It has been proved that when Chavez dismissed marxism as an outdated ideology in the launching of the Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) he was acting on the orders of the CIA!!!!!
Please, be serious. The fact that many people will vot NO or abstain to take part in the referendum has got more to do with the right wing inside the chavismo being seen as taking the share of the lion in government, which has put off many groups, including previous supporters of Chavez, rather than 50-60% of venezuelans (at least) being CIA stooges.
You only have to look at the attitude of the Minister of Work and his ongoing conflict with the unions to realise that the governement's policies are totally against the workers. Even Chavez said recently that mix ownership of companies (part state-part private) was the way forward, as oppossed to workers control!
Petras is a respected intellectual and should be serious about the situation in Venezuela, and stop repeating government missinformation. That is not to say that the CIA would not like to see Chavez off the venezuelan government, but it would probably hate even more to see the real revolutionary current gaining strength in the country.
I await the usual histerical rants calling me a reactionary now.

Could you support your allegations?

Counterattack as Fateful Referendum Looms
CIA Venezuela Destabilization Memo Surfaces
James Petras



November 28, 2007

On November 26, 2007 the Venezuelan government broadcast and circulated a confidential memo from the US embassy to the CIA which is devastatingly revealing of US clandestine operations and which will influence the referendum this Sunday, December 2, 2007.

The memo sent by an embassy official, Michael Middleton Steere, was addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence, Michael Hayden. The memo was entitled 'Advancing to the Last Phase of Operation Pincer' and updates the activity by a CIA unit with the acronym 'HUMINT' (Human Intelligence) which is engaged in clandestine action to destabilize the forth-coming referendum and coordinate the civil military overthrow of the elected Chavez government. The Embassy-CIA's polls concede that 57 per cent of the voters approved of the constitutional amendments proposed by Chavez but also predicted a 60 per cent abstention.

The US operatives emphasized their capacity to recruit former Chavez supporters among the social democrats (PODEMOS) and the former Minister of Defense Baduel, claiming to have reduced the 'yes' vote by 6 per cent from its original margin. Nevertheless the Embassy operatives concede that they have reached their ceiling, recognizing they cannot defeat the amendments via the electoral route.

The memo then recommends that Operation Pincer (OP) [Operación Tenaza] be operationalized. OP involves a two-pronged strategy of impeding the referendum, rejecting the outcome at the same time as calling for a 'no' vote. The run up to the referendum includes running phony polls, attacking electoral officials and running propaganda through the private media accusing the government of fraud and calling for a 'no' vote. Contradictions, the report emphasizes, are of no matter.

The CIA-Embassy reports internal division and recriminations among the opponents of the amendments including several defections from their 'umbrella group'. The key and most dangerous threats to democracy raised by the Embassy memo point to their success in mobilizing the private university students (backed by top administrators) to attack key government buildings including the Presidential Palace, Supreme Court and the National Electoral Council. The Embassy is especially full of praise for the ex-Maoist 'Red Flag' group for its violent street fighting activity. Ironically, small Trotskyist sects and their trade unionists join the ex-Maoists in opposing the constitutional amendments. The Embassy, while discarding their 'Marxist rhetoric', perceives their opposition as fitting in with their overall strategy.

The ultimate objective of 'Operation Pincer' is to seize a territorial or institutional base with the 'massive support' of the defeated electoral minority within three or four days (presumably after the elections though this is not clear. JP) backed by an uprising by oppositionist military officers principally in the National Guard. The Embassy operative concede that the military plotters have run into serous problems as key intelligence operatives were detected, stores of arms were decommissioned and several plotters are under tight surveillance.

Apart from the deep involvement of the US, the primary organization of the Venezuelan business elite (FEDECAMARAS), as well as all the major private television, radio and newspaper outlets have been engaged in a campaign of fear and intimidation campaign. Food producers, wholesale and retail distributors have created artificial shortages of basic food items and have provoked large scale capital flight to sow chaos in the hopes of reaping a 'no' vote.

President Chavez Counter-Attacks

In a speech to pro-Chavez, pro-amendment nationalist business-people (Entrepreneurs for Venezuela ­ EMPREVEN) Chavez warned the President of FEDECAMARAS that if he continues to threaten the government with a coup, he would nationalize all their business affiliates. With the exception of the Trotskyists and other sects, the vast majority of organized workers, peasants, small farmers, poor neighborhood councils, informal self-employed and public school students have mobilized and demonstrated in favor of the constitutional amendments.

The reason for the popular majority is found in a few of the key amendments: One article expedites land expropriation facilitating re-distribution to the landless and small producers. Chavez has already settled over 150,000 landless workers on 2 million acres of land. Another amendment provides universal social security coverage for the entire informal sector (street sellers, domestic workers, self-employed) amounting to 40 per cent of the labor force. Organized and unorganized workers' workweek will be reduced from 40 to 36 hours a week (Monday to Friday noon) with no reduction in pay. Open admission and universal free higher education will open greater educational opportunities for lower class students. Amendments will allow the government to by-pass current bureaucratic blockage of the socialization of strategic industries, thus creating greater employment and lower utility costs. Most important, an amendment will increase the power and budget of neighborhood councils to legislate and invest in their communities.

The electorate supporting the constitutional amendments is voting in favor of their socio-economic and class interests; the issue of extended re-election of the President is not high on their priorities: And that is the issue that the Right has focused on in calling Chavez a 'dictator' and the referendum a 'coup'.

The Opposition

With strong financial backing from the US Embassy ($8 million dollars in propaganda alone according to the Embassy memo) and the business elite and 'free time' by the right-wing media, the Right has organized a majority of the upper middle class students from the private universities, backed by the Catholic Church hierarchy, large swaths of the affluent middle class neighborhoods, entire sectors of the commercial, real estate and financial middle classes and apparently sectors of the military, especially officials in the National Guard. While the Right has control over the major private media, public television and radio back the constitutional reforms. While the Right has its followers among some generals and the National Guard, Chavez has the backing of the paratroops and legions of middle-rank officers and most other generals.

The outcome of the Referendum of December 2 is a major historical event first and foremost for Venezuela but also for the rest of the Americas. A positive vote (Vota 'Sí') will provide the legal framework for the democratization of the political system, the socialization of strategic economic sectors, empower the poor and provide the basis for a self-managed factory system. A negative vote (or a successful US-backed civil-military uprising) would reverse the most promising living experience of popular self-rule, of advanced social welfare and democratically based socialism. A reversal, especially a military dictated outcome, would lead to a blood bath, such as we have not seen since the days of the Indonesian Generals' Coup of 1966, which killed over a million workers and peasants or the Argentine Coup of 1976 in which over 30,000 Argentines were murdered by the US- backed Generals.

A decisive vote for 'Sí' will not end US military and political destabilization campaigns but it will certainly undermine and demoralize their collaborators. On December 2, 2007 the Venezuelans have a rendezvous with history.

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). His new book with Henry Veltmeyer, Social Movements and the State: Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina, will be published in October 2005. He can be reached at:  jpetras@binghamton.edu

There's plenty of info on venezuela indymedia ( http://venezuela.indymedia.org/es/index.shtml) and also on the blog of Colectivo Libre Aquiles Nazoa ( http://my.opera.com/CLAN/blog/), which also gives links to many other interesting web pages. However, they're all in spanish. But there's also articles in english around. Even if you look at texts from groups which are totally prochavez you can see references to this divide inside the chavista movement.
I wouldn't agree with many of the allegations made in the following articles, but you might want to take a look at  http://www.redflag.org.uk/frontline/oct07/venezuela.html or  http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2784 which can hardly be suspected of being sympathetic to the oposition, yet they clearly speak of the difficulties that workers control is encountering because of the government's attitude.
And that's not even looking to left wing oposition groups, like many non chavista socialists, the anarchists, etc. (eg.  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385935.html).
You can dismiss all these as whatever you want, but they speak of a tension that's present in every revolutionary process between the people's revolutionary impetus and the bureaucracy's conservatism.
Also on Chavez's dismisal of marxism and against the role of workers in revolution,  http://www.aporrea.org/ideologia/n98624.html y  http://www.aporrea.org/trabajadores/n92511.html again in spanish, but references to the first article are made in  http://www.socialistaction.org/foley89.htm in which translation it reads as
Chavez himself has chosen this moment to declare that the "Twenty-First Century Socialism" he offers has nothing to do with Marxism.
This statement was commented on July 27 by the Aporrea website, an independent left website that supports the Chavez government in an interview with Stalin Perez Borges, a leader of the radical trade-union federation, the CUT, who has joined Chavez’s new party, the United Venezuelan Socialist Party (PSUV) : "Well, the president said in the last "Aló Presidente," the Venezuelan Socialist Party will not take up the banners of Marxism-Leninism, because this is a dogmatic thesis whose time is past and it does not suit today’s reality. . . .
“Moreover, in relation to the role of the working class, he said: ‘The theses that the working class is the motor force of socialism and revolution are obsolete. … Work today is different, it is the information and telecommunications industry. Karl Marx could not even dream of these things.’"

As you can imagine these declarations form the leader of the "revolution" made quite a stir in venezuela. Again, www.Aporrea.org is the most chavista web page on the net, by a far way.

Now, as for what Mr. Petras says, I understand that the CIA would love to see Chavez killed, or at least toppled. But this is also a two way relationship. For exactly the same reason that the US and Uk government exagerate the threat of terrorism to implement repressive laws and creat consensus within the population, the Chavez government, in turn, will do the same with a threat of a different nature, in this case CIA plots. For intellectual honesty we need to take whatever info comes out of the venezuelan government with a pinch of salt. I think all these plots and assesination attemps play a lot into Chavez hands, and therefore, maybe we should not be surprised as to how many are "discovered" all the time, or that when they exist these are revealed at exactly the right times, as when the date to an important referendum is coming close. Exactly the same is happening in the UK, when the "real level of terrorist threat" is revealed just before an important vote on new antiterrorist meassures in parliament (incidentally eroding individual freedoms), etc., etc.
Also in the light of the above sources, is difficult to see how voting for the yes option in the referendum is going to "provide the basis for a self-managed facroty system".

Myself, I put my trust only in the people and their revolutionary will, but I'll always remain distrustful of personality cult.

"Now, as for what Mr. Petras says, I understand that the CIA would love to see Chavez killed, or at least toppled. But this is also a two way relationship. For exactly the same reason that the US and Uk government exagerate the threat of terrorism to implement repressive laws and creat consensus within the population, the Chavez government, in turn, will do the same with a threat of a different nature, in this case CIA plots."

Don't try to create a false parallel between Chavez and the Neo-Fascists trying to undermine him, out of fear that he will expose the world to a better way of organizing than hyper-corporate communism.

The difference, of course, is that, not only has he produced actual evidence to support his claims, the CIA already overthrew Chavez in a coup, however briefly, and though most of the media ignored the story, the US (and co-conspirators like Spain) was fairly embarrassed by the incident.

And he is not trying to create draconian measures, as the US, Britain, etc. have, but merely defending his country from the all-too-familiar plots of foreigners who've exploited the country and its people for decades.

"For intellectual honesty we need to take whatever info comes out of the venezuelan government with a pinch of salt."

No, in that vein, I think we have to take what proven, pathological LIARS, both within Governments plotting against Chavez, and their tightly-controlled media (the same outlets who disseminated the LIES about Iraq, and now repeat this with Iran) with the utmost suspicion, until they can produce actual evidence to support their BS.

"I think all these plots and assesination attemps play a lot into Chavez hands"

That's irrelevant, since the plots are very real, as is the threat, and Chavez has done nothing to exaggerate them. Moreso, however, his record has won the support of the people, and as such, he doesn't need to create phony crisis, unlike those plotting against him.

"maybe we should not be surprised as to how many are "discovered" all the time"

Why should we be? This is how the CIA and related organizations have treated all of S. America for decades. None of this is new. That's why, more than any region (perhaps excluding the ME) the People of the continent have begun to act against foreign oppression and exploitation.

"or that when they exist these are revealed at exactly the right times, as when the date to an important referendum is coming close."

This isn't the same as US, UK politicians holding out fake Bin Laden tapes when politically adventageous. Chavez' revelations are actually relevant, because the CIA, etc. are plotting to manipulate this 'referendum'. You've exposed yourself as a Troll through your own words.

I´m not sure what you mean by being a troll. I am rather ugly, but hopefully not that much :-)
We can discuss about the reality of CIA plots against Chavez (which if you read me carfeully I never denied), but in the meantime Bolivia is in the brink of a REAL civil war. But many western leftist don´t care, maybe because Morales is not as vociferous as Chavez, os because he doesn´t suit your choice of leader?
Anyway, I´ll assume that the fact that no one is dispusting the main part of my argument means that you agree with it. That is, that Chavez is neither a Marxist nor a revolutionary, that he´s joining sides with the right wing of chavismo, that red boureaucracy is stiffling the revolution, that the proposed reform is authoritarian and will mean the end to workers control and self-management, etc.
I feel vindicated.

"I´m not sure what you mean by being a troll."

If you spend much time on IMC, you should understand, since Trolls/Plants abound, especially when subjects like this are coming to a vote, an attack is imminent, etc.

"but in the meantime Bolivia is in the brink of a REAL civil war."

Is it truly a 'civil war' when one of the factions is set into motion by foreigners?

"Anyway, I´ll assume that the fact that no one is dispusting the main part of my argument means that you agree with it."

No, it's just that the point seemed so ludicrous, and so exposed you as one of those trying to demonize the man instead of making an actual argument about the policies, that I didn't think it required further comment.

The CIA's war on this man and Venezuela's revolution, not only in the interests of regaining control of the country and its resources, but ensuring the world will not see a viable alternative to hyper-corporate Fascism, proves that measures are required to ensure that the country doesn't again fall victim to such people and their puppets, in the name of stealing what belongs to all Venezuelans.