Oh no! Someone tell the zealous theocratic fanatics in Iran that Venezuela isn't a muslim country! And quick, someone tell the Marxist-Stalinist communist socialists in Venezuela that Iran is capitalist! According to the news about the nature of these countries, these guys would hate each other!
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025
118 points (100.0% liked)
news
24266 readers
608 users here now
Welcome to c/news! Please read the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember... we're all comrades here.
Rules:
-- PLEASE KEEP POST TITLES INFORMATIVE --
-- Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed. --
-- All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. --
-- If you are citing a twitter post as news please include not just the twitter.com in your links but also nitter.net (or another Nitter instance). There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/ or archive them as you would any other reactionary source using e.g. https://archive.today/ . Twitter screenshots still need to be sourced or they will be removed --
-- Mass tagging comm moderators across multiple posts like a broken markov chain bot will result in a comm ban--
-- Repeated consecutive posting of reactionary sources, fake news, misleading / outdated news, false alarms over ghoul deaths, and/or shitposts will result in a comm ban.--
-- Neglecting to use content warnings or NSFW when dealing with disturbing content will be removed until in compliance. Users who are consecutively reported due to failing to use content warnings or NSFW tags when commenting on or posting disturbing content will result in the user being banned. --
-- Using April 1st as an excuse to post fake headlines, like the resurrection of Kissinger while he is still fortunately dead, will result in the poster being thrown in the gamer gulag and be sentenced to play and beat trashy mobile games like 'Raid: Shadow Legends' in order to be rehabilitated back into general society. --
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Material interests tend to win out over ideology. Countries in the crosshairs of US imperialism find they have shared interests despite different ideological outlooks.
Their outlooks aren't as different as commonly portrayed either. Iran is much more progressive (in both social and world-historical terms) than it is shown to be in western media. It is an Islamic republic, with civilian portions of the government that wield quite a lot of power. They have elections. They have fought for and materially supported the progressive and anti-imperialist factions of West Asia for decades. Women there have far more rights than in Western-aligned Islamic nations like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, being incredibly educated and able to pursue professional careers and independence.
Likewise, Venezuela is not fully communist or marxist even. The Democratic Socialist revolution there came about democratically and legally, which means the forces of reaction and capital there were never defeated in battle or repressed out of existence like in DPRK/USSR. The leadership of Venezuela are still constrained by a legal system set-up under bourgeois dictatorship, making any sweeping or revolutionary changes extremely difficult. The bourgeoise maintain their positions, with leashes, and still agitate constantly against the government. Venezuela is a complex society where Christian Social Democratic tendencies and Christian reactionary tendencies both still hold a large amount of power. It is not the atheistic form of Marxism that we saw in the USSR and DPRK.
All in all, the two countries are more alike than not. Victims of isolation, sanctions and imperial aggression from the so-called United States of America. Internally divided between patriots and compradors. Struggling towards world-historical progress in a flawed fashion, with missteps and errors alongside the victories. Both have powerful factions of bourgeoise still to contend with, hampering their efforts and spreading religious reaction (either directly or indirectly). The exact context and shape of these forces differs, but really they are brotherly nations in ideological outlook.
The main difference is that in Iran, the bourgeois reactionaries are secular and the progressive forces are Islamic and religious - whereas in Venezuela the bourgeois reactionaries are often religious and the progressive forces are socialist and often secular, but religion plays a lesser role. The reasons for this have to do with the specifics of how both of their revolutions played out, and what forces the CIA has decided to imbed within.
All excellent points! And thank you for this reminder of their many similarities. This point about Iran in particular is not raised nearly often enough:
Women there have far more rights than in Western-aligned Islamic nations like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, being incredibly educated and able to pursue professional careers and independence.
Too many leftists still have a caricaturistic, orientalist view of Iran's society, a cultural chauvinism that was implanted into our heads by western propaganda.
To be fair, Islamic dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, ISIS, etc. legitimately do approach this caricature. They are extremely repressive and reactionary in regards to women's rights, among other things. The chauvinism comes in when Westerners believe all Islamic nations are just as repressive and reactionary as their allies are. It's a sort of self-soothing and coping projection mechanism for them to justify to themselves why they are allied to these fucked up nations and factions (that they helped create).
Their logic goes: Yes, it's not ideal that we have to ally ourself with these extremist reactionary islamists. But we must do it because they help combat Iran, who are equally evil - if not moreso because they oppose American and imperialist interests and want a nuke. So really, my getting in bed with the reactionaries is a wash because it's done to oppose even greater reactionaries.
That's why they must believe Iran is the caricature. Because doing otherwise would collapse their entire imperialist coalition and internal "logic". They need Iran to be reactionary and evil to cancel out their own side's evil, otherwise there's no way they could continue believing they are the "good guy". The role it plays for Western leftist chauvinists is similar, it allows them to fence-straddle instead of taking a principled revolutionary defeatist position against their own government and its proxies.
A great, full answer, unfortunately most people prefer an ELI5 answer and can't imagine the world is as complex as their own country.
China better accept that we are entering a period of global bloc politics. As much as they don't want to play the Soviet Union, they better find a way to be the anti-imperialist pole of a bipolar - not multipolar - world.
I don't know even the Soviet Union didn't want to play the Soviet Union.
Who knows what the Soviet Union would have done if it wasn't busy playing Soviet Union. Maybe it could have even played Soviet Union.
Really makes you think.
Agreed, but I got dunked on for saying something similar and they dropped a lot of good points on my head.
They have a population of 1.4 billion people to worry about, escalating conflict with the US / the west over other countries would put their own citizens at risk
Oh, I totally agree. And they aren't geared for global military conflict at all. But the period is coming where the US will force their hand, and I don't see a way out of it. Their plan to make the US's economic power irrelevant is working so well that the US is resorting to its other great strength. China's understandable efforts to avoid repeating the USSR's errors in military overextension means they are missing opportunities to repeat its successes. I think it's inevitable because the US has no other options.
What were those successes?
Of the USSR in general? for a start taking a nation from feudalism to the first person in space in under 4 decades with a quick break to defeat the Nazis in the middle
Of their miltary policies post-war specifically: support for anti-cololnial movements in Algeria, South Africa, Vietnam etc which threw off the shambles of western capatlist imperialism
Supporting almost 50 revolutions worldwide. China supported Korea, Cambodia (cringe) and Vietnam* during Mao's time, but since then they have not aided anyone else in any serious capacity.
*some exceptions apply
to their own detriment in latin america.
WWII, Vietnam/Laos, Algeria, Angola and their role in ending apartheid in South Africa, Cuba and the DPRK (regardless of your opinion of them they would not exist without the USSR)