On Thursday February 20 at midnight, the Venezuelan police arrested the president of the bosses’ organisation Fedecamaras Carlos Fernandez, accused of five different charges: betrayal to the fatherland, rebellion, instigation to crime, association to commit crime, and devastation. This action of the justice system reflects clearly the pressure of the revolutionary movement and the new balance of forces after the complete failure of the attempted coup.

The reports from Venezuela indicate a sharpening of the struggle between the contending forces.The revolutionary camp must be on its guard against provocateurs who have undoubtedly infiltrated themselves into the mass movement, with a view to causing disorder and panic. Their aim is to drag the mass movement into futile armed conflicts that can end with a large number of casualties. This is the main aim of the counterrevolutionaries. That is why the ideas of "foquism" and individual terrorism are so harmful to the movement. The groups that advocate such tactics are very easily infiltrated by the police and secret services and manipulated for sinister purposes. It is necessary to firmly

As Alan Woods had just finished writing this article, we received a letter from a Venezuelan Marxist commenting on yesterday's article by Emilia Lucena and we are publishing extracts from it relating to the present situation, followed by comments by Alan Woods.

The revolution in Venezuela has reached the point of no return. In two stormy days in April, the bourgeoisie attempted a coup d'etat against the reformist government of Hugo Chavez. Although it was backed by big business, right-wing trade union leaders and the US embassy, the coup failed. In just 36 hours the whole thing was over.

Today marks the anniversary of the defeat of the coup that attempted to remove President Hugo Chavez from power in 2002. Within less than 48 hours, reaction was defeated by a magnificent movemenet of the Venezuelan masses. Here we reproduce the analysis of those events written by Ted Grant and Alan Woods published on April 14, 2002.