​        In response to the vandalism and terrorism of the opposition (see “The campaign of violence in Venezuela” 6/20/2017), Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has convoked a Constitutional Assembly.  All sectors of Venezuelan society are convoked, including historic social movements, parliamentary blocs, indigenous associations; labor organizations, students, women, communal councils and councils of workers and farmers.  

     The secret, direct and universal election of delegates to the Constitutional Assembly will be will be held on July 30.  The elected delegates will be sworn and the Assembly will be constituted three days later.  The Assembly will have 545 delegates; 364 territorial delegates elected in voting districts, and 181 sectorial delegates representing eight sectors, including workers (79 delegates), farmers and fishermen (8), students (4), handicapped (5), indigenous peoples (8), pensioners (28), business (5), and communal councils (24).  Each prospective territorial delegate has to present signatures equivalent to three percent of the voters in the voting district in order to be validated as a candidate for the Assembly.  The prospective sectorial delegates must present 1000 signatures in the student and worker sectors, and 500 for the others.

     Hugo Chavez was elected President in 1998 on the basis of his promise to convoke a Constitutional Assembly.  In taking office, Chávez immediately initiated the process, a Constitutional Assembly was held, and a new Constitution was approved by the people in 1999.  However, the Chavist revolution was not entirely satisfied with the new Constitution, and it unsuccessfully attempted to amend it.  Moreover, with eighteen years of further experience, the Chavist Revolution now has a more developed concept of the elements that it sees as necessary for a truly democratic constitution.  Leaders of the Chavist Revolution have stated their intention to propose to the delegates the inclusion of new themes, including: the establishment of the social missions developed by the Chávez government as a constitutional requirement; the diversification of the economic system, reducing its dependency on petroleum; the inclusion of new actors, such as the communal councils, thus strengthening the movement toward popular and participatory democracy; the defense of the sovereignty of the nation, against foreign interventionism; the strengthening of the state in order to facilitate a socialist form of the organization of society; recognition of the multi-ethnic and pluralist character of the country; and the protection of the natural environment.  In addition, they speak of the need to incorporate new elements to protect the Constitution against attacks on the constitutional process and the Constitution itself.

       Chavist leaders stress that the new constitutional process today is different from 1999.  The Constitution of 1999 sought to overthrow the previous Constitution and break with the neocolonial order, whereas the revolution today intends that the newly convoked Constitutional Assembly will further develop the Constitution of 1999, incorporating the more mature understanding that has been accumulated on the basis of eighteen years of experience.

      The convoking of a Constitutional Assembly is a risk, for there is the possibility that delegates of the Right or counterrevolutionary elements could obtain significant representation.  But it also establishes the possibility for the revolutionary process to take decisive steps toward its consolidation.  The latter possibility is favored by the fact that the opposition is divided and lacks a program.  Many of the principal figures of the opposition are not true political leaders; as Maduro has said, the opposition only knows how to convoke the people to kill and burn.  In contrast, the Socialist Party of Venezuela is the largest political party in the nation, and it has a platform and committed militants, who are capable of mobilizing the people to elect delegates.  Other political parties of the Left and progressive social movements also have this capacity.  The opposition is capable of and oriented to disruption, but it is not prepared for effective participation in a Constitutional Assembly.

     There have been impressive and enthusiastic popular demonstrations supporting the new constitutional process, which has the potential to marginalize the violent sectors and discredit the violent and disruptive strategies of the Right, delegitimizing them on the national political scene and in the international arena.  It is an intelligent move by Maduro in the context of a challenging situation, characterized by economic warfare and a campaign of violence by national actors of the Right, with the support of powerful international actors, for the purpose of creating a situation of economic and political destabilization that would function as a prelude and pretext for U.S. military intervention.  

     The international campaign against Venezuela is motivated by the fact that, for the global centers of power, the autonomous road of Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua is a threat to a neocolonial world-system that requires the subordination of supposedly independent nations.  From the vantage point of the global powers, these are dangerous examples, and they cannot be permitted to stand.  History has shown that the survival of national revolutions against the global process of reaction requires intelligence, commitment, determination, and persistence; as well as the solidarity of nations, movements and peoples of the world.

     Since the beginning of April, the extreme Right opposition in Venezuela, with the support of the United States and governments of the Right in Latin America, have organized a campaign of violence. The campaign has included burning of public buildings, looting of commercial establishments, and harassment and attacks of supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution.  In organizing the campaign, the extreme Right has recruited youths, and it has contracted criminal elements. Since the beginning of April, more than sixty people have been killed and more than 1000 have been injured.  While the governments and the press in such countries as Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua have exposed and denounced the campaign of violence, the international media, in a selective and distorted manner, portrays the violence as repression by the government of peaceful demonstrators. The goal of the campaign is to create an international image of repression and ungovernability in Venezuela, as a prelude and pretext for U.S. military intervention.  It represents an effort by the Right, unfolding in a systematic way since 2014, to reverse the gains of progressive, Left and socialist movements, which have taken power in a number of nations in the region during the last twenty years.
  
     On May 10, Tareck El Aissami, Executive Vice-President of Venezuela, announced to the press that one of the armed cells has been neutralized and dismantled, and its leaders arrested.  The cell had been detected by the Venezuelan services of intelligence in the city of Caracas, operating under the direction of certain actors of the Venezuelan ultra-Right, including members of the so-called Table of Democratic Unity, the coalition political parties of the opposition. Government security agents had been surveilling the cell, with the authorization of the courts.  The government presented evidence to the press, including surveillance videos, telephone recordings, automatic rifles and grenades.  According to El Aissami, the evidence shows that “it is not a matter of spontaneous and peaceful protests but of armed cells that have been operating in a planned and organized manner, and with logistical support, in order to generate the terrorist violence with which we have lived during these weeks, primarily in Caracas and in the Miranda State, and that has sent dozens of homes in Venezuela into mourning.”  He noted that this particular cell had received training in urban insurrection, and it had contracted criminal bands in Caracas to assault and loot commercial establishments and to generate nighttime criminal violence.  It had been recruiting youths from five states in the country.  It had developed plans to attack a military barracks and an air base, with the purpose of generating an international commotion by giving the impression of a military uprising in the country, he declared.  He appealed to youth who might be inclined to be influenced by leaders of such cells, advising them that such extreme political elements praise you today, but if they were to attain their goals, they would forget you, for they are dedicated not to the nation but to foreign interests.  

     Francisco Ameliach, Governor of Carabobo, views the strategy of the opposition as a psychological war.  It foments economic and political destabilization, seeking to create discontent, with the intention of manipulating the people into blaming the government and turning against it.  As former CIA Director Allen Dulles once explained, it is a matter of manipulating consciousness and usurping the collective imagination.

     Hugo Chávez believed that opposition that uses such strategies are not true leaders, for they are not guided by a sense of morality that includes commitment to the good of the nation.  Accordingly, they are incapable of formulating a programmatic platform for the future of the nation.  They are capable only of disruption and manipulation.  That is why the opposition in Venezuela is not seeking to take power through the formulation of an alternative political program, but is seeking to generate the conditions for a pretext to foreign intervention that would take power through military means, and delegate power to these who are disposed to govern in its interests.  The Venezuelan opposition and their international allies seek to restore power to the elites, bringing to an end the Bolivarian Revolution that took power in defense of the people.

​     In response to the campaign of violence, President Nicalás Maduro has convoked a Constitutional Assembly, which we will discuss in a subsequent post.

     The Organization of American States (OAS) was created in 1948, when the United States was at the height of its hegemony, with the intention of establishing a diplomatic structure that would enlist the participation of Latin American governments in U.S. neocolonial domination over them.  Socialist Cuba turned out to be too unified to permit the establishment near the Bay of Pigs of a beachhead provisional government, which the OAS could have recognized.  So in 1962, Latin American governments, with the honorable exception of Mexico, voted to expel Cuba from the OAS.  In 2001, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, the United States was able to influence OAS to enact the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which required member nations to have representative democracy.  One suspects that the neocolonial power was thinking here of Cuba, inasmuch as the socialist nation has structures of popular democracy, and not representative democracy.  In 2009, in the context of a new political reality, OAS rescinded the expulsion; but Cuba, both before and after the rescinding, has indicated that it does not intend to return to an organization dominated by U.S. and elite interests.  

      The OAS has recently turned its attention to applying the Democratic Charter to Venezuela.  The fact that Venezuela since 1999 has had highly developed and frequently practiced structures of representative democracy, much praised by international observers, is of no obstacle, inasmuch as a neocolonial power in pursuit of its particular interests scarcely is persuaded by fundamental facts. However, on March 28, 2017, the OAS Secretary General, in spite of U.S. support, failed to attain approval from the member nations for the activation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter against Venezuela (see “ALBA backs Venezuela” 4/21/2017).  Cuba, being no great admirer of the OAS, was quick to respond, and not at all with timidity. Issuing a Declaration on the same day of March 28, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations observed that the OAS confronting Venezuela is the same OAS that has remained silent before violations of human rights in the hemisphere, including: coups d’état; disappearances; arbitrary detentions; the torture and murder of students, journalists and social leaders; unequal commerce; environmental degradation; and cultural aggressions.  The Declaration considers OAS to be decadent and shameful, and in the service of the centers of power.  It maintains that the failure of the strategy of the OAS Secretary General shows that Venezuela is not alone, and the failure is a victory for morality and Bolivarian ideas.  Meanwhile, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez observed that the failure of the OAS to apply the Democratic Charter is a result of the fact that the political reality of Latin America has changed, and it is not what it was in the 1950s.

     On April 16, an extraordinary session of the Permanent Council of OAS approved the convoking of a meeting of ministers of foreign relations to discuss the situation in Venezuela, without establishing a date for the meeting.  The convocation of the meeting was approved by 19 states, with 10 against, four abstentions, and one absence. Venezuela denounced US efforts to apply pressure on member states to support action against Venezuela, and it announced its withdrawal from OAS.

      In response to the convoking of a meeting of foreign ministers, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations issued a declaration on April 27. It maintained that the convoking of the meeting is consistent with the traditional role of OAS as “an instrument of imperialist domination in the hemisphere, with the goal of breaking the sovereignty, independence and dignity of Our America.” OAS, the Declaration asserted, consistently has turned its back on the people, acting in subordination to “oligarchical and imperialist interests.”  “It has been absent when our region has been the victims of political, economic and military interventions and aggressions, or of serious violation of human rights and democracy.”  OAS, the Declaration maintains, is incapable of representing the interests and values of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.  It has imposed a false democratic creed, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and for the poverty and exclusion of millions.  The OAS does not respect the equality and self-determination of states, and “it conspires against and subverts genuine and legitimate governments constituted with demonstrated popular backing.”  The Declaration concludes that the despicable conduct of OAS against Venezuela confirms that, “when there is a government that is not in the interests of the circles of imperial power and their allies, it will be attacked.”  

    The OAS is the diplomatic front of the battle against Venezuela.  Another front has been an economic war waged by the commercial elite in Venezuela (see “Economic and media war against Venezuela” 6/9/2016).  In addition, since the beginning of April, a sustained campaign of fascist-like violence has been unleashed by the Right, with the intention of establishing an international image of chaos and ungovernability, as a prelude and pretext for U.S. military intervention. We will look at the campaign of violence in a subsequent post.

     I am sorry for the delay since my last post.  I have been busy finalizing revisions for my book, The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution, which is being published by Palgrave Macmillan.  I continue today with reflections on Venezuela, following up on my posts of April 21 and April 25.

     I very much recommend taking a look at the speech by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at the political-cultural act of solidarity with Venezuela in Havana, Cuba, on April 10, 2017.  It illustrates the form in which charismatic leaders forge understandings in the context of crises of political struggle, thus demonstrating the process of the evolution of theory in the context of practice. The study of the speeches of charismatic revolutionary leaders is fertile ground for developing our revolutionary consciousness.

      The political crisis in Venezuela is the result of violent attacks by gangs supported by the Venezuelan Right with the support of the U.S. government.  Using its control of the international media of communication, the Right is portraying Venezuela as a country in chaos, providing selected images of violence for which the Right itself is responsible.  The Organization of American States has been enlisted in support of the cause, and the Secretary General of OAS, thus far without success, has been seeking to obtain OAS condemnation of Venezuela or the recommendation of sanctions. The OAS condemnation would serve as a prelude and a pretext for a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, in order to establish a government consistent with its interests, inasmuch as such a government likely could not be attained through electoral or constitutional means.

      Speaking in Cuba in the context of this struggle and crisis, Maduro focuses on the role of the Organization of American States in carrying out U.S. interests.  He recalls that the OAS was created in 1948 with the intention of creating a structure that would enable the United States to obtain Latin American diplomatic support for U.S. action against any Latin American country that would challenge its hegemonic interests.  Enjoying enormous power and prestige at that time, the United States was able to establish the OAS as its “colonial ministry,” as called by Maduro, citing the Cuban foreign minister of the early 1960s, Raúl Roa.  Maduro sees an analogy between OAS expulsion of Cuba in 1962 and the interventionist conduct of OAS with respect to Venezuela today.  Given the role of the OAS as an instrument of U.S. interests, Maduro questions whether Venezuela should remain in the organization.  Indeed, the South American nation subsequently did announce on April 26 its withdrawal from the OAS.  Cuba, it should be noted, did not rejoin the organization when its expulsion was rescinded in 2009.  

     In his analysis of the historic moment, Maduro interprets the Cuban Revolution as of transcendental importance for the neocolonized peoples of the world.  In his view, the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 established a new possible reality for the peoples of the Third World, thus marking the dawning of a new historic period.  For this reason, the Cuban Revolution had to be destroyed by the imperialist powers, but as a result of the determination and intelligence of the Cuban leadership and its people, they could not do it.  

       The discourse of Maduro formulates various concepts and interpretations that are common among Third World revolutionaries. He formulates a grand narrative that finds meaning in human history. He has historic memory of the global process of colonialism, slavery and extermination, carried out by the educated and cultured of Europe. He possesses consciousness of the historic struggle of the colonized peoples in defense of their national sovereignty, their cultural autonomy and their rights.  He has faith in the future of humanity, which, he believes, will be victorious in creating a more just, democratic and sustainable world.  

      Maduro sees free trade agreements between developed and underdeveloped nations as a new form of economic colonialism. Consistent with the classic Third World project of national and social liberation (see various posts in the category Third World), Maduro sees the importance of developing diverse forms of production as well as South-South cooperation, breaking from the peripheral economic role in relation to the core.   The petroleum era is over, he maintains, and Venezuela must overcome dependency on petroleum through diversification of production and regional integration, overcoming the core-peripheral relation though South-South cooperation.  For Maduro, economic development is the principal task confronting Latin American countries, and this is why the road is through regional organizations like ALBA, and not transnational organizations directed by the interests of the core powers, like OAS.  In this emphasis on economic development through a new form of regional integration, Maduro’s views are consistent with those of the “socialism for the twenty-first century” that has emerged in Latin America.

     In struggle of the neocolonized to save humanity, Maduro discerns the important role of charismatic leaders, like Fidel and Chávez, who possessed exceptional understanding as well as unbounded commitment to universal human values.  He notes, for example, that Chávez understood how to lead in the new stage of struggle, overcoming ideological divisions by lifting up a Latin Americanist doctrine.  And both Fidel and Chávez knew to unify the revolution in Venezuela and the Cuban Revolution.  The leadership of Fidel and Chávez, Maduro observes, stands in contrast to the shameful subordination of the local hierarchies to imperialist interests, who sold their dignity.  
   
     Maduro is a former bus driver educated through a process of leadership in worker’s unions and social-political movements.  He speaks in the everyday language of the humble people of the earth, with a simple and direct discourse that is full of insight into structures of domination.  With revolutionary faith, he proclaims that, however powerful and clever the forces of imperialism may be, we have morality on our side as well as the determination to advance in our social and economic development.  We will fulfill our destiny of attaining an historic victory over imperialism.  We belong to a revolution born in history and that is called by history to prevail. 

      In the midst of the campaign by the major international news media, you are not likely to see that Venezuela has become the second country in the world, following Cuba, in attaining a total coverage of medical attention for all of its citizens.  The achievement is a consequence of a neighborhood health program, established fourteen years ago by Hugo Chávez.  As a result of the medical mission, Venezuela’s 31 million citizens today have access to nearly 600 “areas of health;” more than 500 Centers of Integral Diagnosis; 580 “rehabilitation halls;” thirty centers of high technology; 22,000 integral community doctors; and 63,000 health professionals.  The mission has included the education of 830 indigenous doctors, who are not divorced from the ancestral customs of their communities.  

     The medical system has been developed with the support of Cuba, which has sent health and other professionals to work in the South American nation.  I personally know doctors, nurses and professors who have worked for as much as three years in Venezuela.

      In a ceremony recognizing the achievement, doctors presented Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with the gift of a white medical coat and a stethoscope, and they declared the nation’s first worker president to be “Doctor Love.”  Maduro noted that the achievement is of no importance to the international news media.  But the indifference of the media cannot erase the achievement nor the fact that “the human miracle, of treating all human beings as what they are, is in march for millions.”  

      The achievement was reported by the Cuban journalist Alina Perera Robbio, who sent a special report to Granma, the Official Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and the principal daily newspaper in Cuba.  On the same page, another article on Venezuela appears.  It describes the work of armed bands contracted by the Venezuelan opposition, who engaged in vandalism against various public installations, including an attack on an infant-maternal hospital.

      The opposition in Venezuela is driven by its particular interests.  Its leading forces are the large estate landholders and business elite, both of which are tied to international corporate capital, through their participation in the import-export commerce that is integral to the core-peripheral relation.  These economic sectors have a particular interest in opposition to an autonomous national project of economic and social development, the ultimate goal of which is to break the core-peripheral economic relation.  The opposition has, but does not openly propose, an anti-national and anti-popular project that wants to restore neoliberal polices, opening the national market to international penetration and weakening the role of the state.

       In seeking to influence the popular sectors, the Venezuelan elite exploits three possibilities.  (1) The highly educated sector of the workforce is for the most part able to find material security in a national economy shaped by the international core-peripheral relation, even though an autonomous national project offers more to the middle class in terms of a meaningful and more dignified national project.  (2)  The great majority of people tend to think in terms of their concrete daily needs, rather than thinking theoretically and historically.  The elite has exploited this human tendency by disrupting the economy through the denial of goods and services and by creating conflict through street violence.  Some of the people, thinking concretely, have a tendency to blame the government for such economic and political disruptions, supporting the opposition with a naïve hope for improving the situation. (3) Many people also have a tendency to not fully appreciate the significant societal effort that is involved in the providing of health care, education, and social services to an entire population, such that dissatisfaction with the government emerges, leading to a naïve hope for improvement through the opposition.

     In this strategy of exploitation, the elite is seeking to confuse and manipulate the people, exploiting their limitations.  The elite has the advantage of its ties to important economic and political actors on a global scale.  The national and international elites form a partnership in opposition to a government seeking to develop an autonomous project in defense of the people.  The elites control the international and national media of information, so that what the media sees and does not see is shaped by the particular interests of the elites.  In addition, the elites have a stranglehold on the national economy, enabling them to cause economic disruptions. For a national elite whose particular interests are more important than patriotism, the strategy is not to persuade the majority, but to cause sufficient disruption to justify a foreign intervention.

       Such is the battle unfolding in Venezuela, and it is merely one particular expression of a war on a global scale.  On the one side are those powerful forces that are committed to defend their particular interests in the neocolonial world-system.  Their policies are the weakening of states, the imposition of neoliberal economic policies, and military aggression.  They are presently divided between the more aggressive militarism and narrow nationalism of the Right (represented in the United States by Trump) and a less aggressive combination of hard and soft power in seeking to preserve neocolonial domination (represented by Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama).  On the other side are the movements and governments of the world that are proclaiming the unsustainability of the neocolonial world-system and the need to construct a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system (represented by the Non-Aligned Movement and ALBA).

       The Left in the nations of the North ought to more fully understand the alternative project being developed by the movements and nations of the Third World, in order that we can effectively explain to our peoples the necessity of casting our lot with the forces of change that are emerging from below.  If the peoples of the North were to form popular movements with knowledgeable appreciation of what ALBA, the Non-Aligned Movement and the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Iran and China are attempting to do, the prospects for the cooperative development of a just, democratic and sustainable world-system would be significantly enhanced.

​
      

     On April 10, 2017, the Political Council of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) emitted a declaration in support of Venezuela, which has been confronting interventionist maneuvers by the Organization of American States (OAS).  

      The Declaration stated, “We reject the concerted aggressions and manipulations against the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as well as the deceptions and lies that threaten its sovereignty, independence and stability as well as that of the entire region.  We condemn the interfering, illegal and pro-imperialist conduct of the Secretary General of OAS. . . .  We back the Bolivarian Republic, which has restored the rights and dignity of millions of human beings within and outside its borders.”  See the full text: “Declaration of the XV Political Council of ALBA.”

      ALBA was established as an alternative to the Free-Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which was a proposed project of economic integration directed by and in the interests of the United States.  FTAA could not be implemented, because of opposition by key Latin American governments.  

     Founded in 2004 by Venezuela and Cuba, ALBA was conceived as an alternative form of cooperation based on mutual respect and solidarity, and envisioning an integral form of integration, social and cultural as well as economic.  Today the member countries of ALBA are Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and the Caribbean States of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and Granada (see “The rise of ALBA” 3/11/2014).  

     Whereas ALBA is a project of integration forged from below by the neocolonized, the Organization of American States was imposed from above by the neocolonial hegemonic power.  OAS was established in 1948, with the intention of institutionalizing US-control of Inter-American economic and political structures.  It was the culmination of a fifty-year U.S. quest to establish a Pan-American system, initially proposed by Secretary of State James Blaine of the Harrison administration.  Twelve Inter-American conferences were held from 1889 to 1942; but Latin American governments refused to cooperate. Nevertheless, with World War II militarization driving a U.S. ascent to hegemonic dominance, the United States was able in the post-war years to impose its interests on the region, and the Organization of American States was born.  

       U.S. economic, political and ideological domination of Latin America was systemic during the second half of the twentieth century. However, it was not unchallenged.  Popular revolutions triumphed in Cuba in 1959, in Chile in 1970, and in Nicaragua in 1979.  A revolutionary sector was a significant component of popular movements in every nation, with short-lived takings of political power in Guatemala in 1951, Bolivia in 1952, Brazil in 1960, and Grenada in 1979, and with sustained revolutionary guerrilla movements in El Salvador and Colombia.

      The neocolonial hegemonic power attacked all of these challenges.  Cuba was expelled from the OAS, and a still-existing commercial and financial blockade was imposed.  Nicaragua was subjected to a decade of “low-intensity warfare” directed by the United States.  The government of Grenada was overthrown by U.S. invasion, and that of Guatemala was ended by a U.S.-financed invasion.  Bolivia, unable to benefit economically from the nationalization of its tin mines, was pressured into cooperation.  The governments of Chile and Brazil were overthrown by U.S.-supported military coups d’état, leading to long dictatorships.  And the governments of El Salvador and Columbia were provided with extensive U.S. military aid.

     However, in the twenty-first century the challenges to U.S. neocolonial domination have arrived to a more advanced stage, developed on a foundation of popular rejection of the U.S.-imposed neoliberal project.  Cuba has persisted, and self-proclaimed socialist movements have taken political power in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, while the Sandinistas have returned to power in Nicaragua. Progressive governments arrived to power in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay.  The progressive and socialist governments developed alternative regional associations, with ALBA being the first, later followed by South American Union of Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).  The more unified Latin American governments have been pursuing cooperation with other nations of the Third World as well as China and Russia.  

     The arrival of the Latin American popular anti-imperialist movement to a more advanced stage is a reflection of an erosion of U.S. economic and political control of the region.  This erosion is a consequence of the economic and financial decline of the United States, relative to other core nations; and of its considerable loss of “soft power” in the form of international prestige, caused by such factors as the Vietnam War, the imposition of the neoliberal project, and the post-2001 wars of aggression in the Middle East.

       The current attack on Venezuela by the Organization of American States is, in part, a reflection of an insurgent Right in Latin America. Beginning in 2014, seeking to take advantage of a decline in Latin American raw materials exports prices and the death of Hugo Chávez, the Right escalated its efforts to bring down the progressive and socialist governments of the region.  Using a strategy of economic war and vague political promises, the opposition won the parliamentary elections in Venezuela in December 2015.  Since then, the right-wing parliament has been seeking to destabilize the country, possibly seeking to provoke a U.S. intervention.  In Argentina, a right-wing candidate narrowly won the presidential elections, using a strategy of vaguely progressive campaign rhetoric.  In Brazil, a parliamentary coup d’état ended the democratically elected government.  The resurgent Right, now as always, has been supported by the United States, standing against all governments, progressive or socialist, that are seeking to forge autonomous projects of economic and social development, not directed by U.S. interests.  

      The OAS attack on Venezuela is directed by Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the OAS, with the support of the U.S. military. The Argentinian journalist Telma Luzzani has reported on a Pentagon document dated February 25, 2015, in which the chief of the Southern Command outlines a plan to besiege and suffocate the Venezuelan government, provoking a fall of the government, and describing the measures to be taken by a government of transition after the fall of the government of Maduro.  And the plan specifically refers to the Secretary General, whose assigned role is to insist on the application of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.  Emitted by OAS on September 11, 2001, in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, the Charter obligates members of OAS to adopt structures of representative democracy.

     In accordance with the plan of the Southern Command, Amargo convoked a session of OAS on March 28, 2017.  However, Amargo failed to obtain the approval of OAS members for the application of the Democratic Charter, the expulsion of Venezuela from OAS, or any sanction or action against Venezuela.  

      The interventionist initiative continues, however, seeking to take advantage of conflicts between the Venezuelan parliament, controlled by the opposition, and the executive and judicial branches, controlled by the socialist chavistas.  Accordingly, the governments of ALBA considered necessary the April 10 declaration against the interventionist maneuvers of the OAS and the U.S. Southern Command and in support of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

     At the April 10 meeting of the Political Council of ALBA, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro provided an historic overview of the anti-imperialist struggles of the people of Latin America for autonomy and true independence, and he exhorted the peoples to continue the struggle.

     Worthy of note are Maduro’s comments with respect to the Trump administration.  “In the United States in this moment, there is a new situation, very risky and dangerous, more threatening to the peace of the peoples of the world, a situation of a reconfiguration of power.  The principal decision-making organs of the political-industrial-military apparatus of the United States are in this moment in the hands of extremists.”  

     Maduro tied such control of the U.S. political structures by extremists to the recent renewal of the attack against Venezuela.

​       In a moment of renewed counterattack by the Right on a global scale, the recent electoral victories of the Left in Nicaragua and Ecuador, keeping socialist governments in power, are of great importance and significance.  A retaking of political power by the Left with respect to the executive branches of Brazil and Argentina and the parliament of Venezuela could be of decisive importance.   These are attainable goals, inasmuch as the administrations in Brazil and Argentina and the parliament in Venezuela are increasingly lacking in legitimacy, because of their anti-popular and anti-national conduct. Moreover, the greater aggressiveness of the United States toward Latin American autonomous national projects should favor greater popular support for the parties of the Left.

 See “Discourse pronounced by Nicolás Maduro, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, at the political-cultural Act of Solidarity,” Havana, Cuba, April 10, 2017.

Posted August 3, 2016

     World-system structures, forged by the European colonial powers from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, are characterized by the exportation of raw materials from peripheral zones, on a base of forced and low-waged labor; and by the exportation from the core of industrial manufactured goods.  In reaction to the underdevelopment and poverty that resulted from world-system structures, anti-colonial popular movements emerged in the peripheralized regions, and they were able to forge independent states.  But the newly independent nations confronted various economic and political obstacles to the transformation of the core-peripheral relation (see various posts on the origin and development of the world-system; see also posts in the category neocolonialism).      
 
     In Latin America, independent republics were established during the period 1810 to 1825, but during the period 1850 to 1900, British and US control of commerce facilitated semi-colonialism.  During the twentieth century, US imperialist policies made possible a more complete commercial, financial and ideological penetration of Latin America, creating a more developed system of neocolonialism under US hegemony.  During this entire period of semi-colonialism and neocolonialism, raw materials flowed from the region, as they had during the period of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism (see various posts on the Latin American history as well as “The characteristics of neocolonialism” 9/16/2013).

     In the case of Venezuela, petroleum surged as the principal raw material export during the period of 1917 to 1960.  The petroleum companies were foreign owned and largely unregulated.  As the result, the Venezuelan state received little income from petroleum, and the benefits to the economy and the people of Venezuela were minimal. During the period, a popular movement emerged to demand greater national control of the petroleum industry.  After 1960, this became the prominent popular demand, such that the period of the 1960s and 1970s is known as the era of petroleum nationalism, in which the people were demanding that the state maximize its income from the exportation of petroleum.  During the period, the management of the companies became increasingly Venezuelan, as the foreign companies sought to respond to the demands of the popular movement and ensure political stability.  A gradual and cooperative transition to Venezuelan state ownership was unfolding.  

     Petroleum nationalism culminated in the nationalization of the petroleum industry and the formation of a state-owned petroleum company (Petróleos de Venezuela, Sociedad Anónima, or PDVSA) in 1976.  Inasmuch as the companies were under Venezuelan management by 1976, the nationalization changed ownership from international petroleum companies to the Venezuelan state, but it did not change the management of the companies in Venezuela.  And inasmuch as the Venezuelans that managed the companies had been socialized into the norms and values of the international petroleum companies and had internalized the perspective of international capital, the 1976 nationalization of the companies had little effect on their behavior.  PDVSA adapted itself to the neocolonial world-system, exploiting petroleum in accordance with the norms and interests of the international petroleum industry, rather than utilizing the petroleum industry as an integral part of a development plan for the nation.

     After nationalization, the Venezuelan state relaxed its oversight of the petroleum companies, believing that the industry was now under national control.   However, this was not really the case, as Venezuelan managers were directing PDVSA from the perspective of the international petroleum companies.  By creating a false impression of national control of the industry, nationalization had the consequence of creating more autonomy for the petroleum industry.  

      Like the foreign owned oil companies in other neocolonized countries, PDVSA sought to reduce payments to the Venezuelan state. Accordingly, PDVSA adopted a strategy of channeling surpluses to investments in production and sales, thus minimizing profits and corresponding payments to the state.  

     In the 1980s, PDVSA internationalized its investments in production and sales.  It bought refineries and distributorships in other countries in order to transfer surpluses out of the country, thus avoiding payments to the Venezuelan state.  

     With the turn to neoliberalism in 1989, the government of Venezuela greatly reduced its regulation of foreign investment in all branches of commerce, industry and finances.   With respect to the oil industry, PDVSA was given responsibility for supervising the “opening” of the country to foreign investment.  Under PDVSA supervision, many international petroleum companies formed joined ventures, with terms highly favorable to the foreign companies, and without consideration of national development.

     PDVSA, therefore, had emerged as a state within the state, with significant autonomy and with limited control by the state.  It did not seek to develop the petroleum industry and to attract foreign investment in the industry in a form that was integrated with a project for national development.  

     During the 1990s, there began to emerge popular rejection of the neoliberal project, as a consequence of its negative consequence for the people.  This dynamic included a condemnation of the role of PDVSA and its failure to contribute to a national development project. In this scenario, there emerged the post important charismatic leader of the beginning of the twenty-first century, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, whom we will discuss in the next post.


Key words: petroleum, PDVSA, nationalization, Venezuela, neoliberalism
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Posted August 4, 2016

     In the context of the popular rejection in Venezuela of the neoliberal project imposed by the global powers with the collaboration of Venezuelan political and economic elite, and in a situation of popular disgust with the failure of the nationalization of the petroleum industry to promote national economic development (see “The neocolonial era in Venezuela” 8/3/2016), Hugo Chávez emerged as a charismatic leader with the capacity to describe the global and national structures of domination in understandable terms, and who was able to optimistically project an alternative political reality.  He thus possessed the capacity to forge that consensual reflection and united action necessary for a social transformation in defense of popular interests and needs.  He emerged as the central leader in the forging of a new political reality in Venezuela and in Latin America. The emergence of charismatic leaders with exceptional gifts of understanding and political leadership is a normal tendency in revolutionary processes (see various posts in the category Charismatic Leaders).
  
     Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías was born in Sabaneta, a rural village of Venezuela, on July 28, 1954.  Chávez describes his family as a poor peasant family.  His father was a school teacher who earned his teaching diploma by studying part-time.  Although his mother and father lived nearby, he was principally reared by his grandmother, a peasant woman who was half indigenous.  He describes himself as a mixture of indigenous, African, and European (Guevara 2005:14-15, 71-72, 76).

     In 1971, at the age of 17, Chávez entered the Military Academy of Venezuela, and he earned a commission as a Second Lieutenant in 1975.  His study during his years in the military academy established the foundation for his revolutionary formation.  He read the writings of Simón Bolívar, Mao Zedong and Che Guevara, and he developed a perspective that he describes as a synthesis of Bolivarianism and Maoism.  He investigated these themes further in a master´s program in political science at Simón Bolívar University.  He continuously read books of historical, political, social, and literary significance during his military and political careers, and he advised young people to develop the habit of reading.  He frequently recommended particular books in his discourses, famously exemplified by his recommendation of Noam Chomsky’s Hegemony or Survival during an address to the UN General Assembly and his gift to President Barack Obama of Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America (Guevara 2005:78-79; Chávez 2006:104).

    During the 1970s and 1980s, he had considerable success leading young officers in the forming of a reform movement within the military. On February 4, 1992, with the participation of approximately 100 fellow officers, he directed an attempted coup d´état, with the intention of overthrowing the government and convening a constitutional assembly. The coup failed, and he was imprisoned.  Upon his release in 1994, he resigned from the military and formed the Bolivarian Fifth Republic Movement, again with the intention of convening a constituent assembly, but now seeking to attain power through the electoral process.  He was elected President of Venezuela in 1998, in spite of the ignoring of his candidacy by the mass media, and he assumed the presidency on February 2, 1999.  He immediately issued a decree calling for a constitutional assembly.  Elections for a new constitution were held, and a new constitution was approved, establishing the Fifth Republic.  In 2000, he was elected to a six-year term as president under the new constitution, and he was subsequently re-elected, with nearly 63% of the vote, to a second term from 2007 to 2013.  He died of cancer in 2013 (Guevara 2005:9-39).

     Hugo Chávez understood that the underdevelopment of the peoples of Latin America, Africa, and Asia is a consequence of colonial domination.  Citing Andre Gunder Frank, he asserts: “Underdevelopment is a characteristic of development.  Our underdevelopment is a consequence of the development of the imperialist countries.  They only arrived at the level of development that they have after having invaded and sacked immense territories of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  If not, they would not be at the level of development that they are” (Chávez 2006:132). 

     Chávez understood the negative effects of neoliberalism, which he condemned in moral terms.

     He castigated the subservient behavior of Latin American elites before US imperialist intentions:

​    Chávez believed that US imperialist policies are a threat to the survival of the human species, and that the peoples in movement must prevent this from happening.

    In contrast to US imperialism and US imposed neoliberalism, Chávez promoted a concept of autonomous economic development that he described as “a model of endogenous development that is not imposed on us by anyone, neither the Creole elite nor the imperialist elite, our own economic development” (Chávez 2006:319).  This model seeks to develop national production, giving emphasis to the development of energy, agriculture, and basic industry, and providing support for small and medium producers.  Endogenous development is rooted in the cultures and traditions of the peoples, particularly the indigenous peoples, and it has to be developed with a consciousness of history.  The study of history often has been only partially developed in the educational systems of neocolonial republics, and historical consciousness also has been undermined by the ideologies of the empire.  Chávez maintained that history must be rediscovered.

     Chávez believed that humanity stands at a critical time in world history.  “The capitalist model, the developmentalist model, the consumerist model, which the North has imposed on the world, is putting an end to the planet Earth.”  We can observe such phenomena as global warming, the opening of the ozone layer, an increasing intensity of hurricanes, the melting of the ice caps, and the rising of the seas.  Moreover, in the social sphere, rather than accepting their superexploitation and social exclusion, the peoples of the world are increasingly in rebellion.  Humanity is approaching a critical point, in which “in the first five decades of the twenty-first century it will be decided if in the future there will be life on this planet or if their will not be life.”  It is a question, he believed, of “socialism or barbarism,” citing Rosa Luxemburg (Chávez 2006:195, 256)

     At this critical and decisive moment in human history, Chávez possessed that hope in the future of humanity that is the hallmark of the revolutionary (see “The revolutionary faith of Fidel” 9/15/2014).  He believed that “the great day of liberty, equality, and justice is arriving.” This is exemplified, he believed, by the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, which is constructing a “socialism of the twenty-first century” that will not be the same as the socialisms of the twentieth century.  It will be “a socialism renewed for the new era, for the twenty-first century. . . .  It will not have only one road; it will have many roads. It will not have one model; there will be many variants of socialism.  It will have to adapt to the circumstances of each country, of each region. . . .  Socialism for Latin America cannot be a replica, it has to be a great and heroic creation, a heroic construction of our peoples” (Chávez 2006:193, 198).

    Socialism of the twenty-first century is based on a renewed formulation of traditional values.  “Socialism of the twenty-first century ought to begin to consolidate new values that are not new, they are old values but one must renew them, one must strengthen them. . . . For us here in Venezuela, for example, and I believe that it is valid for a good part of Latin America and the Caribbean, Christianity is a current that pushes and feeds our socialism in construction.  This socialism of the twenty-first century has much of Christianity for the Venezuelans, as it has much of Bolivarianism and Marxism” (Chávez 2006:200).

     Chávez was an inspiring voice that resurrected the dream of national liberation formulated in the period 1948 to 1979 by charismatic leaders of the Third World and the Non-Aligned Movement (see “The Third World Project, 1948-79” 7/20/2016), calling the people to political action in the development of an alternative to the neoliberal project imposed by the global powers (see “IMF & USA attack the Third World project” 7/29/2016).  And in the tradition of Fidel, Ho Chi Minh, and Nyerere, he saw socialism as a necessary component of national liberation (“Fidel adapts Marxism-Leninism to Cuba” 9/9/2014; “Ho synthesizes socialism and nationalism” 5/8/2014).  In the next post, we will look at the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, forged under his leadership.

​References
 
Guevara, Aleida.  2005.  Chávez, Venezuela, and the New Latin America.  Melbourne: Ocean Press.
 
Chávez Frías, Hugo. 2006.  La Unidad Latinoamericana.  Melbourne: Ocean Sur. 
 
 
Key words: Chávez, Venezuela, socialism, Bolivarian Revolution

Posted August 5, 2016
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     The central proposal of Chávez’s Bolivarian Fifth Republic Movement was the establishment of a constitutional assembly to bring to an end the Fourth Republic of Venezuela, which was adapted to neocolonial domination and to rule by a Venezuelan elite.  When Chávez assumed the presidency on February 2, 1999, one of his first acts was to sign a decree calling for a constitutional referendum.  The opposition sought to annul the decree through challenges to the Supreme Court, but the referendum was held, a Constitutional Assembly was elected, and a new Constitution was developed and approved.  Chávez terminated his presidency under the Fourth Republic after only two years and ran for president under the new Constitution.  In 2000, he was elected under the new Constitution to a six-year term from 2001 to 2007.  In 2006, he was elected (with nearly 63% of the vote) to a second term from 2007 to 2013.  He died of cancer in 2013.   

     The Chávez government sought to institutionalize the process of the popular participation that had been emerging during the 1980s and 1990s.  The government initiated the development of structures of Popular Power that include community councils, workers’ councils, student councils, and councils formed by small farmers, which are incorporated into confederations of local, regional, and national councils.  Chávez envisioned the gradual integration of popular councils into the state, “progressively transforming the bourgeois state into an alternative state, socialist and Bolivarian” (Chávez 2006:317, 325-27).  

     The government of Hugo Chávez sought to reduce the autonomy of PDVSA and to incorporate its resources into a project of national development.  The Chávez government appointed new directors of PDVSA, replacing the directors appointed by previous governments. With the new leadership of PDVSA, the state income from petroleum increased significantly, and the new funds were directed toward various social projects in education, health, and housing as well as to wage increases, financial assistance to those in need, and the elimination of foreign debt.  Most of the social projects are designated as “missions.” 

     A literacy program, Mission Robinson, was developed with Cuban support.  Named for Simón “Robinson” Rodríguez, who was Simón Bolívar’s teacher, it taught one million people to read in 2003. Other missions in education emerged:  Mission Ribas, named after independence hero José Felix Ribas, is a program for the completion of high school; Mission Sucre, named after Antonio José Sucre, one of the heroes of the Latin American revolution of 1810-24, is a scholarship program for university education; and Mission Vuelvan Caras provides opportunity for vocational training (Guevara 2005:50-54, 141).

      Mission Barrio Adentro is a medical mission that is financed by the Venezuelan state and relies upon the participation of 20,000 Cuban doctors, providing health care services in the poorest regions and neighborhoods of Venezuela.  In 2004, Mission Barrio Adentro attended 50 million cases, providing free health care services and medicine (Chávez 2006:110-11, 241-42).

    The government of Chávez played a leadership role in forging the unity and integration of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as South-South cooperation.  I will describe these processes, which retake the historic dream of the Third World, in subsequent posts in this series of posts on the Third World project.

     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 Chávist Bolivarian Revolution is a threat to the neocolonial world-system, which requires the subordination of the nations of the world to the Western neocolonial powers.  Since the emergence of the revolution, the US government has sought to undermine it through the support of those sectors in Venezuela that have interests in opposition to the revolutionary project, sectors that in one way or another benefit from the neocolonial world order.  These sectors include: 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 occupied 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. These 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 Chávist forces prevailed. However, with the death of Chávez in 2013, the opposition escalated its tactics, and they have created a complicated situation for Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, as we will discuss in the next post. 

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References

Guevara, Aleida.  2005.  Chávez, Venezuela, and the New Latin America.  Melbourne: Ocean Press.

Chávez Frías, Hugo. 2006.  La Unidad Latinoamericana.  Melbourne: Ocean Sur.  


Key words: Chávez, Venezuela, socialism, Bolivarian Revolution

Posted August 9, 2016

        At his presidential inauguration in 2014, Nicolás Maduro observed that he is the first worker president in the history of Venezuela, and that he is the first president who is Chavist, that is, an activist in the Bolivarian Revolution led by Hugo Chávez.  Maduro is a former bus driver who received his formation in political, historical and ethical consciousness through union leadership.  During the neoliberal era, he was a candidate of the old Socialist Party for president.  He later became a leading member of the Bolivarian Fifth Republic Movement of Chávez.  He was minister for foreign affairs of the Chávez government, and he attained a level of international recognition for his elegant discourses in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution in various international fora.  When Chávez became ill with cancer, he called upon the Bolivarian Movement to name Maduro as his successor, a request made, he said, “from my heart.”  Initially serving as interim president, Maduro was elected president for a full term in 2013, in accordance with the 1998 Constitution.

     The Maduro presidency has been characterized by an escalation of the strategies of the Right to destabilize the government of Venezuela, seeking to take advantage of the death of Chávez.  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.  The government arrested and prosecuted, in accordance with the law and the constitution, thirteen persons.  And it proposed dialogue with the moderate opposition, with the promise of attending to any legitimate demand or grievance.  Thus, the government was able to prevail in the first stage of the conflict by isolating the violent extreme Right.

     The Venezuelan economy, however, is overly dependent on oil income, and it imports many necessities, such as food and medicine.  The government of Chávez gave emphasis to taking control of the oil industry, channeling oil revenues to social missions, and developing a foreign policy of cooperation and unity with Latin America and the Caribbean, offering favorable terms of oil purchases as a dimension of the policy.  The diversification of the economy and increasing national production were long-term goals, but they have not yet been achieved, and the national economy remains overly dependent on oil and on the importation of necessary goods.

     In 2014, there was a sharp decline in oil prices.  Seeking to take advantage of this situation to promote destabilization, Venezuelan import-export companies, which form an important part of the opposition, ceased with their importation and sale of necessary goods, thus producing shortages and inflation.  In addition to this economic war, violent gangs were organized.  The international news media began to portray Venezuela as a country in crisis and civil disorder.  

     Most people think in concrete terms about the problems they confront, and not with a political, economic, and historical perspective. When problems like shortages and high prices occur, most people blame the government, and they do not necessary have a clear understanding of the sources of the problem.  In the case of Venezuela, the opposition created a problematic situation for the people through its economic war, and then it sought to take advantage of this situation, blaming the government for it.  Many people did not have sufficient political consciousness to reject the opportunistic opposition for its treasonous behavior in defense of its particular interests and in defense of foreign interests.

     The experience of revolutions teaches us that a popular revolution can attain the active and committed support of twenty-five to forty percent of the people.  There will emerge an opposition of ten to fifteen percent, composed of those economic sectors with a particular economic interest in the preservation of the old order, a consequence of its privileges in the neocolonial world-system; and of middle class or urban individuals who are confused by the ideological distortions of the mass media, controlled by the corporations.  Thus, there are approximately fifty percent of the people that are neither with the revolution nor with the opposition in a committed form.  Their lack of commitment has the consequence that they have a less developed understanding of the national and global political and economic issues. For the most part, they support the revolution, as long as things are going relatively well, and they are not called upon to make sacrifices. But the revolution can temporarily lose the support of the “ninis” (neither for nor against the revolution) under particular conditions. 

      The economic war of 2014 and 2015 in Venezuela had the consequence that the Bolivarian Revolution lost the support of the “ninis” in the parliamentary elections of December 2015.  Political parties of the opposition had formed a coalition, the Table for Democratic Unity (MUD for its initials in Spanish).  With MUD parliamentary candidates speaking in vague terms in favor of change, the opposition coalition took a majority of the seats, although the party of Chávez remains the largest single political party.  

     But MUD did not arrive to a parliamentary majority with a political platform.  It envisions a return to the neoliberal past, a vision not expressed to the people in the parliamentary campaigns.  The more that MUD proposes or implements neoliberal policies, the more it risks popular rejection.  So the strategy of the parliamentary opposition has been to seek to remove Maduro from office prior to the completion of his term, and to destabilize the constitutional process, possibly ensuring its control of the government in a post-Chávez era through US military intervention.

      In the face of this situation, the government of Maduro has called for respect for the constitutional process, maintaining that the parliamentary majority ought to recognize the constitutional limits of its authority and respect the authority of the executive and judicial branches and the counsel on elections.  In response to the economic war, the government has attempted to supply necessary goods at lower prices in state stores, but the process is complicated by the phenomenon of opportunistic individuals purchasing goods and reselling at higher prices.  In addition, the government has intensified and expanded its efforts in the diversification of the economy, the expansion of national production, and the further development of popular councils.  

      It is to be expected that the unfolding global popular revolution will have its setbacks.  The forces opposed to its agenda are powerful, inasmuch as they include the governments of the most powerful nations as well as the largest international corporations, which control the international media of communication; and they include those sectors of the national bourgeoisie connected to international capital. Moreover, the transformation of the established structures of the world-system, which promote the underdevelopment of the majority, confronts many obstacles.  We must constantly keep in mind two fundamental facts.  First, those who oppose the popular revolution have no viable alternative proposal.  They can only imagine the continued implementation of neoliberal economic policies and the unleashing of neo-fascist wars.  They point the road toward the certain continuing spiral of decline into chaos and violence and the possible extinction of humanity.  Secondly, the achievements of the Third World popular revolutions for national and social liberation are remarkable. They have accomplished fundamental structural transformation of some nations, and they have formulated a consensual Third World proposal for a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system, pointing to an alternative road for humanity.

     The road of social transformation has its setbacks, but humanity is on that road, led with wisdom, dignity and courage by the formerly colonized peoples of the earth.  We the peoples of the North must find the wisdom and the courage to discern the unfolding human drama and to stand committed with the political and moral alternative emerging from below.


Key words: Venezuela, Maduro, opposition, economic war, Bolivarian Revolution