There were around 20 of us – we’d come along to this month’s Left in the Cinema in Hastings. We’d just watched The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, to remind ourselves of some of the history of Venezuela. Now, the film was done, and we gathered in a circle to discuss it.

We weren’t all the same kind of people – we’re not all in the same political party. I know for a fact there were people in this room who disagree quite seriously on this or that issue, but that’s exactly why I value circles like this. They’re not like your friends or your family or your club, they’re opportunities to listen to, understand, learn to care about, your local community.

And the film demonstrated so clearly why that’s important. The Irish film crew had been in Venezuela, investigating what was different about Chavez, documenting what was going on, and while they were there, the rich inhabitants of Caracas, the ones that look like team Barbie-and-Ken, staged a coup and, one of the most important things we can be thinking about right now is not whether Maduro was good or bad, not whether this or that country stands or falls, but why the people of Venezuela proved so resilient at that time.

Chavez was a ‘hands on’ leader. He didn’t ignore people. When he walked past guards or lookers-on during his working day, he’d slap them on the back, or stop to talk to them. They’d hand him letters, or tell him about political issues they were having. He had a team to read and report to him on letters sent to his government.

All that time, privately owned and US-influenced TV and radio channels were pumping out nonsense about how dreadful Chavez was, how no-one liked him, and so on forever, just like our media during the Corbyn years. So Chavez insisted his staff and colleagues go out and talk to the people and when he talked to the people, he insisted that they keep up their own political education, read the constitution, meet in their local Bolivar circles and talk about what they wanted and needed.

Lesson One: The media is the first and worst enemy of a people trying to get their heads straight.

The coup

Astonishingly, a miracle for the historical record, that Irish film crew were right there, in the Presidential Palace and on the streets of Caracas when the coup happened. They filmed the two crowds – the Chavez loyalists and the coup supporters – as the confrontation developed (you could not miss which was which – one crowd looked like they were building the American Dream in the make-up department, the other crowd looked like people.)

The Private media grabbed and shared footage they could use to claim the Chavez supporters were violent. The Irish film crew recorded the responses of the people when they realised the Palace had been captured.

“What about my vote?”

“I voted for Chavez.”

“The only way they can get him out is by a referendum.”

“We want Chavez now!”

They knew the rules, they’d voted on that constitution, they carried copies of it, and they stuck with it. So did the Palace Guard. They realised they were now guarding illegal opportunists, so they organised and re-took the Palace.

Soon, the usurpers were huddled in a room in the basement and the rightful government ministers – and all kinds of other people – were milling about the Palace shouting. Get Chavez back! Get the state TV working! Who’s in charge! We need a meeting! We’re locked out of the meeting room…!

Lesson two: Real democracy always starts out messy. It takes a while for people to organise themselves (that’s the message for those struggling with ‘Your Party’ – we’ve never experienced a people’s party getting started before – we don’t know how messy it usually is).

…They sorted themselves out. They found the keys to the meeting room, they swore in the Vice President as a temporary leader, they sent air-force units off to rescue Chavez and bring him back, they got the state TV working and broadcast to the nation. They survived to run the people’s government another day.

When Chavez was back at the head of the meeting room, he spoke to the coup-mongers, he said “I wish I could change your minds,” but as far as I know, no-one was court-marshalled, no-one exiled. He spoke to the people, asked them to calm down, to go home, to get things rolling again…

Lesson three: I don’t know the answer to this yet. Chavez’s government won the battle that day, but they didn’t win the war. Years of sabotage and sanctions followed and now Venzuela’s most recent president, Maduro, has been kidnapped and the US are on their necks again.

Chavez revered his revolutionary grandfather, “a fighter, not a murderer,” he said. That’s an important distinction. Fighting when you’re attacked is one thing. Killing in cold blood, even when it’s ‘legal’ is another. But I’m thinking about Jeremy Corbyn, how he was finally overwhelmed by the traitorous Labour Together MPs he kept excusing and apologising to. I’m thinking about the Rojava communities, now struggling to finance and maintain the prisons they have that are full of the thousands of ISIS fighters they captured in order to preserve their democracy. What are they to do with them? Their countries don’t want them back.

If you know what the answer is to lesson three, please let me know but in the meantime, I know what we need to be doing. Keep the assemblies going, keep the pol ed going. The media are not your friends, nor are social media platforms with their Silicon Valley algorithms. Political parties are no good to us if we let them enclose us in like-minded bubbles. We need to build people’s faith in discussion circles, not single-party, single-issue buddy groups but assemblies and debate circles – Bolivar circles – until we find the answers to the really hard lessons, like what do you do when you win a battle and have a bunch of formerly-powerful enemies sitting in the basement.

Oh and – resist, resist, resist!

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