labor.

This is extremely bad for the revolution. The definitive "consensus" needs to be with the people, not with its exploiters. This must change. It will depend on whether the working class and the popular movement will make our needs felt and how much we are able to push to the left with our mobilization.

BESIDES THE left, which is trying to push in the direction Gómez outlines, there are also many centrist supporters of Maduro's government, and they could be pulled into further compromises along the lines of those already made in the peace conference negotiations.

That can only help the right, which would like to take away all the gains made under Chávez's government. Government subsidies for food, gas, worker cooperatives, etc., could all be dismantled and privatized. Benefits that are now taken for granted, such as free higher education and health care, would also be sold off to the highest bidder.

The more the right feels emboldened--whether through the impact of its campaign of violence or through the concessions it wins from Maduro at the negotiating table--the left will feel more weakened and divided. The right will then be better positioned to overthrow Maduro, by means of a coup or via some sort of electoral maneuver, like a recall referendum.

There are troubling signs for the Bolivarian Revolution. The Minister for the Interior, Justice and Peace, Miguel Rodríguez Torres, last week told reporters that three Air Force generals and a captain were still being held--they were first detained in late March--for their attempts to destabilize the government. The Venezuelan Armed Forces had always been a stronghold for Chávez--he came from its ranks. High-level dissent within the officer corps is exactly what the U.S. and the right have been lacking since the failed coup in 2002 allowed Chavez to purge the military brass of disloyal officers.

Whereas Chavez had previously succeeded in bringing left/liberal South American governments into collaboration with each other, Maduro's relationships with these same governments may be faltering. For example, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, a close ally of Chávez, told the Chilean press on May 15 that he thought Maduro was making critical mistakes in running the economy, which had exacerbated the problems he already faced.

It is not a good sign that Correa is distancing himself, even slightly, from Maduro's government. With the right emboldened, discontent among some in the armed forces, the ongoing crisis, and a weak and demoralized left, prospects for a radical change of direction coming from within the government appear unlikely.

However, each time the Venezuelan elite has reached for power over the last 15 years with the aim of turning back the clock, Venezuela's poor and working classes have found the strength to stop them. Their ability to do so again will determine what becomes of Chávez's legacy.