Analysis: The Hugo Chavez Bolivarian Revolution

Did you know that Venezuela was one of the first colonies to gain their independence from Spain? At the time Venezuela was a Spanish ruled colony and the people of Venezuela felt that their government was ruling their colony terribly (Adelblue). The people were led by Simon Bolivar, whose nickname was “The Liberator” since he liberated Venezuela and worked with San Martin to liberate most of Northern South America (Adelblue). Venezuela declared their independence in 1810 and finally gained their independence after the Battle of Carabobo in 1821 (Minster). Three symbolic elements of the Venezuelan revolution are used to portray Simon Bolivar, the speech Simon gave to the Second National Congress in 1819 to encourage the type of government he had in mind, and the high taxation that was the main cause of the revolution (Ellis and Esler 705).

This project’s purpose is to record a people who have lived through the promises and outcomes of the Bolivarian Revolution, an idea that captured Venezuela’s spirit and spread across 16 Latin America nations as the Pink Tide. The poor and working class will be a fundamental component of this story as I investigate the role the revolution has played in shaping the lives of this perpetually overlooked group of people. Simultaneously, the nature of these issues will create a portal into the world of Venezuelan heritage, traditions, and political and civic culture. What I write will be the reality of the situation; the interpretation will be left up to the reader.

Chavez wanted to help the community that he came from, as well as others like it. The migrant worker community became his main focus, this resulted his creation of the UFW in 1962 (Chavez Foundation). His earlier life as a migrant worker would be a strong influence for attaining better working conditions for those workers. Early in Chavez’s life, he was exposed to the hardships of migrant working. When Chavez was 10 his family was forced from their home in Yuma, Arizona because of back taxes and because of the depression, his family couldn’t pay the payments (Castillo and Garcia, 7). Chavez began migrant work when he was 14, and the injustices had a memorable effect. Migrant workers were often exploited because of their lack of organization in a uniform union group, something that Chavez would eventually change. In future years the UFW would give migrant workers a voice in the conditions under which they were living and working.

By depicting a sense of morals, Chavez is able to support the nature of nonviolence over any other possibility. The simplicity put into a single civil movement, allows for millions to participate from all across the country. The American people “yearn for justice,” and it is such yearning that appeals to such large crowds. Chavez also states that nonviolence “provides the opportunity to stay on the offensive.” By doing so, there is an advantage over the opposing side. Once escalated and turned violent, there is a “total demoralization” of the causae. In order to remain as morally good as the cause being fought, Chavez demonstrates how nonviolence would accomplish such.

In recent years, an increasing number of professors, commentators, journalists, and teens on social media have claimed that capitalism has failed. What usually follows are suggestions to usher in a new wave of socialism, as if the chaos in Venezuela is somehow non-existent or something truly desirable.

The country was the first Spanish-American colony to declare independence, doing so in 1811, but the declaration was not firmly established until 1821 when Venezuela was considered a part of the federal republic of Gran Colombia. In 1830 it gained full independence and was recognized as a sovereign nation. This new period of independence was marked with significant political turmoil and autocracy, and remained under the rule of regional caudillos (political-military leaders often considered to be dictators) until the mid-20th century. Beginning in 1958 the country has had a series of democratic governments, however these governments were not without political crises, including deadly riots in 1989, two attempted coups in 1992, and embezzlement of public funds in 1993. The widespread public mistrust of government lead to the election of Hugo Chavez, a Socialist Reformer, in 1999. This election brought about the Bolivarian Revolution, beginning in 1999 with a Constituent Assembly to create a new Constitution of Venezuela.

The “Bolivarian revolution” revolves around the rise of the leftest movement which started with Hugo Chavez, and soon many other leaders rose to the occasion. The sole purpose of this movement was to help Latin America get rid of dictators and reestablish under Simon Bolivar's ideals of making Latin America not a colony but a nation for the people residing in it. Now that Chavez is dead, I believe that he was able to complete Bolivar's conquest of freeing Latin America. Now that Chavez has passed away, he has left both good and bad implications, but I believe its more good than bad. “The real opposition to Chavez is from the United States which was so angry at the way that he built up a credible alternative to the U.S. idea of free trade with

In Venezuela, the Republics are torn down by bloody counter-revolutions, led by non-creoles. In Mexico, Father Hidalgo and Morelos were crushed by their conservative countrymen.

As I said before, many critics agreed that Hugo Chavez has been able to diminished Venezuelan democracy to convert it to a competitive authoritarian regime. Chavez has controlled the country and stills does, in a way in that using populism and his policy of clientism he gets the masses and specially the poor to support him and agreed with him in many of his reforms and actions. Allying himself with leftist countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and especially Cuba, Chavez has implemented what he calls a “Bolivarian Revolution”, revolution that allows him to have a complete control of the country. Furthermore, Chavez has been using the oil revenues not only as a method of getting international support for his ideas and type of regime but also, for his own personal enrichment

Selbin identifies the most important part of a social revolution is the transformation of the society that is broken up into two parts consolidation and institutionalization of a country (Selbin 13). Augusto Pinochet and Fidel Castro both tried to succeed in these aspects, but both had success in areas but also failures in others. Their rise to power, reign and their political ideology separated them on a fundamental level, but they did have some similarities.

But that is how sympathizers of the United States view Hugo Chavez. At home, and in many Caribbean and South American nations, Chavez is regarded as the region's most celebrated hero -- indeed, as peerless in his quest for social justice and indefatigable in his resolve to stand against First-World arrogance. As an avowed socialist, a political persuasion he made explicit only recently, Chavez appeals to the great masses of poor within his own country. He is the champion of the disenfranchised and the impoverished, both in his own country and wherever large classes of people are exploited by rich elites. It does not deter him that such a stance alienates his capitalist neighbor to the north or the smaller numbers of wealthy citizens within his own country. He will stand on principle.

Venezuela, officially, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern tip of South America and bordering Columbia. Hugo Chaves was elected the President of Venezuela in 1999 after serving in the Venezuelan Army from 1976-1991 and leading an attempted coup and after beginning his political rise in 1994. One political stance that Chavez adopted was Populism and, once elected, he enacted a national economic policy that kept gasoline prices stagnant and extremely low through government subsidies. Chavez remained in power for 14 years and throughout his entire rule he kept that policy in place to retain the approval of

Ngugi ’s “Farewell to Political Activism” 2007, Gloudon’s “Michael Manley and community development” 2005 and Blake’s “The Impact of Hugo Chavez’s political legacy on Venezuela’s society and economy” 2014, all share similarities in their sentiments expressed in their closing paragraphs. Ngugi (2007) recommended a revolutionary approach by political activist since the strategies used presently isn’t effective, Gloudon (2005) guided that Manley’s ideas has been forgotten and should be reintroduced to Jamaica in order to foster development, similarly Blake (2014) stated that the political ideology of Hugo Chavez should be reevaluated and amended to ensure that the Venezuelan society and economy are bettered, all suggested concepts for moving

With an economy dominated by the production of oil, Venezuela has enjoyed the highest standard of living in Latin America. In spite of its success in the oil industry, agriculture and manufacturing also play important roles in Venezuela’s economy. With this in mind, it would seem as though Venezuela’s economic state has flourished. Rather, it has suffered from the effects of political influence, corruption, and poor economic management. The distribution of wealth across Venezuela has caused the elite to benefit at the cost of the working people. This is mainly due to the economic and political structure of the country. Even with the plentiful resources Venezuela possesses, it is constantly being threatened by political instability,

After Chavez took office, Venezuela was falling apart with political instability until 2003. The coup of April 2002, the devastating oil strike from December 2002 to February 2003, poverty rates of up to 55% and extreme poverty of up to 25% were some of many reasons why the country was in economic despair (BoyKoff 2009, 8-12).Venezuela’s corruption helped Hugo Chavez gain support and power from the people which in turn actually worsened under the Bolivarian Revolution. The opposition party had spread accusation and hate towards Chavez’ administration and policies. The revolutionary period under Chavez