With these words, the former Venezuelan president Hugo Rafael Chávez led an everlasting revolution that he declared would take the people of the Bolivar country to a better future. The purpose of the revolution was to leave the capitalist system and to go over to the socialist governance. However, what kind of socialism was he exactly dreaming of – remained a question.
It has been confusing issue up to the present day. During the visit of the author of the article to Venezuela during the last year of Chávez presidency, the following slogan could be seen in different parts of the country: “There is an Imperialist System in the World; Capitalism is its Highest Losing Stage”; “Capitalism Destroys the World,” “Imperialism Must be Ruined,” “We Save the Whole World Through Socialism,” “Socialism or Death – No other Options,” “Thank you President Hugo Chávez, who Gave us Dignity!”. In brief, these catchwords, though, about a hundred years later, reflected the Soviet Socialist October Revolution in Russia and the following cults of personality of Lenin-Stalin.
During the time of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela was a socialist oil state (or petro state), where literally, a liter of bottled water was more expensive than the same amount of petroleum. The revolution changed both domestic and foreign policy. After the call from the charismatic president, tens of thousands of young people from countryside moved to towns where work was never found and a quick criminalization process took place. On the outskirts of metropolitan Caracas, small primitive tiny huts were built and in these incredibly poor regions inhabitants performed gigantic slogans with many thanks to Chávez for their all of sudden (never seen before) dignified life.
The country’s economy, and particularly the oil industry, was characterized by lack of new investments (typical to many petro states in the world), corruption and, overall, financial difficulties. At the same time, oil prices rose on the world market and the situation allowed many oil-rich states to dictate international politics, especially when the importer was dominantly dependent on the oil producer. It has been academically examined that the oil rich countries, the main exporters of oil during the high prices to the energy source – carried out comparatively aggressive foreign policy and definitely Chávez-Venezuela was not an exception. One of Chávez’s ideas sounded as following: “Be realistic, but demand impossible.”
In the Western Hemisphere he had friends and enemies. For example, the friendship group of Chávez at that time was formed by Cuba under the leadership of Fidel Castro, Lula-Brazil, Kirchners’ Argentina, Nicaragua, Bolivia. Chávez’s foreign first enemy, however, was the US. This country was publicly and always criticized as an example of imperialism (“Great Satan” repeated after Iran), although in reality, much of the country’s oil exports went exactly to the United States. Later, the US sharply reduced its imports from Venezuela. And this is undeniably one of the many factors that have caused the failure of the overall socialist failure in Venezuela.
The worldview of Chávez was not local but international, world-wide, and even messianic, in the form of liberator from imperialism, savior of the countries and the world. At the same time, the practical foreign policy turned out to be extremely controversial. In the latter case, the international strategy seems to be in line with the principle – my enemy’s enemy is my friend. This means that the US’s enemies were worthy of praise and respect. For example, Chávez visited Syria and loudly supported President Bashar al-Assad (who was also the leader of the Socialist Baaht Party), Muammar Gaddafi, the leader of the Socialist Arab Libyan state, Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq and the leader of the Socialist Baht Party, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iran), Alexander Lukashenka (Belarus), former President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe. Many of them became the holders of the highest orders of Venezuela. In various interviews, Chávez claimed having zero knowledge of the existence of a terrorist named Osama bin Laden.
To sum up, one could say that Chávez had money, charisma, a relatively (certainly not in absolute terms) large nation’s support and his peculiar and simplistic ideology presented open hatred of the imperialist US. That’s all.
In 2013, Hugo Chávez died but the “perpetual revolution” continued during Nicolás Maduro’s presidency. The former taxi driver (according to some sources – a bus driver) and trade union activist later became a foreign minister, vice president who carried out every order of the Commander Hugo Chávez during his lifetime and tried to keep going the Venezuelan Great Socialist Revolution. At the same time, he had no money, no charisma, no comparable to Chávez public support.
By now there is chaos in the economy. Medicine and the educational system have virtually collapsed. The current Venezuela is cited as an example of authoritarian populism or socialist authoritarianism. Both relate to authoritarianism, which essentially denies any democracy. President Maduro’s slogan is a normative commandment called “Revolution must be speeded up!” Sounds cynical, but in reality it is a socialist acceleration once practiced in the Soviet Union. The USSR finally collapsed and among many aspects – the economic sphere was one of critical that took down the country. The Venezuelan case might turn out to be similar – the speeding up is only going in the opposite direction than expected – with economic, political and social chaos. In addition, at the beginning of this year, the US imposed sanctions on the Venezuelan oil industry (certain companies) and froze Venezuelan oil finances in the US banks, forbidding third party intervention of specific companies, and so on. The behavior of the United States has been named by Russia and China as an attempt of a regime change, a coup d’état, to overthrow President Maduro and his supporters.
Without going into details of political power struggle with the declaration of the opposition leader Juan Gerardo Guaidó himself as interim president, also excluding the analysis of the countries that have recognized Guaidó as president of the country, the financial-economic situation (devaluation and hyperinflation of local currency, jumps in stock market indices, etc.) of Venezuela’s free fall could turn into disaster in various areas of people’s activities and result in bloody civil war.
This negative set of perspectives would require a rapid change in the management of the country and most probably – transform of power. However, Maduro-Venezuela has so far remained faithful to the ideas and practices of Chávez. It is understandable from every aspect that existing power will fight to the last bullet.
At least three countries with the authoritarian model of governance – Russia, China and Turkey – have contributed to this relatively socialist revolutionary state. The first two – Russia and China – are particularly keen on Maduro-Venezuela rescue attempts.
Both countries have capital investments in Venezuela. China has known to have lent 50 billion USD to the oil industry in the last decade to ensure the stability of the fast-growing energy industry at home. In addition, China does not like the US anti-Venezuelan sanctions, as these are the principles of a policy of interference into the internal affairs of another country, and China itself is trying to avoid the Tibet issue as formally an example of the same category.
According to Reuters calculations, Russia has lent at least 17 billion USD to Venezuela since 2006. In 2017, this loan scheme was restructured with Maduro for more convenient repayment (for Russia – to get the money back at least). Russia is hardly interested in any socialism in South America. The fall of communism in the Cold War era is still clearly remembered. Rather, it is in the interest of Russia to back a weak government that, according to Wall Street Journey, produces a third of its peak season oil, which also means that the amount of oil on the world market is falling and the price of the barrel will rise in turn. Russia’s largest and government controlled oil company Rosneft is active in Venezuela. It is here that the US sanctions have become important, especially in third-party modern economic diplomacy (rather US additional sanctions against the third parties present in buy out of Venezuela), and thus the Russia-Venezuela cooperation is rapidly shifting to Russia-US relations.
Today the geopolitical situation in South America has changed. There are no longer many Chávezian friends and devotees left. Several former oil importers deal with alternative energy sources. Neighboring Brazil has been economically transformed. Relations with neighboring Colombia have been a constant problem for decades and are turning into worse. By now, international aid organizations and donor countries are trying to find ways to ease the depressing situation of the Venezuelan people. It is through the cross-border channels between Brazil and Colombia that there has been an attempt to bring material support to the country. However, on the orders of Nicolás Maduro, these deliveries have been banned and the borders declared to be closed. In the meantime, the president Maduro shows on the television that the Venezuelan socialist revolution is progressing tremendously well, even with thousands of Venezuelans living abroad returning home and now happily living in their home country. At the moment, it’s just a historically repeated optimistic cliché: “Towards Socialist Democracy, Comrades!”