Inspired by the Venezuelan project of building socialism via the commune, this special issue looks at attempts to use communal models in socialist projects in a range of different contexts, as well as the theoretical bases for such an endeavor. In their introduction, guest editors Chris Gilbert and Cira Pascual argue that the theme of Communes in Socialist Construction is an important opportunity for engaged Marxist reflection of a kind that offers valuable contributions to the universal body of socialist thought. | more…
Ángel Prado, a founder of El Maizal Commune and Minister of Communes since 2024, discusses Venezuela’s communal project as both a response to urgent material needs and a long-term strategy for building socialism. Drawing on his experience as a grassroots organizer, he explores how communes are structured, how they relate to the state, and how they embody a vision of popular power. He also reflects on the need for unity within the Chavista movement. | more…
This article will be released in full online July 14, 2025.
Prabhat and Utsa Patnaik consider the historical views of the relationship between the proletariat and peasantry during the revolutionary transition to socialism and struggle against imperialism. While other thinkers have suggested that alliances between the two groups must be shed in order to complete the revolution, the Patnaiks propose a framework of voluntary cooperatization benefiting all. | more…
This article will be released in full online July 28, 2025.
João Pedro Stedile, founder and spokesperson of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), reflects on the movement’s efforts to build a socialist alternative through land occupations, cooperative production, and political education. He highlights the importance of collective struggle and the MST’s deepening ties with Venezuela’s communal movement as part of a broader project to construct a just and solidarious society. | more…
This article will be released in full online August 4, 2025.
“To tell the history of resistance,” Roberta Traspadini writes, “we need to investigate the territories where people live their daily lives.” Using both historical analysis and contemporary data, Roberta Traspadini reveals the importance of Brazilian Quilombola communities as local sites of struggle against colonialism, capitalism, and imperialism. These quilombagem, she argues, reveal the revolutionary legacy that persists among the most marginalized in Brazilian society. | more…
This article will be released in full online August 11, 2025.
Through a detailed exploration of the impacts of collective farming on local soils, Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro engages in key questions around the past and present of communal agricultural production. These insights shed light on not only specific projects, but future considerations for communal farming, framed by the dialectical relationship of nature and society. | more…
This article will be released in full online August 18, 2025.
Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson outlines the ongoing projects and objectives of the Mississippi-based collective Cooperation Jackson. Akuno enumerates the many ways Cooperation Jackson has worked toward improving material conditions and building dual power in support of the Black working and peasant classes in the Mississippi Delta region. | more…
This article will be released in full online August 25, 2025.
Sit Tsui and Lau Kin Chi elucidate the history of China’s People’s Communes as told through the lens of three present-day rural villages. In these villages, they observe the effects of the project’s dismantling and diminishing collective ownership and land management, with the conclusion that a return to collectivism is vital for carrying forward the socialist project. | more…
This article will be released in full online August 25, 2025.
Inside a People’s Commune is a short 1974 book documenting life in the Chiliying Commune, one of the earliest in revolutionary China. The text explores the commune’s organization, challenges, achievements, and mass-based character. Hugo Chávez later drew inspiration from the book, citing it when launching Venezuela’s communal project. Today, it continues to serve as a pedagogical tool for Venezuelan communards working to build a unified system of socialist self-government. | more…
In this third installment of MR‘s series on the MAGA movement, John Bellamy Foster explores the dramatic shift in U.S. imperialism that began with the first Trump presidency and has accelerated in his second. The shift, Foster explains, is not one driven by anti-imperialism and anti-militarism but rather represents a hard shift to the right fueled by hypernationalism and the goal of recapturing U.S. power on the world stage. | more…
In the Notes from the Editors, MR editors dissect the true meaning behind the right-wing obsession with “Cultural Marxism” and its use to justify the right-wing takeover of the administrative state and the spread of the New McCarthyism threatening all those who oppose the administration. However, the editors point out, what the right fears is not a culturally based, postmodern approach to Marxism, but Marxism as it is historically and materially grounded and its true potential for building a proletarian movement against fascism. | more…
