Federico Fuentes

At the September 9 swearing-in of the members of the Miranda Command, Venezuela’s left-wing president, Hugo Chavez, called for the creation of the “great party of the Bolivarian revolution” to unite the groups that support Venezuela’s revolution into one party. He explained that “it should represent the republic and the revolution to the world and establish the strongest connections with the greatest revolutionary parties throughout the world”.

Chavez proposed “a great political, ideological, doctrinal and organisational congress for the middle of 2007" and to take advantage of the coming months of the presidential election campaign for an intense ideological debate within Venezuela’s revolutionary forces.

The following day, on his weekly Alo Presidente TV show, Chavez announced the expropriation of the Motatan sugar processing centre, declaring the centre “closed because the owners have not complied with the government, denying participation and improvements to their workers”. He added: “One of the objectives is to increase production ... to produce according to established goals in a plan, a strategic plan, that is one of the other differences between socialism and capitalism.

“Capitalism says that it is not necessary to plan anything because there is an invisible hand that fixes all — the market — that will depend on demand; if there is demand there will be production, if their isn’t then there is no production. No, it is not like that. That has a nucleus of truth but it has its limits ... There is a need for planning.”

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