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| Photo by David Hernandez |
The
starting point of the Bolivarian Revolution- the “founding myth” is the 1989 Caracazo: a series of huge riots mainly
centred on the capital but that also spread to the other major cities, that was
met with police brutality and summary executions that may have claimed more
than two thousand lives. While immediately precipitated by rising fuel costs,
in reality this was a revolt against the orthodox neoliberal policies that were
being pursued by president Carlos Andrés Pérez, that had seen poverty peak at
44% (and 20% extreme poverty) that year. The protestors were working class,
informal workers, students and hardened guerrilla fighters, united in anger
against the entire system of politics. The military was sent in to violently
quell the unrest; at this point, Hugo Chávez and a group of military officers
who had familiarised themselves with leftist thought- the MBR-200 (in English:
Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement, with the 200 referring to the 200th
anniversary of the birth of Latin American liberatory icon Simón Bolivar)
realised that the social order was not worth defending.
They
began studying the concept of Gramscian counter-hegemony, which emphasises the
need not merely to seize the state, but to build an organic counter-hegemonic
system of support. Three years later they carried out an unsuccessful coup
attempt, but eventually the sheer volume of opprobrium to the neoliberal and
“partyocratic” order swept Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution to power by
electoral means in 1998. But in all of these cases, as George Ciccariello-Maher
argues, it was not Chávez or any individual who was the actor, it was the streets,
the barrios, the “brave people” of
Venezuela. Peoples’ Assemblies in the barrios
had long predated Chávismo, as had
the revolutionary guerrilla movement. In the words of Roland Denis, the pueblo had “gained its own personality;
seen the measure of its own massive power and capacity for self organisation”.
To
understand the Bolivarian Revolution is to understand Chávismo as the product of a struggle against neoliberalism and a
longstanding popular revolt against a distant and disinterested political
class. Furthermore, Chávismo as a
movement is far from homogenous. The
most radical element is to be found in the colectivos,
the armed groups that can trace their lineage to those guerrillas that resisted
the dictatorship during the fifties and then the elitist “partyocracy” of Punto
Fijo Pact, the power-sharing agreement between the main political parties that
was signed in the fledgling democracy. They are based in the barrios- the working-class areas
especially around Caracas. Groups such as the Tupamaros and La Piedrita act as a “dual power” within
their areas, providing law and order, and advocating a more radical version of
socialism than that pursued by the Bolivarian government. They are openly
hostile to the corrupt, bureaucratic elements within the formal structures.
Yet,
they ultimately support the movement, and are an integral part of it. During
the 2002 coup, in which Chávez was removed from power and replaced with Pedro
Carmona, the leader of Fedecamaras- the federation of Venezuelan business- the colectivos, as well as thousands of
ordinary Venezuelans, rallied at the presidential palace, demanding Chávez’s
return. The ultimate success of the barrios’
response demonstrates a coherent working-class counter-hegemonic movement
against the common sense of neoliberalism, making the Bolivarian Revolution of
vital importance to any leftist interested in opposition to the logic of global
capitalism.
This
counter-hegemony is not limited to Venezuela. As part of what has been called
the “Pink Tide” of Latin America, various nations turned to the left at the
turn of the century: the Dominican
Republic (1996); Chile (2000); Argentina (2003); Brazil (2003); Uruguay (2005);
Honduras (2006); Bolivia (2006); Ecuador (2007); Nicaragua (2007); Paraguay
(2008); El Salvador (2009); Peru (2011); and most recently Mexico (2018). Of
course, not all of these countries saw the same radical governance as in
Venezuela; Brazil under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva moved in a notably cautious,
social-democratic direction, albeit one that saw the successful combatting of
some of Brazil’s notorious poverty level. But the point still stands that at
its peak, the Pink Tide overtook most of Latin America, representing a clear
challenge to neoliberal hegemony and (often deadly) US interference by almost
an entire continent that has long suffered from legacies of corruption and
extreme poverty.
Chávez
himself sought to capitalise on the newfound strength of the Latin left by
building alternative international institutions and challenging US dominance of
the continent. He derailed the US-led Free Trade Area of the Americas and
challenged WTO intellectual property diktats by not upholding the patents of
transnational companies, and leading continental solidarity initiatives such as
ALBA, MERCOSUR and UNASUR, which aim to resist the US-led global drive for
economic liberalisation and the unquestioning acceptance of free-market
capitalism.
Sadly
however, the international state of play has shifted against the Bolivarian
Revolution in recent years. The Pink Tide has been replaced by a drastic shift
to the right in many of Venezuela’s neighbours. Colombia, Peru, and most
notably Brazil have embraced reactionary leaders, with Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil
being the closest thing to an actual fascist in high office. All of these
reactionary governments are unequivocally hostile to the Venezuelan government.
Even Ecuador- led by the supposedly centre-left government of the ironically
named Lenin Moreno- has turned against Venezuela by supporting the US-backed
self-declared president, Juan Guaidó, in the ongoing constitutional debacle.
Most
importantly, this coincided with a drastic fall in the global prove of oil,
which went from a peak of nearly $150 per barrel in 2008 to a low of only $36
in 2016. The government failed to break Venezuela’s historical dependency on
oil revenues, which it had used to finance its social programs that had
succeeded in lifting millions of Venezuelans out of poverty. This precipitated
an economic crisis that caused frightening levels of hyperinflation, food
shortages, and mass emigration. In truth, this crisis has reversed much of the
social progress that Chávez’s government had made. Combined with the new rise
in “neo-conservative” interventionism within the US government embodied by
Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John
Bolton, and recently appointed Special Envoy to Venezuela Elliot Abrams (a
convicted war criminal implicated in the Contra affair, Iraq War and the 2002
coup attempt), this represents an existential threat to the future of the
Process. And the government itself is not free of blame. It has failed to
meaningfully tackle the deep corruption that has always plagued the Venezuelan
state, which continues to haemorrhage public funds, with top-level ministers
and officials implicated. Faced with a ruthlessly hostile opposition, the
government has had to tighten its grip on power in order to survive, including
suggestions of human rights violations.
In
summary: the Bolivarian Revolution is the outcome of a long tradition of
popular struggle in Venezuela, and cannot be reduced to the agency of one or
two individuals. Rather, the main actor in Venezuela is the pueblo, whose agency brought down the
old order that did not represent them. There have been attempts to build a
viable counter-hegemony to neoliberalism both at home and abroad, with varying
levels of success, but unfortunately in recent years the geopolitical and
economic contexts have shifted against the Process, for reasons both within and
outside the government’s control. But the main point here is that to assess the
Process, it must be viewed as the expansive social movement that it is,
operating in a largely unfavourable political context.
Louis Verrall
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