Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution

"Richard was a very famous journalist in the UK, and worked for the Guardian for many years, reporting on Latin America. I had the great pleasure of meeting Richard on a number of occasions, at events around Venezuela and in official meetings on Venezuela. What was interesting about Richard was that he identified Hugo Chávez as being a very, very important political actor. Way before Hugo Chávez was actually elected to the presidency of Venezuela, Richard Gott was able to create a relationship with Hugo Chávez, in which Chávez was very comfortable discussing all aspects of his life with him. This book is a really interesting piece of political biography. Obviously, it’s very sympathetic to Hugo Chávez. Some of us who work on Venezuela see the country under Hugo Chávez and Nicolas Maduro as going through different phases. The first phase of Hugo Chávez—essentially from when he was elected in 1998 through to the second presidential election in 2003—was seen as a very progressive period when many of the basic ideals of the Bolivarian Revolution were writ large. What’s wonderful about this book is that Richard Gott really spoke to Hugo Chávez at that point in time. He was very clever at situating Chávez at that particular historical moment in Latin America, which was the beginning of the ‘pink tide’, this left-wing backlash, with people like Lula being elected in Brazil and Evo Morales in Bolivia. That was a big regional transformation and that’s what Richard Gott really captures in this book. But it is also very important because it gives you an idea of how significant a political actor the Venezuelan armed forces are—the Bolivarian armed forces. Right now, one of the big challenges in Venezuela is trying to navigate around the Venezuelan military, because they’re the key stakeholder in the country. They’re the most powerful actor. Richard positions and explains the military, and the identity and the loyalties of the military, in a way that, unfortunately, US foreign policy has neglected. It’s really important in explaining why Chavismo remains in power today. Yes, they have. They have huge economic interests. There are lots of allegations of corruption and large numbers of senior military officers are currently under US sanctions. Partly as a result of that, the army has a very strong esprit de corps. At the same time—and this is frequently neglected, particularly by the US—there is also a very strong ideological cohort within the Venezuelan armed forces. Richard Gott captures this, that the Venezuelan military see themselves as the embodiment of the legacy of Simón Bolívar and the national independence struggle of Venezuela. There’s a very strong ideological tradition in the Venezuelan armed forces."