The TUC (Trade Union Congress) voted unanimously in the revolution's support making it the first trade union confederation in Europe to give support to the Venezuelan Revolution and the National Union of Workers (UNT), the new Venezuelan trade union confederation, formed after the CTV bureaucracy betrayed the Venezuelan working people in 2002, during the attempted overthrow of the socialist government.
Things have really been going quite nicely for the last 5 or so years. Nationalisation and co-management has brought many companies under workers' control, with more coming under control every month, and things are really booming with growth in double figures.
Alcides Rivero, who works here as a maintenance electrician, says co-management means that for the first time in this company's 37 years of existence, the workforce has control.
"It's us, the workers", he says, "who decide on questions of production and technology, and it's us who elect who will be our managers."
Marivit Lopez, from the personnel department, explains that the workers are also drawing up a "participatory budget" for 2006.
"The different departmental workers' councils are discussing and amending the existing proposal so that we get a budget that really fits the company's needs," she says.
Of course there is much work to be done, the revolution needs to spread to other countries before it is isolated and suffocated by the imperialists, they failed in 2002, but they'll be back. The state needs to become more open, they've had 7 elections in 5 years, but Lenin's basic principles of socialism need to be implemented into it right to the core, such as instant recall of politians and officials and frequent rotations, they exist in embryonic stage now but more work needs to be done. The soviets (workers' councils) need to further build to meet the needs of the entire population.
But now even if the government falls to the imperialists, even if Chavez betrays the workers', they've now tasted communism, they've tasted the means to control their own destiny rather then some capitalist lying on a beach on a tropical island and they will never let that go without a fight.