this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2025
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Tell us what a non-authoritarian leader of Venezuela would look like to you and how they would resist the constant pressure and hostile actions of the US government, because it seems to me that leftist leaders are always denounced as authoritarian by North American and European based NGOs and governments.
The only way to avoid being labelled as authoritarian is to be friendly to the imperial core countries, i.e. being capitalist.
👆If you don’t suppress the inevitable imperial-supported bourgeois counterinsurgencies, your socialist project will go the way of Allende’s Chile.
The question is whether government/people should get $60/barrel revenue before expenses, maybe $40/barrel after expenses, or $10/barrel but pump 5-10x as much, bribed to be loyal to US. Long term, obviously no corruption and high revenue/profit per barrel has its advantages. It's not as though Exxon/Chevron can't get access to Venezuela oil with fair deals, it's that pretending corrupt puppets are the legitimate leaders provides extortion oil costs.
When you understand the hoops the US government is willing to jump through to get cheap foreign oil, you should understand that similar policies are used to deprive Americans of their fair share of resource revenue.
What a loser-ass mentality. It's absolutely possible to remain just and free while being secure. Skill issue.
Skill issue, says the person who isn't even trying to do it themselves
Point me to one single socialist revolution that wasn't immediately attacked by capital. Just one. You can't.
Name one single socialist revolution that didn't start as a violent dictatorship. You can't.
The USSR, PRC, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. all were massive expansions on democracy and working class control. Capitalists, landlords, fascists, monarchists, etc were (usually) violently oppressed, while the working classes were uplifted and society was democratized. From the point of view of the capitalists, they found themselves living in a violent dictatorship, for the working classes they found themselves finally escaping violent dictatorship.
Lol stay stupid patriot
What do you mean patriot?
exarcheia, and the Paris commune
Those being anarchists, not socialists. There have been shitloads of anarchist communes working perfectly, until some external force fucks them up or reclaims the land or whatever.
I asked specifically for socialist ones.
And you were given a dozen that you ignored
Not really, I'm reading more about them, aside from the USSR and Cuba I'm not that familiar aside from some general knowledge in them. Neither Cuba nor the USSR I would consider free. Just is debatable, but I can see the point. But I should probably read more about the rest of the examples
🙄
anarchism is socialist. it's often called libertarian socialist.
Not even going to reply to your strawman. I said that it's weak mentality to say "ends justify the means and sacrifice justice and freedom for the sake of fighting a foreign oppressor" - maybe that's easier to understand? Weak people, weak minds, skill issue.
Lol you said nothing of the sort and now you're running away shouting random reddit bullshit for cover (what strawman? That doesnt even make sense) because you're acutely aware but too proud to admit that your dumb Marvel-brained bullshit has no basis in reality. Who's freedom? Who's justice? You haven't put five seconds of thought into this and you're talking to people who have considered it for years or decades. You're adorable.
Maybe read it again?
Name one single socialist revolution that hasn't been immediately attacked by capital. You can't.
Just and free while being secure: "authoritarian"
Unjust and unfree while being insecure and overrun by bears: Libertarian
So, which part is the just and free part that you mention, outside of the theory? As in, in detail, practical examples of those freedoms and justice, please. Besides the theoritscl "to each according to their needs, from each according to their possibilities" (sorry if misstranslated), what practical examples have been just and free throughout time.
The USSR, PRC, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. all were massive expansions on democracy and working class control. They were finally free and just for the working classes, and society became more about trying to satisfy everyone's needs than endless private profits, with public ownership as the principle aspect of their economies.
Well, most of those I could at some point agree on just, but definitely not free. And the USSR in particular i would not say just either. Holodomor and all that.
They were absolutely free, compared to the horrible brutality of prior systems and the vast expansions in democratization and social welfare.
As for the USSR, the 1930s famine was tragic, but was the last major famine outside of war time. After collectivization of agriculture, yields were greater and more stable, and the bourgeois kulak system was practically abolished. Adverse weather conditions, crop disease, and kulaks violently resisting collectivization were the causes of the famine, and replacing that system with a more effective one ended famine.
If you take control of a region that is famous for periodic famines, and then only one more famine occurs ever, you have in fact ended the famines.
Or you can be smart and just and have your cake and eat it too. See dozens of countries that prosper without sacrificing their freedoms and justice. You guys are just doomer losers simping for dictators because your minds are too small to imagine a real victory.
Venezuela has had US antagonistic covert ops operating in country since at least 2007. That's almost 2 decades of needing to find the US spies and their allies to prevent sabotage, coups, false flags, etc.
That's just the military aspect. They've also been under worsening sanctions for almost as long, which has been driven by the US strategy to starve the masses so that they revolt. This processes causes increased desperation among the people, which increases crime rates.
All of these things require the use of authority and as they get worse require more invasive and obvious uses of authority. It's hard enough to find spies, it's even harder to find spies and neutaize them without ripping the US off as to how you're finding them, going even further and finding spies without ever being wrong is nigh impossible.
So name one
They’d probably have named imperial core “socialist” nordic states.
❤️Through the power of love ❤️
What are your real-world examples—bourgeois “democracies”? If it’s so easy, why hasn’t it happened?
Chavez in his first few months/year of being in office would be a good example of a non-authoritarian in that role.
My problem with Maduro and many of those in the post early days of Chavez taking over is that far too many seem to have a tremendous amount of money that they cannot explain how they came across legally. Executives at PVDSA, the state run petroleum company, seem to be extremely vulnerable to this corruption.
You can make the case that dictatorships/authoritarian structures are needed to protect a socialist revolution, which Im not sure I entirely agree with, without supporting the theft of state resources by people in the government.
Wasn't a US-backed military coup against Chavez attempted in the early period? It was defeated by the people and soldiers who were loyal to Chavez, but that might've had an rffect
This is a vicious cycle of falling back to dictatorship to avoid imperialism, or some of it.
A) The country opens up and holds free elections, leading to an American puppet winning and the country turning into a vassal state at best, a glorified colony at worst.
B) The country turns into a dictatorship to limit foreign influence and fight back against imperialism, becoming a similarly terrible place to live, but at least without giving anything to the empire. Also note that as time passes, it's quite likely that the dictatorship will forget why it was even created, i.e. it will no longer be about rejecting imperialism.
There are often the only two realistic scenarios for countries targetted by the American Empire. Both are bad and I'm not sure I feel like analyzing which one is slightly less bad for the average person.
Presumably they would look not-authoritarian, a description that doesn't fit Maduro at all.
It could well be that, in the face of US policy regarding Venezuela, only an Authoritarian could hold onto the country. That still doesn't make Maduro not an Authoritarian.
That's a fair observation but, again, that doesn't mean they are wrong when they say it about Maduro. Maduro is referred to as dictator by Human Rights Watch, the Organization of American States, and other human rights organizations, including some inside Venezuela.
Maduro is a dictator. It's largely the fault of the US that Venezuela has a dictator. If the US succeeds in ousting Maduro, it will almost certainly replace him with an even worse Dictator. All of that can be true with no contradictions.
You gave no examples of Maduro "being an authoritarian," and then cited more western NGOs. Of course the empire trying to manufacture consent to coup Venezuela would do that, they did it to Allende too. Repeating "Maduro is a dictator" like a mantra isn't a substitute for explaining how and why that's true, and citing western NGOs is just parroting what the empire wants you to.
And what does that even look like? Something like Allende, I'm guessing.
The liberal Zionist western propaganda outlet?
And also cited OAS lmao!
Genuine question since I am not knowledgable about this: could you expand on how HRW is Zionist? Wikipedia notes that HRW has been criticised for being overly biased against Israel, and I read through a rather awful article on Sapir (which appears to be quite unapologetically Zionist) which indeed makes this claim. Is there evidence to the contrary?
Human Rights Watch is "zionist" now? Lmao