The international conjuncture is arguably more favourable today than at any time since Cuba’s 1959 revolution, with the flowering of Venezuela’s Bolivarian socialist revolution, the new rise of the left in Latin America and US imperialism under increasing pressure from the rest of the world, important sectors of the US capitalist class and the majority of US citizens to lift its cruel and criminal blockade.

The opening of Venezuela’s socialist revolution brings Cuba some much-needed moral and material reinforcement, and not a moment too soon. Not only is the Bolivarian Revolution the first new socialist revolution of the post-Soviet era, thus free from the malign influence of Stalinism, this revolution is taking place in a country eight times the size of Cuba with twice the population and sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves.

For all its novelty, Venezuela’s revolution is essentially the spread of the Cuban Revolution to the South American continent. It would not exist without Cuba’s example, its solidarity and the guidance offered by Cuba’s outstanding Marxist leadership team. Venezuela is close to Cuba both geographically and historically. Venezuela’s independence hero Simon Bolivar and his Cuban counterpart Jose Marti shared the dream of a Latin America united in solidarity and social justice against US imperialism – a dream that is now becoming reality through the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas led by Cuba and Venezuela.

Venezuela’s socialist president Hugo Chavez commented in December: “[A]s Fidel said, if the Venezuelan Bolivarian revolution is destroyed the entire continent would fall into the hands of the [US] empire. The Venezuelan revolution without the Cuban revolution would not exist. Both are obliged to battle in unity to free the entire Latin American continent from the Yankee empire.”

The ALBA alliance took centre stage at the US climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark in December, when Chavez, Bolivian President Evo Morales and the Cuban delegation scuttled the US attempt to impose an unjust, toothless document in lieu of an acceptable agreement. They used this platform very effectively to denounce imperialist capitalism as the dark horse dragging humanity to the brink of an ecological apocalypse.

The core of ALBA is the Cuba-Venezuela alliance, which has developed to the point where the two revolutionary processes are effectively merging to become, as Chavez put it in August 2008, “one and the same revolution”. The scale of Cuba's collaboration with Venezuela is now comparable to Cuba's historical relations with the Soviet Union in magnitude, but there is a qualitative difference: what is taking place today is a merging of two sister revolutionary processes. This collaboration is both deep and many-sided.

Some 40,000 Cuban doctors, teachers and other professionals are working in Venezuela and thousands of Venezuelan youth are studying in Cuba. There is growing integration between Cuba’s socialist state enterprises and their Venezuelan counterparts, which are expanding at the expense of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie. A vast new petrochemical complex being built in Cienfuegos, in central Cuba, is one such project. With Venezuela’s help, Cuba may become an oil exporter in as little as five years. In December, the two countries inked another 285 cooperation agreements for 2010 worth $3.2 billion, and agreed to establish seven joint-venture companies in sugar, aluminium, transport and agriculture.

Venezuela's revolution is converging on “the Cuban road” – without mechanical copying, especially of errors and weaknesses – because there is no other road if the Bolivarian socialist revolution is to remain true to itself. Asked by Democracy Now website’s Amy Goodman at the Copenhagen conference, “How do you throw away capitalism?”, Chavez responded: “The way they did it in Cuba. That’s the way. The same way we are doing in Venezuela: giving the power to the people and taking it away from the economic elites. You can only do that through a revolution.”