Hugo Chavez in the military. Photograph Venezuelan Presidency

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Venezuela is a Populist Kleptocracy

by Richard Steinhardt

The phenomenon of Chávez in Venezuela had far more in common with populism, Peronism, and caudillismo than with the Cuban Revolution; any Latin American could attest to this. At root, the knowledge of Latin American history, politics, society, and economics of Venezuela’s supporters seems to be quite superficial and reflects their own wish-fulfilment fantasies and desires which they project onto Venezuela rather than the reality.

Let’s leave aside for the moment the current ridiculous attempts by the US at their version of 19th century gunboat diplomacy and look at the way the self styled socialists of the capitalist metropolis gaslight Venezuelans.

The rhetoric of the kleptocratic Venezuelan leadership is framed in opposition to US imperialism, so the logic goes: Chavismo must be supported and it must be good for ordinary Venezuelans. But uncritical support for the Venezuelan government led by Nicolás Maduro and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) infantilises Venezuelans and gaslights the victims of what is a tyrannical, populist autocracy. For Western apologists of the PSUV, economic collapse and one party state oppression is unimportant in the grand Latin American ‘revolutionary’ scheme of things.

For over two decades, Venezuela under the control of the PSUV has been a symbol for a Western anti-imperialists who seem unconcerned with the lived reality of Venezuelans. That nation is portrayed as the brave, oil-rich sovereign nation that dared to defy American imperialism and that champions twenty-first-century socialism, and the redistribution of wealth to the poor. This story is in extreme contrast to the lived reality of the majority of Venezuelans who have endured one of the most catastrophic economic and social collapses in modern history. The romanticised vision of Venezuela held by many Western socialists is a profound distortion, one that generates deep resentment among the majority of Venezuelans who do not benefit in some way from the current kleptocracy continuing in power. And yet when socialists from the metropolis meet disaffected Venezuelans in exile who try to explain the situation in their country, the Venezuelan exiles are ignored – even the socialist exiles.

the rule of law and a functioning democracy with independent institutions is the difference between a life of fear and uncertainty and a life with the possibility of hope. Wanting such things does not make you a stooge of imperialism.

Venezuela has seen the systematic destruction of democratic institutions and the cynical manipulation of anti-imperialist rhetoric to mask criminality. The ruling party in Venezuela has been aided and abetted in this cover-up by lazy-minded, posturing socialists. Venezuela is not a revolutionary socialist model; it is a cautionary tale about how revolutionary aspirations are hijacked to create a predatory state that impoverishes its people while enriching a few.

Chavez the Caudillo

Hugo Chávez Frías came to power in 1998 because of the abject failure of Venezuela’s previous political order. The Puntofijo Pact, a power-sharing arrangement between the Acción Democrática and COPEI parties, had become a corrupt and exclusive system. The 1980s oil crash and austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund impoverished the population to such an extent that a popular uprising was triggered in 1989. The uprising was then violently repressed. This repression shattered the legitimacy of the established political corder and created a vacuum for a populist outsider.

Chávez, who had previously led a failed coup attempt in 1992, channelled this discontent in the tradition of Latin American military strongmen. He founded a political party called the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) and, promising radical change and won the 1998 presidential election in a landslide.

Initially, Chávez’s government delivered on its promises. Using soaring oil revenues, it established the famed “Missions” (Misiones)—ambitious social programmes providing healthcare (Barrio Adentro), subsidised food (Mercal), and adult education (Misión Robinson). These programmes, often run in cooperation with Cuban volunteers, achieved significant reductions in poverty and inequality in the early 2000s. This is the period Western supporters cling to: the example of a state actively using its resource wealth to help its poorest citizens.

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Beneath the surface, however, Chávez was consolidating power. He rewrote the constitution in 1999 and then used his popular mandate to sideline opponents. The state’s control over Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), the national oil company, was tightened, transforming it from a professionally run enterprise into the primary financial engine of the revolution and the ruling party. The logic of centralisation of the country’s wealth in the hands of the state, was correct, but without robust independent institutions to ensure accountability severe criminality and corruption set in.

The transformation of Venezuela from a social democracy into a kleptocracy is the central story that the Western pseudo-revolutionary narrative ignores. The system does not function as a triumph of socialism, but as a classic case of state capture by the network of a nascent elite who then use political power for personal enrichment. This network is known as the boliburguesía.

The mechanisms of looting are multifaceted. First, the state awarded multi-million-dollar contracts to shell companies owned by regime loyalists. These companies were paid in advance with precious dollars but would often import a fraction of what was paid for, or substandard goods, pocketing the difference. Second, well-connected individuals obtain US dollars at a highly preferential official rate, purportedly to import essential goods. Instead, they would sell these dollars on the black market for a massive profit or simply launder them abroad. Third, the National Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB) became not a protector of the state but a key stakeholder in its criminal enterprises, providing protection for Colombian cartels moving cocaine through Venezuela using military assets like ports and airstrips. Fourth, in the Arco Minero del Orinoco, military and allied criminal groups profit from illegal gold, diamond, and coltan mining. Profits are shared between high-ranking officials, the National Guard, and Colombian guerrilla groups like the ELN, with devastating human and environmental costs.

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US gunboat diplomacy aside, this kleptocracy operates under the cover of revolutionary, anti-imperialist rhetoric. Though there is more than a grain of truth in this assertion of US predatory hostility, uniformed and arrogant apologists of the PSUV frame the country’s collapse entirely as the result of external aggression. They ignore internal corruption. Any criticism, domestic or international of Venezuela is dismissed as part of an “economic war” waged by American imperialism and its domestic puppets.

A common retort from the PSUV’s defenders is that it continues to win elections. This claim of electoral legitimacy wilfully ignores how the electoral process has been systematically engineered to make a different outcome impossible. The PSUV maintains power through a combination of coercion, clientelism, and institutional control. The distribution of CLAP food boxes creates a dependency; they are not a universal social benefit but a tool of political control, distributed with the implicit message that continued receipt is dependent on political loyalty.

The National Electoral Council (CNE), the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), and other key institutions are staffed with party loyalists who disqualify popular opposition candidates and manipulate the electoral process. Furthermore, the government will often announce a new social bonus immediately before an election to directly buy electoral favour. Finally, armed paramilitary groups known as colectivos operate with impunity, intimidating communities and opposition activists. The threat of losing one’s job, benefits, or safety for voting incorrectly is a powerful deterrent.

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Western socialist wish fulfilment stems from a deep and sincere desire to believe. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the triumph of neoliberalism, the international left has been in search of a successful, anti-capitalist model. Venezuela, with its oil wealth, rhetoric, and defiance of the United States, seemed like a symbol of resistance—but the symbol is not the reality.

For a significant segment of Western socialist groupings, opposition to U.S. imperialism is the primary concern: if the U.S. government and its allies are attacking a self-proclaimed socialist country, that country must be defended. This attitude causes them to dismiss all criticism. To ignore Venezuelan human rights activists, left-wing academics opposing the PSUV, to ignore trade unionists who oppose the Venezuelan government and to regard all criticism of the Maduro government as illegitimate propaganda.

Western socialists also have the luxury of distance; the Western intellectual does not live with the consequences. They do not queue for hours for gasoline, they do not have relatives who die for lack of medicine, and they do not fear the colectivos on their street. Their engagement is theoretical, not lived and experienced.

Modest Hopes

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The antidote to the Western revolutionary fantasy projected onto Venezuela is the yearning of Venezuelans themselves for a functioning state. The hope is not for a grand, ideological revolution, but for something far more fundamental: an end to the looting by the boliburguesía and the reign of armed groups; judges who rule by law, not by phone calls from the palace; a press that can investigate power without fear; trade unions that fight for workers rights, not for the PSUV and a functioning democracy with free and fair elections and a vote that is not conditioned on receiving a food box. No miracles, but a functioning economy and a society ruled by law.

This is not a conservative or neoliberal agenda; it is a human one. It is the desire for a law-governed society, not one ruled by a a single party with a monopoly on power and all the elite connected to that party. It is the desire for a country where the state is a actually the servant of the public good, not a predator.

The importance of the rule of law, anti-corruption, and institutional integrity is often dismissed by the traditional left in the West as insufficiently “revolutionary”. The arrogance of the PSUVs so called socialist supporters in ignoring the lived reality of Venezuelans is astounding. In reality, the rule of law and a functioning democracy with independent institutions is the difference between a life of fear and uncertainty and a life with the possibility of hope. Wanting such things does not make you a stooge of imperialism.

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In Venezuela, a popular mandate for change was hijacked and converted into a system of criminal patronage. The rhetoric of Bolivarianism and anti-imperialism is a cover for the theft of public resources by the members of the PSUV and its supporters. Solidarity with the Venezuelan people need not mean parroting the PSUVs claims and explaining away its failures. But it does not mean supporting a US backed coup, either.

Western socialists and communists must listen to the Venezuelan human rights activists, the journalists, the trade unionists, and the ordinary citizens who are struggling not for a utopia, but for the basic building blocks of a dignified life: accountability, justice, and democracy.

Move on. Venezuela is not the revolutionary utopia you’re looking for.

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Richard Steinhardt is a committed socialist and a radical humanist and has published in the Morning Star and a variety of other communist and socialist publications. He believes that human conscience and understanding should always precede dogma and deterministic formulas posturing as ‘social science’.