By: Tejas Vir Singh

Abstract – The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela took the world by storm, for an attempt atfor
Latin American socialism was taking place right in the United States’ backyard. The racial and
resource politics in Venezuela combined with the international interests of the West led to the
narrative of the Revolution being one of chaos and authoritarianism spreading, ignoring its
premises and actual effects. This article seeks to delve into the effects of the Revolution and how
it was an attempt to correct historical wrongs.

Venezuela’s modern history has an important player that needs to be addressed before discussing
the effects of the Bolivarian Revolution – Oil. Venezuela first struck oil in 1922, and with the
backing of the State, the oil production exploded with just three foreign companies, Dutch Shell,
Gulf, and Standard Oil controlling 98% of the oil market. Although this increased production in
oil made Venezuela one of the world’s largest producers of the world, giving it a voice on the
international forum with the founding of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC) in 1960, this over-dependence on oil for its economy, also termed as ‘Dutch Disease’
caused it to depend on the boom and bust cycle of global oil prices. This made it extremely
vulnerable to unforeseen circumstances like global recessions or drops in oil prices. Corruption
and embezzlement increased with the boom in income due to the Yom Kippur War between
Israel and the Arab states in 1973, with an estimated $100 billion being embezzled between the
70’s and 90’s. This culminated in a full-out economic crisis by 1989, and when the government
implemented International Monetary Fund’s policies, protestors took to the streets after it caused
a massive increase in gas prices, an event now known as the Caracazo. The government
responded brutally by bringing in security forces to intervene, causing somewhere between two
hundred to three thousand deaths.

Amidst growing resentment between the people and the government, and with widespread
poverty and inequality, enters Hugo Chavez, in charge of the guard at the presidential palace
founded his own left-wing movement in the army, the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200.
The movement had three principles; land and free people, general elections, and hatred towards
the oligarchy. These principles drove Chavez, who himself came from the impoverished
countryside and his movement in what became to be known as the Bolivarian Revolution upon
his election as President in 1998 after his failed coup attempt with 56% of the votes.
Chavez’s victory caused controversy due to two reasons: one, that a government with socialist
leanings was now in power in Latin America which was aligned against the United States and

had allied with American adversaries like China and Russia, and secondly that this victory had
upset the hegemony in Venezuela that had formed over decades. The hegemonic group here was
a bloc, the Coordinadora Democratica (CD), that was made up of traditionalist political parties,
high-ranking military officials, the Catholic Church, big businesses and most importantly, the
national and international media. The CD enjoyed this hegemony as the groups involved in the
bloc owned power historically, and also from international support from American policies that
favoured them. The Bolivarian Revolution was a counter-hegemonic struggle both domestically,
by mobilizing marginalized communities in Venezuela, like the non-white ethnic groups, the
poor and women, and also internationally by seeking to create an alliance of anti-imperialist
Latin American countries, challenging international power structures.

Domestically, economic and political power both were in the hands of white Venezuelans, while
indigenous and black Venezuelans largely remained at the bottom of the societal strata.
Historically, Venezuela not only had a white European and American Indian population but also
a black population originally brought in as slaves during the African slave trade. Upon
independence, the State promoted white immigration from Europe, in order to ensure a white
hegemony over “inferior races.” Racial discrimination was masked over time through
miscegenation that led to the creation of the mixed or mestizo population, and through
homogenisation of the culture by the educational system utilising Spanish only to assimilate the
indigenous peoples. This led to a myth of the ‘harmonious coexistence’ of the three groups while
in reality, the white population ensured its hegemony through selective immigration and
whitewashing of minorities.

The Bolivarian Revolution sought to include these marginalized communities, the indigenous
Indians and the Afro-Venezuelans, and brought about political and social changes for them; the
best example would be the addition of Article 121 of the Bolivarian Constitution, which gave the
indigenous peoples the right to maintain their ethnic values, and the State would also make the
education system intercultural and bilingual. More changes included progressive human, health
and educational rights, along with the nationalization of the oil industry and a Social
Development Fund for oil workers and their communities, given that many Venezuelans viewed
the country’s oil reserves as a ‘national body.’

However, the opposition, which had been in power before Chavez, tended to openly resort to
racist comments given that Chavez proudly identified as “Indian”, “black” or “mixed-breed”, the
same words once intended to insult the marginalized now being used as terms of empowerment.
The racist attitudes of the opposition were primarily announced through the media, whose
proprietors were businesses and upper-class people opposed to the Revolution. Chavez had been
described as a “monkey and thick-lipped”, with his character being questioned by many private
media platforms run by white Venezuelans, given his poor rural background. Racist instances
against Chavez and the communities that supported him could also be seen in the racist political graffiti in upper-class neighbourhoods, such as “Out with the vermin” or “Death to the monkey.”
The fact that the social groups that had always been oppressed and marginalized were now in
power highlighted the racial inequalities in Venezuela that miscegenation sought to hide, and
thus there were heightened racial tensions, especially from the side of the opposition. The
opposition-controlled media also popularised the image that the Chavistas, the supporters of
Chavez, were state-controlled armed thugs and blind messianic supporters.

This trend was picked up by foreign media, portraying the Chavistas as poor volatile supporters
of Chavez that undermine the democratic potential of the Revolution given their clientelistic ties
with the State, furthering the popular argument that the coming of Chavez in Venezuela is a
threat to Western-backed democracy. However, it is interesting to note the crucial role that the
Chavistas played in the Revolution, by organizing into groups called Circulos Bolivarianos and
increasing civil political participation and awareness, along with resource distribution and
economic production. These Circulos aimed to plan and implement the functioning of social
services like education and health, as many Venezuelans did not have access to such services
easily due to the class gap maintained by the hegemony of the Coordinadora Democratica (CD).
This also included plans to increase health services at local levels and pension payments to
elderly members.

A Chavista cooperative called the Trabajo y Tierra (Work and Land) also worked on food
security by maintaining a garden and producing food for members to sell, thus creating a self-
sustainable food supply and generating employment for the municipality. Another organization
was the Fuerza Bolivariana de Trabajadores (Bolivarian Workers’ Force) which worked on
providing services to workers in the informal sector and the unemployed; it aimed to educate
members about the Bolivarian Revolution while also increasing the social benefits for all
workers. Other Circulos and organizations also provided services like loans to low-income
individuals like the Women’s Development Bank, or even research and analyzing misleading
information from the media. Many of the Chavistas thus, were working towards the goals of the
Bolivarian Revolution and came from various backgrounds to support a social movement that is
opposed to the past hegemony.

The Revolution thus not only incentivised the masses to organize and work to provide social
services that were previously inaccessible to the population but also gave recognition to the
wrongs that indigenous communities faced since the colonial period. The new national
constituent assembly worked to mend the relationship between the criollos and indigenous
peoples by ratifying the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169 on Indigenous and
Tribal Peoples and launching development projects that aided 28 indigenous communities. The
government also aimed to reverse the Eurocentric method of teaching Venezuelan history and
officially renamed October 12 “the Day of Indigenous Resistance” from “the Day of Discovery.”

Chavez also came up with a regional alternative for the situation of international relations under
American hegemony by finding a common hero in Simon Bolivar, the Liberator, and creating a
continental sympathy for the movement and also starting a Left wing tide in South America that
would seek to sideline the United States. This alternative would have been built on the petro-
diplomacy of Venezuela that ensured people-to-people ties through cultural agendas and thus
forming a Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) which would challenge
the US-led Free Trade Area of the Americas. This led to the creation of the Community of Latin
American and Caribbean States (CELAC) which did not have the United States as a member and
thus would have sidelined American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. Thus, the Bolivarian
Revolution openly challenged not only domestic hegemony but also international American
hegemony.

However, the Revolution did fall short of its intended outcomes, largely due to the movement
revolving around Chavez himself; his background of being from the marginalized section of
society and disdain for the old ruling classes made him well-liked by the common person, and
his death made it particularly difficult for his successor, Nicolas Maduro, to fill his shoes and
continue the movement. Moreover, many criticise the authoritarian top-bottom approach of
Chavez, as a movement aimed at liberating the marginalized communities being headed by an
unaccountable autocrat is self-defeating; in the example of indigenous rights, many of such
provisions were poorly implemented and did not lead to real and effective remedies, as the
censorship policies of the government silenced critics and indigenous organizations, which
meant that indigenous concerns were not being adequately redressed.

Currently, Maduro’s rule over Venezuela is itself challenged domestically and internationally,
while the shortcomings of the Revolution did not address the issue of the Venezuelan economy’s
over-dependence on the oil sector. Venezuela currently is in a state of political and economic
crisis with different countries supporting different political leaders as the legitimate head of
Venezuela – the West backing the opposition representative Juan Guaido, and Venezuelan allies
like Cuba, China and Russia backing Maduro. The Dutch Disease or over-dependence on oil and
oil prices meant that when these prices dropped globally, it led to decreasing revenue for the
economy, causing a situation of hyperinflation. Although one can say the Bolivarian Revolution
failed in its goals, the narrative spread by the hegemonic opposition, of it being a movement to
spread chaos must be avoided and the racial and resource politics running in between the lines
must be read in order to understand why the Bolivarian Revolution took place. It was a
movement by the marginalized peoples that aimed to empower themselves despite being
historically disabled due to the racial socio-political climate in Venezuela.

About the Author

Tejas Vir Singh is a second-year student at O.P. Jindal University currently pursuing a
bachelor’s degree in law.