In what is another wise OK article, Andreína Chávez claims Venezuela’s communes "have become the backbone of the country’s political life." This and other similar claims are often made by the pro-Maduro left to present his government as somehow progressive or socialist. But they never present any data to prove this is the case. That is because it doesn't exist.
Instead, if we look at the Ministry of Communes website, we see that communal councils (which are the basic units of the comunes) are on the steep decline. Here are the numbers provided: * Since 2008, 49,183 communal councils have at some point been registered. The elected bodies of these have to be renewed at least every three years in a citzen's assembly in order to remain active. * The figures for communal councils whose authorities have been renewed in the past three years are as follows: 14,103 (2023), 9,046 (2024), 2,207 (up to Oct 24, 2025) The decline is self-evident * These numbers also reveals that only just over half of all communal councils (25,356) have been able to maintain the bare minimum of activity of holding a citizen's assembly once every three years in order to be classified as "active". How exactly "the communal movement is to expand production to every corner of Venezuela through economic communal circuits" when the government's own figures show the number of communal councils are crumbling is never explained. And as for communal circuits, again the ministries website shows that in the last three years, the following number have been established: 83 (2023), 7 (2024), 0 (2025) - hardly proof that communes "contribute largely to sovereign production" and are expanding production through said communal circuits. Of course none of this diminishes the need to oppose US imperialism. But opposing US imperialism should not require the left to accept and spread delusions and/or propaganda such as those told by Andreína. The reason such stories are told by Andreína internationally (though never within Venezuela, where they know no one would believe them) is obvious: in order for the government to hold onto what little support it continues to have from some leftist internationally, the pro-Maduro left wants to pretend that Venezuela is today moving towards some kind of socialist communal state, when in reality the Maduro government is crushing what little remains of basic bourgeois democratic rights in Venezuela. A final side note: It is impossible not to notice that every time we have an article about the communes in Venezuela, invariably they interview people from either the El Maizal and/or El Panal communes (perhaps one or two more). Given the thousands of communes, one would imagine it would be easy to find activists from other communes to interview. Instead, what we have are the equivalent of 21st potemkin communes, rolled out to present an image of something that clearly does not exist. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39940): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39940 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116992054/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
