Grassroots Organization & Self-Management: How Communes are Transforming Venezuela & Inspiring the World

Communities in the heart of Caracas are creating new ways of living based on direct democracy and a communal economy.

By Leonardo Fernandes–Aug 30, 2026

Grassroots solutions that transform the present and shape the future emerge from adversity. This is a lesson the Venezuelan people will not forget. While the country has faced all manner of hardships—such as economic sanctions, military aggression, the abduction of the president, and even a double earthquake—organized people within the socialist communes have been transforming their own realities.

In the heart of Caracas, within the historic 23 de Enero neighborhood, lies one of the places where Venezuela is being reborn. For nearly two decades, the Panal 21 Commune has been transforming the lives of over 10,000 residents across nine local communities. As Judith Guerra, spokesperson for the Santa Rosa Community, recounts:

“I was remembering how hard it was for us when we couldn’t use our streets and had to live in fear. All of that happened during the Fourth Republic, because our streets were taken over by evil people—people who didn’t believe in any kind of organization, since communal councils and communes did not exist back then,” the commune member recalls.

Far beyond the current difficulties facing the country, decades of economic warfare and an intense disinformation campaign against Venezuela’s revolution have caused territories of resistance to spring up across the nation. “We began mobilizing within institutions to find people who shared our identity—who would support us from that institutional battlefront—and we gradually built up our entire community. We replaced 42 shacks with decent housing. We replaced 600 linear meters of potable water and sewage piping. We replaced the roofs. Hardly anyone here has a damaged roof anymore; only about 2% or 3% remain. When it rains, those cardboard roofs are no longer found in our neighborhood, and we achieved all this through the revolutionary process. We’ve boosted both the family economy and the communal economy,” she recounts with pride.

Among the many stories from the commune’s nearly 20-year history, Judith shares that during the COVID-19 pandemic—faced with mobility restrictions and widespread unemployment—a solution emerged that has since become a hallmark of the Santa Rosa community: the Panalito.

“When we couldn’t leave our homes, we started a social media group and went from there” she recalled. “We discovered that Mrs. Maria bakes cakes, Mr. Juan is an electrician, and Mr. Pedro is a blacksmith. We began to see who we really were. Since many people from other communities pass through here—as the path leads directly to the Caracas metro—we started advertising that a hairdresser, a seamstress, a cook, a carpenter, and an appliance repair technician lived here. That’s how we managed to promote the family economy. And if each family grows stronger economically, our quality of life improves. I believe that is incredibly important.”

Although much work lies ahead—as the commune members emphasize—the reality today is different. Beyond productive projects, the area now boasts a radio station, recreational spaces, a public library, sports facilities, and classes in dance, martial arts, and even robotics.

It is experiences like that of the Panal 21 commune that a group of socialist activists from Catalonia came to see. Among them is Maura Antoni, who says she is pleasantly surprised.

“I came without high expectations because I didn’t really know what we would find—especially given the earthquake situation,” said Antoni. “But I came with the intention of learning about the country’s communal process—something we had heard about before arriving, through training sessions we had attended. I did not know much about it, and I found the way they build politically from scratch, through grassroots organization, to be very interesting.”

“After all, we Catalans are also a nation oppressed by the Spanish and French states. We’ve learned a great deal about assembly-based processes, bottom-up decision-making, people’s power, and how people live together as a community,” she continued.

Alex Quintero is another Catalan brigade member who says he was deeply impressed by the country’s experiences with self-management and grassroots organization.

“Here in Venezuela, we’ve found a very fruitful model of social and community organization that takes shape in these communes, which feature collective production systems,” he said. “This really struck us because, under European capitalism, such things don’t exist. We’ve been visiting various communes, and they explained their participatory processes regarding citizen engagement—such as elections for communal councils, the role of spokespersons, and so on—to us. We learned a great deal about both the productive aspect of social production enterprises and the participation of popular power, and we hope to take all this information back to our homeland.”

“By coming here to Venezuela, we also witnessed a people in struggle—specifically against the imperialist siege imposed by the United States—who also possess a project for popular transformation rooted in socialism,” added Quintero.

Seeds of Bolivarian socialism
But what is it, ultimately, that makes these communal organization projects such a powerful instrument for building socialism?

Cira Pascual Marquina, a researcher and popular educator from the Panal 21 Commune, explains that communes are not created merely as institutions; rather, they emerge from local experiences of community self-organization.

“There are many threads leading us to this point—a rediscovery, rooted in this territory and this people in struggle (this revolutionary, anti-imperialist people), which finds its most powerful expression in the commune. That is why we say the commune is both the path and the destination. Every commune in Venezuela has its strengths, yet all of them—even the most robust ones—still have a long way to go. However, if you visit the El Panal Commune, you will see shoots of socialism already emerging; they require great care and love, but the shoots of socialism are already there,” observes the researcher, for whom the commune must be more than just a “fourth level of government.”

“Within the Bolivarian Revolution, there are interpretations that view the commune simply as a space for solving local territorial problems—such as wastewater issues, lighting, roads, and the like. For us—for the Alexis Vive Patriotic Force and the El Panal Commune—the commune goes far beyond that.” “The commune is the epicenter for building new social relations,” she emphasized.

“This implies that the commune advances toward us on two feet: one is direct, participatory democracy where the people themselves are the protagonists—without representation—meaning a democracy that transcends the form of bourgeois liberal democracy,” said Pascual. “The other is control over the means of production. This combination is what builds substantive democracy. Within this framework, with these two feet, we achieve the collective body we call the commune.”

The researcher noted that it was during a moment of extreme hardship—poised between “nothingness” and a possible future—that the people decided to transform the present:

“The Venezuelan people vigorously revived the commune proposal at a time when you would go to a store shelf and find nothing. Faced with nothingness, the Venezuelan people recalled Commander Chávez’s slogan—‘commune or nothing’—and strongly took up the communal proposal again; it had already been alive and active, but lacked such potency. In many communes, such as the El Panal Commune, there was an effort to implement planned food distribution at that time. In other communes across the country, similar measures were adopted to ensure that community members had enough food.

“We are focusing on this moment because we need to defend the revolution. Since part of this war is ideological and fought through the media, we must find ways to make what is being built here known to the world… The MST says: ‘let us internationalize the struggle, let us internationalize hope.’ And this internationalization must be a two-way street. The Communist Manifesto concludes with ‘proletarians of all countries, unite!’ Indeed, we cannot wage the socialist struggle alone. We must wage it together—as a working class—here, in Brazil, in Venezuela, in Italy, wherever it may be, and also in the Catalan countries.”

According to the Ministry of Communes, there are 3,924 registered communal territories across the country: 53 indigenous, 1,056 rural, 1,851 suburban or mixed, and 964 urban. Each has its own unique characteristics. Amidst historical adversities, the organized people cultivate the seeds of Bolivarian socialism with care and patience.