Image is of military and civilian sites across Caracas which were bombed by the United States as of last weekend.
As everybody has already known for a couple days, the US has abducted Maduro and his wife in a massive operation (of which the exact details are not currently known, but involved hundreds of aircraft and at least some bombing of military and civilian targets), and has threatened Venezuela and the socialist party with further abductions and widespread murder if they do not hand over control of the country directly to the United States. In a statement that really says it all, Trump said that Machado is not being considered for the colonial viceroy position due to her sheer unpopularity. Various parties and countries around the world - and inside the US - have expressed their disapproval, which, as we all know, will not shift US foreign policy a single iota.
A few months ago, when the pressure campaign on Venezuela began, I speculated that Maduro was going to be killed or captured eventually. Flagrantly illegal and violent American military campaigns in Latin America are not new. The US has been invading land, looting banks, assassinating democratically elected leaders, and otherwise overthrowing countries in the region for their own economic benefit for the better part of two centuries, under both Democratic and Republican parties. Unfortunately, we all know that Russia and China are unlikely to do anything meaningful to contest the US in their attempt to more violently assert hegemony in Latin America. I doubt very much that the China of today will come out to bat for Venezuela and start meaningfully pressuring the US economically. For better and worse, we are far from the days of the USSR.
However, Latin America has, historically, met the US in its radicalism, committed to wars of anti-colonial nationalism, and carried out successful revolutions against the dictators placed in control from the US. As history continues ever onwards and conditions develop, I can only assume that we shall once again enter that radicalizing cycle. In that vein, the big question on my mind, and everybody else’s, is: what comes next? Does the Venezuelan socialist party have the social and military cohesion to wage a years-long guerilla war against occupying troops? Can they quickly transition from a conventional to guerilla force as their military facilities are bombed, or will it take several years? Can they prevent the theft of their oil resources and make the attempt at foreign occupation more costly in both the manpower and economic costs than what that war will generate? Can Venezuela manufacture weapons for this guerilla war in a state of blockade? Will this military campaign begin immediately upon soldiers landing, or will it take a period of relatively unopposed occupation of months or even years? Will Cuba, Colombia, and even Mexico be in the same situation by the end of the year, with abducted leaders?
Yemen is the very recent proof that seemingly weak countries can force the American military to retreat in defeat. Can Venezuela follow? We shall see what Maduro has done to prepare the country for this war very soon. The only certain thing is that the murderous violence propagated by a trembling and dying empire shall be defeated eventually, whether it takes months, years, or decades, and the end result will be a socialist victory.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
With Trump stating that shipments of oil from Venezuela to China will be allowed, coupled with the threats on Mexico, I am becoming increasingly worried that the primary target of all of this is Cuba and to force the government there to collapse by destroying their economy (no oil).
I don’t think this is Trump’s plan, this is all Rubio.
It seems like regarding Venezuela, the US’ plan is less about controlling production and more about distribution. No reason to think they will allow VZ to ship oil to Cuba.
As many here have pointed out, attacking Mexico doesn’t make sense. However, I think the plan is to scare Mexico into allowing the US to have a say in who Mexico is allowed to trade with. And Mexico ships a not insignificant amount of oil to Cuba. This would seemingly align with Sheinbaum’s odd statement about how they have not increased oil shipments to Cuba recently, trying to avoid the attention of the US.
If the US can cut off oil shipments from Mexico and Venezuela to Cuba, I don’t know how Cuba will get critical oil supplies delivered.
Beyond Cuba, it seems to me the US is looking to control trade flows for the entire western hemisphere. The idea is to not only increase the exploitation the US imposes, but to control those trade relationships between Latin America and the rest of the world, to serve the US’ purposes.
I am not someone who is prone to geopolitical pessimism; and I know the commitment to the revolution the Cuban people hold in their hearts… but I am really worried for Cuba right now.
Good comment. US is the largest petroleum exporter. As much as Venezuela has, it was never about getting more oil, but about control of oil. Vijay Prashad had this same take a few days ago.
Other reserves haven’t dropped to the point where the heavy crude from VZ will be profitable to exploit (large scale) yet. It’s about future production, not current production. And I think Trump doesn’t understand the difference. He wants U.S. oil companies to go in big, and they’re like, “Not worth it yet.” Oopsie.
The US will absolutely try shit with Cuba, but what can they try that they haven’t done before and why should the Cuban revolution fail this time?
Revolutions seem to become more brittle over time when the people alive no longer remember what the previous state of their country was like.
If they do not remember what the revolution saved them from in living memory, it leaves the people less motivated to defend it.
The Soviet Union fell to, frankly, pretty minor issues compared to ten million Nazis with all of Europe behind them marching in to destroy communism.
the USSR didn’t fall for nothing, it was imperialist meddling bullshit, and seemingly apathy of newer generations when the moment came
Engagement in the democratic system by the populace, is more important than remembering how bad your grandmother struggled, in terms of protecting the revolution. People have yo be engaging because they believe in it, not for a cynical reason, it’s what you do
I’ve read some about the democratic process in Cuba and Venezuela that give me a lot of hope
One of the guys on RNW once said something along the lines of that Putin will remain in power for as long as their are enough people alive who remember what it was like to live under Boris Yeltsin.
External pressure on a nation is often unifying though, whereas internal splits are much more damaging. That’s why imperialists pump so much money into funding compradors.
Overt military pressure, yes. Economic pressure, I don’t agree. It’s one thing when you see the planes bombing you vs when you rely on macro data of your state apparatus vs propaganda by the greatest ideological hegemon in the world.
I agree, that internal issues tend to have outsized impact. But I also can’t see the USSR of the 50s falling to those issue. As always it will be a multitude of factors that bring down a revolution.
This is defeatist and undialectical nonsense. If you really believe this, why even be a communist?
It’s undeniable that revolutions that fail to produce continuing benefits for the populace eventually become more vulnerable to outside attack. Denying that is burying your head in the sand, call whatever you want.
Communist China is the last remaining communist super power in large part because it continually improves the standard of living and material interests of its populace.
The point of a revolution is to be better for the working class than what came before it.
What part is “undialectical”?