[pleboidal]

And dead people, and destroyed cities.

And purges, and violent warlords siezing power, and military coups.

And refugees, and food shortages, and torture chambers, and sabotage.

And unprecedented political polarization, and oh maybe disappearances and murders that look like suicides...

[ue_]

As much as I would like to achieve Socialism via democratic reform within the system, various figures (Emma Goldman, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, even Engels himself) have noted that working within the existing system ("bourgeois democracy") would not be sufficient to bring about lasting change, as the system itself is built to serve the interests of capital.

I am wholly against the things you mentioned, of course, which is why it has been the task of current revolutionaries to plan and organise effectively to minimise these things.

[tim333]

> working within the existing system ("bourgeois democracy") would not be sufficient to bring about lasting change, as the system itself is built to serve the interests of capital.

I think the problem is more that when you do vote in socialism as in Venezuela the system sucks. Then it either gets voted out again or you get a violent dictatorship.

[ue_]

Venezuela is not a Socialist country, and I do not support dictatorships. In line with Marx and Engels, I support the gradual transference of power away from the state (which must be at once transformed into the complete and democratic control of the whole working class upon seizure) and into the hands of the people, as such the state "withers away".

[Pica_soO]

They just never really read the Scottsman-scrolls right and how could they thus do a true implementation of the Scottsmann ideology!

[ue_]

There is a very simple test of whether a society is a Socialist one; namely, a society is Socialist if its predominant mode of production is the Socialist one. The Socialist mode of production is distinguished from all others by the following:

* Communal (worker) ownership of the means of production (land and machinery used to make goods for society)

* Government composed entirely of the workers, making decisions in the interest of the workers

* Goods are produced to be used rather than exchanged on a market

* Wage labour is not dominant in the economy

* The functions of private property have been abolished and thus there is no more private property.

Venezuela fails all of these criteria. It's not "no true Scotsman", it's the truth.

Someone called Angus, who calls himself a Scotsman, but who doesn't have Scottish citizenship, nationality, lineage nor has he ever lived in Scotland is not a Scotsman.

[altstar]

Who created your rules of socialism?

As far as Venezuela is concerned, the current government do see themselves as socialist (the Bolivarian revolution).

¡El unico camino para salvar el mundo es el socialismo | The only way to save the world is socialism! — Hugo Chavez

A few links:

https://venezuelanalysis.com/ http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/

[tonyedgecombe]

Where has that not fallen into dictatorship? It's a nice idea, the problem is human nature gets in the way.