Why everyone should read Commune or Nothing! by Chris Gilbert (links within)

LINK TO PDF/EPUB: https://archive.org/details/commune-or-nothing/mode/2up

LINK TO AUDIOBOOK FORMAT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KnOf1cWO9g

Several months ago I stumbled across this post. (This book has been mentioned several times by other users as well) Naturally, being a well thought out and earnest attempt at discussion on contemporary marxist-leninist theory and praxis in an extremely relevant area of geopolitics, it was promptly ignored and swept under a rug of streamer slop and twitter drama. So here I am to say, once again, this book is extremely worthwhile (and short! 190 pages) read.

The book consists of Gilbert’s accounts of his and Cira Pascual Marquina’s visits to a wide breadth of communal projects in Venezuela, while also examining the underlying theory and history that drives their creation. The communes that they visit vary wildly from rural, urban or even industrial and also differ in levels of development and organization. But they all share the same common ground in the highly dedicated and politically conscious workers that run them. Gilbert himself is not the strongest writer, often wandering into unnecessarily intellectual descriptions (that usually feature a reference to some sort of greek myth) and also bizarrely, for a single page, Marvel movies. But his accounts of the communes standout because he is not afraid to sit back and feature the voices of the communes themselves, which are often insightful and revealing of the strong grasp on theory that comes from its practical application.

The most interesting part of the book isn't its examination of the material realities of these communes, however, it is in the proposal that they could be the building blocks for a new kind of socialist transition. That through true "protagonistic democracy” and unalienating labour formed at the grassroots level, the communards of Venezuela are creating a movement that could not only survive any reactionary attempts against it, but also build into a more democratic socialist movement that could one day replace the state in its entirety.