Hands off Venezuela End imperialist intervention now

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument¶

The article argues that the US Department of Justice's indictment of Nicolás Maduro and other Venezuelan officials on drug trafficking and terrorism charges in March 2020 is a deliberate attempt to create legal cover for future military intervention. This is not a genuine anti-drug operation but a repeat of the pattern used before the 1989 invasion of Panama. The central thesis is that US imperialism is exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis to escalate its offensive against Venezuela, precisely because the domestic opposition led by Juan Guaidó has proven incapable of ousting the government. However, the article insists that defending Venezuela against imperialist aggression does not mean supporting the Maduro government's policies, which it characterises as pro-capitalist, conciliatory, and destructive of the revolution's social base. The only genuine defence against imperialism, it claims, is to complete the revolution by breaking with capitalism entirely.

Theoretical Grounding¶

The analysis is rooted in the classical Marxist tradition of permanent revolution and the Leninist theory of imperialism. It draws on Trotsky's writings on the Spanish Civil War to argue that defeating fascism or imperialism requires eradicating the capitalist social system that produces them, not merely defending a bourgeois state against external attack. The article applies the Marxist method of "defence of the revolution without defence of the government" — a position developed by the Bolsheviks in relation to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and later refined by Trotsky in his analysis of the Spanish Republic and the early Soviet Union. It rejects the notion that any progressive or anti-imperialist content remains in the Venezuelan state, arguing that the Maduro government's submission to IMF-style conditions, its repression of workers and peasants, and its informal dollarisation of the economy demonstrate a complete abandonment of revolutionary perspective. The article sits firmly within the tradition of revolutionary defeatism applied to semi-colonial states: the working class must oppose both imperialism and its own bourgeoisie, building independent organs of power.

Conjunctural Relevance¶

The article was published in April 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It connects the US legal offensive to three conjunctural factors:

The pandemic and economic crisis: The article notes that COVID-19 was the catalyst for an inevitable global recession, and that the Trump administration's disastrous handling of the health crisis would damage its electoral prospects. It argues that US imperialism might seek to distract from internal problems by escalating aggression against Venezuela and Iran.
The failure of the domestic opposition: Guaidó's "presidency" is described as a "work of fiction", the Venezuelan right is splintering, and it cannot mobilise its base. The US therefore needs to create its own conditions for intervention.
Venezuela's economic vulnerability: Venezuelan oil prices had fallen below production costs due to the pandemic and the Russia-Saudi price war. The government was printing money to cover deficits, worsening hyperinflation, and had requested a $5bn IMF loan — which the article presents as evidence of submission to imperialism. Wages had fallen below $6 per month.

The article also names specific actors: Cliver Alcalá Cordones, the former major general who claimed responsibility for a coup plot and implicated Guaidó and US advisers; Iván Simonovis, Guaidó's security appointee who openly threatened legal action; and the DEA's $15m reward for Maduro's capture.

Where the Argument Continues¶

The article leaves several questions open. It does not develop a concrete analysis of the Venezuelan economy's structural crisis — the relationship between the collapse of oil production, US sanctions, and internal mismanagement is asserted rather than examined. The claim that the government's policies are "pro-capitalist" is made but not substantiated with detailed evidence of class alignments within the state apparatus. The article also does not address the strategic question of how a revolutionary workers' government in Venezuela would survive US military intervention in practice, beyond asserting that a mobilised and organised population would be better placed to resist.

These questions are taken up elsewhere in the IDOM corpus. The broader analysis of the Venezuelan revolution's trajectory, the character of the PSUV, and the failure of "21st century socialism" is developed in multiple articles from the Venezuelan section, Corriente Marxista – Lucha de Clases. The theoretical framework of permanent revolution as applied to Latin America is elaborated in IDOM's writings on Bolivia, Argentina, and the Pink Tide generally. The question of how to build revolutionary workers' organisations in conditions of economic collapse and imperialist pressure is a recurring theme in Against the Stream episodes covering Venezuela.

Connections¶

Trotsky, The Spanish Revolution (1931-39): The article directly cites Trotsky's argument that defeating Franco required destroying capitalism, not just defending the Republic. This is the key theoretical reference point.
Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: The analysis of US intervention as a product of capitalist crisis and the drive for markets and resources is implicitly Leninist.
IDOM articles on Bolivia (2019-2020): The parallel analysis of the Morales government's collapse and the coup — where IDOM argued that Morales's conciliatory policies paved the way for the right — is structurally similar.
IDOM articles on Iran (2020): The article notes that US aggression against Venezuela and Iran are linked, reflecting a broader imperialist offensive during the pandemic.
The Marxist position on "critical support": The article is a practical application of the distinction between defending a country against imperialism and supporting its government — a position developed in the Marxist tradition from the Russian Revolution through to the defence of Cuba, Vietnam, and the Sandinistas.

Key Quotes¶

"The U.S. has revived a judiciary process against Manuel Noriega (ex CIA collaborator from Panama who later distanced himself from his former masters) on counts of drug trafficking. This process launched prior to its brutal and bloody military invasion of Panama in 1989 which culminated in Noriega's overthrow."
"Our condemnation of this recent imperialist offensive does not at all constitute a vote of confidence in Maduro's government. For many years, we have denounced his very marked change in policy against the interest of the people and the workers, alongside similar repressive tendencies against leading figures among workers, the peasantry and the community, in order to brutally align the country with bourgeois interests."
"The government denounces the imperialist economic blockade, which we too reject, as well as the constant destabilising and insurgent acts of aggression from the White House. Yet, in the same breath, it freely submits to the financial institutions of the same power."
"For Marxists, there is no doubt that stubborn support for conciliatory policies has brought us to this point. The absence of revolutionary, and by extension anti-imperialist, governance threatens to destroy the few remaining vestiges of revolution."
"Trotsky wrote the following during the Spanish Civil War: 'You are right to fight against Franco. We must root the fascists out in order not to end up with the same Spain as before the Civil War, because Franco came out of that Spain. We must extirpate Franco's bases, that is, the social system of capitalism.'"
"Comrades who argue that taking these measures would mean an imminent invasion of our country by U.S. troops should ask themselves this: what good have half measures done to reduce the threat of invasion? And were the revolution to be carried out fully, would it not be under better circumstances?"