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Editorial: Desperate empire - Venezuela, U.S. decline & war
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- 16 January 2026 42 hits
The kidnapping of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro marks an acceleration of U.S. decline and a decisive break from its own the liberal world order. As imperialist China, Russia, and the U.S. hurtle toward wider war, the world is growing more volatile and dangerous by the day.
To smash imperialism, the working class needs a communist movement. Progressive Labor Party strives to be that force, but we need you to join the fight.
Venezuela: rivalry flashpoint
Hugo Chávez’s 1999 Bolivarian “Revolution” ran on Venezuela’s vast reserves of oil, not working-class power. Following the death of Chávez, Maduro oversaw a drastic decline of living conditions for tens of millions of workers. Venezuela’s state capitalists enriched themselves while distributing crumbs to workers. The Chavistas used U.S. sanctions to obscure their own theft while millions were starved and displaced. As of last year, 60 percent of workers struggled to afford food and 80 percent were underemployed or unemployed (New York Times, 1/8). Workers always pay the price for bosses’ fights, whether local or global. That is why we must reject nationalism in all its forms.
Venezuela is caught in the sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry among the U.S., China, and Russia. For the U.S., Maduro’s great crime wasn’t narcoterrorism—it was that he was cutting deals with the enemy. The U.S. rulers found an opportunistic section of the Venezuelan ruling class apparently willing to be bought off: “The whole operation looked so easy that many analysts…wondered whether regime insiders abetted Maduro’s extraction, in effect staging a palace coup by proxy” (FA, 1/7).
Venezuela is strategically located and holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves: 303 billion barrels, or 17 percent of the global total (Institute for Energy Research, 1/13). Over the last 20 years, the historic U.S “backyard” of Latin America, rooted in the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, has been steadily infiltrated by a rival imperialist. China has “economically displaced” the U.S. in “10 out of 12 countries in South America,” with more trade, investment, and development financing (NYT, 1/9). China’s banks have loaned billions in exchange for oil and minerals while its companies build ports, mines, and infrastructure. By 2024, most of Venezuela’s crude oil was flowing to China, though it amounted to only 4 percent of China’s total oil imports. What’s at stake here isn’t Chinese survival, but U.S. regional dominance.
China’s limited verbal condemnation of the U.S. invasion shows that China’s rulers aren’t yet ready for a direct military confrontation, especially as they manage friction with Taiwan and an economic slowdown. Russia’s muted response might signal its satisfaction with the U.S. bulldozing of NATO and its limited backing of Ukraine. As there is no honor among thieves, these alliances will continue to shift. The world is unstable because capitalists are legitimized gangsters who fight tooth and nail for profits as they exploit our class. The ultimate and inevitable expression of their competition is world war.
Competing visions of U.S. power
For seven decades, U.S. imperialism relied on international institutions that enabled its bosses to control the rules of the game: NATO, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank. These organizations normalized a “rules-based” liberal world order that consolidated U.S. dominance after World War II. But make no mistake—their dominance was a bloody one! From 1945 to 2023, the U.S. launched at least 255 military operations (Congress, 6/7/23).
Because capitalist competition inevitably leads to rise and fall of empires, the old order began fraying in the 1970s, marked by the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. More recently, China’s rise has weakened U.S. leverage globally. State Terrorist-in-Chief Donald Trump’s response has been to wreck the old world order and move toward a Fortress America that would control Latin America while abandoning multilateral commitments in Europe and Asia.
While some might see the theatrics of kidnapping a president as a show of strength, it is anything but. As U.S. dominance wanes, the bosses’ tactics to preserve it become even more desperate and rabid.
The U.S. ruling class is split into two main competing factions. The Big Fascists of finance capital still seek global domination through endless war. But the domestically oriented Small Fascists behind Trump have no interest in spending their profits on far-flung ground wars. They accept that U.S. global dominance is slipping and are focused on locking down a sphere of influence in the Americas, hence the belligerent operation in Venezuela. Conceding Ukraine to Russia and Taiwan to China would seem to align with this strategy. But Trump’s raw coercion could have unintended consequences by emboldening other capitalists to do the same. Case in point: China’s 10-hour live-firing drills to rehearse a blockade of Taiwan. As CHALLENGE goes to press, meanwhile, threats of U.S. military action in Iran are escalating.
How the next world war unfolds remains uncertain. What’s clear is we live in perilous times. Within that danger also lies Progressive Labor Party’s responsibility to turn world war into class war.
We need communism
State terror is the order of the day. The display of brute force in Venezuela, which killed 80 people on the ground, is a harbinger of fascism, driven by U.S. decline and by bitter splits in the ruling class. So are the brazen murders of Black and white workers, from Keith Porter in Los Angeles to Renee Good in Minneapolis, by the modern slave-catchers known as ICE (see page 1). These incidents of callous violence expose the bosses’ raw dictatorship under their slipping democratic mask.
The capitalists know that the international working class is the mortal threat to their profits and survival. But the only way we can realize our revolutionary potential is by building a mass workers’ party. Amid the chaos of capitalism, there can be no return to a safer, more stable time.
There are no good capitalist bosses, no lesser evils–not in the U.S. or China, not in Russia or Venezuela. From Russia to China to Vietnam, the only force that has ever defeated an “unbeatable” bosses’ empire is a mass communist-led movement. And it was only the communist leadership of the USSR that defeated the German Nazi war machine.
There is no middle path. The time to organize was yesterday. We cannot appease or wish away fascism and world war. We need to build an international communist party that can smash imperialist war for all time–and create a new world that serves workers’ needs. Fight for communism! Join Progressive Labor Party!
U.S. Hypocrisy
Laws are made by and for the ruling class. While liberal U.S. bosses act appalled at the “illegal” seizure of Venezuela’s president and oil, the rules of U.S. democracy have been a longtime cover for the invasion and overthrow or regimes that failed to roll over to serve U.S. capitalist interests. What’s different today is the capitalist rulers’ open shamelessness. Here are just a few past examples:
- Iran (1953): A CIA-led coup ousted the elected government after it nationalized the country’s oil industry, and reinstalled a monarchy in league with the U.S.
- Chile (1973): After Cuba-aligned President Salvador Allende nationalized the copper industy, the U.S. launched a coup that killed Allende and established a brutal 17-year dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet.
- Panama (1989): Citing drug trafficking and the killing of a Marine, the U.S. invaded the country and captured and jailed military ruler Manuel Noriega. The real goal was to secure control over the Panama Canal, a critical passageway for global supply chains.
- Iraq (1990-1991, 2003-2011): With various phony pretexts, including non-existent “weapons of mass destruction,” the U.S. waged two wars to control vast oil reserves in Iraq and Kuwait–and it destroyed as many as one million lives in the process.
LOS ANGELES, CA, January 12—Twenty-five students and workers from Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends of the Party came together for a powerful rally that brought a clear, uncompromising message to the community: capitalism offers nothing to our class but war, fascism, and death, and only communist revolution can create a world that serves the needs of working people.
Everything is connected
We held this rally in a neighborhood where the violence of the capitalist state is not abstract. This is the same community where Alex Flores was murdered by the Los Angeles Police Department, and where members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have been organizing since 2019 alongside residents, students, and workers to fight police terror and build a fighting party. Holding the rally here was intentional. The fight against imperialist war abroad and racist police murder and attacks on immigrant workers at home is one struggle. The community particularly loved our chant “La Migra, la policía, la misma porqueria.”
At the rally, a half dozen young comrades and friends led chants and gave speeches. They reminded the neighborhood that they are not alone, that we are here to fight alongside them against racist terror in all its forms. One young Latin woman worker spoke passionately about how demoralizing it is to wake up to the daily horrors of capitalism, each day worse than the last, but that she was confident that we can come together in the fight for communism, the world the working class deserves.
Capitalism is violence
A PLP member delivered a speech connecting U.S. aggression against Venezuela with the murder of a protester by ICE agents in Minneapolis. The speech laid bare the priorities of this system: there is “no money” for health care, schools, or housing, but unlimited funding for police, ICE, drones, and military intervention. From Latin America to Los Angeles, capitalism defends profit and empire through violence.
The message resonated. Neighbors stopped to listen, nodded in agreement, and joined conversations about why these atrocities are not accidents, but the predictable outcomes of a system built on exploitation. Many took copies of CHALLENGE, asked questions about Progressive Labor Party, and shared their own experiences with police harassment, low wages, and struggling to survive while the rich got richer. The taco restaurant across from where we rallied even brought us free licuados for all participants in the rally as a show of support for our message
Throughout the rally, we emphasized a central truth: workers create all the wealth in society and therefore have the power to change it. We do not need bosses, landlords, cops, or generals. But this system cannot exist without our labor. When we organize together—across race, nationality, and borders—we become an unstoppable force.
The strong response from the community showed that people are hungry for a revolutionary explanation and a revolutionary solution. Reform has failed. Voting has failed. Appeals to “justice” from a brutal system have failed. What working people need is organization, solidarity, and communist leadership.
This rally was one small but important step in building that movement. We will continue organizing in this neighborhood, distributing CHALLENGE standing with families impacted by police terror, and fighting to unite workers and students against imperialism, fascism, and capitalism itself.
The future belongs to the working class—but only if we organize to take it.
Fight back! Organize! Build communism!
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We need mass class struggle, not vigilante violence
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- 16 January 2026 45 hits
On December 31st, 2025, Keith Porter, a 43-year-old father of two in Los Angeles, was shot three times and ruthlessly murdered by an off-duty ICE agent. His “crime”? Being Black. Being alive. Owning a rifle. Celebrating the New Year.
A week later, on January 7th, nearly two thousand miles away in Minneapolis, where ICE had turned the streets into a war zone, Jonathan Ross, another ICE agent, fired three shots into the face of a 37-year-old mother of three Renee Good as she tried to flee an attempted ICE raid. Her “crime”? Defending her Black and Brown neighbors from ICE terror.
These executions, carried out by rabidly racist and sexist, Gestapo-like ICE agents, are becoming the norm under an increasingly fascist U.S. empire. They expose the violent core of capitalism, its state-sponsored terror, and the crisis of its sham democracy. After Renee’s killing, her grieving wife said it plainly: “We had whistles, but they had guns.” Her words reveal the lie that this system, built on violence, can be dismantled with non-violence, especially as fascism sharpens its claws.
Violence and terror are not accidents, they are capitalism’s lifeblood. And as outrage spreads, workers feel the urge to strike back, to deliver vengeance against the state and the capitalists who uphold it. Vigilantism—the belief that individuals can balance the scales of justice with violence is no longer marginal; it is gaining mass appeal and provoking state repression.
Millions cheered when Luigi Mangione killed the United Healthcare CEO in late 2024, yet premiums soared, and Trump’s $30 billion “Big Beautiful” heist funneled funds from healthcare to finance ICE raids carried out by would-be Nazi assassins, like the one who murdered Good. Tyler Robinson murdered MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk live as Kirk was about to utter racist words about Black lives. In a copycat-style killing, Robinson, reportedly in a relationship with his transgender roommate, engraved Catch Fascist and Bella Ciao on the bullet casings.
Kirk’s death was weaponized by Trump and his fascist acolytes, rallying their racist and sexist base, labeling Antifa domestic terrorists, and threatening anyone who spoke out. These acts of violence only begot more violence and repression. The killings of Kirk and the healthcare CEO are not anomalies—they are the inevitable outcome of a system that promotes pacifism while normalizing horror, fetishizing individual heroes, and breeding cynicism about collective struggle, keeping us weak and divided.
The dead end of vigilantism in a failing system
As U.S. domination over global capitalist markets faces competition from Russian and Chinese bosses, workers feel the squeeze. Finance capital’s drive for profit inevitably rolls back the gains workers have fought and died for. Capitalism’s pathologies can only be solved by building a mass communist party; there are no quick fixes to the attacks on the working class.
From Superman to Batman to Paw Patrol, vigilante icons teach workers from infancy to valorize individualism over collective action. No matter the superhero, their role in capitalist propaganda is to “save the day” because the masses are supposedly too weak to save themselves. Many cheered Luigi Mangione’s assassination of the United Healthcare CEO a year ago, but killing one CEO did nothing to challenge the parasitic nature of health insurance—a finance capitalist system that extracts far more than it returns. Premiums have soared. Attacks on healthcare and social services have intensified globally, as bosses, under pressure from military buildup and capitalist competition, cut back gains workers have literally died to achieve.
John Brown set it off, but the masses abolished slavery
Much like the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, the abolitionist movement and Civil War in the United States, including the militant actions of John Brown, point to important lessons around the necessity for multiracial, collective action to secure long-term gains for the working class. The militant abolitionist John Brown, with a small band of fearless freedom fighters against slavery, orchestrated a raid on the U.S. military arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in 1859, undoubtedly escalating the decline of the racist system of chattel slavery in the country and triggering more quickly what would become the Civil War. But it took the concerted effort of an organized military force and the death of 600,000 soldiers, black and white, to bring about the end of that retrograde, backward mode of production. The main lesson about Nat Turner, John Brown, Harriet Tubman and the dozens of other brave souls who stood up militantly for the overthrow of slavery, is that their efforts could not be realized until the movement became fully mass in political scope and was backed by an army.
Conclusion: Confidence in the working class is key
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) condemns vigilante violence in any form. As one worker said astutely, “when many voices become one for political power in the right direction we can make change.” Communists believe that the right direction is not voting, not adding more Black and brown or “left” politicians to office, and certainly not assassinations, bombings or other acts of adventurism. We must eliminate production of resources for profit. Hundreds of students from Columbia University and beyond faced jail time and expulsion from college in the name of fighting imperialist genocide in 2023. They followed the lead of countless doctors and journalists across Gaza who worked in conditions of utter terror as bombs reigned down over them to save the lives of unarmed workers–mainly children–and reveal these atrocities to the world. Millions of workers have turned out in Italy in the past few months in general strikes to protest the relentless cutbacks in wages and social services as bosses divert funds for military buildup and eventual war. And let’s not forget the hundreds of thousands of workers who poured into the streets all over the world during the Covid-19 outbreak against the George Floyd racist police assassination, as millions more were left at the peril of a deadly virus that the bosses chose not to contain for months and months.
These masses are the heroes of our class. But in spite of all of these heroic deeds, the genocide against workers in Palestine rages, and workers across Italy and worldwide continue to face austerity cutbacks. Each struggle teaches our class new lessons about the limits of reforming capitalism, but we need an organized party that is leading these struggles and fighting for more than just militant reforms. Progressive Labor Party is not a savior to the working class. We do not call for workers to grab guns and shoot any boss they see–or their traitorous thugs in blue or camouflage. But we do understand that armed workers, backed by a revolutionary military of soldiers and officers, led by our party, is a fundamental ingredient for our class to free itself from the grips of this current system and establish something exponentially smarter, healthier and better for the human race. And this collective process is the ultimate heroism.
LEXINGTON, KY, JANUARY 5—Vladimir Lenin once said, “imperialist war is the eve of socialist revolution.” Today, we in the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) call on all workers to turn the U.S. imperialist war against Venezuela, and all of Latin America, into communist revolution.
Earlier this month, PLP members joined a protest rally in Lexington against the U.S.’s recent imperialist actions in Venezuela. Protestors chanted “You can’t stop the revolution!” and “From Venezuela to Palestine, Occupation is a Crime!” We handed out CHALLENGE to almost all attendees (around 100 people) as well as people passing by. Our paper was read by those at the rally and they came up to us to tell us they enjoyed it and wanted to get involved with the Party. When protestors weren’t chanting, we started chants and turned up the energy of the protest. This is our first event in Lexington as the Party, and we hope to grow our base in this area. Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky, after Louisville. PLP members in Owensboro, KY also organized their own protest along with friends of the PLP in the area.
Venezuelan bosses no friends to workers
One issue that many communists still face is viewing the ruling party of Venezuela as sincere socialists, and thinking that that is the reason the U.S. opposes them. The truth is that the Venezuelan ruling class is fine with imperialism, and what is happening in Venezuela is the result of inter-imperialist rivalry. It is not the result of a genuine anti-imperialist force threatening U.S. imperialism, but rather one camp of imperialism attempting to outbid the other. This has only resulted in suffering for the Venezuelan working class.
At the same time, many Venezuelan immigrants are being won to gutter U.S. nationalism. Some thank President Donald Trump, the same president who sent innocent Venezuelans to torture centers, for “liberating” Venezuela. The irony is that U.S. imperialism doesn’t care who stays in power in Venezuela, as long as they cooperate on oil. The U.S. was never motivated by “human rights” in Venezuela. That is simply the justification they present to the working class in the U.S. as propaganda for war. Numerous statements made by U.S. officials have proven that their real motivation is competition with China and Russia. U.S. ambassador Mike Waltz stated, “You cannot have the largest energy reserves in the world under the control of adversaries,” and the U.S. State Department recently posted on X (formerly Twitter) “This is OUR Hemisphere.” (Truthout, 1/5/26). The U.S. has also escalated its threats towards Cuba since the attack.
Communism is key
We must continue to declare that the only solution is communist revolution, not siding with one group of imperialists over another. The workers of Venezuela have been presented with the false choice of supporting either U.S. imperialism, or their own local bourgeoisie backed by Chinese-Russian imperialism. The PLP stands out as the party that has always warned of a global conflict resulting from this inter-imperialist rivalry, and has been publishing articles specifically about the increasing aggression against Venezuela for months now. The PLP stands out also for not defending any imperialist as a “lesser evil” or supporting the reformist leadership of Venezuela. For this reason, we call on all workers of the world, from Kentucky to Venezuela, to join the PLP!
The below is a reprint of a flyer recently written by the New York transit/industrial section. It attacks the racist fare hike that went into effect on the NYC subway this month and is meant to help unite MTA Transit workers and riders against the MTA bosses.
The MTA is at it again! Another fare increase hit the city’s subways and buses on January 4th. Base fares are now $3. Seven- and 30-day MetroCards have been eliminated entirely. This is a racist attack against the majority Black and Latin ridership, who will have to foot the bill for the MTA’s ever-growing $50 billion-plus debt service—while getting paltry train service in return.
These increases, pushed in liberal NYC—which positions itself as pro-working class—show that Democrat or Republican, they’re all the same…and not on our side. While new Mayor Mamdani talks about taxing the rich to pay for free buses and better municipal services, the reality, coupled with this fare increase, points to a path of funding imperialist war.
While this goes on, ICE is terrorizing Latin workers in neighborhoods like Sunset Park and Bushwick, and African merchants on Canal Street. Many of them rely on the subway. This is a ploy to keep us afraid of fighting back together—everything is connected.
The MTA brass is also targeting riders to justify these fare increases. They claim“farebeaters” are to blame for deteriorating subway service. In several poorer neighborhoods, workers are now dealing with spikes over the turnstiles on top of the fare increase. New, useless “smart” fare gates are being installed (and literally attacking riders with their malfunctions).
The state has also raided MTA funds while the MTA outsources critical infrastructure projects to third party companies which often finish late and over budget.
The only thing that will save us is workers and riders uniting to demand an end to these increases! Make the bosses take the losses! Transit riders and workers must also come together against the MTA’s attacks in a multifaceted way.
We call for workers to :
- organize strike ready committees for every department or sector they’re in.
- Forge transit-worker unity against racism. Anytime the cops murder an innocent Black or Latin rider, we must flood the streets and make it clear that it won’t be business as usual as long as we are under siege.
- But most of all, we must fight for a communist revolution led by the Progressive Labor Party! Specifically with Black workers at the helm, we will smash the bosses and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat worldwide. That will get us a subway system we can all be proud of-and much more! Join us!
To learn more visit www.plp.org or contact us at
