Book review: ‘Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution’ by Richard Gott
Posted on Sunday 4 April, 2010
Filed Under Book review
IN WHAT sense political developments in Venezuela since 1998 can properly be designated ‘Bolivarian’, I remain unsure even after completing the book we are about to discuss. But it is even harder to see how they can be described as a ‘revolution’, as enthusiasts for that country’s president insist that they must.
Don’t get me wrong here; in a continent that has served as a laboratory for a particularly savage brand of neoliberalism for three decades now, Hugo Chavez’s brand of petrodollar-funded top down social democracy is an important break with the Washington consensus, and rightly enjoys the sympathy of much of the international left.
Subsidised food and free healthcare for the 80% of the population that lives in poverty – in what is after all the Saudi Arabia of the western hemisphere – are quite literally matters of life and death. Improvements in the status of indigenous peoples, mestizos and blacks are important advances.
But strip away the radical rhetoric in which the reforms are dressed up, and it is clear that their has been no change in the class nature of the Venezuelan state. The capitalist class remains the ruling class, even as the government implements policies that are against their immediate interests. Chavez no more merits the demonisation of his opponents than he does the adulation of his cheerleaders. Our sympathy, then, should not be unquestioning.
Author Richard Gott is a British journalist who has specialised in coverage of Latin America since the 1960s, and who by his own admission ‘lunched with the Russians during the cold war’. He resigned from the Guardian in 1994, after it was established that took three freebies on the KGB, although he strongly rejects any suggestion that this somehow made him ‘an agent of influence’.
As befits books written by hacks rather than academics, ‘Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution’ is actually readable. Gott’s narrative clearly benefits from his access to all key players in the story he wishes to tell.
Moreover, his comprehensive grasp of the history of the region is displayed to full advantage. Those who start with little or no prior knowledge of the process by which Spain’s former colonies became independent, or of the left-nationalist tradition in the armed forces of some South American countries, will find the background context amply supplied.
Yet the assessments on offer are uniformly positive. As Gott himself notes of a visit to the Comandante in the wake of the April 2002 coup: ‘I am a privileged visitor: we have met several times, and he greets me as an old acquaintance, with a friendly hug.’ Critical distance from the subject is clearly not among the many admirable aspects of this work.
Even given the author’s determination not to bury Chavez but to praise him, it would have been advisable to spend more time rebutting the accusations frequently leveled against his hero by the right. On my own reading of the situation, the measures taken by the Venezuelan government against hostile broadcasting outlets and yellow trade unions that lined up with reactionary forces in 2002 were if anything mild, especially compared to the treatment that such misdemeanors would have attracted elsewhere in the world.
But precisely because these matters – along with Chavez’s aborted coup attempt in 1992 – are so often adduced as evidence of nascent authoritarianism, Gott should have addressed them more fully than perhaps he has done.
In sum, Venezuela has lived in a condition of class polarisation ever since the Caracazo uprising of the inhabitants of the shanty towns of Caracas in 1989, and the tension could yet be resolved either way. Gott’s book offers a briefing on a situation on which all leftists will want to keep tabs. By all means read it, but do so in full awareness of its limitations.
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6 Responses to “Book review: ‘Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution’ by Richard Gott”
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“But strip away the radical rhetoric in which the reforms are dressed up, and it is clear that their has been no change in the class nature of the Venezuelan state. The capitalist class remains the ruling class, even as the government implements policies that are against their immediate interests. Chavez no more merits the demonisation of his opponents than he does the adulation of his cheerleaders. Our sympathy, then, should not be unquestioning.”
Do you think Chavez should’ve gone further Dave? In my opinion any further steps towards a radical transformation of Venezuelan society would’ve been a propaganda coup for his internal and external opponents thus hastening the demise of his government. Indeed i think the whole Venzuelan situation has been depressingly illustrative about the future challenges that any socialist government elected anywhere in the world would face. At the moment the capitalist media is able to present an alternate reality that is widely accepted by most people. The present form of media ownership must be challenged before any great progress towards socialism can be undertaken.
But that’s the dilemma, LS. If he doesn’t go further, the reactionary right will triumph by strangulation. There are plenty of precedents in Latin America.
precisely because these matters – along with Chavez’s aborted coup attempt in 1992 – are so often adduced as evidence of nascent authoritarianism, Gott should have addressed them more fully than perhaps he has done.
Why? You’ve just said that you don’t think the censorship accusations amount to very much, and presumably Gott thinks likewise. Certainly we should be aware of a regime’s shortcomings, but that doesn’t mean taking its enemies’ depiction of it as a starting-point. (I seem to remember similar arguments about the “actually existing socialist” regimes when they actually existed, although back then I might have been on the other side.)
I would argue the only reason the regime hasn’t been strangled already is due to Chavez’s extreme political nous and tactical moderation. He is unable to go further due to the international capitalist media claque whom would succeed in painting Hugo as some kind of earth dwelling incarnation of Bezelbub should he make any movement towards a serious political attack on the Venezuelan ruling class as represented by its Fascistic red-baiting satellite tv stations.
It shows the limits of socialism in one country as international capitalism is able to make a defense of its fellow yuppies in Caracas through its powerful media conglomerates where as chavistas are limited to the the dwindling readership of far-left newspapers for support.
Some serious international attacks must be made and an equitable system of media ownership must be found, argued for and spread across the globe if the left’s corpse is to be re-animated and able to start sprinting into this new century
I generally agree with Dave. The most important reason why Chavez has survived is the rising oil price and Iraq, which actually amount to the same thing. Following the invasion the US could not afford to destabilise another key, albeit dodgy in their terms, supplier.
As oil prices continue to rise with the recovery, already through the $80/barrel mark, then Chavez will get stronger not weaker, as dependence on Venezuela’s supplies increases and as funds return to pay for the social programmes.
But it remains capitalism, although a friendly sort than what there could otherwise be.
Of course Venezuela remains capitalist, Rome wasn’t built in a day. What Chavez is clearly doing is starting to build the social structures necessary for the advancement of socialism. Too many socialists seem to be revolution fixated and ignore the evolution of society. Without the evolution the revolution is not possible. Revolutions are the point at which society catches up with social transfromations.
The far left want to instigate a political revolution without the accompanying social revolution, which is why we remain so marginal and irrelevant.