The so-called “socialism of the 21st century” emerged in Latin America in the midst of the collusion and struggle between the imperialist powers and the crisis of bureaucratic capitalism in third world countries. This crisis was expressed in the profound deterioration of the living conditions of the masses, on whose shoulders the ruling classes unloaded the weight of bankruptcy, and in the sharpening of the contradictions between thecomprador bourgeoisie and the bureaucratic bourgeoisie.
Taking hold of a patriotic, anti-American, sovereigntist discourse, and raising the fight against the so-called “neoliberalism” - a radical expression of thecomprador bourgeoisie in semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries -, its promoters undertook a campaign to legitimize their policy. They sought popular support with a “program” aimed at “recovering” national sovereignty, “distributing wealth,” defending natural resources, expanding social rights and incorporating the masses into political life.
The leaders who led this avortement had a peculiarity: some were remnants of progressivism and the domesticated left, including former members of organizations such as AVC and the MPL. They did not come from the big bourgeoisie nor were they owners of large or medium means of production. They were individuals and groups at the service of the bureaucratic faction of the big bourgeoisie and ended up becoming their political operators and, not infrequently, junior partners in their businesses. Oh, and there were also the occasional “useful fool”; especially in the ranks of Pachakutik and the PCMLE.
The direct political “operators” understood that control of the state apparatus would allow them to reproduce economically and politically until they became a new expression of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie.
In Ecuador there was already a precedent for this “phenomenon”: the high command of the Armed Forces. The Ecuadorian military dictatorships, unlike others in Latin America, proclaimed themselves nationalist and revolutionary. We did not have a simile of criminals like Videla or Pinochet, but that does not mean that they were dictatorships that should be tolerated. Under that rhetoric, a new layer of landowners emerged who took advantage of the agrarian reforms to appropriate large areas of land in the northwest, the Amazon and other regions of the country.
Many soldiers became part of the large African palm producers and extended their interests into banking and other businesses. People of popular extraction used the State as a lever of accumulation and formed a new layer of bureaucratic bourgeoisie linked to the old State and the development of bureaucratic capitalism.
The history of Hugo Chávez was no different; He represented the interests of the Venezuelan bureaucratic bourgeoisie from a political behavior that was skillfully and effectively channeled by that faction that was in conflict with thecomprador bourgeoisie.
Initially it became the axis of the so-called Bolivarian Revolution. Then Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador followed with the mammoth of the “Citizen Revolution.” As if the “citizens”, regardless of classes and class struggle, could make a revolution.
To cover up this bureaucratic bourgeois program, they set up strident and misleading paraphernalia. In Ecuador, for example, they issued slogans such as “Nothing for us, everything for the country” and “Socialism of good living.” They spoke of “citizen participation”, “participatory and leading democracy”; in Venezuela: they proclaimed that “the country already belongs to everyone”, “Venezuela now belongs to everyone”; "Homeland, socialism or death. We will win!" and “Heading towards socialism of the 21st century”; in Bolivia, “Lead by obeying the people”, “Dignified, sovereign and productive Bolivia”, “Land and territory” and “Refound Bolivia”.
With this fanciful verbiage they sought to confuse the masses and give a red varnish to a bourgeois-landowner project that oscillated between yellow and pink. They hid the fact that, in our semi-feudal and semi-colonial societies, a socialist revolution does not correspond, but rather a democratic revolution of a new type. Furthermore, it is obvious that a “socialist” revolution is impossible to carry out without an armed revolution led by the proletariat; Therefore, it cannot be done through elections or rise above the old State, which expresses the joint dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie and landowners. The so-called “socialism of the 21st century” was, in fact, a necessary way to reactivate bureaucratic capitalism and contain the revolutionary struggle of the masses.
A good part of the domesticated left and opportunism took up this project. Socialist Party of Ecuador, PCMLE, Pachakutik, among others, renounced the possibility of popular struggle, and tied the masses even more to the electoral processes, and presented the administration of the old state apparatus (government) as a “path to socialism.” The most confused maintained that these governments expressed the national bourgeoisie. It was a political and ideological mistake: one thing is the national bourgeoisie, oppressed by imperialism and constrained by bureaucratic capitalism, and quite another is the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, which grows linked to the state apparatus, public contracts and imperialist capital.
Some of these governments somewhat reduced their economic and political commitments to the United States (aspects that did not alter the structure of domination that they have maintained since the end of the 19th century) in exchange, they opened the doors to Chinese capital, which they presented as a sovereign partner and “multipolar” alternative. Chinese imperialism acted like all imperialism: it tied us with foreign debt; It exported capital and merchandise, secured raw materials, conquered markets and closed the way to the incipient industrialization process, while it plunged us into large-scale mining projects.
Its cheap products brutally hit the national bourgeoisie, totally incapable of competing with Chinese monopolies and their mass production, much less, in the case of the country, with a dollarized economy and historically subject to imperialism.
The popular sectors, previously consigned to oblivion by governments at the service of thecomprador bourgeoisie, found in the socialism of the 21st century a space that opened up the expectation of better days. In the first stage, these governments applied social measures that captured the attention of the masses; In the end, the increase in income from oil exports allowed them to finance health, education and housing programs, and improve road infrastructure; and, among others, provide subsidies to the most depressed sectors of society. But, turning their backs on this lukewarm reality, the Bolivarian governments deepened the reprimarization of the economy: they expanded the extraction of minerals and gas in Bolivia, and oil exploitation in Ecuador and Venezuela. That is to say, we did not get out of the semi-feudal trap.
With all that populist gale, the leaders of these processes gained some popular support. In Venezuela, Chavismo awakened an “anti-oligarchic” current and a feeling of national sovereignty. In Bolivia, the rise of Evo Morales reflected the accumulated struggle of peasants, workers and indigenous peoples. In Ecuador, Correismo took advantage of the rejection of the most retarded expressions of the big bourgeoisie and large landowners to raise a falsely revolutionary current that brutalized even sectors of the left and the indigenous movement that were convinced that they were experiencing a revolution.
The strategy of the misnamed Bolivarian Revolution opened spaces in public administration, assemblies, congresses and sectional governments to old popular, union and indigenous leaders. Thanks to the available income, these governments somewhat improved the functioning of the bureaucratic apparatus of the old State and spread the idea that “the State is there to serve everyone.” With this they erased its class character and hid the fact that this State serves the joint dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie and landowners.
This phase of the aforementioned “21st century socialism” was key. The greater intervention of the State in the economy and, in particular, in public procurement, was the panacea for the greater enrichment of the big bourgeoisie. By giving it greater prominence and presenting it as a “business State”, concessions were expanded and contracts and agreements were signed with large national and transnational companies. Landowners, mining companies and even imperialist monopolies agreed to large-scale concessions. All bourgeois and landowner factions received their share of the cake.
Investment in public works did not equally benefit all of society. The main beneficiaries were large construction companies, merchants and suppliers of materials and machinery, intermediaries, banks and certain groups linked to transportation and other services. The State concentrated and distributed enormous resources through contracts, credits, concessions and public purchases that fueled the profits of these sectors of the big bourgeoisie.
To have a clearer idea: builders in the period 2008-2026 had their most important peak in 2014, the regime of the “citizen revolution” with a historical record of USD 6,893 million, representing 9.83% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Between 2016 and 2017, 2.9 million hectares were awarded in concession to different companies and countries. Canada, China, Austria, among others. In that same period, private banks had record profits; accumulated total net profits of USD 2.82 billion.
“21st century socialism” formed a captive social base, especially in the electoral field. Their governments resorted to populism and, in some cases, assumed openly fascist behavior, as happened with Rafael Correa. Correismo used the influence that the old opportunist and revisionist left retained among the masses to create parallel organizations in the popular field. He applied the policy of confronting masses against masses with the purpose of dividing and neutralizing popular protest, above all, of those who did not “buy into the story” with that nonsense of 21st century socialism.
They also approved new constitutions and occupied part of the administrative apparatus, but they left the structure of the old State intact. These constitutions proclaimed social rights and incorporated concepts such as participatory democracy, rights of nature; Plurinational State, citizen power... Thus they gave the opportunist left and the Pachamamists what they had always sought: demands that could be fair under certain historical conditions, but that were converted into the ceiling of their aspirations, the limit that they were not willing to cross. For that left and a good part of the indigenous leadership, that was everything. In exchange for reforms and spaces within the State, they gave up destroying it and contributed to averting the popular revolution.
The struggles within the big bourgeoisie (comprador bourgeoisie-bureaucratic bourgeoisie) were intense and, at times, violent. In Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador there were clashes, repression and deaths. These contradictions expressed the discontent of the masses, but also the dispute for control of the State and the distribution of the big bucks.
Our countries also became a terrain of dispute between imperialist powers. The United States, China, Russia, Germany and France competed for mining concessions, markets, gas, oil and other resources, without losing sight of the geopolitical position of each country.
The bureaucratic bourgeoisie, protected by the grandiose rhetoric of Chávez and Correa, sold us the idea that moving away from Yankee imperialism to fall into the jaws of Chinese or Russian imperialism was more dignified for our people. Many clueless leftists came to consider, and still consider, that China is socialist and that today's Russia is the same Soviet Union of the first half of the last century. Bullshit!
The Bolivarian Revolution spoke of uniting “patriotic” businessmen, soldiers, workers, peasants and officials around a national project. The Bolivian MAS agreed with mining cooperatives, large businessmen, agroindustrialists from Santa Cruz and peasant organizations. Rafael Correa proposed modernizing Ecuadorian “capitalism” under strong state direction. He called it “change of the productive matrix”; something that “smelled” of industrialization; but no, it was another story.
The bankruptcy of these processes did not take long to appear. In Venezuela, the economic and commercial blockades imposed by the United States were strangling the economy. While the Chinese and Russians were barely out in the open, the Yankees have been entrenched in the roots of the Venezuelan economic structure for more than a century. The offensive of imperialism reduced income and pushed the government to cut public works and social programs. Once again, the masses bore the brunt of the crisis.
In Ecuador, Yankee imperialism tried to recover the ground lost to China and Russia under the discourse of the “recovery of democracy.” In Bolivia and Ecuador it did not apply the same strategy as in Venezuela (economic blockade, criminalization of leaders, military intervention); On the contrary: he spurred a bellicose opposition and took advantage of internal contradictions, including those of former allies of Morales and Correa, to undermine the Bolivarian project from within. They developed campaigns using digital platforms to misinform the masses and the leaders, they threw all their media-legal capacity at them to 'neutralize' them.
It was then that the limitations of these “revolutions” that only existed in the heads of their mentors were exposed. Being in government and managing the state apparatus does not mean having power.
They sold the idea that the bureaucratic bourgeois was a national bourgeois and, therefore, should receive support from the State: credits, contracts, markets and alliances with imperialisms of different flags. Under that argument they strengthened a faction of the big bourgeoisie. That was the essence of his project.
Today, years after that wave produced in a puddle of water, and that forest of bonsai trees sold as imposing jungles, only the leaf litter remains, stained by disappointment, disenchantment and corruption. There also remains the circumstantial defeat of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, which lost ground in almost all the countries where it fueled the illusion of a 21st century revolution.
But the consequences are deep and painful. They dismantled or hit unions and indigenous and popular organizations. When the people mobilized to confront them, they resorted to fascism, imprisoning popular fighters, destroying popular and union organizations that have not been able to reconstitute themselves over time. That explains, to a large extent, what is happening now in Ecuador: a popular movement weakened and almost demobilized by Correism, revisionism and opportunism, excrescences of the same political dunghill. They handed the country over to imperialism on a silver platter.
As a result of this demobilization work, today we face the imperialist offensive against the country in unfavorable conditions. We have Yankee and Zionist military operating in Ecuador, while the Armed Forces and organized crime groups massacre the people, disappear popular fighters and consolidate a police, prison and repressive State.
In Venezuela, the events were as dramatic as in Bolivia and Ecuador, or even more. The wet gunpowder cannon shots launched by Maduro, Delcy Rodríguez, Diosdado Cabello and the Armed Forces ended up becoming a farce in the face of imperialist aggression.
Faced with the Yankee invasion, no one came out to defend that “revolution.” Not even the soldiers who paraded through Caracas singing revolutionary songs and absolute loyalty to Maduro. Only a handful of Cuban internationalists fought who considered it correct to defend a process incapable of responding with the dignity shown by the Cuban people during their long resistance. They also defended the illusion of those who had seen in Bolivarianism a revolutionary solution and the possibility of building a different society.
Oil of Venezuelan “Socialism” for the imperialist war machine
The delivery of Venezuelan oil to the United States completely exposes the bankruptcy of the so-called “socialism of the 21st century” and its true class character. Not a single shit remains of what they proclaimed with vehemence and that in the beginning vomited fire. Sovereignty, anti-imperialism and the revolution died with no more significance than that shown by Maduro abandoned by his companions, handcuffed and shipped to a prison in the United States.
The leadership that took over from Maduro, headed by Delcy Rodríguez, with the support of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, decided to submit to the same Yankee imperialism - which they once 'fought' - with incredible virulence.
A few weeks ago, Venezuela just granted for one hundred years the exploitation of fields that contain around 65,000 million barrels of oil, close to twenty percent of its reserves. The US government would control 55% of the joint venture, through direct participation or the right to obtain oil at cost. Donald Trump celebrated that the operation will double the reserves under US control, while Delcy Rodríguez presented it as an agreement for the "economic recovery of the country." The PSUV also supported it and described it as a mechanism intended to protect national interests. Imbeciles, they hand over sovereignty and resources to imperialism and talk about national interests.
As if a true political earthquake had not occurred in Venezuela, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie handed over a part of the country's main wealth to the power that blocked its economy, intervened in its internal affairs, imposed its conditions by force of arms and kidnapped its top leader, Maduro, to take him to prison in the United States. The Venezuelan leadership did not resist: it capitulated. Faced with imperialist pressure, it abandoned the sovereignty it proclaimed and turned the people's oil into a guarantee of its own political survival.
This capitulation is not the work of Delcy Rodríguez. We think that accusing only her is losing objectivity. That she behaved like a lap dog, well yes, she did; But, deep down, she is not the only one to blame. Neither does Maduro. The problem is deeper: it is ideological. It is the result of the line that guided the Bolivarian Revolution from the beginning.
Chavismo never destroyed the old State nor did it destroy the economic relations that tie Venezuela to imperialism. I was never going to do it. He was and is part of the big bourgeoisie, and you have to be half crazy to think that he was going to commit political harakiri. What he did was administer bureaucratic capitalism with a narrative covered in some populism and revolutionary slogans; distribute a part of the oil revenues and present that “bonanza” as the result of a revolutionary process that never existed.
Chavismo's betrayal of the Venezuelan people takes on an even more serious dimension because the oil delivered strengthens the United States and Israel and contributes to sustaining the criminal war in Western Asia. The deaths left by imperialism and Zionism in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran are not only the product of the bestial Yankee and Zionist aggression; It also bears the imprint of the cowardly and traitorous leadership of Venezuela. They, the leaders of the government and the PSUV, are complicit, they contribute to this military campaign that imperialism deploys anywhere in the world and even in Ecuadorian waters, where it massacres artisanal fishermen under the pretext of combating drug trafficking or the criminal bombing of artisanal miners whose neutralization is a demand of the large monopolistic mining company.
What then remains of Bolivarian anti-imperialism? Nothing. As our people say on the street; no shit! The same leadership that used the Palestinian cause as part of its propaganda now accepts that Venezuelan wealth strengthens the main protector of its executioners. Solidarity with Palestine was reduced to speeches, flags and diplomatic declarations; the truth, the objective, they ended up stabbing them in the back.
We must take stock of all this; It's important. We must analyze it more and better. In the end, everything reaffirms us on the path. There is no room for “half measures”. We cannot fall into the game of that miserable left of the country that, wearing mule blinders, comes out to support a project of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie in our countries, where the revolutionary discourse covers up the darkest part of the bourgeois strategy in the midst of its internal contradictions.
The seriousness of the events has an enormous impact on the Venezuelan people, but also on the rest of the peoples whose rulers opted for the “revolution of the 21st century.” This supposedly “progressive” bureaucratic bourgeoisie managed to freeze, for many years, the organizational and combative capacity of broad popular sectors. On the other hand, thecomprador bourgeoisie, more “crotched” with the Yankees, worked to defeat the bureaucratic bourgeoisie through a powerful advertising campaign deployed by all possible means: formal, informal and educational. He made them believe that this nonsense that this “revolution” was little less than the reddest communism that humanity had ever experienced.
“They threw a black flag” to such an extent that today, in Ecuador, any individual, organization or group that protests against Noboa's criminal regime is stigmatized as a Correísta. And, according to this fascist and imperialism, being a Correísta is synonymous with being a communist, guerrilla or revolutionary.
We must always understand that within the big bourgeoisie there is collusion and struggle. Its factions collude when the “security” of the old State is threatened by the conscious elements of the class and the people, but they also fight among themselves, even with violence, for control of the State and the distribution of wealth.
Let's learn lessons from all this. The conclusion? The only socialism that Latin America can achieve will be the one born after a New Democracy revolution led by the proletariat. And that is not done from the polls, nor by drinking a “cafecito” or by getting into ayahuasca like crazy in an indigenous revelry; but through organization, popular war and the conquest of Power. Only then can we give way to socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. If it is not this, it is nothing.
THE NEW DEMOCRACY, THE ONLY POSSIBLE REVOLUTION IN THE COUNTRIES OF THE THIRD WORLD!
WITHOUT DESTRUCTION THERE CAN BE NO CONSTRUCTION!
WITHOUT A PEOPLE'S WAR THERE CAN BE NO NEW POWER!
September 16, 2026