For months on and off, you’ve posted about Venezuela with low context and low effort and ignored every nuance people have tried to present to you about the situation. You even seemed to think it was funny that a thread of yours saying “Venezuela needs a revolution right now” got downvoted badly.
Now you post a clearly meant to be provocative callout thread that adds absolutely nothing to the discussion that hasn’t been said before and features an image of Delcy Rodriguez and Trump in a smiling picture together. As if this is itself evidence of Venezuelan leadership being compromised. So I gave you the reply that your rhetoric and level of effort deserved.
This thread borders on trolling and you don’t deserve the attention. But since you don’t listen to correction and don’t argue with more than a couple of sentences before leaving and moving on to make yet another thread on the same topic, if I’m going to give it attention, this is what it deserves. We don’t have to all be in agreement on everything here, but put some fucking effort in if you’re going to take a position that disagrees with detailed marxist analyses from multiple people, instead of trying to pick fights like this is a bar brawl.
I chose to not get involved in this thread, as I’ve said my view before. That being that in my opinion, Venezuela really doesn’t have the means to military resist the US, and if the leaders of the Bolivariam revolution believe this is the best strategy, I’ll hold my tongue.
I find it hard to believe that the Chavistas and the communes would be quite if they believe the revolution has been subverted. Though, frankly, I prefer to take the analysis of Latam Marxists, who seem to be divided, rather then single mindedly denounce Venezuela as if the counter revolution is fact.
Yet, it seems, the op has a bone to pick with my stance, as well as others who hold it, and if so that’s fine. I simply would rather not potentially contribute to regime change rhetoric as a westerner.
I simply would rather not potentially contribute to regime change rhetoric as a westerner.
That’s an important core of it to me. The people of Venezuela will struggle with it and do their best from the position that they’re in. Our task is to support them, not to romanticize power struggle and get caught up in rhetoric that suggests dramatic, sacrificial conflict is the only way for them to make it through this. Whether the evidence leans more in the direction of “Venezuelan leadership is compromised” or “Venezuela is held hostage”, is less important than whether international communists are supporting Venezuela in its liberation, such as in its commune projects and in its general sovereignty. The 1st one is obsession over “correctness of worldview” which has its value, especially for the people who actually live there, but ultimately can be a big nothing if it only amounts to one feeling like they are more correct than others. The 2nd means that regardless of what is happening with the 1st, they are getting help from international comrades.
Even in basic rhetoric, international comrades can support them insofar as emphasizing their sovereignty, the need for the empire to leave them alone, as opposed to positioning it specifically as “the people and government vs. the empire” or “the people vs. the government and empire.”
As it is, it may well be that it is simply more complicated than “compromised or hostage” and that trying to reduce it to a binary is itself a mistake. Binaries are convenient but don’t tell us the precise class dynamics of a town, a province, a region. They don’t tell us where things are doing really well and where they are lagging far behind. They feed into good vs. evil narratives and forget how complicated it is to transition a society from one mode of production and power to another, much less try to do this under the shadow of a brutal, global empire. The “compromised” narrative would imply the issue is mainly the response to the empire itself, rather than the strangling material conditions attached to being under its shadow. And though it’s possible more militant, more scientific, more seasoned (I don’t know, I’m just coming up with markers for competence) leadership would navigate this better, we can’t assume that’s necessarily the issue just because the outcomes aren’t ideal. The revolution is the whole organized struggle in the context of material constraints, not only the most prominent names and their willpower.
Honestly, leftists around LATAM are pretty divided. Most of the people around here say the revolution has been betrayed, however some say it was a tactical retreat.
There is a Chavista professor from Venezuela (Luis Bonilla-Molina) that says that since Maduro there has been a re-alignment of PSUV from the working class social base to a more middle class and petty bourgeois strata. This plan to normalize relations with the US is being cooked since the Maduro period and what we see with Delcy is an acceleration of the process.
However, some Marxists/leftists with transit within the Maduro/Delcy government still defend the tactical retreat angle, like Breno Altman and Diego Ruzzarin himself. The thing is, Venezuela wants access to their dollar reserves and want investment in new oil fields and refineries. Even if US is getting privileged access to Venezuelan oil right now, they will only be able to take advantage of Venezuelan oil in the future. Since the crisis in the US is escalating, Venezuela could take advantage of this relief in sanctions and investments later on.
So, most looking from outside are seeing a full betrayal while some people with transit in Delcy’s government talks about retreat. It’s very hard to deal with incomplete information, but IMHO, I’m more aligned with the betrayal POV. I have never seen countries ceding to US imperialism (other than China and Vietnam, which did actual socialist revolutions) and flipping the tables afterwards.
There is a Chavista professor from Venezuela (Luis Bonilla-Molina) that says that since Maduro there has been a re-alignment of PSUV from the working class social base to a more middle class and petty bourgeois strata. This plan to normalize relations with the US is being cooked since the Maduro period and what we see with Delcy is an acceleration of the process.
This to me makes sense and goes beyond some dumb great man theory betrayal narrative. If you seriously consider the implications of a Rodriguez betrayal, Maduro doesn’t look good at all and even implicates him in the betrayal as well.
Rodriguez’s cabinet, which is just Maduro’s cabinet, goes along with the betrayal without a single protest resignation, which means Maduro either is a traitor as well, couldn’t find anyone else within the PSUV who wasn’t also a sellout, or is just really, really stupid. If he couldn’t find anyone else within the PSUV who wasn’t also a sellout, the change in social base would be a good explanation, which would once again implicate Maduro since the shift happened under his tenure. Even the armed communes not rising up to overthrow Rodriguez over her alleged betrayal also implicates Maduro. Either Maduro was incredibly, incredibly stupid and just gave the communes a bunch of shitty Mauser bolt-action rifles or he simply lied about arming the communes because he doesn’t want the communes to have the means of defending themselves from the Venezuelan military.
In a weird way, the insistence of pinning the betrayal on Rodriguez without implicating Maduro is just cope of not wanting to face that their previous support of Maduro as a principled and competent socialist was a mistake. They don’t want to write the apology card to the PCV who were sounding the horn that Maduro betrayed Chavismo and even boycotted the results because they thought Maduro stuffed ballots.
Personally, I’m 70% that this is Venezuela being forced into unequal treaties and 30% that the rot started with Maduro or possibly even Chavez himself.
That Venezuela is in the same economic position as occupied Iraq after the invasion, with their oil funds being controlled by America, and they will have to act in the same comprador manner due to this leverage (IE, Aligning with empire against anti-imperialists in their region - hence we see Venezuela turning against Cuba and towards USA/Israel just like we see the comprador Iraqi government aligning against Iran).
USA got the same outcome as the invasion of Iraq with a single kidnapping operation. Complete success, and they don’t try to hide it. Their glee is palpable, it led them into the Iran War because they were so high on their own easy victory. But unlike Venezuela, Iran has teeth and was seriously preparing its defenses against the imperialists.
The most accurate sign of a state being comprador is random libs. If they suddenly start praising a state they had no idea existed a week ago, it’s over. But if they say “socialism bad because venezuela”, like they usually do, the revolution is intact.
Random libs don’t like Venezuela because they see it cozying up to Drumpf and victory for him, they love that Venezuela has been de facto annexed, they just hate that it wasn’t them that did it in a respectable “legal” way
Look… I know that you are bitter about this as plenty of people of both sides of this struggle session. However, we should avoid wording as “Venezuela stopped” because it hides the context of what is happening. This also takes away the blame from the actual criminal.
As a reminder, the criminal US regime is and has been doing a naval and diplomatic siege on Cuba that is expanding even to medicine and food supplies. They have stolen plenty of oil tankers from Venezuela which made the oil deliveries stop even before the kidnapping of Maduro.
Please. Stop shifting the blame from the criminal empire into Venezuela.
There is nothing moralizing about studying the situation and understanding the cause of it which is the criminal US regime oil siege and open piracy. People that understand the situation clearly will always reach solutions that actually impact positively with the Cubans.
Maliciously avoiding the discussion regarding criminal’s actions leaves you no better than the Miami fascist that keeps victim blaming the Cuban gov’t for the outages and deaths caused by the genocidal blockade. Same old same old fascist talking point of rinsing the hands of the USA.
So you admit the defeat is real but just have an issue with the framing (ie, who to blame, ie a blame game)? Because most of the panglossians here are just in complete denial that there is a defeat whatsoever. When the USSR was destroyed, that was partially the fault of the USA as well, but it was defeated nonetheless.
The USA, and imperialists in general, are an existing force that has to be combated and defeated. Saying “Socialism would have worked if it weren’t for the imperialists” is only true on a surface level, imperialism has to be defeated. Socialism cannot succeed until it does so. Our projects must take into account this existing force and overcome it. Seeing projects succumb to imperialists is painful, but it shows weaknesses in those projects that the imperialists were able to do so. We have to study past failures to overcome mistakes and weaknesses, but instead the defeatists here would rather just state that US Imperialism cannot be defeated and you can’t do anything at all but succumb. That Venezuela played this as well as possible, but still lost, because America cannot be overcome. There’s nothing to learn from, no mistakes to be corrected, the US just wins and what can you do? :)
It’s worrying because it shows you learned nothing and will advocate to do the same thing again. Around and around we go the revisionist carousel. So many socialist projects have collapsed or failed due to exactly this type of “strategic retreat” to the IMF but we refuse to examine why or push against the tendency.
My position on this is that this is a similar event to the Brest-Litovsk treaty where Lenin’s USSR where forced to give up valuable land and resource. To paint this picture clearly, the USSR ceded to Germany areas contained approximately 30% to 50% of Russia’s industrial base, population, and a vast majority of its coalfields. Just like that event, it is painful but not stifling that renders everyone from surpassing it.
As for your other two paragraphs, it seems to me that you already judged me with a lousy label, “defeatist”, and absurdities without actually reading what I have shared so far. First of all, I haven’t ever written that "US Imperialism cannot be defeated and you can’t do anything at all ". If your goal with responding to me is to paint an erroneous image about me then we can consider this conversation over. It is pointless to have unproductive conversations. We are going to waste each other’s time.
However, if you actually are looking to discuss what is materially available for Venezuela and Cuba to fight the current situation created by the US imperialist, then that will be a productive conversation that I am willing to have.
Deng didn’t sell out his land and people to the Americans though. Why would I scream at him? Just like how I wouldn’t scream at Stalin for the M-R pact.
None of the three countries sold out their natural resources and their gold reserves to the United States. Not the kinda Gotcha you think it is.
For months on and off, you’ve posted about Venezuela with low context and low effort and ignored every nuance people have tried to present to you about the situation. You even seemed to think it was funny that a thread of yours saying “Venezuela needs a revolution right now” got downvoted badly.
Now you post a clearly meant to be provocative callout thread that adds absolutely nothing to the discussion that hasn’t been said before and features an image of Delcy Rodriguez and Trump in a smiling picture together. As if this is itself evidence of Venezuelan leadership being compromised. So I gave you the reply that your rhetoric and level of effort deserved.
This thread borders on trolling and you don’t deserve the attention. But since you don’t listen to correction and don’t argue with more than a couple of sentences before leaving and moving on to make yet another thread on the same topic, if I’m going to give it attention, this is what it deserves. We don’t have to all be in agreement on everything here, but put some fucking effort in if you’re going to take a position that disagrees with detailed marxist analyses from multiple people, instead of trying to pick fights like this is a bar brawl.
I chose to not get involved in this thread, as I’ve said my view before. That being that in my opinion, Venezuela really doesn’t have the means to military resist the US, and if the leaders of the Bolivariam revolution believe this is the best strategy, I’ll hold my tongue.
I find it hard to believe that the Chavistas and the communes would be quite if they believe the revolution has been subverted. Though, frankly, I prefer to take the analysis of Latam Marxists, who seem to be divided, rather then single mindedly denounce Venezuela as if the counter revolution is fact.
Yet, it seems, the op has a bone to pick with my stance, as well as others who hold it, and if so that’s fine. I simply would rather not potentially contribute to regime change rhetoric as a westerner.
That’s an important core of it to me. The people of Venezuela will struggle with it and do their best from the position that they’re in. Our task is to support them, not to romanticize power struggle and get caught up in rhetoric that suggests dramatic, sacrificial conflict is the only way for them to make it through this. Whether the evidence leans more in the direction of “Venezuelan leadership is compromised” or “Venezuela is held hostage”, is less important than whether international communists are supporting Venezuela in its liberation, such as in its commune projects and in its general sovereignty. The 1st one is obsession over “correctness of worldview” which has its value, especially for the people who actually live there, but ultimately can be a big nothing if it only amounts to one feeling like they are more correct than others. The 2nd means that regardless of what is happening with the 1st, they are getting help from international comrades.
Even in basic rhetoric, international comrades can support them insofar as emphasizing their sovereignty, the need for the empire to leave them alone, as opposed to positioning it specifically as “the people and government vs. the empire” or “the people vs. the government and empire.”
As it is, it may well be that it is simply more complicated than “compromised or hostage” and that trying to reduce it to a binary is itself a mistake. Binaries are convenient but don’t tell us the precise class dynamics of a town, a province, a region. They don’t tell us where things are doing really well and where they are lagging far behind. They feed into good vs. evil narratives and forget how complicated it is to transition a society from one mode of production and power to another, much less try to do this under the shadow of a brutal, global empire. The “compromised” narrative would imply the issue is mainly the response to the empire itself, rather than the strangling material conditions attached to being under its shadow. And though it’s possible more militant, more scientific, more seasoned (I don’t know, I’m just coming up with markers for competence) leadership would navigate this better, we can’t assume that’s necessarily the issue just because the outcomes aren’t ideal. The revolution is the whole organized struggle in the context of material constraints, not only the most prominent names and their willpower.
Honestly, leftists around LATAM are pretty divided. Most of the people around here say the revolution has been betrayed, however some say it was a tactical retreat.
There is a Chavista professor from Venezuela (Luis Bonilla-Molina) that says that since Maduro there has been a re-alignment of PSUV from the working class social base to a more middle class and petty bourgeois strata. This plan to normalize relations with the US is being cooked since the Maduro period and what we see with Delcy is an acceleration of the process.
However, some Marxists/leftists with transit within the Maduro/Delcy government still defend the tactical retreat angle, like Breno Altman and Diego Ruzzarin himself. The thing is, Venezuela wants access to their dollar reserves and want investment in new oil fields and refineries. Even if US is getting privileged access to Venezuelan oil right now, they will only be able to take advantage of Venezuelan oil in the future. Since the crisis in the US is escalating, Venezuela could take advantage of this relief in sanctions and investments later on.
So, most looking from outside are seeing a full betrayal while some people with transit in Delcy’s government talks about retreat. It’s very hard to deal with incomplete information, but IMHO, I’m more aligned with the betrayal POV. I have never seen countries ceding to US imperialism (other than China and Vietnam, which did actual socialist revolutions) and flipping the tables afterwards.
This to me makes sense and goes beyond some dumb great man theory betrayal narrative. If you seriously consider the implications of a Rodriguez betrayal, Maduro doesn’t look good at all and even implicates him in the betrayal as well.
Rodriguez’s cabinet, which is just Maduro’s cabinet, goes along with the betrayal without a single protest resignation, which means Maduro either is a traitor as well, couldn’t find anyone else within the PSUV who wasn’t also a sellout, or is just really, really stupid. If he couldn’t find anyone else within the PSUV who wasn’t also a sellout, the change in social base would be a good explanation, which would once again implicate Maduro since the shift happened under his tenure. Even the armed communes not rising up to overthrow Rodriguez over her alleged betrayal also implicates Maduro. Either Maduro was incredibly, incredibly stupid and just gave the communes a bunch of shitty Mauser bolt-action rifles or he simply lied about arming the communes because he doesn’t want the communes to have the means of defending themselves from the Venezuelan military.
In a weird way, the insistence of pinning the betrayal on Rodriguez without implicating Maduro is just cope of not wanting to face that their previous support of Maduro as a principled and competent socialist was a mistake. They don’t want to write the apology card to the PCV who were sounding the horn that Maduro betrayed Chavismo and even boycotted the results because they thought Maduro stuffed ballots.
Personally, I’m 70% that this is Venezuela being forced into unequal treaties and 30% that the rot started with Maduro or possibly even Chavez himself.
Thank you for saying this. This user really grinds my gears.
China and Russia both sell natural resources to the US. Venezuela’s gold reserves were stolen, not given away.
And the revenue of those resources goes to China and Russia. Meanwhile this is what happens with the Venezuelan oil revenue 👇
Again, not the gotcha you think it is.
What is this supposed to prove?
That Venezuela is a not a sovereign country now.
Neither are Vietnam or Haiti but they got millions of people killed to get to the same place Venezuela is now.
You are right, why have revolutions or struggle. Ho Chi Minh should have listened to the astute minds here on this forum and surrendered immediately
That Venezuela is in the same economic position as occupied Iraq after the invasion, with their oil funds being controlled by America, and they will have to act in the same comprador manner due to this leverage (IE, Aligning with empire against anti-imperialists in their region - hence we see Venezuela turning against Cuba and towards USA/Israel just like we see the comprador Iraqi government aligning against Iran).
USA got the same outcome as the invasion of Iraq with a single kidnapping operation. Complete success, and they don’t try to hide it. Their glee is palpable, it led them into the Iran War because they were so high on their own easy victory. But unlike Venezuela, Iran has teeth and was seriously preparing its defenses against the imperialists.
So what?
So what? So what if a “socialist” nation turns Zionist and starts aligning with the global empire on geopolitics?
The most accurate sign of a state being comprador is random libs. If they suddenly start praising a state they had no idea existed a week ago, it’s over. But if they say “socialism bad because venezuela”, like they usually do, the revolution is intact.
I haven’t seen random libs praise venezuela.
Random libs don’t like Venezuela because they see it cozying up to Drumpf and victory for him, they love that Venezuela has been de facto annexed, they just hate that it wasn’t them that did it in a respectable “legal” way
These three countries also have nukes, which allows them to not be pressured easily by the US.
Cuba doesn’t have nukes. They are still protecting the revolution even after Venezuela stopped their oil export.
Look… I know that you are bitter about this as plenty of people of both sides of this struggle session. However, we should avoid wording as “Venezuela stopped” because it hides the context of what is happening. This also takes away the blame from the actual criminal.
As a reminder, the criminal US regime is and has been doing a naval and diplomatic siege on Cuba that is expanding even to medicine and food supplies. They have stolen plenty of oil tankers from Venezuela which made the oil deliveries stop even before the kidnapping of Maduro.
Please. Stop shifting the blame from the criminal empire into Venezuela.
Only moralizers play blame games. At the end of the day, the oil from Venezuela to Cuba was stopped. That’s all that matters
There is nothing moralizing about studying the situation and understanding the cause of it which is the criminal US regime oil siege and open piracy. People that understand the situation clearly will always reach solutions that actually impact positively with the Cubans.
Maliciously avoiding the discussion regarding criminal’s actions leaves you no better than the Miami fascist that keeps victim blaming the Cuban gov’t for the outages and deaths caused by the genocidal blockade. Same old same old fascist talking point of rinsing the hands of the USA.
So you admit the defeat is real but just have an issue with the framing (ie, who to blame, ie a blame game)? Because most of the panglossians here are just in complete denial that there is a defeat whatsoever. When the USSR was destroyed, that was partially the fault of the USA as well, but it was defeated nonetheless.
The USA, and imperialists in general, are an existing force that has to be combated and defeated. Saying “Socialism would have worked if it weren’t for the imperialists” is only true on a surface level, imperialism has to be defeated. Socialism cannot succeed until it does so. Our projects must take into account this existing force and overcome it. Seeing projects succumb to imperialists is painful, but it shows weaknesses in those projects that the imperialists were able to do so. We have to study past failures to overcome mistakes and weaknesses, but instead the defeatists here would rather just state that US Imperialism cannot be defeated and you can’t do anything at all but succumb. That Venezuela played this as well as possible, but still lost, because America cannot be overcome. There’s nothing to learn from, no mistakes to be corrected, the US just wins and what can you do? :)
It’s worrying because it shows you learned nothing and will advocate to do the same thing again. Around and around we go the revisionist carousel. So many socialist projects have collapsed or failed due to exactly this type of “strategic retreat” to the IMF but we refuse to examine why or push against the tendency.
My position on this is that this is a similar event to the Brest-Litovsk treaty where Lenin’s USSR where forced to give up valuable land and resource. To paint this picture clearly, the USSR ceded to Germany areas contained approximately 30% to 50% of Russia’s industrial base, population, and a vast majority of its coalfields. Just like that event, it is painful but not stifling that renders everyone from surpassing it.
As for your other two paragraphs, it seems to me that you already judged me with a lousy label, “defeatist”, and absurdities without actually reading what I have shared so far. First of all, I haven’t ever written that "US Imperialism cannot be defeated and you can’t do anything at all ". If your goal with responding to me is to paint an erroneous image about me then we can consider this conversation over. It is pointless to have unproductive conversations. We are going to waste each other’s time.
However, if you actually are looking to discuss what is materially available for Venezuela and Cuba to fight the current situation created by the US imperialist, then that will be a productive conversation that I am willing to have.
Please explain, without invoking hindsight, how you wouldn’t have screamed treason about Deng Xiaoping. And for that matter Mao-Nixon cooperation too.
Deng didn’t sell out his land and people to the Americans though. Why would I scream at him? Just like how I wouldn’t scream at Stalin for the M-R pact.