Summary of the report presented at the general meeting on January 24–25

Among the scenarios we had hypothesized regarding the evolution of tensions between the United States and Venezuela, it appears that with the military incursion and the abduction of President Maduro on January 3, the intermediate scenario has materialized: attacks against specific targets such as drug trafficking, but without escalating to open military intervention involving the deployment of troops on the ground, as was done in Iraq. U.S. imperialism needs to move quickly to define its geographical sphere of influence against other imperialist powers—notably China—and to seize Venezuela’s rich mineral reserves.

The full significance of Venezuelan oil for the United States will be felt in the medium and long term rather than the short term, as massive investments are required to restore the infrastructure to operation. In the immediate term, the United States will appropriate a larger share of Venezuelan production. By the end of 2025, 27% of Venezuelan oil was sold to the United States, with the remainder going to China and others. The major oil companies summoned by Trump to invest in Venezuela know that for the remainder of this decade, they would be dedicating resources to restoring production infrastructure without reaping any profits. According to the new trade “agreements” between the United States and Venezuela, oil production could reach 1,200,000 barrels in 2026 and continue to rise between 2027 and 2028.

But, however hungry the global oil sharks may be, they need security, guarantees, and legal certainty that they will not lose their investments. In reality, the peace of mind they need is of a political and military nature. The Trump government understands this, so much so that it maintains a military presence in the Caribbean, but there will be no shortage of those who will wait to see how the confrontation with China unfolds and how it might influence investments in Venezuela.

It should be noted that in the oil sector, a symbiosis has developed between the United States and Venezuela over the past decades; refineries in the southern United States, primarily in Texas, were designed to process the heavy, sulfur-rich crude from Venezuela and Mexico. Since the shale oil currently produced by the United States is very light, Gulf Coast facilities must blend it with heavy crude.

In the new situation, the United States intends to shift from controlling Venezuelan oil through sanctions to “operational and financial dominance” over Venezuelan oil with the support of the ruling Chavismo, placing Venezuela in a status equivalent to a protectorate. And even if Chavismo were to be replaced by a new political actor, it has developed strong ties with the Venezuelan bourgeoisie and controls all institutions: the “transition” could take years. And the U.S. government knows that at the moment there is no party capable of replacing Chavismo without the support of troops on the ground, as it sought to do in Iraq.

Within a matter of days, if not hours, both the U.S. and Venezuelan governments have made rapid progress on a series of measures aimed at facilitating the entry of Western oil companies as part of an investment plan proposed by Washington. This plan includes U.S. government-backed company asset security guarantees, control over oil sales proceeds—which will be deposited in accounts controlled by the U.S. Treasury at international banks—and the mandatory use of U.S. technology, future capital expenditures earmarked for the purchase of platforms, pipelines, and equipment manufactured exclusively in the United States. The first proceeds from sales have already been deposited in Qatar, worth approximately $300 million, and will be transferred from there to the Central Bank of Venezuela, which in turn will distribute them among five private banks that will make the funds available to businesses in priority economic sectors.

It is estimated that by 2026, Venezuela could receive approximately $12 billion in revenue from sales (which would increase not so much due to higher production as to the application of market prices rather than black-market prices, which have been suppressed by U.S. sanctions), as well as from the release of funds withheld by the IMF and other credits. Consequently, significant growth in the Venezuelan economy is projected for 2026.

These concessions from Washington and Caracas were so well-coordinated and swift that it is evident the plan had been devised long in advance by both parties and agreed upon many months before the military action on January 3. The sanctions were an obstacle not only to the Venezuelan government, the Central Bank, and companies such as PDVSA and others, but also to the multinationals themselves: Chevron could exceed 200,000 barrels per day by the end of 2026.

The U.S. government has resumed issuing entry visas to Venezuelans and is coordinating the reopening of the embassy in Caracas. It has also released Venezuela’s funds held by the IMF and reinstated the country in the SWIFT system, from which it had been excluded due to sanctions.

The trust fund soon to be established by the United States has been named the “Tripartite Custodianship Agreement,” under an agreement between the governments of the United States, Venezuela, and Qatar; its Management Committee consists of a delegate from the U.S. Treasury, representatives from 14 oil companies, and the Venezuelan government, which therefore cannot dispose of its assets. Through this trust fund, the United States will put a cryptocurrency called the “digital dollar,” or “digital bolivar,” into circulation, which is supposed to maintain a constant 1:1 parity with the dollar, guaranteed by the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, Venezuela’s bourgeois government—which still declares itself Chavista—has, in perfect sync with the United States, presented a reform of the Hydrocarbons Law to the National Assembly to loosen state control and attract foreign investment.

The so-called “Chevron model” will be legally permitted, granting foreign companies much broader operational control and greater autonomy in managing oil fields and marketing crude oil, thereby superseding the current provisions governing joint ventures controlled by PDVSA and ensuring legal certainty for these companies.

Part of the oil revenues would be allocated to social protection, healthcare, public services, and the reconstruction of infrastructure, the electrical grid, and the industrial sector. The pricing law will also be revised, subject to agreement with companies (as was already the case in practice), primarily regarding goods and services for popular consumption.

A reduction in the tax burden and royalties from the current 30% is planned, along with a reduction in the state’s stake from 51% of the shareholding in joint ventures. Administrative procedures have also been simplified, and a revision of the civil, commercial, and criminal codes is underway. Reform of the mining law is underway “to attract significant international investment” in the extraction of gold, coal, iron, and bauxite.

But, even if less is said about it, a reform of labor law is in the air, aimed at eliminating the retroactive application of social benefits, removing obstacles to outsourcing and precarious employment, and addressing long-standing demands from business owners. Regarding wages and pensions in the immediate term, while the legal framework is being rethought, the government is announcing special bonuses.

The U.S. government’s intention is to restore historical production levels (between 3 and 3.5 million barrels per day) to bring the price of oil down to around $50. However, firms like Wood Mackenzie and Columbia University warn that 2 million barrels per day won’t be reached until 2030, and it will take a full decade to reach 3.5 million. Trump has stated that “Big Oil,” the major oil companies, should invest at least $100 billion. Experts agree; $10 billion per year will be needed over the next 10 years.

While U.S. imperialism carries out this aggressive operation, we have not observed any decisive reactions from Chinese or Russian imperialism. Russia has stated that its companies will continue to operate normally in Venezuela. The government has declared that it will maintain diplomatic and commercial relations with China and other countries.

The Metamorphosis of Bourgeois Democracy

Meanwhile, the “Chavista” government has ensured the functioning of institutions and peace in the workplace. The protests against the abduction of Maduro and his wife are being promoted by the government. The release of approximately 200 prisoners out of the more than 800 detained since the post-election period of 2024 has begun slowly; union leaders remain in prison. It is important for the United States that Venezuela maintain social peace, that nothing disrupts the operations of the oil companies.

Under the national state of emergency declared by the government, there have been some arrests—isolated and unclear in nature—on charges of “inciting hatred and treason against the homeland” and for “supporting the U.S. attack against Venezuela.” However, the government has exercised restraint in its repression, though without reducing the deployment of police forces on the streets.

Various scenarios are being hypothesized by the bourgeoisie and the parties within the bourgeois democratic spectrum, ranging from the maintenance of Chavism’s “21st-century socialism”—with some figures replaced—to a “democratic transition” via a national emergency government led by opposition politicians.

U.S. imperialism will impose the solution that allows it to achieve its objectives at the lowest possible cost and, above all, without having to deploy troops on the ground. In the context of the global inter-imperialist conflict, Venezuela is merely a pawn, the theater of broader operations.

Obviously, we are talking about the possible trajectories of the situation within the framework of bourgeois democracy and capitalism—whether in its fascist or formally electoral forms—which have nothing to do with revolutionary scenarios. Nor are they progressive or reactionary in terms of the bourgeois organization of nations and states.

For the workers’ movement, whatever course the political transition in Venezuela takes, it will amount to a change in the administrators of the interests of the bourgeoisie and imperialism—new faces of the proletariat’s class enemies. Under capitalism, any type of government is the management committee of the bourgeois class, with the function of defending the broader interests of national capital. Even when some ruler believes himself to be the General, in reality he is nothing more than a sergeant. While the right and the reformist left dream of a “democratic transition,” the workers’ movement must break with this tangle of confusion and return to the path from which it has strayed for a century: the program of revolution.

Lost Patriotism

In Venezuela, too, the lie of defending the nation, the homeland, and sovereignty has been spectacularly debunked. It was, however, a bourgeois myth, monstrously embraced by the unions and the falsely left-wing parties. Chavismo, already a fervent champion of Bolivarian ideology and patriotism, despite the outrage of the kidnapping of Maduro and his wife on January 3, immediately bowed down before Trump’s boorish daily demands. Yet all the leaders of Chavismo had sworn, before the U.S. attack, “in the face of any imperialist aggression, the Venezuelan government will not hand over even a single barrel of oil to the United States”—which was already a falsehood, given that they had never acted against Chevron, the sanctions, or the economic blockade.

Now they cynically claim that there is no problem with expanding oil deals with the United States—which are normal in relations between two countries—as if the legitimate incumbent president were not in prison in New York and as if those killed at Fuerte Tiuna had not been gunned down by the Marines.

The Venezuelan people, raised on the ideology of defending the homeland since elementary school and on Chavismo as a Bolivarian bulwark, would have expected an attitude opposite to the current government’s diplomatic complacency toward the United States. But the current government, still Chavista, has stated that it maintains trade relations and delivers oil to the United States because it “practices Bolivarian diplomacy of peace.” Conversely, the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Caracas is planned.

The patriotic narrative is collapsing, not only that of Chavismo but also that of the opposition, which is itself patriotic and subservient to the interests of the national bourgeoisie. The opposition builds its argument on two fronts: on the one hand, unity with Chavismo, “because above party lines we are all Venezuelans,” and it raises no objections to concessions to the United States regarding oil; on the other hand, it approves the U.S. invasion for the “fight against drug trafficking.”

Thus, even the so-called “democratic opposition” has lowered the banners of defending the homeland, whether it remains in the shadow of Chavism or brazenly kowtows to Trump. The Chavistas mock the opposition because Trump has scorned opposition leader María Corina Machado; the democratic opposition mocks the Chavistas for bowing to Trump’s orders. Meanwhile, Trump meets with and lectures both Delsy Rodríguez and María Corina Machado. Both factions of bourgeois politicians are scrambling to prove to U.S. imperialism that they are the most reliable option to defend its interests in Venezuela. This is the caricatured reality of Venezuelan patriotism.

Workers, bewildered by the propaganda of both bourgeois fronts for decades, suddenly find themselves facing a theater of the absurd, a scenario that refutes all the justifications used to try to divert them from the struggle for their true class interests.

But patriotic propaganda is already echoing south of the Rio Grande. The national bourgeoisies are threatened by U.S. imperialism, and to defend their businesses—which grow only through the brutal exploitation of wage earners—they call on them to make sacrifices. The governments of Latin America are indeed on alert, but willing to negotiate with imperialism for their slice of the pie, within that economic space they call their homeland.

Whatever the outcome of this imperialist division, nothing but exploitation awaits the working class, while the natural resources of the various countries will go to swell the bank accounts of national and foreign capitalists. With greater or lesser penetration of private and foreign capital into the various sectors of the economy, the working class must clearly identify its class enemy. It does not matter to them whether the ownership structure of companies is predominantly state-owned or private, and it is an illusion to think that their situation will improve with the arrival of multinationals and Western capital: these vultures compete with one another based exclusively on the misery of wage workers. Neither gains nor demands will be granted without a determined struggle.

The Stateless Class

The working class and all strata oppressed by capital are the “cannon fodder” that will be sent to the front under national flags. The attitude of communists is against imperialist war: the working class has no homeland to defend. On the contrary, it will engage in revolutionary defeatism; proletarian soldiers, led by their communist party, will turn their weapons against the bourgeoisie and its governments in every country.

Along with bourgeois politicians and the fake left, the trade union federations and central bodies have maintained a complicit silence and have not promoted any workers’ mobilization, which places them on the side of the enemies of the working class. Only a few exceptions have proposed struggle, albeit with nationalist, legalistic, democratic, and bourgeois aims.

Moreover, in Venezuela, none of the imperialist powers (the United States, China, Russia, Iran, etc.) is actually interested in preventing drug trafficking, international law, respect for democracy, or human rights. All are driven by economic interests, by control over the production and commercialization of oil, gas, gold, etc., each seeking to obtain the largest slice of the pie.

And this struggle includes the Venezuelan bourgeoisie, whether it is represented by Chavismo, the “democratic opposition,” or the infamous “left” that speaks of “democratic socialism,” a “workers’ and people’s plan,” and even the “defense of the constitution.”It is an illusion to think that the imperialist powers will sit down at a table to agree on how to divide up the world.

World War III is inevitable. The U.S. attack on Venezuela on January 3 and the threats against Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, and Greenland are only the latest moves by one imperialist power to seize the initiative from its Chinese, Russian, and other rivals, drawing demarcation lines over what it considers its own domains. The division of the world, of markets, of raw materials, of strategically valuable areas, of currencies, and of capital, will occur only as a result of conflict and the testing of strength, with all the destruction and death that this entails.

In Venezuela as well, whatever the situation may be, the working class must take the autonomous path of organizing itself and fighting for its demands, starting with a significant increase in wages and pensions. The convergence of the workers’ movement into an indefinite general strike with no essential services will become the best expression of the unity of action among wage workers. This resurgence of the class struggle will clash with the entire spectrum of bourgeois parties and with the leaders of the regime’s treacherous trade unionism.

The transformation of the economic struggle into a political struggle—into the proletariat’s struggle for the seizure of power—will depend on the degree of influence the revolutionary party manages to achieve.