Construyendo utopías concretas: el movimiento comunero en Venezuela

Abstract

Historically, utopias had an important role in the construction of social alternatives. This article analyzes Venezuelan communes, a mechanism of local self-government, as a utopic configuration or "concrete utopia". I discuss different Marxist and emancipatory concepts of utopia and connect them with the Latin American thought in order to show how the utopic preconfiguration has to be necessarily considered in the processes of revolutionary struggle. After summarizing the structure and functioning of the local self-government, I analyze how the Utopian configuration is practiced in the communes. The communes have their roots in political and social traditions and connect with socialist and revolutionary experiences, as well as with the history of indigenous, afro and popular resistance. The structure and functioning of the local government shows that what happens in the communes is a Utopian prefiguration. In the popular imaginary a Communal State will replace the bourgeois state.