TODAY marks two months [since the US attack on Venezuela]. So many things have happened in these past two months — both in Venezuela and around the world.

In the world, we are witnessing the most aggressive face of imperialism, the most violent, warmongering face, where they want to impose their model by force. They want to eliminate alternatives that differ from what they propose….

The first stage in that was Venezuela where two months ago they entered and kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro….

And now we see that there is another war in the Middle East. And how curious it is that it’s in the Middle East where there is oil, and that we are also an oil-producing country.

In Venezuela, we remain steadfast under difficult circumstances… A woman in a neighbourhood in El Valle gave me an example. She said, Nicolas, if someone enters my house and wants to impose their rules, I confront them, fight and resist. But if they kidnap my father and my mother, then the situation changes. We have to negotiate with the kidnapper.

And that is more or less what we have been doing. We haven’t ruled out all the options. Of course, we have looked at the entire map of options, and this is the path we are taking today on our own terms.

It is what I believe we must do to ensure that our model moves forward and so we remain in political power for the great transformations that we need to make. And the only way we can fight for the return of Nicolas and Cilia is by being in government. I am speaking in the most pragmatic way possible…

We also have principles. For example, we have not allowed our international relations to be conditioned. We have continued to raise the flag of socialism…

And now we are in an internal tactical review to ensure hegemony for future scenarios. In those, Chavismo has a great advantage: it has a sense of unity. All of Chavismo, from the high command, from the leaders to the grassroots bases….

We are taking the steps we need to take to ensure Venezuela’s peace and the country’s stability. And in the end, they had no choice but to come and negotiate with us.

They were surprised that we had the country under control on January 3 and 4. Because anything could have happened here. There could have been looting, the violent groups of the right could have been activated, the armed forces could have done anything. But that didn’t happen.

Everything was based on the awareness that Chavez had instilled and that President Maduro has been cultivating, and that we have the obligation to continue raising awareness and organising the people for any scenario that may come.

The most important thing is that the people are aware and organised to resist whatever they want to do to our country.

They are interested in plunging the country into chaos. They thrive on chaos. Where there is chaos in the country, they can take control.

Here there was no chaos. There was aggression, the president was kidnapped, but the institutions functioned, and the people stayed in the streets.

And today, two months later, we are riding the wave. We are … getting through the tsunami with wounds, with pain, with scars. But we are getting through it — without underestimating the enemy’s capacity to cause harm, both the imperialist enemy and their puppets who want to cause harm here in Venezuela.

We do not underestimate them at all. We address those problems in their proper measure…

Here in Venezuela the people are tired of hatred and of political conflict that leads nowhere. As Marx and Hegel say, the first law of dialectics is that from the struggle of two theses — the confrontation of ideas — comes the synthesis of solutions to great historical problems. We support the debate of opposites, but a constructive one…

At this moment, we are casting the net wider so that the opposition which believes in a democratic country, which does not support the invasion, which rejected the kidnapping of the president… and the intervention of the United States, that patriotic opposition, can help us create the great national consensus to build a more united country.

And we have set ourselves three lines.

The first line is unity for peace, to maintain the peace of the country, to maintain internal order, so that the people feel at ease…

The second line is unity so that the country moves forward, so that the country does not come to a halt. We have to consolidate the economic front…. deepen the political, democratic process, reduce social inequality, and provide quality education and healthcare. We have to move the country forward and advance all the plans that Nicolas [President Maduro] left behind.

And the third line is to keep alive every day the flame of the fight for the freedom of [the president and first lady] Nicolas and Cilia. That we do not forget them, both here and in the world. On that I ask for your help….

Today [the two month anniversary of the kidnapping] has been a very emotional day for me…. But here we are firm. We have no choice. What is the choice? Barbarism? No. What is the choice? Death? No, we refuse that. The choice is peace, dialogue, and coexistence….

We are in a historical process that — in the Venezuelan case — did not begin with Chavez, but began with Simon Bolivar and independence, and Chavez took it up again like a giant.

And that’s how these historical processes are. They have great advances, they sometimes have setbacks, but without a doubt, we must remain firm, raising awareness among the people and organising them so that, whatever the scenario, we always come out victorious.

This is based on an unofficial translation of a speech given in Spanish.