Venzuela votes today

Maduro and his predecessor were leaders of a Venezuelan Socialist party. Have seen their regime described as such in the past.

Regimes can be charitably described as deceptive in their language. The number of countries that have "Democratic" in their official names that are anything but..

Hopefully have a change in the political leadership in Venezuela. Would probably be beneficial to the country and the region. Wouldn't hold my breath all the same.

I think the support has pretty much dried up. The Corbyn era Labour Party had some members that were somewhat warm. Think the apex was under the Chavez when the likes of actors and mainstream parties lauding his accomplishments. Part of the later period support was more about opposing the American hegemony than supporting the Venezuelan government.

Socialism always ends the same way, dictatorship. Some don't want to live in equal poverty with the masses.

In fairness to Kennedy, that was largely an inherited scheme from the Eisenhower administration. He made the decision to not supply direct US military air support. To some that was to result in the failure of the operation, others argue that it helped the reduce the bloodshed. Vietnam and his level involvement would be a more contentious issue.

As regards Socialism, it brings up the economic and political aspects. On the political side, some may feel that free and fair elections are a necessary attribute (possibly yourself?). If one is looking at the economics side, quite a few authoritarian and despotic regimes would operate a Socialist system.

The USSR was socialist. China is socialist. Cambodia was socialist.

That's the end of the socialist spectrum Venezuela exists on, not the left wing party in a democratic country model you're outlining.

Labour being in government in the United Kingdom now doesn't mean it's become a socialist society, it's just socialist flavoured capitalism without any commitment to the harsh realities of actual socialism.

The term USSR stands for Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.

I'm not trying to be unkind here, but your understanding of the political ideology you claim to subscribe to doesn't seem particularly robust.

They were socialists.

You're choosing to say that words can mean whatever YOU want them to mean.

Communism is the end result of Socialism according to all the socialists I've ever spoken to. Communism was never achieved because socialism failed they'll tell you.

If you lived through the cold war I'd have to assume it wasn't at the forefront of your attention.

I'm not trying to be condescending or rude here but you've got a lot of things back to front on this topic unfortunately.

Two posts ago you said China was a Fascist state, now you're saying it's Communist. Communism and Fascism are at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, even of they do result in bad outcomes (see the notion of horseshoe theory for more on that one), they're not the same thing.

Surprised that someone has not heard the word socialist in the context of the Venuzuela regime.

They are routinely called socialist by the likes of the BBC, Irish Times, UK Independent etc.

BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48121148

Their socialist PSUV party has, over the past two decades, gained control of key institutions, including much of the judiciary, the electoral council and the Supreme Court.

Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/world/americas/2023/03/17/deep-fake-news-videos-ramp-up-misinformation-in-venezuela/

The report, which was widely circulated in media supportive of President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government, suggested claims about widespread impoverishment in oil-rich Venezuela had been “exaggerated”.

UK Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/world/venezuela-election-maduro-controversy-gonzalez-b2587183.html

Venezuela is voting in the country’s hotly-anticipated election today (28 July), which could see the end of 25 years of socialist rule.

Wikipedia describes the ideology of the ruling party as:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Socialist_Party_of_Venezuela

Ideology	Socialism of the 21st century[2] Bolivarianism[3] Chavismo[4] Left-wing populism[5] Anti-imperialist

Probably hundreds of other sources.

Depends on your definition of socialism I suppose but certainly the idea that the Venezuelan regime is socialist is not a fringe one.

Might you be thinking more of social democracy than socialism?

Looking less like socialism and more like a dictatorship in Venezuela.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz5rj2mzgevo

They use an electronic voting system in Venezuela. Maduro has called the results based on an electronic tally that in itself can't be trusted. He could have pulled the figures out of his proverbial backside. They are also witholding access to many of the paper receipts which could be used to verify the results. Even then, the trouble with these systems is while in theory you should be able to verify by auditing only a random sample of paper receipts, but if Maduro's cronies get to select which ones to audit, then fraud could be occurring elsewhere.