By Benny Schaft
December 22, 2025
In recent months, we have seen the U.S. capitalist war machine once again reveal its true character as it launches fascist aggression against our comrades in Venezuela. This aggression has already claimed the lives of countless civilians through relentless bombings, justified, as always, by lies about so-called “drug smugglers.”
These lies have already been exposed, not only by the people of Venezuela themselves but by the proletariat, who have once again laid bare the deception and trickery of these warmongers.
Completely out of touch with the material conditions and lived realities of the masses, the U.S. ruling class has chosen to escalate even further, acting directly against the will of the people. They have terrorized our comrades not only in Venezuela but also in Colombia and across Latin America as a whole. This is nothing more than a desperate, last-ditch attempt to preserve the imperialist U.S. empire and, by extension, to save capitalism itself.
Capitalism now finds itself on life support. The only way it knows how to revive itself is through the blood of the people, just as exploitation has always been the source of its profits.
So now some may ask: Where do the youth come into this?
We come into this, because, alongside the proletariat, the youth are essential to building a revolutionary people’s front against capitalism, fascism and imperialism. Of course, most youths, even in the imperialist centers, are members of the working class.
History makes this undeniable. During the Russian Revolution, the youth joined with the proletariat to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism. We saw the same process unfold during the Chinese Revolution. And most importantly, especially here, in the imperial belly of the beast, we saw the youth rise up against the capitalist, imperialist war in Vietnam.
Entire communities became battlegrounds
Universities, streets and entire communities became battlegrounds, turning into sites of open confrontation between the repressive, Gestapo-like forces of the state and the youth. The U.S. government went so far as to target, brutalize, jail and murder us, culminating in the massacres at South Carolina State, Kent State and Jackson State universities in 1968 and 1970.
This is because the capitalist class fears not only the power of the proletariat and the working class but the power of the youth as well. Young people, whether organized formally or informally, have always brought revolutionary energy, action and organization to the forefront of struggle.
We see this clearly today in the actions taken in defense of the liberation and the right to self-determination of our Palestinian comrades, actions that have already radicalized countless youth across the United States.
Youth took the lead in the struggle against genocide in Gaza. Peoplehood Parade, Philadelphia, Nov. 9, 2025.
Of course, some will argue that we cannot fight on multiple fronts, that Palestine must take precedence over what is happening in Venezuela. We recognize that the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people is of immense importance, not only morally but to the international struggle of the proletariat as a whole. But the claim that we must choose, that we can only fight one struggle and abandon another, is false.
The bombs being dropped on Palestinians and the bombs being dropped on Venezuelans come from the same source. They follow the same line: U.S. imperialism and capitalism, hell-bent on terrorizing and oppressing the peoples of the Global South. Palestine and Venezuela are both part of that Global South.
No matter how different these struggles may appear on the surface, they are deeply interconnected within the broader global struggle for liberation. In both cases, the perpetrator is the same, the capitalist, imperialist U.S. government.
That is why we, the youth, have no choice but to stand with our comrades in Venezuela just as we stand with our comrades in Palestine, in Sudan and in the Congo, as youth across the world have already begun to rise and struggle internationally for liberation.
Ruling-class violence comes home
But this violence does not stop at foreign borders; it is mirrored and enforced here at home.
The same system that drops bombs abroad carries out continual lynching and murder of Black youth here in the imperial core. The same state that claims to defend “freedom” kidnaps Brown youth, cages them and sends them to concentration camps under the guise of immigration enforcement. This is not a contradiction; it is the domestic face of imperialism.
Every act of aggression against Venezuela is paid for with our tax dollars, draining resources from our communities while worsening material conditions for the working class and the youth alike. These conditions force many working-class youth into the U.S. military, lured by false promises of opportunity, stability and escape.
In reality, this is nothing more than an effort to fill the ranks — to ensure that when the capitalist class needs boots on the ground, it is the youth who are sent to die for their profits.
President and Comrade Nicolás Maduro has called upon the youth of the imperial core to stand in solidarity and rise alongside the people of Venezuela against U.S. aggression. He, along with others in the movement, understands a fundamental truth: The people must unite under the banner of international solidarity against the war-mongering capitalist class.
Because the same system that seeks to impose exploitation and domination on Venezuela seeks to impose it on the entire Global South and ultimately on us here in the belly of the beast as well. As imperialism tightens its grip abroad, material conditions at home will only continue to deteriorate. Fascism is not a distant threat; it is already here, and history has shown us time and time again that the youth are always among its first targets.
That is why neutrality is not an option. Silence is not an option. The task before us is clear: to organize, to resist and to stand in unwavering solidarity with the people of Venezuela and with all oppressed peoples fighting for liberation against imperialism, wherever it rears its head.
