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Venezuela's Rodriguez promises elections in transition to 'full democracy' (www.reuters.com)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Champoloo@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net

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Rodriguez gives no date for vote despite pledging elections at UN

This is completely in line with the previous PSUV position. It's not even a concession. They have always maintained that they have free and fair elections. She is the rightful legal successor to Maduro, and she is promising to uphold the existing democratic norms of her country. That she isn't taking an outwardly hostile tone towards the nation which enjoys total military superiority over them during a diplomatic mission at the UN may come across as a betrayal to certain ultra-leftists in the US, but it would seem that the Chavistas in Venezuela do not share the same view.

A Lemmygrad comrade

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[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 56 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

"Venezuela has initiated a process of democratic transformation for its rebirth, an orderly, institutional, and verifiable process, to build a country that is freer for all, more prosperous, and more reconciled with itself," said ⁠Rodriguez.

Fucking traitorous animal is selling the country out to the bougies. This is the end of Chavismo, there is no other way to characterise what she is saying here. She certainly doesn't mean that the proletariat will be freer, she means the country will be freer for the bougies.

[–] Champoloo@hexbear.net 20 points 1 week ago (10 children)

This is completely in line with the previous PSUV position. It's not even a concession. They have always maintained that they have free and fair elections. She is the rightful legal successor to Maduro, and she is promising to uphold the existing democratic norms of her country. That she isn't taking an outwardly hostile tone towards the nation which enjoys total military superiority over them during a diplomatic mission at the UN may come across as a betrayal to certain ultra-leftists in the US, but it would seem that the Chavistas in Venezuela do not share the same view.

From Lemmygrad

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 32 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Anyone believing this nonsense still is genuinely fucking coping. Delcy is a rat handing over the country's resources to the US and laying the foundations for liberalism to take over the country and undo everything socialism has achieved.

[–] starkillerfish@hexbear.net 36 points 1 week ago (5 children)

kind of disgusting to call a global south socialist leader a "rat" for making concessions at gunpoint. i guess fuck lenin for brest-litovsk and nep, selling out to the germans

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 45 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Personally, I try to view the Chavistas themselves, who the commune movement is supporting, and who is most actively opposing Delcy Rodriguez as my way of viewing the situation. I begin with the class struggle as it actively exists in Venezuela, with the PSUV in charge of what has never been a consolidated revolution. Class struggle is incredibly sharp in Venezuela, with a powerful bourgeoisie that at the moment stands in opposition to the PSUV, while the PSUV still holds support on the ground from the commune movement.

This, to me, spells the actions of the PSUV post-kidnapping as a survival tactic and strategic retreat to hopefully prevent a ground invasion. I do not have a clear-sighted view, but I do have more trust in the fact that on the ground, the commune movement supports the PSUV, while the bourgeoisie still opposes the PSUV. If the PSUV collapses and/or alienates the communes, then we will know that this strategic retreat was incorrect. For now, that moment is not here.

Venezuela is not socialist. It never has established a dictatorship of the proletariat. What it has is a progressive party and an incomplete revolution, one that at the moment most lives on in the commune movement. The PSUV plays a progressive role as long as it continues to have connection with that commune movement and help progress it, essentially forming dual power. This is what makes the Chavista revolution so unique, it's a combination of a reformist party needing to actually rely on revolutionary dual power structures to continue existing.

All she has done is promise elections at an undetermined point, which as others have said is consistent PSUV policy.

[–] starkillerfish@hexbear.net 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

i completely agree with you. very good summary

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 26 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Thanks, comrade! I also see this as a particularly interesting revolution because I expect it to have many lessons for the US if the DSA ever took power, which is relevant to me as someone organizing in the US. We know reformism is a dead-end, but what if groups were building dual power and established ties with the DSA? What should Marxist-Leninists do if the wave of DSA support continues, when we know it cannot establish socialism within the capitalist state apparatus?

The lessons from the Chavista revolution can help inform movement in the US. Obviously conditions are vastly different. There's no empire pressuring the US, and there's no dual-power movement either. But studying the Venezuelan experience with the sort of reform-revolution going on right now gives us a glimpse into what one potential future of organizing in the US Empire itself may look like.

Again, I'm not a reformist, nor am I advocating for the DSA.

[–] starkillerfish@hexbear.net 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

yes its very inspiring to people in europe as well. LFI, melanchons party in france, is thinking of a similar strategy of using presidential power to create room for bigger mobilizations and dual power.

the party im is is pretty classically marxist-leninist, but we advocate for learning from all movements. and in the french 2027 presidential elections it has been a big topic of conversation.

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 13 points 1 week ago

Interesting, thanks for your perspective from across the pond!

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[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Lenin didn't hand over the whole ass country.

[–] edie@lemmy.encryptionin.space 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

If Anna Louise Strong is to be believed, they tried.

Across this iron ring the starving people of the new state sent appeal after appeal to all those governments which refused to deal with them but especially to President Wilson. Beginning on November 24, 1918, and repeating their query through Raymond Robins, head of the American Red Cross in Russia, and also by direct cables to the State Department, they offered to consider any peace terms whatever: recognition of debts, concessions of territory, control of mines and natural resources. Rather than deal in any way with Bolsheviks, Wilson and the Allied governments sitting in Versailles issued a call to all the “organized groups in Russia” to meet at the Principo Islands, a proposal which clearly presaged the dividing of Russia into spheres of influence after the style of China. The Bolsheviks were not invited, but they accepted; the other governments refused and the scheme fell through. There followed the famous trip of William Christian Bullitt to Moscow in March 1919 as President Wilson’s semi-official representative. The hard-pressed Soviet government was ready to agree to Bullitt’s proposal that it accept all financial obligations of all past Russian governments, and divide the territory of Russia among all those governments which should be in armed possession when the treaty should be signed. But the treaty was never signed; President Wilson refused to receive the report of his own envoy. Bolsheviks were made to realize that no peace can be had from the imperialist powers of earth by any backward nation. Not even the price of slavish submission buys peace for China; nor could the offer of territory and gold buy it for Russia.

https://comlib.encryptionin.space/epubs/this-soviet-world/ Chapter 8: The Struggle for Peace

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[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 15 points 1 week ago

Critical support to president Wilson for fumbling to tear the USSR apart I guess.

[–] starkillerfish@hexbear.net 12 points 1 week ago

read about what kind of things left-coms were saying about him then. maybe it gives some perspective

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[–] InappropriateEmote@hexbear.net 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (16 children)

It sadly seems to be the consensus for a vocal cohort in the newsmega: https://hexbear.net/comment/7483074

If anyone says anything except that Delcy is doing right by Venzuela, just carrying on in the face of imperialism and doing what Maduro would have if he could have, they get labeled an idealist ultra who can't understand material analysis, or a doomer without any revolutionary optimism. I've lamented it in the past.

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[–] orlando@hexbear.net 18 points 1 week ago (2 children)

why must so many comrades be on cope like this?

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 26 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (24 children)

Have you ever held power? Had any kind of actual responsibility? Or are you just a spectator in the power struggles of other people like every other western leftist? An audience to power and responsibility where politics basically just resembles fantasy sports?

It's not cope if you are actually listening to what real chavistas, people who are in the game and who this shit affects directly, are saying. Literally just shut up, stop complaining, and listen. It's not that difficult.

[–] InappropriateEmote@hexbear.net 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Literally just shut up, stop complaining, and listen

Yes, that's the exact attitude I was referring to, what has turned the newsmega from once a great source into being completely unendurable. A clique of pollyannas and panglossians. "Shut up and stop complaining. Oh and listen to chavistas[sic], but really just listen to us, because we know exactly what all of them say because they're a monolith and agree with our analysis, and are all universally happy about how things have gone down in their country. What, you disagree? You must want them all to get shot and bombed, you doomer ultra!"

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

When did I say everything was fine? That things were going just dandy? Where have the chavistas ever said that? You wouldn't know because you clearly haven't read them or what they are saying about this. Actually cite my arguments. Actually cite them and their arguments. Quote anything that isn't some imaginary dialogue that only occured in your head. How is what you are doing anything other than spectator chants and chauvinism from the peanut gallery?

I would maybe take you even slightly more seriously if you didn't have this penchant for asinine literary comparisons as if because you reference Voltaire means that you are better than a liberal who references Harry Potter, and for putting words in my mouth.

[–] Jabril@hexbear.net 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The reality is that the Venezuela issue is a litmus test for who on the left have ever politically organized and who is exclusively a leftist on the internet. Anyone who has actually spent years earnestly and sincerely struggling with the masses against our oppressors know that the task is arduous and you will often fail. The history of communism is mostly a history of failure, bad decisions, mistakes, tentative alliances and agreements with objectively bad people. Tactical retreats and even losses are the norm, not the exception. Survival of the project in the long term is the only path forward, and no one here who is criticizing delcy has even once out forward and idea of what could have been done differently to put Venezuela in a better situation than they are currently in. Only vaguely hand waiving and saying "resist." Like a liberal at a no kings rally. No strategy, no analysis, just empty headed critiques founded in a fictional reality completely detached from the material world

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[–] SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It's sad, but all they have now is copium. Rodriguez, Machado... All the same shit.

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[–] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

hey maybe a hardliner will win copium

[–] OffSeasonPrincess@hexbear.net 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

cia hey! U can have free elections, sure, but not that free!

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[–] Leegh@hexbear.net 39 points 1 week ago

Here we go again gorby-sad

[–] Moomoo_Milk@hexbear.net 34 points 1 week ago

I’m sure they’ll totally not be rigged for whomever the US decides should win.

[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 32 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The freer the markets, the freer the people.

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[–] Evilphd666@hexbear.net 31 points 1 week ago

Promises to install a western friendly stooge. guaido your time has come!

How the fuck did Maduro pick her to be VP?

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The revolution was always in danger as long as they didn't have enough rockets and drones to shut down the Panama Canal tbh

[–] Tabitha@hexbear.net 24 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I like that this is so vague that "democracy" could mean anything from Greek style, western style, Chinese style, Israel style, Soviet style, etc. But literally everyone is assuming western style based on nothing?

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 31 points 1 week ago (1 children)

based on nothing?

based on the guns pointed at the country and a bunch of murdered fishermen and others

[–] Tabitha@hexbear.net 13 points 1 week ago (4 children)

You're saying that Rodriguez betrayed the revolution by being threatened? Again, you're just repeating the nothing.

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 24 points 1 week ago

no, i'm saying people are dooming about this because they've seen what is done to other countries at gunpoint. whether she's doing a betrayal or not is secondary to whether she has any choice in the matter at all, and i'll defer to public opinion in Venezuela.

[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 17 points 1 week ago

Pretending like the stuff they are doing now at gun point is stuff they were going to do anyway just didn't get around to yet is way worse slander.

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[–] lntl@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 week ago

Good luck!

[–] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 14 points 1 week ago

Woah who could've seen this coming

[–] onwardknave@hexbear.net 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Can't wait for the Maria Machado / Juan Guaido ticket. 🤮

[–] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago

Machado can't even go back to Venezuela...

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