Calling it coping implies people are in denial about the realities of what’s occurring and are reaching for whatever they can to cling to hope that it’s not happening the way it is actually happening.
That’s not what is occurring here. When Assad fell and Jolani took over, were MLs going, “Jolani is just playing the long game to liberate Syria”? No. The reason for ongoing back and forth about Venezuela is precisely because the situation isn’t simple. It can’t fairly be called straightforward coup/comrador and it also can’t fairly be called straightforward resistance against imperialism. It is murkier than that and so it requires analysis beyond “our person good, their person bad; our movement losing, their movement winning.” Depth of analysis has always been important for Marxists to conduct and we need to practice it the best we can. If anything, I’d argue situations with this degree of complexity and controversy are going to become more common as unipolarity dies. Already, some struggle with the idea of China as anti-imperialist yet not global military liberator and doing trade with imperial states. Binary thinking with marxist-leninist characteristics is not itself scientific socialism. We have to work through the complexity or we will be reduced to coping in the form of labeling something as good/bad and calling it a day, which is not a flattering trait to share with liberals. I don’t say this to be sanctimonious at all. I know well the urge to label something and move on. But labeling and moving on is for spectators, not for people who are trying to change the world.
Are we still coping about Venezuela? All I see is more and more evidence that they have been completely defeated.
Time will tell.
They will prevail
Calling it coping implies people are in denial about the realities of what’s occurring and are reaching for whatever they can to cling to hope that it’s not happening the way it is actually happening.
That’s not what is occurring here. When Assad fell and Jolani took over, were MLs going, “Jolani is just playing the long game to liberate Syria”? No. The reason for ongoing back and forth about Venezuela is precisely because the situation isn’t simple. It can’t fairly be called straightforward coup/comrador and it also can’t fairly be called straightforward resistance against imperialism. It is murkier than that and so it requires analysis beyond “our person good, their person bad; our movement losing, their movement winning.” Depth of analysis has always been important for Marxists to conduct and we need to practice it the best we can. If anything, I’d argue situations with this degree of complexity and controversy are going to become more common as unipolarity dies. Already, some struggle with the idea of China as anti-imperialist yet not global military liberator and doing trade with imperial states. Binary thinking with marxist-leninist characteristics is not itself scientific socialism. We have to work through the complexity or we will be reduced to coping in the form of labeling something as good/bad and calling it a day, which is not a flattering trait to share with liberals. I don’t say this to be sanctimonious at all. I know well the urge to label something and move on. But labeling and moving on is for spectators, not for people who are trying to change the world.