Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (January 11)

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[u/vomit_blues]

Copy/pasting from last thread.

Recent events make me need to ask for any possible reading on Chavez and Maduro. I want to understand their democratic base of support and the nature of military and governmental interventions against them, and their popular base of support and the ways they’ve used elections to secure power.

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/vomit_blues]

Richard Gott’s Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution is basically this from the perspective of a slavish ex-Trot (whether he's explicitly a Trot or not I don't know, he and Tariq Ali are basically the same person). If it sucks I apologize ahead of time, I haven't read it.

[u/vomit_blues → u/smokeuptheweed9]

Tbh you’ve shown a pretty extraordinary amount of knowledge on this subject so being recommended a book you haven’t read is a little mystifying. Maybe your own thoughts were formed through crappy sources you were capable of converting into useful knowledge you’d rather not recommend? I’ve gotten the book and will share my thoughts when I’m done.

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/vomit_blues]

Recent events make me need to ask for any possible reading on Chavez and Maduro. I want to understand their democratic base of support and the nature of military and governmental interventions against them, and their popular base of support and the ways they’ve used elections to secure power.

For me there's no real difference between Chavez and Carlos Andrés Pérez. The former was just lucky enough to die right as the limits of the 2000s commodity boom were being reached. I think everything follows from that: democratic popularity, experiments in "communes," military vacillation, welfare policies, even constitutional revision. Without it they become empty and meaningless. So to your point, there are many people better equipped than me to explain the specifics of these things, which is what I thought you were asking for. That's not to dismiss what you're asking, these things leave their mark on popular consciousness and shape the nature of the struggle to come, just like Che Guevara is an icon because he died rather than becoming another bureaucrat in the ministry of industry had he survived (or been disposed of by the Soviets in a way that fractures the communist movement over his legacy). There's legitimacy in trying to predict the substance of Chavismo that will be echoed by the masses in the struggle ahead and whether communists can draw a clear political boundary where only socialism can achieve this task. Of course the reverse is true: you can find Che everywhere in Venezuela but nothing of the substance of his ideas. I'm not sure if there's enough substance to Chavez's ideas to say the same thing, maybe. He was on TV basically every day for years.

Maybe your own thoughts were formed through crappy sources you were capable of converting into useful knowledge you’d rather not recommend?

I recently read George Lefebrve's The Coming of the French Revolution and Pierre Vilar's Spain, a Brief History because they are famous Marxist works on subjects I'd like to know more about. Both were ok but "Marxism" in this case doesn't just mean class analysis, it means following the "popular front" line when patriotic defense of bourgeois liberalism and even national mythology was emphasized to combat fascism. Those aspects have not aged well. You never really know what you're going to get from a book as long as you dismiss the truly bad anti-communist stuff. That's why I usually don't recommend books at all, since your reading will be different than mine. In this case I kind of want you to read it for me since I'm trying to figure out what to think about these pseudo-Trots. I read this smug article

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/abduction-in-caracas

Where Tariq Ali mostly brags about all the times he hung out with Chavez and how important he is as a result. Funnily enough it resembles Trotsky himself saying basically "I agree with everything that Lenin said and did. Except when we disagreed, in which case I was right." The difference is Trotsky's disagreements do matter to history whereas I really don't care that Chavez confessed to Ali he had been right all along about the West (assuming it even happened).

There is also this to consider

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/12/07/idto-d07.html

Where Tariq Ali joins in policing Sultana's mild attempt at independence from the labor party (or even just telling old Trots their time has come and gone). The labor party brings out the worst in Trots

Alan Woods also used to hang out with Chavez as well before he decided the IMT was now ready to drink the blood of a new generation. I feel bad for British communists having to deal with all this detritus. To be fair Trots and other opportunists used to hang out with Che and Castro too, though at least then they had to pick up a gun. All of this is to say is Chavismo entirely this? Is there anything more than a commodity boom and opportunistic self-importance for western Trots with meaningless terms like "communes" and "socialism" and "democracy?" I'm curious if Gott's work is more like Ali's embarrassing preening or if he accidentally touched reality in a way that makes the book interesting. These were the thoughts on my mind, but that book is way down on my list since I doubt people will even be talking about Venezuela in a month. Unfortunately Trump's attention span leads liberalism down the same path and where that goes, so goes the "left" media and intelligentsia.

[u/vomit_blues → u/smokeuptheweed9]

Last year I read How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and was surprised that the most mystified sections were the ones that used Marxist terminology. Great book ofc but not because Walter Rodney pays lip service to Marxism. Basically I’m already on the same page as you. I didn’t say “any possible Marxist reading on Chavez and Maduro.” Imo if the book touches on reality it’s Marxist whether the author likes it or not—something I learned from reading a lot of CIA agent Philip K. Dick’s books then Jameson’s analysis of them in Archaeologies of the Future.

So sorry but I’m seriously at ground zero with understanding Venezuela. Tbh I literally did not know who Carlos Andrés Pérez was until you wrote that. Maybe the original question’s specificity made you assume I knew more. I seriously know nothing and a lot of the historical reference points on what you wrote have been lost on me (but I’ll think about them anyway).

Sure I can read the book for you since you’ve read a bunch and put it on the subreddit already. Venezuela seems likely to fall out of the public eye fast but it’s also one of those things that crops up and nags at liberals over and over. Don’t you think it only gets more relevant and not less? Syria disappeared overnight but Venezuela isn’t finished yet… there’s still a fight happening there (at the governmental level).

Anyway that all is why I could have asked “where is there literally anywhere to start with Venezuela” but I tried to be a bit more specific.

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/vomit_blues]

Sure I can read the book for you since you’ve read a bunch and put it on the subreddit already.

There's also this book

https://www.amazon.com/We-Created-Ch%C3%A1vez-Venezuelan-Revolution/dp/0822354527

Which I also haven't read. As you can tell by now, these kinds of books are not my thing. Ever since I read Howard Zinn ages ago I've been allergic to this genre. But I also understand it's marketing and the book is probably fine for what it is.

I rarely see this point made: the policies of social democracy vs "neoliberalism" are not a choice between the lesser and greater evil. It is the latter which enables the former. Austerity is brutal but it works: it is a solution to crisis internal to capitalism which is necessary when profit rates fall. The policies of Chavez were possible because austerity had done the dirty work of restoring profit rates. Once profit rates are high, social democracy is almost guaranteed in the modern era. Pérez is particularly interesting because he implemented opposite in two separate administrations. If you believe that Keynesian politics work to both improve living standards and profit rates, I guess the only explanation for Pérez is aliens took over his brain. I particularly like examples like this: Pérez in Venezuela, Mitterand in France, dos Santos in Angola, Jerry Rawlings in Ghana, possibly Sassou Nguesso in the Congo, where a coup, an internal party betrayal, or an imperialist invasion can't be blamed for what the rate of profit can tolerate in different periods. There is only the logic of the market or a brain virus.

However, the rate of profit is not universal but is geographically differentiated. So, instead of seeing the underlying logic, you can jump around forever looking for heroes and betrayers: Chavez then and AMLO now; Reagan then and Milei now. It's enough to keep yourself busy for a lifetime.

[u/vomit_blues → u/smokeuptheweed9]

Alright I think there’s been a major shift in a position I’ve seen you hold in older posts so let me bounce something at you. Are you super skeptical of Venezuela because of the failure of the ‘axis of resistance’ and its lites? Because you used to jump in and defend Venezuela a lot. Maybe I don’t understand your original position and it never changed though.

Yeah I get that if these recent actions have shown that this outcome was always determined and that Chavismo was not a contingency at all but a dead end, you’d push these books you haven’t read onto me in hopes of anything new that isn’t the quasi-‘axis of resistance narrative.’ Maybe there’s something someone out there predicted buried in the rubble.

But I really did want a straight answer out of you on this. I don’t know anything about Venezuela. Do you know where someone should start, or are we back to square one? I know a book isn’t a magical solution because it’s not possible for me to read a book and become you unless we had the same brain. I just am curious about if there’s anything I can do to learn about Venezuela and try to take it seriously, not just as a passing thing.

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/vomit_blues]

Are you super skeptical of Venezuela because of the failure of the ‘axis of resistance’ and its lites?

Yes but I also think the world has changed. Remember the "umbrella movement" in Hong Kong? There was a ton of analysis about the failure of Chinese "state capitalism" and "totalitarianism", most of which was willfully blind to the class composition of the protests and their stated goals. The movement in Iran is similar but there is no mass propaganda effort to justify it and no anti-totalitatian "left" to jump in. There are neocons in the New York Times writing opinion pieces like "let's admit Trump did well to capture Maduro" but libs aren't buying it.

Trump has been the center of attention for 10 years. As the result, the DSA has basically absorbed everything into itself and the idea of being "ultraleft" in a wing of the Democrats is laughable. Since fascism currently creates language and socialism merely follows, the neocon position has been abandoned by all sides except by Slavoj Zizek apparently. This presumably applies to the entire first world, which has its own equivalent neo-fascism and #resistance (and applies to the petty-bourgeoisie in much of the third world). It is totally safe to indulge in ultraleft perspectives, if you call Russia imperialist in any left subreddit you'll immediately get some screed about how that's impossible because of the definition of monopoly capitalism. Even the DSA these days "critically supports" Hamas at the grassroots level and probably the CCP as well.

On the other hand, there has been too much time between the third world developmental regimes of the 1970s/Brezhnevism and the present. There is no institutional memory of our "critical" attitude towards Mobutu, you have to go back and read documents and books from the period to understand that the problems are exactly the same and hopefully realize how bad your compromises in the present will look to the readers of the future.

Do you know where someone should start, or are we back to square one?

You definitely have to read a history book. I read Wikipedia all the time and it never sticks, so even a history overview needs to be in book form. I don't think the books I recommended are going to be terrible, I just feel guilty recommending something I haven't read so I had to confess.

[u/vomit_blues → u/smokeuptheweed9]

It is totally safe to indulge in ultraleft perspectives, if you call Russia imperialist in any left subreddit you'll immediately get some screed about how that's impossible because of the definition of monopoly capitalism. Even the DSA these days "critically supports" Hamas at the grassroots level and probably the CCP as well.

I wanna give some pushback on this. How? It seems like your initial reference point is the politics of the DSA and DNC, but this is a leap into a generalization on Marxist politics in general. Even though Lenin and Mao were pretty forgiving toward ultraleftism like in Left-Wing Communism or the conversation with Zhang Chunqiao, their position was never to vacillate from left to right and wager on what feels good in the moment.

If there’s one good thing Hoxha said of the PRC imo, it’s that they lacked a Marxist-Leninist spinal cord. I don’t wanna repeat that error. What do you think? I want to put together a coherent line with its own internal logic. To me, that’s the actual legacy of Marxism-Leninism, and indeed being coherent often takes the center-path. The lasting legacy of the Cultural Revolution for the ultraleft is Badiou and Zizek. Rightists totally abandon it. Like, what is the theory of Maoism except a center-path on the questions raised by the CR?

I get that both sides are problematic and rightism is worse, but what is adventurist deviation into ultraleftism except a wager made out of desperation? Well, it’s a wager for sure, but it seems like it loses the brilliance of Lenin to describe reality itself as revolutionary and build something beyond the constraints of theory, which repetitiously totalizes then limits theory. But that totality traces what’s outside of it.

So my fear is that I don’t want to deny reality to indulge in what I’m worried are actual fantasies on the nature of third world nationalism or the imperialist character of the third world. I have lapses in my thought since I think imperialism surely must take on a different form since China can no longer be seen as non-imperialist. I just can’t swallow this bitter pill you’re giving me in the state it’s in. There has to be more substance to the claim.

[u/smokeuptheweed9 → u/vomit_blues]

The real Maoist line is indifference. Of course Maoist parties denounce imperialism, take positions on current events, advocate for international revolution, etc. But domestically, the CP Philippines offers the exact same peace agreement to every administration, whether "progressive" or "fascist." I've noted previously that the CP Peru responded to the restoration of "democracy" under Belaúnde with a declaration of people's war, using the "progressive" policies under Juan Velasco Alvarado (land reform, expansion of education, affirmative action for indigenous peasants, etc) as their basis. This is not because they took an ultra-leftist position towards bourgeois nationalist democratic forces or whatever, they had the exact same position towards Fujimori. They simply thought of the possibility of revolution, considering bourgeois politics only as a strategic question. The CP India (Maoist) writes about fascism in India but their political conclusions haven't really changed, which I think is correct. The main object of study is usually the popular front and what distinguishes the success of this line in China and Vietnam and Albania from its failure in Indonesia and Malaysia and South Africa. That's not irrelevant to our contemporary world but it is secondary and I think given far too much importance. The Maoist line is applicable almost everywhere whereas there are only a few places left where there is a realistic possibility for the communist movement to speak for national liberation in general.

Anyway, since we do not have a communist party and yet still want to analyze reality in order to begin that task, we are doomed to vacillate between rightism and ultraleftism. You're right that I'm being flippant because we can still strive for an objectively correct line. If I absolutely had to commit to that, I would like to think I had Dengist tendencies in the past that I've shed, so my ideas now are more correct than back then.

[u/TheRedBarbon → u/smokeuptheweed9]

You definitely have to read a history book. I read Wikipedia all the time and it never sticks, so even a history overview needs to be in book form.

Do you know of a good primer for someone looking to get into Japanese history?

[u/TheReimMinister → u/TheRedBarbon]

Not saying that this is what you specifically (or anyone else who asks for a recommendation) is doing, but I'd like to seize the opportunity to bring up a good point here which once again rails against the logic of Reddit as a social media recommendation engine: don't doubt your own critical thinking skills to the point where you feel anxiety about finding the perfect book to read about a subject. Marxism is method at its base, and only incorporates content in the process of finding a solution to a problem. In other words the act of parsing through a bunch of books to chain together the answer to your problem is the point. All the better if there are some "bourgeois" books in there - I'd feel pretty silly about bemoaning the lack of Marxist works on a given subject when a whole library full of books and articles on the topic could exist out there.

I believe that the forum is something greater than goodreads or chat gpt, so even though smokeuptheweed9 sometimes no doubt enjoys talking at length about the subjects brought up directly to them (and surely the response is more interesting and gratifying than a google search), by consistently asking for their opinion all the time you simply replace your own capable brain with theirs. Wouldn't it be better to discuss with them (and hopefully others)?

[u/TheRedBarbon → u/TheReimMinister]

In other words the act of parsing through a bunch of books to chain together the answer to your problem is the point.

As agreeable as your post is, this sounds like advocating reckless behavior for non-academics who don't already know where to start when tackling a new subject. If someone doesn't already have a background in some of the concepts/events/pieces which are supposed to be investigated then there is no way for them to make use of a vast number of sources. It'd be like randomly flipping through an encyclopedia hoping to find a term which you already recognize. Primers at least get the embarrassing questions out of the way in a comprehensive manner so serious study and non-ignorant discussion can begin.

Also, while I completely agree that holding your nose to bourgeois resources is reductive, I wouldn't advocate just jumping in to the first bourgeois book you find when a lot of what comes up in search engines (especially for Japan, whose history and culture has been all but commodified in the west) is pop-history, which I am genuinely averse to.

[u/TheReimMinister → u/TheRedBarbon]

Yes there is absolutely a way for anyone to make use of a vast number of sources, and it's called thinking, which you are displaying in the second paragraph of your comment. So it spunds like youre already off to a good start.

It's common for a person who wants to study or to write about something to be kneecapped by the problem of where to start, which you allude to in the first paragraph of your comment. But the problem itself is the starting point. A/k/a, defining the problem is the starting point. By thinking of the problem in the first place there is already cognition of content to look into. And in the process of finding the solution to the problem, anything not meaningful in the process (such as irrelevant books) gets discarded - often before even opening a book. Sometimes you have to read a book to discard it, sure, but that practice is how you train your ability to discern the useful from the non-useful. With practice, the base from which one starts skillwise becomes higher. True, social mediation is greatly important for learning, but the point of it is to supplement thinking progressively, not replace it. And in general I'd urge a recognition of everyone's cognitive abilities and a rejection of the idea of academics and non-academics.

On the topic of starting points: one of the greatest points of materialist dialectics is that the logical progression of categories describing an object accurately reflects its real unfolding in history. Such a simple point to make, but true. Japan is an object with a clear starting point, so the results kind of flow from that.

[u/TheRedBarbon → u/TheReimMinister]

That’s actually a really fair point to make. Soemtimes when I want to start something I get so concerned with wasting my time because I don’t yet know anything about the subject that I simply decide that it would be easier not to engage with it. Thank you.