By Geraldina Colotti, on December 26, 2024.
There is a calendar of the peoples and one from those who oppress them, elaborated on the basis of the irreconcilable interests that drives the class struggle, and are confusing only in those countries where the bourgeoisie won the game in the 20th century, managing to impose the “truth” of the victors: but only “for now”, as Comandante Chávez said, when he delivered a promise with that phrase.
That this promise has been fulfilled with the Bolivarian revolution, and that it continues advancing towards a transition to socialism boasting of one more year of resistance, is a strong thorn in the side of a capitalism in systemic crisis, which is leading the world to catastrophe.
In order to impose the strategy of “controlled chaos” also in Latin America – a continent still free of armed conflicts and which, on January 28-29, 2014, a Celac summit declared a “zone of peace” – NATO-led imperialism must wrench that thorn from its side at all costs: submerging Bolivarian socialism under a cloak of lies, to prepare a larger-scale attack with uncertain results.
If, in fact, Donald Trump’s first administration exacerbated and multiplied the system of illegal unilateral coercive measures put in place with Obama’s decree (which defined Venezuela as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the security of the United States”), the second, which will formally begin on January 20, promises to be no different. After winning the November 5 elections, the tycoon announced that some of the most bitter representatives in the persecution of socialist governments in Latin America, such as Marco Rubio and Elon Musk, will be part of his senior staff. The senator from Florida, known for his hawkish positions against China, against Cuba (from where his family fled during Bautista), against Venezuela and Nicaragua, will have the role of Secretary of State. For having mobilized the “Latino” vote in favor of Trump, he will be the first head of diplomacy of Hispanic origin.
Musk, the South African-born entrepreneur, naturalized US citizen and ultra-conservative guru of social networks, will take the direction of the Department for Government Efficiency which has the task of “dismantling government bureaucracy”: that is, to reduce to zero any state intervention in the economy.
What Musk’s political vision is was seen with the award given to the Italian prime minister (who heads a far-right government). And it is reflected in the open support he has expressed for the German Nazis: “Only the AfD can save Germany,” he wrote in X regarding the far right party that now ranks second in German polls, and relaunched the figure of Naomi Seibt, an influencer known as “the anti-Greta” in the far-right circles to which she belongs.
Musk has distinguished himself for his conspiracy theories, in line with the culture that feeds Trumpism and his followers, diversely modulated, internationally. Trump’s second term presents a different “American dream” from his first turbulent administration, characterized by a whirlwind of appointments and replacements.
For this second term, his think tanks have molded a more “appealing” mix, one that seeks to reconcile conspiracy theorists with under-educated rural people and the world’s richest men equally that are even more rabid, misogynistic and racist, but with a full wallet and finances that promise to propel “high tech into the future.”
A mixture of conservative ultra-radicalism at the ideological level, combining the subversivism of the ruling classes, determined to attack from within (and from the point of view of the oligarchy) the framework of the bourgeois state, and the preservation of identity, thrown headlong against the “politically correct” ballet of a certain traditional left, which has separated social rights and basic rights, leaving a vacuum to fill.
A vision that moves the new international ultra-right, desired by Trump in his first term, on the paradigms of the Republican Convention refounded for him by Steve Bannon, and formalized in Spain by the Vox party in 2020. Then, the main representatives of fascism signed the Madrid Charter, expressing the decision to enter into a frontal clash with socialism in all its forms, and also with progressivism, identified at the time with the Puebla Group.
Among the first signatories were the coup leader María Corina Machado and the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni. The arrows of the extreme right, then as now, pointed to the São Paulo Forum, where the idea of several international congresses took shape, with which to give the peoples of the world the opportunity to counteract the advance of “fascism, Nazism and other similar experiences”.
Congresses that took place in Venezuela, a country that has become the engine of a new anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-neocolonial and anti-patriarchal International. A proposal that is projected next year when popular delegates from all over the world will accompany the president, Nicolás Maduro to the National Assembly, to formalize his third mandate, after the presidential victory of last July 28.
A clash of concepts between a proposal for peace with social justice, based on socialism and respect for sovereignty and differences, and the aggressive return of a new Monroe Doctrine for Latin America. A battle between the “liberating communication” in resistance, in which the peoples are the protagonists of their own history and destiny, and the adulterated and harmful communication, imposed by the great international monopolies, whose aggression against Bolivarian socialism and against the Latin American integration system, has also characterized 2024.
The battle of ideas, which has been consolidated in LAUICOM, the International University of Communication, directed by the rector Tania Diaz, will accompany the World Anti-Fascist Festival, from January 7 to 16 in Caracas, organizing the Third International Congress of Communication, on January 11, 12 and 13, with the purpose of organizing the liberating communication in the digital era of the XXI Century.
Let’s go through in this perspective the economic-political knot that marked the 2024 calendar, under the oblique gaze of vultures and false “democrats”, in contrast with that of the people marching behind the flag of Bolivarian socialism.
“With Maduro, the economy collapsed”
We have read many times this mantra, one of the most popular of the Venezuelan ultra-right, amplified by all media and social networks. War propaganda that does not include the causes that produce the impoverishment of a country, subjected for years to illegal unilateral coercive sanctions by those same imperialist power centers that then commission these negative investigations. And who, obviously, keep silent about those responsible for the collapse of state revenues in Venezuela, and also hide the costs that will be assumed by following a different path from that of the bourgeoisie, which imposes tears and blood on the popular sectors to make ends meet.
When presenting the year-end budget and submitting to Parliament for its approval the budget for 2025, the Vice President, Delcy Rodriguez, announced that, also for next year, more than 75% of the State revenues will be destined to social projects: that is, coverage of health, education, culture, etc. In European and Latin American capitalist countries, these are “costs” that must be cut in order to achieve the famous “balanced budget”, imposed by the large international institutions.
A very asymmetrical “balance” for the popular sectors, which pay all the costs of the neoliberal policies and of the arms race that guides the orientation of the European Union, vassal of NATO and the United States.
Just to compare some numbers. In Argentina, where the “Milei model” prevails, that is, a mixture of libertarian potions inspired by the economist Murray Rothbard and ultra-liberal ones like those of Milton Friedman, who wants to eliminate the presence of the State in the economy, there has been a real social carnage: poverty is at the highest level of the last twenty years. In the first six months of the government of the “chainsaw madman”, it rose to 52.9%, with an increase of almost 12 percentage points compared to the previous semester.
In addition to cutting social programs, Milei has carried out massive layoffs of 34,000 public employees.
On the other hand, despite the siege to which it is subjected, the Venezuelan economy grew by 8.5% in the first three quarters of 2024, confirming a positive trend of 14 quarters, and today it manages to produce almost 90% of its food needs.
Data released by specialized international institutions indicate that Venezuela is the fastest growing country in the region, despite the siege to which it is subjected by unilateral coercive measures and induced inflation. A trend that promises to be reconfirmed in 2025.
But then the so-called “independent agencies” appear, ready to produce other statistics that, when they simply cannot refute international economic indicators, muddy the waters and speak of “opacity”. And, meanwhile, they raise a fuss against the approval of the law that imposes transparency in the financing of the NGOs present, as happened in August 2024 with the Law of Fiscalization, Regularization, Performance and Financing of Non-Governmental Organizations and Non-Profit Social Organizations.
The stores and supermarkets are full of people, but the war propaganda continues to do its dirty work: insisting on the issue of the low salaries of public employees who, certainly, were not fired en masse as in Argentina, but were the most affected by the drastic reduction of state revenues.
On May 1, Maduro ordered an increase in the minimum wage, equivalent to US$ 130 per month, subsidies included. A “social wage” measure, intended to prevent speculation from pulverizing the increase with the usual attack on the currency and the increase in induced inflation.
And, even in this case, the cries of the Right arose, suddenly becoming the defender of those same rights that they consider used paper in all the countries where they have returned to government. In Italy, where the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, worships Milei and Trump, the right wing wants to impose a 7,000 euro raise on its parliamentarians, while workers’ starvation wages (the lowest in Europe) and pensions have not increased for years, and are eaten up by taxes, inflation and blatant price increases, with which imperialist wars are financed.
The meager subsidies decided by the previous government have also been eliminated, and meanwhile the new poor are increasing, who, in spite of working, do not make ends meet.
“Guyana is richer, while Venezuela is in crisis.”
Since the beginning of the year, war propaganda has bombarded the world with data from the International Monetary Fund, according to which, between now and 2028, Guyana will continue to register a growth rate of 13.5%, thanks to the discovery of new and rich oil deposits in “its” territorial waters. Data disseminated to hide or minimize the increase in illegal drilling in the area in dispute with Venezuela, the Essequibo territory, which historically belongs to the Bolivarian country.
In response to the increase in illegal drilling and the increasingly imposing presence of US military bases and the Southern Command in the area, in April 2024, the Venezuelan parliament approved the Organic Law for the Defense of the Essequibo Guiana declaring the Essequibo as Venezuela’s 24th state. A law that ratified the result of the five-point popular referendum, voted by an overwhelming majority in December 2023.
But the war propaganda intends to distort the facts. On the one hand, the objective is to present Venezuela as the aggressor, discrediting the integrationist potential of Bolivarian policy towards the countries of the region (in this case, “weaker” Guyana); on the other, to imply that the economy of the South can only grow with the “protection” of the United States; and finally, to launch an imperialist warning to the sovereignty of Venezuela, threatening to destabilize its borders.
In this context, the countries of Alba, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, founded by Cuba and Venezuela, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2024, look with concern at what is happening in an Ecuador that has returned to the right. Not only did the government of Daniel Noboa allow the return of U.S. military bases to the country, but also decided to grant permission to the United States to establish another in the Galapagos Islands.
And popular organizations preparing for the February 2025 elections in Ecuador have raised the alarm, denouncing that the country is becoming an active destabilization center for Venezuela in the run-up to January 10.