Venezuela in Crisis: US Imperialism, Maduro, and the Neoliberal Turn

Join four left Venezuelan voices for an urgent discussion of the neocolonial US intervention and kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro on January 3 and its aftermath. The event will examine the evolution of the Bolivarian process and its neoliberal turn under Maduro, along with the weakening of the social forces within Venezuela capable of resisting imperialist invasion. As the situation changes rapidly, speakers will also assess the post-invasion configuration under Delcy Rodríguez, the collaboration with U.S. imperial power, oil concessions, and the consolidation of a “Madurismo without Maduro.” The discussion will challenge both pro-invasion narratives and apologetics for the Venezuelan state, advancing a left, anti-imperialist critique rooted in sovereignty, democracy, and working-class self-determination. Speakers: Simón Rodríguez is a Venezuelan socialist writer and journalist. He was a student organizer and later became professor at the Universidad de los Andes. When he was a member of the national leadership of the Socialism and Freedom Party, he ran as a candidate for the National Assembly in 2015. He is a founding member of Laclase.info and Venezuelanvoices.org and has published articles in Humania del Sur, NACLA Report on the Americas, The New Arab, and Rebelión and on dozens of electronic outlets, and his articles have been translated into six languages. He has given talks and lectures in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. He is coauthor with Miguel Sorans of the book Why Did Chavismo Fail? A Left-Opposition Balance Sheet (CeHUS, 2018). Emiliano Terán is a sociologist from the Central University of Venezuela and has a master’s degree in ecological economics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is a PhD candidate in environmental science and technology at the same institution. He is also an associate researcher at the Center for Development Studies in Venezuela and a member of the Observatory of Political Ecology of Venezuela Gonzalo Gómez was a leader of the Socialist Workers Party from the 1970s to the 1990s. He was a key figure in the regroupment of Trotskyism in Venezuela and was a critical supporter of Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution. He participated in the Popular Revolutionary Assembly against the 2002 coup. Gómez also was a cofounder of the alternative media site Aporrea. He was one of the founders of Marea Socialista, a current that joined the PSUV, of which he was a founding delegate and part of the regional leadership in Caracas. In 2014, Marea was excluded from the PSUV and then broke with the Maduro government. Gómez participated for several years with the Citizen’s Platform for the Defense of the Constitution with several former Chávez ministers. Gómez has continued to organize with Marea Socialista as an independent organization and section of the International Socialist League. Yoletty Bracho is a Venezuelan political science researcher currently teaching at the University of Avignon in south of France who studies authoritarian governance and popular mobilization in Venezuela. Moderator: Anderson Bean is a sociology professor at North Carolina A&T State University, as well as a North Carolina–based activist and editor. He is a contributor and editor of the book Venezuela in Crisis: Socialist Perspectives, out this month from Haymarket Books, and the author of Communes and the Venezuelan State: The Struggle for Participatory Democracy in a Time of Crisis (Lexington Books)Watch the live event recording: https://www.youtube.com/live/cOe2ZWX7f8MGet the book: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2604-venezuela-in-crisisBuy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org