SlAvA UkrAnI!
this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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lol if you think Venezuela is not a dictatorship.
Venezuela is more democratic than western countries. Why is it that westerners demonize revolutionaries for not following the political process, and demonize electoralists for following the political process anyways? Because both are threats to capital.
...maybe because many westerners are worried about losing their democracy? I mean, when democracies Fall, they usually don't make room for better democracies, historically speaking.
Westerners in general don't have democracy, capitalists have democracy in the west. That's why the implementation of socialism is necessary, bringing democracy to the working classes and kicking out the capitalists.
Just because the majority of the people in a country disagree with you doesn't mean it's not a democracy. In many western countries there are (still) free and fair elections. This is verifiable. But democracy lives off of active participation, and there are people (read: fascists) who see democracy as a threat and do everything they can to sow FUD in order to reduce election participation.
That's literally exactly what that means you fucking moron
Elections are not indicative of democracy. The fact that capital is what determines which parties are viable, what candidates are allowed to run, and controls the entire economy means that elections in capitalism are more of a pressure valve than an actual way to get your voice across. Capitalism is incompatible with working class democracy.
How the hell are elections not indicative of democracy? I mean, just because you have elections doesn't mean you have a proper democracy (e.g. if there is only one party available), but how those elections are run says a lot. They're the core of any democracy. Democracy is, by definition, the people being ruled by the people. So you need some form of governance that is accountable to the people.
And capital is far from the only thing that determines if parties are viable. Yes, it plays too much of a role (especially in the US, but there are many western countries that aren't the US), but let's not pretend it's some mysterious being that decides everything. That ignores so many important factors.
Elections aren't democracy, as you said democracy is rule by the majority. Pluralism, the ability to choose between parties, isn't actually democracy either. A single party system can be more democratic if it's a consultative democracy and reflects the will of the majority, like how it works in China (though China obviously has many, many elections). That also doesn't mean pluralism is inherently antidemocratic, countries like the DPRK have multiple political parties with seats (even if the majority are held by the WPK), just that the will of the majority be upheld.
In capitalism, a tiny class of people controls the most essential means of production and distribution for society. The state represents their interests, and any parties that exist must represent them, or instead have strong grassroots support and work against the state (such as the Bolsheviks). Choosing between any number of capitalist parties doesn't mean workers are going to be represented. No western country represents the will of the majority.
Oh really? How do you hold the people in power accountable, then, if they're part of the only party that is allowed to exist (which that party itself decided, what a coincidence!)?
False, that is the result of capitalism when it goes unchecked, not the definition. And different countries have different levels of checks on capitalism.
Yeah, no, that's not the case. Otherwise explain to me how many western countries have leftist parties and even marxist-leninist parties. It's just not the will of the majority. Which leads me back to the point: your (or even my) satisfaction with the results don't measure how democratic a country is, despite the FUD spread by authoritarians and wannabe authoritarians to destabilize democracies by encouraging people to not participate.
Recall elections, consultative democracy, electing candidates, etc.
Capitalism cannot be "checked." Capitalism inevitably tends towards centralization of the essential means of production and distribution into fewer and fewer hands, but even in the earliest stages capitalists were far outnumbered by workers.
Very few leftist parties can get anything done in western countries because the media is largely controlled by capitalists, and the state itself serves capitalists. Taking PSL as an example, a great deal more people agree with their positions than the ~1% of the vote they receive, but they are either actually barred from running, or receive a tiny portion of the vote due to not wanting to spoil your vote, as well as a lack of positive publicity from media (or any publicity, for that matter).
And if PSL or any other socialist party ever becomes large enough to receive a substantial percentage of the vote, we'll see the mask of humanity fall from the face of capital. Not that that should stop us from organizing.
Yep, more naked repression will happen, but on the flip side size is also a strength. It protects people.
Yes, but who enforces the consulting and the usage of the information gathered from consulting? Without accountability, that's just fantasy and/or simping for authoritarianism. Let's not forget, every authoritarian leader, party or Organisation has its supporters who will claim they're not authoritarian.
Except when it doesn't. There are plenty of examples where countries that have capitalism based economies moved significantly to the left. Look at Nordic countries, for instance.
What about all the public broadcasters? There are many countries where they're quite strong. And as to parties getting things done, what about:
I could go on and on, but that's not the point. The point is that fascists are trying to weaken the electoral system because they know how effective it can be. Otherwise, they wouldn't give a fuck. And part of the way they do that is by downplaying its efficacy in order to wear it down and eventually get rid of it.
The people hold them accountable, through the mechanisms I described previously. "Authoritarianism" is not a thing, all states are tools of the ruling class to oppress the rest, they are necessarily uplifting one class and oppressing the rest. Socialist states have the working classes as the ruling class.
Nordic countries offer sizable concessions to their working classes because the Soviets were right next to them, and already offered better safety nets. These are concessions, to prevent revolution, and are funded through imperialism and neocolonialism. The working classes do not actually hold state power. These countries are still highly centralized, dominated by finance capital, and rely on the export of capital to the global south along with huge megacorps plundering the global south to persist as they are. To get rid of imperialism and keep safery nets requires socialism.
The state serves private interests in capitalism, this is why nationalizing within a capitalist economy is not socialism, and privatization within a socialist economy is not necessarily a restoration or capitalism. Public broadcasters are not representatives of the working classes, and you're again giving examples of concessions given largely because of working class organization, not through the "democratic processes."
Fascism is a result of the decay in capitalism and imperialism, and is where neocolonial methods are turned inwards. That's what causes fascism to rise.
So, free and fair elections. Well, now we're back to square one, and pretty much describing how Western democracies work.
Ah, yes, the soviet Union, definitely not imperialist. Sarcasm aside, they literally did not allow their population to leave. They killed people who dared to leave. That's not a sign of things going well, to mention just one.
Just because you repeat it a hundred times doesn't make it true. The very mechanisms you described are used (with varying degrees of success depending on how well the democracy functions) to keep the state accountable to the people.
So then why are these mostly things that parties campaigned on, got voted into power for and then implemented?
That's a very, very broad interpretation that many historians would disagree with. But let's say, for the sake of argument, that it's the case. How do these capitalist structures decay into imperialism then?
Nope. You're making a metaphysical error, focusing on similar structures while ignoring the entirely different context, the class character of the state. The mechanisms of elections exist within a definite social context, and in the case of capitalism, capitalists definitionally hold power over the media, production itself, and more to gain what they want. The state exists to serve the ruling class.
The Soviet Union was not imperialist, correct.
The USSR had steady and consistent economic growth, and provided free, high quality education and healthcare, full employment, cheap or free housing, and fantastic infrastructure and city planning that still lasts to this day despite capitalism neglecting it. This rapid development resulted in dramatic democratization of society, reduced disparity, doubling of life expectancy, tripling of functional literacy rates to 99.9%, and much more. Living in the 1930s famine would not have been good, but it was the last major famine outside of wartime because the soviets ended famine in their countries.
Literacy rates, societal guarantees in the 1936 constitution, reports on the healthcare system over time, and more are good sources for these claims.
The USSR brought dramatic democratization to society. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.
When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski's Human Rights in the Soviet Union.
The truth, when judged based on historical evidence and contextualization, is that socialism was the best thing to happen to Russia in the last few centuries, and its absence has been devastating.
Death rates spiked:
And wealth disparity skyrocketed alongside the newly impoverished majority:
Capitalism brought with it skyrocketing poverty rates, drug abuse, prostitution, homelessness, crime rates, and lowered life expectancy. An estimated 7 million people died due to the dissolution of socialism and reintroduction of capitalism, and this is why the large majority of post-soviet citizens regret its fall. A return to socialism is the only path forward for the post-soviet countries. A lot of Eastern European countries were swarmed with western capital during the destruction of socialism, which is what temporarily caused the rise of the far-right in these countries, but in time their problems will no longer be able to be ignored.
This isn't true, though. Concessions come from organized resistance, at the consent of the ruling class. Capitalists do not fear the state, the state serves them. What the people actually want is not what the state does, what happens is the state fulfills the will of the ruling classes and tosses the crumbs they deem necessary to keep the populace from outright revolting. This is why organization gains concessions, not the bourgeois democratic structure.
I believe you mean fascism, not imperialism, so correct me if I'm answering the wrong question. The decay into fascism generally happens when the state begins nakedly applying colonial methods to the domestic population. In the US, for example, this involves mass incarceration of ethnic minorities, attacks on queer people, mass deportations, and the attack on left wing organizations. In Germany, it involved the brown shirts killing communists, and rounding up Jews, Slavs, queer people, disabled people, and mass murdering them.
Voting doesn't stop this. Hitler was handed power, and the US has been fascist no matter which party is in control. Capitalists deem it necessary due to drops in imperialist extraction, and a need to respond to crisis that stands to upset their rule. It's like a fever that kills off anything risking the system.
The electorate through their votes at the town/city and county levels, participation in unions and other groups like ethnic advocacy groups etc, and participation in the CPPCC, and protests directed over over real issues instead of broad colour revolution tier nonsense, to name a few avenues.
May have moved left at home (if you ignore the rising austerity, racism and general shifting right they are experiencing alongside the rest of Europe) but they are more than happy to join in imperialism and neocolonialism abroad to finance what little compromises remain.
Could you please define this. As it stands authoritarian is the thought terminating cliche of choice for the unintelligent and uneducated to avoid having to investigate and reckon with the questions of substance such as class content of the state, state form, satisfaction of the people with the government etc.
Normally I don't respond to low level comments like this, but the intellectual laziness here is mind boggling. Dictionaries exist for a reason.
"No, I can't define it"
-Wikipedia
-Britannica
-Cambridge dictionary
-Merriam-Webster
So which definition did you mean? Or did you have your own definition? Or is it possible that you now can see how it is such a broadly defined term as to be largely meaningless outside of thought terminating cliche? You incredibly smug shithead.
Capitalism is not some mysterious being, its a phenomenon and it is fundamentally incompatible with democracy. If the workplace was democratized then you would not have capitalism.
They literally had an election and it was a very close run thing we're the US backed puppet nearly won.
But yeah, sure, it's a dictatorship, whatever...
The elección was rigged and there even was mathematical evidence of it. That's ignoring that Maduro had like 8 vote options all for himself.
Nice source. Damn, look at those funders. The Goldman Sachs philanthropy fund 🤣
https://www.dejusticia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/MEMORIA-ECONOMICA-830131150-2024.pdf
Did you take any to look at the mathematical argument being done? Ad hominems are usually taken as bad faith in academics, and this is an académico argument.
It was a big a notice on the math world in the zone, no surprise it was being reported a lot. In any case, to satisfy your and hominem, here's an article published in a mid-left Colombian newsletter https://www.elespectador.com/opinion/columnistas/hector-abad-faciolince/democracia-totalitaria-y-matematicas/
Even Terrence Tao reported on the issue: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/what-are-the-odds-ii-the-venezuelan-presidential-election/
If you have mathematical arguments against Terrence's, I would love to read them.
An ad-hominem is when I attack you or your character. I pointed out that your source is likely extremely biased.
And for the mathematical argument, the numbers he's analysing don't even match the reported votes in this other source that is highly critical of Maduro.
https://www.freiheit.org/venezuela-electoral-fraudster-president-venezuela
The reason for the discrepancy is the numbers are from when the CNE first oficially declared Maduro the winner of the elections. The numbers Terrence used are given by CNE's president himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1v1y1_8AKY.
The source you provided uses the last numbers given by the CNE.
If the elections were rigged, I'd prefer that to having a filthy imperialist gringo bootlicking politician in office, anything the PSUV has to offer is way better for the people in Latam. I don't give two fucks about satisfying your Western idea/ideal of whatever putrid thing you think democracy is. What an honour that the likes of you don't think this is a democracy.
If you think a rigged election is democracy, I don't thiink I have anything else to say.
Have a good day, gringo.
gringo me decis jajajjaja anda a lavarte el orto chetito
Actúas como gringo fanático romedio.
Lol you still believe what the Epstein Burger Reich tells you about other countries, that's fucking embarassing
Ah yes, a dictatorship where American puppets can b¡tch and moan about not letting the US ravage their countries can partake in elections.
Just stop consuming the Eagle Burger Institute slop my dude.
True.. thankfully the glorious US bombed those undemocratic dictator fishing ships and invaded their country to righteously kidnap their undemocratically un-elected president and his heinous wife while killing people.
Now it gets to be a true democracy! Where their country starts going through liberalization and worsening social nets as their future is sold off to private sectors. Truly no longer a dictatorship.
2 bads don't make 1 good.
The two bads you're lumping together are mass murder and "a disreputable source didn't like how you ran that election"
Actual harm versus theoretical harm at some point in the future to a non material concept
You're deranged
And that's not even getting into the fact that the non-harm you elevate was used as justification to commit the mass murders you diminish.
Psycho.
I was pointing out the logical fallace in claiming Venezuela is not a dictotarship just because US is a horrible country.
Oh okay so you were just ignoring how the outside world is the context for this conversation.
So you're just a fundamentally dishonest and unserious person. And you're actively defending the side the murders in the hundreds while attacking the side getting murdered.
The US has done a whole lot more than 1 fucking bad
I know. What's your point? I'm not claiming US is a utopia, or have done no harm, I'm not even doing any claim about US. My claim is Venezuela is a dictatorship, and I think arguing "It is not, because US bad" is not a valid refutation to my claim.
Have any proof for that claim? Or honestly even a proper analysis of the Venezuelan system and in what ways you believe it doesn't serve the people/the people aren't in control?
Maduro is so incompetent he blundered and allowed mathematical evidence of the past elections being rigged. Here's an extensive analysis of that by Terrence Tao: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/what-are-the-odds-ii-the-venezuelan-presidential-election/
Usa rigs almost every election in the world. Collect some evidence about this too, or you're just an imperialist propagandist (and kidnapper-bootlicker).
My point is you're a fucking moron, obviously
What does this post have to do with Venezuela
First panel of the meme is about Venezuela.