Statement by Marea Socialista: Five Months After the Imperialist Military Incursion
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By:Marea Socialista
Five months after the U.S. military incursion into our country, harsh reality has prevailed over false hopes: the situation of the working class and the working people in Venezuela has only gotten worse. We are living with a suffocating cost of living, a skyrocketing dollar that erodes our incomes on a daily basis, and a government that, under foreign tutelage, has as its sole priority bowing down to Donald Trump’s colonialism to ensure the surrender of our resources and our national sovereignty. All of this in exchange for maintaining the privileges and impunity of the corrupt ruling class.
While the United States itself issues cynical statements claiming that “things are improving” because oil is being produced, it overlooks the fact that Venezuela’s money is deposited directly into U.S. accounts. This is the most compelling demonstration of the absolute submission of the Rodríguez family, the PSUV leadership, and those who claim to be guardians of sovereignty to Washington’s dictates—a colonial capitulation that no other sector of the leadership, whether traditional or emerging, questions in the slightest.
The Failure of Reactionary Illusions and thePersistentClosureof Democratic Spaces
A deep sense of unease has been growing among the population. The false expectation that the country’s major structural problems would be resolved simply by “getting rid of Maduro at any cost” is beginning to crumble. The government of Nicolás Maduro—and now that of acting president Delcy Rodríguez—has consistently applied its authoritarian and anti-democratic approach, shutting down all channels of national debate and democratic political activism for years. This stifling environment has caused a massive general political stagnation, driving the people toward despair and the search for supposed providential solutions.
It was against this backdrop of suffocation that María Corina Machado—a political figure aligned with the continent’s most reactionary and far-right elements, who had been advocating for foreign military intervention for years—rose to prominence. This stance resonated with segments of the population due to the terrible living conditions, brutal state repression, and political persecution of unions, workers engaged in struggle, and the anti-capitalist left by the Maduro regime.
However, in this case, history is correct: The United States, as an imperialist power, never occupies a country to resolve democratic issues or improve people’s lives. It invades to plunder, colonize, and subjugate. Today we are in a worse situation, under a government that is under the control of and subservient to a foreign power that cynically dictates what must be done in Venezuela.
The Pact Among the Leadership and the Erosion of Labor Rights
Amid this humiliating subjugation, economic and political elites strike deals behind the people’s backs. The basis of all their agreements is clear: that we workers—those at the bottom—continue to pay for the crisis. That is why the National Assembly unanimously votes in favor of all the anti-popular and capitulationist reforms they have been negotiating, and now they have set their sights on the Organic Labor Law (LOTTT). FEDECÁMARAS uses this as a form of open blackmail, making any wage increase contingent on a labor reform that is nothing more than the legalization of the elimination of social benefits—something they have already been implementing de facto.
Unfortunately, amid this situation, the working class remains marginalized as an independent political force. The labor movement, in general, has been weakened, is deeply bureaucratized, and is subordinate to the agendas of employers and the parties of the elites. Part of that subordinate agenda is the demand for immediate presidential elections as a “magic solution.” It’s embarrassing to watch so-called union leaders, escorted by Maricorinist activists, go to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas to request meetings with representatives of the oppressive country, and even make jokes about Venezuela becoming the “51st state” of the aggressor power.
Reclaiming historical memory and mobilizing the struggle from the grassroots
At Marea Socialista, we want to connect with the outrage and discontent that are felt among the people. Just as we have warned that no military intervention would solve our problems, today we call for a critical reexamination of history and a recognition that neither with Juan Guaidó, nor with María Corina Machado’s sellout agendas, nor under these conditions of U.S. neocolonialism will we recover what has been taken from us. The path to reclaiming what is ours is a very different one indeed.
The discontent of the working class cannot continue to be exploited by interests outside our class. We must look to the examples of our sister nations in Bolivia and Argentina, which today are actively confronting austerity-driven governments that impose neoliberal policies—policies that are hostile to workers and subservient to international financial capital.
That is why we urge rank-and-file workers to call on and demand that their union leaders break with bureaucratic practices and articulate central demands for unification. And if they fail to do so, they must be replaced. It is urgent that we return to the historical methods of our class: rank-and-file assemblies and ongoing consultation on decisions.
A Tool for the Struggle: The “May Day” Union Movement Is Born
To wage this battle on the ground, we at Marea Socialista—together with other forces that identify with the working class, and alongside valued leaders and activists from the labor movement—have spearheaded the founding of the“May Day”Trade Union and Struggle Current. This current was created with the goal of contributing to the resurgence or creation of a democratic, anti-bureaucratic union model that is class-conscious and autonomous from the bosses and their state. We invite workers to share in and help advance this initiative together to organize the resistance of the working class and labor struggles.
There is no other way out of this unbearable crisis than by organizing and arming ourselves politically on our own, without relying on the political and bureaucratic apparatuses of the government and the employers. The bureaucracy in the unions is a major obstacle—an agent of the bosses embedded within the ranks of the working class—that must be fought through shared responsibility and the exercise of union democracy from the bottom up. But the lack of a political alternative of the workers’ own making is another urgent issue—one that is even more critical from a strategic standpoint. Because it will not be the governments of corrupt bureaucrats or employers that will definitively resolve the problems and fulfill the aspirations of working people.
For an independent,working-class-basedpolitical alternative
This political alternative must be radically independent of the leadership and of those figures who today pretend to be “critics” after having held high-ranking positions in the regime for years, and who are now seeking to take advantage of the turmoil with supposedly innovative rhetoric.
Likewise, we categorically affirm that we cannot fight this struggle in an sporadic or reactive manner—for example, only when we see U.S. helicopters flying over Caracas. Confronting our status as a U.S. neocolony requires a serious plan for discussion, agitation, and organization, as well as strengthening our capacity for mobilization, so that we can reclaim our sovereignty and our natural resources, along with all our rights (we say this here in the spirit of unity of action). On this path, we must be clear: one cannot claim to be “anti-imperialist” while at the same time supporting Delcy Rodríguez’s sellout administration that is starving the people. Maintaining this contradiction is a deception that only further entangles and clouds the consciousness of our class, amid such complexity.
As part of the International Socialist League (LIS), which works in coordination with anti-capitalist and workers’ organizations around the world, we at Marea Socialista in Venezuela view with hope and conviction how, in countries like Argentina, the left is consolidating itself as a real alternative to power in the face of the disaster posed by Javier Milei’s neo-fascist government and Peronism’s complicity. We also see the great struggle being waged by the workers and indigenous peoples of Bolivia to overthrow the anti-worker and repressive government of Rodrigo Paz as a shining example.
These are inspiring signs. We, as the working class, must forge our own path—together with the popular sectors—free from bosses, bureaucrats, and empires. To do so, we need to move toward building a tool or spaces for unity in action and political unity. In this regard, we have been working to bring together both the most militant vanguard of the labor movement and organizations of the opposition left that oppose anti-worker policies, authoritarianism, and repression, and that stand for resistance against interventionism and the surrender of sovereignty.
We aim for the working class and the people to prepare to take power and govern in accordance with our own class interests, rather than being governed by the bureaucracy, imperialism, and capital.
No bureaucracy, no capital! For the reconstruction and renewal of the labor movement from the grassroots up!
