Workers of the world, unite!
THE PUPPET MADURO LEAVES, THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM REMAINS
LET US NOT FALL INTO THE TRAP OF DEFENDING SOME EXPLOITERS AGAINST OTHERS
In the early hours of January 3, 2026, the US military bombed a military base in Caracas with seven explosions while US combat helicopters moved slowly through the skies above Caracas.
A few hours later, the US president announced that he had kidnapped the Venezuelan president and his wife to try them in the US. No mobilization of the Venezuelan army, no response, and no attempt at interception. And this despite the fact that the US has part of its fleet deployed, claims to have intervened in Venezuelan territory last week, and the Venezuelan army was on state of alarm.
In a restrained speech, the head of the army (Padrino), without mentioning the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, called for “serenity, common sense, calm” and ended with proclamations in defense of the fatherland. The interior minister, also a military man, Diosdado Cabello, after getting tangled up saying “beyond one of us, or another of us, or any of us...”, without naming Maduro, also recited proclamations in defense of the fatherland. In other words, everything seems to indicate that the puppet Maduro has been handed over.
The US action pursues several goals
Firstly, it is about imposing US hegemonic access to Venezuelan oil and preventing China from rebuilding Venezuela's oil industry. Despite US attempts to impose exclusivity for US oil companies, led by Chevron, which have been reintroduced recent years: “in the case of Venezuela, more than 80% of its oil exports go to China” (Expansión, 26-12-2025), basically to pay debts. Not only was virtually all the oil that US imperialism considers its own going to Chinese imperialism, but Chinese direct capitalist investment in this field was also accelerating: “The first floating facility to produce crude oil in a 1 billion dollar project operated by China Concord Resources Corp in Venezuela arrived in Lake Maracaibo (...) The Chinese company, known as CCRC, is ramping up production at two oil fields (...) and expects to reach 60,000 barrels per day by the end of next year. (...) under a 20-year production sharing agreement. The firm has sent Chinese personnel specialized in oil field development, with the aim of quickly reopening some 100 wells." (La Patilla, 04-09-2025).
And it is not just about taking over the oil business, but also exploiting other natural resources: "In addition to having the largest oil reserves in the world, Venezuela has enormous gas fields —the sixth largest globally—; large gold reserves, the most important in Latin America; iron, ranked twelfth worldwide; bauxite, ranked fifteenth; and diamonds. (...) Added to this is a significant supply of so-called “rare earths,” especially coltan and thorium." (El País, 21-12-2025).
Secondly, it is about reviving the image of the US as a global BULLY through its newly redecorated “war department.” In its process of withdrawal, the US cannot maintain sustained conflicts with its own military deployment and has been forced to retreat. But it can act like a mafia-style bully when Israel first eliminates Iran's air defenses, or against a capitalism like Venezuela's that is falling apart, if it has some internal support. Together with the destruction of ships on the high seas, this is a message to those capitalist states in general–and Latin American ones in particular– that dare to resist US capitalism.
Thirdly, this is a blow by the US specifically aimed at Russia, China, and Iran, for more details on the relations that are to be cut: "strategic association and cooperation agreement between Russia and Venezuela (...) All of the Caribbean country's military technology is mainly of Russian origin (...) Beijing has announced a tariff-free trade agreement with Caracas (...) the 20-year strategic cooperation agreement signed in 2022 with Iran." (La Vanguardia, 15-11-2025).
Who can control the internal situation?
In subsequent statements, the US president (Trump) has declared that the US plans to ‘run’ Venezuela for a time until there is a transition to a government capable of controlling the situation in line with US interests. He threatened a second attack and warned that what had been done to the president could be done to anyone else who did not bow to their interests. But he said he did not believe this would be necessary because the Venezuelan vice president had said she would align herself with them and also because there were wonderful people in the Venezuelan army.
The “opposition” was quick to say it was ready to take power, but, very significantly, the president of US imperialism stated that the leader of the “opposition” did not have the support or respect necessary to lead Venezuelan capitalism.
At the same time, the US cannot invade Venezuela or govern it without the support of the Party of the Army. Therefore, the course of immediate events will be determined by the deals that the Venezuelan Army chooses to accept or reject, depending on whether it believes it can maintain control of the situation through its social base while doing business with the US at the same time or not.
But who will pay the debts?
The US plan is for American oil companies to rebuild the energy infrastructure, advancing the funds against future sales of the extracted oil. Thus, by modernizing the infrastructure and increasing production, they could sell Venezuela's crude oil to the world, making huge profits while promising a golden future for Venezuelans.
But, regardless of the fact that oil is below 60 dollars per barrel and that increased oil production in Venezuela would cause this price to fall even further, there are debts to be paid: “According to estimates cited by Reuters, Venezuela owes around 60 billion dollars in defaulted bonds. If Pdvsa's obligations, bilateral loans, and international arbitration awards are included, the total external debt amounts to between 150 billion and 170 billion dollars, depending on the calculation of accrued interest and court rulings. (...) The universe of Venezuelan creditors is broad and heterogeneous. It includes holders of international bonds - global emerging market funds and funds specializing in distressed debt, known as “vulture funds,” companies with favorable arbitration awards, and bilateral creditors. Among the latter, China and Russia stand out, having granted loans worth millions." (El Nacional, 20-12-2025).
The big lie of socialism in Venezuela
The major victory of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie – both of officialism and of the "opposition" – has been its success in identifying the Party of the Army with socialism and communism. It is an imperative necessity for the working class to eliminate this BIG LIE. In Venezuela there is no socialism, there is CAPITALISM. Capitalism is based on wage labor, on the fact that our labor power is just another commodity and has a price: the wage. This is why capitalism inevitably means exploitation and hunger for the working class. No change of parliamentary government is going to mean a real change for the working class under capitalism. The capitalist State is at the service of capital, whoever rules, whoever governs.
The harsh reality is that the debts of Venezuelan capitalism – as long as capitalism survives – can only be paid through the overexploitation of the Venezuelan proletariat.
As long as capitalism persists in Venezuela (even if some falsely dress it up as socialism), the only prospect for the working class is the exploitation of labor power as a commodity, in order to obtain surplus value as the sole source of profit.
For the resumption of the class struggle
Parliamentary illusion —or the patriotic narcotic— only serve to distract us while we are killed with hunger or bullets: parliamentary governments pass, and hunger remains. Proletarians will continue to suffer the consequences of this system as long as the bourgeoise keeps tricking us into thinking that we have to change the government when what we have to do is to abolish this system of exploitation.
This is the reality that the working class and the Venezuelan proletariat live and face, theoretically disarmed without a class organization to serve as an instrument for the fight for better working conditions and wages. The working class will not be able to fight even for its immediate demands if we do not break with the bourgeois policy that influences and directs the entire labor union apparatus, breaking with its organizational control, tending to form classist organisms for the economic struggle, independent from the parliamentary political parties, fighting the policy of submission or solidarity to the national or corporate economy, fighting and unmasking the parliamentary democratic regime as a classic instrument of domination of the dictatorship of capital.
We need to recover a program of revolutionary overcoming of capitalism. Only in this way will we be able to fight for better labor and social conditions while preparing the conditions for the abolition of the slavery of wage labor.
National unity is the grave of the working class
Now some will tell us that we must fight for the fatherland against US military intervention, others will tell us that we must fight for the fatherland against the officialism, fight for the fatherland against the return of the escuálidos, etc. And then they will tell us that we must defend the fatherland by breaking our backs and working like beasts for a wage as miserable as the current one or worse.
But the famous “fatherland” for the working class means nothing else than our exploitation. Because all of them –all those who have economic interests in the exploitation of the working class worldwide in general and in Venezuela in particular, whether they are Venezuelan bourgeoisie in officialism or opposition, or American, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, or Italian– base their profits on our exploitation.
Nationalism consigns us bound hand and foot to capitalist exploitation in times of commercial war and to the slaughterhouse as cannon fodder in times of military war. Any defense of one's own "fatherland" is a betrayal of the cause of the revolution: "The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got" (Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848).
History offers only one way to eliminate all exploitations, all tyrannies and oppressions: the path of revolutionary class action which, in any country whatsoever, aligns the working class against the local bourgeoisie, with complete class autonomy in political thought, organization and behavior, in combat action; uniting the forces of the proletarians of the whole world across the frontiers of all countries – in "peace" and in war – in a unitary organism whose action will not stop until the complete annihilation of the institutions of capitalism.
The only way to oppose the wars that capitalism produces is the resumption of the class struggle against our ‘own’ bourgeoisie, the rupture of the national interclassist front (in the belligerent countries and in the rest). For this we need to fight against the organizational and ideological influence exerted by the bourgeoisie through state-integrated unionism and through parliamentarism, developing an extensive network of solidarity and struggle on the labor union level, outside the tentacles of the State, in which the International Communist Party has gained a decisive influence.
The slogan of revolutionaries worldwide must be uncompromisingly and without exception:
- Rejection of all nationalism: “the working class has no country.”
- Rejection of solidarity with the corporate economy and with the "national" economy.
- Revolutionary defeatism against the own bourgeoisie in times of commercial or military war.
- Joint and international organization of the proletarians of all languages in the International Communist Party for the COMMUNIST REVOLUTION ON A WORLD SCALE.
DOWN WITH IMPERIALIST WAR!
DOWN WITH THE EXPLOITING CAPITALISM THAT STARVES THE WORKING CLASS!
DOWN WITH THE FALSE "SOCIALISM" OF THE PARTY OF THE ARMY!
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST PARTY – “THE INTERNATIONALIST PROLETARIAN” – January 2026
www.pcielcomunista.org – x.com/pcielcomunista
January 3, 2026