Abstract
This book was originally published in 2013, and remains most relevant given the unfolding events in Venezuela. It consists in several interviews given by Hugo Chávez to Ignacio Ramonet at the beginning of the second decade of this century, and tackles what Chávez defined as his ‘first life’ between 1954 and 1998—that is, from his childhood to his election as President of Venezuela. Evidently, the interview also mentions and discusses later events, but Ramonet organizes his questions in a chronological fashion which covers Chávez’s biography mainly up to 1998. Ramonet had already used a similar method with Fidel Castro in Fidel Castro, Biografía a Dos Voces (Debate, 2017).
The nature of this work is manifold: it is simultaneously an interview, an autobiography, a political and historical analysis of Venezuela and Latin America, and now also a historical document. The book reveals many little known facts of Hugo Chávez’s life, as well as other aspects of Venezuelan and Latin American history. In broader terms, the book also deals with key and common political and economic issues for the poor nations today, particularly those that are searching for economic independence and political autonomy. Thus, the evaluation of its content should be made at different levels, starting with Ramonet’s work, then approaching Chávez words, and finally tackling the political, economic and historical facts related to them.
The task of writing again about Chávez was not a simple one. In fact, even before Hugo Chávez’s death (2013), several books on his trajectory had already been written; see, for example, Heinz Dieterich, Hugo Chávez: El Destino Superior de los Pueblos Latinoamericanos y el Gran Salto Adelante (2006) and Alfredo Serrano Mancilla, El Pensamiento Económico de Hugo Chávez (2014). But Ramonet has come up with an original work, on the so called ‘first life’ of Chávez as told by himself in the form of a frank dialogue, helped by Ramonet’s great knowledge of Venezuelan and Latin American histories. Ramonet has made a previous study of particular aspects of Chávez’s life and Venezuela’s most important events related to them, approaching specific details with interesting and even provocative questions. The author shows sympathy for the Bolivarian Revolution without losing a critical stance, focusing on biographical and historical events. He avoids frivolity and knows the appropriate timing between letting Chávez speak and then resuming the conversation from the point where it began, in order to avoid excessive digressions and to maintain the chronological account of facts.
With respect to Chávez, he revealed himself as a skilled and sensitive leader. A son of poor teachers, born in the little town of Sabaneta in the Venezuelan llanos, had a Catholic education and sold candy on the streets in order to survive. The family then had the opportunity to send Chávez and his brother to a larger city and to a good school. Chávez was initially interested in baseball and always stood out as a student. He managed to enter the military academy in Caracas in 1971, and there he started to develop his intellectual, political and military skills. Progressing rapidly, he was always one of the best cadets among his group; charismatic, he would become a leader among them.
One of the interesting questions the reader will find in this book is the history of how the Venezuelan armed forces were being reformed by the so-called Plan Educativo Integral Militar (Integrated Military Educative Plan), implemented by President Rafael Caldera (1969–1974), which made the ‘first efforts of appeasement with the guerrillas [against] the hardliners who opposed it’ (p. 284). This plan is of historical interest because it allowed for a split in the armed forces, with the rise of a leftwing nationalist group and Chávez as one of its leaders. Apparently, since the Punto Fijo pact of 1958, the nation resembled a ‘democracy’; Venezuela was one of the richest countries of Latin America, particularly after the oil crisis in 1971, which multiplied its foreign reserves. However, in reality, a rapid urbanization process led to mass poverty, political turmoil and persecutions, with the resources of the oil exports being appropriated and consumed unproductively by a small elite, a process that increased popular frustration. Guevarist and Maoist guerrillas spread, being fiercely confronted and then defeated. Chávez, now a soldier with leftwing ideals, witnessed this bloody process, which ultimately convinced him of the need for a change within the army.
The book then shows how Chávez began to develop his particular anti-imperialist theory for a Venezuelan revolution, mixing ideas of Simon Bolívar, Simón Rodríguez and Ezequiel Zamora—the Venezuelan independence heroes—with the work of Lenin, Fidel Castro, Mao, Torrijos and Liberation Theology (which Chávez, as a Christian, took into high consideration). In order to spread his message, Chávez took advantage and focused on the apparently unsuspected figure of Simon Bolívar, who had been ‘domesticated’ by the regime. This intellectual experiment showed Chávez’s historical knowledge, and his success expressed the importance of the local tradition in building a political movement. At the same time, this road to a nationalist revolution through an alliance of the progressive sectors of the existing Armed Forces with the people (alianza cívico-militar) differed from the directions proposed by the Venezuelan traditional leftwing forces, a reason why Chávez never obtained full approval.
We also learn of the details of how Chávez and his comrades were able—under all risks—to carefully organize their ‘Bolivarian Movement’ within the army. This process of organization and ideological education was to prepare the scenario for a future coup at the right time, with the help of civil forces, finally mixing theory and action. The goals involved a new constitution, social justice and national independence, particularly through economic planning and nationalization of the main industries, especially the oil sector. Chávez studied the works of Oscar Varsavsky, Carlos Matus, Nyerere’s Report of the South Commission and similar works. The Army was to be transformed into a factor of social and economic change. Corruption was to be fiercely confronted. On the other hand, socialism was not a consensus, despite Chávez’s particular convictions.
Chávez’s biography shows how, first, the absence of an open dictatorship in Venezuela since 1958; second, the efforts of reforming the armed forces without direct American intervention; and, third, the general political frustration with the failures of the economic model, all contributed to an internal rift that led to the spread of leftwing nationalism within the Army, precisely at the time of the defeat of the socialist camp and the spread of neoliberalism in the 1990s. The culmination of Chávez’s long and prepared operation was the frustrated, but courageous, attempt to overthrow the neoliberal and authoritarian administration of Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992, which had repressed with extreme violence the popular manifestations in Caracas three years earlier (the Caracazo in 1989, with hundreds of deaths). Chávez then became popular. The state repression, according to Chávez, created the psychological climate of which his attempted coup tried to take advantage for a change of government. Chávez was put under arrest with hundreds of his comrades, but this only boosted his popularity still more. He was released two years later amid great celebrations. After intense discussions with his supporters, the now so-called Movimiento V República opted for a tactical change to run for elections in 1998. Chávez won with a socialist message, having been received by Fidel Castro in Cuba in 1994.
Ramonet’s work shows how Chávez was aware of the necessity of relying on Venezuelan history and tradition to create a successful and endogenous progressive political movement, avoiding foreign-based and artificial interpretations (Chávez read Mariátegui’s work). Evidently, he did not reject foreign experiences, his words showing historical knowledge and political sensitivity, but he insisted on the necessity of relying on the local conditions. The book illustrates not only the details of how Chávez finally opted for a specific view of socialism in order to unite the Bolivarian Movement, but also the difficulties that this process entailed. Socialism has never been a consensus among the military, and there were many desertions. Socialism, according to Chávez’s apparent interpretation of the Soviet crisis, should imply the acceptance of small- and medium-scale private enterprises, freedom of press and periodic elections (unfortunately Ramonet did not explore sufficiently Chavez’s perspectives on the Soviet crisis in the last part of the work; for Chávez’s ideas on the socialist economic model, see p. 590). The maintenance of these liberal freedoms has been possible due to the massive support gained by Chávez after 1992, coupled with social policies and a strong political mobilization towards a definite end (Bolivarian Socialism). The main negative consequences were constant sabotage, economic shortage and open political defiance. Falling oil prices, new desertions and reported cases of corruption, and finally the US embargo, aggravated this razor-edge equilibrium and reinforced the need for more political mobilization.
In broader terms, this book on Chávez’s trajectory shows with detail the impressive and particular facts related to the creation of a strong popular movement in a peripheral but strategic nation in the South, as well as the difficulties of searching for a renewed ‘democratic socialism’ under those conditions.