Roberto
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In the TV series El Señor de los Cielos, cartels from different countries are shown fighting over markets, stealing drugs from one another, and competing for absolute control. What appears as fiction closely resembles the logic of contemporary geopolitics. Power blocs behave like organized cartels: the Washington cartel seeks to dominate its traditional sphere of influence, the Moscow cartel controls its own territory, and the Beijing cartel expands within its area. Different flags, same logic. Beyond ideology and rhetoric, these struggles are driven by power, resources, and control. And, as always, it is the peoples—the ordinary men and women—who suffer the economic, social, and human consequences of a war they did not choose.
The mouthpiece of the U.S. capitalist class, elected by millions of workers, declared that he would “take back everything that was stolen from them.” This statement implicitly assumes that the United States is the rightful owner of Latin America—and, by extension, of the entire world and its resources.
It is the same old Macondo: from a very young age, I have watched the same patterns of domination by the North American capitalist class repeat themselves again and again.Argentina-IMF Relationship under Milei
Record Borrowing: Argentina is the IMF’s largest borrower, with an outstanding debt of over $40 billion.
New $20 Billion Program: In April 2025, the IMF executive board approved a new 48-month, $20 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement to support Milei’s economic stabilization program. This was seen as a strong endorsement of his aggressive austerity measures and fiscal consolidation efforts.
Immediate Disbursement: The deal was notable for an immediate disbursement of $12 billion to bolster Argentina’s critically low foreign exchange reserves, an unusual move for the IMF.
Conditions: The agreement is tied to strict policy implementation, including a “zero-overall deficit target” and market-oriented reforms. Reviews of the program continue, with a recent review in July 2025 enabling a further disbursement of about $2 billion.
Argentina’s Stance on Russia
Geopolitical Realignment: President Milei has explicitly realigned Argentina’s foreign policy with the United States and other Western nations, viewing this as a move away from countries he considers “communist” or adversarial, including Russia and China.
BRICS Rejection: As part of this new foreign policy, Argentina formally renounced its planned membership in the BRICS economic alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), a decision that reduced its potential alternative financing options.
No Bilateral Agreement: The publicly available information indicates no trade, investment, or IMF-related agreement between Argentina and Russia under the Milei administration. The focus has been on Western financial support.According to polls up to today, the majority of surveys in the United States are against a war with Venezuela.
Here, as you know, the Democratic Party is a sham opposition, and the left is almost nonexistent.
I can’t imagine another prolonged war, and people are talking more and more about the high cost of everything.The Bolshevik Revolution and the Cuban Revolution—that is, the so-called socialist revolutions—did more harm to the possibility of a socialist world.
Today a coworker told me that he heard Donald Trump speaking, saying that everything is fine. He told me that it’s not true, that everything is more expensive and that unemployment is rising, and that it’s all a lie.
I told him that politicians don’t control the economy, that it’s capitalism, and that it doesn’t matter who is in power—left-wing or right-wing politicians just pass the hot potato around. He listened to me, but he no longer has any hope, and when I talked to him about socialism, for him that has already failed.
This struggle—to raise the consciousness of the working class—is millennia old.
Citizen of the world,
I agree with you: most workers accept things as if they cannot be changed and that’s just the way they are, period. And if you talk to them about what is happening, they see you like Christians who preach the end of the world.
Propaganda and entertainment, nationalism, etc., are too overwhelming…
Is it the workers’ fault, or the system’s fault?I agree with the SPGB that workers should not take sides in capitalist disputes and that our interest lies in peace, since it is always workers who die in their wars. Both the United States and Venezuela are capitalist states, and any conflict between them would be a clash of ruling classes, not a struggle for our emancipation.
At the same time, it is clear that if a military attack were to take place, workers in the country under attack would be compelled to defend themselves, not out of choice but out of necessity. This, however, does not turn national defense into a progressive cause. It remains a defense of a capitalist state, not of the working class as such.
From a socialist point of view, the task of workers is not to choose between aggressor and victim among capitalist powers, but to oppose all forms of nationalism and militarism, and to maintain international working-class solidarity. Supporting one state against another only reinforces the system that produces war in the first place.
Therefore, while we can recognize the reality of aggression and the human suffering it entails, we should not politically support any capitalist government or war effort. The only consistent position is class against class, and the struggle for a world beyond capitalism, where such wars would no longer arise.
I understand that we, as workers, should not take sides in capitalist disputes and that we want peace, since we are the ones who die in their wars. But if the United States attacks Venezuela, do they have to defend themselves or not?
I agree that, in any political science dictionary, the term weapons of mass destruction functions precisely as a justification for invading countries that are unable to defend themselves.
What you’re saying is completely different from what happened in Panama and Grenada. Back then, there were barely any weapons and the intervention was quick. In Venezuela, the story would be very different: the army has modern weapons from Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, there’s a huge militia, jungles and mountains that favor a long war, and guerrilla groups like factions of the FARC or the ELN could get involved. Plus, Europe continues selling weapons to Colombia. Thinking this could be resolved like in 1945, with a fast and clean military strike, is an illusion.
And when you look calmly at what each country is likely to do, it becomes even clearer that no intervention would make sense:
The United States isn’t going to invade Venezuela; that’s not part of their modern strategy. They prefer sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and negotiations when it suits them. Venezuela, on the other hand, isn’t going to give up power easily and will keep relying on Russia, China, and Iran to resist any attempt at isolation.In the end, all this shows that any use of force would be a tragedy for both peoples. That’s why hopefully what prevails won’t be war or nostalgia for old military models, but peace, negotiation, and each country’s ability to solve its problems without destroying its own people.
After so many decades of conflicts and mistakes, the only truly sensible—and human—thing is to avoid repeating another pointless tragedy in Latin America.
I’d love to be optimistic, but we all know how this magical cycle goes: Maduro leaves the country with his loved ones, his suitcases… and, of course, all the money he managed to grab on the way out. He ends up settling comfortably in Cuba, Russia, or China — the usual retirement spots for leaders who never have to worry about real-life problems. Meanwhile, the working people stay stuck in the middle, as always. Then they install a ‘pro-American’ government that promises transparency while continuing to steal — just more politely. And right on cue, another genius appears preaching Socialism of the 22nd Century, as if anyone asked for a sequel.
Thank you for the information.
I need to reactivate my Facebook, as I don’t use this social network very much.I will also look into your organization in the United States.
I want to thank you for sharing the information you’ve presented. I agree with you that nationalism is a poison for the working class, and that much of the Latin American left sees only U.S. imperialism as the enemy while ignoring the real root of the problem: capitalism itself. This also leads to the tendency to idealize China and to justify nationalist governments such as those of Venezuela and Cuba.
For many years, I myself was shaped by nationalism, Stalinism, and Trotskyism. I followed figures like Pedro Albizu Campos, Rubén Berríos, and Juan Mari Brás, as well as groups such as the Puerto Rican Independence Party, the PSP, and later in the United States, the Socialist Workers Party and Workers Vanguard, among others.
Today, I find myself more aligned with the basic principles of the SPGB, especially its emphasis on global working-class unity, the rejection of nationalism, and the need to replace capitalism—not reform it—with a real socialist society based on common ownership and democratic control.
The historical analysis he presented about Puerto Rico was truly insightful, especially the way he explained the island’s industrial development. It helped me understand why the so-called “liberation movement” has not succeeded in Puerto Rico. As long as global capitalism exists, we remain wage slaves; but within the current context, I can also understand why he argues that statehood would be more favorable for the people of the island.
I had never heard of him before. After listening to his talk on Puerto Rico’s “colonial question,” I began to investigate further. I found many points in his analyses that made sense to me, but I also saw the typical tendency of many Latin American nationalists: focusing exclusively on “American imperialism” while overlooking the role of local capitalists. In addition, he speaks of Maduro, Cuba, and similar cases without offering any critical evaluation.
I feel something similar when I listen to Richard Wolff. I appreciate many of his economic analyses, but then he expresses sympathy for regimes like China and even sees it as “socialist,” when your organization—an assessment I fully agree with—has correctly explained that these systems are simply forms of state capitalism.
Thank you again, Citizen of the World. Your identification is consistent with everything I have observed so far. Here in the United States, I often speak to my coworkers about your party, because—as you say, and as I have seen in my own experience—it is the only socialist party that fights for socialism, and nothing else.
