Against the American intervention in Venezuela

An antiimperialist, workers’ and revolutionary way out!

Last January 10th 2019, Nicolas Maduro took office for his 2° period as Venezuelan president. The presidential election took place on May 20^th 2018, with an abstention of more than 70%, which showed the institutional precariousness of the bourgeois power in the country. Disregarding those elections, the Venezuelan opposition has entrenched itself in another institution of the bourgeois republic: the National Assembly, a platform from which, on January 23^rd, the right-winger Juan Guaido has proclaimed himself “president in charge”. The move is undoubtedly directed from Washington, that recognized Guaido in “office” in less than 30 minutes. Imperialism, commanded by Trump, had already been calling for the disavow of Maduro since January 1^st; first trough the sepoys of the so-called “Grupo de Lima” (except Mexico, that presents itself as mediator) and then openly through the officers of his administration, such as Bolton, Pompeo and the vice-president Pence in person.

One of the pillars of Guaido’s orientation is the appeal for the Armed Forces (FAB) to rebel. The bourgeois Venezuelan opposition, due to its own weakness, understands that the key of the situation is the relation of forces at a continental scale and has seen Trump’s offensive and Bolsonaro’s rise as an opportunity to find a favorable way out for its own interests (that of imperialism) to the crisis that the country is undergoing for years. Because the foundations of the capitalist economy are being destroyed in an accelerated way in the last years, with a rampant inflation that has sunk workers’ wages and pushed hundreds of thousands to migration because of shortage of food, medical and sanitary products. This economic disaster –without overlooking the Chavist government’s responsibility- is undoubtedly part of the world capitalist crisis.

 Imperialist pressure

The American pressure on Venezuela and the whole region becomes more and more evident and was particularly exposed in the operation set up on February 23rd at the borders, through which Guaido sough the introduction of trucks with food and medicines donated by the USA and Colombia, trying to place pressure on the security forces, that so far have not responded in favor of Trump’s offers and menaces to abandon Maduro and change sides. The aim was to break the discipline of the borders, showing that the Boliviarian regime cannot control its borders, using mobilized mass sectors in the middle of the economic and social crisis as cannon fodder. If this goal was not achieved they would intend to capture live a massacre that would be understood as one of the renowned “red lines” of imperialism (such as the ones fixed by Obama in Syria regarding the use of chemical weapons), that is to say, a pretext to justify a military intervention, to which Trump would have found himself “obliged”, over the blood of the desperate people. Finally, this operation failed, since it did not fulfilled one nor the other goal, and left Guaido in an obliged tour in Colombia and Brazil in the quest to rearm the offensive from abroad. The failure of the “humanitarian” operetta of imperialism, however, is far from shutting down the ongoing crisis. Russia’s and China’s support to Maduro has a limit, as well as the sustainability of the falling capitalist economy.

Two bourgeois sides

In this scalating struggle for power are the interests for the control over the huge economic resources of Venezuela and the whole region. Trump is embarked on a crusade to evict China from the positions it has conquered during the period of sui generis Bonapartist governments of the past decade, that had to deal with an agenda signed by spontaneous semi-insurrections against the consequences of the Washington Consensus in different countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela itself. The present imperialist offensive to impose a new orientation is felt very crudely and the remains of those former governments that were not able to adapt to the situation (contrary to what Evo Morales did, that is now friends with Bolsonaro and Macri and an old partner of the petrol corporations) are the favorite target of a more ample policy. The whole region, by the governments that are more openly lined up with the Yankee Master, is undergoing a series of reforms of labor, pensions and fiscal laws, as well as educational and sanitary among others, at the request of imperialism and the interests of the big international financial capital corporations.

The struggle for resources and control over markets is gaunt and opens up a fight for power. This fact that makes tragic the crisis of revolutionary leadership that impedes – for the time being- that the proletariat from Venezuela and the whole region advance a progressive way out through an independent class action. We cannot help pointing out that all the center-left and progressive expressions of the region have contributed to this tragedy, by sowing expectations in agents of capital like Chavez, Lula, Evo and Kirchner. More pitiful is that the Trotskyite trends have done their part, in their sough for a dialog with “the masses”, dressing up Latin American governments at the most as the “least bad” option against the “neoliberal” right. The last sample of this is the call on behalf of trends such as the LIT-CI, FT-CI, Argentinean PO, SOB or the UIT-CI to endorse –more or less openly- the candidate of PT, Fernando Haddad, in the second round of elections in Brazil against Bolsonaro.

Oppose imperialism by the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat

The development of the Venezuelan crisis has exposed the central role of the Armed Forces as a main core of the capitalist State. That explains those desperate appeals from the opposition to attract them to their side and the constant gestures of Maduro to demonstrate the support of the Armed Forces to his side, as the Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, said. That explains Trump’s threats to the high officers saying that they will “lose it everything” if they don’t pass immediately to Guaido’s side. The polarization in Venezuela should not be taken as un exception, but rather as the prelude to the political and social clashes that the American policy will generate in the continent.

The reform policy encouraged by imperialism has already met resistance in the countries where they are being applied. Not only in Latin America, but also in Europe, where the yellow vests are confronting Macron’s policy of dismantlement of the welfare State. The mass processes break in against the adjustment plans, but they still develop within bourgeois legality and with reformist leaderships and, in most of these processes, the proletariat intervenes in a diluted way.

Revolutionaries must confront this situation with boldness and without misleading the proletariat. A class policy should orient towards the breaking up of the democratic wrap of the bourgeois State; a wrap that is getting faintest and almost inexistent in Latin American countries. To continue sowing illusions in democratic forms of the bourgeoisie, that in fact try to disguise class domination of imperialism, is a mistake with dreadful consequences to the workers’ and the masses.

The need to recover the unions, and from there organize self-defense, is a first order task in Venezuela. Considering the evident negotiation that the high officers of the Bolivarian Armed Forces have been holding with imperialism, in which they discuss how they could split the loot of the country’s wealth, the unions and workers’ organizations must make an appeal for the troops to rise against the high officers and defend the measures and actions of the working class. A rank-and-file delegates Congress with mandates is a policy to be advanced in each factory and work place, to unify our class in the need to confront the State with a struggle plan and to discuss a program for a workers’ way out to the crisis generated by capitalists.

The present organizational weaknesses of the Venezuelan working class can and should be overcome with the resolute support of the workers’ of the whole continent, beginning with the American proletariat, that is developing huge experiences of organization and struggle against Trump and the imperialist State. To open the doors of unions in the different countries of the region for the Venezuelan workers’ to organize is an internationalist task of first order that every revolutionary must carry on.

This is a life-and-death struggle against imperialism, that intends to recover its position in its backyard. An anti-imperialist and revolutionary struggle must start from making an assessment of the governments of the previous stage, that far from confronting imperialism they set the basis for the ongoing debacle. Also to fight for the proletarian dictatorship and its international extension in a Federation of Socialist Republics of Latin America.

We take a firm stand for the need to organize a Latin American Conference, to discuss face-to-face with the vanguard and help its development in countries like Venezuela and others in the region, to prop up internationalist tasks that enable the reinforcement of revolutionary cores and a political struggle among trends that vindicate part of Trotskyism, in order to approximate to set the basis for a revolutionary leadership. We call the LIT-CI, the CRCI, the FT-CI and the organizations that still stand for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the reconstruction of the IV International to take in their own hand the making of such Conference with the aim of discussing a transitional program.

Down with imperialist interference in Venezuela!

Troops out from Haiti!

For a Federation of Socialist Republics in Latin America!