Hugo Chavez and the PSUV in Light of the Historical Process in Venezuela

Abstract

The attitude of many on the left to Venezuela and the Hugo Chavez phenomenon is sometimes ambiguous to say the least. But whatever thoughts one might harbour regarding Chavez the person or indeed Chavez the politician, it is important to recognise that he was raised to power on the back of a movement which has swept through Venezuelan society, polarising millions of people. It is a tendency which has found a corresponding echo throughout Latin America and is something which has had the great virtue of putting the question of a genuine, democratic socialism on the world agenda once more. It is the contention of the author that there is nowhere more exciting than Venezuela where it is commonplace for large numbers of people to debate politics in the workplace, coffee shops and squares. Such debates take place not so much from the deep-seated prejudice which has become entrenched in general consciousness of late—the feeling that politicians lie and cheat and are therefore all as bad as each other—but from the belief that the ideas and activities of working people can decisively change the political course. And it seems the Venezuelan workers and peasants are correct in this belief. After all, they themselves have changed Venezuelan history in accordance with their own ends several times in the past decade. The author wishes to locate their movement in Venezuelan history as a whole; to trace its development from its genesis to fruition and to demonstrate dialectically both how it largely created the political persona of Chavez and how also it stands in a certain contradiction to him. In doing so the author hopes to deduce the character of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and demonstrate that it is the task of genuine revolutionaries to fight for a Marxist direction in and through this body.