I want us to grasp what Venezuela means to the world, and for us as ML's specifically. This is gonna be a long post and there's a lot to be said, but it ain't an effortpost with data, numbers and all the bells and whistles. I hope it serves as a basis for our understanding of Venezuela.
Maduro is not the candidate of the PSUV alone, the Gran Polo Patriótico exists, and is the greatest formation of leftist parties in Venezuela. That unified front is led by the PSUV as its vanguard. By assuming that role, the PSUV is creating the alternative model to the liberal framework that first elected Chávez back in 1998. That is what is being constructed in Venezuela, with much hardship and resistance from reaction. We mustn't forget that it's been 25yrs, a quarter of a century, and fascists have not rested a single day in attempting to revert Venezuela back to the 4th Republic, when oligarchs controlled everything and ''sold'' oil to the US for a pittance in order to live like aristocrats while the people rotted in despair. It was that despair they revolted against during the famous Caracazo in 1989, which is by many considered the beginning of this saga.
I first began following Venezuela back in 2016 during the guarimbas. I was watching such a clear all out assault against my neighbor that I got angry, too. I'm from PR, so we are subsumed in western propaganda and ass-takes like everyone else. Since I speak Spanish, I can listen to what Chavistas are saying and then compare their narrative to the one on TV and social media. You guys ever been told by libs that you gotta ''listen to both sides''? Well, that's what I did, I put their bullshit to the test, something they never do.
That's when my journey began, watching escuálidos like rats in a lab, learning how the right operates, following Chavista sources and adapting that to what I already knew as an ML, and which I have expressed in some comments when I talk about bothsiders and shit like that. My mind is as clear and serene as the Titicaca. When I say something it's because I've reflected on it for some time and introspected and reasoned it, and thought it out to its consequences. This is why I laugh at righties acting all ''rational'', because they haven't done a lick of introspection. If they did, some of them should have woken up by now to how the Venezuelan opposition has lied to them about everything for 25yrs. But that, my beautiful comrades, takes cojones, and that's something the right doesn't have. It doesn't take balls to repeat what you heard on TV or saw on social media, it takes balls to stand against it. As for our beautiful female comrades, I'm not leaving you out, you also have more cojones than any rightie ever will. That's one of the things I most love about Venezuela, that Chavismo has lifted women up immensely and placed them in pivotal positions. They lead most CLAPs, most UBCH's, Comunas, and I'm talking in the 60-80% range of their leadership, they're the most vocal, the most organized and the most politicized. This is why those shitty takes from ''leftists'' or so-called ''feminists'', that try to pin machismo crap on Chavistas doesn't fly.
Anyway, you see what I meant when I said there is a lot to say about Venezuela? I want to address why I entitled this the way I did. We know that socialism will transition from capitalism and the material conditions, along with the superstructure of its respective society, will be adapted to its birth. Kamala's mom was right, we can't look at Venezuela as if it fell from a coconut tree. Far from it. Venezuela gave birth to Simón Bolívar, the Liberator, and his ideas were pretty proto-socialist. He spoke of the maximum of happiness possible as the goal, he was aware even back then, that the US was destined to plague the Americas with misery in the name of freedom and democracy. He was an anti-imperialist, one of the first in history. He led his armies, filled with freed slaves, indigenous people, women, mestizos, criollos, armed with weapons from Haiti, our eldest sister, and went off liberating most of South America. For him la Patria, wasn't just Venezuela, it was Latinamerica, including the Caribbean. That spirit is part of the Bolivarian Revolution. The desire to conform a new pole that can stand against the West.
When we reflect back on the historical figures that have led revolutionary processes, we will find that all of them, contributed and developed our theory with the knowledge and tools they had, and within the context of their historical times. Lenin, Stalin, and Mao are the most renowned, but we in our region have Fidel and Chávez, not forgetting about José Martí nor Bolívar. Fun fact, Martí was a Bolivarian, meaning he believed in La Patria Grande, and was an anti-imperialist. These were the great synthesists. The people who adapted our theory to their own conditions and led successful revolutions.
I wish more of you knew Spanish just so you could listen to Chávez. That's all you gotta do, sit down, and watch some vids from Chávez, or follow Con El Mazo Dando to watch some vids they use there from him. Whenever he spoke, you could tell you were listening to someone who read his theory, and who synthesized the experiences from other revolutions and his own. A little known fact about Chávez is that he was talking about what he called at first, the pluripolar world, back like a decade ago. Venezuela is the first revolution that didn't come in with a bang. But they're clear, the PSUV might not strut about with their ML cred, and in praxis they still allow the trappings of a liberal democracy, but they know what the socdems did back in WW2 and reject it. They speak ill of social democracy and reform, and seek to create what they call ''la democracia participativa y protagónica'', they want the people engaged at the roots, deciding what gets done, and they do so everyday. Venezuela isn't top down, the PSUV is there, in every street, barrio and Commune, working along with people.
They have various Misiones that address the needs of the population, including Gran Misión Vivienda, which has built as of now, around 5.2m units of free housing. Despite the coercive unilateral measures (sanctions), their projects have continued and today Venezuela is the highest growing economy in our region, because they finally realized: you can't sanction what we produce for ourselves and the countries we still trade with, like China, Russia, Iran, Turkiye and many others. Venezuela is shifting to a productive economy, an economy that produces food, which used to be 80% imported, and is now almost 100% produced there, that isn't dependent on oil revenue, that produces replacements for their own industries and I think, because I've seen reunions between CPC officials and the PSUV, that they're learning from our big sis, China. Since Maduro was reelected I think soon Venezuela will officially join the BRICS+.
I want you all to have a better understanding of the socialist process in Venezuela. It's different, it has faced challenges for 25yrs, not mentioning the problems already there from the 4th Republic. But it is an insult to dismiss Venezuela as some ''socdem'' process like what is attempted in Brasil. Venezuela has an army that reads theory. I'm not joking. The FANB reads theory and follows the doctrine of the Bolivarian Revolution, meaning it is profoundly socialist and anti-imperialist. There is a 5m worth militia throughout the country, too, that also reads theory. You can go to a plaza anywhere in Venezuela, say la Guaira, and talk to a doñita and she will school you on socialism. The people of Venezuela are some of the most conscious and based I have ever heard. That is of course, among Chavistas, if you listen to an escuálido, it's like listening to your average gusano.
There are many ML's around the world that like me, support Venezuela because we've seen for ourselves that the ingredients are there, that there is a project being built which is unafraid to talk about a transition to socialism. If all this isn't AES, I dunno what the fuck we're talking about. I won't doubt their own words, their own actions, because I've seen what they've done and what they've gone through, and that's enough for me to pin my hopes on Venezuela's success as a vanguard for my region of Latinamerica, and this is why it's so important that we understand it better.
*I am subscribed to Nicolás Maduro, La Hojilla TV Con Mario Silva, Transmisión En Vivo, Telesurtv, ALBA-TCP and Venezuela News. This is where I've gotten most of my knowledge from, so I invite Spanish speaking comrades to subscribe to those, and for our English speaking ones, Misión Verdad, Geopolitical Economy Report, Venezuelanalysis, International Manifesto Group, and Orinoco Tribune are good sources.