In December 2025 a number of organisers involved in various anti-Imperialist and progressive projects in Brighton got together and formed the Brighton branch of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, the first branch that has existed outside of the national branch based in London.

The decision to do this was clear. For the past 28 years, since Hugo Chavez led the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and established the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Venezuelan government and its people have been put under intense Imperialist pressure.

This begun with the famed failed coup attempt against Hugo Chavez government in 2002, where Chavez was kidnapped from his country and an interim government announced with the full support of the United States. The basis for this, in the eyes of the United States and the Venezuelan opposition, was that Hugo Chavez government was illegitimate, not democratic and not popularly supported.

Thankfully for the Venezuelan people and the anti-Imperialist cause, this was proved to be completely false. The new interim government announced the banning of democratic elections in the name of ‘democracy’ and the Venezuelan people marched in their hundreds of thousands to demand the return of their leader. Within just 47 hours, Hugo Chavez, the supposedly undemocratic dictator had been returned to his position as Venezuelan President by the people and the military.

This was undoubtedly one of the biggest embarrassments that US Imperialism had faced since the end of the Cold War and the beginning of US unipolar rule over the world. Sadly however, it did not deter the US attempts to overthrow the Venezuelan government by any means necessary.

By the time of Chavez death in 2013, extreme poverty in Venezuela had been cut by two thirds and overall poverty by over half, infant mortality fell by 18.2% largely as a product of free state funded healthcare provided for all Venezuelan’s. Illiteracy was targeted through free education for Venezuelans and through targetted programs such as Mission Robinson which helped over 1.4 million citizens learn to read and write. While the Mision Sucre system created state owned Universities which allowed the poorest sections of Venezuelan society to study higher level education for the first time.

In terms of democratic access ordinary Venezuelans were included in the running of their country for the very first time with over 30,000 communal councils formed which put ordinary people at the centre of the running of their country.

There are numerous other successes too of which would take too long to list in this article, but can be found in various articles on the national Venezuela Solidarity Campaign website.

These successes in the improvement in living conditions for ordinary Venezuelans was enough to anger the United States into further intervention. With Maduro’s first election victory in 2016 came two major controversies. International sanctions and the theft of Venezuelan gold.

Using the same lies they had used 14 years earlier against Chavez, the United States cried fowl over the legitimacy of Venezuela’s government, claiming that the elections, and every subsequent election which Maduro has won, to be fraudulent.

This was then enforced by the United States onto a large number of countries, including the United Kingdom which to this day refused to recognise the elected government in Venezuela.

This lie was then used to justify the theft of billions of dollars worth of Venezuelan gold which had been deposited by the Venezuelan government into British banks, which to this day has not been returned. While US unilateral imposed sanctions which were followed by a large part of the world has attempted to make the Venezuelan economy scream.

The impact of this has been huge, estimated in reports by the United Nations found that at least 400,000 people had been killed by these sanctions, a number which is likely to be conservative.

However there has been one problem, while great havoc has been brought onto Venezuela, and there has no doubt been many casualties in many departments, the support for the Bolivarian project and its elected government by the Venezuelan people has not wavered, and with the development of mulitpolarity and the BRICS, in particular with large trade with China and Russia, Venezuela has begun not just to recover, but to succeed.

In particular the countries economy saw massive growth in the last year, its annual GDP growing by nearly 8%, making it one of South America’s fastest growing economies. The sanctions, the lies and smears, the previous methods of breaking support for the Bolivarian project was failing.

This however has provoked the most grave Imperialist attack against Venezuela since the Bolivarian Revolution began in 1998, the illegal kidnapping of Venezuela’s democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cila Flores in January this year, alongside the bombing and murder of over 100 Venezuelan citizens.

Since then Maduro and Flores have been kept in solitary confinement for nearly 3 months, with no sign of their illegal and corrupt trial coming to a close, while Trump has made continued threats against the Venezuelan government and people if they are to ‘step out of line’.

It must be remembered, no matter how much propaganda is spewed out of the mouthpieces of Imperialism, that Venezuela was not attacked because its government was unpopular, because its economy didn’t work, or because it is a failed state, but quite the opposite, that Venezuela was attacked because it is proof that history has not ended, that there is an alternative to rampant neo-liberalism and Imperialism which is ravaging the planet, that there are alternatives to the liberal democratic project which leaves 90% of the population without a political voice.

And this is precisely why our work in the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign here in Britain and in Brighton is so important. It is essential that we learn from the successes of the Bolivarian Revolution and seek alternatives to the Imperialist hell we live under. This education allows us to see past the many lies and smears thrown against the Bolivarian Republic and allows us to instead stand in direct solidarity with both the Venezuelan people and its government in their fight against Imperialism and for the establishment of Socialism.

It is of extra importance for those of us living in the Imperial Core to engage in this work, for we are living in the country which has caused so much harm and destruction to those living in Venezuela, and many more countries which also live under the threat of Imperialism. We are living in the country which illegally holds billions of dollars worth of Venezuelan gold which belongs only to the Venezuelan nation.  We are living in the country which follows the imposed sanctions which have attempted to bring misery on the lives of ordinary Venezuelans. We are the ones living in the country which produces the weapons which are used to drop bombs on Venezuela.

Because of this, we are the ones which must stand in solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution and put an end to this Imperialist barbarism, must return the gold, end the sanctions and shut down the arms factories. This is why we formed the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, and why you should join and become a part of our struggle and campaigns in support of Venezuela.