Tom Burke of FRSO speaks with Venezuelan Comunas leaders

Caracas, Venezuela – Under the banner of “Comuna o nada,” translated to English as “Communes or nothing,” 100 leaders of Venezuela’s neighborhood groups gathered on July 30. The forum was held at the Ministry of Popular Power for the Communes and Social Movements. This is where the well-respected Minister Blanca Eekhout is in charge.

Popular Power refers to the people’s organizations that exist across Venezuela that constitute a new type of society. This includes over 3000 communes, tens of thousands of communal councils, housing assemblies and food supply committees and nearly 3 million militia members.

These formations belong to the mass movement building toward socialism, with the guiding support of the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), in alliance with other revolutionary and left political parties. The Venezuelan government and its leaders are expected to take guidance from the working class organized in the comunas, unions and other groups as people power grows.

Vladimir Castillo of the Ministry of Comunas in Chacaito chaired the forum. The crowd heard movement leaders from Dominican Republic, Argentina, Chile and Basque Country. Tom Burke, of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization in the United States, spoke last, focusing on the mass line and campaign method of organizing for revolutionaries.

Burke said, “It is clear to us that in Venezuela it is a new day! That everything has changed! From what we can see visiting, the people are exercising their power to defeat and weaken the old and divided class of the rich people.”

Burke continued, “The movements of the working class and oppressed peoples in the United States are rising. Together we can make an unbreakable bond and defeat Trump and defeat the imperialists. Somos los Bolivarianos del Norte!”