[HNA] Petras: on Chavez's Right Turn - State Realism v. International Solidarity

[Sergio Reyes]

Chavez’s Right Turn:  State Realism versus International Solidarity
by James Petras / June 14th, 2011

The radical “Bolivarian Socialist” government of Hugo Chavez has 
arrested a number of Colombian guerrilla leaders and a radical 
journalist with Swedish citizenship and handed them over to the 
right-wing regime of President Juan Manuel Santos, earning the Colombian government’s praise and gratitude.  The close on-going collaboration 
between a leftist President with a regime with a notorious history of 
human rights violations, torture and disappearance of political 
prisoners has led to widespread protests among civil liberty advocates, 
leftists and populists throughout Latin America and Europe, while 
pleasing the Euro-American imperial establishment.
On April 26, 2011, Venezuelan immigration officials, relying 
exclusively on information from the Colombian secret police (DAS), 
arrested a naturalized Swedish citizen and journalist (Joaquin Perez 
Becerra) of Colombian descent, who had just arrived in the country.  
Based on Colombian secret police allegations that the Swedish citizen 
was a ‘FARC leader’, Perez was extradited to Colombia within 48 hours. 
Despite the fact that it was in violation of international diplomatic 
protocols and the Venezuelan constitution, this action had the personal 
backing of President Chavez.  A month later, the Venezuelan armed forces joined their Colombian counterparts and captured a leader of the 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Guillermo Torres (with 
the nom de Guerra Julian Conrado) who is awaiting extradition to 
Colombia in a Venezuelan prison without access to an attorney.    On 
March 17, Venezuelan Military Intelligence (DIM) detained two alleged 
guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN), Carlos Tirado and 
Carlos Perez, and turned them over to the Colombian secret police.

The new public face of Chavez as a partner of the repressive 
Colombian regime is not so new after all.  On December 13, 2004, Rodrigo Granda, an international spokesperson for the FARC, and a naturalized 
Venezuelan citizen, whose family resided in Caracas, was snatched by 
plain-clothes Venezuelan intelligence agents in downtown Caracas where 
he had been participating in an international conference and secretly 
taken to Colombia with the ‘approval’ of the Venezuelan Ambassador in 
Bogota.  Following several weeks of international protest, including 
from many conference participants, President Chavez issued a statement 
describing the ‘kidnapping’ as a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and threatened to break relations with Colombia.  In more recent times, 
Venezuela has stepped up the extradition of revolutionary political 
opponents of Colombia’s narco-regime:  In the first five months of 2009, Venezuela extradited 15 alleged members of the ELN and in November 
2010, a FARC militant and two suspected members of the ELN were handed 
over to the Colombian police.  In January 2011 Nilson Teran Ferreira, a 
suspected ELN leader, was delivered to the Colombian military.  The 
collaboration between Latin America’s most notorious authoritarian right wing regime and the supposedly most radical ‘socialist’ government 
raises important issues about the meaning of political identities and 
how they relate to domestic and international politics and more 
specifically what principles and interests guide state policies.

Revolutionary Solidarity and State Interests

The recent ‘turn’ in Venezuela politics, from expressing sympathy and even support for revolutionary struggles and movements in Latin America to its present collaboration with pro-imperial right wing regimes, has 
numerous historical precedents.  It may help to examine the contexts and circumstances of these collaborations:
The Bolshevik revolutionary government in Russia initially gave 
whole-hearted support to revolutionary uprisings in Germany, Hungary, 
Finland and elsewhere.  With the defeats of these revolts and the 
consolidation of the capitalist regimes, Russian state and economic 
interests took prime of place among the Bolshevik leaders.  Trade and 
investment agreements, peace treaties and diplomatic recognition between Communist Russia and the Western capitalist states defined the new 
politics of “co-existence”.  With the rise of fascism, the Soviet Union 
under Stalin further subordinated communist policy in order to secure 
state-to-state alliances, first with the Western Allies and, failing 
that, with Nazi Germany.  The Hitler-Stalin pact was conceived by the 
Soviets as a way to prevent a German invasion and to secure its borders 
from a sworn right wing enemy.  As part of Stalin’s expression of good 
faith, he handed over to Hitler a number of leading exiled German 
communist leaders, who had sought asylum in Russia.  Not surprisingly 
they were tortured and executed.  This practice stopped only after 
Hitler invaded Russia and Stalin encouraged the now decimated ranks of 
German communists to re-join the ‘anti-Nazi’ underground resistance.

In the early 1970s, as Mao’s China reconciled with Nixon’s United 
States and broke with the Soviet Union, Chinese foreign policy shifted 
toward supporting US-backed counter-revolutionaries, including Holden 
Roberts in Angola and Pinochet in Chile. China denounced any leftist 
government and movement, which, however faintly, had ties with the USSR, and embraced their enemies, no matter how subservient they were to 
Euro-American imperial interests.

In Stalin’s USSR and Mao’s China, short-term ‘state interests’ 
trumped revolutionary solidarity.  What were these ‘state interests’?

In the case of the USSR, Stalin gambled that a ‘peace pact’ with 
Hitler’s Germany would protect them from an imperialist Nazi invasion 
and partially end the encirclement of Russia.  Stalin no longer trusted 
in the strength of international working class solidarity to prevent 
war, especially in light of a series of revolutionary defeats and the 
generalized retreat of the Left over the previous decades (Germany, 
Span, Hungary and Finland) .The advance of fascism and the extreme 
right, unremitting Western hostility toward the USSR and the Western 
European policy of appeasing Hitler, convinced Stalin to seek his own 
peace pact with Germany.  In order to demonstrate their ‘sincerity’ 
toward its new ‘peace partner’, the USSR downplayed their criticism of 
the Nazis, urging Communist parties around the world to focus on 
attacking the West rather than Hitler’s Germany, and gave in to Hitler’s demand to extradite German Communist “terrorists” who had found asylum 
in the Soviet Union.

Stalin’s pursuit of short term ‘state interests’ via pacts with the 
“far right” ended in a strategic catastrophe:  Nazi Germany was free to 
first conquer Western Europe and then turned its guns on Russia, 
invading an unprepared USSR and occupying half the country. In the 
meantime the international anti-fascist solidarity movements had been 
weakened and temporarily disoriented by the zigzags of Stalin’s 
policies.

In the mid-1970s, the Peoples Republic of China’s ‘reconciliation’ 
with the US, led to a turn in international policy:  ‘US imperialism’ 
became an ally against the greater evil ‘Soviet social imperialism’.  As a result China, under Chairman Mao Tse Tung, urged its international 
supporters to denounce progressive regimes receiving Soviet aid (Cuba, 
Vietnam, Angola, etc.) and it withdrew its support for revolutionary 
armed resistance against pro-US client states in Southeast Asia.  
China’s ‘pact’ with Washington was to secure immediate ‘state 
interests’: Diplomatic recognition and the end of the trade embargo.  
Mao’s short-term commercial and diplomatic gains were secured by 
sacrificing the more fundamental strategic goals of furthering socialist values at home and revolution abroad.

As a result, China lost its credibility among Third World 
revolutionaries and anti-imperialists, in exchange for gaining the good 
graces of the White House and greater access to the capitalist world 
market.  Short-term “pragmatism’ led to long-term transformation: The 
Peoples Republic of China became a dynamic emerging capitalist power, 
with some of the greatest social inequalities in Asia and perhaps the 
world.

Venezuela:  State Interests versus International Solidarity

The rise of radical politics in Venezuela, which is the cause and 
consequence of the election of President Chavez(1999), coincided with 
the rise of revolutionary social movements throughout Latin America from the late 1990s to the middle of the first decade of the 21st century 
(1995-2005).  Neo-liberal regimes were toppled in Ecuador, Bolivia and 
Argentina; mass social movements challenging neo-liberal orthodoxy took 
hold everywhere; the Colombian guerrilla movements were advancing toward the major cities; and center-left politicians were elected to power in 
Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador and Uruguay.  The US 
economic crises undermined the credibility of Washington’s ‘free trade’ 
agenda.  The increasing Asian demand for raw materials stimulated an 
economy boom in Latin America, which funded social programs and 
nationalizations.
In the case of Venezuela, a failed US-backed military coup and 
‘bosses’ boycott’ in 2002-2003, forced the Chavez government to rely on 
the masses and turn to the Left.  Chavez proceeded to “re-nationalize” 
petroleum and related industries and articulate a “Bolivarian Socialist” ideology.

Chavez’s radicalization found a favorable climate in Latin America 
and the bountiful revenues from the rising price of oil financed his 
social programs.  Chavez maintained a plural position of embracing 
governing center-left governments, backing radical social movements and 
supporting the Colombian guerrillas’ proposals for a negotiated 
settlement.  Chavez called for the recognition of Colombia’s guerrillas 
as legitimate ‘belligerents” not “terrorists’.

Venezuela’s foreign policy was geared toward isolating its main 
threat emanating from Washington by promoting exclusively Latin 
American/Caribbean organizations, strengthening regional trade and 
investment links and securing regional allies in opposition to US 
intervention, military pacts, bases and US-backed military coups.
In response to US financing of Venezuelan opposition groups 
(electoral and extra parliamentary), Chavez has provided moral and 
political support to anti-imperialist groups throughout Latin America.  
After Israel and American Zionists began attacking Venezuela, Chavez 
extended his support to the Palestinians and broadened ties with Iran 
and other Arab anti-imperialist movements and regimes.  Above all, 
Chavez strengthened his political and economic ties with Cuba, 
consulting with the Cuban leadership, to form a radical axis of 
opposition to imperialism. Washington’s effort to strangle the Cuban 
revolution by an economic embargo was effectively undermined by Chavez’ 
large-scale, long-term economic agreements with Havana.

Up until the later part of this decade, Venezuela’s foreign policy – 
its ‘state interests’ – coincided with the interests of the left regimes and social movements throughout Latin America.  Chavez clashed 
diplomatically with Washington’s client states in the hemisphere, 
especially Colombia, headed by narco-death squad President Alvaro Uribe 
(2002-2010).  However, recent years have witnessed several external and 
internal changes and a gradual shift toward the center.

The revolutionary upsurge in Latin America began to ebb.  The mass 
upheavals led to the rise of center-left regimes, which, in turn, 
demobilized the radical movements and adopted strategies relying on 
agro-mineral export strategies, all the while pursuing autonomous 
foreign policies independent of US control.  The Colombian guerrilla 
movements were in retreat and on the defensive – their capacity to 
buffer Venezuela from a hostile Colombian client regime waned.  Chavez 
adapted to these ‘new realities’, becoming an uncritical supporter of 
the ‘social liberal’ regimes of Lula in Brazil, Morales in Bolivia, 
Correa in Ecuador, Vazquez in Uruguay and Bachelet in Chile.  Chavez 
increasingly chose immediate diplomatic support from the existing 
regimes over any long-term support, which might have resulted from a 
revival of the mass movements. Trade ties with Brazil and Argentina and 
diplomatic support from its fellow Latin American states against an 
increasingly aggressive US became central to Venezuela’s foreign policy. The basis of Venezuelan policy was no longer the internal politics of 
the center-left and centrist regimes but their degree of support for an 
independent foreign policy.

Repeated US interventions failed to generate a successful coup or to 
secure any electoral victories against Chavez.  As a result, Washington 
increasingly turned to using external threats against Chavez via its 
Colombian client state, the recipient of $5 billion in military aid.  
Colombia’s military build-up, its border crossings and infiltration of 
death squads into Venezuela, forced Chavez into a large-scale purchase 
of Russian arms and toward the formation of a regional alliance (ALBA).

The US-backed military coup in Honduras precipitated a major rethink 
in Venezuela’s policy.  The coup had ousted a democratically elected 
centrist liberal, President Zelaya in Honduras, a member of ALBA, and 
set up a repressive regime subservient to the White House.  However, the coup had the effect of isolating the US throughout Latin America – not a single government supported the new regime in Tegucigalpa.  Even the 
neo-liberal regimes of Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Panama voted to expel 
Honduras from the Organization of American States.  On the one hand, 
Venezuela viewed this ‘unity’ of the right and center-left as an 
opportunity toward mending fences with the conservative regimes; and on 
the other, it understood that the Obama Administration was ready to use 
the ‘military option’ to regain its dominance.

The fear of a US military intervention was greatly heightened by the 
Obama-Uribe agreement establishing seven US strategic military bases 
near its border with Venezuela.  Chavez wavered in his response to this 
immediate threat. At one point he almost broke trade and diplomatic 
relations with Colombia, only to immediately reconcile with Uribe, 
although the latter had demonstrated no desire to sign on to a pact of 
co-existence.

Meanwhile, the 2010 Congressional elections In Venezuela led to a 
major increase in electoral support for the US-backed right 
(approximately 50%) and their greater representation in Congress (40%).  While the Right increased their support inside Venezuela, the Left in 
Colombia, both the guerrillas and the electoral opposition lost ground.  Chavez could not count on any immediate counter-weight to a military 
provocation.

Chavez faced several options. The first was to return to the earlier 
policy of international solidarity with radical movements; the second 
was to continue working with the center-left regimes while maintaining 
strong criticism and firm opposition to the US backed neo-liberal 
regimes; and the third option was to turn toward the Right, more 
specifically to seek rapprochement with the newly elected President of 
Colombia, Santos, and sign a broad political, military and economic 
agreement where Venezuela agreed to collaborate in eliminating 
Colombia’s leftist adversaries in exchange for promises of 
‘non-aggression’ (Colombia limiting its cross-border narco and military 
incursions).
Venezuela and Chavez decided that the FARC was a liability and that 
support from the radical Colombian mass social movements was not as 
important as closer diplomatic relations with President Santos.  Chavez 
has calculated that complying with Santos political demands would 
provide greater security to the Venezuelan state than relying on the 
support of the international solidarity movements and his own radical 
domestic allies among the trade unions and intellectuals.

In line with this Right turn, the Chavez regime fulfilled Santos’ 
requests – arresting FARC/ELN guerrillas, as well as a prominent leftist journalist, and extraditing them to a state which has had the worst 
human rights record in the Americas for over two decades in terms of 
torture and extra-judicial assassinations.  This Right turn acquires an 
even more ominous character when one considers that Colombia holds over 
7600 political prisoners, over 7000 of whom are trade unionists, 
peasants, Indians, students;  in other words, non-combatants.  In 
acquiescing to Santos requests, Venezuela did not even follow the 
established protocols of most democratic governments:  It did not demand any guaranties against torture and respect for due process.  Moreover, 
when critics have pointed out that these summary extraditions violated 
Venezuela’s own constitutional procedures, Chavez launched a vicious 
campaign slandering his critics as agents of imperialism engaged in a 
plot to destabilize his regime.

Chavez’s new found ally on the Right, President Santos, has not 
reciprocated:  Colombia still maintains close military ties with 
Venezuela’s prime enemy in Washington.  Indeed, Santos vigorously sticks to the White House agenda:  He successfully pressured Chavez to 
recognize the illegitimate regime of Lobos in Honduras- the product of a US-backed coup in exchange for the return of ousted ex-President 
Zelaya. Chavez did what no other center-left Latin American President 
has dared to do: He promised to support the reinstatement of the 
illegitimate Honduran regime into the OAS.  On the basis of the 
Chavez-Santos agreement, Latin American opposition to Lobos collapsed 
and Washington’s strategic goal was realized.  A puppet regime was 
legitimized.

Chavez’s agreement with Santos to recognize the murderous Lobos 
regime betrayed the heroic struggle of the Honduran mass movement.  Not 
one of the Honduran officials responsible for over a hundred murders and disappearances of peasant leaders, journalists, human rights and 
pro-democracy activists are subject to any judicial investigation.  
Chavez has given his blessings to impunity and the continuation of an 
entire repressive apparatus, backed by the Honduran oligarchy and the US Pentagon.
In other words, to demonstrate his willingness to uphold his 
‘friendship and peace pact’ with Santos, Chavez was willing to sacrifice the struggle of one of the most promising and courageous pro-democracy 
movements in the Americas.

And what does Chavez seek in his accommodation with the Right?

Security?  Chavez has received only verbal ‘promises’, and some 
expressions of gratitude from Santos.  But the enormous pro-US military 
command and US mission remain in place.  In other words, there will be 
no dismantling of the Colombian para-military-military forces massed 
along the Venezuelan border and the US military base agreements, which 
threaten Venezuelan national security, will not change.

According to Venezuelan diplomats, Chavez’s tactic is to ‘win over’ 
Santos from US tutelage.  By befriending Santos, Chavez hopes that 
Bogota will not join in any joint military operation with the US or 
cooperate in future propaganda-destabilization campaigns.  In the brief 
time since the Santos-Chavez pact was made, an emboldened Washington 
announced an embargo on the Venezuelan state oil company with the 
support of the Venezuelan congressional opposition. Santos, for his 
part, has not complied with the embargo, but then not a single country 
in the world has followed Washington’s lead.  Clearly, President Santos 
is not likely to endanger the annual $10 billion dollar trade between 
Colombia and Venezuela in order to humor the US Secretary of State 
Hilary Clinton’s diplomatic caprices.

Conclusion

In contrast to Chavez’s policy of handing over leftist and guerrilla 
exiles to a rightist authoritarian regime, President Allende of Chile 
(1970-73) joined a delegation that welcomed armed fighters fleeing 
persecution in Bolivia and Argentina and offered them asylum. For many 
years, especially in the 1980s, Mexico, under center-right regimes, 
openly recognized the rights of asylum for guerrilla and leftist 
refugees from Central America – El Salvador and Guatemala.  
Revolutionary Cuba, for decades, offered asylum and medical treatment to leftist and guerrilla refugees from Latin American dictatorships and 
rejected demands for their extradition.  Even as late as 2006, when the 
Cuban government was pursuing friendly relations with Colombia and when 
its then Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque expressed his deep 
reservations regarding the FARC in conversations with the author, Cuba 
refused to extradite guerrillas to their home countries where they would be tortured and abused.  One day before he left office in 2011, 
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva denied Italy’s request to 
extradite Cesare Battisti, a former Italian guerrilla.  As one Brazilian judge said – and Chavez should have listened:  ”At stake here is 
national sovereignty.  It is as simple as that”.

No one would criticize Chavez’s efforts to lessen border tensions by 
developing better diplomatic relations with Colombia and to expand trade and investment flows between the two countries.  What is unacceptable 
is to describe the murderous Colombian regime as a “friend” of the 
Venezuela people and a partner in peace and democracy, while thousands 
of pro-democracy political prisoners rot in TB-infested Colombian 
prisons for years on trumped-up charges. Under Santos, civilian 
activists continue to be murdered almost every day.  The most recent 
killing was yesterday (June 9,2011),  Ana Fabricia Cordoba, a leader of 
community-based displaced peasants, was murdered by the Colombian armed 
forces. Chavez’s embrace of the Santos narco-presidency goes beyond the 
requirements for maintaining proper diplomatic and trade relations. His 
collaboration with the Colombian intelligence, military and secret 
police agencies in hunting down and deporting Leftists (without due 
process!) smacks of complicity in dictatorial repression and serves to 
alienate the most consequential supporters of the Bolivarian 
transformation in Venezuela.

Chavez’s role in legitimizing of the Honduran coup-regime, without 
any consideration for the popular movements’ demands for justice, is a 
clear capitulation to the Santos – Obama agenda.  This line of action 
places Venezuela’s ‘state’ interests over the rights of the popular mass movements in Honduras.  Chavez’s collaboration with Santos on policing 
leftists and undermining popular struggles in Honduras raises serious 
questions about Venezuela’s claims of revolutionary solidarity.  It 
certainly sows deep distrust about Chavez’s future relations with 
popular movements who might be engaged in struggle with one of Chavez’s 
center-right diplomatic and economic partners.

What is particularly troubling is that most democratic and even 
center-left regimes do not sacrifice the mass social movements on the 
altar of “security” when they normalize relations with an adversary.  
Certainly the Right, especially the US, protects its former clients, 
allies, exiled right-wing oligarch and even admitted terrorists from 
extradition requests issued by Venezuela, Cuba and Argentina.  Mass 
murders and bombers of civilian airplanes manage to live comfortably in 
Florida.  Why Venezuela submits to the Right-wing demands of the 
Colombians, while complaining about the US protecting terrorists guilty 
of crimes in Venezuela, can only be explained by Chavez’s321 ideological shift to the Right, making Venezuela more vulnerable to pressure for 
greater concessions in the future.

Chavez is no longer interested in the support from the radical left:  His definition of state policy revolves around securing the ‘stability’ of Bolivarian socialism in one country, even if it means sacrificing 
Colombian militants to a police state and pro-democracy movements in 
Honduras to an illegitimate US-imposed regime.

History provides mixed lessons.  Stalin’s deals with Hitler were a 
strategic disaster for the Soviet people.  Once the Fascists got what 
they wanted they turned around and invaded Russia.  Chavez has so far 
not received any ‘reciprocal’ confidence-building concession from 
Santos’ military machine. Even in terms of narrowly defined ‘state 
interests’, he has sacrificed loyal allies for empty promises.  The US 
imperial state is Santos primary ally and military provider.  China 
sacrificed international solidarity for a pact with the US, a policy 
that led to unregulated capitalist exploitation and deep social 
injustices.

When, and if, the next confrontation between the US and Venezuela 
occurs, will Chavez, at least, be able to count on the “neutrality” of 
Colombia?  If past and present relations are any indication, Colombia 
will side with its client-master, mega-benefactor and ideological 
mentor.  When a new rupture occurs, can Chavez count on the support of 
the militants, who have been jailed, the mass popular movements he 
pushed aside and the international movements and intellectuals he has 
slandered?  As the US moves toward new confrontations with Venezuela and intensifies its economic sanctions, domestic and international 
solidarity will be vital for Venezuela’s defense.  Who will stand up for the Bolivarian revolution:  the Santos and Lobos of this “realist 
world” or the solidarity movements in the streets of Caracas and the 
Americas?

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James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at 
Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class 
struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and 
Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). Petras’ most recent book is The Arab Revolt and the Imperialist Counterattack. (Clear Day Books – A subsidiary of Clarity Books). He can be reached at: jpetras at binghamton.edu. Read other articles by James, or visit James's website.
 
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