New Delhi: The years 1848 and 2019. Separated by 171 years, connected by irony.

With tanks rolling out on the streets on socialist-communist Venezuela to douse the popular uprising against its own supreme leader Nicolas Maduro, it is time to revisit 1848. Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto that inspired workers across continents, especially in Europe, to question the inhuman working hours and working conditions in the thick of Industrialisation. The anti-feudal uprising called ‘The Revolutions of 1848’ was preceded the Second International, an umbrella body for communist organisations. It had declared May 1 as International Workers’ Day with a whole set of demands. It came to be known as May Day. As the socialist regime of Venezuela crushed protestors on the eve of May Day to continue being in power, the irony couldn't have been lost on anyone across the globe, including in our own Kerala.

Venezuela and West Bengal

Nicolas Maduro presided over a catastrophic economic situation caused by years of communism. The rebellion led by Opposition's Juan Guaido and supported by a faction of the Venezuelan Army ended in a whimper, but the people's uprising is refusing to die. Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez followed a socialist agenda for decades. Chávez declared an "economic war" because of shortages in Venezuela. Chávez aligned himself with the Marxist–Leninist governments of Fidel and then Raúl Castro in Cuba. He may have had called his ideology 'anti-imperialist' but inflation for Venezuelans became worse with each passing year to the extent now many can't afford a proper breakfast a day.

Also read: Socialist Maduro challenged in Venezuela; US backs Guaido, rebel soldiers

Back home, West Bengal was ruled for 34 years by the communist regime of Jyoti Basu and then Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. They too came with the promise of equal land distribution or 'patta' but slowly the government degenerated into a corruption machine. If Venezuela doesn't have money to eat, fuel to run a car, Bengal didn't have jobs to run a household. An entire generation of Bengalis was forced into exile to earn bread and butter. No wonder then, that even 34-years of the left regime came crumbling when people had enough of it. 


Lenin statue being taken down in Tripura

USSR, Cuba, Kerala...

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) may have been finished off way back in on December 26, 1991, but it was the beginning of a trend. Fidel Castro came to be known as the father of Latin socialism. Even Chavez, the predecessor of the current President of Venezuela, was his fanboy. After his death, his brother Raul went for a 180-degree turnaround on its economic policies. Barack Obama, a first US President in many decades visited the country to start a new chapter of economic boom from the gloom brought in by blockades due to self-imposed socialism. Back home, Tripura saw a landslide victory for BJP after more than twenty years of left rule by Manik Sarkar. A state where the BJP had 1.5% vote share when the electorate voted out the CPM, it brought down a Lenin statue quite like the bringing down of the Saddam Hussain statue in Baghdad after he was overthrown.

Also read: Socialist Venezuela burns on May Day, irony is dead

Many wonder if Kerala, the only state where Communists rule now, the next? The Leftist regime is marked with political violence, religious interference, and ideologies that are forced down through a compromised education system.

Maduro had called on his forces to show "nerves of steel" and troops in riot gear, backed by armoured vehicles and water tankers, lined up against the demonstrators. Several vehicles plowed into the crowd, injuring some of the protesters. Rioters later blocked the highway with a bus and set it on fire, in Venezuela. All of this taking place on May Day, that was foreseen by Marx in 1848. But in this age of crumbling socialism worldwide, the proletariat leadership has turned the bourgeois dictator.