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

A front-row seat to Venezuelas most innovative socialist project, with important lessons for movements worldwide Commune 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 Chvez developed in his final years in dialogue with the popular movement. That strategy consists in building socialism with the commune as its basic cell. Gilberts account gives readers a front-row seat on the countrys 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 Cceres. 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 Venezuelas communal project draws inspiration from advanced Marxist theoryincluding the innovative work of Istvn Mszrosand derives from Indigenous and Afro-Venezuelan traditions of communal self-governance. Titled after the battle cry of this heroic movement, Comuna o Nada!, Read more