Maracay City, Venezuela - In the worker-controlled Venezuelan Kellogg factory, you see the workers working diligently to make corn flake and sugary cereals in a new package displaying the Venezuelan flag and the words “Together for Venezuela.” They are wearing black caps with red letters that say, “Kellogg made in socialism.” In May of 2018, the Ke
While the story is epic, there is one small thing it omits which is fine by me but when the story was translated by a leftist news site where i live, commenters jumped on it, so it would've been better to clarify, namely, that Milton Torres, the president of the factory is in fact an army colonel, or at least he used to . So maybe the "workers took over" the factory, but it's still under tight government control.
And again, that's not my problem, the problem is that the article doesn't mention that Torres is an army official which is a pretty important detail imo and if we criticize NYT for pulling shady shit we should hold left media to the same standard, especially if we want to win over people.
I have a copy of “Building the Commune” on my shelf but haven’t read it yet, but as I understand it the premise is that the Bolivarian Revolution really emphasized partnership between the state and autonomous citizen orgs, so like independent town councils and labor unions often receive state funding and have state liaisons while nominally being (mostly) independent from the PSUV. So maybe this guy sorta functions as the state rep for the workers at the factory.
Yeah, that's what i thought about but then the article should've been expanded with that and not just omitting the fact directly or whatever because the main criticism about it was that it explicitly left out Torres' role in the army.
There would've been handwringing libs anyway, but it's worth the effort imo.
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Oh wow you mean the workers were able to take over the factory when they had guns? Thanks for that context though.
TIL that states are constituted by the working class and not by interlocking institutions of professionals acting in the name and (hopefully) interests of the workers.
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Unironically though, the PSUV recognizes the gap between the people and the state and goes to long lengths to survey the people, work among them, and win their trust. They also have a counterbalance to the power of the state in the form of the communes, which are semi autonomous and can pressure the state into following the interests of the people. It's why I'm the most optimistic about Venezuela out of all the socialist governed states.