On February 26, the Venezuelan Communist Party and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela signed a comprehensive programmatic agreement in which the latter agreed to a host of popular demands in the areas of workers' rights, corporate monopolies, and collective leadership of the revolutionary process in exchange for the former's endorsement of incumbent Nicolas Maduro's presidential candidacy.

Unity accord between the PSUV and PCV to address the crisis of dependent and rentier capitalism of Venezuela with popular, patriotic and anti-imperialist political and socio-economic actions:

1. We, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), as heirs to the legacy of Simón Bolívar and the struggles of the Venezuelan people in their aspirations for independence, sovereign development, and Latin American integration, subscribe to the present unity accord.

Said accord contains the common commitment to implement it in all of its parts, and represents a clear understanding of the growing, immoral, illegal and criminal interventionist aggression of US imperialism and its European allies against the Venezuelan Bolivarian process. Such aggressions are putting at risk the prospect of national liberation which began with the popular victory of Commander Hugo Chávez in the presidential elections of 1998, and which even includes threats to our national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

2. We the PSUV and the PCV denounce before the world that imperialism, through the U.S. government and with the subordinate complicity of governments of Latin America and the Venezuelan extreme right, insists on creating a false case in multilateral organisms against our country so as to justify international intervention, with the real possibility that the right-wing governments of Colombia, Brazil, and Guyana may generate a provocation on our borders.

3. We the PSUV and the PCV say that the crisis of Venezuela's dependent and rentier capitalism has had, and has, serious consequences for the quality of life of our people, especially in their purchasing power, supply of goods and services; that this situation has been exacerbated by actions and measures of imperialism and its local figureheads, who promote private and public corruption, bureaucratism and the flight of foreign currency in a context of a severe reduction of oil income, all of which are phenomena against which the national government must maintain and deepen a frontal fight, such as that undertaken in [state oil company] PDVSA and other state bodies.

4. We the PSUV and the PCV declare that the way out of the current capitalist crisis should not be in favor of the bourgeoisie and transnational corporations but in favour of the interests of the people, in the search for a new productive post-oil model of sovereign development, and tend towards the protagonist participation of the workers, campesinos and campesinas, communards, and popular classes, which should form a great anti-imperialist front and move forward in the establishment of an organic expression of collective and unified leadership of the political, social, patriotic and revolutionary organizations so as to enable an analysis of the government’s actions as well as to construct and coordinate policy actions.

5. The magnitude and gravity of the current situation and the intensification of the class struggle at national and international levels demands an increase in immediate actions to be taken in the economic, social and political fields, including emergency measures needed to prioritize popular demands such as food and health requirements. Such measures would be consolidated with the triumph of the patriotic forces in the next presidential election.

Rights of the working class and working people

6. We the PSUV and the PCV underline the importance of strengthening the class-based trade union movement and the various expressions of the labour and revolutionary movement, such as the Productive Workers' Councils, Socialist Workers' Councils, approving the special law established in the Organic Labour Law, and respecting the autonomy [of such organsiations]. Also, to develop channels of effective communication and timely mechanisms of the other revolutionary worker’s organizations so as to enable workers of public and private sectors to have a leading role in the development of the social process of work.

7. Taking into account the deepening of the capitalist crisis which affects large sections of the working class, it is important to strengthen and protect labour rights, employment protection and expand the policy of creating new jobs.

8. We the PSUV and the PCV will work together, each to the extent and scope of our organizations, from the Government and the socio-political spaces we occupy, to identify and channel the restitution of the infringed rights of workers in cases already raised or that may arise in public and private sectors.

9. [We commit] to immediately review and apply the necessary corrections regarding denunciations from revolutionary organizations regarding the actions of certain public officials.

10. [We adhere to] advance resolutely in suitably interconnecting the productive processes of the nationalized companies with each other, many of which must be restructured and the processes of dismantling and deterioration that could lead to stoppages that would be damaging for the national productive development must be reversed. In addition, [we commit] to protecting and institutionally supporting the rural campesino collectives who have reactivated state-owned farms.

11. We the PSUV and the PCV will evaluate the experiences of workers control, such as the Guyana Socialist Plan, so as to establish a new model of ownership and multi-faceted management of the state-owned enterprises whose productive processes, management, and distribution are under worker and popular control. We shall do this based on the principals of collective leadership and so as to permanently banish the scourges of corruption, inefficiency and authoritarian and undemocratic methods in management.

12. [Is it necessary] to promote and implement strong actions by the National Superintendence for the Defense of Socio-Economic Rights (SUNDDE) and the Superintendency of the Institutions of the Banking Sector (SUDEBAN), in articulation with the popular organizations, in order to protect the millions of users of the banking system, particularly workers, pensioners, and small entrepreneurs.

13. We consider relevant and urgent the adoption and strengthening of measures aimed at dismantling the power of private monopolies, defining and promoting policies to achieve sovereign and productive national development, punishing corruption, speculation and mobsters, and promoting the deepening of national, sovereign, and productive developmental policies.

14 [We commit to] prioritize formal employment with its respective labour rights as an activity that dignifies the human being, as well as strengthening wages and restoring them to be the majority and main component of the income of the workers.*

Measures to analyze in greater depth

15. We the PSUV and the PCV, in bilateral and regular meetings, will discuss strategic proposals that are being raised by the PCV to collaborate in the development of plans and policies of the State and the Government for the benefit of the people and national liberation, amongst others.

15.1 Themes included are the banking and financial systems, foreign trade, public finances, and the tax system.

Strengthening political and organizational actions

16. We the PSUV and the PCV will identify areas of common action that we must strengthen both politically and organizationally.

16.1. We the PSUV and the PCV will set a timetable for the holding of bilateral meetings with a frequency of at least once per month between representatives of both national leaderships.

16.2 We the PSUV and the PCV will follow up regional and municipal efforts to develop effective policies and those which attend to needs of the population.

16.3. In the international arena, based on the areas of action and attention of every organization, we will strengthen relations with bodies that have demonstrated consistent solidarity with Venezuela and the revolutionary process.

16.4. In the production area, we will support manufacturing and agro-industrial proposals and projects, with special emphasis guaranteed to all initiatives stemming from the communal and campesino movement.

16.5. We the PSUV and the PCV are committed to the strengthening of the labour and trade union movement, facilitating the articulation of class-based and revolutionary currents with the state entities so as to solve problems and disputes as well as respecting the rights of workers.

16.6. All projects related to audio-visual and printed media that are initiatives of both organizations and popular movements and workers will be supported as part of the cooperation in the fight in the media war and against psychological operations.

16.7. Both political organizations will foster relationships between their youth organizations: the Youth of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and the Communist Youth of Venezuela, through student, cultural, sporting and community-based proposals so as to deepen the rights of young people.

16.8. In order to make progress in the development of policies of alliances PSUV-PCV and the revolutionary popular movement, we will work to ensure a unified formula of an electoral nature that ensures effective presence and strengthening of our organizations in the legislative elections at the national, state and municipal level.

Presidential elections

17. The PCV, using this Accord and the diverse points in which they coincide with the PSUV in areas of national and international politics as its base, assumes the candidacy of the compatriot Nicolas Maduro Moros. We do so so that he may head a wide coalition of political, social, patriotic, popular, and revolutionary forces which may serve as the seed of a collective and unified leadership of the process. Also, so that he may represent the popular aspirations of the anti-imperialist, unified, Latin American struggle and develop our sovereignty in the interests of the Venezuelan people. As such, we will work together respecting the autonomy of each organization so as to achieve an overwhelming triumph this upcoming April 22nd.

18. Both organizations commit ourselves to widely reproducing this Program of Unified Accord PSUV-PCV.

Translated by Paul Dobson for Venezuelanalysis.com. For the text of the original agreement, click here.

*Editor's note: Over the past year, the Venezuelan government has enacted successive increases to the national minimum wage. However, the PCV and other leftist groups have denounced the rising proportion of food tickets, which now constitute a majority of workers' wages, a phenomenon that has been termed the "bonification of the wage". More recently, the Maduro administration has opted to further complement inflation-eroded wages with holiday bonuses, which are direct cash transfers administered through the Homeland Card system.