Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution

After viewing the spat between Chavez and Spain's King Juan Carlos on TV last week, where the latter told Chavez to "Shut the f....k up!" with the former replying in the same coin, there can be no doubt who this young revolutionary army leader's, now President (what for his 3rd term?) hero and role model is: the old dying Leftist Caudillo himself, Fidel Castro. Richard Gott's book on 'Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela', Verso, 2005, that he has unleashed locally, and regionally - by alliances with Evo Morales in Bolivia and now with Ecuador, shifts Gott's focus from Cuba to the Latin American continent. He painstakingly and meticulously uncovers the layers of skin (that of a `mixed-blood' mestizo, with an Afro-American heritage) that is the epidermis of this charismatic young leader, so reminiscent of Abdul Gammal Nasser and the `Young Turks' in Iraq and the Middle East of the 1950s, and the officers' movement that overthrew the aging Portuguese dictatorship in 1974. The parallels are clear and Gott does well to remind us of both their potentialities and limitations, their unstable social bases, their populist appeals and their shifting day-to-day politics. Who is the real Hugo Chavez and when will he emerge? This seems to be the question many still ask. Gott traces the attempted coup against him in 2002 and its aftermath, not a blood-bath as the Right feared but an unusual 'negotiated settlement'. Chavez's moves between many political registers but has yet to anchor his Bolivarian Movement in a party that can represent his ideas for change. Or does he not need one? Gott has done his usual well-polished job here and we await with anticipation the outcomes of the titanic test of strength between Chavez's Bolivarians and their powerful rivals, local and abroad. He is still reliant on the huge oil-sales to the US for revenue and his revolutionary rhetoric seems only to have ruffled the feathers of those in power in the White House, whoever that may be after the coming election. What will happen when Fidel joins Che et al in the great revolutionaries graveyard in the sky- will he take over their mantle? A topical book and a topical leader. Well, recommended as there is no other of its type available really

A very well written book that reviews the life and achievements of one of the most controversial leaders of our time. Hugo Chavez is a remarkable revolutionist who the world is paying. This book reveals why the world needs to pay attention to the extraordinary Venezuelan leader.

Forty years ago, many radicals happily jumped onto Fidel Castro's bandwagon, captivated by the Cuban leader's anti-imperialist rhetoric and specter of a new kind of world socialism. Today, Hugo Chavez has taken over this role, with his speeches (rightly) comparing George W. Bush to the devil at a time when no one else will speak truth to power. It is this phenomenon which makes Richard Gott's biography so crucial. Most newspaper accounts of Chavez obscure who he really is by painting him in such broad strokes that we are forced to take sides less on what we know about Chavez then what we know about his critics (such as the United States). This book clarifies much about Venezuelan history and the present situation. Gott defends Chavez from his right-wing detractors by pointing out that since 1998 Chavez has been supported repeatedly by voters in Venezuela. And yet the author is not hopelessly mesmerized by Chavez. His sympathetic narrative mixes historical perspective, analysis and personal experience across three decades...but mostly goes without the uncritical eye lent Chavez by so many English-speaking radicals. The history of the Venezuela left--both military and civilian--is extraordinarily important to understanding how Hugo Chavez launched the Bolivarian revolution over the heads of the established parties, supported by the enthusiasm of the masses. It also begs the question of the future of socialism in Latin America. The narrative ends in early 2005, in the midst of the Bolivarian revolution, which has since tacked even further left. In 1998, Chavez advocated for a social-democratic "third way" between capitalism and communism. Today, he champions "Venezuelan socialism", going as far as declaring "I am a Trotskyist" in reference to the anti-Stalinist Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky.

Gott is a veteran leftist British journalist, a Latin American specialist, who writes in a very clear and not ungraceful journalese style which I must say is very refreshing to read after just finishing a semester trying to read through dreadfully dull authors in grad school classes. The read is relatively quick. Perhaps the biggest point in the book is the insight provided about the opposition to Chavez, the people the American media portray as great heroes for democracy struggling against Chavez. This opposition almost exclusively comes from the remnants of the old discredited elites that had run the country into the ground before Chavez's election. After the overthrow of the military dictator General Marcos Perez Jimenez in 1958, the so-called Social Democratic party, Democratic Action(Spanish acronym AD) and the Christian Democrats (COPEI) agreed to set up a political system where they would share the spoils of the bureaucracy and effectively prevent any third parties from running for president. Carlos Andres Perez of AD was president of Venezuela during its economic high point, 1974-79. Venezuela nationalized foreign oil companies in 1976 but according to Gott the state run oil company was run as the fiefdom of its directors and its employees who seemed to have been a privileged class among Venezuelan workers. The vast majority of Venezuelans received very little from the abundant petrodollars of the 70's; a lot of the money was invested abroad or redistributed to the managers and employees of the company.. The government spent massively on infrastructure projects and used oil money to place grassroots supporters on the government payroll. The downward spiral of oil prices in the 1980's sent the economy into collapse by 1989. Andres Perez had previously denounced the International Monetary Fund as a genocidal tool against the poor of the third world but he reversed himself in early 1989 and started adopting the policies of that organization. He launched plans to privatize government owned industries, eliminate tariffs to protect small farmers, fire numerous public sector employees, and privatize the state-owned oil company. A hike in bus fares sent the residents of the shanty towns on the hills overlooking central Caracas down the hills to loot and riot. The military responded by moving into poor neighborhoods and often murdering anything that moved. Thousands were killed. This terrible riot/massacre was named the "Caracazo" in popular lingo. It scared to death Venzuela's largely white elite, this terrifying spontaneous uprising of Venezuela's largely dark-skinned poor. In the years following the Caracazo, the shantytowns in the big cities grew with new members from the country side and the elite kept getting richer and the poor poorer. Nationalist inclined military officers and civilians led by Chavez launched a coup in February 1992 against Perez. The coup failed but, Gott writes, Venezuela's elite was terrified: for one the masses o

"Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution" by veteran journalist Richard Gott introduces us to the important struggle against neoliberalism being waged by the people of Venezuela and its charismatic leader, Hugo Chavez. This underreported story is told with skill, verve and clarity by Gott, whose first-hand reporting and intelligent historical analysis have combined to produce an engaging and fascinating book that should appeal to a wide audience. We learn that Chavez' roots in the Venezuelan countryside and his family's support of populist causes helped to shape his core values, including the belief that military power might be used to secure social and economic justice. Gott describes how the neoliberal policies of the 1980s and early 1990s first led to social unrest and then emboldened Chavez, whose first coup attempt while serving in the Venezuelan armed forces in 1992 proved to be unsuccessful. However, the phrase "por ahora" (for now) that Chavez uttered at his arrest thrust Chavez into the spotlight and captured the public's imagination. Eventually, the ongoing and widespread disgust with Venezuela's notoriously incompetent and corrupt government helped Chavez easily win election to the Presidency in 1998. At first glance, Chavez' Bolivarian Revolution resembles nothing more than a strong social/democratic state, wherein revenues from the national oil company allows the government to shower benefits onto its citizens. However, the Chavez administration's recognition of indigenous and minority rights and its substantive economic reforms belies a much more progressive agenda when compared with, say, the so-called social welfare governments of North America and Europe. Domestically, Chavez is seeking to improve the standard of living through an uniquely empowered form of citizenship; internationally, Chavez wants to create a political and military consortium that is dedicated to protecting the people and resources of South America from continuing exploitation by multinational corporations. Gott also compares and contrasts Chavez with his political ally Fidel Castro in order to differentiate the Venezuelan revolutionary experience with Cuba's. Whereas Castro had looked to the independence-minded Jose Marti for inspiration, Chavez draws upon Simon Bolivar to imagine an united South America. Interestingly, the Chavez/Castro relationship appears to be mutually reinforcing, so that while socialistic Cuba is striving to become more democratic, democratic Venezuela is working to become more socialistic. The analysis presented by Gott helps us understand that Chavez' challenge to U.S. hegemony in the hemisphere is very real, and in fact the election in December, 2005 of a socialist government in Bolivia suggests that the political dynamics may well have been permanently altered. Little wonder, then, why small-minded reactionaries such as Pat Robertson have no response to the Bolivarian Revolution than to call for its most outspoken leader's as