False anti-imperialism and the class struggle in Venezuela

An interesting debate has opened up in the prestigious online media outlet LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal regarding the character of the Venezuelan government and the position organisations and intellectuals belonging to the popular and left camp should adopt towards it. 

We, the Partido Comunista de Venezuela (Communist Party of Venezuela, PCV), believe it is necessary to participate in this debate, not only because we have been mentioned, but because we are convinced of the need to speak the truth about the economic, social, and political situation in Venezuela, and confront manipulations and deceptions that distort objective reality.

Below, we will first provide a general outline of the PCV’s position on the so-called Bolivarian process or Bolivarian Revolution and the Nicolás Maduro government, addressing key aspects of the debate. Then, we will respond specifically to some statements made by Steve Ellner regarding our party.

Tensions within the Bolivarian alliance

As is well known, the PCV was part of the alliance of political and social forces that supported the “Bolivarian process”, starting with the election of Hugo Chávez Frías in 1998 (as the first political party to support his candidacy), through to the approval of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in 1999 (considered a great popular achievement) and then successive re-elections of Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. That was until 2019, when our final withdrawal from the alliance took place after an intense and broad internal debate.

It has been our programmatic goal to forge a broad alliance of forces to defeat the neoliberal policies imposed since the mid-1980s and strengthen national sovereignty; to promote a better distribution of oil resources geared toward the country’s industrialisation and satisfaction of people’s needs; to promote the democratisation of society with the leading participation of the working class; and to combat corruption and pave the way for structural change. The PCV was a part of this heterogeneous alliance, accepting its internal contradictions and recognising its limitations, weaknesses and inconsistencies.

Within this alliance, we sought to achieve a balance of forces favourable to the working class and working people, with the goal of advancing toward profound transformations from a truly revolutionary perspective. This would inevitably generate divisions and regroupments, and deepen the confrontation with forces serving the national and transnational oligarchy. We understood that real progress toward revolutionary change depended on the balance of class forces in Venezuelan society, not just on the will of the individual leaders of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Back in 2011, we warned of the growing prevalence of reformist, regressive and corrupt tendencies gaining ground within Chávez’s government. The 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) concluded that Venezuela was not experiencing a true revolution, but rather a process of social and political reforms that kept capitalism and the rentier accumulation model intact.

Naturally, to the extent that the PCV acted with class independence and upheld its own principled positions, frictions and tensions arose within the alliance. This became public and notorious when we refused to accept Chávez’s call to dissolve the PCV into the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (United Socialist Party of Venezuela, PSUV) (2007-2008).

Another source of tension, albeit less publicly visible, between the PCV and the PSUV political leadership during the Chávez era was this leadership and its followers’ support for so-called 21st-century socialism. This current promoted a reformist, gradualist and class-collaborative vision for building socialism that did not entail dismantling the bourgeois state or capitalist relations of production, and denied, among other fundamental aspects, the very existence of class struggle.

This conception has predominated in the narrative of reformist ideologues in Venezuela and Latin America. Furthermore, it serves the capitalist sectors that have benefited from the virtues of so-called progressivism. In Venezuela, under the Maduro administration, it has become a reactionary and regressive counter-reform, imposed through a mixture of extreme authoritarianism and demagogic manipulation.

The crisis did not begin with the sanctions

Ellner states in one of his articles that “Maduro’s errors” are mostly “overreactions to Washington-backed provocations,” and that those who do not agree with him have lost sight of “the devastating effect of the war on Venezuela.” Those sectors of the international left that still support Maduro try to justify his anti-popular actions (the few they acknowledge) by pointing to imperialist aggression. 

However, they ignore — whether through ignorance or complicity — the fact that starting in the first years of his administration (2013-17), Maduro established a governmental orientation that was clearly favourable to the capitalist class, restricting labour rights and dismantling any possibility of exercising social, worker and popular control over productive processes.

Maduro’s economic policy — even before the consequences of the US unilateral coercive measures became clear — has been designed to transfer substantial state resources to new economic groups they cynically call the “revolutionary bourgeoisie,” which has profited from the reprivatisation of companies under advantageous conditions, the handing back of expropriated land, tax exemptions and the relaxation of labour rights.

This left, which focuses its analysis on “external enemies,” also fails to consider — or simply ignores — the fact that strategic disinvestment in the oil industry and the progressive weakening of national sovereignty over hydrocarbon activities are not a direct consequence of international sanctions, but rather precede them. Their origin lies in rentism, which, far from being overcome under the Chávez and Maduro governments, has been reinforced. After 25 years, Venezuela remains subject to the dictates of the imperialist centres and devoid of a strategy for sovereign industrial development.

For these and other reasons, we maintain that the current economic crisis was not caused by the sanctions, although these sanctions — extremely serious and reprehensible — dramatically intensified the crisis, especially after 2017 when the US imposed sanctions on the state oil company PDVSA and stopped buying Venezuelan oil.

We want to be clear and emphatic: for the PCV, all sanctions imposed on a nation (or individuals) for political reasons, in addition to being illegal, are unacceptable and must be rejected by the people, especially by organisations that have the strategic objective of burying capitalism.

But it is also true that governments or individuals who are victims of such measures are not necessarily revolutionaries nor do they necessarily express popular interests; rather, they typically represent capitalist factions that are in temporary or strategic conflict with other capitalist factions and specific capitalist powers. In other words, the unilateral coercive measures imposed by the US and the European Union against Venezuela are not the result of us having a “socialist” government; rather, they seek to prevent Chinese and Russian capital from taking exclusive control of the country’s strategic resources.

Everything indicates that the true intention of the US and its allies’ policy of aggression toward the Venezuelan government has not been its overthrow, but its subordination. This became evident during the Joe Biden administration, when a license was granted to partially resume oil exports to the US under conditions imposed by Washington. As part of that agreement, special privileges were granted to the multinational Chevron, including the appointment of one of its executives as president of the joint venture Petropiar, in open violation of the Constitution and the principle of sovereignty over hydrocarbons. This pact, protected by the so-called “Anti-Blockade Law” — an unconstitutional instrument — was signed in an opaque manner.

The government’s use of resources — those generated both by oil sales and mining activities in the south of the country — has also been kept a secret from the Venezuelan people. During 2023 and 2024, government spokespersons boasted that the country was experiencing economic growth as a result of the oil license granted by Biden. However, salaries and pensions remained frozen while importing and financial capitalists had access to billions of dollars at subsidised prices for their businesses, thanks to the Central Bank of Venezuela’s intervention in the foreign exchange market.

Maduro’s neoliberal shift

Since August 2018, a neoliberal adjustment program has been implemented in Venezuela, presented under the refined name of the Economic Recovery, Growth and Prosperity Program. Its implementation has resulted in a drastic reduction in public spending, price liberalisation and the de facto dollarisation of the economy.

We do not exactly know what Ellner is referring to when he claims there are “positive aspects” to Maduro’s administration. What is clear, based on the concrete reality of the Venezuelan people, is that the economic package implemented over the past seven years has consisted of a series of measures that shift the cost of the crisis and sanctions onto the shoulders of the working class. To attract foreign investment and retain local capital, the government has offered tax exemptions, an extremely cheap labour force, and the dismantling of the working class’s organisational and fighting capacities as “comparative advantages”.

Based on these objectives, the PSUV and its satellite parties in parliament approved the Organic Law on Special Economic Zones, which offers territories, cheap energy, the use of natural resources and the non-application of labour rights, primarily to foreign investors. The script is quite clear: low-cost profits and overexploitation of labour.

In practice, the labour policy imposed by the PSUV leadership has transformed the entire country into a vast “special economic zone.” Collective bargaining agreements were de facto dismantled following a memorandum from the Ministry of Labour, issued in October 2018, which allowed employers to ignore economic clauses they considered burdensome. Since then, the minimum wage has become the only valid parameter for setting salary scales and calculating legal compensation, in open violation of labour and contractual rights established by law.

This measure automatically led to the loss of economic gains for broad sectors of workers, both in the public and private sectors. Added to this were the devastating effects of the monetary reconversion implemented in August 2018 — eliminating five zeros from the national currency — which led to the virtual disappearance of accumulated social benefits, the collapse of pension funds, the depletion of savings accounts and the financial impairment of union organisations.

Wage destruction and expansion of labour exploitation

During Maduro’s administration, the gap between wages and profits has widened dramatically. According to economist Pascualina Curcio, in 2014, of the income share of all production in Venezuela, “36% went to the 13 million wage earners, while 31% went to the 400,000 employers.” However, in 2017 (the latest figure published by the BCV), “only 18% was distributed to the 13 million workers, while the 400,000 capitalists appropriated not 31% … but 50%, or half.”

Although the Maduro administration’s wage destruction policy began early on in 2014, when wages were reduced and non-wage income increased, it was in 2022 that it dealt a definitive blow to the wages of Venezuelan workers, one which also affected pensions. Since then, the minimum wage has remained frozen at 130 bolivars (equivalent to just over a dollar a month), while only non-salary benefits, known as bonuses and received exclusively by public sector workers, have increased.

These bonuses, which represent more than 99% of a worker’s income, are not taken into account when calculating compensation or social benefits such as vacation pay, Christmas bonuses, etc, which are calculated exclusively on the minimum wage. This mechanism, sometimes difficult to understand for those who do not live or work in Venezuela, constitutes an outright fraud against labour legislation and the constitution, as the government has illegally substituted the concept of “integral minimum income” in place of salaries. 

This policy allows employers, both public and private, to save significant sums by not paying fundamental items such as social benefits (compensation accrued at the end of the employment relationship), annual vacation bonuses (recreational bonuses for public sector retirees), and (end-of-year) Christmas bonuses or profit-sharing payments. In exceptional cases, these losses are smaller in certain private sectors with robust collective bargaining agreements, although even then there is a threat of losing these gains. 

This is due to a political-institutional environment favouring the reduction of wage payrolls, one promoted especially by the leadership of Fedecámaras — the main organisation of Venezuelan capitalists — which has strengthened ties with the Maduro government and promotes the establishment of a “new compensation model” in which salaries, as traditionally understood in Venezuela and enshrined in the Organic Labor Law, could permanently disappear.

The majority of Venezuelan private-sector workers are unorganised and unprotected by collective bargaining agreements, which forces them to accept non-wage compensation in addition to a minimum wage that barely exceeds one dollar a month. They also face up to 12-hour workdays, sometimes with no days off. This reality particularly affects thousands of young employees in large businesses, who basically work without rights and in a complete state of vulnerability, as any attempt to unionise is often met with persecution or dismissal.

Criminalisation of workers’ struggle

Just as Ellner asserts that the “war on Venezuela needs to be placed at the centre of any serious analysis of the Maduro presidencies,” it is equally essential, for any honest assessment, to consider the systematic criminalisation of labour struggles in the country. Beyond illegal dismissals — direct or covert — the Venezuelan state resorts to police repression and judicial coercion against workers and union leaders who dare to defend their rights or denounce acts of corruption, as evidenced by the case of Alfredo Chirinos and Aryenis Torrealba at PDVSA.

Since the early years of Maduro’s administration, and with increasing intensity since 2018, hundreds of labour movement activists have been detained without due process and frequently subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment. Most are charged with inciting hatred, criminal association or terrorism, in a repressive pattern aimed at disciplining the union movement and facilitating the imposition of policies clearly favourable to capital.

It is deeply troubling that those who claim to be left activists, revolutionaries and even Marxist-Leninists remain indifferent to these extremely serious events, which reveal the exploitative and oppressive class nature of the Venezuelan state and its current administration. This is not a matter of repression motivated by political or partisan motives, but rather an institutionalised pattern of anti-union persecution aimed at neutralising any form of resistance to a government agenda dedicated to dismantling labour rights for the benefit of corporate sectors.

The enthusiastic support currently expressed for the executive branch’s policies by organisations such as Fedecámaras, Conindustria and Consecomercio — the very same organisations that actively participated in the coup d’état against Chávez in April 2002 — should be a source of concern to left sectors that support Maduro. 

Perhaps these comrades do not know — or do not want to see — that in Venezuela, union freedom is systematically restricted through administrative and judicial instruments, such as the National Registry of Trade Union Organisations (attached to the Ministry of Labour) or the National Electoral Council (CNE), which prevent the registration of independent unions and sabotage their electoral processes. Meanwhile, powerful business union organisations operate with complete freedom and in collaboration with state authorities.

Maduro has no legitimacy: Authoritarianism and repression

The authoritarian and anti-democratic nature of Maduro’s government has deepened as his social support base weakened. This was clearly demonstrated in the repressive violence used before and, especially, after the presidential elections of July 28, 2024, not only against politicians and journalists, but against workers and students living in working-class neighbourhoods who spontaneously protested the lack of transparency and consistency in the election results.

We do not deny that, in the hours following the announcement of Maduro’s supposed re-election, isolated episodes of extreme violence were reported. However, the response by police forces and paramilitary groups was disproportionate and criminal, leaving more than 20 people dead. The government itself acknowledged the arrest of more than 2000 citizens, mostly young people, including minors who were not even participating in the demonstrations but were accused of terrorism.

The escalation in repression did not end in the days following the elections. Irregular detentions, including forced disappearances, incommunicado detention, denial of the right to defense and cruel treatment have continued to this day. This entire display of repression and political persecution aims to crush all resistance and denunciations of the illegality and illegitimacy of Maduro’s inauguration as the supposedly re-elected president.

From our perspective, Maduro’s inauguration is illegal, as the presidential election process was not properly concluded. The CNE failed to comply with legally established procedures: it failed to publish official results in the Electoral Gazette or present data broken down by polling stations that could clearly demonstrate Maduro’s victory. Furthermore, the Supreme Court of Justice, under PSUV control, usurped the CNE’s functions to obstruct the clarification of the election results.

The PSUV leadership recently announced a constitutional reform. Although no one knows for sure what the changes will be, it is not difficult to deduce that they will establish rules that legalise the authoritarian exercise of power, without social control and in favour of capital.

Necessary clarifications of the PCV’s politics

Regarding Ellner’s mention of the PCV in this debate, we think it is necessary to clarify a few points. In his first response to Gabriel Hetland, Ellner described the government’s recognition of a “splinter faction” of the PCV instead of the legitimate party as “a minus for the Maduro government.” This statement indicates a lack of understanding of the facts.

Following the PCV’s formal break with the government, the PSUV leadership — headed publicly by Diosdado Cabello — unleashed a campaign of systematic attacks against the PCV’s legitimate leadership, using public media spaces without allowing a right of reply. At the same time, the PSUV promoted a judicial intervention into the PCV, relying on individuals from outside the Communist movement (some with a past relationship), whom the TSJ imposed as an “ad hoc junta” that continues to usurp the PCV’s acronym, symbols and voter registration card with its emblematic Red Rooster.

Ellner presents the contradictions between the PCV and PSUV as “secondary,” but the aspects presented in this article make clear the nature and class orientation of the PSUV leadership. The objective of the judicial assault on the PCV was none other than to derail the growth of a popular and revolutionary alternative that could denounce and confront the neoliberal, authoritarian and anti-popular drift of the PSUV government.

As a result of this judicial intervention, we have been prevented from legally participating in electoral processes, and our political activity has been criminalised. Despite this, we continue to organise the struggle for the unity of social, political, democratic and revolutionary forces against the pro-capitalist Maduro government and the pro-capitalist opposition led by María Corina Machado, a representative of imperialist interventionism.

Ellner also criticised the PCV for supporting a social democratic candidate, Enrique Márquez, in the July 28 presidential elections. It should be noted that Márquez has been subject to an enforced disappearance since January, after being arbitrarily detained. To date, neither his lawyers nor his family have had any contact with him, the formal charges against him are unknown, and his appearance before the courts has not been confirmed, all of which constitute a serious violation of his fundamental rights.

It is of some concern that Ellner not only remains completely silent on Márquez’s kidnapping, but that he deliberately omits the political and programmatic debate that led the PCV and other left-wing sectors to support Márquez’s presidential candidacy, notwithstanding Ellner’s constant insistence on the need to “contextualise”.

Support for this candidacy was the result of an intense discussion at the PCV’s National Conference, which decided to build a political-electoral alliance beyond the left on a program of struggle for the restitution of the labour, social and political rights of the people, thereby projecting an alternative to the government and the pro-imperialist opposition.

The media censorship that was imposed — given total government control of public and private media — prevented many from learning that the PCV, without a voter registration card due to the aforementioned judicial assault, had previously attempted along with other leftist organisations to register journalist Manuel Isidro Molina’s candidacy, but was blocked by the CNE. We also attempted to register an electoral organisation to participate, a move that was denied by the PSUV-run body.

In this context, the decision was made to support an already registered candidate who positioned themselves independently from the two dominant poles — Maduro and Corina Machado — and who would be willing to make a clear programmatic commitment to defending labour rights and democratic freedoms.

Márquez spoke out against interventions by foreign powers, including the US, and denounced the loss of Venezuelan oil sovereignty due to dictates in favour of Chevron. His candidacy managed to unite Venezuelan left organisations and figures, including  (anti-Maduro) Chavista activists. Of course, this was hidden by the government-controlled media. Incidentally, it is quite striking that Márquez is in custody, while [right-wing opposition leader and former self-declared “interim president”] Juan Guaidó was never arrested or prosecuted and left the country without incident, and Corina Machado, accused of treason, has never been brought to justice.

Throughout this controversy, there has been a rightful emphasis on overcoming Manichean approaches, and we will be no exception. Currently, the PSUV is promoting a costly propaganda campaign, both nationally and internationally, aimed at convincing popular and revolutionary forces that the anti-imperialist struggle can be separated from the struggle against capitalism. Those who insist on prioritising denunciations of the “empire” and limiting criticism of the catastrophic situation of the Venezuelan working class end up, consciously or unconsciously, fueling this clearly reactionary offensive.

Despite the criminalisation and harassment imposed on us by this tyranny, the PCV continues to fight for the rights of working people and actively works for the unity of all genuinely democratic social and political forces that are committed to defending the constitution against the government’s authoritarian drift and US imperialism’s interventionist threats.

Pedro Eusse is a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela. Translated by Richard Fidler.