Last week, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez suffered his first major defeat at the ballot box. Voters rejected a set of constitutional reforms that the U.S. press described as the penultimate stage in Chavez's plot to become president for life. However, Chavez lost, and unlike more authoritarian nations (think close to home), Chavez did not have a compliant supreme court to fix the results. Early Sunday morning, the man who many already consider a dictator conceded defeat and congratulated his opposition. "Ambition," Shakespeare said, "should be made of sterner stuff." However, the vote was a blow to the Venezuelan Left and throws several problems of the Chavismo movement into sharper relief.

While the U.S. press, ever vigilant stenographers of the American government, accused Chavez of trying to make a power grab, many of the referendum's proposals were enviable. Far from establishing a dictatorship, the reforms would have established public financing of political campaigns, lowered the voting age from 18 to 16 and guaranteed gender parity in government and political parties. The referendum proposed to reduce the work week to 36 hours, provide free university education and outlaw discrimination against gays and lesbians. If this is "Chavismo," we could use a little here in the United States.

However, Chavez also made a strategic blunder that clearly alienated his base. In last year's presidential election Chavez won 63 percent of the vote with a 74 percent turnout, but 3 million of his supporters abstained from the referendum vote. Many Chavistas expressed ambivalence or hostility to a set of reforms that would expand Chavez's power, including lifting a restriction on presidential term limits and making it harder to have a recall election. Chavez did not improve the situation by personalizing the vote, saying "It's black and white: A vote against the reform is a vote against Chavez." Not wanting to vote against Chavez, but not convinced to vote "yes," many Venezuelans stayed home.

Chavez's decision to mix progressive reforms with increased executive powers into one referendum confused many casual observers, and the explanation has to do with the various powers acting on Venezuela. On one hand, Chavez is rightfully afraid of a right-wing backlash against his program. In 2002, a coup attempt supported by Venezuelan capitalists and the Bush administration briefly ousted Chavez from power and abolished the legislature. Just before the referendum, the Venezuelan government intercepted a CIA memo from the American embassy, detailing a plan called "Operation Pliers" to destabilize the vote.

However, Chavez has avoided a direct confrontation with Venezuelan capitalists. So far, he has paid for all his social programs with revenue from the state oil company, not through higher taxes on the rich. "We have no plans to eliminate the oligarchy, Venezuela's bourgeoisie," he said in June. Unfortunately, the oligarchy has declined to extend the same courtesy to Chavez. Thus, Chavez's only option is to try to consolidate more power in the event he must defend himself from another coup attempt. In a catch-22, these measures have infuriated and remobilized the right wing. Ultimately, Chavez cannot resolve the conflict between his social programs and capitalism. Just as they defeated the 2002 coup attempt, Venezuelan workers must organize independently to defend the socialist movement.

In the near future, the showdown with the oligarchy Chavez has tried to avoid may arrive. Venezuelan food companies have been withholding their products from stores, and there are shortages of milk, sugar, beef, chicken and other essentials. The food industry intends to punish Chavez for price controls that have eaten away at their profits. These tactics have a chilling similarity to the economic sabotage that occurred before the 1973 coup in Chile that killed socialist president Salvador Allende and brought fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet to power. If Chavez is unable or unwilling to fix the shortages, the Venezuelan workers may take matters into their own hands and expropriate the relevant factories and farms. However, due to a lack of a unified socialist party outside of Chavez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela, this task may be difficult or impossible.

With the capitalists creating food shortages, a slowly growing opposition and the CIA prowling in the shadows, Venezuelan workers are in for a fight. This coming crisis reveals the limitations of Chavez's plan to impose socialism from the top. As the socialist president of a capitalist country, Chavez cannot stop the capitalists from sabotaging the economy, as they are doing through the food shortage. Also, as the referendum revealed, his attempts to defend himself from another coup can give ammunition to the right wing to paint him as a dictator. Only the workers, who have the ability to strike and expropriate their workplaces from the owners, can fend off this assault. Only time will tell whether they possess the will and organization to do so.

Paul Pryse ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism. He is also a member of the International Socialist Organization.