Throughout my life, and considering that I live in a country that calls itself socialist, I have spoken with countless people who profess Marxism, both those who call themselves Socialists, and those who call themselves Communists.
I have spoken with native Marxists, but I have also spoken with many others who belong to different nationalities, and all of them seem to have very different positions:
Many of them affirm that Venezuela is a country that is on the road to socialism, but that has been sabotaged by international agents to provoke a crisis.
Many others say that Venezuela is not socialist, although those same ones affirm that both Cuba and the Soviet Union were.
Others even say that none of these countries were true socialisms, as if North Korea is.
Even some say that countries like Venezuela, the Soviet Union, Cuba and North Korea are not or were socialists, but that the Scandinavian countries are. Excellent reasoning!
Finally, we have a small number of Marxists who deny any attempt at socialism/communism in practice, and say that true socialism has never been implemented.
That is the ace up the sleeve of all Marxists, and they have told me innumerable times and on multiple occasions; "That wasn't real socialism." In fact, many take this even further, and dare to say things like; "It wasn't socialism, but capitalism."
I have innumerable reasons to think that each of the countries mentioned above have practiced and based their model of government on Marx's model, in the same way as all the countries of the Eastern bloc, the handful of African socialist countries, and the Asian socialist models that finally evolved into a hybrid between statism and free market.
Although that will not be discussed in this post, I'm really not interested in proving that these regimes were truly socialist.
When someone says to me: "That wasn't real socialism", I answer with the following question: "Why should I trust that the socialism that you propose is the real socialism?"
This is the reality, all the socialist eminences, leaders of the communist parties, Marxist theorists and ideologists, at some point supported these regimes, in fact, many of the current left-wing politicians did. Fidel Castro, Noam Chomsky, Pablo Iglesias, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Heinz Dieterich Steffan and countless others supported the socialist regime of Venezuela, why should I believe that the word of some anonymous Internet, or a low socialist, Is it more accurate than any of these influential socialists?
Why should I trust that they know more about socialism, than the socialist politicians that people (also socialist) vote for and support?
But you know what, I'm going to agree with them, let's suppose that Venezuela, and none of the other regimes was truly socialist, let's say that they used socialism as a facade and only applied their personalist dictatorship. (Praesumptio iuris tantum)
Now, with these new facts on the table, why should I believe that an anonymous Internet, a low-class socialist, or worse, a self-styled socialist politician like Bernie Sanders, are really socialists?
What makes me believe that they, like all previous regimes, will not be using socialism as a facade and then impose their dictatorship?
Absolutely nothing…
All the previous leaders, from Lenin, through Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Josip Broz, Che Guevara, and other names of the red team stars. All, without exception, were called real socialists, and in the name of real socialism they made the greatest disasters of the last century.
That's why no, it does not matter if they were real socialists or not, it does not matter if they were real Marxists, what really matters were all those disasters they did in the name of socialism.
For those same disasters, I would never trust a politician who proclaims himself real representative of socialism, because history has shown us that they, whether socialist or not, whether intentionally or unintentionally, have been the greatest destroyers of civilizations that history never seen.
