When attempting to consolidate power very destructive economic policies are often used out of fear that those forces could threaten ones' power. Similar thing happened in Zimbabwe. Russia is on this same path now too.
Venezuelans who can should request to be paid in bitcoin from foreigners. This probably would work best for those abroad since the bitcoin can be remitted as if there was no border at all. Venezuelans who have knowledge labor -- programmers, researchers, data entry, could also be paid in bitcoin. Eventually when enough people have bitcoin it could also be used to exchange value without the country.
Venezuela is socialist democracy, as there are democratic elections and multiple political parties. Policies of nationalisation under Chavez, though, probably did contribute to the current problems, as they caused a flight of capital.
Way to over simplify things. Present-day Venezuela is very far from being communist even though the current government likes to market itself as such.
The reason Venezuela is like it is now is an incredibly complex subject spanning several decades of bad governments, corruption, oil money dependency, social inequality, etc ... accelerated by a particularly disastrous current government.
