There’s nothing socialist about Venezuela

In flagrant violation of the Donald Trump administration’s threats, the Venezuelan oil bosses are planning on welcoming two more Russian imperialist military planes with supplies to support the government of Nicolas Maduro (Buzz Feed News, 4/15). The latest  support for the desperate Maduro government comes after the Russian bosses already sent supplies and 100 troops aboard two Russian military planes to Venezuela late last month(CBS News, 4/4).
The Venezuelan ruling class, backing Maduro, is struggling to hold onto power in the face of low oil prices which have undermined the oil-money the Maduro bosses have used to buy votes and maintain the support of the Venezuelan working class. Sensing weakness in the ruling faction, a group of bosses friendlier to U.S. imperialism, fronted by Juan Guaido, leader of the National Assembly, are challenging Maduro for power.
The Maduro bosses are not alone in facing this kind of challenge. As oil prices have tumbled since 2013 including a 70 percent drop in 2014 (Aljazeera, 5/31/18) small time capitalist bosses in oil rich countries have been struggling to hold on to power across the globe. Most recently, infighting and civil war between capitalist factions is breaking out across North Africa, including Libya, Sudan and Algeria.
The current Venezuelan rulers have continued the charade of their deceased predecessor, Hugo Chavez. Namely putting their own cynical spin on the phenomena by scamming U.S. and European leftists into supporting them by hanging a socialist nameplate on their capitalist state power.
The failed system of buying the loyalty of the working class is also playing out in the U.S. as the liberal social contract that fueled rising U.S imperialism for 50 years is coming apart in the face of the massive loss of high paying industrial jobs and skyrocketing inequality. The universal failure of relying on the capitalists to provide for the needs of the working class speaks to why only a communist society won through a worker led revolution can serve the needs of our class.
Maduro seeks protection from the big imperialists while workers starve
Russia’s military and political forays in Venezuela highlight how Maduro is seeking imperialists to keep his ruling clique in power. A December visit from a pair of Russian nuclear bombers (Time, 12/15/18), ongoing training of Venezuelan police, installation of helicopter training facilities (Telegraph 4/2), and now delivery of “supplies and technical advisers” via Russian military aircraft in March are all raising the stakes.  
On his recent trip to Latin America to drum up support for a U.S. assault on  Venezuela, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pointed to the recent start of daily flights by Iran’s Mahan Air from Tehran to Caracas as an excuse to possibly invade  Venezuela and slaughter more workers. For the working class caught between the imperialists and the local Venezuelan bosses dog fight, it’s a lose-lose proposition.Maduro,Guaido, and the big imperialist powers all see the working class as expendable.  For workers in Venezuela and around the world the only way forward is fighting for communism.
The current oil price crisis means that the Maduro regime can only generate foreign trade by promising future access to oil production.  Together China and Russia have extended more than $60 billion credit in exchange for future production (Reuters 5/18).  Yet the cynicism of imperialist relations knows no bounds.As China’s rulers are unsure the Maduro regime can withstand pressure from U.S. imperialism and position Venezuela to fulfill its obligations, they have sent feelers to the anti-Maduro opposition (South China Morning Post, 2/25) and Juan Guaido.
The working class in Venezuela has suffered severely since the 2013 collapse in oil prices.  Unable to sustain the payments to the working-class, Maduro has focused the system’s dwindling resources into paying the military to keep his faction in power. For the masses of workers in Venezuela, what little money they have is worthless as the Venezuelan Bolivar has an inflation rate above 1 million percent annually. Meanwhile, “the top [military] brass has been shielded from Venezuela’s economic meltdown because these officers receive numerous perks and have been put in charge of lucrative government operations—everything from arms purchases and steel production to food distribution and the vital oil industry”(NPR 1/25).
 Chavez’s cynical bid for regional power funds Haitian fascism
About six percent of Venezuela’s oil exports go to meet obligations of the Petrocaribe pact, signed by Chavez in 2005 as part of a bid to increase Venezuelan influence in the region, granting 16 Caribbean and Central American states oil on favorable terms (Reuters, 5/18).
In Haiti, countless millions of dollars from the sale of discounted Venezuelan oil have come up missing. Anger at this ruling class thievery has sparked the sharpest and most sustained anti-government demonstrations in years. First Chavez and now Maduro have turned a blind eye to the development of Haitian fascism since 2005.   In Haiti the bosses bloodthirsty cops killed nearly three dozen youth protesting the Petrocaribe scandal in February alone. (Human Rights Watch, 3/19). The fascist repression of worker’s protesting in Haiti is blood on the hands of the Venezuelan oil bosses.
Chavez spread dollars for votes
Hugo Chavez came to power by mobilizing the most impoverished section of the working class around a promise to spread some of the oil profits through government programs and state-run businesses. As a campaign strategy it worked in the moment. The 1999 election of Chavez aroused sharp opposition from the old Venezuelan ruling class and its middle-class lackeys which culminated in a 2002 Bush-supported but failed coup attempt to oust Chavez.Having survived these challenges to his power and feeling the windfall of petrodollars in the wake of price hikes resulting from the Iraq war, Chavez and his former foes in the Venezuelan ruling class called temporary of a truce.
Flush with oil wealth from roughly 2003 to 2014, Chavez was able to spread money among the most impoverished sections of the working class. At this time he was able to buy some short-term loyalty: “The wild oil rally of the 2000s, which took prices from $11 a barrel the day Chávez was elected to as high as $145, would delay the reckoning by about a decade. But it was inevitable” (Bloomberg, 12/6/18).
Chavez built much of his political machine using the guile of ruling class controlled, corrupt, nepotistic, and exploitative co-ops that mimicked the private sector businesses they were supposedly replacing (Aljazeera, 5/31/18). Now the Venezuelan oil bosses’ house of cards is crashing down and the working class is bearing the pain. It is time we stop relying on one set of bosses or another. It is time to trust our class.
Communism is the political movement that realizes the power of the working class to run society and abolish the class system.  Communist revolution is the ongoing process of workers moving into action in their own self-conscious class interest with the aim of carrying forward the struggle against capitalism to the end.  That is the political movement the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) seeks to build.  Join us.