Draft:Marx and the Real Socialisms and other Essays (Book)

Cover of first edition of Marx and the Real Socialisms and Other Essays (1988), by Carlos Rangel

Marx y los socialismos reales y otros ensayos (290 pages) is a collection of thirty-two essays by the Venezuelan writer and TV personality Carlos Rangel, published posthumously in 1988 by Monte Ávila Editores. The texts—original articles, newspaper columns, and public lectures written between 1975 and 1984—cover topics such as Marxist ideology, Cuban dissidence, Latin-American dependency debates, and Venezuelan politics. Critics have described the volume as the final part of an informal trilogy that also includes Del buen salvaje al buen revolucionario (1976) and El tercermundismo(1982).—on truth, individual responsibility, and the enduring threat of ideological dogma. Mario Vargas Llosa said about this book: "From his three books, y prefer the last one. The preface [Rangel] wrote for an edition of [Marx and Engels'] The Communist Manifesto, edited in 1980 by Ateneo de Caracas, is a small masterpiece"

The inclusion of original essays such as "Marx y Bolívar" and "El tercermundismo," as well as the deliberate sequential non-chronoligical placement of previously published texts, indicates an author's intent that goes beyond a mere compilation. As of 2025, this book has not been translated into any other language.

Significant quote

"[Camus] no cayó, como tantos intelectuales pequeños o grandes burgueses con mala conciencia, en la trampa de suponer que con entregarse [a la ideología] bastaba para salvar su responsabilidad."

("[Camus] did not fall, like so many petty or grande bourgeois intellectuals with a guilty conscience, into the trap of supposing that surrendering himself [to ideology] was enough to save his responsibility."

The Camus-Sartre Polemic (essay 20, p. 291)

Structure and themes

Although *Marx y los socialismos reales y otros ensayos* is not explicitly divided into parts, the thirty-two essays can be grouped thematically into six coherent segments that reflect Rangel's intellectual concerns and form a coherent thematic arc:

1. Marxist myth-making (Essays 1–3, pp. 13-55) – Rangel presents Marxism as a secular belief system rather than a science.

This opening segment sets the philosophical foundation for the book. Rangel examines Marxist ideology not as science, but as a secular religion—replete with dogma, moral fervor, and utopian promise. From orthodox socialism to its influence in literature and political mythmaking, these essays question the persistence of Marxism even after its empirical failures. This section includes one of the original essays for the book "Marx y Bolivar," used to document Marx's contempt for Simón Bolívar, the Latin American revolutionary, branded by Marx as a despicable power-hungry coward that history (in 1858) was pretending to label as a Latin American Napoleon. This essay sets the tone of the book, with its implicit questioning of observable truth, interpretative history, and the personal responsibility of separating fact from fiction as a moral imperative. The next essay, "Marx y la literatura infantil" lays out the theme, betrayal of conscience, recounting the story of a boy named Pavlik Morozov, who in 1932 accused his father to the Stalin police for illegally collecting wheat. After his father was sent to Siberia, the boy Pavlik was murdered by his uncle. The uncle was executed by firing squad, and Pavlik was exalted by the regime's children's literature as a hero in tales, ballads and operas to encourage Soviet Bloc children to also inform on their parents.

2. Cuban dissidence (4–9, pp. 56-88) – Profiles of Heberto Padilla, Reinaldo Arenas, and Guillermo Cabrera Infante illustrate the personal cost of ideological conformity and the human cost of "real socialism" as exemplified by Cuba.

Turning from theory to lived experience, over the next six essays Rangel profiles Cuban dissident voices—notably Heberto Padilla, Reinaldo Arenas, and Guillermo Cabrera Infante—persecuted or exiled for defying revolutionary orthodoxy. Through these essays Rangel seeks to illustrate the human cost of ideological conformity, arguing how totalitarian regimes destroy not only liberty but truth, language, and the autonomy of the artist. Cuba becomes a case study in the betrayal of intellectual and moral freedom by the very revolution that promised their flourishing.

3. Third-Worldism and dependency theory rhetoric (10–14, pp. 89-190) – The author expands his critique to Latin-American foreign policy and victimhood narratives, particularly focusing on rhetorical duplicity.

Broadening the scope of the earlier sections, this one criticizes Third-Worldism, Latin-American victimism, and dependency theory. In the book's second original essay, "El tercermundismo," Rangel recaps his second book ''Third World Ideology'', in which he analyzes the notion that underdevelopment is caused solely by an imperialist zero-sum game, arguing instead that internal failures and authoritarian seductions are central obstacles to progress. In this section Rangel also calls out nations and leaders for their duplicity when turning a blind eye on leftist authoritarianism while preaching human rights.

4. Focus Venezuela (15–19, pp. 89-190) – A series of speeches and essays diagnosing rent-seeking populism and proposing liberal-republican reforms.

Rangel applies his earlier critical observations and analyses to Venezuela's political decline. In the included speeches and essays he confronts populism, rent-seeking behaviors, and the weakening of democratic institutions. His speeches at IESA, and elsewhere, lay out a vision for a "new country" grounded on liberal reform and civic responsibility.

5. Betrayal and the intellectual (20–30, pp. 191-267) – These eleven essays hold the philosophical core of the book: personal accountability of intellectuals in the face of authoritarian dogma. In the preface to the book, Jean François Revel describes this central question thus:"[...the great moral rule is] never write anything but that which is truly believed [and] disdain intellectual opportunism, which is even more loathsome than political opportunism," This statement suggests the comprehension by the philosopher of Rangel's intention.

In this section Rangel ponders treason and the moral responsibility and duties of writers and artists under ideological pressure. Central to this section is his sustained critique of Jean-Paul Sartre, contrasted with Albert Camus, Thomas Mann, and others who, in Rangel's view, represent divergent responses to the collision between truth and dogma. Through these portraits he argues that genuine creativity and conscience require ethical and moral standing apart from both revolutionary and reactionary orthodoxies.

6. Art, time, solitude (31–32, pp. 388-422) – Literary meditations on Marcel Proust and Miguel de Unamuno that find freedom in personal memory and ethical self-examination..

The final segment retreats from politics to explore aesthetic and existential freedom. Through literary studies of Proust and Unamuno, Rangel argues that art and solitude are acts of resistance—that the defense of truth often begins in personal memory, the experience of time, and introspection. His quote from Unamuno on the last page of the book is key:

"[Rangel writes:] It is by listening to our essential being that we can hear the voice of all men [he quotes Unamuno]: Since I cannot hear the truth from one man when he speaks to another man, nor can I hear it when he speaks to me, I go to solitude, I take refuge in it, and there, alone, listening to my heart, I hear everyone speak the truth." (Unamuno, M. "Soledad," 1905).

Sartre, Mann, and the problem of intellectual responsibility.

Several essays spotlight the ethical role of public intellectuals. In "La polémica Camus–Sartre" and "Sartre y la literatura metafísica," Rangel argues that Jean-Paul Sartre subordinated truth to ideological loyalty, contrasting this stance with Albert Camus's refusal to excuse political violence, as Rangel interprets from his reading of "L'homme revolté" (The Rebel). To further develop the comparison, Rangel devotes a five-part series titled "Sobre Thomas Mann" (Essays 25.1–25.5) to the German novelist's defense of liberal democracy during and after the Nazi era. For Rangel, Mann exemplifies the intellectual who remains loyal to conscience when ideological fashion rewards betrayal. Commentators have cited this section as a critique of "ideological bad faith" among twentieth-century writers.

Venezuela in Marx y los socialismos reales y otros ensayos.

Rangel's interpretation of Venezuelan history is presented in essays such as "Adónde va Venezuela," "La crisis y sus soluciones," and "El nuevo país." He traces a cycle of "revolutionary rupture, democratic experiment, institutional weakness, and authoritarian relapse" spanning from the late 18th century founding ideals of Francisco de Miranda, through the missed republican opportunities of the 20th century, to the dilemmas faced by a rent-based economy petrostate at the time of publication. According to the writer, figures like Miranda symbolize the country's unfinished republican project, while modern institutions such as IESA represent potential avenues for liberal renewal. Commentator Álvaro Vargas Llosa has cited these essays as an "indispensable liberal reading" of Venezuelan politics. Osorio Bohórquez also dedicates a portion of his paper on Carlos Rangel and his critique on Marxism to these essays as a signifcant section of the book. Rangel's aim is not to glorify Venezuela's past but to diagnose its recurrent institutional failures and democratic discontinuities while identifying the persistent myths that prevent its liberal transformation. The Venezuelan story, for Rangel, is not doomed—but it must be reclaimed through truth, responsibility, and rejection of ideological myths.

Place in Rangel's trilogy

Whereas "Del buen salvaje al buen revolucionario" critiques the "noble-savage" ideal and its pernicious legacy I Latin America, and "El tercermundismo" challenges dependency theory at a global level of rivalries, the 1988 volume synthesizes both arguments and extends them to personal level questions of art, psychology, and moral courage. Enrique Krauze and other scholars view "Marx y los socialismos reales y otros ensayos" as completing Rangel's trilogy on Latin-American political myths. Mario Vargas Llosa describes the book—and particularly its introductory essay—as "a small masterpiece" of liberal polemic. While the first book centered on a región and the countries within it, and the second one takes the broader analytical view of the conflict between ideological hegemonic powers, this third book lands its thematic arc on the interaction of individuals within the ideology and historical context that surrounds them. As JF Revel indicates in his prologue, the overarching thesis of "Marx y los socialismos reales y otros ensayos" asserts that political liberty ultimately rests on intellectual honesty and personal responsibility—qualities exemplified by Camus, Mann, Paz, and Unamuno, and betrayed by Sartre and other ideological partisans.

Editions

• 1988 – Caracas, Venezuela (Spanish, print), Marx y los socilsimos reales y otros ensayos, Monte Ávila Editores, 290 pp. ISBN 980-01-0250-7 (1988)
• 2021 – Caracas, Venezuela (Spanish, digital), CEDICE Libertad, Digital edition of Marx y los socilsimos reales y otros ensayos (part of Biblioteca Carlos Rangel series). ISBN 980-01-0250-7 (2021)