Bolivarian socialism

Cecosesola is a remarkable federation of Venezuelan cooperatives that artfully manages multiple ventures as commons while deeply immersed within a system of capitalist markets. 

In Venezuela’s Amazonas state, fishing has long been not just a trade but a whole way of life rooted in collaboration, knowledge sharing, and mutual aid. Now, under the US blockade, fishing has become an even more important source of food. At the same time, the cooperative way of working of traditional fisherpeople has proven useful in solving blockade-induced obstacles.

Today, approximately 1500 people participate in the Río Cataniapo Comune. They come from various ethnic backgrounds, but the majority identify as Indigenous and some still practice common ownership of land.

For many indigenous peoples of Venezuela, the socialist commune is not new at all but resonates with existing and previous social practices that include communal land tenure and self-governance. That is the case for the Pumé community called “Coporo Indígena,” located in upper Apure just outside Biruaca. Due to its small population, this community is registered as a communal council rather than as a commune. 

Industrias del Orinoco, C.A. (Indorca) is a factory without bosses in the industrial city of Puerto Ordaz in Bolívar state, the home of Venezuela’s basic industries. Indorca workers carried out a heroic three-year struggle to gain control of the factory after the former owner brought it to a halt. Since 2015, when Venezuela’s Ministry of Labor extended a mandate giving the workers control over Indorca, the enterprise has been democratically managed by the women and men who produce here day in and day out.

Industrias del Orinoco, C.A. (Indorca) is a factory without bosses in the industrial city of Puerto Ordaz in Bolívar state, the home of Venezuela’s basic industries. Indorca’s workers carried out a heroic three-year struggle to gain control of the factory after the former owner brought it to a halt. Since 2015, when Venezuela’s Ministry of Labor extended a mandate giving the workers control over Indorca, the enterprise has been democratically managed by the women and men who produce here day in and day out.

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.

10 years after the death of Comandante Hugo Chávez Frías, “commune or nothing” remains the battle cry of the Venezuelan people advancing in the Bolivarian revolution

What makes communes and their advances so important? To explain their significance, one has to appeal to something that is not immediately visible: social relations and especially relations of production.

Venezuelan cooperative network Cecosesola has won the 2022 Right Livelihood Award.