We have organized a Congress here. Why? What reason can there be for artists, the freest, most independent people in society; people who live like "the lily of the field", to come together, organize themselves, and undertake theoretical discussions?> -Asger Jorn (1956)

"The purpose of this chapter is to explore practices in the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela linked to the idea of a transition to socialism through the construction of communal production and consumption cycles controlled by workers and communities. The envisioned transition combines local self-administrat on and workers’ control of the means of production. The present work concentrates mainly on the experiences of local self-administration.

Imagine a world without bosses. This week we discuss examples of workers who run their own workplaces through workers control. Interviews with Alexis Adarfio, from the Workers’ University in Ciudad Guyana, Venezuela; Immanuel Ness, City University of New York, Brooklyn College; and Dario Azzelini, Johannes Kepler University in Austria.

- See more at: http://www.3cr.org.au/sticktogether/podcast/stick-together-24072013#stha...

In Venezuela wird am 14. April ein neuer Präsident gewählt, nach dem Tod von Hugo Chávez. Vermutlich wird sein designierter Nachfolger Maduro die Wahl gewinnen.

“Chávez was one of us”, say the poor from the barrios in Caracas, the people throughout Latin America, and Bronx residents together with probably two million poor people in the US, who now have free heating thanks to the Chávez government. Sean Penn said on Chávez: “Today the people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had. And poor people around the world lost a champion.” These are sad days.

Kaum betrete ich das Gemeinschaftszentrum »Sala de Batalla Alicia Benitez« in Petare, einem Armenstadtteil in Groß-Caracas, kommt mir Lorenzo Martini strahlend entgegen: »Unsere Kommunen-Genossenschaften, die wir das letzte Mal, als du hier warst, geplant haben, arbeiten schon!«

Nei primi anni della presidenza Chávez, quella del controllo operaio era un’idea
sostenuta solo da un piccolo gruppi di lavoratori e dallo stesso Presidente, che di quando in quando si dichiarava a suo favore. Le nazionalizzazioni nel settore industriale sono iniziate solo nel 2005, e in un primo momento sono state una risposta alle occupazioni di fabbriche e alle manifestazioni dei lavoratori e delle lavoratrici.

L’America Latina funziona da oltre duecento anni come un vero e proprio laboratorio che anticipa fatti ed eventi che poi si riproducono nel resto del mondo. Alla Rivoluzione francese ha fatto seguito la Rivoluzione di Haiti (1791-1804), la prima rivoluzione dell’America Latina, che ha radicalizzato le istanze di quella francese e ha portato all’abolizione della schiavitù. La maggior parte delle nazioni americane sono diventate delle repubbliche ben prima di quelle europee, e la prima rivoluzione sociale del XX secolo è stata quella messicana, qualche anno prima della rivoluzione russa.

Videos of the conference with Dario Azzellini about communal socialism in Venezuela hold at the Consulate of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of Chicago, on March the 24th 2011.

This event was the occasion to watch Comuna under construction (94 min., 2011), a film about local self government in Venezuela by Dario Azzellini & Oliver Ressler, followed by a discussion in English/Spanish in presence of the co-director Dario Azzellini and by the book presentation of El negocio de la guerra about Private Military Contractors an paramilitaries around the globe.

Die endlich entdeckte politische Form« ist das aktuell reichhaltigste und umfassendste Werk zu Arbeiterkontrolle, Fabrikräten und Selbstverwaltung von der russischen Revolution bis heute.

Statt des üblichen Verlagstextes hier die Stimmen zur englischen Ausgabe (Haymarket Books, 2011):