The renewed U.S. aggression against Venezuela cannot be understood in isolation. It is not simply an episode of Washington’s unilateral hostility against a disobedient government. Rather, it is part of the broader inter-imperialist struggle that defines our epoch — a world order increasingly marked by the fierce rivalry between the U.S.-led imperialist bloc and the rising powers of Russia and China. Venezuela, with its vast oil reserves and strategic position in Latin America, has become a focal point in this global contest for domination, resources, and influence.
The reality was cruder: economic strangulation through sanctions, political interference, and open threats of military intervention. These measures inflicted devastating consequences on the Venezuelan people — shortages, inflation, and humanitarian crises — all designed to break their will and bring the nation to its knees.
Communists, left-wing forces, and all progressive people across the world must unequivocally condemn this imperialist campaign. There can be no neutrality in the face of an imperialist offensive that seeks to reassert U.S. dominance in its traditional sphere of influence and to deliver a warning to any state that dares resist Washington’s dictates. The defense of Venezuela’s sovereignty and right to self-determination is a matter of principle, independent of one’s view of the current government in Caracas.
However, our solidarity with the Venezuelan people must not translate into uncritical support for the social-democratic government of Nicolás Maduro and the PSUV. The Venezuelan leadership, while presenting itself as anti-imperialist, has consistently pursued policies that betray the working class and undermine socialist principles. Under the weight of economic crisis and international pressure, the PSUV government has increasingly adopted measures favoring the interests of capital — both domestic and foreign — while suppressing the independent voice of the working class.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the systematic campaign against the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), the only political force that has steadfastly defended the rights of workers, peasants, and the poor against both imperialist aggression and the opportunist policies of the ruling party. The government’s attempts to delegitimize, harass, and politically isolate the PCV represent not merely an attack on one organization, but on the very possibility of genuine socialist struggle within Venezuela. It is a tragic irony that a government claiming the Bolivarian legacy is silencing the most consistent defenders of socialism and workers’ power.
Thus, a Marxist-Leninist position on Venezuela requires dialectical clarity: We oppose without reservation the U.S. imperialist aggression, recognizing it as part of the broader inter-imperialist rivalry that threatens peace and sovereignty across the globe. Yet we also reject the illusion that the PSUV’s model of “Bolivarian socialism” represents a true path to workers’ emancipation. In reality, it has evolved into a bureaucratic, reformist regime that sacrifices the working class on the altar of class collaboration and foreign capital.
True solidarity with the Venezuelan people means defending their right to chart their own destiny — free from U.S. imperialist aggression and free from domestic exploitation. It means supporting the working class and its vanguard organizations, above all the PCV, in their struggle for genuine socialism — socialism based on workers’ power, popular democracy, and the expropriation of capital.
In this moment of renewed imperialist confrontation, clarity is a weapon. The left must not fall into the trap of siding with one imperialist camp against another, nor of mistaking reformist rhetoric for revolutionary practice. The task before us is to build an internationalist front that stands against imperialism in all its forms and in solidarity with the working class in every country, including Venezuela — the only force capable of achieving real emancipation.
* Nikos Mottas is the Editor-in-Chief of In Defense of Communism.
