With the deployment of multiple warships, along with a nuclear-powered submarine, present in the area since early August and equipped with missile and intelligence capabilities, along with P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, and a military contingent of more than 4,000 marines, the US government ordered the execution of the operation to demonstrate its military power and deterrence in the Caribbean.

The troop movement is based on the US government’s August 8 order to use the armed forces against foreign drug cartels. Prominent among these cartels are the Mexican and Colombian cartels, but also the so-called "Tren De Aragua" from Venezuela.

Simultaneously with this deployment, the United States government, specifically Attorney General Pam Bondi, announced in August that it was increasing the reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, President of the bourgeois Venezuelan government, to $50 million. The first time a reward was established for Maduro was on March 26, 2020, when the State Department, during the previous Donald Trump administration, offered $15 million. In January 2025, the administration of then-President Joe Biden, already ending his term, increased the reward from $15 million to $25 million.

While they are demanding a reward for Maduro, they maintain communication and reach business agreements with his government regarding oil (in the first half of August, the US received two ships with oil extracted by Chevron), migrants, and other issues.

The plot of this novel is already well known, as are the supporting actors. US imperialism has already presented its strategy for combating drug trafficking, with an unprecedented deployment in the Caribbean, despite the UN’s reports indicating that the majority of drug shipments entering the US from South America do so via the Pacific coast. It is well known that North America’s real strategic objective is the control of oil, gas, and other natural resources of high economic value, located in its immediate area of ​​influence between the Gulf of Mexico (which they now want to call the "Gulf of America") and Venezuela (including the Essequibo territory disputed with Guyana). It is also known that US military movements and their coordination with several countries in the region have been ongoing for some time, but have now been given significant media coverage for political purposes.

The Venezuelan government is tearing its throat out with screams and is posturing an "anti-imperialism" that cynically admits pacts, agreements, alliances, and business deals with both the local bourgeoisie and transnational corporations, guaranteeing them cheap labor and labor peace based on the actions of the state repression/regime unions duo. The government’s plan also includes a call for national unity against the external enemy. And this is the plan of most opposition parties, both right and left, who raise the banner of defending the homeland. The plan of the trade unionists, of the regime’s trade union federations, is to ask workers to put their demands aside, because the homeland comes first. And there’s no shortage of harangues against the "traitors", with which Chavismo takes advantage of the opportunity to persecute its opponents and internal dissidents and stun the labor movement with threats and blackmail.

But just as the Americans put on a show of military deployment, the Venezuelan bourgeois government is doing the same. In response, President Maduro announced on August 18 the deployment of 4.5 million militia members in response to "threats" from the United States. The Militia, made up of some 5 million reservists, according to dubious official figures, was created by former President Hugo Chávez. It later became one of the five components of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB). Maduro asked his government’s political bases to advance the formation of peasant and worker militias "in all factories". "Rifles and missiles for the peasant force! To defend the territory, sovereignty, and peace of Venezuela", he said. "Missiles and rifles for the working class, to defend our homeland", Maduro emphasized. On August 21, Nicolás Maduro announced a call for a readiness campaign for the "militia forces" on August 23 and 24. This campaign would take place at military barracks, military units, central public squares, Bolívar Square, and at the headquarters of the popular integral defense bases. This campaign was held and extended to August 30 and 31, and the government announced that the number of militia members had reached 8.5 million and that from now on, their enlistment would be permanent and military training would begin. However, although these figures are dubious, what is certain is that many public sector workers were forced by their employers to enlist as "militiamen".

These announcements are fraught with demagoguery. The government is putting on a political show, taking advantage of the American announcements to elevate its patriotic rhetoric and try to distance the wage-earning masses from their discontent and motivations for class struggle. The Venezuelan militia force is a poorly armed (not to say unarmed) contingent, joined by some of the unemployed and elderly in search of a few crumbs to help them survive. It is employed in institutional security and other tasks that do not involve physical confrontation, combat, or the use of weapons. But these announcements fill the headlines in the war of lies unfolding in the media and social networks.

There has been no shortage of groups and parties that define themselves as "left" that have supported Maduro’s call to enlist as militia members. In this context, calls to assume the role of "patriots and anti-imperialists" are really calls to submit to the bourgeoisie, to withdraw from the class struggle, and to take the counterrevolutionary path.

But the labor movement must react with a class stance, outside the plot of this novel of the bourgeoisie and imperialism. In Venezuela, as in all capitalist countries, the working class does not have to fight against the invasion of an army from another bourgeois state, because the bourgeois government that calls on it to enlist in the militia is always against it: it is its first enemy. The struggle of the working class, as long as it does not seize political power, is not military but social, in defense of wages and better living conditions, and also a political struggle to defeat the power of the bourgeoisie, regardless of whether it considers itself nationalist or a puppet of a foreign power.

There is no alliance with the bourgeoisie or unity for the defense of the homeland. The labor movement must advance its organization for a consistent struggle against capitalists (public and private), for significant increases in wages, pensions, and retirement benefits, a reduction in the working day, a reduction in the retirement age, improved working conditions and hygiene, etc. The call for national unity and the defense of the homeland subjects the working class to the control of the bourgeoisie and its parties. The working class has no homeland.

No alliance with imperialism. Not American, Russian, Chinese, or any other. You cannot confront American imperialism and count the governments and corporations of China, Russia, or any other capitalist power as friends. All capitalist states are enemies of the proletariat.

Promote the GENERAL STRIKE. All workers’ demands must converge in the general strike, which must be an indefinite strike without minimum services and must include workers in both the public and private sectors.

Restore Class-Based Unions. True organizations of consistent struggle for workers’ demands. Confront discrimination and division among workers based on nationality, occupation, religious beliefs, sex, or skin color. Restore assemblies and grassroots organizing. Union organization should be based on the locality where workers reside, rather than on the workplace. Incorporate the unemployed, pensioners, and retirees.