The Marxist (Hermann Albrecht): At a recent gathering in the State of Guayana, President Chavez announced a series of new nationalizations, but he also stressed the need for workers' control, planning and socialism. What now needs to be done is to act on these words and the only force that can do that is the working class. Otherwise all the good proposals can be buried by the myriad of reformists and bureaucrats who infest the movement.

On Thursday, May 21, at a workshop with the workers of the basic industries in the state of Guayana, President Chavez announced the nationalization of the following iron briquette and steel companies: Orinoco Iron, Venezolana de Prerreducidos de Caroni (VENPRECAR), Materiales Siderurgicos (MATESI), and the Complejo Siderurgico de Guayana (COMSIGUA), as well as Tubos de Acero de Venezuela (TAVSA) and Ceramicas Carabobo.

He also confirmed the collective bargaining agreement of CVG Ferrominera and spoke of the creation of an industrial steelworks complex, indicating that, "These companies must be placed under workers' control; that's how it has to be." He continued, "let's start the process of nationalisation in order to create this industrial complex," adding that these measures should have been taken a long time ago.

The "Socialist Transformation" Workshop
The meeting, under the title of "Workshop of Socialist Transformation," was held at the CVG Ferrominera complex in Puerto Ordaz in the state of Bolivar, and was attended by some 400 workers, 200 from the aluminium sector and another 200 from the iron and steel industries. As well as President Hugo Chavez, the government representatives included the ministers Jorge Giordani, Rodolfo Sanz, Rafael Ramirez, and Ali Rodriguez Araque, among others, as well as the State Governor, Francisco Rangel Gomez.

According to information provided by the ABN news agency, during the meeting, 40 different work groups were organised, led by spokespersons elected by the "Socialist Workers' Front," which proposed and agreed upon the main lines of action to be taken. The main spokespersons put forward a broad variety of recommendations, suggestions and solutions that have emerged from the workers' struggles for their demands. The Minister of Popular Power for Labour, Maria Cristina Iglesias, said that this highlights the profound transformation that has taken place in the working class, which for years was oppressed. President Chavez himself added, "What is happening here today is very important, since it is an example of the consciousness of the need for unity through debate."

During the closing statements at the end of the workshop, Chavez made important announcements which brought forth enthusiastic cheering from the audience, as happened when he announced the ratification of the collective bargaining agreement of CVG Ferrominera, as well as a 10 to 20% reduction in the salaries of the company managers. "Very well, then! I send my congratulations, because this is a victory for everyone! But especially of all of you, of the Union and of the workers," affirmed Chavez.

He also spoke of the need to continue deepening the political education of the workers, that now "every factory should be a school, in order, as Che said, to create not only briquettes and sheets and steel and aluminium, but also, above all, new men and women, a new society, a socialist society." He also raised the idea of continuing with political education schools, an initiati