Venezuela's Commune Experiment

Venezuelan communes—where productive activities are controlled by a range of community assemblies—are fascinating examples of socialist forces experimenting with the creation of new social forms.

Venezuela's communes are an attempt to address some of the shortcomings of cooperatives and state-owned socialist factories by addressing not just economic production but other social relationships like parenting and gender relations at the grassroots level.

Chris Gilbert, author of the forthcoming book Commune or Nothing! Venezuela's Communal Movement and Its Socialist Project and co-author (with Cira Pascual Marquina) of Venezuela, the Present as Struggle, joins us from Caracas to explain the theoretical basis for communes.

Mentioned in this episode:

Five Factories

Communard Union

István Mészáros

Venezuela: The present as struggle (book)

Commune of Nothing! (book)