You could say that Venezuela was trying to build socialism. They did have a lot of socialist inspired policies, their revolution was originally based on Marxism or something similar I think but even under Chavez they were leaning more towards nationalism.

Truth be told it's hard for a socialist country to defend themselves.

Cuba and Vietnam have been the exceptions.

China isn't even socialist anymore, they have a "reestablish socialism by 2050" plan in place now that they've been working towards for years after their economy was liberalised in the late 80s through the 90s.