By Darragh O’Dwyer
The neoliberal nightmare set loose on Latin America in the 1980s was particularly brutal in Venezuela. Successive waves of IMF-mandated austerity led to the devaluation of the currency by 100% and a surge in poverty. But in 1989, popular discontent boiled over into a social explosion that changed Venezuela forever. Though viciously repressed, the Caracazo massively undermined the ruling class and left an indelible mark on the consciousness of the working masses.
Three years later, in 1992, Hugo Chavez launched a coup against the loathed Perez government. Though the coup failed, Chavez’s charismatic denunciations of all that was rotten in Venezuelan society boosted his popularity amongst the working class and poor. Running as the candidate for the recently formed MVR party, he won the 1998 presidential election with 56.2% of the vote – a historic blow to the Venezuelan oligarchy and their two-party political system.
Shortly after his inauguration, Chavez launched Plan Bolivar, an anti-poverty programme that saw the deployment of 70,000 troops to provide free healthcare, cheap food and repair infrastructure. A new constitution enshrining social rights was drawn up, and Chavez comfortably won re-election in 2000, increasing his vote to almost 60%.
Despite fiercely condemning the ravages of neoliberalism, Chavez did not claim to be advancing towards socialism; instead, advocating a fairer form of capitalism. Still, talk of a Bolivarian revolution and the popular support of a politically awakened people represented a threat that the Venezuelan elite was determined to crush.
Coup and oil lockout
When Chavez moved to take greater control of Venezuela’s state oil company it provoked a frenzied reaction from the Venezuelan capitalists and their media mouthpieces. On 11 April 2002, a right-wing coup deposed Chavez as president. But the masses responded, turning out in their millions to deal a decisive blow to the oligarchy and their imperialist backers. Chavez returned to power a mere two days later.
The same year, the oligarchy organised an oil lockout in an effort to economically sabotage the Chavez government. Yet again, a popular insurgency defeated the ruling class offensive. Rather than demoralise the movement, these attacks catapulted it forward: working-class and poor people had gotten a taste of their power, gaining an instinctive understanding of the need for the Bolivarian revolution to go further.
This mass pressure from below pushed Chavez to the left, making clear that the exploited and oppressed were the main engine of the revolutionary process. In 2005 Chavez explicitly embraced the building of “Socialism in the 21st Century” and in 2007 formed the PSUV, which he described as a revolutionary party.
Socialism in the 21st Century?
But did the rhetoric match the reality? Significant gains for workers and oppressed people were certainly achieved in this period: extreme poverty was reduced by a massive 70%; free healthcare in poor neighbourhoods saw the infant mortality rate fall by 18%; and free education abolished illiteracy and increased the number entering third-level education from 28% in 2000 to 78% in 2009.
Yet these programmes largely depended on record-high oil revenues, fuelled by a global commodity boom. This granted a certain space for redistributive policies without fundamentally transforming the character of the Venezuelan economy.
Notwithstanding nationalisations of oil, telecommunications, electricity and public services, the main levers of the economy still remained in the hands of the capitalists. In addition, a new layer of state bureaucrats and managers – the so-called Bolibourgeoisie – enriched themselves in this period and acted as a brake on the revolutionary process.
Dangerous decline
When the Great Recession triggered a collapse in oil prices, Venezuela entered a deep economic crisis. Chavez pursued a more conciliatory policy with big business and imperialism. Ultimately, the working class and poor bore the brunt of the downturn: inflation, unemployment and cuts to public spending spawned a devastating social crisis that began to weaken support for the government.
By the time of Chavez’s death in 2013, the bureaucratisation and a rightward shift were already underway, a process that would be dramatically accelerated under Nicolas Maduro. Now, every pro-capitalist ideologue points to Venezuela as evidence of the inevitable failure of socialism. But the real lesson is that Chavez did not go far enough. As the old adage goes, “whoever finishes a revolution only halfway, digs his own grave.”
Only a revolutionary break with this rotten system – whereby the commanding heights of the economy are taken out of the hands of a parasitic elite and brought into democratic public ownership – can defeat the threat of crisis and counter-revolution once and for all.
