This is part one of a two-part conversation with Cira Pascual Marquina and Chris Gilbert, editors of the book Venezuela, The Present As Struggle: Voices From The Bolivarian Revolution. This book is a collection of interviews with Chavistas, communards, Campesinos, and a variety of activists, organizers, intellectuals and workers from the grassroots in Venezuela. 

The book offers a view of both the impacts of US imperialism and sanctions in Venezuela, but also the voices of the Venezuelan people on the pathway out of the existing crisis and toward socialism. 

In this first part of our conversation, Cira and Chris talk about the subjects they interview in their book. We also discuss internationalism, US sanctions, some tendencies within the Bolivarian revolution, and some of the challenges that face rentier economies like Venezuela’s.

Gilbert and Pascual Marquina also share insights on the communes and the struggles of campesinos and why the represent the most revolutionary possibilities for the present and future of the Bolivarian process.

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