I recently had the opportunity to see Spike Lee’s 2018 film, Black Klansman.  The film appeared on Espectador Crítico, a weekly Cuban television program that presents high-quality films.  The moderator of the program, Magda Rezik, precedes the viewings with fifteen-minute interviews with a specialist on the theme.  In this case, the specialist was a professor at the University of Havana, knowledgeable about the history of the Ku Klux Klan.
 
      The film provides an excellent portrayal of the black power discourse of the late 1960s and the early 1970s.  It makes clear the logic and the socio-psychological need of the black power perspective.  Responding to the systemic dehumanizing by white America, in which the most basic of human rights were denied, the black power perspective affirmed black identity and the worth of the black community; and on a political plane, it stressed unity in order to attain power, necessary for defense of black rights and interests. 
 
      In addition, the film’s accurate portrayal of black power discourse makes evident two limitations of the black power perspective.  First, the perspective tends to treat whites in general as an oppressing power.  This is a misreading of American society, past and present.  It is true that the powerful are white, except for a few blacks that adapt to the white power structure; but it is also true that most whites are not powerful. 
 
     Secondly, the black power discourse had a tendency toward violent rhetoric that was inconsistent with the actual political project of black nationalist organizations.  Spike Lee has Stokely Carmichael saying that blacks must prepare themselves for a coming race war, in which the brothers and sisters will be killing white racist cops.  This is a reasonably accurate portrayal of the black leader.  In a Mississippi march in 1966, Carmichael declared, “every courthouse in the state should be burnt down.”  In Cleveland, he asserted, “When you talk about black power, you talk about bringing this country to its knees.”  His successor as president of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, H. Rap Brown, described an incident in Alabama as a “declaration of war” by “racist white America,” and he called for a “full retaliation of the black community across America.”  However, in fact, neither the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee nor the Black Panther Party developed any program of sabotage against government buildings or assassination of white police or other white officials.  These brash and ill-advised statements were in no sense promoting a program, and they functioned only to provide a pretext for repression by the government, which was unleased against black organizations and leaders in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
 
     The film also has an excellent portrayal of the discourse of white supremacists.  The characterization at times appears to be a caricature, but indeed there is a current of thought in white society that believes that blacks are genetically inferior to whites and that race-mixing would destroy the nation.  The facts, of course, are otherwise.  Scientific research shows that differences in skin color are a consequence of individual humans living in different geographical zones with different levels of exposure to the sun, and that differences in skin color has no relation to intelligence or other human capacities.  And the film correctly shows the post-1965 reformulation of the white supremacist views into a more socially acceptable ideology that would attain increasing influence, culminating in the election of Trump.
 
      The film had a balanced portrayal of white cops.  One cop was a racist thug, some cops were racists, some were inclined to lend their support to the black cop in his undercover investigation of the Klan, and one was committed to doing the right thing.  One suspects that this is truly the case.  There was a suggestion at the end that white folks could avoid the racial conflict and stand off to the side, if they were so inclined; whereas blacks could not possibly avoid the American racial conflict, for it continually intruded on their reality.  There is some truth to this, especially at the personal level in the short term.  But in the final analysis, no citizen of the United States can avoid the contradictions that the nation confronts, which have deep historic roots; the nation itself is in peril.
 
     No film can provide a comprehensive view of a nation for a half a century, and Lee’s film is no exception.  The black community is represented in the film by black panthers and a black cop; white society is represented by white racists and white cops.  But there are, of course, whole sectors of the black community and of white society that do not pertain to these categories. 
 
      The sectors not portrayed in the film, especially their failures, have been central to the unfolding racial dynamics of the United States since 1965.  White society in general never listened to or understood the black movement, even as it hesitantly and reluctantly conceded basic civil and political rights in 1964 and 1965.  As a result of not listening, white society never understood that the movement demanded and expected more than political and civil rights.  Since its origin in 1917, the African-American movement had protested the poverty and social and economic underdevelopment of the black community, which it understood as caused by slavery and decades of segregation and the denial of basic civil rights.  The movement thus embraced the principle of the social and economic rights of all citizens, and it called for the economic and social development of the black community.  At the same time, by virtue of its interest in its African historical and cultural connection, the African-American movement from the beginning had a global perspective from below.  It could discern the colonialist and imperialist character of U.S. foreign policy, which promoted the underdevelopment of the peoples of the world, thereby contradicting the proclaimed democratic values of the nation.  Both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were eloquent in proclaiming these principles of community development, the protection of social and economic rights, and a democratic foreign policy, historic demands of the movement.  But white society was deaf to such proclamations for a more just and democratic nation and world, and it believed that the social debt was paid merely by moving to the protection of political and civil rights.  Such deafness with respect to persons of other social positions is ethnocentric, and it is common in human societies; it is different from racism, a belief in the inferiority of other so-called races.
 
      Coinciding with white deafness, the black community since 1965 has failed to promote the unfinished agenda of the African-American movement of 1917 to 1965.  It has remained trapped in a white racist frame of reference, discerning subtle forms in which white racism survives in the post-1965 era.  This is certainly true, and indeed, the common phenomenon of white ethnocentrism could be interpreted as a subtle form of racism.  But it is politically dysfunctional to focus on it.  It would be more politically effective if the focus were on the unfinished agenda of the African-American movement, that is, the issues of economic and social development, the protection of social and economic rights of all, and democratic and cooperative relations with other nations.  Such a progressive national agenda could attain political efficacy only through a popular coalition of blacks, Latinos, and whites.  Such a coalition of folks from different communities with different cultures and histories is not going to be attained by each focusing on the perceived defects of the other, but by focusing on common interests and finding common ground.  Jesse Jackson understood this, and he developed the Rainbow Coalition in the 1980s.  However, the Rainbow Coalition did not have the resources and/or the commitment to develop itself into a nationwide mass organization, capable of offering a politically viable progressive alternative in the public debate. 
 
     Without the development of a progressive coalition that offers a politically viable alternative narrative on the nation to the people, we are left with confusion and polarization.  The images at the end of the film, focusing on recent conflicts in the streets, portray well this sad phenomenon.
 
    In her comments to introduce the film, Ms. Rezik asked, what are the sources of white racism?  It is a good question.  A good answer would focus on the manipulation of whites by white elites.  The phenomenon began in slavery times and continued in the age of segregation in the South.  Southern elites were always afraid of a united action by blacks and working-class whites in the creation of a different kind of social order.  So they disseminated unscientific claims about difference in skin color, confusing and dividing our people, doing so in defense of their particular interests, without concern for the consequences for the development of the society in the long term.  In the 1960s, when the age of segregation came to an end and racism became discredited, and with white society having limited understanding of the racial dynamics of the nation, politicians like Wallace, Nixon, and Reagan exploited white anxieties and confusions by turning to a subtle form of racism, talking about welfare and crime as an indirect and more socially acceptable way of talking about race.  The film alludes to this phenomenon, and correctly portrays that it culminates in Trump.  The film, however, implies that it was David Duke and Trump.  But in fact, the leadership of the Republican Party in general has moved in the direction of exploiting white anxieties since the 1960s.
 
     But Mr. Lee, what is the solution?  Can persons of your influence in U.S. society find the road toward the forging of that popular coalition that we failed to develop in the 1970s and 1980s?  A politically effective popular coalition is the remedy to white racism, even though it attains its political goals by de-emphasizing racism per se.

     Revolutionary consciousness is rooted in faith in the future of humanity, in the belief that the long-term historic tendencies will establish the foundation for a just, democratic, and sustainable world-system.  It is not a religious faith that sees intervention by a deity in order to guarantee human wellbeing.  Nor is it an idealist faith, disconnected from actual emerging economic, scientific, technological, social, and ideological conditions.  Rather, it is a question of discerning the tendencies within the existing world-system that point to a positive outcome for humanity, tendencies that are hidden behind the ideological façade that is an integral component of world-system structures of domination.  Consciousness of existing world-systemic tendencies enables us to project future possibilities, and to act with political and scientific intelligence in support of those tendencies that defend humanity.
 
      What are important tendencies in the world-system today?  What dangers and possibilities do they project for humanity?  How are the tendencies illustrated by the attempted U.S.-directed coup d’état in Venezuela, and by Venezuela’s successful defense of itself?  (See “Venezuela blocks coup attempt” 3/3/2019; “What enabled Venezuela to block the US coup?” 3/6/2019).
 
     An important tendency is that the representative democracies of the global North are experiencing political fragmentation and division as well as ideological confusion, as central dynamics to the political structures of representative democracies.  As a dimension of this phenomenon, the major representative democracies are demonstrating that they have no reasonable response to the sustained structural crisis of the world-system (see the category World-System Crisis).  We therefore can project that the crisis of the world-system crisis will deepen, with its symptoms of the increasing predominance of financial speculation over investment in production, insufficient international response to threats to ecological balance, deepening underdevelopment in peripheral and semiperipheral regions, increasing levels of crime and violence, uncontrollable international migration, the delegitimation of political structures, and global political instability.  In the case of the United States, the relative fall in its productive and commercial capacities and its significant decline in prestige make likely that it will increasingly use military intervention in order to defend its economic interests, thereby reinforcing the global tendency toward the deepening crisis of the world-system.
 
     A second important tendency is the continuous development of the colonized and semi-colonized peoples of the world as revolutionary subjects in opposition to the basic structures of the world-system, a phenomenon that has been expressing itself for the last two centuries and that reached an advanced stage in the period 1946 to 1979 and again from 1994 to the present (see various posts in the category Third World).  The deepening crisis of the world-system will feed the tendency of the neocolonized peoples to grow in consciousness, such that they will increasingly become revolutionary subjects acting politically in their particular nations.  Observing this phenomenon to date, we can project that such growth in consciousness will be uneven, with some regions and nations being more advanced than others; and it will not be straight line of advance, for it will be characterized by reversals and setbacks.  However, it is likely that popular consciousness will continue to grow, as the system increasingly demonstrates its incapacity to resolve the problems that humanity confronts.
 
    The recent history of Venezuela illustrates the raising consciousness of the people as well as its uneven character.  During the period 1994 to 2014, there were important advances in popular consciousness, tied to concrete political gains, as a result of the emergence of Hugo Chávez as an important charismatic leader in the region (see the category Charismatic Leaders).  The economic and psychological war launched by the U.S. power elite and the reactionary sector of the Venezuelan national bourgeoisie in 2014, following the death of Chávez, had its effect on national popular consciousness, confusing some of the people, and resulting in the parliamentary victory of the opposition in 2016.  However, the opposition parliamentary majority had no unified program and national project that it could offer to the people.  Many of its members favored a return to neoliberalism, which had been rejected by the great majority in the 1990s.  As a result, the opposition was unable to use its parliamentary majority to propose to the people a post-Chavist program that would enable it to expand and deepen its popular support.  Its basic unifying concept was opposition to Chávez’s handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro.  Therefore, its focus was on removing Maduro from office before the completion of his term, and it adopted tactics of political destabilization toward this end, with many in the opposition hoping to establish conditions for the justification of a U.S. military intervention.  This orientation of the parliamentary majority toward political destabilization was observed by the people, resulting in reduced popular support. 
 
     In these political developments, we see the fall and rise of popular consciousness.  The opposition, having attained popular support through unpatriotic and manipulative means, subsequently made clear its political and moral incapacity to govern.  It could not avoid squandering the popular support that it had attained through devious means, for it sought restoration of the power of particular national and international interests.  Accordingly, it had not prepared itself to lead the people toward a more dignified road for the nation.  The result was a growth in popular consciousness concerning the incapacity of the opposition to govern.
 
     The incapacity of the opposition to present itself as the future leadership of the nation continued to be demonstrated.  In internationally mediated negotiations between the Maduro government and the opposition in the Dominican Republic, it was decided to advance the presidential elections scheduled for the end of 2018 to May of that year.  The opposition decided to not sign the agreement, apparently under orders from Washington to not arrive to a reconciliation, or perhaps having second thoughts concerning the results.  However, the government decided to proceed with presidential elections on May 20.  Some opposition parties participated; others called for a boycott.  Maduro won the elections with 67% of the votes, with the same absolute number of votes as in the past, but with a higher percentage, due to a higher non-participation rate.  In spite of the relatively low turnout (by recent Venezuelan standards), the number of votes for Maduro as a percentage of the registered voters was higher than those of recent victorious presidential candidates in Argentina, the United States, and Brazil.  However, continuing its destabilization tactics in alliance with imperialist objectives, the opposition refused to accept the electoral results, setting the stage for Guaidó’s self-declaration as president of Venezuela as an integral component of the U.S.-directed coup d’état.
 
        The comportment of those sectors of the opposition tied to the coup functioned to accelerate the popular rejection of the opposition.  In seeking to divide the armed forces and the people in a prelude to an imperialist military intervention by a foreign power, the opposition was making more evident to the people its true character: its alignment with international capital, its subservience to foreign interests, its lack of commitment to its own nation, and its inability to formulate a proposed national project.  In its amoral and politically unintelligent comportment, the opposition made clear that its interests and objectives have nothing in common with principles of national sovereignty or the wellbeing of the people, and that it is driven above all toward the attainment of its own particular economic interests.  Its comportment was enabling the people to attain greater awareness of the class interests at stake in the political posture of the opposition, and of the coincidence of the class interests of the Venezuelan elite with those of U.S. imperialism.  
 
     These are important lessons for the people.  The opposition spoke of human rights and democracy, but its agenda was the defense of its own economic interests, in alliance with powerful economic actors who are opposed to the structural transformations of the Chavist project in defense of the sovereignty of the nation and the needs of the people.  The people were able to see learn that the United States continues with its imperialist objectives, as in the past; and that the Venezuelan elite sectors are aligned with it.  They learn that they should not be deceived by a cynical and hypocritical discourse of democracy and human rights invented by the Latin American Right.  Popular consciousness deepens and expands, making possible the unity of the people and the armed forces in defense of the constitution, the president, and the nation.
 
      The situation in Venezuela, therefore, enables us to see the uneven but sure growth of the popular consciousness of the neocolonized peoples, converting themselves more and more into revolutionary subjects and political actors, seeking to transform the world-system structures that promote their underdevelopment and poverty.  This tendency grows alongside the inexorable and ever increasing economic and military aggressiveness of the powerful states and international corporations, demonstrating that they are morally and politically unprepared to respond to the challenges that humanity confronts in a responsible manner.  In a word, the rising confusion and aggressiveness of the North feeds the revolutionary consciousness and political action of the South. 
 
     A third important world-systemic tendency can be identified.  China and Russia have been cooperating with the more just and sustainable world-system that is seeking to be born.  They have been supporting and trading with the nations that are seeking an alternative road, such as Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Vietnam, and Korea.  We can expect this tendency to continue, because it is consistent with the long-term interests of China and Russia.  The Russian Empire was a minor competitor of the American, Japanese, British, French, and other European empires, and it never attained comparable power.  For its part, the ancient Chinese Empire had been eclipsed by the increasing penetration of the European powers.  In the present global scenario, with the possibilities for ascent constrained by the fact that the world-system has reached the geographical limits of the earth, China and Russia have an interest in an alternative world-system, governed by the proclaimed international values of the sovereign equality of nations and the right of all peoples to development and self-determination.  (These values, it should be noted, emerged in the context of the political dynamics of the existing world-system, showing that the new system is born from the old).  Inasmuch as China and Russia have an interest in an alternative more just and sustainable world-system, we can expect that their foreign policies will be increasing driven by consciousness of this interest, standing against Western imperialism. 
 
     Pragmatic considerations require a degree of cooperation by China and Russia with the Western powers, which obscures the fact that they are supporting the transition to a different kind of world-system, more just and sustainable.  This possible alternative world-system could be understood as a socialist world-system, that is, a world-system in which proclaimed socialist governments are among the key actors.  In which such socialist governments are seeking to develop political structures of popular assemblies; to act decisively in the economy in defense of the social and economic needs of the people and the sovereignty of the nation; and to develop mutually beneficial trade among nations, on a base of respect for the sovereignty of all nations. 
 
      We in the Left in the North should understand better these world-systemic tendencies and the possibilities that they suggest, in order that we can explain them to our peoples, and in order that we can develop a political platform that responds to these dynamics in a scientifically informed and politically intelligent manner.  We would understand them better if we took more seriously the Third World anti-neocolonial movements and revolutions, for such an understanding is implicit in their theory and practice.
 
      With greater understanding of world-systemic tendencies, we would be able to explain to our peoples of the North the necessary road of North-South cooperation, necessary for political stability and for economic and ecological sustainability.  In the case of the United States, a discourse of North-South cooperation could identify with the historic popular movements of our people, inasmuch as the concept of North-South cooperation was invoked in the discourses of Jesse Jackson in the 1980s; and of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the black power movement, and the anti-imperialist wing of the student anti-war movement in the 1960s.  These formulations were theoretical advances in the popular movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which sought to expand and deepen the meaning of democracy, proclaimed by the American Revolution of 1776.  Through such a national narrative that embraces the historic movements of the people, we would be constructing a nationalist and patriotic discourse that would be an alternative to the narrow nationalism and false patriotism that has been evolving in US public discourse from the beginning, and that has attained its most pernicious manifestations in the period from Reagan to Trump.  It is a question, as Dr. King understood, of a struggle “to redeem the soul of America.”

    U.S. supported coups d’état and U.S. military interventions are not new in Latin America.  They occurred during the course of the twentieth century, an integral dimension of an imperialist foreign policy that sought access to the natural resources, cheap labor, and markets of Latin America and the Caribbean.  Imperialist policy mandates interfering in the affairs of nations, backing politicians and governments supportive of U.S. economic interests and political objectives, and undermining governments that seek a sovereign and independent road.  Imperialism has been a consistent component of U.S. foreign policy, regardless of which of the two parties is in power (see various posts in the category US imperialism).  The twentieth century emergence of U.S. imperialism with respect to Latin America and the Caribbean was itself a new stage in the conquest and domination of the region by the European colonial powers, beginning in the sixteenth century, enabling them to appropriate its natural resources (see various posts in the category Latin American History).  In effect, U.S. imperialist policies enabled the nation to successfully insert itself into global structures established by European colonialism.
 
     However, U.S. imperialist interference today expresses itself in a historic moment different from that of U.S. hegemonic maturity in a stable neocolonial world-system.  Several factors have created a different historic moment.  (1) The formerly colonized peoples of the world never fully accepted the rules of the neocolonial world order, giving rise to a persistent tendency for the emergence of revolutionary subjects among the colonized peoples, challenging and sometimes taking power from national elites that accommodate colonial interests.  The phenomenon reached its most advanced expression in the period 1948 to 1979, represented by the emergence of the Non-Aligned Movement and the proclamation of a New International Economic Order by the UN General Assembly in 1974.  Although eclipsed by the imposition by the global powers of neoliberalism, the Third World project of 1948 to 1979 established the theoretical and practical foundation for Third World resistance today.  (2) The world-system has been in a sustained multi-dimensional structural crisis since the 1970s, as a result of the fact that it has reached and overextended the geographical limits of the earth.  (3) The United States has suffered an economic decline relative to other core nations since the 1950s, as a result of its overconsumption in relation to its productive capacities and its dependency on an expanding military-industrial complex, a decline that was evident in the elimination of the gold standard for the dollar in the 1970s.  (4)  U.S. and European elites responded to the above dynamics with a neoliberal economic war, launched in the 1980s and spearheaded by the IMF and the World Bank; and with aggressive military actions in the Middle East, especially since 1990.  Such economic and military aggression, in violation of laws, norms, and values that the world-system itself had developed, was and is intended to reassert political, economic, financial, and ideological control of an increasingly unstable world-system.  (5) The global economic war and the wars of aggression gave rise to a revitalization of Third World resistance to the neocolonial world-system, as is evident in the emergence of progressive and Leftist governments in Latin America, and the retaking of the Third World project of the 1960s and 1970s by the Non-Aligned Movement and the G-77, with the support and cooperation of a rapidly expanding China and a revitalized Russia (see posts in the categories Third World, Latin American Unity, South-South Cooperation, and World-System Crisis). 
 
      Therefore, in the current historic moment, the USA does not have the economic and financial capacity and the prestige that it had in its hegemonic maturity, and it must increasingly rely on the use of military force, a sector in which remains hegemonic, in the pursuit of its political and economic objectives.  At the same time, the consciousness of the peoples of the Third World for the necessity of an alternative, more just, democratic, and sustainable world-system has never been greater, and the interest of powers like China and Russia in an alternative world-system has never been clearer. 
 
     Venezuela is of central importance in this clash of civilizations, between, on the one hand, an unsustainable neocolonial world-system and a militaristic declining hegemonic power, and on the other hand, a more just and sustainable world-system seeking to be born.  Since 1999, Venezuela has played a leading role in the forging of a progressive political reality in Latin America, and it has significant oil reserves.  Accordingly, it has become a symbol of Third World efforts to construct a more just and sustainable world-system.
 
      The capacity of the Chavist revolutionary government in Venezuela to turn back the recent U.S. directed coup d’état (see “Venezuela blocks coup attempt” 3/3/2019) is of pivotal importance, and it could be a turning point that reveals the inherent limitations of the militarist foreign policy of a declining power; and that reveals the strengths of the global popular revolution in the current historic epoch, in spite of the continuing challenges that it confronts.  The turning back of the coup could be interpreted as an indication that the revitalized Latin American popular revolution has sustainability, because it is firmly rooted in popular consciousness of imperialist and neocolonial domination and of the principle of the right of nations to sovereignty.  And the turning back of the coup could be interpreted as an indication that the world-system, as it is presently organized, cannot be sustained, because it is based on the morally and politically unacceptable premise that a minority of the world’s population are the rightful owners of the natural and human resources of the planet.
 
      What made the successful resistance to the U.S. directed coup possible?  As I observed events through the lens of Cuban journalists, among whom successful Venezuelan resistance to the coup was never assumed, it became clear that the people were unifying in support of the government.  The armed forces remained united behind the constitutional president, and the people took to the streets in his support.  At the same time, it became clear that the calls of the opposition gained a weak following.  At the critical moment, polls found that some 92% of the people were against foreign intervention, and 86% believed that Venezuelans should resolve their own problems.  When confronted with what they increasingly understood as the imperialist designs of a neocolonial power, the Venezuelan people came to the support of their nation; and of universal human values that are central to a just and sustainable world-system, such as the non-interference in the affairs of nations and the sovereign right of nations.
 
      The increasing support for the government at critical moments is not surprising, because the opposition plays political games, as it must.  It attained a certain level of support among the people through political maneuvers and deception.  To wit, it preys on the human tendency to expect too much of governments, blaming the government for all inadequacies, real and invented, in order to attain a degree of electoral support.  But in these political maneuvers, it does not announce a return to neoliberal policies or a subordination to foreign interests.  When its actions reveal that these are precisely its intentions, it loses popular support.  The growing popular rejection of the opposition, for its inability to present a viable political program to the people, was evident in the May 20, 2018 presidential elections, in which Maduro attained a solid majority for a second presidential term.
 
     By the time Guaidó emerged on the scene, the opposition had less support, and his blatant ties to imperialist interests and his calls for military intervention reinforced the decline of the opposition.  His call to the masses went unheard; and his “orders” to the military were ignored.  Seeing this, the world backed off its previous implicit support for US military intervention.  Even the U.S.-created Group of Lima in the end did not support military action.  Apparently, the Trump administration did not want to act unilaterally, without the support of the Latin American Right. 
 
      The key, then, to the successful resistance to the coup was the unity of the people, made possible by popular commitment to the principle of the right of the nation to be sovereign, to determine its own road, without interference by a foreign power; and by popular awareness that U.S. imperialist polices, historically and at present, ignore this right.  The unification was aided by the fact that the United States is itself a declining hegemonic power, without the prestige and the economic clout that it once had, so that it is less able to influence popular consciousness in Latin America and other formerly colonized regions.
 
     But it is only one battle.  The USA intends to continue with economic pressure on Venezuela and to build an anti-Venezuela coalition of nations, looking for a more opportune moment to intervene.  Venezuela, meanwhile, will be seeking to develop new trading partners, to diversify and strengthen its economy, and to strengthen its international support, with the conviction that success in these endeavors will enable it to maintain the unity of the people.
 
      Who is likely to win this battle between, on the one hand, a declining neocolonial hegemonic power seeking to restore its domination of Latin America; and on the other hand,
Latin American nations seeking a sovereign and dignified road?  We will address this question in our next post, taking into account world-systemic tendencies.

     The U.S.-directed coup d’état in Venezuela, unfolding from January 23 to February 23, has been foiled by the loyalty of the armed forces and the unity of the people behind the constitutional president, Nicolás Maduro. 
 
      The attempted coup occurs in the context of an economic and psychological war conducted by the Trump administration against Venezuela, with the strategic support of the Southern Command of the U.S. military and the major media of communication.  The strategy has been the provoking a shortage of food and medicine through an economic war and the freezing of assets, blaming the Venezuelan government for the subsequent shortages, inflation, and economic stagnation.  The mass media campaign within Venezuela is directed toward the middle class, seeking to stimulate irrational behavior as a result of the disruption of established patterns of consumption, provoked by the economic war.  Internationally, the media campaign portrays the Chavist government as an authoritarian violator of human rights, whose economic policy of interference in “free trade” and rampant corruption have created a humanitarian crisis.  The campaign against Venezuela is part of a larger objective of restoring U.S. dominance of Latin America and the Caribbean, recovering the terrain that had been lost as a result of the rise of governments of the Left.  Leftist and self-proclaimed socialist governments of the region have sought to defend the sovereignty of their nations and the social and economic rights of their peoples through decisive state action in the economy as well as through regional cooperation and alliances with China and Russia (see “The legitimacy of Maduro and Venezuela” 1/15/2019 in the category Venezuela).   
 
      The coup began on January 23, when Juan Guaidó, a figure not well known in Venezuela but with a history of ties to the extreme Right in the United States, declared himself President of Venezuela (see “Juan Guaidó: The savior of Venezuela” 2/4/2019 in the category Venezuela).  This declaration, as has been widely noted, was made the day after a telephone conversation with U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence.  Guaidó recently had been elected President of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, which had been suspended by the Supreme Court for being in contempt of court.  Guaidó invoked weak and highly questionable constitutional arguments in support of his self-declaration as president.  His “government” was immediately recognized by the Trump administration, which persuaded some governments (mostly European governments or weak states lacking the conditions for an independent foreign policy) also to recognize Guaidó.  The hope of U.S. planners was that key sectors of the Venezuelan armed forces as well as the people would back Guaidó, thus giving credibility to U.S. economic and military aid to the newly declared “government.” 
 
      However, things did not develop as the planners had hoped.  Popular support was thin, inasmuch as the “government” had a “made in the USA” image; and in addition, some of the opposition parties were not in support of the strategy.  At the same time, the military showed little sign of fracture.
 
      Thus, the coup attempt entered a second stage.  February 23 was named “D-Day,” when “humanitarian aid” would be accompanied by masses of people from Columbia to Venezuela.  It was anticipated that either (1) the Venezuelan police and military would have to permit the great mass of people to enter the country, thus establishing a “humanitarian corridor” that would function as a foothold for U.S. military presence in Venezuelan territory; or (2) the Venezuelan forces would overreact with violence, thus providing a pretext for a direct U.S. military intervention. 
 
      Internationally, the “humanitarian aid” plan lacked credibility.  The value of food goods was a tiny fraction of what sanctions against the country were costing the Venezuelan economy, so that pretensions of concern for the wellbeing of the Venezuelan people could not be seen as genuine.  The “humanitarian aid” was widely seen as politically motivated and as a prelude to U.S. military presence.  The International Red Cross denounced the U.S. scheme and refused to participate.
 
       Within Venezuela, this second stage of the coup had even less credibility than the first.  It was increasingly recognized that the Guaidó government was a U.S. creation.  There was a growing sentiment among the people that, whatever disagreements and conflicts existed among Venezuelans, the president of their country should not be named by a foreign power.  Moreover, the people overwhelmingly were opposed to a U.S. military intervention, because of the ill fame of U.S. military interventions in Latin America, and because of awareness of the death and destruction that would be among the consequences.  As the Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Relations stated, it is really said that someone who claims to be president, in one of his first acts, would call upon a foreign power to invade the country.  Fueled by sentiments of patriotism, above and beyond commitment to its Bolivarian Revolution, the people of Venezuela took to the streets in support of their constitutional president Nicolás Maduro.  Supporters of the opposition and of Guaidó did not take to the streets in the numbers that the coup planners had hoped, in Venezuela or on the Colombian side of the Venezuelan border.  Guaidó had ordered the Venezuelan armed forces to ensure the transport of the humanitarian aid into Venezuela, but this “presidential” executive order had zero effect.
 
     Inasmuch as the convoked popular army that was to carry the humanitarian aid into Venezuela did not materialize, the Venezuelan security forces were able to block the advance of the limited number of protestors with a minimal amount of non-lethal force.  Opposition demonstrators burned two trucks with humanitarian aid, but Venezuelan authorities were able to disseminate photos and videos, showing that the trucks were burned on the Colombian side by the opposition.  Some opposition protestors attacked a police station near the border, but the police were able defend it.  Neither the mass popular advance with the humanitarian aid into Venezuela nor the violent overreaction by Venezuelan security forces occurred.  D-Day was a failure for the opposition.
 
     Seeing the loyalty of the military forces to the government of Maduro and the limited popular response to the exhortations of Guaidó, a rupture occurred in the “Group of Lima,” the Latin American nations led by the USA that were supporting the coup d’état.  The Latin American members of the group backed off a U.S. military intervention.  The Vice-Chancellor of Peru, for example, observed that the Group of Lima seeks a peaceful solution.  The Chancellor of Colombia observed that the goal of the Group of Lima is to reestablish the constitutional order, apparently recognizing the failure to impose Guaidó on the people.  Similarly, the Vice-Chancellor of Brazil stated that Brazil does not support a military intervention. 
 
      At the same time, the international community was increasingly against U.S. military intervention.  The European Union, initially supporting “humanitarian aid,” pronounced against the use of force.  Russia, Cuba, China, the Community of Caribbean States, and ALBA denounced the U.S. plans for intervention.  The Security Council of the United Nations denied to support a U.S. declaration on Venezuela, as U.S. policy was condemned by Russia, China, South Africa, and Bolivia in the Security Council debate.
 
      Following the failure of D-Day, Pence observed that all options remain on the table.  It seems likely that the USA will continue to apply sanctions against Venezuela and will call upon more nations to join in the financial blockade against Venezuela, hoping to promote destabilization and an incident that would provide a pretext for military intervention.  As Marina Menéndez writes, “the main direction of the aggressive tactic appears to be, for now, to continue to seek a social implosion by means of the financial drowning of the State,” in order to resolve the affair through military means (Menéndez 2019).  As José Bell Lara, a researcher at the Latin American Faculty of the Social Sciences (FLACSO) of the University of Havana, said to me, “Trump needs a war to rescue himself from a problematic domestic situation.” 
 
       Venezuela prefers a peaceful resolution, but it is prepared to defend itself.  Its armed forces are loyal to the government, and it is relatively well-equipped.  Venezuela has organized a popular militia of 2 million persons in 335 municipalities, which form the rear guard in a “civic-military union.”  The atmosphere, nevertheless, is calm.  At the same time, responding to the economic and financial sanctions of the Trump administration, Venezuela has signed contracts with various nations for the sale of petroleum, replacing sales to the USA; and it is progressively increasing production in order to generate more petroleum income.  
 
      Seeking to protect its sovereignty and independence in the long term, Venezuela seeks to develop science and technology in order to diversify its production, and it especially is oriented to sovereignty with respect to food and medicine.  In its foreign policy, it is committed to the principals of the self-determination of nations, the non-interference in the internal affairs of nations, and the peaceful resolution of differences, expecting that these internationally proclaimed norms will function as constraints on the aggressiveness of the USA.  It seeks to strengthen its solidarity with the peoples, governments, and organisms of the world that seek an alternative road different from that designed by neocolonial global structures; governments such as China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, India, Vietnam, Cuba, and Bolivia, and organizations such as ALBA, PETROCARIBE, the Community of Latin and Caribbean States, OPEC, and the Non-Aligned Movement.  It sees itself as cooperating with the governments and peoples of the world in the development of a world-system that is more just and sustainable, in which the true sovereignty of all nations is respected. 
 
     As we will discuss in the next post, Venezuela is in accord with, and indeed is a symbol of, important world-system tendencies.

​Sources
 
Callone, Stella. 2019.  “La guerra de Estados Unidos: Venezuela, Nicaragua, y Cuba ¿y después?” Granma (February 27).
 
Capote, Raúl Antonio.  2019.  “Colgados y quemado: el lenguaje de la derecha,” Granma: Suplemento Especial (February 23).
 
Goodman, Amy & Juan González.  2019.  “The Coup Has Failed and Now the US Is Looking to Wage War in Venezuela,” (an interview with Jorge Arreaza, Foreign Minister of Venezuela), Democracy Now! (February 25).
 
Menéndez Quintero, Marina.  2019.  “Esta pulseado la ganó Venezuela,” Juventud Rebelde (February 26).
 
Pérez, Elson Concepción.  2019.  “‘Agentes’ para acá y para allá,” Granma: Suplemento Especial (February 23).
 
Ramírez, Edgardo Antonio.  2019.  “La razia imperialista contra Venezuela,” Granma (February 27).
 
Sánchez Serra, Oscar.  2019.  “Las guerras mienten, pero la verdad nunca muere,” Granma: Suplemento Especial (February 23).
 
Sheehan, Cindy.  2019.  “There is no Humanitarian Crisis in Venezuela,” Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox (February 14).​