What is Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution?
By Betsy Bowman and Bob Stone 


Last September we watched a DVD of Hugo Chavez explaining his presence to the 5th World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in January 2005. This statement struck us: "We in the Venezuelan delegation are here to learn and to take home new ideas, to soak up the passion and the knowledge here. 

For what Venezuela is doing is only a test run, an experiment. Like all experiments it needs monitoring, oversight, on how it is doing … and so our experiment is open to all of the other wonderful experiments that are now happening in the world." Revolution as open experiment? It sounded too good to be true. We had to see for ourselves. So we were glad Caracas was the site of what would be our first World Social Forum (WSF).

Our first encounter with Venezuela's experiment was in the person of Luis Guacaran, a taxi co-op member who drove us to Caracas. Settled into the rainy trip to town (a main-route bridge was unsafe), we asked Luis what the revolution had meant in his own life. He said it had shown him that as a citizen he had a right to share in the nation's oil wealth, which had always gone to an "oligarchy." 

It had been enough that the people needed health, education and meaningful work for President Chavez to divert oil revenues to providing it, transforming families like Luis's. "That is why he is so loved," he said. But how did Luis get the government he wanted? To answer, some history is needed.

Today Venezuelans claim their "caracazo" protest in 1989 was the first direct mass resistance to neo-liberal globalization and to the class structure that allowed it to be imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Zapatista uprising was five years later. Repressing the caracazo-the Caracas craziness-had cost thousands of lives and sowed deep resentment. The caracazo had incited the combative 23 de Enero neighborhood to get organized, and stimulated study of Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) by some idealistic military officers led by Chavez. The group formulated Bolivarianism, meaning (for them) devotion to national independence, economic self-sufficiency, an ethic of service and South American unity. 

The Washington, DC, origins of the "package" that the IMF had "recommended," though unknown to many US citizens, is known to Venezuelans. The relative size of a country's economy determines how many votes it has in the IMF. With 371,743 votes, the US has over double those of its nearest rival, Japan, with 133,378. Add up Latin America's votes, multiply by 10, and you still don't approach the power that lets US interests determine whether the IMF, regional banks and private banks extend credit to a country. This financial hegemony, reminiscent of debt peonage enforced by Spain but now on a global scale, is based on outdated property qualifications for voting that cancels the equal sovereignty of nations promised after colonialism. 

First elected in 1998, Chavez, invoking Bolivarianism against the new financial colonialism, put redistribution of wealth on the agenda. The situation was dire: Venezuela's per capita income had fallen 35 percent between 1970 and the 1998 election, one of the world's sharpest declines. Yet Chavez did not take control of oil until after 2002. A military coup took power on April 11 of that year, imprisoned Chavez and got speedy recognition by the Bush administration. Yet within 48 hours, supported tacitly by loyal military, Chavez had been replaced in power by "the people." That seems the only word for the hundreds of thousands of unarmed, unorganized citizens who converged on the presidential palace on April 13. Summoned citywide by teams of motorcycle riders, the throng was too large for the opposition-controlled police to gun down. 

Faced with this popular determination, coup leaders fled and Chavez, held on a Caribbean island, was freed. Only thus backed by the people's action did he feel empowered to move on oil. The last straw came at the end of 2002 with a costly oil strike, again designed to unseat him. Chavez replaced 18,000 officials in PDVSA, the nationalized state oil bureaucracy. Production restarted. 

The point in 2003 when oil revenues first went to social programs rather than to the elite marked the start in dismantling the class structure protested in the caracazo. Two of Luis's five sons were in the military, one daughter was studying petroleum engineering, another had a beauty shop. All were in vocational or professional studies-thanks to US $4 billion in oil income going to social programs in 2004 alone. Production was back to pre-strike levels by the end of 2003. Venezuela enjoyed a 17 percent growth rate in 2005. The new system worked.

Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense recently dismissed Chavez by saying Hitler had also been elected. Yes: once. Luis noted that since 1998, Chavez had been reconfirmed seven times by majorities of around 60 percent-his democratic legitimacy was solid (perhaps too solid: the 1999 constitution allows for successive six-year terms). 

The "dignity" Luis felt (his word), was partly due to programs in education, health, food and cooperativism meant to empower the poorest and transform the system. After participating in the WSF from January 24 to 29-about which more soon-) we went to check on them. Las Casitas, a proud section of the famous 23 de Enero barrio, had beat back gangs and corrupt police well before Chavez. It had completed the national literacy program and boasted of a community kitchen and center, a health clinic and even a video documentary collective. If Chavez strays, neighborhoods like Las Casitas will let him know. Another national program assures adults an elementary education, and another allows high school and college dropouts of any age to finish studies. We visited a "Barrio Adentro" clinic ("inside the neighborhood") that delivers health care to the poorest, administered by community residents themselves. UNESCO calls this "participatory" system "a model of universal primary health care." A supermarket chain selling di
scounted staples-mostly from Venezuelan co-ops so as to ensure "food sovereignty"-is also community-run. 

Our Argentina stop had left us puzzling over Peron's legacy, so the occasional worshipful gratitude in Luis's voice made us wonder if that's what Peronism had been like. Not really, we concluded. Evita had given away refrigerators and houses and let elementary school teachers assure children that she loved them. By contrast, Chavez had used the means available to deliver health care and education as public goods for all, not just for this or that individual, insisting on neighborhood, not national control. Evita had bestowed gifts; Chavez sought to guarantee rights in local hands, a very different project. Anyone wishing to depose Chavez, Luis said, would have to answer first to the armed and empowered Venezuelan people.

Our next article will describe the most transformatory and controversial side of the Bolivarian revolution: its massive encouragement of cooperatives.