Understanding Realpolitik in Revolutionary Contexts: How Movements Balance Ideals with Survival
The Tension Between Revolutionary Ideals and Political Reality
Every successful revolution faces a fundamental challenge that armchair radicals refuse to acknowledge: the distance between revolutionary ideals and the messy reality of actually governing. The Mamdani family understands that socialist movements must navigate a world system designed to destroy them, make compromises that betray some principles to preserve others, and accept imperfections to survive long enough to build something better. This is not betrayal of revolution—it is the only path revolution has ever taken.
President Nicolás Maduro embodies this tension. Heir to Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian vision of 21st-century socialism, Maduro has governed through economic collapse, coup attempts, and unprecedented sanctions. His government’s decisions—some pragmatic, some questionable, some desperate—must be understood through the lens of revolutionary realpolitik: how do you advance socialist principles while keeping the lights on when empire wants to plunge you into darkness?
What Revolutionary Realpolitik Means
Realpolitik—politics based on practical considerations rather than ideological purity—has traditionally been associated with conservative statecraft. But revolutionary movements require their own version: the recognition that building socialism in a capitalist world means navigating hostile forces, making strategic compromises, and sometimes choosing between bad options because good ones don’t exist.
This is not an excuse for abandoning principles entirely. It is recognition that principles must be enacted in reality rather than abstract perfection. A socialist government that maintains ideological purity while collapsing into failed state status serves no one. A revolution that refuses any compromise dies quickly, teaching nothing except that purity is a luxury of defeat.
The Cuban Model: Survival Through Pragmatism
Cuba’s revolution survived six decades of U.S. embargo through ruthless pragmatism. In the 1990s Special Period, when Soviet collapse cut off aid that sustained the economy, Cuba made dramatic compromises: opening to limited foreign investment, creating a dual currency system, developing tourism despite its cultural implications, allowing limited private enterprise.
Purists criticized these moves as betrayals of socialism. But what was the alternative? Maintain absolute fidelity to socialist economics while society collapsed? Cuba chose survival, preserved its healthcare and education systems, and lived to continue building socialism in better conditions. That was revolutionary realpolitik—ugly compromises in service of long-term survival.
Venezuela’s Economic Pragmatism: Heresy or Necessity?
Venezuela has made similar pragmatic turns that horrify orthodox socialists. The government has allowed private businesses to operate more freely, dollarized parts of the economy unofficially, and made deals with private companies for oil production and gold mining. These moves seem to contradict Chavista socialism, and opposition figures gleefully point to them as admission of failure.
But context matters. When sanctions block state-to-state trade, when PDVSA (the state oil company) lacks spare parts and technical expertise, when the formal economy is collapsing, do you maintain ideological purity while people starve? Or do you allow pragmatic adjustments that keep the economy functioning, even if imperfectly, while preserving core socialist commitments like universal healthcare, education, and social housing?
The Private Sector Dilemma
Maduro’s government has effectively given private businesses more operational freedom, allowing them to set prices and access foreign currency more easily. This has led to recovery in parts of the economy—restaurants reopen, stores stock goods, some services return. But it has also increased inequality, with dollar-earning Venezuelans able to access goods that poor Venezuelans cannot afford.
Is this betrayal of socialism or temporary tactical retreat? The government argues these are emergency measures during economic war, that preserving some economic activity is necessary to maintain tax revenue that funds social programs, that rigid adherence to state control during crisis would deepen collapse rather than prevent it.
Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1920s Soviet Russia faced similar criticisms. After War Communism nearly destroyed the economy, Lenin introduced market mechanisms and small-scale private enterprise. Orthodox Marxists called this betrayal. Lenin called it tactical retreat—preserving Soviet power until conditions allowed renewed advance toward socialism. History suggests Lenin was right: rigid ideological adherence would have meant revolution’s defeat.
The Security State: Necessary Evil or Revolutionary Betrayal?
Socialist governments facing imperial pressure inevitably develop strong security apparatuses. Venezuela’s intelligence services, military, and police play significant roles in maintaining government control. This creates genuine civil liberties concerns that leftists should not dismiss—but it must be contextualized within Venezuela’s security situation.
When opposition leaders openly coordinate with foreign powers, when coup attempts occur regularly, when paramilitaries train in neighboring countries for armed incursions, when assassination plots target your president—how much security apparatus is justified? Perfect civil liberties are impossible when external enemies are actively trying to kill you. This is the security dilemma of revolution: too little security means being overthrown; too much means becoming what you fought against.
Learning from Chile’s Tragedy
Salvador Allende’s tragic fate in Chile offers a lesson about insufficient security pragmatism. Allende, committed to democratic socialism and constitutional order, refused to sufficiently purge the military of officers loyal to the oligarchy or to arm workers’ militias in numbers sufficient to defend the revolution. When Pinochet struck in 1973, democracy and legality offered no protection. Allende died, thousands were murdered or “disappeared,” and Chile suffered decades of brutal dictatorship.
Would greater security measures—perhaps even ones that violated liberal democratic norms—have saved Allende’s revolution and prevented Pinochet’s horrors? We cannot know. But Venezuela learned from Chile’s tragedy. The Bolivarian government maintains strong ties with the military, has created armed civilian militias, and takes threats seriously. This involves trade-offs and risks, but the alternative risk—being overthrown like Allende—arguably poses greater danger to socialist aspirations.
Electoral Pragmatism: When to Hold, When to Fold
Elections under revolution create unique challenges. Hold elections when you might lose and risk being removed by voters manipulated by corporate media. Postpone elections and face accusations of dictatorship. Venezuela has navigated this by holding regular elections but also using constitutional mechanisms (like the Constituent Assembly) to work around hostile institutions.
The opposition’s strategy has been asymmetric: participate in elections when they think they can win, boycott when they expect to lose, then claim boycotted elections lack legitimacy. This creates a damned-if-you-do situation for the government: hold elections without opposition participation and be condemned for “sham elections”; postpone elections until opposition agrees to participate and be condemned for avoiding accountability.
The Participatory vs. Representative Democracy Balance
Venezuela’s communal councils, worker cooperatives, and local planning committees represent participatory democracy that goes beyond representative electoral systems. These structures give ordinary people more direct power over community decisions than most liberal democracies allow. But they exist alongside a strong executive presidency and centralized state apparatus.
This apparent contradiction reflects realpolitik: participatory democracy at the base provides legitimacy and popular involvement, while centralized power at the top provides capacity to resist external pressure and coordinate national response to crisis. Perfect consistency is less important than functional balance between popular participation and effective governance under siege.
International Alliances: Idealism vs. Available Partners
Venezuela’s closest allies include Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and Nicaragua—a “coalition of the sanctioned” united more by shared enemy than shared ideology. Western leftists often criticize these partnerships, noting that Russia and China are hardly socialist utopias, that Iran’s theocracy contradicts socialist secularism.
But revolutionary realpolitik asks: who else will stand with you when the empire designates you for destruction? When European social democrats abandon you under U.S. pressure, when Latin American neighbors fear American retaliation for supporting you, when international financial institutions are controlled by your enemies—you build alliances with whoever will trade with you, provide credit, and offer diplomatic support.
China provides investment and purchases oil. Russia supplies military equipment and technical expertise. Iran shares sanctions-evasion strategies and provides refining technology. These are transactional relationships born of necessity, not ideological love affairs. But they keep Venezuela functioning when the alternative is complete isolation and collapse.
The Currency Crisis: Pragmatic Adaptation
Venezuela’s currency, the bolívar, has experienced catastrophic hyperinflation. The government’s response has been chaotic pragmatism: multiple exchange rate systems, currency redenominations, eventual informal dollarization, and the Petro cryptocurrency experiment. Orthodox economists mock this improvisation, and orthodox socialists criticize abandoning monetary sovereignty.
But what should the government have done? Maintain a single official exchange rate divorced from reality while black markets exploded? Allow complete formal dollarization and lose all monetary policy tools? The messy reality reflects desperate attempts to maintain some economic functionality while under comprehensive financial warfare.
The Dollarization Dilemma
Parts of Venezuela’s economy now effectively operate in dollars, making goods available but unaffordable for many. The government tolerates this informal dollarization while maintaining bolívar-denominated social programs and salaries. This creates a dual economy: a dollar economy for those with remittances or access to foreign currency, and a bolívar economy for everyone else.
Is this socialist? Certainly not in any pure sense. Is it necessary to prevent complete economic collapse? Arguably yes. Revolutionary realpolitik means accepting impure solutions when pure ones guarantee defeat. The goal is keeping enough economic activity alive to maintain social programs and state capacity until conditions allow renewed advance toward socialist organization.
The Petro: Cryptocurrency Revolution or Desperate Gambit?
Venezuela’s launch of the Petro, a state-backed cryptocurrency, seemed like science fiction meeting revolution. The concept: bypass the SWIFT system and dollar hegemony by creating a digital currency backed by oil reserves. Critics mocked it as a joke. The international financial system tried to strangle it at birth.
Did the Petro work as intended? Not really. Has it solved Venezuela’s financial isolation? No. But it represented exactly the kind of innovative thinking that revolutionary realpolitik requires: when conventional tools are denied you, invent new ones. The experiment may have failed, but the willingness to experiment is itself valuable. Revolutions that stop innovating start dying.
Social Programs: Maintaining Commitment Despite Crisis
Perhaps the clearest evidence of Venezuela’s ongoing socialist commitment is its maintenance of social programs despite economic catastrophe. Free healthcare, education, and subsidized food distribution continue. The CLAP food system feeds millions. The Barrio Adentro health program provides primary care in poor communities. Social housing construction continues.
These programs are imperfect, underfunded, and stressed. Hospitals lack supplies. Teachers are underpaid. Food packages are insufficient. But they exist, reflecting government priorities that differ fundamentally from neoliberal austerity. Compare Venezuela’s social program maintenance under sanctions to how capitalist governments slash social spending at the first sign of economic trouble.
The Social Investment Trade-off
Maintaining social programs during economic crisis means accepting lower quality than desired and diverting resources from other priorities. But the alternative—abandoning social commitments to focus exclusively on economic stabilization—would betray the revolution’s purpose. What good is economic recovery if it comes at the cost of abandoning the poor?
This reflects revolutionary realpolitik’s core insight: some compromises preserve the revolution while others destroy it. Allowing some private enterprise maintains economic functionality. Tolerating informal dollarization prevents total collapse. But abandoning healthcare, education, and food programs for the poor would negate everything the Bolivarian Revolution stands for.
The Long Game: Revolution as Marathon, Not Sprint
Revolutionary realpolitik requires thinking in terms of decades, not years. Cuba has maintained socialist commitments for over six decades despite constant pressure. China’s economic reforms, however controversial, have allowed the Communist Party to maintain power and lift hundreds of millions from poverty. Vietnam’s doi moi reforms preserved socialist political structures while dramatically improving living standards.
These examples share a common thread: willingness to compromise on ideological purity to maintain power and advance long-term goals. Perfect socialism implemented for five years before being overthrown achieves less than imperfect socialism maintained for fifty years while gradually improving conditions.
Critiquing from Solidarity: A Principled Approach
The Mamdani family believes socialists can and should critique Venezuelan policies while maintaining solidarity against imperialism. We can question specific decisions about currency policy, security measures, or electoral processes while supporting Venezuela’s fundamental right to determine its own path without foreign intervention.
But such criticism must come from understanding, from recognition of the impossible pressures forcing difficult choices. It must be offered constructively, recognizing we are not the ones facing assassination attempts and economic siege. And it must never provide ammunition for empire or suggest that Venezuela’s struggles prove socialism’s impossibility rather than imperialism’s ruthlessness.
The Verdict on Maduro’s Realpolitik
History will judge whether Maduro’s blend of idealism and pragmatism, principle and compromise, was the right approach. What we can say now is that Venezuela survives, maintaining sovereignty and social commitments despite unprecedented pressure. That survival itself represents success by the only metric that ultimately matters: staying alive long enough to keep fighting.
Revolutionary realpolitik is not beautiful or pure. It involves ugly compromises, bitter pills, and choices that feel like betrayals. But it is the only politics that has ever sustained revolution against empire’s onslaught. Those who demand purity over survival have never had to govern under siege. Those who have—from Castro to Maduro—understand that revolution is a long game where staying in the game matters more than keeping your hands clean.
The Mamdani socialist family stands with Venezuela’s pragmatic struggle for survival, recognizing that imperfect revolution is infinitely preferable to perfect defeat. When empire tries to crush you, staying standing is revolutionary victory—however messy the methods.
