By: Marea Socialista
The first months of the year in Venezuela have been and continue to be marked by several key issues such as Trump’s sanctions, the announcements of constitutional reform, the economic emergency decree, deportation of Venezuelan migrants by the United States and their imprisonment in El Salvador, the continuation of politically motivated arrests or criminalization of activism by Maduro’s government, forced disappearances, the continuation of the “zero wage” policy for the working class, in addition to the regional and legislative elections scheduled for the end of May. Another important issue is the positions adopted by the right-wing opposition factions, which show important tactical differences among themselves.
The stage that opened on January 10 and its international framework
We have previously stated that we were already fully in a de facto government, after the presidential announcement without the CNE minutes, which placed us under a regime sustained by means of repression by the military-police apparatus, the authoritarian control of the bureaucratic caste and the management of the State at the service of the emerging and corrupt lumpen-bourgeoisie. All this in a geopolitical environment characterized by Trump’s hostility, after an apparent initial “flirtation”, which led to a hardening of US pressure and a return to prioritizing alliances with China and Russia, but without really being able to escape the conditioning of the production and sale of Venezuelan oil by the United States. In spite of the “nationalist” rhetoric, what is concrete is a real loss of sovereignty, since it was not able to counterbalance in practice the reinforcement of the sanctions against the country, both for the damage they caused and for the ravages of bureaucracy in the productive apparatus and in the nation’s coffers.
The policy of the Maduro-Military-PSUV government prolongs the worst times of the stage opened with the economic sanctions. The withdrawal of licenses for business with Venezuela not only covers the oil company Chevron, which was taking over from PDVSA, in view of the “corruptocracy” debacle, but also has repercussions on Venezuela’s commercial relations with other nations and companies and once again provokes the drastic drop in the country’s income, worsening the hardships of the Venezuelan people, while Maduro uses this as an excuse to justify and maintain many of his measures.
Trump is not only attacking migrants who had the illusion of improving their lives by living and working in the U.S. because of how unlivable Venezuela has become, but he is making life even more difficult for the people of Venezuela.
We reject these sanctions that mainly affect the population and that serve as an economic and political excuse for the government’s authoritarian and anti-worker practices.
The lack of transparency, governmental discretionality or arbitrariness in the management of resources, revenues and their distribution, make it impossible to ascertain in detail the extent of the effect of the economic sanctions and the extent of the government’s own responsibility. But in a country that has been the victim of a huge embezzlement that exceeds its foreign debt, and also prior to and presumably exceeds the losses caused by the sanctions, it is clear that what the sanctions have done is to magnify and worsen the damage already done, which is also continuous, against the population.
Maricorinismo’s complicity and complicity with Trump’s aggressions against Venezuela
In this regard, we denounce the complicity of sectors of the right-wing and pro-imperialist opposition, such as the one headed by María Corina Machado, who call for and support sanctions that are more harmful to the Venezuelan people than to the government itself. In exchange for overthrowing Maduro, they offer the surrender of the country to the United States and transnational corporations, including the continuation of the worst exploitation of ultra-cheap labor we have ever known. In the latter, they do not differ too much from Maduro; only that María Corina Machado leans towards the United States, she is a crass ally of Trump, while Maduro pragmatically bets on whoever serves him to stay in power and places himself next to Washington’s competitors. But both, Maduro and María Corina, represent two modalities of Venezuelan capitalism and two sectors vying for power against the interests of the working people.
Part of the bourgeoisie accommodates and takes advantage of Maduro’s policies
There are, however, other sectors of the business class and its politicians, who, seeing no prospects for Maduro’s exit, accommodate themselves by seeking to receive some benefit or opt for coexistence with the regime in order to wait and wait for more propitious times, while trying to survive politically (and economically) and gain some ground, such as the Rosales and Capriles, among others like them, who seek to take advantage of the electoral loopholes that will allow them to appear after the last government fraud of the July 2024 presidential elections.
The impediments of the flawed electoral system and repression
Marea Socialista declared in those past elections (together with other organizations of the opposition left) that it called for a null vote, since it was impossible to nominate candidates who would respond to the working class and popular interests, due to electoral impediments, illegalizations and disqualifications. We did not do so because we are abstentionists per se, because despite the difficulties, on other occasions, we tried to participate, without renouncing the right to vote, because we have always preferred to take advantage of the reduced democratic margins to help bring our politics to the heart of the people. But, for us, participation in the elections is a tool to promote the workers’ and popular struggle with anti-capitalist objectives, in defense of the rights of the exploited people.
Marea Socialista and other organizations of the opposition left to this corrupt, counterrevolutionary and authoritarian government, have been obstructed, impeded or arbitrarily forbidden to participate in the elections with their own voice. The government, the CNE and the TSJ easily authorize the political franchises that negotiate with Maduro, but exclude and run over the left that confronts him and denounces his bad parody of “socialism”, the usurpation of the revolutionary banners and the imposition of a capitalism even more atrocious than the one known in the past.
Faced with this, there have been and there are some sectors of the anti-Maduro left, who choose to support candidates of the bourgeoisie, in order to supposedly open the road for the “exit of Maduro” and that unfortunately leads them to strengthen the options of the exploiters and to renounce the road of struggle for their own objectives through the forging of the consciousness of the exploited people, independent organization and mobilization as a class, not subordinated to the politicians of the rich businessmen or the bureaucrats (also rich).
For all of the above and with more reason after what happened with the elections of July 2024 and with the unilateral self-proclamation of January 2025, once again we consider that there are no electoral or democratic guarantees, nor is there anyone who deserves our votes among those who can present themselves (or are allowed) with the current scenario. And we do not exclude ourselves on our own, but we have been excluded from electoral participation due to the absolute lack of guarantees to exercise our right, of respect for democratic norms and for the will of the voters.
They leave us no other alternative but electoral abstention, which does not mean for us that we renounce politics, but on the contrary, it means to concentrate all our efforts in tasks of organization, denunciation, training and the struggle for rights, in all social and street spaces, aiming that this will allow us to contribute to the construction of a social and political class force of the workers and the people, with full independence with respect to the aforementioned political leaderships, the government bureaucracy and the capitalists, who although they may “oppose” the government, benefit from its anti-worker policies or take advantage of them, as they demonstrate by being accomplices in the maintenance of the most miserable wages that have been suffered in decades of history in the country, and even in comparison with the most depressed countries of Latin America and the world.
Our fundamental task is to resist and rebuild the social and political strength of the working class.
Our fundamental task is the reconstruction of the autonomous organizations of the workers and the people, to nourish their capacity to mobilize around their own agenda, and not around the agenda set by the government or the political opposition of the business class.
Around this task we have been advancing with sustained experiences of unity of action, such as the one we maintain with other organizations of the opposition or progressive left and class struggle sectors. An example of this is the space called “National Encounter for the Defense of the Rights of the People”, in which we converge with the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV-Dignity), the historic leadership of the Fatherland for All Party (PPT-APR), the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSL) and Communist Revolution. In turn, we tend to converge in unitary actions with the League of Socialist Workers (LTS), with some unions or labor movements, with feminist groups, with committees demanding freedom for imprisoned workers’ fighters and activists…. If we develop this social and political force we will be in better conditions to continue advancing, to continue fighting for democratic, economic and social rights, and to approach the horizon of a political change that empowers the working class and allows us to win better living conditions, in the perspective of winning a government of the workers and the people, that takes the reins from the bureaucracy and capital and moves towards the necessary transformations in favor of the great majorities.
The struggle for wages is at the heart of improving living conditions and boosting mobilization.
We place in the first place at this time, the struggle for the defense of wages, against the starvation and semi-slavery wages imposed by the government of Maduro-Military-PSUV and the business leaders, who violating the Constitution have stubbornly implemented the “zero wage”, since the minimum wage has been at that level for years and currently does not exceed two dollars (even less with the unstoppable decline of the bolivar), while the food basket exceeds 500 dollars and the basic basket exceeds 1000 dollars. This disregards and violates Article 91 of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which establishes the cost of the basic food basket as a reference for the minimum wage. And if there is no salary, all other rights are lost, or seriously undermined.
We reject the adaptation of the union bureaucracies to the agenda of business interests, which simply aims at bonuses already paid by the government to become wages and thus placing the amount of the minimum wage at barely 200 dollars, which is less than half of the food basket (just to eat) and is less than 10% of the basic food basket. We do not admit that they appeal to the excuse of sanctions or that there must be greater economic growth or what they consider “realistic” or “possible”, because they never sacrifice the cuts that corruption gives them, nor the profits based on the total conversion of the salary into surplus value (the salary does not even pay for transportation to work), net profits for the capitalists. The story that the increase in wages was inflationary has long since fallen, since we have had hyperinflation with wages frozen for years. The embezzlement of the country is so brutal that the beginning of the “economic recovery” should start with the expropriation of all those who have been stealing from us in one way or another through dirty business and corruption. We do not underestimate any progress that may be achieved in the reestablishment of the constitutional salary, but let it be only a step in the struggle to achieve the fulfillment of what is our right and which is non-negotiable for considerations alien to what the Constitution still in force grants us, but which the government wants to “reform” in order to blow up article 91 of its articles, which they flagrantly violate so much.
The constitutional reform is to “legitimize” violations of rights already committed and to protect those to come.
The unconstitutional reform and the economic emergency decree have no other purpose than to tempt against our rights and to give the appearance of legitimacy to the violations that have been committed and are intended to continue, masking everything with the deceitful language that characterizes the leaders of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and the government.
No regression in the rights already formally won with the 1999 Constitution! We have no doubt that this reform would serve to have more authoritarianism and more repression, more discretion in the corrupt or elitist management of national resources.
Let’s rescue class organization and political independence.
Let us rescue then the organization, union and political independence, let us democratically forge our own agenda of struggle without submitting it to the bureaucracy and capital. Let us rescue union democracy, let us coordinate our struggles and let us practice solidarity among workers as a way to recover our identity and our strength. Through the patient and progressive reconstruction of the class social fabric, let us prepare ourselves to be able to contribute to catalyze and successfully channel the irruption of the people for the rescue of their freedom and justice.
Let us not follow those who propose or impose on us to obey the dictates of the ruling bureaucracy or of the millionaire owners of the big companies, of the transnationals and of their candidates. We call on the people who oppose Maduro to break with those who run Trump’s errands in Venezuela and who tighten the siege of misery on the workers and the Venezuelan people. We call to break with those who today do not show the slightest sensitivity for the Venezuelans who were forced to migrate by the lousy government here and support the U.S. president who expels them as criminals and sends them to prisons for “terrorists” in El Salvador (on this we have pronounced ourselves in a previous document). We are talking about, among others, the attitude shown by María Corina and Edmundo González.
The issue of Venezuelan migration
We denounce María Corina for being an accomplice of Trump in his measures against Venezuelan migrants, just as we denounce Trump and Bukele for practicing forced disappearances, human trafficking, kidnapping and legal confinement of innocent people in prisons, without due process and with total disrespect for human rights, with the maintenance of a slave regime in prisons and the commercialization of the judicial-prison system.
Maduro also does something similar with the judicial system, the police and the Venezuelan prisons, to persecute and illegally imprison the political opposition, the critics and the social struggle. What he claims to Trump and Bukele, the same government of Maduro fails to comply with respect to democratic and human rights in our country.
We welcome the social mobilizations in defense of immigrants in the United States, not only as solidarity, but also as something essential to combat the authoritarian and fascist danger in that country, which has been threatening the entire world, dismantling everything that has been gained in rights, and which is complicit in the genocide in Gaza, and the attacks on civilians in Yemen, among other misdeeds.
The alternative we need
We need an anti-capitalist, anti-bureaucratic and also internationalist alternative, because the situation we are living through cannot be solved by the same model by changing its look, and this must also be linked to the struggles of the working class and the peoples at the international level, because the situation cannot be solved in a single country without taking into account the international framework, without the global resistance against the world powers that oppress us. That is why we want to strengthen at the same time Marea Socialista and maintain its link with that international of revolutionary parties which is the International Socialist League (ISL). That is why we also want to strengthen the Venezuelan opposition left and we advocate the abandonment of the positions of the sectors of the left that, pretending to bet on a false “lesser evil”, support the right wing to try to “get out of Maduro by any means necessary”.
The road is one of class consciousness and political independence, organization and mobilization, with plans of struggle of the workers and the people, construction of the necessary political tools and alliances of those from below to contribute to overcoming bureaucratic authoritarianism and capitalist exploitation in Venezuela.
