​      The United States emerged to a position of hegemony in the neocolonial world-system during the period 1946 to 1968.  Its ascent to hegemony was fueled by several factors (see posts in the category US Ascent and the category US Imperialism).  However, since 1968, the USA has experienced a relative decline in its productive, commercial, and financial capacity as well as its prestige, as a consequence of: the Vietnam War; excessive military expenditures in relation to productive capacity; and insufficient investment in education, infrastructure, and sustainable forms of production.
 
     The post-1980 conservative restauration has sought to shore up the increasingly evident decline of the nation through the imposition of neoliberal economic policies, which reduce the role of the state and give priority to the market, with the intention of extracting more capital from labor in the core and from the peripheral and semi-peripheral regions of the world-economy.  Initially, the neoliberal project was successful as a short-term remedy for international capital (see posts in the category Neoliberalism). 
 
     However, beginning in the late 1990s, the neoliberal project provoked a reaction of resistance among the peoples of the world, which attained its most advanced expression in Latin American and the Caribbean.  Popular social movements led to progressive and socialist governments dedicated to taking control of national resources and protecting the social and economic needs of the people.  Regional associations were formed, seeking to put into practice the classic call of the Third World for South-South cooperation and mutually beneficial trade among nations.  Looking for necessary financial support, the progressive states and regional associations strengthened commercial and diplomatic relations with China and Russia.  A post-neoliberal era was beginning to emerge, and the United States, having never attended to the structural sources of its relative decline, was losing control of the neocolonies in its backyard (see posts in the categories Third World, Latin American Unity, and South-South Cooperation).
 
      Trump wants to restore the greatness of America, and in accordance with this vision, the Trump administration is undertaking a desperate attempt to restore its hegemony over Latin America and the Caribbean.  The attempt is misguided, because it is not based on an understanding of the sources of the nation’s relative decline, and because it underestimates the force of Latin American resistance to the neocolonial world-system.  Although not well understood in the USA, Latin American resistance is rooted in historical consciousness, social scientific knowledge, and universal human values; and therefore, it is capable of unifying diverse political forces and marshalling the necessary support of the people.
 
      In accordance with its desperate and ill-advised effort to reestablish its hegemony over Latin America and the Caribbean, the USA has launched what Cuban journalists call an unconventional war on Venezuela.  Eight dimensions of the unconventional war can be identified.
 
      (1)  Unconventional war makes extensive use of national leaders who have been formed in the ideological assumptions and beliefs of US hegemony, including the belief in a free market and a minimal role of the state in the economy, and the definition of freedom as synonymous with the structures of representative democracy that have been developed since the late eighteenth century in the USA.  Such national leaders formed in U.S. ideology play a central role in the political dynamics and in the destabilizing tactics in the targeted nation, and they give legitimacy to the regime change strategy in the USA.  To this end, NGOs since the 1980s have developed academic interchanges, scholarships for study, and leadership courses.  They place the recipients of these programs in positions of importance in the economies of the South, and to the extent possible, in the governments.
 
      Consequently, when Juan Guaidó, self-proclaimed “interim” president of Venezuela, presented a national plan for Venezuela at the Central University of Venezuela on January 31, he noted that the presentation was written by economic experts and national assembly deputies.  The presentation argued that the socialist government had destroyed the economy through arbitrary regulations and state controls that enabled corruption.  It proposed giving state power back to the people through the free market, the elimination of state controls on private property, the recapitalization of banks, the privatization of public companies and public services.  Barry Cannon interprets the documents emitted with the presentation as reflecting a philosophy of individualism of the U.S. variety. 

     (2)  Unconventional war includes the adoption of measures designed to suffocate the economy.  The measures include sustained and comprehensive economic sanctions, with the intention of creating shortages in necessary goods, with the made-in-USA-national-leaders and the international news media playing an important role in disseminating the idea that government policies and corruption are to blame for the subsequent shortages.  In the case of Venezuela, the strategy included, during the period 2014-2015, the hording of goods and the suspension of trade by Venezuelan importers with ties to the opposition.  Since August 2017, the USA has imposed a financial embargo, which reduced the capacity of the government to respond to the hyperinflation that resulted from the shortage of goods.  Since January 1919, the USA has imposed a trade embargo, which has cost Venezuela billions of dollars in foreign exchange earnings from oil exports, necessary for the purchase of food, medicines, and other necessities. 
 
      (3)  The unconventional war includes robbery of assets.  Venezuelan bank accounts in the USA, Venezuelan gold in the Bank of England, and the Venezuelan owned CITGO gasoline distributorship in the United States have been frozen.  Venezuelan frozen assets amount to approximately 30 billion dollars.  Funds from Venezuelan frozen assets have been channeled to Guaidó and his “government.”
 
     (4)  Unconventional war includes sabotage.  From March 7 to March 9, there was a series of attacks on the Venezuelan National Electric System.  An initial attack was ordered by the Southern Command of the U.S. military, and it involved hacking the main computer and control system, carried out from Houston and Chicago.  The cyber-attack affected electric services in 80% of the national territory, with consequences for banking services as well as the distribution of water and gasoline.  Recovery proceed rapidly during the next 48 hours, but it was disrupted by further attacks on the electric system carried out locally.  Nearly full recovery was attained on March 10, and the government declared victory over the sabotage.  By March 12, the system had returned to normal.
 
       The US government and Latin American governments of the Right allied with it blamed the government of Venezuela for the power outage.  Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the OAS, in fulfillment of the historic role of the OAS as a Latin America colonial office of the USA, declared that “the energetic crisis . . . is a result of corruption, incompetence, and lack of investment for many years by the usurper dictatorship.”
 
      The intention of the sabotage on the electric system was to provoke social fragmentation and chaos, and to generate a popular uprising.  But the popular reaction was not what had been hoped.  The people did not turn to violent protest or looting, and they turned to family and community structures to attend to their needs during the emergency.  Rather than taking to the streets in protest, most opposition supporters stayed at home during the three-day energy crisis, a tacit rejection of the sabotage strategy.
 
        (5)  Unconventional war includes recognizing an alternative government.  According to news reports, the decision to declare an alternative “government in transition” in Venezuela was made in a meeting at the OAS headquarters in Washington on December 14.  With assurances of support from Washington, Guaidó declared himself president on January 23, and some fifty nations of the world have recognized him.   Efforts have been made to appoint ambassadors and take possession of embassies.
 
     (6)  Unconventional war includes threats of military intervention.  In recent weeks, the threat of a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela has been constant, with frequent proclamations that all options are on the table. 
 
     (7)  Unconventional war includes the lie.  Inasmuch as the role of conquest and colonialism in promoting the economic development of the nations of the North has been excluded from public debate and the evolution of American national consciousness, U.S. foreign policy from the beginning has been conducted on the most fundamental of lies, the erasing of colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism from modern history.  In the context of the most fundamental lie of the colonial denial, there are other fundamental lies, such as erasing from human history the successes of the socialist governments of the world and the Asian tigers in promoting economic and social development through a strong state role in the economy; and erasing from human experience the achievements of popular democracy in promoting open expression and discourse, popular control of the political process, and political stability, standing as a successful alternative to representative democracy.  However, above and beyond these fundamental lies, there are specific lies that have been disseminated by the U.S. government in order to justify U.S. military invasions and interventions and support for coups d’état and military dictatorships in Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.  In this context, there is a long history of exaggerations of threats to national security by the Pentagon, in order to justify government expenditures in support of the military-industrial complex.
 
     In the case of U.S. justification of economic war and possible military intervention in Venezuela, the specific lies have included the erasure of the social gains of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, led by Hugo Chávez.  Such gains include the reduction of poverty, illiteracy, and inequality, with the result that Venezuela, prior to the launching of the economic war, had a high rating on the UN Human Development Index.  And the lies include the false claim that Maduro was not legitimately elected in May 2018, leaving aside fundamental facts (see “The legitimacy of Maduro and Venezuela” 01/15/2019 in this category Venezuela).  In Venezuela, as in other interventions in the past, U.S. foreign policy is based on normalizing the lie, which constitutes the false foundation of an ideological attack.
 
     The ideological attack on Venezuela to some extent has included an anti-socialist discourse.  In a speech in Florida before Cuban-American counterrevolutionaries, Trump declared that socialism has created human misery where ever it has been implemented.  However, the anti-socialist discourse occurs in a rhetorical context different from that of the Cold War.  In the 1950s, viewing the Soviet Union as militarily expansionistic, and seeing communism as an international conspiracy, the people of the United States felt threatened by the spread of communism in the world.  But in the current historic moment, the people do not feel threatened by communism or socialism.  Therefore, the anti-socialist discourse is effective today not by touching fears but by drawing upon stereotypes with respect to socialism and Latin American politicians and military dictatorships.  The anti-socialist discourse is integral to a pro-democratic, human rights, anti-authoritarian discourse, presenting the United States as a defender of human rights against authoritarian regimes.  Mike Pompeo used this ideological strategy when he described U.S. policy as involving an effort to free the people of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from the “yoke of authoritarianism.”  It is a question of repeatedly referring to targeted nations as “dictatorships,” ignoring the highly participatory democratic structures that they have developed.  It is an effective ideological strategy, because of the lack of knowledge of the people of the United States concerning the political processes of the targeted nations.  It is effective, not because it convokes fear, but because it draws upon popular stereotypes and exploits the limited political consciousness of the people. 
 
     (8)  Unconventional war enlists the support of the mainstream, corporate-owned media for the dissemination of lies and ideological distortions.  In the case of Venezuela, a survey of U.S. journalistic opinion found no example of an article or video report that opposed the U.S. policy of regime change.  During the March 7-9 blackout, NGOs released false reports of widespread chaos, seeking to create a perception of a humanitarian crisis that required U.S. intervention, which the media disseminated.   Some media outlets have disseminated the absurd lie that the Russia and Cuba are propping up the Maduro government.
    
     The unconventional war on Venezuela has not had the results its instigators had hoped.  The anticipated popular uprisings and military desertions have not occurred.  The people have increasingly taken to the streets in defense of the government.  The fundamental flaw of the unconventional war is that it is premised on an underestimation of the moral and political force of popular revolution. 
 
      Venezuela is defending itself.  It has developed a civic-military union, in which a popular militia of 2 million combatants in 335 municipalities serves as a rearguard for the Armed Forces.   The government recently convoked a National Day of Dialogue and Rectification, involving 16,800 popular assemblies in 2,500 communities, with the proposals of the people recorded by members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.  The emphasis on the assemblies is on making corrections in the revolutionary road, changing what ought to be changed.  At the same time, the government is seeking to compensate for the losses in trade by expanding commercial relations with China, Russia, and other nations that have been seeking an alternative to the trading patterns defined by the U.S.-European dominated world-economy.  In addition, it is adopting measures for the progressive increase of petroleum production and for the diversification of production.
 
      As I have argued previously, the long-term tendencies of the world-system favor the endurance of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and other alternative projects from below, requiring adjustments in U.S. foreign policy to this global political reality (“Venezuela and world-systemic tendencies” 03/08/2019 in this category Venezuela).

Sources

Sources
 
Arias Fernández, Francisco.  2019.  “Ineptocracia o el gabinete de demolición,” Granma (May 9).
 
Cannon, Barry.  2019.  “Juan Guaidó’s Policy Proposals: 'The Venezuela to Come' or the Venezuela That Has Already Been?”  NACLA (March 15).
 
Capote, Raúl Antonio.  2019.  “Recete para Trump: una dosis de jarabe vietnamita,” Granma (March 13).
 
Carrasco Martín, Juana.  2019.  “Sabotaje eléctrico alumbra conciencia de venezolanos,” Juventud Rebelde (March 9).
 
García Rodríguez, Julio César.  2019.  “La colaboración cubana: principios y verdades desde Venezuela,” Granma (March 20).
 
Escuela, Mauricio.  2019.  “Venezuela seguirá siendo irrevocablemente libre,” Granma (April 16).
 
Koerner, Lucas.  2019.  “The Global Left and the Danger of a Dirty War in Venezuela,” Mint Press News (February 25).
 
Milanés León, Enrique.  2019.  “El contragolpe del pueblo,” Granma (May 6).
 
__________.  2019.  “El presidente autoapagado,” Granma (March 15).
 
Misión Verdad.  2019.  “Solidarity, Survival and Sabotage: Reconstructing the History of the Blackouts Tormenting Venezuela,” The Grayzone (April 1).
 
Pilger, John.  2019.  “The War on Venezuela Is Built on Lies,” Counterpunch (February 24).
 
Ramírez, Edgardo Antonio.  2019.  “La Razia imperialista contra Venezuela,” Granma (February 27).
 
Shupak,  Gregory.  2019.  “US Media Erase Years of Chavismo’s Gains,” FAIR  (March 11).
 
Weisbrot, Mark.  2019.  “The Reality Behind Trumps Coalition for Regime Change in Venezuela,” The New Republic (March 14).

     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).​

​     Cuba calls upon the governments, organizations, and social movements of the world to mobilize for peace and against U.S. military intervention in Venezuela.  At a press conference on February 19, 2019, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Minister of Foreign Relations of Cuba, declared:

​     The press conference was a response to the February 18 speech of President Trump in Florida, and it reiterated the February 13 Declaration of the Cuban Revolutionary Government that the United States is preparing a military aggression against Venezuela under the pretext of humanitarian aid (see “Cuba declares on Venezuela” 2/18/2019).
 
      In the February 19 press conference, Rodríguez noted that the United States has set a deadline for penetrating Venezuelan territory with the “humanitarian aid” by means of force.  He declared this posture to be a contradiction in terms, because aid that is truly humanitarian cannot possibly rest on violence, on the force of arms, and on the violation of international law. 
 
     Rodríguez further observed that the government of the United States has been continually pressuring members of the Security Council of the United Nations in order to force the adoption of a resolution in support of a “humanitarian intervention.”  He noted that, in the past, resolutions of this kind are prelude to the establishment of “no-fly zones” and “humanitarian corridors” in order to justify the use of force, with the pretext of protecting civilians.  “We hope,” he declared, “that the Security Council of the United Nations will be true to its vocation and its responsibility as the principal guarantor of peace and international security and will not lend service to military ventures.  We call upon its members to act with fidelity to international law and to defend peace.”
 
     Rodríguez described Trump’s speech as characterized by “extraordinary cynicism, extraordinary hypocrisy.”  Trump speaks of democracy, Rodríguez observes, but ignores the injustice and the exploitation that are the legacy of U.S. imperialism in Latin America.  He overlooks that the U.S. political system is ruled by special interests and corporate contributions, with elections that are won through the manipulation of the people.  He does not mention the millions of poor persons in the United States, the five hundred thousand homeless persons, the racially differentiated system of criminal justice, and the low level of unionization among U.S. workers.
 
      Trump proclaims that the hemisphere will be free of socialism for the first time in history.  It is not the first time that the United States has decreed the “end of socialism,” Rodríguez maintains.  Trump said in Florida that “we have seen the future of Cuba here in Miami.”  But he is wrong, Rodríguez states, because “the future of Cuba is here” in Cuba, where “we reiterate that our loyalty to Fidel and Raúl will be invariable, and that the process of continuity headed by President Díaz-Canel is permanent and irreversible.”

February 18, 2019
 
     The Revolutionary Government of Cuba has denounced the pressure and actions of the government of the United States in preparation for a military venture disguised as “humanitarian intervention” in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.  It called upon the international community to mobilize in order to prevent the U.S. plan from being implemented.
 
     The Declaration of the Revolutionary Government, emitted on February 13, 2019, notes that from February 6 to February 10, military transport planes, originating from U.S. military installations utilized by the Special Operations Forces and the U.S. Marines for covert operations, have been flying toward military bases in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and other islands of the Caribbean.
 
     The Declaration observes that the mass media, including those of the United States, have revealed that extremist elements in the U.S. government have designed and have directly organized and managed the attempted coup d’état in Venezuela, which has included an illegal self-proclamation of a president.  It further observes that the Venezuelan people are resisting, as is made evident by the loyalty of the armed forces and the massive demonstrations in support of President Maduro.  The United States, however, is intensifying its international political and media campaign and is hardening economic measures.  The unilateral coercive economic measures include the blocking of millions of dollars belonging to Venezuela in banks in third countries and the robbery of income from the sale of petroleum.  Said measures are provoking harsh deprivations and serious humanitarian damage, which the United States is using as a humanitarian pretext to initiate a military aggression against Venezuela.  The humanitarian aid that it intends to introduce in Venezuelan territory is a thousand times less than the economic damage caused by the coercive measures unilaterally imposed from Washington, the Declaration asserts.  The cynical and hypocritical intention is to establish an “international corridor” under “international protection” as a base on Venezuelan territory for its military operations, justified with a pretext of “protecting civilians.”
 
     The Declaration recalls that similar conduct and pretexts were adopted by the United States as a prelude to the wars that it undertook in Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya, resulting in an immense loss of human life and enormous suffering.  And it maintains that the sad and painful history of U.S. military interventions cannot be forgotten, including more than once in Mexico, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, and Honduras; and most recently, in Grenada and Panama. 
 
      The Declaration maintains that the U.S. government undertakes these actions because the Chavist and Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela constitutes the greatest threat to the exercise of its imperialist domination over Latin America and the Caribbean and to its intention of dispossessing the Venezuelan people of the largest petroleum reserve on earth as well as other strategic natural resources.
 
     The Declaration supports the Montevideo Mechanism; initiated by Mexico, Uruguay, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and Bolivia; which seeks to preserve peace in Venezuela on the basis of the principles of non-intervention in the affairs of states and of the peaceful resolution of conflicts.  The Declaration applauds the fact that the government of Nicolas Maduro and the international community have welcomed the initiative, and it expresses concern with the categorical rejection by the government of the United States of this as well as other initiatives of dialogue proposed by various countries.
 
     The Declaration reiterates the firm and unwavering solidarity of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba with the Constitutional President Nicolás Maduro and with the Chavist and Bolivarian Revolution.  It declares that Venezuela is determined to defend the sovereignty and dignity of Latin America and the Caribbean and the peoples of the South.  It warns that history will judge severely a new imperialist military intervention in the region.
 
      For the full text of the Declaration, in English and Spanish, see: “Declaration of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba on Venezuela,” April 13, 2019.

     Juan Guaidó is President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, which has been suspended for being in contempt of court, by virtue of its refusal to comply with a court order emitted by the Venezuelan Supreme Court.  Guaidó is the point guard in the U.S. effort to remove from office the constitutionally and democratically elected president, Nicolás Maduro.  Guaidó has been declared interim president of Venezuela by the suspended National Assembly, a declaration not recognized by the executive and judicial branches, the military, and the Constitutional Assembly.  The Constitutional Assembly was created through democratic elections, following the Court’s ruling that the National Assembly was in contempt of court.
 
      An editorial by Guaidó was published in The New York Times on January 30.  Its strategy is to distort reality through the omission of relevant and important facts, relying on the unfamiliarity of the U.S. public with the history and current situation in Venezuela, and depending on the political and ideological support of the USA, which also repeatedly uses the same disinformation strategy, thus preparing the ideological terrain for Guaidó’s editorial.  In a previous post (“The legitimacy of Maduro and Venezuela” 1/15/2019), I try to describe the historical and political context of the current situation in Venezuela, which includes fundamental facts that Guaidó leaves aside.
 
     Guaidó blames the government of Nicolás Maduro for food and medical shortages.  U.S. readers ought to be aware that the opposition and the Bolivarian Revolution blame each other for the economic difficulties of the last five years.  Opposition leaders are tied to the dominant economic sectors, and their privileged position includes control of the import-export trade, on which the Venezuelan economy is dependent.  In 2014, import-export traders launched what the Chavists call an economic war against Venezuela.  The traders stopped importing goods, and they hoarded goods, provoking shortages in necessities.  Such a political strategy is in violation of international law, and it is unpatriotic.  There are persons, no doubt, in the USA who believe that the policies of the Maduro government have caused the economic difficulties; they ought to be aware of the damage done to the economy by the Venezuelan traders, who adopted a strategy consistent with U.S. intentions of promoting chaos and destabilization.
 
    In as similar vein, Guaidó speaks of violence against protestors, and he maintains that the government has unleashed a brutal crackdown on protestors.  He observers that “240 Venezuelans have been murdered at marches, and there are 600 political prisoners.”  Again, the government describes these events in a fundamentally different way.  It maintains that the opposition has organized violent gangs that have attacked Chavists and government property; that the great majority of the persons who died were killed by the violent gangs organized or stimulated by the opposition; and that the political prisoners have been charged and found guilty of engaging in or inciting violence.
 
     Guaidó claims that Maduro’s re-election on May 20, 2018 was illegitimate.  He offers no evidence in support of this claim, other than to say that the illegitimacy of said elections “has since been acknowledged by a large part of the international community.”  The veracity of this observation depends on what is meant by “large part.”  He further claims that “over 50 countries have recognized either me as interim president or the National Assembly as the legitimate authority in Venezuela.” On the other hand, Cuban newspapers report that more than 120 nations in the world have recognized the legitimacy of the Maduro government.  Moreover, recent efforts by the U.S. government to obtain support for a declaration or action against Venezuela were rejected by the UN Security Council and the General Assembly.  Even the Organization of American States, infamous for its historic role in soliciting the support of Latin American governments in the U.S. policy of domination over them (see “Pan-Americanism and OAS” 10/2/2013 in the category US Imperialism) and an instrument in the current U.S. strategy toward Venezuela, would not go along with U.S. plans.  It appears that the majority of nations are taking the minimal position that the United States should not interfere in the affairs of Venezuela, in accordance with the principles of respect for the sovereignty of all nations and of non-interference in the affairs of nations, which are universally recognized principles, proclaimed by the United Nations and other international organizations.  Standing in opposition to these principles, Guaidó is permitting himself to be an instrument of the U.S. coup attempt.
 
     Although it is inconvenient for U.S. policy that the people of the United States know it, the fact is that Maduro won the May 20, 2018 elections with 67% of the vote, in elections that international observers as well as the opposition candidates declared to be fair.  The turnout was lower than has been customary in the last twenty years of Chavist rule, partly as a result of calls by some sectors of the opposition to not vote, and partly as a result of a decline in support for the opposition.  However, in spite of the low turnout by recent Venezuelan standards, Maduro’s vote as a percentage of registered voters was higher than that of victorious candidates in recent presidential elections in Argentina, the United States, and Brazil, administrations that deny the legitimacy of the Maduro government. 
 
      Guaidó writes, “My ascension as interim president is based on Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution, according to which, if at the outset of a new term there is no elected head of state, power is vested in the president of the National Assembly until free and transparent elections take place.”  The difficulty with this justification is that it is based on the false claim that Maduro was not constitutionally re-elected on May 20, 2018.  And a further difficulty is that the National Assembly itself has been suspended, because of its failure to respect the judicial authority established by the same Constitution that Guiadó cites.
 
      Guaidó maintains that “under Chávez the country was drifting toward totalitarianism.”  He provides no evidence in support of this claim.  Fundamental facts indicate the opposite: the Chavist revolution has organized 20 elections in the past 20 years, certified by international observers, winning 18 of them; the Chavist revolution developed a new constitution on a foundation of democratic elections for a constitutional assembly, expanding the rights of the people; and the Bolivarian Revolution has organized popular councils for popular participation. 
 
     The unsubstantiated accusation of totalitarianism has credibility if constantly repeated (as it is by the media and by the powerful), and if the audience has a limited understanding of Venezuelan reality.  Unfortunately, public discourse in the United States reflects a limited understanding of the Third World story of colonial and neocolonial domination and popular anti-imperialist social movements.  Guaidó makes no reference to the Venezuelan manifestations of this Latin American historic reality and current situation, and it is the most fundamental of his omissions.
 
      In recounting his own personal story, Guaidó describes how he joined the student movement in opposition to the Chavist referendum on constitutional reforms in 2007.  Readers of The New York Times may or may not be aware that the Latin American student movement has a heroic tradition of standing in opposition to military dictatorships and U.S. imperialism.  In Cuba, for example, historically important leaders like Julio Antonio Mella and Fidel Castro took their first steps as leaders in the student movement.  However, Latin American students are not always on the side of social justice; sometimes they are defenders of privilege.  In many countries in Latin America, university students are primarily middle class, and the Latin American middle class has high levels of activism in both bands, in both the revolution and the counterrevolution.  The student movement in opposition to the 2007 constitutional reform referendum was a movement of middle class students, casting itself in opposition to the deepening of a popular revolution that intended to expand opportunities for persons of all classes; a revolution that is seeking transformation of a historical reality in which opportunities were to a considerable extent restricted to the privileged classes.
 
           Guaidó proposes shoring up the National Assembly and consolidating the support of the international program.  But this is hardly a program or a platform, and this has been a continuous shortcoming of the opposition.  The opposition is against the Bolivarian Revolution, and it makes vague charges of totalitarianism.  But what are its specific objections to the Chavists?  Was it that the Chavists took effective control of the previously nationalized oil industry?  Was it that they used government revenues obtained through control of the oil industry to reduce foreign debt and to finance missions in education, health, and housing?  Was it that they united with Latin American and Caribbean governments, seeking to develop an effective regional response to U.S. imperialism?
 
      And what specific measures does the opposition propose?  One suspects that it wants to restore the neoliberal agenda, in which the government permits the market to rule, playing rhetorical political games with its duty to formulate and implement a plan for social and economic development.  And one suspects that the opposition wants to restore Venezuelan subordination to U.S. capital, thus creating opportunities for Venezuelans in privileged positions.  But such a program cannot be proclaimed, because it would be rejected by the majority as contrary to the needs of the people and the interests of the nation.  So the opposition therefore must engage in a disinformation and destabilization campaign, seeking to create chaos and disorder, as a prelude to U.S. military intervention in some form, which would seek to put into power a regime more accommodating to its interests.
 
      It is hard to know how this situation will play out.  The U.S. government has frozen Venezuelan assets in U.S. banks, and Guaidó indicates that he will seek control of Venezuelan assets abroad.  He could use these funds to appoint ambassadors, which some countries will recognize; to form para-military organizations; and to disseminate misinformation in the world and in Venezuela.  He can count on U.S. support, and Trump is threatening a possible military intervention.  A “civil war,” of the kind principally financed and supported from the exterior, may be beginning.  If this happens, almost everyone will lose, but not the opportunists.
 
     Events of this kind will continue, unless and until the people of the United States acquire the necessary understanding of world history and international affairs; and develop the political maturity and the political power required to establish that the government of the United States, in the conduct of its foreign policy, respect the sovereignty of the nations of the world, even those nations with important natural resources, and even those nations with the audacity to seek an autonomous road, different from that assigned to them by the imperialist and neocolonial powers.

     On January 10, 2019, Nicolás Maduro Moros took the oath of office for his second term as president.  Maduro won the elections of May 20, 2018 with more than 67% of the vote.  Nevertheless, the United States and several governments in Latin America deny the legitimacy of his government.  The “Group of Lima,” foreign ministers of seven Latin American nations, responding to the directions of Washington, emitted on January 9 a resolution soliciting that Maduro not assume the presidency for a second term.  On the other hand, presidents and delegations from several Latin American governments were present at the swearing-in ceremony, as 94 countries from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East sent delegations.  More than 120 countries as well as the United Nations have ratified the legitimacy of the government. 
 
     The conflict over Venezuela has deep historic roots.  The modern world-system is built on a foundation of colonial domination.  Seven European nations conquered the empires, nations, and peoples of vast regions of the planet from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries, converting the conquered into suppliers of cheap raw materials on a base of forced labor, thus enabling the economic development of the conquering nations and their immediate neighbors.  During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the colonized formed anti-colonial movements, obligating the colonial powers to concede political independence.  However, colonial economic structures were preserved following independence, and various imperialist forms of penetration and intervention were developed.  As a result, the former colonies did not have true independence, which gave rise to popular anti-imperialist movements throughout the former colonies.  These movements condemned not only the imperialist powers, but also the national politicians, political parties, and governments that accommodated imperialist interests for personal gain.
 
       In this global scenario defined by neocolonial structures and imperialist policies, any nation that has been able to mobilize its political and economic resources toward an autonomous road has been branded an outlaw nation by the global powers.  The governments, corporations, and civil organizations of the powerful have sought to destroy the governments and political leaders that possess the audacity and the capacity to lead their peoples and nations toward a destiny different from that assigned to them by the global powers.  They have used all methods, including aggressive and barbarous military attacks, support for brutal dictatorships, economic sanctions, and the dissemination of half-truths and lies.  Examples of nations seeking autonomous economic and political development that have been branded and punished are legendary.  They include the People’s Republic of China, Vietnam, (North) Korea, Nasser’s Egypt, Cuba, Tanzania in the time of Nyerere, Chile in the age of Allende, the first stage of the Sandinista Revolution in power in Nicaragua, the government of al-Qaddafi in Libya, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.  In Latin America today, the targeted nations are Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia.
 
      Economic interests shape political thought and behavior in the colonies and neocolonies, as occurs everywhere.  Accordingly, two tendencies emerge, namely, accommodation and revolution.  Those who accommodate to imperialist interests are tied to sectors that economically benefit from the colonial/neocolonial economic relation.  Such sectors include the landed estates and mines that export raw materials as well as import/export commerce with the metropolis.  Some accommodationists are well grounded in the ideological orientation of the North by virtue of education and employment.  In the great majority of cases, in the transition from colonialism to neocolonialism, the accommodationists are installed in political power by the withdrawing colonial power. 
 
     However, the majority of the people in the neocolonies, including peasants, workers, and professionals, do not have an interest in accommodation to neocolonial domination.  They have an interest in the economic and social development of the nation, on a base of diversity of production and commerce, including scientific and technological development.  They have an interest in the structural transformation of neocolonial economic structures, such that autonomous and nationally directed economic development can occur.  They have an interest in the true sovereignty of the nation.  They have an interest in the taking of political power from the accommodationists, such that the state can act to promote the economic development of the nation and to defend the social and economic rights of the people.
 
       Domination and exploitation nearly always are based on force, but they are never carried out by brute force alone.  The global conflict between colonialist North and neocolonized South includes a battle of ideas, as the imperialist powers justify their interventions with ideological distortions that they present to their own peoples and that they disseminate throughout the world.  They speak of communism, terrorism, human rights, and humanitarian intervention.  With these ideological maneuvers, the imperialist nations and imperialist policymakers present themselves as defenders of democracy and civilization as they inflict great damage on the peoples of the world as well as on their own young men and women who are sent to carry out morally questionable missions in hostile areas.
     
       Such are the fundamental dynamics of the world.  A world-system founded on colonialism, constituting a neocolonial world-system that ensures the flow of raw materials, lowed-waged manufactured goods, and capital from the neocolonies to the metropolitan centers.  Indirect political control by the core powers, with the support of accommodationist actors.  Anti-imperialist social movements throughout the neocolonies, with the taking of political power by the movements in some cases, branded as outlaw nations and attacked.  The dissemination of ideological distortions, designed to discredit the recalcitrant nations and their leaders and to justify economic and military actions against them.  If our frame of reference is not shaped by colonial consciousness, that is, by consciousness of these fundamental historical and global dynamics of the last five centuries, we are not going to be able to understand very much about the world today, and we will be more easily taken in by the ideological distortions.
 
       Colonial consciousness helps us to understand the conflict concerning Venezuela today.  The Venezuelan twentieth century popular anti-imperialist movement above all was oriented to attaining national control of the oil industry.  The movement was not able to attain control, in spite of the nationalization of the industry in 1976, because Venezuelan managers accommodated to the economic interests of international oil capital.  Following the implementation of neoliberal policies, which began in 1989 in the case of Venezuela, foreign penetration of the economy intensified, and foreign political influence increased.  In 1992, Hugo Chávez led a group of military officers in a failed coup d’état, proclaiming the need for a constitutional assembly.  Released from prison in 1994, Chávez formed the Bolivarian Fifth Republic Movement.  He was democratically elected president in 1998, on the basis of a campaign calling for an alternative constitutional foundation and charging that the national elite was “kneeling undignified before the imperial power.”  When Chávez assumed the presidency in 1999, he convoked a Constitutional Assembly, the delegates of which were elected by the people in free, direct, and universal elections.  The Constitutional Assembly approved a new Constitution that established the Fifth Republic.  Chávez was elected president for two consecutive terms under the mandates of the Constitution, winning in free elections by strong majorities, before dying of cancer in 2013 prior to the completion of his second term. (See various posts in the category Venezuela). 
 
       The presidency of Hugo Chávez had three basic dimensions.  First, the taking of effective control of the oil industry, by appointing managers of the state petroleum company who were committed to Venezuelan national development and not the interests of international capital.  In addition, Chávez visited leaders of OPEC countries, forging new agreements with respect to limits on oil production, thus generating higher prices and more government income.  Secondly, the redistribution of income, through the channeling new oil revenues toward programs that responded to the needs of persons of modest income, including programs that reduced illiteracy and expanded educational opportunity and health care.  Thirdly, a foreign policy that sought Latin American unity and integration, seeking to develop alternative structures to those of the neocolonial world-system.  Accordingly, Chávez and Fidel founded in 2004 the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), an association of Latin American and Caribbean states dedicated to integration, unity, and mutually beneficial commerce and cooperation.  ALBA was the foundation for other regional anti-imperialist initiatives, such as the South American Union of Nations (UNASUR, founded in 2008) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC, founded in 2010), in which Venezuela was one of the leading actors (see various posts in the category Latin American unity) .
 
     As a popular revolutionary project that seeks to attain the true sovereignty of the nation and to develop its own endogenous project of national development, the Chavist Bolivarian Revolution is a threat to the neocolonial world-system.  The U.S. government has sought to undermine the Chávez government through the support of those sectors in Venezuela that have economic interests opposed to the goals of the revolutionary project, sectors that benefit from the neocolonial world order.  These sectors initially included: the technocratic elite that managed the petroleum industry prior to 1998; the business elite, owners of import-export companies; leaders of the union of petroleum workers, who were in a privileged position relative to the majority of workers; the landed estate bourgeoisie, historic beneficiaries of the core-peripheral relation; and the traditional political parties, junior partners in the imposition of neocolonial structures and in the implementation of neoliberal policies.  The opposition sectors control the private media of communication, and they can count on international financial support and the active engagement of the US embassy.   
 
      During the period of the Chávez presidency from 1998 to 2013, the opposition generated much conflict, but the Chavist forces prevailed.  However, with the death of Chávez in 2013, the opposition escalated its tactics, seeking to destabilize the government of Nicolás Maduro.  In February 2014, fascist gangs were organized to attack citizens and property, and the international media falsely presented the violent groups as peaceful student protestors.  There were calls for US intervention.  But Maduro weathered the storm by responding with political intelligence.  He convoked peaceful demonstrations by supporters of the Bolivarian revolution; he announced the organization of popular vigilance in centers of work and study and in neighborhoods; and he called for dialogue with the moderate opposition, seeking to isolate the extreme right. 
 
     But more challenges lay ahead.  Beginning in the summer of 2014, oil prices began a sustained and sharp fall, which significantly affected the Venezuelan economy, inasmuch as petroleum accounts for ninety percent of national income from foreign trade.  In addition, China adopted a model of slower economic growth, which reduced the prices of metals and soybean exported by Venezuela to her trading partners in Latin America.  Moreover, the value of the U.S. dollar increased, resulted in higher costs for imported goods in Venezuela.  These dynamics made evident the limits of the strategy of using oil revenue to redistribute income.  Further progress must be made in practice with respect to the Revolution’s goal of increasing and diversifying national production.
 
      An economic war, which had been waged by the opposition against the governments of both Chávez and Maduro, intensified and had greater effect in the context of the economic difficulties of 2014-2015.  Inasmuch as Venezuela imports more goods that it consumes, the country is dependent on the importing companies.  When these companies, with foreign financial support, reduce the availability of food, medicine and consumer goods by hording goods in warehouses and reducing imports, the result is critical shortages, price speculation, and price increases.  The withholding of food and medicine as a political weapon violates international law, and in the case of Venezuela, it has been conducted by importers and big merchants against the people of their own nation.
 
      The difficulties from the economic war, in conjunction with a constant anti-government campaign by the corporate owned media, gave rise to a lack of satisfaction with the government by the people.  As a result of the growing popular dissatisfaction, a coalition of opposition parties won the parliamentary elections of December 6, 2015, attaining nearly a two-thirds majority.
 
      The opposition parliamentary victory of 2015 makes evident the need for the improvement and further development of popular assemblies, where the people are able to discuss their concrete problems with their co-workers and neighborhoods.  In such a setting, informed revolutionaries are able to explain the sources of the shortages and price increases, making clear the culpability of the opposition, and not the revolutionary government.  The Bolivarian revolution has had a commitment to develop popular assemblies, but it needs to develop them further.
 
     However, the limitations of the opposition parliamentary victory also should be understood.  The Chavists continued to control other governmental powers, namely, the executive and judicial branches as well as the military forces.  In addition, the Constitution of 1999 was a creation of the Bolivarian revolution, and it supports revolutionary goals.  Moreover, the opposition has no viable program to offer.  In reality, the opposition favors a neoliberal dismantling of the structures established by the Bolivarian Revolution, but it did not campaign on such a program, and if now announced, such a platform would not have popular support. 
 
     Therefore, the opposition in early 2016 found itself in control of one of four governmental branches, with an unannounced agenda that, if clearly proclaimed, would not have popular support.  Moreover, the opposition was divided between a moderate and extreme opposition.  The moderates were prepared to work within the structures of the Constitution to promote their political objectives, even though this would likely imply merely partial and limited political power.  In contrast, the extreme opposition, recognizing the obstacles to obtaining sufficient popular support for a neoliberal restauration through constitutional means, sought to foster political destabilization and to create an international image of chaos, which would provide a pretext for a foreign military intervention that would create the opportunity for the taking of full political control by Venezuelan actors committed to neoliberalism.
 
     In the opposition-controlled parliament, the extremists gained the political upper hand over the moderates.  The extremists immediately demonstrated their contempt for the other constitutional powers.  They projected that the constitutionally elected president would be removed from power within three months.  They called for popular demonstrations against the government, and they organized violent gangs that burned public buildings, looted commercial establishments, and attacked supports of the Bolivarian Revolution.  Rather than formulating a proposal for an alternative direction for the nation, their focus was on the fomenting of political instability.  The international media supported their agenda, falsely portraying the violence as repression by the government of peaceful demonstrators. 
 
      In 2016, the opposition-controlled parliament came into conflict with the Venezuelan Supreme Court over the seating of three parliamentary deputies.  Much was at stake here, because the three additional seats would have given the opposition a two-thirds majority, enabling it to adopt measures without presidential approval.  However, the Supreme Court ruled that the three deputies should not be seated, as a result of irregularities in the voting in their districts.  The Parliament defied the Court, and administered the oath of office to the three deputies, thus ignoring the constitutional authority of the Supreme Court.  In response, the Court ruled the National Assembly to be in contempt of court.
 
     The Constitution mandates that, if the National Assembly is found in contempt of court, a Constitutional Assembly should assume the functions of the National Assembly, until the National Assembly obeys the decision of the Court.  Accordingly, taking into account the continuing violence of the opposition and the ongoing stalemate between the National Assembly and the Supreme Court, in June 2017 Maduro convoked a Constitutional Assembly.  Some 545 delegates to the Constitutional Assembly were elected in a universal, secret, and direct election held on June 30, 2017.  The majority of the elected delegates were Chavists, a result that was influenced by the fact that a good part of the opposition was oriented to disruption rather than to the nomination of candidates, and by popular disgust with the conduct of the opposition since its parliamentary victory of December 2015.
 
      Reflecting growing popular rejection of the opposition for its irresponsible conduct, Chavist candidates won the regional elections of October 2017.  The Chavist party, United Socialist Party of Venezuela, won 18 state governorships; whereas two opposition parties, Democratic Action and Justice First, won five.  Chavist candidates received 54% of the total votes cast.  Voter participation was 61%, the highest in the nation’s history for regional elections.
 
      In response to the violence and the attempts at promoting political instability, Maduro was continually calling for dialogue with respect to any issues of substance.  Accordingly, an encounter between the government and the opposition was held in the Dominican Republic, in which it was agreed that the presidential elections scheduled for the end of 2018 would be moved up to May of that year.  The Constitutional National Assembly emitted a decree to the effect, and elections conducted by National Electoral Council were held on May 20, 2018.
 
     Maduro won the May 2018 presidential elections with 5,823,728 votes (67.7%).  Henri Falcón of Progressive Advance was second with 21.1%.  Two other candidates had lower percentages.  The elections were recognized as free and fair by the opposition candidates and by international observers.  The voter participation was lower than in previous elections in the Chavist era, for two reasons.  First, the switch of voters from the opposition to the “ni-ni” category (neither for nor against the Chavists), as a result of the irresponsible conduct of the parliamentary majority.  Secondly, some opposition leaders, recognizing that they could not win and more oriented to destabilization, called for a boycott of the elections.  Nevertheless, Maduro’s absolute vote was roughly the same as in previous elections that the Chavists won, but now the vote represented a higher percentage of the votes cast.  Moreover, Maduro’s vote as a percentage of eligible voters was higher than that of the winning candidates in recent presidential elections in other nations, including Brazil, Argentina, and the United States.
 
      In fact, the Venezuelan electoral system in the Chavist era is recognized as one of the best in the world, with transparency and high voter participation.  It has been so characterized by former President Jimmy Carter.  In last 20 years, 25 elections have been held; and Chavists have won 23 of them. 
 
      But the United States stands against Venezuela.  In 2015, the Obama administration declared that Venezuela is a threat to the national security of the United States.  In August 2017, the Trump administration ordered economic and financial sanctions against Venezuela, with the intention of deepening the economic problems caused by the fall in oil prices, stimulating an economic collapse.  The United States has endeavored to use the Organization of American States, its historic diplomatic arm for controlling Latin America, in its attack on Venezuela.  The OAS attack is directed by Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the OAS, with the coordination of the Southern Command of the U.S. military.  Amargo convoked a session of OAS on March 28, 2017, but he was unable to obtain the approval of OAS members for the expulsion of Venezuela from OAS (as was done with respect to Cuba in 1961) or any other action against Venezuela.  On January 11, 2019, a U.S.-supported resolution not recognizing the legitimacy of the Maduro government and urging countries to take punitive measures against Venezuela was presented at an extraordinary session of the Permanent Council of OAS; however, it did not obtain the necessary votes from the member nations. 
 
       U.S. policy toward Venezuela has nothing to do with democratic elections or constitutional procedures.  From the U.S. point of view, the problem with Venezuela is that it is an oil rich country that does not submit to its mandates.  And even worse, it is a country that has played a leading role in forging a unified movement toward autonomous economic development and genuine political independence among nations located in what used to be the U.S. “backyard.”   The USA is supporting an economic and media war against Venezuela with the intention of promoting political instability and an international image of chaos, in order to justify a military intervention, dressed up as humanitarian aid. 
 
     U.S. policy in Venezuela is consistent with its general policy with respect to Latin America, which involves efforts to destabilize governments in the vanguard of change, operating through opposition political sectors that have an economic stake in the neocolonial world order.  Today, the attack is directed against of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.  It was directed against Ecuador and the citizen revolution led by Rafael Correa, before that revolution was hijacked by a Trojan Horse.  Meanwhile, in accordance with the same imperialist objectives, the economic, commercial, and financial blockade of Cuba continues.
 
       As the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela struggles to move forward in the face of the interferences and the threat of military intervention by the imperial power, it must in the long term strengthen itself through the diversification of the economy; the strengthening of popular assemblies and alternative structures of popular power; and the further development in practice of South-South commerce.  Nicolás Maduro, the constitutionally elected and legitimate President of Venezuela, is working hard on these objectives.
 
     Perhaps the United States will ultimately decide not to take the option of military intervention, taking into account the risks, including armed resistance in the occupied nation, opposition by numerous governments and international organizations, and widespread popular rejection in the world and in the United States itself.  However, taking into account the declining capacity of the United States to apply economic forms of inducement and coercion, as well as the growing political resistance of the neocolonized to U.S. demands, the peoples and nations of the world must be prepared for the increasingly likely possibility that the United States will return to its earlier forms of imperialism.  That is, we must prepare ourselves for the sad phenomenon of the declining hegemonic power increasingly turning to military interventions and propping-up military dictatorships in defense of its economic interests.

     The Chavist Revolution in Venezuela attained a resounding victory in the regional elections of October 15 (see “Victory for Chavistas in Venezuela” 10/17/2017).  Given serious economic difficulties and a problem of government corruption, why did 54% of Venezuelan voters support Chavist candidates?

      There are two reasons.  First, the revolution led by Hugo Chávez from the period 1994 until his death in 2013 and led today by Nicolás Maduro has established the sovereignty of the nation.  Prior to Chávez, natural resources were used to promote the economic development the United States and other developed nations of the North; and beginning in the 1980s, such superexploitation was deepened through imposition of the neoliberal project.  These dynamics were possible through the cooperation of the Venezuelan elite with transnational corporations, responding to their particular interests rather than the wellbeing of the nation.  Chávez had the capacity to explain to the people the dysfunctionality of the system for Venezuela, and to denounce the elite as traitors to the nation.  When the Chavist Revolution took power in 1998, it took steps to attain control of the production and sale of oil, integrating them into a national project that developed social missions in response to the needs of the people.  As a result, today 72% of the state budget is dedicated to the social sector, including education, housing, and health.  Thus the Chávist Revolution has been a force in defense of the nation and the people.  Why wouldn’t the people support it?

     Secondly, current economic difficulties, political divisions, and violence are a consequence of the behavior of the opposition, which seeks a return to neoliberal policies and subordination to U.S. interests.  Using its ownership of trading enterprises, the opposition has blocked the importation of necessary goods to the people.  And it has organized violent gangs to attack citizens and government buildings.  Moreover, it has used its control of the parliament since December 2014, not to propose an alternative national project, but to sow division.  The behavior of the opposition has been unpatriotic, standing in opposition to the good of the nation and the needs of the people.  Why wouldn’t the people reject the opposition?  In fact, if it were not for the capacity of the elite to confuse some of the people through its control of the private mass media in Venezuela, the Chavist Revolution would be able to attain a higher level of electoral support, standing as it does in defense of the interests of the majority.

      The international news media has portrayed the Venezuelan situation so negatively that those believing these distortions find it impossible to believe that the Chavistas won the elections of October 15.  Accordingly, seeking to maintain their credibility, the media refuse to accept the results.  The New York Times, for example, cites supposedly informed persons who claim that the elections were fraudulent.  These claims, however, offer no specific explanation with respect to the possible means of fraud in an electoral system with automated voting machines and international observers.  They are merely general claims, whose credibility is ensured by previous distortions of Venezuelan reality.

     On October 17, Nicolás Maduro held an International Press Conference, explaining the openness and security of the electoral process; and proclaiming that Venezuela is a free and democratic country and that the Chavist Revolution is peaceful, electoral, democratic and constitutional.  It lasted for more than three hours, and it included video connections to the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Spain, and Trinidad, from which questions were submitted.  It was broadcast live on Venezuela’s public television channel, Telesur, which is regularly transmitted on one of Cuba’s educational channels.  However, the English-speaking peoples of the North for the most part did not see it, for Telesur is not among the numerous channels that are offered in cable packages of the North.  The peoples of the North are being exposed to a rehashing by “experts” of the claims of the U.S. allies and lackeys in Venezuela, but they do not hear the political leaders who speak for the majority.  

      All of this distortion, deceit and denial from the North has its logic.  The United States cannot accept a sovereign nation in Latin America, for national sovereignty contradicts the structures of the neocolonial world-system.  As a neocolonial power, the USA depends on political-economic structures that ensure access to natural resources, cheap sources of labor, and markets for surplus goods; its foreign policy thus cannot tolerate any nation than seeks to sovereignly make decisions with respect to its natural resources, human labor, and foreign commerce.  If the United States wants to preserve its position of power in the neocolonial world-system, it must pursue a policy of regime change with respect to governments that seek sovereignty, such as Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador.  The economic and ideological campaign against Venezuela, waged by the United States and the global powers in cooperation with the Venezuelan elite, reflects this neocolonial situation.  Accordingly, the United States is compelled to continue its efforts to undermine the Chavist revolution as a threat to its interests; it cannot accept the results of the October 15 elections, regardless of what the facts actually are.

      Although consistent with short-term interests of the global elite, the policy of regime change is not intelligent in the long run.  The neocolonial world-system is not sustainable.  Constructed on a foundation of conquest and colonial domination of the nations, kingdoms, and empires of the world from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, the European-centered world-system has run out of lands and peoples to conquer.  Moreover, during the course of the last two centuries, the colonized peoples have rejected the basic structures of the world-system imposed on them, and they have arrived to demand a new international economic order and a more just, democratic, and sustainable world.  Meanwhile, as the world-system has reached the ecological limits of the earth, the use of vital natural resources has become overextended.  Common human problems have emerged, such as climate change, uncontrolled international migration, terrorism in a new form, organized crime networks, systemic poverty, and the militarization of the foreign policies of key nations.  In this scenario of collective self-destruction, the global powers have a long-range interest in a change in direction, moving to cooperation with other nations in pursuit of a sustainable world-system.  

       Venezuela is a key player in an unfolding world-historical drama that is a confrontation between two forces.  On the one side, there are the transnational corporations and their political representatives in core states, who seek to maintain the structures of the neocolonial world-system.  On the other side stand the socialist and progressive states and popular social movements that seek to construct a more just and sustainable world-system.  In addition to Venezuela, other key states in the current movement for an alternative world include Cuba, China, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Iran, Brazil, and Argentina.  Brazil, Argentina, and possibly Ecuador are experiencing contradictions at present, but unfolding dynamics favor that these nations will retake the alternative road.  In given historical moments during the course of the twentieth century, other nations participated in the alternative project for a time: Russia, Egypt, Indonesia, Ghana, Tanzania, Chile, and Libya.  

     Among the people of the United States and the other peoples of the North, there is a general lack of awareness of the significance of the alternative world movement, based primarily in the Third World, for the future of humanity.  This is a consequence of the ideological distortions generated by the global powers through their control of the media of communication and institutions of higher education.  And it is a consequence of the failure of the Left in the North to encounter the Third World movements, to arrive to see the unfolding world historical drama, and to call upon their peoples to take power from the corporate class and the politicians who function de facto as their representatives, in order that the states in the North can cooperate with the neocolonized peoples of the world in the construction of a more just, democratic, and sustainable world-system.

      All of this is understood by the Chavistas in Venezuela.  In fact, I learned by listening to them and their like-minded compañeros in other lands, based on the premise that they have something important to say.  Such encounter with the movements of the Third World is the key for the Left in the North.  Encounter with the global popular movements formed from below would empower the Left in the North by enabling the discovery and proclamation of the necessary road. 

      The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela won a resounding victory in the regional elections of October 15.  The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV for its initials in Spanish) won 17 state governorships; two opposition parties, Democratic Action and Justice First, won five; and one contest is undecided.  PSUV candidates received 54% of the total votes cast.  Voter participation was 61%, the highest in the nation’s history for regional elections, and significantly higher than the 54% attained in the regional elections of 2012.

      Since the 1999 Constitution established the Fifth Republic, Venezuela, reacting to the previous system of fraudulent elections, has developed transparent and fair elections.  Indeed, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has called them the best in the world.  The elections are managed by the Electoral National Council, an entity that is separate and autonomous from the other governmental branches.  The more than thirteen thousand electoral centers in the country are equipped with advanced technology, making possible a system of automated voting.  In the October 15 regional elections, 18,099,391 citizens voted in 13,559 electoral centers, equipped with 30,274 voting machines.  More than 1500 experts observed the process; international observers, including the Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America (Ceela for its initials in Spanish), certified the elections as fair and legitimate.  

     Since the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998, twenty-two elections and referenda have been held, and the Chavistas have won all but two of them.  That the governing Chavistas accepted the two losses (the 2007 referendum on proposed constitutional amendments and the 2015 parliamentary elections) is itself a confirmation of the democratic character of the Venezuelan electoral process since 1999; as is known, dictators do not lose elections.

      The results of the October 15 regional elections indicate a revitalization of the Bolivarian revolutionary process.  Taking advantage of the death of Hugo Chávez in 2013 and a dramatic fall of Venezuelan oil revenue as a result of the decline of oil prices in 2014, the Venezuelan opposition escalated its efforts to destabilize the country, intending to provoke a U.S. intervention that would be favorable to its particular interests.  The opposition launched an economic war, using its control of commerce to reduce the supply of necessary goods, thus generating shortages and rampant inflation.  And it launched a media campaign against the government, using its ownership of the media of communication, blaming the government for the economic difficulties, accusing the government of corruption, and presenting a false international image of the government as repressive.  Some sectors of the opposition also have established and supported violent gangs, which have attacked government centers and supporters of the Chavist revolution.  These strategies were successful in generating confusion among the people, and they enabled opposition candidates to attain a majority in the parliamentary elections of December 2015.  However, the opposition arrived to a parliamentary majority without a politically viable platform.  It seeks to restore neoliberal policies and to reestablish an economy that is subordinate to the interests of the United States and transnational capital.  Such a platform cannot be presented to the people, inasmuch as a majority has rejected such an approach since the 1990s, having experienced its negative consequences.  As a result, rather that presenting an alternative political project through its parliamentary majority, the opposition has escalated its destabilization tactics, and it has sought the removal from office of constitutionally elected President Nicolás Maduro.

      Maduro was handpicked by Chávez to be his successor, and he was elected to the presidency in 2013 as the first worker president in Venezuelan history and the first “Chavist” president.  He has responded to the opposition efforts at destabilization by constantly exhorting the people to support and defend the Chavist revolution and by persistently maintaining that all political disagreements should be resolved through peaceful means and without foreign interference.  Earlier this year, Maduro convoked a new Constitutional Assembly.  This appears to have been a successful tactic, as the Chavistas were able to enlist significantly more votes for the election of delegates to the assembly than was the opposition for support of an informal referendum against a constitutional assembly.  In addition, decrees issued by the Constitutional Assembly appear to be a stabilizing factor.  The Chavist victory in the October 16 regional elections may be a further indication of a retaking of momentum by the Chavist revolution, containing the post-2013 counterattack of the Right.

     Unable to accept defeat, the opposition is claiming electoral fraud.  The international news media (owned by transnational corporations, principally based in the United States) are active participants in the destabilizing campaign against the government of Venezuela, in violation of the principle of non-interference in the affairs of nations.  Given the distorted image of Venezuela that they seek to present, their reporting on the regional elections has focused on the claims of election fraud by the opposition.  They ignore fundamental facts with respect to the Venezuelan electoral process since 1999, preying upon the state of ignorance among the English-speaking peoples of the North with respect to Venezuela and Latin America.

      Since the attainment of a parliamentary majority by the opposition in December 2015, I have believed that ultimately the people would reject the opposition, because as a parliamentary majority, its incapacity to formulate an alternative national project, and its disregard for the needs of the people and the good of the nation, would stand exposed for all to see.  Perhaps this view is confirmed by the results of the regional elections of October 15, 2017.  

     I have a similar view with respect to current dynamics in Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador.  Electoral games and ideological distortions, if cleverly done, can confuse some of the people for a time.  But if the people are presented by a viable national project that seeks social justice, national sovereignty, and a sustainable world-system, a majority will reject the betrayal of the people and the nation in pursuit of particular interests.

      For further information on the Chavist revolution in Venezuela, see Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.  For more posts on Venezuela, in the category Venezuela, scroll down.

P.S.  On October 18, the Electoral National Council confirmed the Chavist candidate as winner in the elections in the state of Bolívar, bringing to eighteen the number of Chavist governors in the twenty-three states of Venezuela (October 20, 2017).