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If some Venezuelans have told you that story, they are obviously supporters of the revolution and they will never recognize their own responsibility in this mess.

How they do not see the obvious is beyond me. I have repeatedly said that they are either too naive or too cynical. Very dangerous either way.

I used to teach American History and Literature, so I am fully aware of the USA's history of interventions in LA and the rest of the world. I always told my students that when it comes to government's/corporate interests, it will not make any difference whether the president is Democrat or Republican. The story will always be the same.

About the embargo, that is just the cheapest excuse to justify what has been cooking for 2 decades now. The so-called embargo started as punitive measures against high-ranking government officials (ministers, military, congress people, governors, etc.). They have been accused of different crimes, some of them drug/money laundering related, others related to crimes against humanity.
The preaching some American policians sold to the American people was just a re-selling of the official propaganda. Venezuela under the chavismo regime has never been in good shape. Even during the $100/barrel oil boom, we were seeing a steady deterioration of all our institutions. Far from investing in infrastructure and stable social programs, they dilapidated an unspeakable fortune. The cases are out there for people willing to do some research. From chavez's personal nurse to his treasurer/bodyguard to ex ministers (like Ramirez, ex-president of PDVSA, now declared anti-maduro) and military, like Hugo Carvajal, A.K.A. el pollo, who was head of military intelligence. The list goes on and on of chavistas who participated of the most impressive theft of the century. Alex Saab's trial should provide some lights. How does a Colombian national becomes all of a sudden a Venezuelan diplomat? doesn't that suggest soemthing fishy was going on. The corruption ring arounf the CLAP business is just too big to cover with nationalistic rhetoric.

Even the same chavistas publicly recited a new mantra (and we are talking about more than 6 years ago, way before the so-called embargo), according to which Socialism had not been fully implemented, not even in China or the Soviet Union; they had just been experimenting; people should not expect results unless the whole capitalist apparatus was deconstructed and dismantled, etc, etc. They knew nothing was working, people were starving, but that was part of the plan.

They never meant to created a just prosperous republic. They were content with provoking a massive migration that would rid them of millions of anti-government people, never mind they probably were the best equipped to keep the country running. They wanted people as poor as possible so that dependence from the State was total.

That's the only thing they achieved.
As you rightly point out, “Often authoritarian revolutionaries are able to produce good results in the short term because there is nothing to impede their sweeping changes.”
However, the only sweeping changes Chavez made were nominal changes of institutions and programs; cheese baptismal euphemism to give people the impression they were being taken into account (a ministry for Indigenous People—see how they treat Indians now in the Arco Minero; a Bank of the Poor, a Bank of the Woman, a new currency—the bolivar Fuerte, which was actually the most striking evidence of their fiscal incapacity, even amidst an oil bonanza).

Regarding the opposition leaders, yes, their quota of responsibility is now obvious. guaido's appointment was not necessarily a USA idea; it was what our laws allowed at the time given the institutional crisis and maduro’s illegitimacy after a fake election and the dismantling of the legitimate congress. What has happened in the last years, though, has been a very complex dirty politics game where every single actor seems to be a double agent.
The "attempted coup involving agents/special-forces from the US military", by the way, is just too ridiculous a farse to believe. Either the USA is seriously competing for the clown of the year or some interested parties provided the elements for a charade to be performed just to add some more fuel to the patriotic discourse that the revolution has been exploiting for decades.

Most people I know do not trust either side. What maduro and socialism have done for Venezuela is out there for anyone to see. If people still want to find scapegoats to blame for this unspeakable disaster is up to them and their conscience, although, if they are followers of the chavista socialist model they may not have one.