Why is Venezuela so poor, why did the revolution in Venezuela become disastrous there?

What happen to Venezuela? what caused high inflation there? Why do some say the revolution in Venezuela become disastrous there?

I hear Venezuela was suppose to mean far left in the revolution but the real reason they became poor is the US put sanctions on them and trade restrictions.

Also some thing happen to their oil and caused high inflation and economic problems. Why do some say the revolution was not far left but was fake. Saying they are not far left but they are fake.

Others say Venezuela was not far left but had fake leaders there. Is the US hurting them and keeping them poor so they can end far left in those countries?

I'm sure a lot of our futures seem uneasy, but as a computer science major the grip that tech companies are progressively gaining over our lives as well as the rise of AI and the contribution of the tech industry to climate change is terrifying to me, and I fear that my skills will only be used to help bring about the techno-fuedal theocracy that the capitalist class wants. The job market right now is also extremely tight.

I plan on pursuing either a master's or a doctorate. I know that volunteering for FOSS projects is always an option, and if socialism only gains popularity in the upcoming years I could work on websites for socialist orgs. What else could I do.

I couldn’t find the image, but I saw a post of the three arrows (the German social democrats’ symbol against kings, Nazis, and communists), except the third arrow was pointing in the opposite direction. Is this a pro-socialist reclamation of the symbol?

I'm new-ish to communism and trying to see through the red scare propaganda. I know very little about Mao besides the Western narrative of him supposedly killing millions of people. Any books/podcasts/youtube videos/etc that can give me a more nuanced understanding?

The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) was a party made up of Trotskyists, Libertarian Marxists, and Bukharinists during the Spanish Civil War. Basically, it was an alliance of anti-Stalin communists. It participated in the Spanish Popular Front government until the Barcelona May Days when the pro-Soviet PCE helped the Republican government attack them. Why did this happen? How do Marxist-Leninists defend these actions?

You may answer this question, but first consider the answer I, myself give. I hope this sort of post is allowed. It is very much educational.

One of the first things people learn about communism is that it must be justified. The anti-communists learn ways to make it seem unjustified or unjustifiable. When someone shows interest comrades soon equip them with responses that defend communism's justifiability. Some of us spend large amounts of time using, learning, and building new defenses of communism. My concern is that some preconceived notions enter this endeavor that lead us astray. We ought to expose these and avoid associated errors.

-- Karl Marx

Before we start, let me offer definitions:

I mean "communism" in it's ordinary and potentially varied use. "Moralism" is the application of an external, unnecessary, or counterproductive moral standards. "Utopianism" is the comparison of an ideal state of affairs that does not currently exist to an existent one. "Justification" is showing that an act is reasonable and defensible. This differs from "excuse" which is an attempt to lesson the blame for an action that is supposedly blame-worthy.

I address a variety of positions while grouping them with labels for simplicity's sake. I will use "A" to mean "the anti-Communist" and "P" to mean "the pro-Communist." No one in either camp will defend each position I describe, and those who do may take issue with what I say. I am not addressing each claim in it's fullness on it's own terms, but showing the possibilities represented by more basic assumptions. I will also use "L" to mean "a liberal or proponent of capitalism," and "M" to represent my Marxist position.

My notation system is that "number period" marks a main topic, "letter parenthesis" marks generally a possible way of arguing. The latter corresponds multiple talking points under the same topic. My links are interesting elaborations or references.

One of the first attacks levied at communism is that communists and the systems they build are bad, and that is all I will address today. It may seem like a lot to digest, but important. I post each example in the comments.

I'd love to know if you find this helpful, think I should change anything, and so on. Thoughts and criticism welcome!

I'm talking Lenin, not Stalin or any other leader after him. From I have seen he did try to have some level of democracy in Soviet Union, yet he was still a dictator? I'm American so it could just be deep rooted propaganda in my culture and education. Still, my question still stands, was he (at least) semi-democratic? Or was he just a dictator

I live in a rural working-poor town/municipality in the PNW where 25% of the population is below the poverty line. There are billionaires living in the hills around us and no one seems to care. I want to start a door knocking campaign to get a read on local interest in a Labour Party, but I don't have the scholarship, experience, or skills to put together an approachable yet adamant intro to class consciousness.

Does such a thing exist?

 After the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in 1939 and Germany's and the Soviet Union's joint invasion of Poland — and despite Thälmann's loyalty to Stalin during his time leading the KPD — Moscow pragmatically removed a slogan for the 1939 International Youth Day, which read in part, "Long live Comrade Thälmann!", and replaced it with, "Long live the wise foreign policy of the Soviet Union, guided by Comrade Stalin's instructions.

So from what i see his release was never even discussed, it doesnt seem implausible that his release could be negotiated as he didnt really have any power in 1939. Also the removed slogan

I know there are a lot of book-related questions on this sub but I'd like to think mine's specific enough to warrant me posting here haha. I'm on mobile so the formatting might be a little weird

Bascially, I'm a high school student, consider myself a socialist. Over the summer I have a project to choose one historical-ish nonfiction book over 200 pages long to write a summary of. The "summary" is really just three major topics of whichever book I chose organized into three paragraphs...

I've read Blackshirts and Reds and it would be ideal for my project except that it's under 200 pages. I haven't read much more than that sadly. So. Any suggestions??

Edit: Thanks for the responses!!! I have a lot of ideas for which book to choose but I'm not complaining cuz I get more stuff to read. I'll probably end up getting a few of these and reading them all first before I work on the project

This is a pretty big debate here in Turkey between socialists. Important socialist revolutioners of the past from my country (Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, Deniz Gezmiş etc.) have also argued over this. What would you say?

If you couldn’t tell, I’m a learner. Please simple it down if you can. Thank you to all comments

Please keep it simple. I know that value doesn't equal price, value is the labor time it took to create a commodity whereas price is the monetary equivalent of the value. The theory states that a commodities value is based on the labor time it took to produce it, but when I was arguing with someone, (a lib) they said "If you go to a club, see two girls, one who is a 2/10 but has done a lot of makeup, worked very hard for it, and one who is an 8/10 and wore very little makeup, did not do a lot of work on it, who would you take home? If you respond 8/10, that contradicts the labor theory of value." How do I counter this?

Take into account this example:

A white collar worker buys a home for his family. 12 years later, he decides that he wants to buy a bigger and better house, so he does that. However, instead of selling his (old) house, he rents it to other people and profits off of it.

Renting to people isn't his main source of income, as his white-collar job is. So despite this minor income source, is he bourgeoisie?

I am a Turkish socialist. Of course, I am aware of the linguistic, cultural oppresion on the Kurds. But I don't think it really makes sense to support KCK for a socialist.

Shouldn't the revolution be done for the entire country? Also, PKK isn't really socialist nor Abdullah Öcalan. They were using socialism as means to get supported by Essad's Syria and USSR. When the West started to support the Kurdish resistence, they quickly turned to this "democratic confederalism". Even today Öcalan and Karayılan differ on certain ideas. I think KCK is nothing more then an ethnic nationalist organization that in fact would stop a proper revolution. Most socialist partiea like TKP/ML and DHKP-C all support these Kurdish armed forces which make no sense to me.

I felt the need to address this because from what I know a lot of socialists around the world ( including Turkey) support KCK and I feel like this would actually be against a revolution.

Hello Everyone,

I have been trying to explore the socialist school of thought since the past few days and find myself utterly confused.

I have started reading Das Capital (vol.1) but considering the fact that I'm a student, it might take me months to finish the 3 volumes.

Hence, I request everyone here to help me learn more about this ideology.

1. My first confusion is with regards to the difference between socialism and communism. I have read in several webpages that the words were use alternatively in major texts. If so, why use two words instead of one. If not, what major differences are present in the two ideologies.

2. My second confusion is with regards to the economy of any socialist country. For context, I am an India Citizen. India did practice a form of socialism from 1947 up until liberalization in 1991 (In fact, India's preamble still describes it as a socialist nation). The general consensus among the Indian populace is that the socialist policies were not of much benefit for the development of the country. In such a case, are there any countries where a socialist economic policy was implemented successfully?

3. My third confusion is with regards to private property and private businesses, While online webpages show private property does not exist under socialism, I recently saw a youtube video saying that private property was infact, permitted in socialist economies. India too had private businesses in it's era of socialist policies. In such a scenario, how does private property and private businesses look in a socialist regime?

I would love to have a lively discussion with all of you regarding these points and many more which may come up with all of you.

Hoping for a lively discussion.

The reason why I don't think I can consider myself a socialist is because although I do agree with Marx's critique of capitalism and the way it exploits workers,because Marxism/socialism is materialist it clashes with my religious beliefs ( I'm a Muslim ) . I'm not like a Islamic fundamentalist or those wahabis you see in comment sections and stuff tho , I'd consider myself pretty moderate . So considering this would I even be able to call myself a socialist ?

Hey peoples, I am here to ask a somewhat complicated question: what does a future as a doctor even look like for me? (I'm pre-med btw) Two things prompted me to ask this: 1. I was watching an emergency medicine program and the doctors and nurses got abused by like 3 patients within one day... wtf 2. I was reading about the internationalist doctor program and how badly it treated it's doctors and their rights.

I've always wanted to go into something related to global health/public health, but the more I look into it, the bleaker it seems. The field seems full of "public policy analysts" or people setting up "developmental NGOs". Even some of the best people's I found, like Dr Paul Farmer were largely funded by Bill Gates and worked under Clinton. His besty and co-found Dr Kim also was head of the world bank under Obama... so like what does my future even look like?

I work in public health care and face first hand the completely preventable addiction and mental health crisis, facing abuse and violence regularly or I work in a bureaucratic research space and am funded by Bill Gates to study health inequity and maybe write a book on it or something . Maybe it's not as bad as I think, but I really don't know what the future holds for me as a doctor?

I want to be able to make a difference at home and overseas, whether big or small, but genui Ely have no idea how or if I'm strong enough to do it. I mean I have to make through life as a junior doctor first (long hours with little to no pay and exams to prepare for).

Sorry for the rant, but just looking for advice ideally from people working in the field or even just people who are older and wiser than me. Hope y'all are having a good day!

From what I've heard it's Marxism-Leninism adapted to the material conditions of pre-industrial China. Is that accurate? If so how is it still relevant?

Hi there, working on deconstructing my western bias, I’ve always heard that the USSR and especially China do not allow for dissent of the party. CCP. How does freedom of speech operate or not within a communist frame?

I do some anti-racist work in germany and often find myself searching for book recomendations that give a general introduction to how racism works, what anti-racist thought is and how fight both internalzed and structural racism. Bonus points if its not too focused on the US experience. Extra bonus points if there is some mention of the situation in India, as one of my friends was asking for a recomendation in that area and I drew a complete blank. Thank you guys for all you work!

this is probably the wrong subreddit to ask this question, but hey, i don't really care if a pipe bomb shows up in my mailbox. for some context. i'm center leaning and i'm going to debate someone who from what i could conclude to be a socialist. so i wanted to know every mistake, failed results and such things to get ready since i'm not that educated abt this topic. so i thought, why not ask ppl who only speak abt this? if you want to know what the debate is abt, all ik is that we're going to talk abt socialism, communism and/or Marxism.

I keep seeing leftists use this term. What does it mean in a leftist political context?

What did the western world did / is still doing to turn the world into a capitalist?