We’re going to run the country… We’re going to ask our very large American oil companies, the largest in the world, to step in, invest billions of dollars, repair badly damaged infrastructure, share oil infrastructure and start generating revenue… We’re going to reassert American power in a very powerful way in our part of the world. (Donald Trump, Press Conference, Palm Beach, 3 January 2026)
The United States has intervened 42 times in Latin America since 1898, under both Democratic and Republican presidents. It is also threatening Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Iran, etc. Trump’s “Monroe Doctrine” is equivalent to the tradition of the Qing dynasty invoked by Xi or that of the Romanovs extolled by Putin.
Contemporary Ukraine was entirely and completely created by Communist, Bolshevik Russia. This process began almost immediately after the revolution of 1917, and Lenin and his comrades acted in a very ungentlemanly way towards Russia. (Vladimir Putin, Televised Speech, Moscow, 21 February 2022)
I see Russians and Ukrainians as a single people. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours. (Vladimir Putin, Speech at International Economic Forum, St Petersburg, 20 June 2025)
The only difference is that Putin has fewer resources and, while he invents the idea that Ukraine is run by a Nazi regime, Trump claims that Venezuela is run by a drug cartel. Bush senior had already used this pretext to invade Panama and kidnap its president at the end of 1989. Yet at the start of his second term, Trump pardoned the ex-president of Honduras, who had been imprisoned in the United States for drug trafficking.
The argument that Maduro is badly elected is worthless in the mouth of a putschist (who sent fascist gangs to storm the Capitol when he lost the presidential election in 2021) and who supported another putschist (Bolsonaro in Brazil).
The attack is part of the ongoing repartition of the world and the preparations by all the imperialist states (USA, China, Japan, UK, Germany, France, Russia, etc.) for a new world war. The boarding of Russian cargo ships, the continuing blockade of Cuba, the ousting of China in Panama, the claim to Greenland and the prospect of annexing Canada are all part of the preparations to strengthen the economic and military positions of the US bourgeoisie. It is aimed directly at Cuba, which has survived on Venezuelan oil, and indirectly at the imperialist rival China, which was the biggest buyer of Venezuelan oil.
Whatever its direction, we must support an oppressed people in the face of ethnic cleansing or a dominated country in the face of pillage. The working class cannot remain neutral when an over-armed bourgeoisie pursues its colonisation of Palestine (Israel), wants to decide who governs Ukraine and colonise it (Russia, USA), wants to decide who governs Venezuela and plunder its natural wealth (USA).
Of course, China “condemned” the operation, even though it oppresses its own national minorities and claims Taiwan as its own without consulting the population. The governments of Russia, Brazil, Colombia, Turkey, etc. are also very “appalled”. But none of them will do anything effective to support the Venezuelan people, their right to independence and to dispose freely and peacefully of their wealth. It is therefore ridiculous and futile to rely, like the bourgeois workers’ parties (Die Linke, LFI, Podemos, PCF, etc.), on one’s own government and on the UN, which has just voted for Trump’s plan against Gaza. It is ridiculous, as some international quasi-pacifist and semi-reformist currents are doing, to beg that “the governments of Latin America and the world, all the forces that declare themselves democratic condemn the pirate and interventionist actions” (ISL, 3 January).
Most bourgeois states approved the US colonial intervention while preaching “moderation” and “de-escalation”. Meanwhile, on 4 January, the governments of the United Kingdom and France bombed Syria, as Israel and the United States themselves regularly do.
In the United States, unions and organisations of the oppressed must break with their militarist government to demand an end to all foreign interference and persecution of immigrants, and organise self-defence against racist ICE!
In Iran, Ukraine and Venezuela, it is up to the working people concerned to overthrow the government of the local exploiters, who are incapable of standing up to the dominating and colonising powers. The effective liberation of oppressed minorities (including Blacks in the United States) and the real independence of dominated countries can only be achieved, in our time, under the leadership of the working class. For this, the working class needs a revolutionary workers’ party.
In Venezuela, during two crises, the bourgeois government decreed the nationalisation of oil resources (Pérez, 1976) and the partial nationalisation of concessionary companies (2007, Chavez). Although Woods (future RCP) wallowed at Chavez’s feet, there was never any social revolution, or even complete expropriation of capitalist groups and large landowners.
The workers of the cities, with their unions and their parties, allied with the workers of the countryside and the students, must oppose American imperialism and every fraction of the bourgeoisie (all sold out to the former). They must take their destiny into their own hands using all the means at the disposal of the struggle of the international working class. They can place no trust in either the UN or the PSUV, which has subjected them to increasing exploitation, which has relied on the military staff, which has prevented the general arming of the working masses for their legitimate defence, which capitulates completely to Trump.
We invite the US government to work together on a cooperation agenda. (Delcy Rodriguez, 4 January)
The Venezuelan government appears to have handed over the country’s oil to Washington, as announced by the US President on 6 January and his Secretary of Energy the next day.
We are going to market the crude that comes from Venezuela. First what’s already left, the stored oil, and then indefinitely, in the future, we will sell the production on the market. (Chris Wright, Speech at the Goldman Sachs Energy Conference, Miami, 7 January)
This confirms that, in our time, the national bourgeoisies are incapable of really resisting imperialist aggression. Only the exploited and semi-exploited classes can do so, if they are led by a conscious working class, which requires a revolutionary party like the Bolshevik Party.
Everywhere, in order to defeat imperialism and prevent its wars, workers must demand a united front from their mass organisations on the slogans:
Solidarity of the international workers’ movement with the Venezuelan people! Defence of collective property and social gains in Cuba!
Free Maduro! Imperialists, out of Venezuela! Withdraw all North American military forces from the Caribbean, Central America and South America! End the blockades of Cuba, Venezuela and Iran! Self-determination for Greenland!
For an united front of all the workers’, poor peasants’, students’ and youth organisations of Venezuela to counter imperialist aggression:
General assemblies in companies, administrations, neighbourhoods, universities and villages to arm the workers and disarm the Bolivarian militias and the army, organise workers’ and people’s control over the economy, democratically elect their delegates and centralise against the bourgeois and collaborationist government of Rodriguez! Workers’ and peasants’ government! For the United Socialist States of Latin America!
For a Revolutionary Workers’ International that unites the vanguard of all countries!