The military attack on Venezuela, the kidnapping of its president, the missiles in various
parts of Caracas, the aftermath of deaths and injuries caused, have nothing to do with the
fight against drug trafficking, nor with the fight for democracy as some Venezuelan migrant
workers think. While we understand and share the righteous hatred towards the capitalist
dictatorship headed by Maduro, we cannot fail to point out that, in our opinion, they are
mistaken to believe the arguments that justify the Yankee military intervention and
celebrating Trump’s actions on Saturday, January 3.
Trump’s strategic objective is to transform Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves in
the world, into a colony, as was done with Panama after the 1989 invasion, using similar
arguments of fighting against drug trafficking and for democracy.
Trump’s recolonizing objective, similar to the one in Palestine, is clearly shown when he
states that he is going to control the Venezuelan government, oil and decide who should
govern Venezuela.
The statements of the Secretary of State, Marcos Rubio, have the same clarity: «We have a
triple process in Venezuela: The first step is the stabilization of the country, we will take
between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil, sell it on the market at market prices. We will
control how that money is distributed. The second phase will be recovery, ensuring that the
United States, the West and other countries have access to Venezuelan markets. The third
phase will be the transition.»
In Panama, the kidnapping of its president also took place on January 3 and, due to the
strong resistance it generated, it was not until 1999 that the last Yankee soldier left. In
Venezuela there was no resistance (we will see the reasons later), the internal U.S. military
presence lasted for hours. That does not mean the threat has disappeared as the blockade
of oil tankers is not carried out with declarations but with heavily armed ships.
The existence of this imperialist attack and the recolonization project that motivates it is
unquestionable. Therefore, there can be no doubt that the main task of Venezuelan
workers, as well as of the workers and peoples of Latin America and the world, must
be the rejection and confrontation of Trump and his recolonization plan. This task is
not opposed to the fight against the dictatorial regime, on the contrary, with the
development of the anti-imperialist confrontation, the Chavista regime must also be
fought, due to being increasingly incapable of leading that battle, and submissively
accepts Trump’s impositions.
As part of this confrontation against the imperialist attack, the kidnapping of Maduro and
Cilia Flores must be rejected, and their return to the country must be demanded. Maduro’s
crimes must be judged by the Venezuelan people. Trump, who finances Netanyahu’s
genocidal attacks on Gaza, has no right or morality to judge him.
But while we defend their liberation from the hands of imperialism, we must clarify that
Maduro and the Chavista regime are the main obstacle to carry out the massive anti-
imperialist mobilization that the current situation demands.
Proof of what we say is the large number of Venezuelan workers who, out of hatred for the
dictatorship that repressed them and plunged them into misery by forcing them to
economic emigration, celebrate the kidnapping of Maduro around the world.
But perhaps the main proof of the existence of this obstacle, of the palpable sign that the
regime is useless to confront imperialism is that, unlike what happened in 2002, when
the workers and poor people spontaneously came out and defeated the coup promoted by
the United States against Chavez, there was no resistance to Maduro’s kidnapping, and
that is due to the growing opposition of Venezuelan workers to that dictatorial regime.
It is not the first time in history that this has happened. In 1976, when the military coup
against Isabel Perón took place in Argentina, there was no workers’ and people’s
resistance. Most workers thought they couldn’t be worse than with Isabel’s government. Of
course they were wrong, it was much worse with the genocidal dictatorship and the 30
thousand disappeared. Venezuelan workers who think something similar are also wrong.
Venezuela’s conditions will be far worse under complete imperialist control.
The Chavista regime.
From the beginning we were always against that regime that had as its objective, with a
discourse in favor of the poor and socialism, to reconstitute the State and bourgeois regime
that were in a deep crisis, as a result of corrupt governments and the great popular uprising
against hunger and corruption that had its highest point in the «Caracazo» of 1989.
In 1992, bourgeois army colonel Hugo Chávez lead a coup attempt against the corrupt
government of Carlos Andrés Pérez, He is defeated and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
From prison he gained great popularity among the working class and popular sectors,
mainly among the most impoverished, for his anti-system discourse. Due to popular
pressure he was pardoned in 1994 and triumphed in the 1998 presidential elections with
56% of the votes. Chavez government did not break any ties with imperialism, fulfilling all
previous commitments. Despite high oil prices, it does not guarantee better wages to
workers, nor does it solve the unemployment problem and forcefully represses workers’
demands. His popularity is gained mainly with measures towards the most impoverished
sectors, such as subsidies, placing some products at low prices, guaranteeing greater
access to education and with the contract with Cuba through which 10 thousand Cuban
doctors went to regions that previously had no medical assistance.
Despite his speech, Chávez was no socialist of the 21st century or any other century. At the
time we defined him as «a bourgeois nationalist in recolonization times», who did not even
carry out Perón’s reforms in the 50s in Argentina(1).
He established very good relations with Spanish imperialism, while always guaranteeing
oil supply to the United States, he had contradictions with Yankee imperialism: He
criticized Bush’s anti-terrorist law, he visited Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi, defended the
inviolability of airspace for U.S. military aircraft, opposed the FTAA and defended OPEC as
a regulatory cartel for oil prices. That made a large part of the Latin American left and the
«progressive» sectors, such as Kirchnerism in Argentina, the PT in Brazil, the Broad Front in
Uruguay, declare him as the great leader of the Second Independence. This was
strengthened by the attacks he received from the US.
As the Yankees did not like to have, in the largest oil reserve in the world, a government that
they did not totally control, they organized the coup of 2002 and when it was defeated they
began to take a series of measures and pressures in order to defeat it at the electoral level.
At the end of his government, with the change in the economic situation, Chávez was
wearing himself out and remained in power through electoral fraud and repression, relying
on the Armed Forces that run PDVSA and are a central sector of the new bourgeoisie
generated by the State, the so-called «bolibourgeoisie».
This situation worsened with Chavez death and the Maduro governments that imposed a
bloody dictatorship, with electoral fraud, persecutions, imprisonment and torture of left
and right opponents, and led the country to an economic crisis, with generalized hunger,
which caused the average worker to lose between 9 and 12 kilos. Obviously, this weight
loss did not occur among government or military hierarchs.
It is this reality that makes Venezuelan migrants, the vast majority of whom are not right-
wing or defenders of Trump, but workers who fled hunger and repression, celebrate the
kidnapping of Maduro, effectively supporting the imperialist attack.
But despite what these workers believe, Trump does not care in the least whether there is
dictatorship or bourgeois democracy. That is why, when he saw that the winner of the
Nobel Peace Prize, María Corina Machado, was of no use to him because she did not have
popular or armed forces’ support, he had no problem agreeing with Vice President Delcy
Rodríguez on the continuity of the Chavista regime without Maduro. According to some
reports, this agreement would have caused division and confrontation within Chavismo.
Delcy Rodríguez, assumes a tough pose when she dismisses and imprisons the head of the
honor guard that protected Maduro, General Javier Marcano Tábata, accusing him of having
facilitated the entry of the kidnappers. It may be that this accusation is true or that he is
simply a «scapegoat», but the reality is that, despite this pose of apparent defense of
sovereignty, the vice president, far from calling on Latin American governments and
peoples to confront imperialism, calls on Trump to negotiate.
This repulsive agreement between the Chavista regime and Trump is confirmed by the
White House statement of 1/7/26: «The Administration maintains close correspondence
with the interim authorities of Venezuela. We have maximum leverage right now and their
decisions will continue to be dictated by the United States.»
In reality, imperialist interference and control in Venezuela will be the main obstacle to
ending the dictatorship and establishing a regime where the workers and the people are the
ones who decide the country future.
International struggle against Trump’s attack
Anti-imperialist mobilizations have begun to take place in different countries of the world,
they are still small. It is striking that movements, parties and personalities that defended
Chavismo, such as the PT of Brazil, the Kirchnerist sectors in Argentina, Petro of
Colombia(2), and Castro-Chavista organizations from different parts of the world, have not
launched themselves with force to promote these mobilizations.
Regardless of one’s opinion of the Venezuelan regime, it is essential that revolutionaries,
workers and anyone who claims to be anti-imperialist strongly promote these
mobilizations.
At the level of the rulers, it is natural that Milei and Netanyahu have been the first to support
Trump. There were 6 governments that rejected the attack on Venezuela: Spain, Brazil,
Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, but everything remains in statements. We must
demand, with mobilization, the rupture of economic and diplomatic relations with the
United States, and that all Yankee ambassadors be expelled.
Venezuelan Chavismo, despite the evident agreement of the vice president with Trump,
continues to say that it will defend Venezuelan sovereignty, confronting imperialism. We do
not place any trust in them to do so, and we call on the people and fundamentally the
Venezuelan working class to organize from below, to demand and impose:
End all persecution of opponents, free all political prisoners of the Maduro
dictatorship!
Full freedom of action for workers, political and student organizations!
Armament of the workers and popular neighborhoods organized by trade union and
social organizations!
Permanent assemblies in factories, schools, hospitals and neighborhoods!
To confront imperialism, it’s necessary to end Chavista totalitarianism!
If resistance increases within Venezuela, in the heat of the anti-imperialist struggle, it
will be possible to advance in the construction of a revolutionary organization of the
workers, which will lead that struggle and begin to discuss its own power.
For the broadest unity of international action against imperialism and Trump’s
recolonization plan!
