Orlando Jose Figuera was burned alive on May 20 in Caracas’ Altamira neighborhood, one of the capital’s affluent areas, after opposition protesters suspected that the 21-year-old Black man was a government supporter. Venezuela’s Minister of Communication and Information, Ernesto Villegas, announced the news on his Twitter account Saturday evening. “Orlando Figuera, stabbed and burned alive by minds diseased by hate in Altamira on May 20, just died of cardiopulmonary arrest,” Villegas wrote, adding that international mainstream media has continued to paint the opposition protests as “peaceful” despite cases like Figuera’s.

Louis de Saint-Just, January 1893: “Those who make revolution half way only dig their own graves”.

Back in 1999-2000 Chávez appointed new figures, including army colleagues, to government posts. Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 founder Jesús Urdaneta took over the Bolivarian Intelligence Agency and he appointed Hernán Grüber Ódreman, who had been one of his coup leaders in 1992, governor of the Federal District of Caracas. He also appointed conservative, centrist and centre-right figures to government positions as well. He appointed businessman Roberto Mandini president of the state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela. His critics referred to these government officials as the “Boliburguesía” or “Bolivarian bourgeoisie” and highlighted that it “included few people with experience in public administration”.

“The Chávez government’s initial policies were moderate, capitalist and centre-left. Chávez initially believed that capitalism was still a valid economic model for Venezuela, but only Rhenish capitalism, not the US-supported neoliberalism of prior Venezuelan governments. He followed the economic guidelines of the International Monetary Fund and continued to encourage foreign investment in Venezuela”. (Wikipedia)

Chavism was born as a fraction of the army in popular resistance of various social classes against the foreign imperialist oppression in Venezuela. Although it nationalized 1,168 companies between 2002 and 2012, these nationalised companies were compensated; this strengthen the Venezuelan capitalist state but not the power of workers over the state. “Communal Councils” administer a few basic services such as water, cleaning, transportation, schools, hospitals, food production and distribution but workers’ self-management is accomplished in only a few companies in the country.

Chavism does not politically represent the independence of the workers from the capitalist class; rather it leans on the contradiction between the workers and the multinational corporations that want to plunder the country. Chavism is not intended to overcome either the capitalist state or the capitalist system, though they claim to be socialist. And not to advance toward socialism through revolutionary means favours their reactionary adversaries who prepare a violent civil war backed by the US, which if victorious, will recolonise the country. A coup in Venezuela would consolidate the rise of the right in Brazil and Argentina and would increase pressure on Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia.

As of 31 July, the death toll according to VENEZUELANALYSIS, was 126 in the current confrontations. Deaths caused by authorities: 14, Direct victims of opposition political violence: 23, Deaths indirectly linked to opposition barricades: 8, Deaths still unaccounted for / disputed: 61

Demonstrations have degenerated into violent clashes in which many of the opposition demonstrations, have used firearms, home-made explosives/weapons/rocket launchers and all sorts of stuff against the police, but also against educational institutions, state buildings, housing projects of the Misión Vivienda, public transportation, they have even set up burning barricades outside maternity hospitals. On top of this there has been gunfire coming from opposition rioters also against civilians and against chavistas in general.”

Venezuela is the third largest economy in South America, here is concentrated the largest known oil and gas reserves on the continent and here the class struggle is more acute today. Venezuela has elected a Constituent Assembly which is much more representative of the Venezuelan people than the coup-making Congress. However, we have no constitutionalist illusions; this does not mean the power of the Constituent Assembly constitutes workers’ power. Supported by imperialism, the coup plotters are getting stronger all the time. Workers cannot be satisfied with the limits of the bourgeois “Chavista revolution”; the emancipation of the workers will be achieved the workers themselves.

Peron, Vargas, Allende and, more recently, Zelaya, Lugo, Dilma, all of them, prefer to be beaten and to disarm, not to arm, workers who are waging a struggle against the right. But there are differences between the full and shameful capitulation of the PT in Brazil and the resistance, although limited, of Maduro or Assad because, as we see, the last two are still in power and Dilma was overthrown by a parliamentary coup. Chavism performs the tasks of a democratic revolution [6] that can only be consolidated by revolutionary workers’ power outlet and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which overcomes Chavism itself.

Against the constituent Assembly and in defence of the current Congress coup plotters, the puppets of the great imperialist corporations in the region seek to continue the suspension of Venezuela from Mercosur, as yet another sanction to strangle their economy and rely on the vote of the right-wing governments of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Tabaré in Uruguay.

That is why we call on Chavism not to oppose the expansion of the Bolivarian National Militia (a contingent of one million Chavist civilians voluntarily registered in the national defence registry) towards the armament of all working people.

Some countries present themselves as Venezuela’s allies against imperialism and its agents, such as Russia, China and Iran. We advocate that these countries provide advanced weapons, technology and military training to reduce Venezuela’s vulnerability to imperialism and its Venezuelan agents. In addition, the workers must take the initiative, and organize direct action to confiscate the warehouses and the weapons of the coup plotters. At the same time, the vanguard of the workers must organize themselves in a single block, a military united front politically independent of the Chavist PSUV and without placing any political trust in Maduro. The emancipation of the workers will be the work of the workers themselves. This is the why the social revolution in Venezuela must advance.