In India, the communist movement is presently at a stage of organisational history where the only thing we can do is to throw ourselves into discussions and debates with people around us, hoping to kindle an interest about the revolutionary way forward. We understand the necessity of a genuine, trained Marxist organisation both in India and internationally, to further accelerate the course of class struggle in order to overthrow capitalism and imperialism globally. Right now, Marxists face extraordinary struggles in front of them. In addition to class conflicts reaching boiling points around the world and yet fizzling out due to the inability of ‘left’ leadership to provide revolutionary leadership, we can also witness the vile ideology of the dominant ruling class that imposes religious bigotry and unscientific political discourse, the malicious ideological rewritings of history to serve identity politics, and other endless predicaments of a rotting class society, which is gasping for change and yet remains unable to find a way out. As Marxists we clearly understand that in the final analysis, only class struggle can push society forward by undoing the old order. There is a pervasive yearning to construct a classless society, but directionless leadership of the working class. Class struggle can either end in the revolutionary reconstruction of society or in the common ruin of humanity. This year opened with imperial attacks on Venezuela. For the liberation of not only Venezuela and Latin America, but also the world from the ever-increasing barbarism of capitalism and imperialism, we are building the Revolutionary Communist International.
Venezuela, we see you! We have nothing but respect for your heroic mass uprisings against US imperialism since 1989. We stand with the collective will of the working class of Venezuela to take control of their own fate and run their country on a scientific and socialist basis. The consciousness that the masses of Venezuela have developed during this decades-long revolutionary struggle is enormous and inspirational. In addition to this objective process of the masses learning to take the reins of history in their own hands, the brave class fighter and leader Hugo Chávez played a formative subjective role in this movement, by serving as a catalyst for Venezuela’s turn towards socialism. The rapid economic growth after the Bolivarian revolution, when workers started to take control of many, if not all, sectors of the economy is evident for all to see, and we firmly stand behind the gains that the working class made in Venezuela under the leadership of Chávez. Nonetheless, this effort ended in a heroic tragedy, as Venezuela could not decisively break away from capitalism. It did not achieve a fully nationalised planned economy under workers’ ownership, control and command. The failure of the leadership to build a revolutionary organisation prior to the revolution led to a steady decline in Venezuela. US imperialism, that besieged Venezuela for decades, rightly sees the uprising of Venezuelan masses as a direct threat to the entire capitalist-imperialist establishment and thus it planned in 2002 to depose the hugely-popular, democratically-elected socialist president Hugo Chávez – this coup failed, as the masses fought back imperialist intervention in the streets.
Although history as a whole is shaped by class struggle, the subjective factor played by the leadership does have an impact on the movement itself and the forms it takes. Nicolás Maduro and his policies have clearly deviated from the previous plans of socialist development envisioned by Chávez’s genuine, if late, turn towards socialism – he only declared himself a socialist in 2004, lagging behind the advanced layers of the working class of Venezuela, who had already implemented, on their own, workers’ control on many factory floors. The tasks of the Bolivarian Revolution that fell on their shoulders are yet to be accomplished and will be successful only if the masses completely break with capitalism, immediately nationalising major sectors of the economy, and run the socialist state by uniting with the revolutionary movements from all across Latin America and the world. The fate of the Bolivarian Revolution – then, as now – lies in the hands of the workers of Venezuela and the support they receive from the working class of the world. In the words of Alan Woods, a comrade and friend of Chávez, who reflected on his first meeting with Chávez in 2004:
“What is necessary? Clear ideas, a scientific understanding, a consistently revolutionary programme, policies and perspectives. … The only guarantee of the future of the Bolivarian Revolution consists in the movement from below – the mass movement which, headed by the working class, must take power into its own hands. That demands the rapid construction of the Revolutionary Marxist Current, the most consistently revolutionary section of the movement. … I believe that a growing number in the Bolivarian Movement are looking for the ideas of Marxism. I am sure that this applies to many of its leaders. And Hugo Chávez? He told me that he was not a Marxist because he had not read enough Marxist books. But he is reading them now. And in a revolution people learn more in 24 hours than in 20 years of normal existence. In the end, Marxism will draw to itself all the best elements in Venezuelan society and fuse them together in one invincible fighting force. On that road lies the possibility of victory.”
Indeed, on that road alone lies the possibility of victory! Let the Bolivarian Revolution be the first spark to burn down imperialism globally. But our Venezuelan comrades cannot be left to fight alone if they, along with us, are to win. We have to actively and mutually support each other from all corners of the world, taking a fight with our bourgeoisie and imperialists at home, linking every battle for a better world to a global struggle for socialism built on genuine, revolutionary traditions of Marxism. From our small but determined section of the Revolutionary Communist International in India, we stand in full solidarity with the revolutionary masses of Venezuela, who are heroically fighting against US imperialist aggression. Hands off Venezuela! Yankees go home! Down with capitalism! Down with imperialism! Long live the International! Build the Revolutionary Forces in India and the world!
January, 2026
Delhi
