Last month, Maduro’s illegitimate National Assembly began the process to pass the Organic Law for Communal Cities, and will soon consider legislation to create a national Communal Parliament. These two laws, although part of the government’s broader national plan of 35 legislative proposals for 2021, are particularly troubling: they seek to further fragment the Venezuelan State and are an extension of the Communal State, the central ideological component of Chávez’s socialist vision. Maduro, however, isn’t interested in the Communal State for the sake of ideology—he’s looking to expand chavismo’s social control. By Alex Trivella. Full Text -> CaracasChronicles