STRANGE TIMES

5 Responses to “Venezuela”

1. 1 Patrick Muldowney
   January 4, 2026 at 7:58 am

   My view is that the Venezuela, Cuba and Iranian regimes will not survive 2026! That could well lead to others like Georgia going down as well. I just don’t know about others like Sierra Leone but nothing would surprise me. As for Russia and it’s vasal Belarus well that massive revolution probably has some more brewing time but…black swans are now well known!

2. 2 Patrick Muldowney
   January 4, 2026 at 10:10 am

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKK1sTEeEbk 2026 dictator bingo!

3. 3 Patrick Muldowney
   January 4, 2026 at 2:46 pm

   The filth of Democracy Now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaLChmzkGo0

4. 4 Patrick Muldowney
   January 4, 2026 at 3:05 pm

   Russia could well crack in 2026 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDdKNN6Ypyw

5. 5 Steve Owens
   February 3, 2026 at 11:18 pm

   I just thought I would put down my ideas about where we all went wrong. In 1913 we had an organisation of 26 Revolutionary Socialist parties. In 1914 we realised that this was an illusion as every party except the Russian and the Serbian parties stool against internationalism.
   On April 4 1917 Lenin addressed the Petrograd soviet and said that the Bolsheviks were prepared to lead a revolution despite the Bolsheviks having a 20,000 strong membership in a country of 130 million and the industrial working class being 3% of the Russian population. Lenin argued that this was not material as the Russian revolution was but a part of the forthcoming world revolution. The problem with Lenin’s argument was that no other country had a revolutionary party. The Bolsheviks pinned their hopes to Germany but Germany had a massive socialist party but it was an anti revolutionary party. It had a revolutionary faction but when the Spartacus’s broke away they numbered 3,000.
   Anyhow revolution gained momentum in Russia and by October Bolshevik membership was up to over 200,000. They gained majorities in the 2 largest soviets but what support did they really have. The elections in November gave them 24%. I’m afraid this would have been peak support as their policies particularly about the peace treaty became very unpopular. Every political party in Russia opposed Brest/Litovsk including the Bolsheviks. In February Lenin’s position was getting badly beaten at party meetings. Lenin NEVER commanded a majority for the peace treaty in the Bolshevik Central Committee. Only when the Germans tore the treaty up and marched on Petrograd did the Soviet vote in favour of accepting the German terms.
   So here we are peace is signed but the peace is the main reason for the civil war and it’s also the end of any Soviet democracy. The soviets were made up of soldiers committees and factory committees but by June there were no soldier committees in the new red army and the factory committees did not survive Lenin’s turn to one man management. During 1918 Red terror was introduced which in itself is a strong move against any form of democracy. By 1921 demands for elections to soviets were deemed counter revolutionary and the International Mensheviks a party that had supported the reds throughout the civil war were invited to leave Russia or remain and become apolitical. 1921 was also the year that opposition groups within the party were made illegal. It’s this history that turned the highly democratic soviets of 1917 into a one party dictatorship. Our problem is that we have absorbed the wrong lessons of the Russian revolution where a minority could cling to power because they thought their ideas were the ideas of progress. This is why people accept the nonsense regimen in Venezuela. At least Chavez won elections one of the very few “socialists” that did.
   Just to clarify it might seem contradictory that in Feb 1918 peace was unpopular when it was peace that largely brought the Bolsheviks to power the previous October. The answer is in the lead up to October Lenin argued against a separate peace with Germany, he argued that Germany and France would be forced to accept Russian terms and that if Germany persisted with imperialist demands that an anti German revolutionary war would be in order.

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