Commune or Nothing!: Venezuela’s Communal Movement and its Socialist Project

by Chris Gilbert

A front-row seat to Venezuela’s most innovative socialist project, with important lessons for movements worldwideCommune or Nothing! Venezuela's Communal Movement and Its Socialist Project opens a window on one of the most ambitious revolutionary projects of our time, as it took shape in a country suffering the cruel consequences of US imperialism. In recent years, repeated coup attempts and U.S. sanctions, combined with falling oil prices, have plunged Venezuela into a series of severe shortages leading to malnutrition, sickness, death, and mass migration. Still, as author Chris Gilbert shows, the Venezuelan people have not been passive in the face of these attacks. Resisting the pressures of capitalism, a significant segment of the population persists in pursuing the strategy for socialist construction that Hugo Chávez developed in his final years in dialogue with the popular movement. That strategy consists in building socialism with the commune as “its basic cell.” Gilbert’s account gives readers a front-row seat on the country’s communal movement as he chronicles the efforts of grassroots initiatives and gives voice to the communards living and working in communes such as El Panal, El Maizal, Che Guevara, and Luisa Cáceres. He blends these firsthand accounts of communal construction with theoretical reflections and historical insights. The central story of the book is how Venezuelan communes bring people together to democratically determine their ways of living and working, thus generating a new, non-alienated social metabolism that the communes also work to extend to the whole society. Along the way, readers learn how Venezuela’s communal project draws inspiration from advanced Marxist theory—including the innovative work of István Mészáros—and derives from Indigenous and Afro-Venezuelan traditions of communal self-governance. Titled after the battle cry of this heroic movement, “¡Comuna o Nada!,” Commune or Nothing! portrays an expanding network of communes pursuing the strategic goal of—not only overcoming the entire capitalist economy—but transcending the state formations upon which the capital system relies. The communal project in Venezuela has proven the viability of its model of all-round human emancipation as an alternative to the increasingly exploitative, destructive, and unsustainable capital system. For this reason, Commune or Nothing!, like the trailblazing movement it depicts, offers important lessons not only regarding the construction of socialism in Venezuela, but for socialist praxis worldwide.

Genres: Politics, Economics, History

214 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 1, 2023

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been fascinated by Venezuela's experiment in socialism and both this book and Gilbert/Pascual's recent Venezuela, the Present as Struggle are indispensable to understanding what is really going on there. Upon finishing this I wish the two books had been combined into one volume, as the theoretical exploration of this one greatly complements the ethnographic interview approach of the former.

There are two main criticisms I have of this book but neither is a dealbreaker:

1) I would have appreciated a more detailed economic analysis of how the depicted communes function. How are inputs acquired and how are outputs distributed? What does the balance sheet look like and what is the rate of expansion for these communes to add capacity and function to the community's benefit? I understand Gilbert's focus is more on political analysis, but in the spirit of educating the rest of us I really would have liked to see the inner workings and a sustainability analysis.

2) Gilbert does a decent job of discussing the struggles and drawbacks of the communal approach as implemented in Venezuela, but for a truly well-rounded analysis I would have liked to hear what the movement's critics have to say. Certainly there are some intelligent people in Venezuela who do not believe the communal approach is correct, or are skeptical that they are accomplishing anything. I would like to hear those perspectives as well, not because I myself am skeptical but because I want to believe in the movement even more strongly than I currently do. I guess what I'm saying is this book falls a little short where self-criticism is concerned.

I personally am convinced that Venezuelans are on the right track, although I am very fearful that their less radical government will end up destroying the movement. I also see this as a fascinating combination of Leninism, Maoism and Guevarism, and quite possibly the logical evolution of all Marxism in the 21st century (Istvan Meszaros certainly thought so). Here you have a vanguard party (Lenin) with an appeal to the peasantry (Mao), but also with a growing emphasis on Che's communes, and the main obstacle seems to be that the vanguard party is not sufficiently delegating productive authority to the communes.

Overall these two books should be considered mandatory reading by all leftists (who are frequently criticized for not having a concrete vision of how society should work). Venezuelans are conducting the premiere real-time experiment in reshaping society, and any good leftist should be desperate for as many data points as possible to evaluate their progress.

Not Bad Reviews

@pointblaek

[Mitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is a banner hung from urban buildings and posted on billboards outside of rural towns.

I've been wanting to read an on-the-ground update on the Chavez experiments in Venezuela. The insight here is that there are basically 4 entities carrying the Chavez legacy: Collecitves (workplaces), state industry (top-down socialism), communes, and bourgeois leaders who got deemed revolutionaries for the sake of bringing unorganized regions along. The communes are living and working places that aim to benefit society rather than reinvest profits, a la the collectives.

In days before major US sanctions, people broadly experienced state socialism: the wealthy petro state gives its citizens stuff for free. But at times have become dire in VZ, it's the communes that are surging. Numbering in the 100's, urban and rural, with anywhere from 50 to 10,000 members, and of varying functionality, they are a place to survive somewhat outside of the market economy. Leaders are specifically invested in a socialism that is DIY and that makes life more enjoyable. They contrast it to owning the means of production only to juice maximum value from them for-the-people. Rather, they want to make working the means of production a less miserable fate.

Those are my clearest takeaways. The chapters are based in visits to communes in differing regions of the country. The author is certainly invested in Commune ideology as a correct translation of Chavizmo, and especially towards the end of the book is a bit too rosy. But he backs things up with great context and is usually trying to provide a sober view of things.

Anecdotally, during the crash in value of the bolívar, several communes issued their own currency until it was over. One, who operate coffee and cacao farms, backed each of their coins with one kilo of dry coffee. So locals bought and sold in kilo-equivalents!

[Grey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little bit disappointing - Gilbert doesn’t go into nearly enough detail about the actual functioning of the communes. He also doesn’t separate data and analysis, which I think is a bad method. The book is also organized bizarrely. With a more rigorous approach, this book would have been amazing. The baseline elements are there: Building off of Meszaros’ work is great, and the communes deeply interesting.