Saturday,
January 3, 2026
THE UNITED STATES
SUPPORTS COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN LATIN AMERICA: SEEKS TO ROLL BACK THE BOLIVARIAN
REVOLUTION
Harry
Targ
Make
no mistake about it. The brutal murders and kidnapping of the president of
Venezuela is designed to crush the spirit of the Bolivarian project. And all
the US media, while implicitly critical of the military action, make sure to
refer to Maduro as an authoritarian. They feature in their stories the
celebration of Venezuelans in Miami. And references to the difficulties of the
Venezuelan economy make no mention of US sanctions.
(Originally posted May 3, 2016: This
essay from a decade ago describes the efforts of Venezuela, Cuba, and other
Latin American countries to break away from US hegemony. It suggests that the
desired regional transformation had some successes and then reversals during
the first 15 years of the new century. The US military coup in Venezuela on
January 3, 2026, signifies a dramatic almost complete reversal of the
Bolivarian Project. It remains to be seen how the peoples of Venezuela and
Latin America in general respond to this seeming reemergence of US imperialism
in the region. And if the Bolivarian spirit survives it should be vigorously
supported by peace and justice activists in North America.,)
Peoples Dispatch photo
The Bolivarian
Revolution, the formation of intergovernmental organizations in the Global
South, buoyant economic growth among some of the poorer countries, and the
spread of anti-austerity grassroots social movements everywhere have
sent shock waves across the international system. The world is experiencing a
global transformation potentially as great as when the nation-state system was
constructed out of feudalism in the seventeenth century or the multipolar world
was transformed into a bipolar one after World War II. Similar dramatic changes
resulted from the collapse of the bipolar Cold War world to a unipolar one
after the collapse of the Socialist Bloc. This time countries of the Global
South and mass movements of workers, youth, indigenous people, and people of
color are taking center stage.
The Bolivarian Revolution Spreads Across Latin America
The Bolivarian Revolution was the name given by former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to the populist revolution he initiated in his country. Elected in 1998, he embarked on policies to empower the poor, spread literacy, expand access to health care, build worker cooperatives, and modestly redistribute wealth and power from the rich to the poor. His vision was to constitute an economic and political program designed to reverse the neoliberal policy agenda embraced by his predecessors. The oil-rich country, collaborating with revolutionary Cuba, initiated a campaign to make real the nineteenth century dream of Simon Bolivar to create a united and sovereign South America, free from imperial rule. Inspired by grassroots movements, populists governments came to power in Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Honduras, and Nicaragua. More cautious but left-of-center governments emerged in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.
Venezuela and Cuba established the eleven nation Bolivarian Alternatives for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) in 2004; Venezuela, Cuba and several other Caribbean countries created, in 2005, Petrocaribe, a trade organization, primarily dealing with oil. In the Hemisphere, twelve South American countries constructed the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) in 2008 and the 33 nation Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) was established in 2011. All of these organizations were inspired by the vision of expanding regional economic and political sovereignty as opposed to the traditional United States hegemony in the region. Primarily they challenged the neoliberal model of economic development.
Setbacks
The successes of the spreading popular movements of the first decade of the twenty-first century were paralleled by buoyant economic growth throughout Latin America. Moises Naim, (“The Coming Turmoil in Latin America,” The Atlantic, October 9, 2015) pointed out that all of Latin America experienced economic growth from 2004 to 2013 due to expanding commodity trade with Asia and increased foreign investments in the region. The major economic player in the region was China. However, comparing 2003-2010 growth rates with 2010-2015, the author reported that rates of growth during the second period were only forty percent of what they were in the first.
With slower growth, declining currency values, higher unemployment and declining social benefits, the narrowing of economic inequality in the region and rising benefits for the poor have been reversed. As The Economist put it in June 27, 2015, “Latin America’s economy is screeching to a halt; it managed growth of just 1.3% last year. This year’s figure will be only 0.9%, reckons the IMF, which would mark the fifth successive year of deceleration….Many reckon it now faces a ‘new normal’ of growth of just-2-3% a year. That would jeopardize recent social gains; already the fall in poverty has halted.”
In 2007, Naomi Klein published a fascinating book called The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. In it she develops the idea of the shock doctrine, paying homage to the source of the concept, Milton Friedman, the renowned free market economist. From one of his essays she quotes the following: “…only a crisis--actual or perceived--produces real change. When the crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.” The shock doctrine is illustrated by the fact that the declining growth rates in Latin America have been coupled with reactionary political forces in Latin America (and their US friends) becoming re-energized to stifle and dismantle the gains of the Bolivarian revolution and to reverse the gains made by the popular classes.
On June 28, 2009 there was a military coup in Honduras, ousting democratically-elected Manuel Zelaya from office. Zelaya, who sympathized with the Bolivarian Revolution, was formally replaced in a November, 2009 election that was designed to give legitimacy to the coup. The Honduran coup, in retrospect, signaled a return to destabilization by the wealthy classes of the popular currents represented by the Bolivarian Revolution everywhere.
While Brazil’s Workers Party candidate Dilma Rousseff won reelection as president in October 2014, her victory margin was the narrowest (51.6 percent to 48.4 percent) of the four races in which the center/left Workers Party was victorious. The split between the left/center and right wing forces set the stage for the 2016 campaign by the wealthy to impeach Rousseff for corruption.
Further, in what was called by the New York Times a “transformative election,” the Argentinian people elected as president right-wing advocate of the disastrous neoliberal economic agenda, Mauricio Macri, the mayor of Buenos Aires. Despite the success of prior governments in resisting destructive IMF demands for debt restructuring, Macri promises to return to the policies of the 1990s that led to economic crisis. As the Macri-sympathetic Times editorial put it: “Reforming the stagnant economy will be painful in the short run, but could make Argentina more attractive to foreign investors” (November 26, 2015).
Nicolas Maduro won a narrow presidential victory over a rightwing candidate in Venezuela’s April 14, 2013 election to replace his deceased popular predecessor, Hugo Chavez. Over the next two years, opposition forces engaged in periodic street protests, many in wealthier parts of Venezuelan cities. Coupled with growing economic problems and domestic violence, leaders of the major opposition political party have sought to mobilize support to overthrow the Maduro government and the reforms put in place by Hugo Chavez. In a March 27, 2014 account of anti-government protests, the BBC reported that; “The government’s popularity remains high amid its working-class voters, who gave it a further boost in local elections in December.” However, in December, 2015, an anti-government coalition took two-thirds of the parliamentary seats in the most recent election. Almost immediately, opposition politicians began efforts to overturn the popular reforms of the Chavez era and to launch a campaign to impeach Maduro from the presidency.
The United States Role
Throughout the period since the political arrival of Hugo Chavez on the scene in Latin America, the United States has stood in opposition to the Bolivarian Revolution. The United States gave at least tacit support to the failed military coup in Venezuela in 2002. Neighboring Colombia received funds to continue the “war on drugs” while the United States built seven military installations around that country to “protect” Colombia from an “aggressive” Venezuela. In subsequent years, the U.S. Congress has imposed partial embargoes on the visitation rights of selected Venezuelan government officials. Also, the United States has provided funding, training, and educational opportunities to Venezuelans who have played prominent roles in opposition to the Chavez government. It continues to condemn Venezuela’s policies at home, projecting the image that it represents the same kind of threat to the hemisphere that the Cuban revolutionary government represented in the 1960s.
The U.S. government mildly condemned the Honduran coup (compared with statements from the Organization of American States and other nations in the hemisphere). Subsequently it endorsed the November, 2009 election in that country, as presidential candidate Hillary Clinton suggested, to give legitimacy to the coup. Since then, the United States has ignored the grotesque human rights violations and assassinations of opponents of the Honduran government.
And very recently a politician in the impeachment bloc in Brazil visited Washington, meeting foreign policy officials who deal with Latin America and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Given the twenty-first century challenges the Bolivarian Revolution represent to the Washington Consensus and the neoliberal agenda in the Western Hemisphere, the recent visits by President Obama to Cuba and Argentina represent metaphorically imperialism’s response. The President on the one hand is dramatically reordering the US/Cuba relationship, but is doing so in a way to pressure the Cubans to adopt a US/style political system and a market-based open capitalist economic system.
And his visit to Argentina, just after the Cuba visit, was designed to signal to Argentina and the entire Hemisphere that the United States is committed to a return to neoliberal economic policies. These policies, as always, benefit the rich at the expense of the popular classes. Concretely they include;
-reversing the Cuban revolutionary model
-reinforcing Argentina’s return to dependency on the international financial system
-encouraging impeachments of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil and Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela
As Eric Draitser (“Hillary Clinton and Wall Street’s Neoliberal War on Latin America,” Telesur, April 29, 2016) suggests: “Since the rise of Hugo Chavez Latin America has gone its own way, democratizing and moving away from its former status as a ‘American Backyard.’ With Hillary Clinton and Wall Street working hand in hand with their right wing proxies in Latin America, Washington looks to reassert its control. And it is the people of the region who will pay the price.”
However, it may be the case that the popular classes, tasting some of the benefits of the transition to socialism in the twenty-first century, will resist the attempts in the region to reestablish US hegemony and the neoliberal agenda. The outcome is yet to be determined.
JUDGING THE JULY 28, 2024 ELECTION IN VENEZUELA FROM A PEACE MOVEMENT PERSPECTIVE
Harry Targ
Sunday, August 11, 2024
“And so, on election day, just after
polls closed and before any official results had been released, Machado
and Washington, as if in concert, began to bleat about fraud, building
on a line of attack that they had been establishing for months. Machado’s
followers immediately took to the streets and attacked symbols of
Chavismo…” (*from V J Prashad).
https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/venezuela-elections-2024/
PRESS RELEASE: National
Lawyers Guild electoral observers praise fairness, transparency of Venezuelan
election process; condemn the U.S. backed opposition’s refusal to accept the
outcome of democratic election
“The US secretary of state has said
there was "overwhelming evidence" Venezuela's opposition won the
recent presidential election.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd1d10453zno
Since the
Venezuelan elections many pundits and politicians have spoken about the outcome
of the Venezuelan elections. The US statement by Secretary of State Blinken
sounds like the scripts that he and others have trotted out before. These
scripts have paralleled embarrassing US efforts to identify and support
candidates running against the Venezuelan revolutionary
governments, unsuccessful economic embargoes designed to starve the
workers and peasants into surrender, and US policies designed to serve the rich
minorities of Latin Americans, at home or in Florida.
In V J Prashad’s essay he suggests
that supporters of the founders of the Bolivarian Revolution, particularly
deceased Hugo Chavez and later Nicholas Maduro, built masses of organized
support through workplace communes, community political organizations, and
programs designed to reduce poverty. And it is these people who have rallied in
defense of the Maduro victory in the recent elections. Prashad
wrote: “During
the massive marches to defend the government in the week following the
elections, people openly described the two choices that faced them: to try and
advance the Bolivarian process through Maduro’s government or to return to
February 1989 when Carlos Andrés Pérez imposed the IMF-crafted economic
agenda known as the paquetazo (packet) on the country.”
And as Prashad suggests, the rallies
protesting the election outcome are largely representatives of the wealthy
classes, inspired and supported by the United States.
In sum, before we pass judgement on
the Venezuelan elections, we need to remind ourselves that United States policy
ever since the Monroe Doctrine of 200 years ago has been committed to crushing
popular movements in the Western Hemisphere and returning wealth to the
minority of the rich.
*************************************************************
US IMPERIALISM IN LATIN AMERICA
CONTINUES: Now it is Venezuela
Originally posted on Thursday, January
24, 2019
Harry Targ
The world again enters
an economic, political, and military crisis in the Western Hemisphere. It
remains important to historicize and contextualize this week’s call by the
United States and 10 hemisphere countries for President Nicholas Maduro to step
down as President of Venezuela. The sub-text of statements from the United
States, the Organization of American States, and numerous right-leaning
governments in Latin America is “or else” or “all options are on the table;”
meaning that there might be a military intervention to overthrow the government
of Venezuela. For many who are learning about US imperialism for the first
time, it is important to revisit the history of the Western Hemisphere and to
contextualize a regional crisis which is misrepresented throughout the
mainstream media.
A Brief History
As Greg Grandin argues
in “Empire’s Workshop,” the rise of the United States as a global empire begins
in the Western Hemisphere. For example, the Spanish/Cuban/American war provided
the occasion for the United States to develop a two-ocean navy, fulfilling
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt’s dreams. After interfering
in the Cuban Revolution in 1898 defeating Spain, the United States attacked the
Spanish outpost in the Philippines, thus becoming a global power. Latin
American interventionism throughout the Western Hemisphere, sending troops into
Central American and Caribbean countries thirty times between the 1890s and
1933, “tested” what would become after World War II a pattern of covert
interventions and wars in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
The Western Hemisphere
was colonized by Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, and France from the fifteenth
to the twentieth centuries. The main source of accumulated wealth that funded
the rise of capitalism as a world system came from raw material and slave labor
in the Western Hemisphere: gold, silver, sugar, coffee, tea, cocoa, and later
oil. What Marx called the stage of “primitive accumulation,” was a period in
world history governed by land grabs, mass slaughter of indigenous peoples,
expropriation of natural resources, and the capture, transport, and enslavement
of millions of African people. Conquest, land occupation, and dispossession was
coupled with the institutionalization of a Church that would convince the
survivors of this stage of capitalism’s development that all was “God’s plan.”
Imperial expansion
generated resistance throughout this history. In the nineteenth
century countries and peoples achieved their formal independence from colonial
rule. Simon Bolivar, the nineteenth century leader of resistance, spoke for
national sovereignty in Latin America.
But from 1898 until the
present, the Western Hemisphere has been shaped by US efforts to replace the
traditional colonial powers with neo-colonial regimes. Economic institutions,
class systems, militaries, and religious institutions were influenced by United
States domination of the region. (Already in the 1840s, a large part of Mexico
had been appropriated by the United States).
In the period of the
Cold War, 1945-1991, the United States played the leading role in overthrowing
the reformist government of Jacob Arbenz in Guatemala (1954), Salvador Allende
in Chile (1973), and gave support to brutal military dictatorships in the 1970s
in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Also the United States supported
dictatorship in Haiti from 1957 until 1986. The Reagan administration engaged
in a decade-long war on Central America in the 1980s. In 1989 the
United States sent 23,000 marines to overthrow the government of Manuel Noriega
in Panama. (This was a prelude to Gulf War I against Iraq).
From 1959 until today
the United States has sought through attempted military intervention, economic
blockade, cultural intrusion, and international pressures to undermine, weaken,
and destroy the Cuban Revolution.
Often during this dark
history US policymakers have sought to mask interventionism in the warm glow of
economic development. President Kennedy called for an economic development
program in Latin America, called the Alliance for Progress and Operation Bootstrap
for Puerto Rico. Even the harsh “shock therapy” of neoliberalism imposed on
Bolivia in the 1980s was based upon the promise of rapid economic development
in that country.
The Bolivarian
Revolution
The 21st century has witnessed a variety of forms of
resistance to the drive for global hegemony and the perpetuation of neoliberal
globalization. First, the
two largest economies in the world, China and India, have experienced economic
growth rates well in excess of the industrial capitalist countries. China has
developed a global export and investment program in Latin America and Africa
that exceeds that of the United States and Europe.
On the Latin American continent, under the leadership and inspiration of former
President Hugo Chavez Venezuela launched the latest round of state resistance
to the colossus of the north, with his Bolivarian Revolution. He planted the
seeds of socialism at home and encouraged Latin Americans to participate in the
construction of financial institutions and economic assistance programs to
challenge the traditional hegemony of the International Monetary Fund, the
World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.
The Bolivarian Revolution stimulated political change based on varying degrees
of grassroots democratization, the construction of workers’ cooperatives, and a
shift from neoliberal economic policies to economic populism. A Bolivarian
Revolution was being constructed with a growing web of participants: Bolivia,
Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and, of course,
Cuba.
It was hoped that after the premature death of Chavez in
2013, the Bolivarian Revolution would continue in Venezuela and throughout the
region. But the economic ties and political solidarity of progressive regimes,
hemisphere regional institutions, and grassroots movements have been challenged
by declining oil prices and economic errors by Maduro; increasing covert
intervention in Venezuelan affairs by the United States; a US-encouraged shift
to the right in the prior decade by “soft coups” in Brazil, Argentina, Chile,
and Ecuador; and a more aggressive United States foreign policy toward Latin
America. Governments supportive of Latin American solidarity with Venezuela
were undermined and/or defeated in past elections in Honduras, Paraguay,
Brazil, Argentina, and now attacks have escalated against what former Trump
National Security Advisor John Bolton called “the troika of tyranny;”
Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. As Vijay Prashad puts it: “Far
right leaders in the hemisphere (Bolsonaro, Márquez, and Trump) salivate at the
prospect of regime change in each of these countries. They want to eviscerate
the “pink tide” from the region” (Vijay Prashad, thetricontinental.org,
January 20, 2019).
Special Dilemmas Latin Americans Face
Historically all Western
Hemisphere countries have been shaped and distorted in their economies,
polities, and cultures by colonialism and neo-colonialism. They have also been
shaped by their long histories of resistance to outside forces seeking to develop
imperial hegemony. Latin American history is both a history of oppression,
exploitation, and violence, and confrontation with mass
movements of various kinds. The Bolivarian Revolution of the twenty-first
century is the most recent exemplar of grassroots resistance against
neo-colonial domination. Armed with this historical understanding several
historical realities bear on the current threats to the Venezuelan government.
First,
every country, with the exception of Cuba, experiences deep class divisions.
Workers, peasants, the new precariat, people of color, youth, and women face
off against very wealthy financiers, entrepreneurs, and industrialists, often
with family ties, as well as corporate ties, with the United States. Whether
one is trying to understand the soft coup of recent years in Brazil, the
instability in Nicaragua, or the deep divisions in Venezuela, class struggle is
a central feature of whatever conflicts are occurring.
Second,
United States policy in the administrations of both political parties is
fundamentally driven by opposition to the full independence of Latin America.
US policy throughout the new century has been inalterably opposed to the
Bolivarian Revolution. Consequently, a centerpiece of United States policy is
to support by whatever means the wealthy classes in each country.
Third, as a
byproduct of the colonial and neo-colonial stages in the region, local ruling
classes and their North American allies have supported the creation of sizable
militaries. Consequently, in political and economic life, the military remains
a key actor in each country in the region. Most often, the military serves the
interests of the wealthy class (or is part of it), and works overtly or
covertly to resist democracy, majority rule, and the grassroots. Consequently,
each progressive government in the region has had to figure out how to relate
to the military. In the case of Chile, President Allende assumed the military
would stay neutral in growing political disputes among competing class forces.
But the Nixon Administration was able to identify and work with generals who
ultimately carried out a military coup against the popular elected socialist
government of Chile. So far in the Venezuelan case, the military seems to be
siding with the government. Chavez himself was a military officer.
Fourth,
given the rise of grassroots movements, the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela
began to support “dual power,” particularly at the local level. Along with
political institutions that traditionally were controlled by the rich and
powerful, new local institutions of popular power were created. The
establishment of popular power has been a key feature of many governments ever
since the Cuban Revolution. Popular power, to varying degrees, is replicated in
economic institutions, in culture, and in community life such that in Venezuela
and elsewhere workers and peasants see their own empowerment as tied to the
survival of revolutionary governments. In short, defense of the Maduro
government, depends on the continuing support of the grassroots and the military.
Fifth, the
governments of the Bolivarian Revolution face many obstacles. Small but
powerful capitalist classes is one. Persistent United States covert operations
and military bases throughout the region is another. And, perhaps most
importantly, given the hundreds of years of colonial and neo-colonial rule,
Latin American economies remain distorted by over-reliance on small numbers of
raw materials and, as a result of pressure from international financial
institutions, on export of selected products such as agricultural crops. In
other words, historically Latin American economies have been distorted by the
pressure on them to create one-crop economies to serve the interests of
powerful capitalist countries, not diversified economies to serve the people.
Finally, and more
speculatively, United States policy toward the region from time to time is
affected by the exigencies of domestic politics. For example, during the Trump
Administration verbal threats against Venezuela were articulated as the
president’s domestic fortunes were challenged by the threat of impeachment and
confrontations with the new Congressional leadership. War often masks domestic
troubles. In the Biden years, foreign policy spokespersons warn of the spread
of Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere. US policies toward Lating
American become features of the New Cold War with China.
Where do Progressives
Stand
First, and foremost,
progressives should prioritize an understanding of imperialism, colonialism,
neocolonialism, and the role of Latin American as the “laboratory” for testing
United States interventionist foreign policies. This means that critics of US
imperialism can be most effective by avoiding “purity tests” when contemplating
political activism around US foreign policy. One cannot forget the connections
between current patterns of policy toward Venezuela, with the rhetoric, the
threats, the claims, and US policies toward Guatemala, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina,
Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, and in the new century, Bolivia,
Venezuela, Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina.
Second, progressives
need to show solidarity with grassroots movements in the region, support human
rights, oppose military interventions, and demand the closure of the myriad of
United States military bases in the region and end training military personnel
from the region. (When citizens raise concerns about other countries
interfering in the US political system, it is hypocritical for the United
States to interfere in the political and economic lives of other countries in
Latin America.)
And finally, as tensions
rise again in the hemisphere there are two growing dangers of violence
spreading throughout Latin America. By attacking “the troika of tyranny,” the
United States is increasing the likelihood of class war throughout the region.
And, given growing Chinese and Russian economic and political involvement in
the Western Hemisphere, it is not inconceivable for regional war to escalate to
global war.
The time has come to
stand up against United States imperialism in the Western Hemisphere.
(A useful history of United States interventionism can be
found in Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change
from Hawaii to Iraq, Henry Holt, 2006).
October 31, 2019
WHAT HAPPENS NOW TO THE STRUGGLE FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE
BETWEEN THE GLOBAL NORTH AND THE GLOBAL SOUTH? A Repost from 2015 in The
Heartland Radical and Popular Resistance
(After
serious defeats grassroots movements in Latin America, the Middle East, and
South Asia are blossoming again. Progressives should never underestimate the
magnitude and role of resistance in human history. ht)
But
the story of 21st century resistance is not just about
countries, alliances, new economic institutions that mimic the old. Grassroots
social movements have been spreading like wild fire all across the face of the
globe. The story can begin in many places and at various times: the new social
movements of the 1980s; the Zapatistas of the 1990s; the
anti-globalization/anti-IMF campaigns going back to the 1960s and continuing
off and on until the new century; or repeated mass mobilizations against a Free
Trade Agreement for the Americas. (Harry Targ, “The Empire in Disarray:
Global Challenges to the International Order,” The Rag Blog, April
10, 2013).
On Imperialism and
Resistance
Theories
of imperialism emphasize the role of capital accumulation, the drive for ever
larger profits, the exploitation of workers and peasants, and the expropriation
of land. The needs of the economic system are typically served by military
force when profits cannot be gained through other means. Also social control in
poor countries is achieved by building alliances between ruling classes in rich
and poor countries.
This story of
imperialism explains much of human history. But the pursuit of profit, the
capacity to exploit, the conquest of land, and the institutionalization of
policies that maximize the interests of the powerful generate resistance. That
too is part of the story. In the twenty-first century, countries such as China,
India, and Brazil are demanding that some of the rules of economic exchange be
rewritten. Groups of marginalized nation-states have joined together to form
political and economic organizations on every continent. Most importantly,
social movements have emerged all across the globe around critical issues. And
because of new technologies, movements in one geographic space are now visible
to all.
Latin American Resistance and Counter-Resistance
Perhaps the most interesting and inspiring forms of resistance over the last 25 years have been observed in Latin America. Cuba, the long-isolated nation which has inspired revolutionary ferment in the Global South, has been joined by political regimes throughout the continent. In this century resistance has come from grassroots organizing and electoral processes. These have led many countries in the region to adopt radical reforms, economic populism, and visions of twenty-first century socialism. The Bolivarian Revolution, so named by Hugo Chavez, spread from Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, to Nicaragua. Modest adaptations of radical reform surfaced in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and for a time Paraguay and Honduras. These countries embraced some or all of the following:
--cooperation
in the establishment of regional international organizations such as the
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), The Bank of the
South, The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), The Common Market of
the South (MERCOSUR), and various bilateral agreements including Cuba’s
exchange of medical practitioners for Venezuelan oil.
--the articulation of
common Latin American responses to traditional United States and European
global hegemony. This includes demands for change in European and North
American control of voting power in international organizations such as the
IMF, opposition to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas proposed by the
United States, and demands that the United States normalize relations with
Cuba.
--the establishment of alternative forms of local political power.
--the construction of agricultural and industrial cooperatives.
--the emergence of grassroots organizations.
--the recognition of indigenous rights.
--the realization that the distribution of wealth and power between and within countries needs to be changed.
In sum, theories of imperialism, hegemony, dependency need to be complemented by an understanding of the theory and practice of resistance. Mobilizations as varied as the thousands of groups attending the World Social Fora to the politics of the Bolivarian Revolution, to Arab Spring, to Occupy are all part of the story of the twenty-first century. However, narratives of imperialism and resistance must also be sensitive to “counter-resistance.” History does not move in a steady course. Conflict and struggle are experienced all along the way. And therefore theorists and advocates of twenty-first century socialism must be cognizant of and be prepared for counter-resistance and reversals in the progressive flow of history.
Counter-Resistance and Defeat in Venezuela
Recently peoples’ movements suffered defeats in elections in two countries: Argentina and Venezuela. In Argentina, a neoliberal opposition party candidate, Mauricio Macri, defeated the hand-picked choice of incumbent president Christina Kirchner in October. And, in parliamentary elections in Venezuela on December 6, the Roundtable of Democratic Unity (MUD) won two-thirds of the legislative seats over the incumbent Chavista party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). This latter defeat in particular will have significant consequences in the near-term future for policies, programs, and left movements throughout the region.
Why did the PSUV incur this first major loss since the rise to power of Hugo Chavez in 1998? The answer to the question involves both external and internal causes. Externally, the loss was influenced by United States programs initiated years ago to intervene in the internal affairs of Venezuela. The United States trained and funded opposition political forces, encouraged a military coup to oust Chavez from power, and gave support to the wealthy class, to do whatever would bring down the Bolivarian Revolution.
In addition, U.S. policy has pressured Latin American governments to resist collaboration with its Venezuelan nemesis. Its policy tilted more toward Venezuela’s historic adversary, Colombia. In 2010 the U.S. constructed seven new military bases in Colombia to exacerbate tensions between those two countries.
Also, the price of oil on the world market has dropped precipitously over the last four years, thus depriving the Venezuelan economy of its most lucrative export-earning commodity.
Along with the 17-year United States campaign to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution throughout the region, internal forces impacted significantly on the December 6 election defeat of the PSUV. Although the Chavez/Maduro regimes have prioritized new grassroots political institutions and have encouraged the expansion of cooperatives, particularly in the rural areas, Venezuelans in some communities were frustrated by bureaucratic stifling of local initiatives and political corruption. Also, while there has been a radical redistribution of the right to healthcare and food, in recent years these benefits have become scarce and accessing them has become more time consuming. Finally, as a result of economic crises, inflation has skyrocketed and basic consumer goods have become unavailable or unaffordable. Venezuelan voters were frustrated by current economic crises even though the 17 years of Chavista rule has led to substantial declines in poverty and the Cuban doctors have made health care readily available to those who formerly did not have access to it.
Finally, PSUV victories and the passion for Venezuela’s peaceful revolution drew substantial support from its charismatic leader, Hugo Chavez. With his death, a less appealing Nicholas Maduro was not able to maintain the authority of his predecessor.
Lessons Learned
What are some of the lessons to be drawn from the defeats in Latin America, particularly in Venezuela?
First, history reveals that successful resistance over imperialism and domination often leads to reaction, or what might be called “counter-resistance.” Activists should be aware that reversals in the face of organized reaction are likely and they therefore should not despair.
Second, progressives in the United States should continue to oppose militarism, subversion, and economic strangulation targeted against regimes that challenge traditional hegemony. In addition they might more effectively explain how communities and nations in Latin America are constructing alternative institutions such as workplace and agricultural cooperatives and alternative organizations of peoples’ power.
Third,
the consequences of the election for Venezuela itself are unclear. But it can
be assumed that MUD will use its two-thirds majority in the parliament to
reverse the policies of economic populism, political change, and Venezuela’s
positive relationships with other countries, particularly Cuba. Maduro,
however, is still president and he will resist efforts to reverse the gains of
the Bolivarian Revolution.
Fourth,
ultimately the future course of the country will be determined by the
grassroots formations already created by the Bolivarian Revolution. If the
people stand up to protect their cooperatives, their alternative local
decision-making bodies, their new lives, then MUD (a fractious coalition of
center-right and right-wing forces) will have limited powers to reverse the
last seventeen years of the construction of twenty-first century socialism. And
the level of intensity of the defense of the Bolivarian Revolution is relevant
to observe throughout Latin America as well.
Fifth, MUD will probably
prioritize a reversal of Venezuelan/Cuban relations and the other agreements
Venezuela has made to provide oil for resource poor nations. The ramifications
for the economies of these countries might be large, as would the loss of Cuban
doctors to the Venezuelan people.
Sixth, and of more long-term consequence, poor countries have to figure out ways to construct
vibrant
and diverse economies that do not depend on a single temporarily valuable
natural resource for export. History is replete with accounts of
countries which gained temporary wealth because of gold, silver, nickel, or
singular agricultural commodities such as sugar or tobacco. They then became
victims of conquest and vulnerable to declines in global demand. In the case of
oil, extraction means environmental devastation. In countries such as Ecuador
and Brazil oil exploration, even if the profits derived from it are shared with
the population at large, generates justifiable anger among indigenous people
who object to policies that destroy local communities and their ecology.
Finally, most regimes that have come to power through struggle have gained legitimacy from charismatic figures. In Latin America, Simon Bolivar, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and most recently Hugo Chavez, for example, have excited the imagination and enthusiasm of their people. Charismatic authority has been both a blessing and a curse as people struggle to build a better future. Twenty-first century socialism will be built on passion and enthusiasm but it is more likely to endure if that passion and enthusiasm is based on all those who construct it, not a small number of leade
Friday, January 2, 2026
GRENADA INVASION DESIGNED TO OVERCOME THE 'VIETNAM SYNDROME' AND LEBANON DISASTER
Harry Targ
(New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams was inaugurated on January 1 as part of the impactful inauguration ceremonies of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Mr. Williams powerfully reminded the public of the Grenadian Revolution and Maurice Bishop).
People’s World photo
The United States marines and small contingents of military personnel from neighboring countries on October 25, 1983 launched a military invasion of the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada (121 miles long, 10 miles wide, population 110,000). The Reagan Administration falsely claimed that the invasion was motivated to save 600 American medical students from a possible Iran-style hostage taking and to restore freedom and democracy to the island.
The invasion by the Reagan administration was a fully-orchestrated media- censored operation without regard for international law, morality, and the safety of the citizens of Grenada. It occurred at a time when foreign policy elites were concerned that the public was afflicted with the so-called “Vietnam Syndrome.” This “syndrome” referred to the propensity of Americans to oppose further military interventions overseas (much like the clear opposition to U.S. military action against Venezuela today).
In addition, the Grenada operation, called “Operation Urgent Fury,” occurred two days after a horrific bombing killed 241 U.S. military personnel in a barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. President Reagan, despite much criticism, had sent U.S. troops to quell the Lebanese civil war and give support to the Israeli army which had invaded its northern neighbor. The Sunday New York Times headline of October 23, 1983 listing preliminary estimates of casualties in bold type declared “Beirut Death Toll at 161 Americans; French Casualties Rise in Bombings; Reagan Insists Marines Will Remain.”
Throughout its history, Grenada was victimized by foreign invaders. The island was originally occupied by the Ciboney Indians and then by the Arawaks. Later Carib Indians established control of the island. Over the centuries islanders were subjected to European invasion--Spain in 1592, the British in 1608, and the French in the 1650s. Grenada was declared a British colony in 1783, and was not “granted” independence until February 7, 1974.
Central to the history of the Caribbean states, the industrial revolution, and the rise of capitalism out of feudalism was the slave trade. The French, who had massacred the Carib Indians, and later the British, brought African slaves to Grenada. By 1763 Grenada had 82 sugar estates. Slave laborers produced sugar, cotton, and tobacco which was transported to Europe for processing, and then for sale on the European continent, Asia, and Africa. Slavery, which brought 9.5 million kidnapped Africans to the Western Hemisphere, was a system of forced labor that generated profits for European imperial powers.
During the twentieth century, 20 years before formal independence, Grenadian politics was dominated by a charismatic and corrupt politician, Eric Gairy. He collaborated with the small class of domestic elites as well as foreigners to push back against workers and peasants who opposed economic exploitation and British colonialism in general. After independence in 1974, Gairy continued to rule the island with an iron hand. Health care, education, and public services worsened during the Gairy years after independence while personal corruption was rampant.
As independence approached, a political party, known as the New Jewel Movement emerged. Led by Maurice Bishop, a charismatic figure, the party called for policies that would focus on the enormous problems workers and peasants faced. The New Jewel Movement seized power in a bloodless coup in 1979, five years after independence. Maurice Bishop then began to plant the seeds of a modern mixed economy, including state and private sectors and a newly created cooperative sector.
The public sector revitalized the 30 state farms that were stagnant during Gairy’s rule. The government opened agro-processing plants, created a state fishing and fish-processing industry, built a public component in the vital tourist industry, and established public banking institutions to provide loans for small farmers, owners of small businesses, and fishermen. The public sector thus served as a stimulus to the private sector. In addition, the cooperative sector, in farm inputs and marketing, was designed to appeal to the community spirit characteristic of Grenadian culture.
In other actions, the government instituted a literacy campaign, popular education particularly in mathematics, and English and Grenadian history. Teacher retraining programs upgraded the largely unskilled corps of teachers. Education from primary grades to college became free. Also in 1980, the Grenadian government instituted a program of free medical and dental care. Health care delivery systems were decentralized prioritizing programs of preventive medicine and nationwide sanitation campaigns to combat communicable diseases.
In the political process, the New Jewel Movement created local bodies for popular participation in politics. Parish Councils were further decentralized into smaller “Zonal Council” meetings. The National Women’s Organization and the National Youth Organization were created to articulate political interests parallel to existing organizations for labor and farmers. Particular programs were instituted to redress the historic inequalities between men and women. The Grenadian government placed significant numbers of women in key decision-making positions and hoped to expand political representation of women in policy-making positions.
The U.S. government during both Carter and Reagan administrations opposed the Bishop government because some of the technical assistance it received came from Cuba and the Soviet Union. Cuban work on the expansion of the country’s major airport to facilitate tourism was particularly controversial even though the largest share of its financing came from the British.
In October 1981, the U.S. government held massive military maneuvers in the Caribbean simulating an invasion of a small enemy country holding Americans hostage. In addition, the United States opposed International Monetary Fund and World Bank aid to Grenada and organized Eastern Caribbean island-states to oppose the dangers that Grenadian democracy and economic change represented.
Unfortunately, two weeks before the Reagan invasion of Grenada, a faction of the New Jewel Movement ousted Maurice Bishop from power .In the midst of a heated battle within the leadership, Bishop and several of his colleagues were tragically killed. By most accounts at the time, the factional dispute was self-destructive and the outcome was contrary to the wishes of the masses of the Grenadian people who applauded the new economic policies and participatory democracy the government had put in place since 1979. Bishop, himself, was a revered leader among his people who also had close ties with members of the Congressional Black Caucus in the United States Congress.
Despite the foolhardy policies of the anti-Bishop faction of New Jewel, there was every reason to believe that, despite the factional disputes, the policies that New Jewel had initiated would have continued. But the Reagan administration used the domestic turmoil in Grenada as an excuse to invade the island, depose the New Jewel party from power, abolish all the economic and political changes carried out between 1979 and 1983, arrest Cuban airport construction workers, and put in place a neo-colonial government that would reverse the policy trends toward grassroots democracy and human need fulfillment that had been gaining popularity, not only in Grenada but around the Caribbean and Central America. In the months following the invasion, the United States expunged every vestige of progressive institutions and policies installed by Maurice Bishop’s New Jewel Movement.
The marine invasion of tiny Grenada constituted a guaranteed military victory and over the years would lead to a decline in Americans’ reluctance to send more troops overseas. And the invasion of Grenada took the tragedy of 241 marines killed by a terrorist attack in Beirut, Lebanon off the front pages.
Over forty years ago the United States joined the Spanish, French, and British as the latest colonial power to determine the destiny of the Grenadian people. At the same time, and despite remaining skepticism, the Grenada invasion put the United States back on the path toward military interventionism around the world.
Sunday, January 4, 2026
VENEZUELA TODAY: CHILE YESTERDAY (including a post from July 17, 2017)
Harry Targ
As we read about the US kidnapping of President Maduro and the murdering of Venezuelans on the high seas the corporate media retells stories of rising tensions in the country, economic failures, and the lack of democracy. These are the same stories that appeared when the US was involved in the overthrow of other governments it opposed. The story of the role of US imperialism in overthrowing the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende in Chile comes to mind. Times and circumstances are different, but the needs and struggles of the people for a better life are similar and the narratives that partially justify US interventionism also are similar.
