Caracas, Venezuela – On May 1, May Day, in the heart of downtown, 400,000 workers poured into the streets for two reasons: to honor their day, International Workers Day; and to celebrate the defeat of the coup attempt against their elected president Nicolas Maduro.

Chicago, IL – The Venezuelan people continue to suffer terrorist attacks of a style previously unseen in the world.

Chicago, IL – The Venezuelan people continue to suffer terrorist attacks of a style previously unseen in the world.

Chicago, IL – On March 20, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro visited Jipana, a large automated warehouse in the state of Miranda. Built with the cooperation of Chinese experts, Jipana – made up of five warehouses across Venezuela – has the capacity to store and distribute 100% of the antibiotic, hypoglycemic, hypertensive and analgesic needs for the tens of thousands of free community clinics that make up Mission Barrio Adentro, as well as all of the anti-malarial, anti-retroviral, anti-parasitic and contraceptive needs of the Mission's nationwide ambulance service.

Chicago, IL – “The most vile, criminal, cruel and dirty attack that has ever been committed against the people of Venezuela,” – this is how President Nicolás Maduro described the attack on the country's electrical grid, which cut electricity to 90% of its population on March 7. Five days later, power has been restored to most major cities, but much work needs to be done to fully restore the national grid.

Chicago, IL – The eyes of the world are on the Venezuela-Colombia border, as the forces of reaction – the Trump administration, the Lima Group led by Colombia and Brazil, and the far-right Venezuelan opposition – attempt to provoke an invasion of Venezuela under the guise of ‘humanitarian aid.’

Chicago, IL – The contradictions at the heart of Venezuelan society have burst asunder. A fierce struggle is now underway to determine the foundations of the country's future. The Venezuelan bourgeoisie have wholeheartedly decided that they are willing to endure civil war and foreign invasion so long as it leads to the repression of the upright masses. The working class and other popular sectors, meanwhile, can no longer tolerate the economic suffering inflicted upon them from the business owners, and are ready to do battle against any invaders that seek to return their class enemies to power.

Chicago, IL – One week ago, on January 23, a new stage in the Bolivarian Revolution began. The U.S. government and its lackey regimes in Latin America, the so-called “Lima Group,” broke international law and ignored the Venezuelan Constitution by declaring Juan Guaidó – leader of the far-right People's Will Party – the legitimate president of Venezuela, and pompously demanding Nicolás Maduro's resignation.

Chicago, IL – On January 11, the illegal National Assembly of Venezuela decided to ignore the inauguration of Nicolás Maduro and appointed Juan Guaidó, their leader, as the true president of the country. They say that the Constitution grants the nation's highest legislative body the right to appoint a president in the event of a power “vacuum.” This move has won the support of the Organization of American States (OAS), the fascist president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

Chicago, IL – On January 10, Nicolás Maduro was inaugurated to his second term as president of a nation under siege. The United States and its puppets in the region (the 13 governments of the so-called Lima Group, led by Colombia and Brazil) have declared that they will not recognize Maduro as the head of the Venezuelan state. This is in contempt of the 67% of Venezuelans that voted for him in the May presidential election, widely recognized as free and fair by the international community.

Chicago, IL – In the months since President Nicolás Maduro’s re-election, the Venezuelan bourgeoisie – more politically and socially isolated than at any point in their history – has launched into a vicious struggle against the working class, which is rising to a position of revolutionary potential not yet seen.

Chicago, IL – On November 1, John Bolton gave perhaps the sharpest anti-communist speech by a U.S. National Security Advisor since the end of the Cold War. While celebrating the election of far-right thug Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil as a “positive sign” for South America, he condemned Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as “the Troika of Tyranny… the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere.” He declared that all peoples of Latin America should “look to the north, look to our flag” and that soon “the Troika will crumble, the people will triumph, and the righteous flame of freedom will burn brightly again in this hemisphere.”

Milwaukee, WI – Venezuela has been in the news lately. For the first time in decades, the threat of war between the United States and a Latin American country hangs over our hemisphere.

Milwaukee, WI – On August 4, an attempt to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was carried out in Caracas. During a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the Bolivarian National Guard, two drones strapped with explosives flew towards the stage and exploded. While Maduro was unharmed, seven soldiers were wounded.

Milwaukee, WI – For several days, tens of thousands of campesinos have marched into Caracas from every corner of Venezuela – some having traveled for weeks – calling for a revolutionary struggle to resolve the land crisis. Called the “Admirable Campesino March,” the demonstration was organized and led by a number of revolutionary groups, including the Communist Party.

Milwaukee, WI – On May 20, the revolutionary forces of Venezuela won a great victory with the re-election of Nicolás Maduro as president, who received a landslide 67% of the vote. The reactionary opposition parties, stumbling over themselves, ran a sub-par candidate that they could not even unite behind. For the foreseeable future, the political forces of the comprador bourgeoisie are defeated, and they and their imperialist partners will need to explore other means to try to defeat the Bolivarian Revolution. Now is the time for the revolutionary movement to advance, and that is what they are doing.

Milwaukee, WI – In Venezuela's first presidential election since 2013, President Nicolás Maduro was re-elected in a landslide, receiving 67% of the vote in an election where the opposition was deeply divided and unwilling to unite behind a candidate. Henri Falcón, the most prominent opposition figure to run, received the endorsement of only a handful of parties and only got 27% of the vote. The majority of the right-wing opposition refused to even participate, pre-emptively condemning as fraudulent the very electoral system praised by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter as “the best in the world.”

Milwaukee, WI – On May 12, the people of Iraq will be casting ballots for the Council of Representatives, their national legislature, for the third time since the 2003 U.S. invasion. Recent events have further proved that the U.S. failed to establish a new, pro-American order, and instead have emboldened the Iraqi masses to drive imperialism from their land.

On Feb. 7, the Venezuelan government was to sign an “agreement of coexistence” with the reactionary opposition, after months of negotiations. At the last minute, the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) changed its mind and refused. According to Jorge Rodriguez, the chief negotiator for the government, the MUD’s change of heart came after their lead negotiator received a call from the Colombian government.

Milwaukee, WI – On Dec. 18, Donald Trump announced his administration’s National Security Strategy, essentially laying out the worldview of the American ruling class and how the U.S. intends to project its power into the future. All in all, it is more of the same: “peace through strength” by pumping hundreds of billions of dollars away from the needs of the American people and into the Pentagon, border militarization and the use of all means available to extend U.S. influence to every corner of the globe.