Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro has a new national goal: He’s going to expand his massive private army to 4 million gunmen by the end of 2020. Another triumph of socialism!

And never mind that the policies of Maduro and his late predecessor, Hugo Chávez, have brought the nation to ruin, with all but the rulers and their clients facing slow starvation and “health care” without any medicine. Well over a tenth the population has fled, with more leaving all the time.

Sadly, the opposition — including Juan Guaidó, the legitimate president recognized by most of the world’s democratic countries — is powerless, not least because the regime confiscated all private firearms back in 2012.

Exempted from the ban: the regime’s “Bolivarian Militias” — modern-day brownshirts who have done much of the work of crushing protests for years now.

The government says their ranks now number 3.3 million, so Maduro’s 4 million goal seems all too reachable.

All around the world, earnest fans of socialism insist it has never failed, as critics claim, since “true socialism has never really been tried.” Maduro is showing that the sure way to make it “succeed” is for the self-proclaimed socialists to have all the guns.