The creation of a new kind of consciousness is the greatest challenge facing us today, especially as the working class commits itself to its historical responsibility to embody the great struggles for change and the common good. The leading role of the working class is repoliticized in this new era because, as Hugo Chávez insisted, working people must look beyond themselves to become aware of another world.
We are called to go through a new time, with other actors, in sectors, to defeat the spirit of domination, whatever its place and its presentation. This is what the public expects!
Looking beyond ourselves opts for a community policy that transcends activist consciousness, primarily in a context where new contradictions emerge and where we are witnessing phenomena that threaten the reproduction of life. Let’s put This policy should affect the formation and strengthening of community consciousness based on the rationality of life; In the words of Hugo Chávez: “The working class must defend—before its own interests—the interests of the people. […] Socialism requires separation from oneself, the interests of all the people, of the Motherland, of the revolution. [yo agregaría: de la madre tierra], they are interests [deberían ser]Basically, the same interests of the working class”.
The planetary socio-ecological crisis in which we are immersed today is the clearest scenario where we can understand where this commitment is taking us. At the risk of being a bit schematic, it can be said that 20th century socialism emphasized worker consciousness as a revolutionary consciousness; Since, according to philosopher Franz Heinkelmert, the interest of the proletariat was never understood as the exclusive interest of the proletariat, but as a representation of a general interest from the position of the proletariat as a marginalized or exploited group Went. Means: on the basis of the interest of all. Paradoxically, with the passage of time, we have realized that the consciousness of the labor subject is still modern and therefore colonial. Unfortunately, the ideal of modernity is embodied not only in the concrete bourgeoisie, but in society as a whole; Because a worker can be a worker and have a bourgeois conscience. Thus the commander warned him: The vices of capitalism find many ways to penetrate everywhere, including the working class. Hence the importance of carrying out a process of profound modification and transformation of our subjectivity and our conscience, in the face of the healing of a society constituted and understood by special interests.
Regarding this practice, a few days ago, our Mexican sister Katya Colmenares, in Barquisimeto, asked us: “What is the utopia that we are embodying from the commune?” This philosopher, who is with the Comuna o Nada Decolonial School in Venezuela, invites us to think deeply about the way we act on a day-to-day basis: “To be bourgeois is not a question of how much we have in the bag. There is money. Again and again, the worker imitates the way of life of the bourgeois class and behaves in the same way. The theme of modern utopia is not a distant one: utopia is embodied, it can be seen in the work that is done in the commune and in my singular life. Ideal models are utopian horizons, which lie behind and give meaning to political behaviour; Utopia is objectified in subjectivity; It is there where they materialize in beliefs, values and aspirations. The change of Utopia is urgent and necessary!
The civilizing model of modernity – with its utopian horizon outside its rationality, its subjectivity and the contingencies of life – is in crisis. We need to move on to building another project. The new working class must defeat not only capitalism and imperialism, but also the cultural horizon that gave rise to these systems: modernity. It is the epicureanism and prudence that must accompany the new squad of the working class promoting policy for life. The new man must be a man with a community conscience; In other words: we must move from worker consciousness to a communal consciousness that allows us to leave behind all projects of supremacy, not only among humans, but also in our dealings with nonhuman nature.
In communal consciousness we have to criticize modern consciousness; Namely, to understand that the non-human nature with which we work is not inert matter, it is not a thing: it is the stuff of life. It is this connection with Mother Earth that ultimately encompasses the entire community; That allows recovery rooting.
The movement and dynamism of our realities requires a move from a worker consciousness to a communal consciousness, for the liberation of the soul, for the alleviation of anxieties, for living well in community. The new working class that Chávez spoke of, and its essence in the modern socialist project, is a working class that must march to the rhythm of the commune, the historical regional fabric that expresses itself to confront modern society and its individualistic, consumerist logic. Has been done , dominant; The Commune as the main theme of the Revolution.
The subject of revolution is the people as a community, the people of a commune who determine its history, its relations, the reason for its existence.
That’s why it’s so fascinating to read Hugo Chávez’s verbiage over and over again. The keys to the discourse of this thinker of the Global South are infinite. Today his visions seem more concrete than ever. Revolution as a radical change of reality must produce a revolution of consciousness, a revolution of subjectivity in order to create truly human, community relations. There is no revolution without communal consciousness!
