Ten years have passed since 5 March 2013 and we cannot forget this gigantic commander of the peoples.

I don't really like the military. Especially in capitalist and career states. However, there are those who carry within the wishes of the people and have committed themselves to it.

I do not like personalisms much, although in the world and in Abya Yala/Latin America we find many personalisms. However, in many cases, if personalisms have been created, it is because these revolutionaries made great initiatives for the people. The conscious people themselves take these names to identify themselves with these liberating ideas and struggles. Bolivarianism, zapatism, guevarism… chavism, yes. Because Chávez left a mark on history.

I don't like the word leader, but thankfully, all the transformative processes, yesterday and today, have needed leaders, people of high vision, who have represented a different future and have worked the way, together with conscious and organized sectors of the country. In the context of class struggle, peoples are the engine, the force of history. But you need starter motors that can handle the steering wheel with skill. If there is no training and prior organization, if there is no outlined building alternative, the indignation of the people, that flood of rage, will be lost in the short run riots.

When a lot of water arrives, the river overflows through the stream, but after days it continues through its initial stream. In minorities, the flow can be changed to divert the flow of water in another direction. But to do so, these alternative channels must be advanced. And Chávez was one of them. A leader certainly. By their training, by their capabilities, by their project, by the given model and by knowing how to connect perfectly with the needs of the humble country.

I don't like conspiracy theories either, and although there's not enough evidence at the moment, it's quite possible that the CIA has taken initiatives to make Chávez cancer. Over 800 murder plans of all kinds were designed against Fidel. Along with the development of science and technology, the forms of cancer have probably been refined, with a millionaire budget. Maybe someday we know. Maybe not. Chávez was a threat to American interests. He was an enemy. That was explicitly named. And we know what that means.

Chávez was a historic event. It relieved the pioneers of freedom in dreamed America, when neoliberalism was playing with more force. Focusing on Latin American integration between the peoples separated by Yankee imperialism and local oligarchies, he dared to return it to another future, soaked by country and accompanied by numerous leaders, popular movements and institutions in the area. But beyond Abya Yala, it became an example for the peoples of the world. In Euskal Herria we have also felt combatants Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian movement.

In four rows you can't summarize so many aspects of a giant. But I will refer to one of them, because of their enormous potential: the community model, the structured development of popular power. Because Chávez clearly saw that the scaffolding of the bourgeois state towards socialism was not a useful instrument, but an absolute obstacle. For this reason, in the early years of the Bolivarian process, a bridge was established for many corrupt state entities and a series of parallel initiatives were launched that respond to the needs of the people, the so-called Misiones.

Entering the decade of 2010, a qualitative leap took place by theorizing the communal system, opening the legal path through the laws and providing means to disseminate it throughout the people. The objective was as ambitious as necessary: to replace the structures of the capitalist State with structures that were woven from the people. That is, to overcome the economic, social and administrative relations established by the infrastructures of the bourgeois state.

The differences, as in Russia, were made with the Soviets: to build a parallel power to replace the old power imposed. Besides external and internal obstacles, toilets are today a reality that continues to develop from humility. In the ocean of capitalism, they're just islands, but they're gaining ground to form an increasingly larger, coordinated, more powerful, popular power archipelago. In this collective construction the heritage of Chávez is very integrated. Chávez considered the communal system strategic. He says that “socialism must be a space for childbirth.”

In the process of liberation of peoples, memory is an essential element. Therefore, on the 10th anniversary of his physical disappearance, we must continue to claim the figure and heritage of Chávez. Chavez, present!

Iñaki Etaio, Askapena militant