It is a week now since the death of Hugo Chávez and there are still kilometer long queues of people coming from all over the country to pay their last respects. Presidential elections have been called for April 14 and the mood is turning angry at the provocations of the oligarchy.

Hugo Chávez is no more. The cause of freedom, socialism and humanity has lost a courageous champion. He died on Tuesday, March 5, at 4.25 pm local time. The news was announced by Vice President Maduro. The President was just 58, and had been 14 years in power. He has been battling cancer for the last two years, but when news of his death was announced, it came as a shock.

Taking advantage of Chavez’s ill health, the Venezuelan oligarchy and imperialism have renewed their campaign of destabilisation against the Bolivarian Revolution. They risk unleashing the wrath of the workers and the poor.

On Saturday, December 8, Venezuelan president Chávez announced that he would have to undergo another surgical intervention in Cuba. Adding that “there are always risks in processes like this” he explained that “if anything happens to me that hinders me [from performing as president]”, vice president Maduro is his preference to replace him.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has won, yet again, the presidential elections on Sunday October 7, with a comfortable margin of 54.84% against the 44.55% of his opponent Henrique Capriles. This is another victory for the Bolivarian revolution which should be used in order to carry out the revolution to the end.

The presidential election due on October 7 represents a decisive moment in the history of Venezuela. The outcome of this election will have a major impact throughout the continent and internationally. It goes without saying that the Hands Off Venezuela campaign is actively supporting the Bolivarian candidate Hugo Chavez and fighting against any attempt of the oligarchy and imperialism to sabotage the elections. The IMT stands firmly for the re-election of Hugo Chávez. Why have we taken this position?

For all revolutionaries it is perfectly clear that 2012 will be a defining year of important challenges. Currently, the Bolivarian revolution is at a cross-road. Either we radicalise the revolution and we deepen its changes, or the reformist politics which seek to simply regulate capitalism, as opposed to eliminating it, could lead the revolution to suffer a dangerous defeat in both the long and medium term.

Ten years after the defeat of the coup in Venezuela by the revolutionary mobilisation of the masses it is worth looking back at the forces that were behind the coup, the reasons why it was defeated and what happened afterwards, as those events hold the clue to the class dynamics of the Venezuelan revolution.

On Sunday February the 12, the long-awaited opposition primary elections took place in order to select the candidate who will face Hugo Chavez in the presidential elections due for October this year. Cápriles Radonski, the present governor of Miranda state won a clear victory with 62% of the vote, compared to only 28.9% for his contender Pablo Perez, present governor of Zulia state.

My visit to Venezuela at the end of June coincided with the speculation, rumours and finally announcements about the health of Hugo Chavez. This incident revealed a number of important questions about the Venezuelan revolution, the role that President Chavez plays in it and the character of the counter-revolutionary opposition.

While I was in Venezuela a number of comrades asked me about some manifesto against “Chavez's attacks on trade union rights” and also about the controversy over a letter Noam Chomsky had signed which the bourgeois media had used in their campaign in defence of “human rights” in Venezuela.

As part of my recent trip to Venezuela I was invited to speak about the world crisis of capitalism and the class struggle in Europe at two meetings of PDVSA oil workers in Monagas, in the east of the country. One of the meetings took place in Maturín, the capital of the state and where the PDVSA management for the Eastern Region is based, and the other one in the PDVSA installations in Punta de Mata, a city built around a massive oil field.

At the end of June I had the opportunity of visiting Venezuela where I attended the national conference of “Class Struggle” (Lucha de Clases), the Venezuelan section of the International Marxist Tendency. What I witnessed is an increased polarisation between left and right, but above all an open clash between the revolutionary wing of the Bolivarian movement and the reformists and bureaucrats. In a series of articles I will attempt to illustrate this.

On Tuesday May 25, the US imposed penalties against Venezuelan state-owned company PDVSA, and another 6 companies from other countries, for conducting business with Iran.  The sanctions are part of an attempt by Washington to step up the pressure against Iran in relation to its nuclear program. They are also an act of blatant bullying directed against Venezuela.

The arrest in Venezuela of Colombian political refugee Joaquín Pérez Becerra and his hand over to the Colombian authorities by the government of president Chávez has raised deeper questions about the strategy of the Venezuelan revolution.