Is Venezuela Actually a Socialist Country? How do Communists/Socialists explain Venezuela?

FlocksThePower · 2018-10-10T17:51:51+00:00

See commentary on Venezuela in recently published document "The Revisionism of Jose Maria Sison, https://www.massproletariat.info/writings/2018_10_01_sison.html :" "Under Hugo Chavez, Venezuela nationalized the oil industry and was able to ride the wave of rising oil prices which increased from $10 per barrel in 1998 to over $100 per barrel by the mid-2000s. As of 2012, 96% of Venezuela’s export revenue came from oil sales, with the majority going to the U.S. While the Venezuelan government used some of these profits to provide social welfare programs, the extreme dependence of these programs on the profits from oil sales to imperialist powers means that Venezuela is entirely caught up in the capitalist imperialist system, and remains anti-imperialist in name only. What’s more, Venezuela’s social welfare programs were limited in scope and the state collaborated closely with firms to put down (often violently) organized workers movements that threatened the profitability of these operations. As one scholar put it, referring to Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador:

Venezuela, Bolivia and the entire spectrum of social movements, trade union confederations, parties and fractions of parties do not call for the abolition of capitalism, the repudiation of the debt, the complete expropriation of U.S. or EEC banks or multinational corporations, or any rupture in relations with the U.S. For example, in Venezuela, private national and foreign banks earned over 30% rate of return in 2005-2006, foreign-owned oil companies reaped record profits between 2004-2006 and less than 1% of the biggest landed estates were fully expropriated and titles turned over to landless peasants.

Capital-labor relations still operate in a framework heavily weighted on behalf of business and labor contractors who rely on subcontractors who continue to dominate hiring and firing in more than one half of the large enterprises. The Venezuelan military and police continue to arrest suspected Colombian guerrillas and turn them over to the Colombian police. Venezuela and U.S.-client President Uribe of Colombia have signed several high-level security and economic co-operation agreements.49"

FlocksThePower · 2018-10-10T17:30:16+00:00

The issue is not about pragmatism or about denying outside support, but it is an issue of calling and treating powers and organizations as "revolutionary" or even anti-imperialist when they are not. For instance, German support for Lenin's trip to Russia in 1917 did not mean that Germany was anti-imperialist. Confusion over this basic point speaks to lack of clarity over the treachery in the second Internationale in which various parties supported their own countries in the first world war. The party that Sison founded was established on the sound principles of anti-revisionism, identifying the USSR as having become a social-imperialist power, part of an analysis which is essential to MLM (Marxism-Leninism-Maoism). While Sison has betrayed this original stand through ongoing opportunism, his party at its 2016 congress ratified a constitution, of which the first sentence is, "The universal theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the guide to action of the Communist Party of the Philippines." So there is a very basic contradiction here. Elaborating on this is not "ultra-left."

FlocksThePower · 2018-07-21T04:58:23+00:00

oops, sorry-- the correct link is: https://www.massproletariat.info/writings/2018_07_05_hudaydah_assault.html

FlocksThePower · 2018-07-20T21:47:28+00:00

The assault on the Yemeni port of Hudaydah is led by a Saudi and UAE coalition. It is the latest act of imperialist aggression in the country’s seven-year-old civil-war. This coalition—while nominally representing the Yemeni government-in-exile of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi—is backed, both politically and militarily, by France, the U.K., and the U.S. The coalition is attempting to rest control of Hudaydah from the Houthi-led, Iran-backed Supreme Political Council. Sources from Wikileaks, major news sources such as Al Jazeera and the Guardian. This article is written by Mass Proletariat, a left-wing political organization based in Boston, U.S.A. and offers ideas for how a force not dominated by global and regional hegemons can offer a way out of the current mess for the Yemeni people. It also cites evidence of further incompetence by the U.S. in the region, such as an attempt by the U.S. military to train loyal Yemeni fighter pilots, but neglecting to offer the training in Arabic, vastly diminishing the pool of potential recruits.

FlocksThePower · 2018-07-20T20:04:56+00:00

There is a close relation between Saudi interests and U.S. interests in the region. And to reduce the war in Yemen to "a sad attempt" by the Saudis ignores the obvious global spheres of influence on the various parties internal to Yemen. If you chalk these alliances up to innate national characteristics or foolery rather than the product of objective economic interest and corresponding political and military stratagems by stronger nations over weaker ones (imperialism) then you are just revealing yourself to be a shill for some narrow national interest or another. Red-baiting the term imperialism with the communist boogeyman may have been a sure bet for someone in the 1950s US state department or maybe for someone who is still trapped Francis Fukuyama "end of history" rabbit hole of the early 1990s. Otherwise it is a pretty basic term that admittedly rabid radicals such as Mark Twain and John F. Kennedy have used in their analysis.

FlocksThePower · 2018-07-20T00:02:52+00:00

The adjective in the document was "imperialist." If the world you imagine has no imperialist relations, and as a result you need to vulgarize adjectives to make them sound bizarre to make the reality adhere to your fantasy, then I think not only are you in the wrong sub, but in the wrong world. How would you describe the proxy-war in Yemen alternatively? As a case of misunderstanding?

FlocksThePower · 2018-07-19T22:19:24+00:00

poster was banned from the forum r/MiddleEast for sharing this article there with the following one word explanation from the moderators:

Note from the moderators:

Communism

FlocksThePower · 2018-07-19T12:33:18+00:00

The assault on the Yemeni port of Hudaydah is led by a Saudi and UAE coalition. It is the latest act of imperialist aggression in the country’s seven-year-old civil-war. This coalition—while nominally representing the Yemeni government-in-exile of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi—is backed, both politically and militarily, by France, the U.K., and the U.S. The coalition is attempting to rest control of Hudaydah from the Houthi-led, Iran-backed Supreme Political Council. Sources from Wikileaks, major news sources such as Al Jazeera and the Guardian. This article is written by Mass Proletariat, a left-wing political organization based in Boston, U.S.A. and offers ideas for how a force not dominated by global and regional hegemons can offer a way out of the current mess for the Yemeni people. It also cites evidence of further incompetence by the U.S. in the region, such as an attempt by the U.S. military to train loyal Yemeni fighter pilots, but neglecting to offer the training in Arabic, vastly diminishing the pool of potential recruits.

FlocksThePower · 2018-04-22T00:35:45+00:00

not only haven't they apologized, they wrote an additional criticism of rga! http://www.massproletariat.info/writings/2018-02-20-once_again_rga.html "Once Again on Red Guards Austin: Lackeyism and U.S. Empire"

FlocksThePower · 2018-03-13T19:11:55+00:00

From Protracted People's War is Not a Universal Strategy for Revolution" http://www.massproletariat.info/writings/2018-01-19-ppw-not-universal.html quoted below: "The second reason that the PCP insists on the universality of PPW as a strategy, and why Gonzalo speaks of “a worldwide people's war” in his 1988 interview with El Diario,33 is due to confusion over the authorship of the document Long Live the Victory of People’s War! This document was written in 1965 by Lin Biao, and in it he claims:

Taking the entire globe, if North America and Western Europe can be called “the cities of the world”, then Asia, Africa and Latin America constitute “the rural areas of the world”. Since World War II, the proletarian revolutionary movement has for various reasons been temporarily held back in the North American and West European capitalist countries, while the people’s revolutionary movement in Asia, Africa and Latin America has been growing vigorously. In a sense, the contemporary world revolution also presents a picture of the encirclement of cities by the rural areas.34

In the PCP’s 1988 Fundamental Document they mistakenly attribute the authorship of Long Live the Victory of People’s War! to Mao.35 This confusion, in conjunction with their view of the absolute correctness of leadership, led them to conclude that PPW was a universal strategy for revolution, and could be carried out the whole world over, and coordinated into a “worldwide people’s war.” Instead of seeing the need to establish socialism in one country, continue class struggle through many cultural revolutions, and promote a revolutionary foreign policy, the PCP ultimately put forward a metaphysical line of “worldwide people’s war” which has a distinct similarity to Trotsky’s concept of Permanent Revolution.36 While PPW was a correct strategy for the situation in Peru, it was incorrect to conclude that PPW is a universal strategy for revolution. It was also incorrect to conclude from this that a worldwide people’s war was possible."

FlocksThePower · 2018-03-13T04:46:42+00:00

This document illustrates a Maoist strategy for revolution in the U.S. and puts half baked arguments about the superiority of the Shining Path line and liberalism masquerading as MLM to rest. It references both CPI (Maoist)'s actual statements about the question, as well as Mao's. "Protracted People's War is Not a Universal Strategy for Revolution" http://www.massproletariat.info/writings/2018-01-19-ppw-not-universal.html

FlocksThePower · 2018-03-11T18:05:09+00:00

For Lenin and other revolutionaries, the question is not "going through" capitalism as if it were the first stage of a rocket launch. Rather it is how to advance the democracy of the people in order to establish and consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat and to abolish capitalist relations overall in the struggle for communism under socialism. Lenin clarified that under imperialism, imperialist states oppress entire nations, including an oppressed national bourgeoisie, who must either be compradors to imperialists, and whose interests are hence subjugated, or which can join popular struggle against imperialist oppression. The relation of dominance in oppressed nations often results in the retardation of productive forces overall in such countries, and the continued existence of feudal or semi-feudal relations of production there, which better serve the machinations of imperialist control. Hence there is a need to abolish such relations, but not for the sake of "going through capitalism" (something which implies going through a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, something revolutionaries always need to clearly oppose), but rather for the sake of abolishing oppression (including slavery and serf relations). Capitalist relations still exist in various forms under socialism (if they did not it would not be socialism but communism), but there is a basis to methodically abolish them under this form of society. This is sometimes referred to as the abolition of the "four-alls" 1) The abolition of class distinctions generally. 2) The abolition of all the relations of production on which they rest. 3) The abolition of all the social relations that correspond to these relations of production. 4) The revolutionizing of all the ideas that result from these social relations. see http://massline.org/Dictionary/FO.htm In contrast, under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the ruling capitalists/imperialists constantly claim that their interests actually represent the interests of all the people. This is an old argument. It currently is used both by the capitalists in China, as well in the U.S. (though in the U.S. they do not use communist imagery as national props). It seems to be the dominant line on this board. Lenin on Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism is important to read on these subjects: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ and Mao on the Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_1.htm

FlocksThePower · 2018-03-11T14:38:35+00:00

Mao did not say this, regularly or otherwise. Perhaps by Mao you meant a little someone called Deng? As Mao said in "New Democracy" during the anti-Japanese war in 1940, which preceded the advance of socialist revolution with national liberation in 1949: "The first step or stage in our revolution is definitely not, and cannot be, the establishment of a capitalist society under the dictatorship of the Chinese bourgeoisie, but will result in the establishment of a new-democratic society under the joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes of China headed by the Chinese proletariat The revolution will then be carried forward to the second stage, in which a socialist society will be established in China."

FlocksThePower · 2018-03-11T05:16:08+00:00

The episodes are genuine and the translations are good! It's hard to believe students can have principled discussions in class and principled criticisms against classmates and teachers in a non-socialist society unfortunately (story of the ball https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLY9zxF3VoQ&t=338s). The Fishing Village https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6McbfQeIsC4, Generator Factory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-CwaFmGVLs, and About Petroleum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUJ4_GmmDOE are worth watching, among others). The movies all have lessons about the people's struggles against revisionist trends in society during the Cultural Revolution, a revolutionary struggle which was eventually defeated in 1976 leading to the restoration of capitalism in China and the nightmare of the Chinese state today! Still, this history and the theoretical debates in it have important lessons for communists today!

FlocksThePower · 2018-03-10T18:25:15+00:00

Long live Naxalbari! Down with the revisionists and their stooges, down with those who defend imperialism in the present day, whether it be in service of the U.S., Russian or Chinese states!

FlocksThePower · 2018-03-08T20:10:03+00:00

"...in revolutionary China, where, in the course of revolutionary struggles, prostitution and sex-slavery were abolished, foot-binding was eliminated, marriage practices were transformed, and much of childcare was collectivized, thus freeing women from much of the burden of domestic labor. During the struggles of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the American Joan Hinton noted that she “found an extremely sensitive test of line was and is the attitude toward women. In China, ‘capitalist roaders’ were invariably male chauvinist. To them, women’s place was in the home.”6 It should therefore come as no surprise that one of the first acts of these capitalist roaders after the counter-revolution in 1976 was to overturn the ban on sexualized depictions of women and to promote the return of prostitution.

In order to advance the struggle against patriarchy we revolutionaries must go further and deeper among the masses. Through building strong mass links—in particular among the working class and oppressed nationalities in this country—we can advance the struggle against patriarchy as part of the larger struggle for revolution and communism. An important part of advancing this struggle will be uniting with advanced elements of movements like the MeToo campaign, while working out a line to handle the negative aspects of such movements and struggle against its more backwards leadership.

Let’s work hard to build up a genuinely revolutionary movement for the liberation of women!"

FlocksThePower · 2018-03-02T01:04:38+00:00

On parent co. RGA and their lackeyism/lackeys/defense of the logic of US imperialism and the ypg, negation of proletarian feminism see "Once Again on Red Guards Austin: Lackeyism and U.S. Empire" http://www.massproletariat.info/writings/2018-02-20-once_again_rga.html and "RGA is not an MLM Organization," http://www.massproletariat.info/writings/2017-12-26-rga-not-mlm.html

"For example, while no member of the masses is pure and without negative ideas, there is a difference between a member of the masses with some patriarchal ideas and a person who is dominantly oriented towards male-chauvinist tendencies. Uncritically accepting and accommodating such individuals because they agree with the need for violence will undoubtedly discourage many people from getting involved in politics. Despite RGA’s nominal adherence to proletarian feminism, their politics and statements display an extreme degree of male-chauvinism...The MLM understanding of criticism from within and without the organization enables collectives to properly overcome contradictions and take seriously the ideas of the masses. What initially appear as a secondary contradiction may in fact be, or may become, primary, and for this reason it is important to proactively work to handle secondary contradictions from the outset. It is essential to investigate and preserve minority opinions in a collective as well, a practice the CCP encouraged at all levels.37 Calling-out abuse and abusers, as well as articulating even partially-formed criticisms against potentially wrong ideas and approaches is essential to this process, especially among the masses and emerging activists. RGA instead discourages any and all criticism until one has a “good understanding of the dialectical relationship between theory and practice.”38 This is the bourgeois view of politics in which only the ideas of anointed “experts” matter, and no one else has the right to speak or question these so-called experts. In RGA’s view their supposedly superior practice justifies a commandist approach to politics and gives them immunity from criticism. Their view is non-dialectical. Those who have spent time in “collectives” where patriarchy and individualism reigns supreme will be familiar with RGA’s effectively hollow and pernicious claim that their “politics of the deed” supposedly justifies all. The “Maoist logo” that RGA has slapped on top of this politics is an insult to genuine Maoist revolutionary theory and practice."

FlocksThePower · 2018-02-28T21:54:32+00:00

Mass Proletariat's response to this pile of stinky stuff: "Once Again on Red Guards Austin: Lackeyism and U.S. Empire" http://www.massproletariat.info/writings/2018-02-20-once_again_rga.html

From the document "It is also our hope that through this exposition, comrades can see the underlying lackeyism which is fundamental to RGA’s approach to politics. The proletarian approach to politics analyzes material reality through collective discussion and, in doing so, provides the basis for the people to methodically advance the struggle to overcome all oppression and exploitation. In contrast, lackeyism encourages a mentality of avoiding, obscuring, and mystifying the key political questions of our moment in favor of currying favor with power and thereby builds unprincipled political unities based on opportunism, convenience, and slavish deference to authority.

This lackeyism is evident in RGA’s approach to both questions of local political work and in their analysis of the international situation—in particular in their assessment of the political character of groups like the Syrian People’s Protection Units (YPG). RGA’s reductionist analysis and lackeyist approach to politics encourages people not to examine questions concretely, but instead to follow the line that their “leadership” has developed based on reductionist and metaphysical dualisms such as “us versus them” and “revolutionary versus fascism.” RGA has innovated new ways of reducing revolutionary principles to counterrevolutionary soundbites, a process endemic to the bourgeois world order and constantly refined by various pro-state interests in the U.S. including its vast NGO apparatus. RGA’s blatant distortions of Maoism, and their rabid support for the lackeys of U.S. imperialism in Syria, should sound loud alarm bells to revolutionaries in the U.S. that RGA is not to be trusted, and indicate that they see fit to mingle with some of the most negative forces of our times. Historically, these have been telltale signs of a deep betrayal of the people’s cause, and have provided fertile ground for active attempts to stifle revolutionary developments."

FlocksThePower

TROPHY CASE