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Chavez: The greatest threat is within, that is, a permanent, bureaucratic counterrevolution. I am its enemy every day. I keep a whip, because on all sides I am attacked by this enemy, the old and new bureaucracies that resist changes, so much so that one must be vigilant when an instruction is given and then monitor it, so that it wouldn't be stopped or derailed or diminished by the bureaucratic counterrevolution that is in the State.

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An interesting assessment from the President of Venezuela - in a recent, exclusive interview with Diario Panorama.

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Chavez: The State changed at the macro level, but the micro levels of it have stayed intact. ....

A sister of the bureaucratic counterrevolution is the counterrevolution of corruption ...

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The Cubans face this latter problem as well. Another comment of interest was the remarks about the redistribution of income in the country. Clearly, Venezuela is a very long way from socialism. But they're going in the right direction:

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Chavez: We should revise the economic framework. We have made economic gains, but we have hardly touched the redistribution of the national income yet. The poorest class has improved its income with the minimum wage, free healthcare, free education, which no doubt has helped, but, the upper classes have benefited much more.

The gap between an enriched elite and the lower classes, instead of narrowing, has widened. We must change that. For example, the banking sectors are the ones that have made the most money, growing in the first half of 2006 by 40%, which is trillions of bolivars in profit. It's necessary to change that.

Politically, it is necessary to overhaul revolutionary democracy, to take to the constitutional level the subject of people's power, community councils, direct democracy, and national defense.

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They must keep moving forward. This is a dynamic view of socialism, a view that understands advances and retreats, the strength of the enemy, and so on.