Communal Councils

Venezuela: Politics of the commons — The open-ended history of communes

Reinaldo Iturriza looks back at the history of communes and how they are supposed to be more than "appendages" of state institutions.

Plan Pueblo a Pueblo food distribution activity at Mateo Liscano School, Quibor, Venezuela. Photo by Gerardo Rojas.

‘Where danger lies…’: The communal alternative in Venezuela

Chris Gilbert — To frame the ecological promise of Venezuela’s communal project, it is useful to consider some of its main features, and contrast them with the capital system.

Venezuela’s ‘21st Century Socialism’ and Marx, Lenin and Luxemburg on the role of cooperatives — A response to Marta Harnecker

By Stansfield SmithJuly 23, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Marta Harnecker, author of numerous books and articles advocating her vision of “21st Century Socialism” in Latin America recently published an article that was translated into English and appeared on Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal as “Venezuela After the Elections: What is to be done?” We should note first of all that the most important issue facing Venezuela after its May 20 presidential election is coping with the continually increasing US-Canada-European Union economic sanctions and their goal of overturning Chavismo in Venezuela. Of this Harnecker says little.

Venezuela: ¡Comuna o Nada!

By George Ciccariello-Maher March 23, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from ROAR Magazine with permission — Have you heard about Venezuela’s communes? Have you heard that there are hundreds of thousands of people in nearly 1,500 communes struggling to take control of their territories, their labor, and their lives? If you haven’t heard, you’re not the only one. As the mainstream media howls about economic crisis and authoritarianism, there is little mention of the grassroots revolutionaries who have always been the backbone of the Bolivarian process. This blindspot is reproduced by an international left whose dogmas and pieties creak and groan when confronted with a political process that doesn’t fit, in which the state, oil, and a uniformed soldier have all played key roles. It’s a sad testament to the state of the left that when we think of communes we are more likely to think of nine arrests in rural France than the ongoing efforts of these hundreds of thousands. But nowhere is communism pure, and the challenges Venezuela’s comuneros confront today are ones that we neglect at our own peril.

Venezuela: a turning point for Latin America?

Rightists’ election victory poses major threat to Venezuela’s advances: Can People’s Power save the Bolivarian Revolution?

Venezuela: Racism and the counter-revolution

Venezuela: Revolution brings substantial improvements to working-class neighbourhoods

Marta Harnecker: 'Chavez's legacy: with the people, building a socialist alternative to capitalism'

Thousands turn out in Caracas to remember Chavez.

By Marta Harnecker, translated by Yoshie Furuhashi for MRZine

March 6, 2013 -- La Segunda -- When Hugo Chávez triumphed in the 1998 presidential elections, the neoliberal capitalist model was already floundering. The choice then was whether to re-establish the neoliberal capitalist model -- clearly with some changes including greater concern for social issues, but still motivated by the same logic of profit seeking -- or to go ahead and try to build another model.

Venezuela: Eyewitness impressions of the Bolivarian revolution

October 25, 2012 -- Gree

Grassroots interviews from Venezuela: Developing the power of the community

Solidarity statements: 'A vital victory for Chavez, Venezuela and the Bolivarian revolution'