WORLD SOCIAL FORUM:
Towards a Latin American Power Bloc
Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY,  (IPS) - The influence of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela -- one of the three host countries for this year's polycentric World Social Forum -- has helped this global civil society meet to shake off its formerly "bucolic" attitude and assume a more clearly defined political line, according to leading leftist political analyst Heinz Dieterich.

Dieterich, a German-born, Mexico-based sociology professor, is also the author of numerous books, and has shared writing credits with the likes of Cuban President Fidel Castro and U.S. political activist and scholar Noam Chomsky.

In more recent years, he has travelled regularly to Venezuela to follow firsthand the political process underway there, and on occasions to meet personally with Chávez.

He has written extensively on the Venezuelan president's "Bolivarian revolution" of peaceful social and political changes, and his project to forge a "21st century model" of socialism.

Ahead of the Venezuela World Social Forum, Jan. 24-29, Dieterich met with IPS in his modest Mexico City apartment to share his views on the current situation in Latin America, where several countries have shifted politically to the left -- albeit to varying degrees -- and are working towards regional integration outside the sphere of influence of the United States.

Q: What is 21st century socialism? Is it a project that Chávez is working on?

A: Attempting to build a socialist society at this moment in time is a goal with a strategic purpose, because it guides political struggle towards a different kind of civilisation than we have today.

But for the time being, there is no real understanding among the masses or even within political organisations of what this new civilisation means. They do not know that 21st century socialism basically implies an equitable economy, participatory democracy and a non-classist state.

There is little real knowledge of what this attempt to build a new kind of socialism actually is, but President Chávez understands it, and is working to promote it.

Q: Considering the fact that countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Venezuela have undergone a shift to the left, and together are promoting a process of integration, could we say that Latin America is on the path towards this new socialism?

A: We still don't know if this nascent regional bloc will actually become a reality in the end. For the moment it is a superstructure, an incipient federation of highly heterogeneous states.

If you compare Brazil with Bolivia, there are considerable differences in terms of economic, demographic, territorial and military potential.

Secondly, they have extremely dissimilar levels of development.

And finally, they differ greatly in terms of their desire and capacity for integration. Chávez understands this, and is working to promote the creation of this bloc from a revolutionary position, but not everyone is headed towards 21st century socialism.

Q: Given these differences, is it possible to build a regional bloc?

A: You have to consider the actors with the greatest power in each country. In Cuba, it is obviously the (Communist) Party, and Fidel (Castro) has a very clear awareness of the need for integration, because he knows that the revolution he leads would have no future outside a Latin American bloc.

In Brazil, power is in the hands of the financial, agroindustrial and manufacturing sectors. The industrial sector is interested in a regional power bloc, because they think they could replace the United States as the supplier of certain products, but agroindustry is more interested in free trade.

In Argentina, the most powerful sectors are industry and finance. In Venezuela, the situation is different, because the president has the power. So we would have to analyse in detail the forces that determine national policies in each country.

And if we weigh all of these factors, plus the European and U.S. interests, I think that right now, the probability of this regional bloc actually becoming a reality is 50 percent.

Q: You place Chávez at the centre of this process, but he is mortal, like everyone else, so when he is gone, will the project collapse?

A: At this point in time, Chávez is the centre of gravity of a system around which a revolutionary project revolves. If you remove this sun, the system will undoubtedly collapse.

This means that if he were to have a heart attack, which is always a possibility, the Venezuelan revolutionary project would come to an end, and Latin American integration would collapse. If Chávez is gone, the balance will be lost, and the power will return to those who have always held it in Venezuela.

The problem in Venezuela is the masses have still not been organised, there has yet to be a collective vanguard established. This means that the balance of power based on weights and counterweights depends on Chávez, and that makes for a very unstable system.

Q: Is Chávez aware of this? And if so, is he working towards building this collective vanguard?

A. I don't know if he intends to create a collective vanguard with a popular, revolutionary party of its own, but this could be achieved in around five years if he adopts a policy consciously aimed at this goal.

Now, if this is not his intention, and if he does not have the power he needs to free himself of the bourgeois politicians who currently support him, and to displace the opportunistic factions of the new political class, then the Venezuelan political process will end up like any other bourgeois revolution.

Q: What role do social movements and civil society in general play in the construction of a regional power bloc?

A: These groups are another factor of power. On the one hand you have the state protagonists with their different goals and degrees of power, but the social component is missing. If we do not succeed in getting social movements to embrace the idea of Latin American integration, then there is no way we can win.

Q: A number of these social movements actively participate in the World Social Forum, which is taking place next week in Venezuela. Do you think this could serve as a space where the masses can come to identify with and embrace the project of creating a regional bloc?

A: At the first Forums (beginning in 2001), the participating social movements adopted a rather bucolic stance, with no clearly defined political line. What has changed is that the WSF now accepts the fact that it cannot exist in an aseptically isolated space, and that it has to assume a political identity in the current struggle. And this is a result of pressure from Chávez, and now the victory of Evo Morales in Bolivia.

The partial success of the integration project headed up by Venezuela makes the Forum more attractive now. Hopefully it will serve as a space for the strengthening of social structures that are forging political alliances.

Another possible advantage of the WSF is that the majority of participants are going to see a long televised speech by Chávez. This will help to spread his ideas and give people a deeper theoretical understanding of them.

Q: How much importance do you attach to Morales's election as the president of Bolivia? Will his presence consolidate the regional bloc?

A: His presence is fundamental when it comes to the group dynamics among the presidents of the region. Generally speaking, there are two revolutionaries, Fidel and Chávez, and then there are the bourgeois presidents like Lula (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of Brazil), Tabaré Vázquez (of Uruguay) and Néstor Kirchner (of Argentina).

Now there is an indigenous president among them, which is going to lead to greater emphasis on issues that the bourgeois presidents would rather avoid, such as agrarian reform, the situation of the campesinos (peasant farmers), rural poverty.

Evo introduces a strong element to the strategic plans of the regional power bloc. In addition, he inspires hope for other countries, and demonstrates that it is possible to win power through electoral channels.