A disturbing process

"Comandante: The Life and Legacy of Hugo Chavez" is a book by British reporter Rory Carroll, who actually lived and worked in Venezuela's capital city Caracas for several years. Carroll gives a disturbing picture of the revolutionary left's favorite nation, the "Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela", and its unpredictable leader, Hugo Chavez. The new edition also mentions the death of Chavez in 2013 and the snap elections the same year won by his chosen successor, Nicolas Maduro.

Carroll paints a disturbing picture of a revolution gone dangerously wrong, so wrong that the Soviet Union or pre-Deng China look like success stories. Predatory nationalizations that are nothing but pillaging, a corrupt and incompetent bureaucracy, a government that bankrupts its own agricultural cooperatives or industrial plants, one of the highest crime rates in Latin America, a hounded opposition, and an ever-present president with increasingly bizarre views - those are the main ingredients of the "Bolivarian revolution". Above all: chaos, complete and utter chaos as the once seemingly heroic "revolution" plumbs the depths and goes to its inevitable self-destruction. (Simon Bolivar was a 19th century military commander who liberated several South American nations, including Venezuela, from the Spanish Empire. Chavez created an extreme personality cult around him, and claimed to walk in his footsteps. Hence "Bolivarian revolution" or "Bolivarian republic".)

Believe it or not, but until recently most Venezuelans actually supported Chavez, their "Comandante and Presidente". Hugo Rafael Chavez Frías, a nationalist populist with socialist leanings, skillfully cultivated the support of the poor and destitute who even during Venezuela's famous oil boom of the 1970's and 1980's were forced to live in slums or poor agricultural settlements. In power, Chavez used the country's fabulous oil wealth to subsidize gasoline (which became virtually free), basic health care and food imports. Slum dwellers could suddenly afford beef or chicken. He also created a kind of community councils which at least temporarily looked like organs of "direct democracy" in the poorer neighborhoods. This populist strategy in a deeply class-divided, racist country worked for almost 15 years. The Chavistas (supporters of Chavez) easily won every election and all referenda, save one (they carried the next one).The scheme is still working for Maduro, but only barely. Today, only a miracle, massive election fraud or (I suppose) a hike in the oil prices can save the tottering regime...

Yes, the poor could drive for free and eat imported luxury foods. The rest is mostly downhill. Chavismo alienated the middle class, foreign investors (including from friendly nations such as China), labor unions, some revolutionary groups and many erstwhile allies of the president, who unceremoniously ended up in prison. Carroll interviews General Raul Baduel, whose paratroopers saved Chavez during a coup attempt in 2002, in an (admittedly quite spacious) prison cell. Baduel couldn't accept Chavez' coming-out as a "socialist". He could stomach Scandinavian socialism (so can I!), but not the Cuban version extolled by the Comandante.

Sometimes, the revolution has sabotaged itself, as when the peasant-controlled cooperatives went down, being unable to compete with the government's oil-funded food imports. Venezuela's (nationalized) industrial heartland, Ciudad Guayana, was cut off from the grid, its plants and machinery left to decay, when Chavez decided that subsidized electricity and gasoline for consumers (and voters) in Caracas was more important. Meanwhile, the state oil company was bled dry for money, leaving enormous debts and nothing for re-investment.

Not everyone is unhappy, though. A new "boligarchy" (pun for "Bolivar" and "oligarchy") of super-rich Chavez supporters have emerged. Carroll gets to interview their main stylist and hair-dresser, a survival artist who also handled the wardrobe of Carlos Andrés Pérez, the oligarchic president Chavez attempted to topple in a 1992 coup attempt! Fidel is happy, too. Venezuela has given away large quantities of precious oil to save the Cuban economy, while Castro's intelligence service has taken over the Venezuelan ditto.

Carroll also meets the usual utopians, fanatics and naïfs who always flock to revolutions, real or perceived, incapable of understanding that their splendid plans simply don't work in the real world. There is "the bride of the revolution", Eva Golinger, a leftist from New York who completely uncritically supports Chavez, Maduro and "the process" (another name for the Bolivarian revolution). There is, more ominously, Jorge Giordani, a self-proclaimed expert on economic planning who actually did become the government official responsible for, guess what, planning. It seems virtually every bottleneck in the country's economy is due to this man alone! We also get to meet a confused librarian at the presidential palace, who worked there for half a century, and who believed in Chavez since he was the first president interested in listening to said librarian's revisionist take on Venezuela's history...

The only person Carroll never managed to interview (although he did try!) was the main character himself, President Hugo Chavez. Yet, Chavez was ever-present in Venezuela, having his own TV show (well, several actually), constantly "chaining" the air waves, entertaining, "educating" or threatening his audience. Often, Chavez came across as comic or barking mad, as when he claimed that capitalism may have destroyed life on Mars, or that the moon landing was a hoax. (Christopher Hitchens, who met Chavez, has written several scathing articles on the stranger sides of the Presidente.) However, Carroll doesn't think Chavez is really that crazy. Quite the contrary, his unpredictability and constant government reshufflings were part of a conscious strategy to generate chaos, making *him* the only possible power-broker and decision-maker. (This reminds me of Gaddafi in Libya.) Also, his propaganda was often quite skillful, at least by Venezuelan standards - and that's, after all, what counts. Carroll doesn't discuss Chavez' more comic (or cosmic) speculations, but they may not be that weird for a populist in Latin America, where many people believe in far stranger things than NASA conspiracies or life on Mars. (So do many North Americans!)

Despite his propagandistic abilities, the story of Chavez ends tragically. In his last year, even the presidential palace of Miraflores began looking increasingly unkempt. As a final irony, Chavez' dead body couldn't be mummified and placed in a mausoleum (something his successor Maduro wanted to do), since it had been so badly preserved! Maduro, whose campaign for the presidency took absurdity to new heights (at one point claiming that a bird he encountered was a reincarnation of Chavez!), won with only a small margin, triggering increasingly bold and violent opposition protests. Then, the oil prices started to plummet, making the future of the neo-Chavist regime uncertain. Unfortunately, I don't think the end, when it comes, will be pretty. Hopefully, Rory Carroll has returned to London or Dublin by now.

"Comandante" isn't a deep analysis, but rather a journalistic report from a "process" gone completely bonkers. Still, it deserves five stars, not the least since it makes you think twice about this supposed shining example of revolutionary leadership. You can take it from me, I'm a "decent leftist"...