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COVER STORYA man who made his revolution JOHN CHERIAN

Hugo Chavez, who made a revolution in Venezuela in the face of serious challenges and became the standard-bearer of the radical change taking place in Latin America, leaves behind an unfinished agenda. ARIANA CUBILLOS/AP JANUARY 23, 2002: HUGO CHAVEZ at a march in Caracas to mark the 44th anniversary of democracy in Venezuela. The government of Marcos Perez Jimenez fell, ending a period of dictatorship, on January 23, 1958. Fidel Castro: Not even he knew how great he was.On March 8, the Venezuelan people bid a final farewell to their beloved commandante and leader, Hugo Rafael Chavez Friaz. It was one of the biggest funerals ever witnessed in Latin America. More than two million people waited patiently in the hot Caracas sun to pay their respects to a man whom they had elected three times in a row as President and who had been an integral part of their lives for the past 15 years. An eight-kilometre-long march, with hundreds of thousands of Chavistas (Chavez supporters), dressed in red, accompanied the procession of the Presidents coffin from the hospital to the military academy in Caracas. The academy itself is situated on Heroes Avenue, which is dedicated to patriots such as Simon Bolivar, who led Latin Americas liberation struggle in the 19th century. The queues were so long that the government extended the period available for the viewing of the body by seven days. If the outpouring of grief and praise in Venezuela and the rest of the world is any indicator, Chavez seems to have already joined the pantheon of revolutionary leaders like Che Guevara and other Latin American historical icons like Bolivar. Like his hero, Bolivar, Chavez too has left his task unfinished, but he has revived Bolivars dream of a united Latin America by laying the groundwork.

Fidel Castro, who was a hero to the late Venezuelan President, said that the Cuban people lost the best friend they ever had. Writing in the second week of March, Castro said that the bitter news of Chavezs death was a heavy blow despite his being aware of the dire medical condition of the Venezuelan President. Not even he knew how great he was, Fidel Castro observed, while emphasising that he had the honour of having shared with the Bolivarian leader the same ideals of social justice and support for the oppressed. The Cuban government said in a statement that his heroic and indefatigable battle against death is an unsurpassable example of fortitude. For the last two years, Chavez had been in and out of Cuban hospitals, undergoing treatment for cancer. The Cuban government paid tribute to the extraordinary generosity of Chavez during Cubas difficult times and pledged eternal loyalty to the goals of revolutionary unity and the integration of the region. Chavez, the statement said, revived and spearheaded Bolivars dream of a unified Patria Grande (Grand Homeland) in South America.

Among his supporters in Venezuela and the wider region, Chavez was known as the Peoples President and the Christ of the Poor. He drew his inspiration from Christian liberation theology and socialist ideology. First of all I am a Christian and then a socialist, the late Venezuelan leader was fond of saying. He always carried a small cross and a copy of the socialist Bolivarian Constitution in his shirt pocket.

Chavez was born in the Venezuelan hinterland 58 years ago and grew up poor in a house with mud walls. By dint of hard work and his own brilliance, he acquired the qualifications to get admission into the military school. The first time he won the national limelight was as a lieutenant colonel in the paratroop regiment that headed a failed coup in 1992. Venezuela was in ferment: people had taken to the streets to protest against the neoliberal economic polices implemented by Carlos Andres Perezs government. Some 3,000 Venezuelans were killed in the uprising, dubbed the Caracazo, against policies dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Political careerChavez and his comrades in the abortive coup were sentenced to long prison terms. Before going to jail, he said, wearing his trademark red beret, that unfortunately for the moment the movement he had spearheaded had not achieved the objectives but predicted that new possibilities will arise and the country will be able to move definitively to a new future. He was released after two years following the victory of the opposition in the 1994 elections. Chavez then formed his own party, the Fifth Republic Party, and criss-crossed the country, propagating a Bolivarian and socialist message. He won the elections in 1998, sidelining the Democratic Action and Copei, the two parties that had alternated in power from the 1950s. Thereafter, he faced the electorate 16 times, tasting victory by wide margins in all but one election. He was described as the most elected President in recent world history. The election process in Venezuela is recognised as being among the most transparent and fair in the world. Jimmy Carter, former United States President, considered it the best in the world.

Once in power, Chavez started implementing cautiously his vision for transforming Venezuelan society. In December 1999, he successfully persuaded the Venezuelan public to approve a new Constitution. That gave more representation to marginalised indigenous communities and women. Chavez once described himself as a feminist socialist. The country was renamed the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The ideology of Bolivarianism, inspired by Bolivars dream of a united Latin America and the ideals of what Chavez chose to describe as 21st century socialism, became the guiding principles. After the approval of the new Constitution a new election was held in 2000, which Chavez won. The year also marked the beginning of strong bilateral ties with Cuba. Venezuela gave oil to Cuba at preferential rates in exchange for trained Cuban doctors and educators. Where Castro tried and failed in the 20th century, Chavez succeeded in the 21st, transforming Latin America into a progressive and economically dynamic region.

On March 8, in Caracas, world leaders at Chavez's funeral: Spain's Crown Prince Felipe de Borbon (standing), Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (left, front row), Cuban President Raul Castro (right, front row), Ecuador's President Rafael Correa (centre), Chile's President Sebastian Pinera (second from right) and Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos (right). He loved to talkThe elite, still in control of the commanding heights of the economy, did not take kindly to the political ground slipping under their feet. The media, both print and electronic, which the elite had monopolised, criticised and ridiculed the government. Indeed, 95 per cent of the media continue to be in private hands. Chavez responded with his own weekly programme, Alo Presidente, which soon acquired a mass following. He spoke for hours to a national audience, allowing them to ask questions and participate in the discussions pertaining to key issues. Chavez loved to talk. On an average his public speeches accounted for 45 hours every week. This correspondent was witness to a five-hour talk by Chavez in Caracas in 2006. His sense of humour, humility and deep understanding of international issues were on full display as he held the rapt attention of a hall full of foreign delegates. He ate frugally, slept little, drank endless cups of coffee, and worked until midnight. He never smoked or drank. During his 2005 India visit, he charmed everybody by his oratory and humanism. Chavez was given one of the biggest welcomes of his life when he visited Kolkata. He was visibly moved while visiting a primary school in West Bengal where the children were eating their frugal midday meal of rice and lentils. Chavez wanted to visit India again and was especially keen on going to Kerala. But the Indian government, possibly wary of his anti-imperialist rhetoric, was not too eager to host him. Chavez, however, put great emphasis on bilateral relations with India. In his efforts to diversify energy links, which currently are heavily dependent on the American market, he reached out to India and China. Indian petroleum companies have signed big contracts in Venezuela, but China has emerged as a much larger investor and one of the countrys biggest trading partners.

An unnatural death?Nicolas Maduro, Chavezs designated political heir, said in his emotional funeral oration that Chavezs soul and spirit are so strong that his body could not handle it, and now his soul and spirit roam the universe, spreading and filling us with blessing and love. He added that Chavez had left us with the task of continuing to build this democratic socialist model that he began. Earlier, Maduro pledged on state television that he would order an inquiry into the circumstances leading to Chavezs death. There have been too many historical cases of such clandestine assassinations, Maduro said. Chavez himself had accused the United States of hatching plots to assassinate him. If they kill me, the name of the person responsible is George Bush, he said in 2005. Maduro did not name any country but said that the U.S. had set up laboratories in the 1940s where they experimented with causing cancerseventy years have passed. Could they have progressed from there? Among the numerous U.S. attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, one was with radiation. The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, reacted to Chavezs suspicious death by saying that if the imperialists did not achieve their goals either with a democratic election or a putschthen they are trying different methodsthat is, ending someones life. Speaking to reporters in Quito, Morales said that Chavez was only 58 years old and added that sooner or later it would be proved that there was an attempt on his life. The Venezuelan government has announced that it is forming a commission to inquire into the illness that caused the death. Maduro said that important scientists from different countries would help in the investigations.

Friends galoreMany countries, including Iran and Nigeria, decreed days of official mourning for Chavez. Presidents and leaders from around the world were present at the state funeral. Fifty-five countries sent official delegations. Thirty-three of the delegations were led by heads of state or government. There was very little high-profile representation from the West, where Chavez was routinely demonised.

All the Presidents from Latin America were present, which in itself was a tribute to the man who was instrumental in the forging of the new Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). This grouping explicitly excludes the U.S. and Canada. CELAC is meant to act as a counterweight to U.S. political and economic hegemony on the continent. It is currently chaired by Cuban President Raul Castro, signalling the countrys full integration into the region.

Chavez was also instrumental in the formation of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) in 2008, patterned after the European Union (EU). He was, too, the moving spirit behind the creation of another, smaller, regional groupingALBA (the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) in 2004. Venezuela set up Bank of the South to combat the World Bank and the Washington Consensus, which had made the region a free market area from where resources were extracted and where goods were marketed. In 2005, he created Petrocaribe to supply subsidised fuel to 18 needy countries in the region. Not many people know that Venezuela provides fuel at highly subsidised rates to disadvantaged communities in the U.S. also.

Transforming roleBefore Chavez came on the scene, it was the Washington-dominated Organisation of American States (OAS) that held centre stage in the region. Since Chavez took over the leadership in Venezuela, there has been what sections of the media describe as a pink revolution sweeping over the continent. In the last decade, most of Latin America has distanced itself from Washington. Chavez was the standard-bearer of the radical changes taking place in Latin America. He was of course ably assisted in the task by the other left-wing leaders in the region, like the Presidents of Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina. The President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, highlighted Chavezs key role in facilitating the ongoing peace talks with the FARC guerillas. Colombia and Venezuela were on the verge of war only a few years ago.

The former Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, wrote that history would justifiably affirm the role played by Chavez in the political and economic integration of Latin America. Lula said that even those disagreeing with the ideology espoused by Chavez could not deny the level of camaraderie, of trust and even of love that Chavez felt for the poor of Venezuela and for the cause of Latin American integration. Lula also pointed out that among Chavezs important priorities was the improvement of ties between Latin American and the African and Asian continents. When many of the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement and the global South capitulated to the hegemonism of the West after the Cold War, Chavez dared to blaze a counter-hegemonistic trail of his own, championing anti-imperialism. It was the support of the Venezuelan people that undermined the military coup, supported by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), that deposed Chavez briefly in 2002. That defining moment changed Venezuelan and Latin American history.

One of the key factors that precipitated the coup was a new Hydro-carbon Law that was passed in 2001, which sharply raised the royalty prices paid by Western oil companies for heavy crude from the Orinoco basin from 1 per cent to 16 per cent. There was a serious attempt by the management of the state oil company, Petroleus de Venezuela (PDVSA), which was run by technocrats mostly trained in the U.S., to sabotage Chavezs wide-ranging reform of the petroleum industry. There were strikes and sabotage attempts in 2002 and 2003. Venezuelan oil exports were affected, but the government finally managed to assert full control over the PDVSAs functioning.

Social projectsWith the price of oil rising, Chavez began his ambitious social projects to empower the poor. In 2007, the hydrocarbon sector was nationalised. Western oil companies like ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil, which refused to accede to the governments terms, were asked to leave the country. Other foreign companies from Europe, Asia and Africa rushed in to fill the vacuum.

The government expenditure on social projects increased by more than 66 per cent. Some three million hectares of land was redistributed, enabling tens of thousands peasants to own land. Hospitals, schools and cooperatives were set up in urban and rural areas populated by the poor, and doctors and medical workers from Cuba came in to give a helping hand. A National Public Health System was created to ensure free access to health care for all Venezuelans. The malnutrition rate fell from 21 per cent in 1998 to less than 3 per cent in 2012. The infant mortality rate fell from 19.1 per thousand in 1999 to 10 per thousand in 2012. In the same period, poverty rates decreased from 42.8 per cent to 26.5 per cent. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Venezuela is the country with least income inequality in Latin America. Universal access to education was introduced in 2008.

In December 2005, UNESCO said that Venezuela had eradicated illiteracy. Forty thousand communal councils in urban barrios and rural areas have been established. The communal councils consist of 150-400 families in urban areas and are financed directly by state institutions. There were many more sterling achievements during the Chavez era, too numerous to be outlined here.

Chavez on world stageCarter, whose foundation regularly sent observers to the elections and referendums that Chavez organised almost on a yearly basis, was among the few American leaders who were liberal in their tributes to the departed leader. He highlighted the gains made by the poor and vulnerable during the Chavez presidency. President Barack Obama, on the other hand, did not bother to offer condolences to Chavezs family or the people of Venezuela. Only a message conveying an interest in developing constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government and a homily on the importance of democracy and the rule of law was sent. Obama chose to disregard the fact that Venezuela under Chavez was the most democratic country in the Western hemisphere.

Chavezs visceral dislike for the war crimes committed during the presidency of George W. Bush was epitomised by his statement in the U.N. General Assembly comparing the U.S. President to the devil. And it smells of sulphur even today, he had mocked while speaking some hours after Bush had addressed the General Assembly. Chavez tried to repair relations with Bushs successor. At the OAS summit in Trinidad in 2009, he went up to the new President and told him I want to be your friend. Chavez also presented Eduardo Galleanos book Open Veins of Latin America: Four Centuries of the Pillage of the Continent to Obama.

Chavez went to Iraq in August 2000, two years after he was first elected to the presidency, crossing over into Iraq from Iran: he visited both the countries to discuss issues relating to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Chavez played a key role in strengthening OPEC, which had become dysfunctional after the Iran-Iraq war and then the first Gulf war. He was the first head of state to visit Iraq after the 1991 Gulf war and the U.S. had warned him against doing so. Chavez responded by reminding Washington that Venezuela was a sovereign country.

From then on, Chavez charted his independent course on the international stage, never hesitating to speak out on the causes that he considered just. He was among the few world leaders to criticise the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. policies towards Iran. A visibly distraught President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was present at the funeral in Caracas. In a statement, the Iranian President said that Chavez was only symbolically dead. I have no doubt he will come again along with all the righteous people and the Prophet Jesus.

After the 2008 Israeli invasion of Gaza, Venezuela withdrew its ambassador to Israel. Chavez declared that henceforth diplomatic ties with Israel would be reduced to the lowest level and said that there is no point in dealing with that country. Chavez was a vociferous critic of the regime change in Libya sponsored by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the current attempts at something similar in Syria. This correspondent saw in the barrios in Caracas posters of Muammar Qaddafi along with literature explaining the circumstances leading to his overthrow.

Legacy in safe handsThere is little doubt that Chavezs legacy is in safe hands, at least for the time being. I swear in the name of absolute loyalty to the Commandante Hugo Chavez that we will obey and defend the Bolivarian Constitution with the firm hand of the people determined to be free, Maduro said while being sworn in as interim President. Maduro, who started his political career as a trade union leader, was one of Chavezs closest confidants. His wife, Cilia Flores, was Chavezs lawyer after his arrest for leading the failed military coup in 1992. She was the countrys Attorney General before resigning to help Maduro in the elections.

Maduro was by Chavezs side when he began his quest for the presidency in the mid-1990s. He was the countrys Foreign Minister from 2006 until he was named the Vice-President in October 2012. This correspondent met Maduro in New Delhi in September last year. Like his mentor Chavez, he was articulate and outspoken in his views. He told Frontline that with the formation of CELAC, Latin America was poised to forge a new alliance that would build a multipolar world, free from the influence of the Empire [the U.S.]. The U.S., he averred, should not be allowed to use the the trump card of war against the rest of the world whenever it chose. He said that before Chavez came to power 15 years ago, the U.S. treated Venezuela like an oil company. He added that Venezuela was witnessing the making of socialism of the 21st century. Cuba was the model that first inspired revolutionaries in the region but Venezuela was building its own model of socialism. It will be socialism with Venezuelan and Bolivarian characteristics, Maduro said.

MARCELO GARCIAAFP ON MARCH 6, THOUSANDS OF WEEPING SUPPORTERS walk with Chavez's flag-draped coffin on its way from the hospital where he died to the military academy where his body remained until his funeral. The government, the army, the ruling United Socialist Party all stand united behind Maduros leadership. But there are interested parties trying to sow discord. Just before Chavezs demise, the Venezuelan government expelled two U.S. military attaches for meddling in the countrys internal affairs. In the second week of March, the U.S., in a reciprocal action, expelled two Venezuelan diplomats. The Western media have started spreading stories about the pivotal role the Venezuelan armed forces are playing in the current situation and claiming that Maduros future depends on their goodwill.

A special election is scheduled to be held on April 14 to elect a new President. Maduro, who will face the candidate of the united right wing opposition, Henrique Caprilles, is expected to win by a wide margin. A sympathy wave should help him to widen the lead that Chavez had registered over Caprilles. Chavez won the election in October last year with over 10 percentage points.

Caprilles has accused his rival of using the body of a dead President to stage a campaign. He insinuated that Chavezs death and funeral were all plannedWho knows when he died. His latest charge came after there was a proposal to embalm the body of Chavez. They want to use the Presidents body for campaigning, he said, an allegation that Maduro called disgusting. Caprilles and his Justice First Party were key participants in the abortive U.S.-backed coup against Chavez in 2002.

Polarised polity and other challengesVenezuelas polity remains polarised, with a significant minority still unreconciled to Chavezs social and economic programmes. There were no representatives from the main opposition parties at the funeral ceremony. In fact, there were celebrations and fireworks in some affluent areas in Caracas when Chavezs death was announced. All the same, it is widely felt that few Venezuelans want a return to the old style of politics. Caprilles himself had pledged during the last election to continue with Chavezs social policies if he was elected to the presidency.

MARCELO GARCIAAFP ACTING PRESIDENT and Chavez's chosen successor Nicolas Maduro speaks after registering his candidacy for the presidential election in Caracas on March 11. Maduro, of course, will face a daunting task in the absence of the larger-than-life figure of Chavez. A lot has still to be fulfilled if Chavezs dream of 21st century socialism has to become a reality. The ruling United Socialist Party that Chavez had forged contains many currentsthe old leftist parties, a new Bolivarian class, businessmen, military interests and social movements. There could be a struggle for the control of state institutions and bigger slices of the national budget. The U.S. will be working overtime to sow seeds of disunity among the Chavistas to undermine the socialist revolution. Since 2002, Washington has channelled more than $100 million to opposition groups. Some Venezuelans are not ruling out a Syria-type scenario of encouraging a civil war to restore American influence in the region. The private sector still controls 70 per cent of the economy.

The countrys overall well-being rests predominantly on the performance of the hydrocarbon sector and the high price of oil in the international market. Venezuela has low debts, high petroleum reserves and high savings. It has proven oil reserves of over 500 billion barrels, the largest in the world. In the last 14 years, the government has invested in large industrial and agricultural projects, which will soon be paying dividends to the public at large. The state now gets as much revenue from domestic tax collection as it does from oil revenues.

The problems of corruption and crime, however, are yet to be tackled adequately. The opposition had highlighted these two issues with some success in last years elections. The high standards President Chavez adhered to personally on ethical issues do not everywhere mark the top levels of the government and the ruling party. Maduro has pledged to deepen Chavezs social programmes and promised a vigorous drive against the rising crime rate.

The world will be watching.

Vol:30 Iss:06 URL: http://www.flonnet.com/fl3006/stories/20130405300601100.htm

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COVER STORYEvolution of a practical visionary

AIJAZ AHMAD

Steering clear of neoliberalism as well as classical communist traditions, Hugo Chavez has sown the seeds of institutions rooted in the Venezuelan reality. Their transformative potential has already turned the country into one of the more equitable societies in the world today. DOUGLAS ENGLE/AP February 4, 1999: Chavez after he was first sworn-in President, with his wife, Marisabel.

HUGO CHAVEZ lived a short, inspired, inspiring life, unfinished, and, in a profound sense, unfinishable. Such as him always die much too soon. When the time eventually comes for Fidel Castro to go, he too will have departed too soon. Chavez was, of course, cut down in the prime of his life, quickly, at barely 58, in the best of health until that mysterious, fatal cancer started doing its evil work, and the end then came very quickly, despite the best efforts of Cubas legendary health system.

Some say there was more to that cancer than meets the eye; that certainly is the implication of the words used by Nicolas Maduro, the former bus driver and union leader who served as Vice-President of Venezuela until recently and whom Chavez designated as his successor. What can be said without any doubt, however, is this: when the Latin American Leftthe global Left, for that matterlooks back at its own history a hundred years from now, the one name that will loom the largest for the opening decade of the 21st century will be that of Hugo Chavez.

The effective life, the life for which posterity shall chiefly remember him, was in fact very much shorter than it seemsbarely a decade, I would say, which earnestly began only in 2004 after he had beaten back three major challenges to his authority. The first of these challenges came in the shape of a full-fledged, United States-backed military coup in April 2002 which almost succeeded. Then, having failed to dislodge him through military means, they tried to overthrow him through a two-month-long attempt at massive national chaos and disruption, beginning in December that same year, with the so-called strike at the state-run oil company PDVS which was formally staged by the management but really stage-managed by the traditional ruling classes, their partiers, media monopolies and support bases among the affluent sections of the urban middle class. When the extraconstitutional means failed, those same forces resorted to a provision that Chavez himself had introduced into the Constitution, namely the right to recall a serving President through a popular referendum. In the event, Chavez won that referendum by 59 per cent, just as he had previously won two presidential electionsas well as the referendum on the new Constitution he had put in place soon after getting elected the first timewith similar margins. The putting in place of that enabling Constitution was undoubtedly a major achievement, as was the chain of electoral victories; it added up to an enormous reservoir of democratic legitimacy which Chavez was careful to go on refurbishing at every turn for the rest of his life. However, it was only with the full consolidation of power in 2004 that he was then able to lead the historic, multifaceted transformations for which Venezuela was to become so justly famous in our time. Nine years later, he was dead.

REUTERS AT A PARTY during his years at the Military Academy in Caracas in this undated photo.

Before we delve into some details of this extraordinary life, it might be useful to emphasise an aspect of his personality that appears to have been absolutely central to his personality and his visionary capacity and which gets mentioned very rarely: his very broad intellectual culture, and his extraordinary receptivity to a wide spectrum of ideas, from all kinds of quarters, in order to think through the many kinds of experimentations that would be required to find our way into what may one day become a post-Soviet socialism of the 21st century. To illustrate the first point, let me quote a few sentences from Emir Sader, the formidable Brazilian intellectual:

Hugo Chavez always said that a key book he had read during his prison years was Beyond Capital by his friend Istvn Mszros. The last time I was able to be with Chavez was on the occasion of the Forum of So Paulo during his electoral campaign last year. At the closing ceremony at the Teresa Carreo Theater, he had a copy of Mszros's book with him and told an old Venezuelan man, who had recently managed to learn to read, that one day he should read Beyond Capital . The intellectual restlessness of Hugo Chavez was always impressive. In any conversation with him, Chavez immediately took interest in what people were saying, asking for reading suggestions and other information. In his TV programme Al Presidente, he mentioned that he was reading authors like Gramsci and Rosa Luxemburg, beyond, as always, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. He read during his constant air travels.

His restless theoretical curiosity was always tied to the concrete reality of Venezuela and Latin America.

As one who has actually grappled with Beyond Capital I can testify that the reading of it is arduous labour.

And, of course, there was that famous day in 2006 when Chavez addressed the U.N. General Assembly and said of George W. Bush: Yesterday, the devil came here. And it smells of sulphur still today; as antidote, he recommended to the assembled delegates that they read Noam Chomskys book Hegemony or Survival, helping to make the book an international bestseller. He also got a million copies of Don Quixote published at state expenditure and had them distributed to a million households that were new beneficiaries of popular literary campaigns. He would routinely discuss two or three books in every session of his weekly talk show, Alo Presidente, which he kept up for more than a decade. Such stories are myriad.

As for his openness to new ideas regarding social transformation and his penchant for translating conceptual abstraction into practical possibilities, the kind of reforms that were initiated under his guidance in a variety of areas, from economic production and distribution to the re-organisation of social and political power, will tell their own story when we briefly turn to them later. To give but one small example: as some women have reminded us, it is only fitting that Chavez received his tumultuous funeral on March 8, the International Womens Day, since he was the first President of any country who argued that womens unpaid domestic labour was productive labour and deserved remuneration like any other form of labour.

Beginnings

Before winning his first presidential election in 1998 (inaugurated on February 2, 1999), Chavez had gone through a prolonged, often quixotic political apprenticeship over roughly two decades, starting in 1977 when, at the young age of 23, he established a conspiratorial group with a small number of friends and gave it the grand name of the Venezuelan Peoples Liberation Army (ELPV, in Spanish acronym). Like many other Latin American countries, Venezuela too was rife with a variety of militant, though not very large, left-wing organisations, including the communist party as well as guerilla groups; Chavezs brother was himself part of one of such groups. Chavez and his friends were clearly aware of these groups and were even in contact with some of them. The range of left-wing ideas circulating in the air was bewilderingly wide: Peronist populism and liberation theology, Communism and Trotskyism, anarcho-syndicalism and Guevarism, revolutionary nationalism and continental unification, and just plain radical opposition to military dictatorships, neoliberal policies, the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). There was even a tradition of military radicalism, especially among officers drawn from peasant backgrounds such as Chavez himself.

He and his friends were clearly caught in this vortex. However, it is equally clear that they were largely clueless as to any precise social vision, political strategy or even military planning for a left-wing officers coup until well after the early ELVP had metamorphosed into what was now called the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200) five years later. The catalysing event for Chavez came in 1989 with the famous popular uprising in Caracas and the regimes suppression of it, generally known as El Caracazo, with thousands massacred; Chavez was out of action that day, lying in a hospital with chicken pox, but referred to that massacre later as a genocide. Events of that kind rarely lead to theoretical illumination or any programmatic clarity as to what would come after the seizure of power in case one actually succeeded. Chavez and his friends seem to have drawn two conclusions, though: to expedite preparations for a military coup from the Left (what Chavez was to call Bolivarian military uprising); and, that the level of popular anger was such that they were likely to gain rapid acceptance and wide popularity in case they succeeded in their audacious bid. The coup was duly mounted three years later, in 1992, and it failed. However, the other calculation proved correct. As the undisputed leader of a heroic bid to overthrow the regime and redeem the nation, and commanding an exceptional degree of eloquence in public speech, Chavez won instant popularity and, even as he languished in prison for the next two years, he was on his way to becoming a folk hero.

JORGE SILVA/REUTERS OCTOBER 4, 2012: Speaking in the rain during his closing campaign rally for the presidential election, in Caracas.

That failure and the fact that he managed to survive so as to fight another day also did something else: it seems to have tilted the balance in the internal dialogue, among Chavez and his widening circle of comrades and cohorts, over the legitimacy and efficacy of relying primarily on military means. The great importance of military power was not at issue. For instance, once the U.S. had made up its mind to have the elected socialist government of President Salvatore Allende overthrown by military force, the fatal coup of 1973, one of the most murderous in history, proved unstoppable precisely because the elected government had no effective control over the armed forces if they decided to defy that government. Conversely, when an almost successful coup was staged against Chavez himself in 2002, what saved the day was his own independent political base among key sections of the military. Ultimate power is state power, and the heart of all state power, in all decisive moments, is the control over means of violence, that is, the military and security forces.

That much is clear enough. But the lessons of the failed coup also had to be learned. And, what happens if a coup from the Left succeeds without building a mass base, and without an organised political instrumentality to fight a war of position and realise its objectives? Can an isolated regime of that kind survive? Can it survive without itself becoming a machinery of violence against its own people? And, what are the objectives of such a military insurrection anyway?

The two years in prison ended in 1994 by virtue of a pardon by the new government, and the next elections were due in 1998. If the 15 years up to 1992 were the years of apprenticeship in revolutionary enthusiasm, with putschist plans for the seizure of power and an amalgam of widely divergent inspirations in lieu of an ideology, the next six years between the failed coup and the decisive victory in presidential election were a transitional phase in which Chavez deepened his political education, started thinking programmatically about an alternative model of state formation, initiated new alliances and, once released from prison, travelled widely inside the country as well as elsewhere in Latin America for intensive, wide-ranging dialogue over political strategy. His MBR-200 increasingly became the centre of attraction for a spectrum of leftwing forces to congregate in a unified movement, and Chavez, the audacious hero of a failed coup, emerged by far as the most popular and credible candidate to take on the established political parties in electoral contest. By then, Chavez and his group had become fully committed to the electoral road, with organised military cells in the background. The principal Left groupings in the country dissolved themselves into the much broader front of forces, though not exactly a political party, and called it the Movement of the Fifth Republic (MVR, in Spanish initials), while MBR-200 too ceased to exist and became a part of this broader Movement.

As the name of the Movement itself would suggest, abrogating the old Constitution and electing a new Constituent Assembly to draft a politically more radical, more pro-people Constitution was a key promise in Chavezs electoral plank. So when he took the oath of office at the time of presidential inauguration in February 1999, he departed from the wording of the oath to assert: I swear before my people that upon this moribund constitution I shall drive forth the necessary democratic transformations so that the Republic will have a Magna Carta befitting these times. The flamboyance of the gesture was emblematic of Chavezian audacity but the wording was shrewd. Reference to the Magna Carta was meant to reassure that popular liberties shall be respected and arbitrary government shunned, but Magna Carta befitting these times could have meant any number of things, ranging from Maos New Democracy to all manner of social democratic claims and reform platforms. What it actually meant got clarified gradually, first in the new Constitution itself, then in the strict observance of constitutional provision that Chavez then sought rigorously to uphold, and then over roughly a decade, through trial and error, in an open process, through wide-ranging reforms, not all of them successfully implemented but, in sum, producing cumulative results that are impressive in their augmentation of social justice and democratisation of effective political power.

Growing into revolutionary shoes

We shall come shortly to some of the statistical reflection of those changes. Certain things need to be said right away. Chavez was first elected in 1998 at the head of a newly formed Movement that was by any standards quite modest in size, and he got elected largely because of his personal charisma and populist invocations; upon his death 15 years later, he has left behind a cohesive, highly motivated, well-organised party of seven million which intersects with numerous organs of popular power of various kinds.

As a young man, when he was forming his conspiratorial groups, he was certainly exposed to left-wing ideas and currents of anti-imperialist nationalism, but he was equally opposed to both neoliberalism and the communist tradition. As he matured, his dislike of U.S. imperialism and the core institutions and policies of neoliberalism deepened, while he softened on issues relating to the complex of communist legacies. He brought the communist party into his alliance, formed very close personal ties with Fidel Castro and established extensive cooperation between Cuba and Venezuela; Fidel is said to have remarked several years ago, even before Chavez was fully in command, that his coming to power in Venezuela was the first time that encirclement of the Cuban revolution was to any degree broken.

None of it means that Chavez was in any sense a communist; he never claimed to be and said openly, again and again, that in his view ours was not a period of working class revolutions. When he spoke of 21st century socialism, one of the meanings of the term undoubtedly was that anything that could decently be called socialist in this new century will have to depart radically from the organisational forms of state and society that gave us socialisms of the previous century. In a sense, this is not very different from Marxs famous postulate, in his own time, that revolutions of the 19th century can only go forward by criticising the revolutions of the 18th century. But Chavez never claimed to be strictly a Marxist either. It is accurate to say, in my view, that Chavez was a truly revolutionary nationalist and that it was the revolutionary character of his anti-imperialist nationalism that kept pushing him in the direction of socialism. It needs to be added, though, that initiating his own political project in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the whole Soviet system, Chavez was not at all sure that he knew what a socialist society would be like. So he opened himself up to a very wide range of ideas that could in any way be associated with projects of radical social change, and he absorbed like a sponge the ones he thought best and most translatable into practice within Venezuelan reality.

Virtually everyone in Latin America waxes eloquent on the need for continental unity; dating back to Simon Bolivar and Jose Marti; there is a powerful tradition of revolutionary transcontinental nationalism that has seen this unity as the precondition for effective resistance against the predatory power of the U.S. Chavez pushed forward this project of continental unity more energetically than any other leader in our time. This is owed to three factors. The first is a profound personal commitment to this project since the early days of his politicisation; the self-image of the Movement since its very inception as Bolivarian indicates that commitment. Second, and uniquely, as the President of Venezuela with its oil wealth, he had access to material means for promoting such a policy; whether in Venezuelas relations with Cuba, or with other Carribean countries, or elsewhere in South America, oil as commodity and as source of finance has been of central importance. The point nevertheless remains that Venezuela had this oil in the past as well, and Brazil and Argentina, for instance, have in their own way the continents more powerful economies, none ever financed projects of this kind; Chavez at least initiated a whole range of concrete programmes for various kinds of regional integrations, challenging all the North American plans to craft pro-imperialist policies under U.S. tutelage.

JOSE GOITIA/AP WITH FRIEND AND MENTOR FIDEL CASTRO in Barinas, Venezuela, near his hometown Sabaneta on October 28, 2000.

Thirdly, the historical conjuncture itself favoured this new configuration. The contrast with Cuba could not be sharper. The Cuban revolution occurred at the height of U.S. prosperity, well before it got bogged down in Vietnam or its economic stagnation began; Cuba was an impoverished little island, a little neo-colony 145 kilometres off the Florida coast; successful U.S.-sponsored military coups across Latin America preceded the Cuban revolution (in Guatemala) and followed it (in Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina). By contrast, Venezuela was potentially a very wealthy country (not only oil), and by the time Chavez stabilised his power in 2004, the U.S. was fully mired in Afghanistan and Iraq, its foreign policy largely mortgaged to Israel and, to a far lesser degree, amenable to manipulation by the Gulf monarchies. After the U.S. tried and failed to overthrow Chavez through military means in 2002, it was left with really only two options: undermining him politically by manipulating the extraordinary degree of freedom that prevailed in Venezuela, or assassination. Various U.S. outfits are known to have funded more than 130 pro-democracy organisations against the totalitarian regime of Hugo Chavezthis, in a country where Chavez won 15 consecutive elections and referendums through a process that Jimmy Carter, former U.S. President, calls the best in the world.

As for assassination, that was always an eerie possibility. Chavez, be careful, Fidel Castro used to admonish him, They have technology. A seasoned security detail was despatched for him from Cuba. I had the occasion to witness those security officers in action. Chavez was holding his famous radio show in the compound of a high school in his native town, from where it was being televised nationally, with large numbers of local people in attendance, including his parents. After about three hours, torrential tropical rains suddenly started. In the chaos, the adoring crowd surged forth, to be close to their President, possibly to touch him, possibly to tear off a piece of his shirt to take home as a souvenir. The security guards moved in and whisked him away but many were able to come close, and touch. Anyone of them might have easily come with a needle; that day, no one did.

While this tussle was going on between the U.S. and the man who had called its vengeful President a devil from the podium of the U.N. General Assembly, this sea change in Venezuelan affairs followed, not by pro-U.S. coups but by a series of electoral victories for left-wing Presidents. Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia were significant in this regard. They had suffered brutal military dictatorships in the wake of the Cuban revolution, so as to suppress generalised leftwing militancy during that period; now, as Chavez won the Venezuelan elections, it was followed by the election of leftist Presidents in all three countries, followed by similar elections elsewhere. Times were auspicious for Chavez to start again dreaming the dream of anti-imperialist unity across the continent.

We could go into details of the number of organisations that came into being to buttress this unitysuch as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA, in Spanish acronym), among othersand numerous initiatives for greater regional integration in various areas, ranging from finance (Bank of the South, for instance) to culture and information (for example, Telesur). Others have written on these issues and will continue to do so. A few broad points can be made, however. First, no such practical steps, certainly not a coherent series of them, were proposed before Chavez and his colleagues started pushing the project, in whatever imperfect shape. No one should believe that anything of this magnitude can succeed quickly, in even a decade or a generation. What matters is the idea, the proposition, the seed, and as many practical beginnings as possible to nurse the seed and to nourish the saplings. The beginnings might take a century before real fruition; or it may all be crushed the next year. Audacious plans of this nature are essentially a wager against the imperialist tide of our times. Chavez, in any case, did not have much time and, like everything else that is original and visionary, this too has been prone to trial and error.

In Chavezs eventual understanding of it, revolutionary anti-imperialist nationalism required some semblance of the broadest possible united front that was comprised of, as it were, concentric circles. As the head of a state, he could do something positive in the construction of such a united front, mainly at the state-to-state level. At the heart of his efforts was what he could achieve, or at least set in motion, inside Venezuela. Beyond that was the special relationship with Cuba, the really radical move that ended forever any possibility of compromise with the U.S. Beyond that was the meeting of minds and coordination of policies with Bolivia and Ecuador; then the immense effort that went into keeping the alliance with Brazil and Argentina vibrant, despite differences, not to speak of several other overlaps as well, as with Ortegas Nicaragua or Bachelets Chileso as to build a force so irresistible that even Colombia, a U.S. client if there ever was one, was forced to join the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC, in Spanish initials), the last and widest initiative undertaken to realise that envisioned unity while Chavez was still alive.

FERNANDO LLANO/AP CUBAN DOCTOR Vivian Iglesias examining a child at a medical centre in Caracas on July 15, 2003. Iglesias was one of the 1,000 Cuban doctors who lived and worked in Venezuelan slums in a project sponsored by Chavez.

But there was another level as well, beyond Latin America and the Caribbean: a general, methodical anti-imperialist stance and an effort to cultivate relationships across the world wherever there was any opening for what I have described as state-to-state broadest possible anti-imperialist front. He denounced Americas most recent war against the Afghan people as soon as it began (you cannot fight terrorism with terrorism) and followed it up with vigorous opposition to every imperialist stratagem in the region. This had already offended every branch of the U.S. government. But then he also went ahead with building cordial relations with Iran, China and Russiacountries which are viewed by much of the U.S. Left the same way as their government does: outposts of barbarism, remnants of the evil empire. Large sections of that Left got disillusioned with Chavez on that score and showered all kinds of epithets on him for being cordial towards Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President; many of the same people would enthusiastically support Barack Obama against Mitt Romney as the lesser evil. Is Ahmadinejad not a lesser evil than Obama? All kinds of racist stereotypes begin to haunt such leftists when faced with questions of that kind.

The point again is not to build up a ledger of successes and failures on any of this during the brief tenure of office that Chavez was able to command. There was always the issue of the learning curve, step by step; the brevity of time available to him to pursue his ideas; the paucity of resources with which to shape events at home and abroad. The issue, simply, is the vision we need to recognise, share and inherit.

A brief balance sheet

It is somewhat easier to draw up at least a brief ledger for some of the transformations that occurred inside Venezuela over roughly 15 years while Chavez was President. Facts are actually very well known, many of them attested by various international agencies, from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and repeated across the spectrum of Left writings on Chavez. Some may be mentioned here for illustrative purposes.

Chavez was often accused of authoritarianism, and he surely had an egoistic, authoritarian streak in him. However, for a man whose only extended practical experience was in the hierarchical organisation of the military and who shot to the presidency of the country largely on the basis of personal charisma and mass adulation, and who then had to rely substantially on the moribund, corrupt state bureaucracy for having his reform programs implemented, he had exceptionally high regard for the peoples rights and liberties, for the construction of popular organs of power and communication, for the sanctity of constitutional guarantees and genuine electoral processes, for initiatives undertaken by countless young activists who were getting constantly inducted into the Bolivarian processes and mobilisations. The writing of a new Constitution that Chavez initiated and which has been emulated in Bolivia and Ecuador was designed precisely to ensure democratisation in the exercise of power, protection of popular entitlements, reaffirming national sovereign power over the utilisation of the countrys natural resources and the structures of its economy, and the utilisation of public wealth for the well-being of the heretofore deprived classes.

ANDRES LEIGHTON/AP CHAVEZ (RIGHT) BEING ESCORTED by military intelligence officers after being arrested for trying to overthrow Venezuela's government in a coup on February 5, 1992.

From communal councils to worker-run factories, from community radio stations and TV channels to tens of thousands of business cooperatives, Venezuela under Chavez initiated some of the most sophisticated experiments in direct democracy, socialisation and workers control in the world. The communal councils, for example, were created to form a direct link between the central state and local communities, bypassing state- and district-level bureaucrats. In the urban areas, such councils were expected to include 150 or more families, in the rural areas 30 families, and anyone above the age of 15 was entitled to participate in its deliberations over common needs in areas such as health, education, and sanitation, draw up projects, acquire funds directly from the central government and implement those plans. There are now said to be 30,000 such councils. Mismanagement was of course common, as all such experiments in new forms of planning and execution at the popular level must necessarily go through, but such mismanagement was surely less than was routinely the case with the more traditional bureaucratic structures. The point, in any case, is that the authoritarian President was extraordinarily devoted to undermining the familiar patterns of authoritarian rule.

Imperfections and problems were countless. It nevertheless is the case that Venezuela is now the least unequal country in the region, where, over a decade or so, poverty has been reduced from 70 per cent to 21 per cent and extreme poverty from 40 per cent to 7 per cent. The UNESCO recognises that illiteracy has been eradicated altogether and tuition-free education is available from day-care up to the university level; one out of every three Venezuelans are currently enrolled in one educational programme or another, and the number of tertiary level students rose from 895,000 in 2000 to 2.3 million in 2011. While 90 per cent of the food was imported in 1980, now it is below 30 per cent, even though per capita food consumption has more than doubled during the Chavez years. Five million Venezuelans receive free food, and the state has been establishing an expanding network of subsidised food distribution through grocery stores and supermarkets. Meanwhile, tax collection has grown so rapidly that the state now collects as much revenue through such collection as through the sale of oil.

We can go on multiplying such statistics in a whole range of areas from health to agriculture. Great gains in the well-being of the masses of Venezuelan people and their sense of having greater control of their own lives is undeniable. That is no mean achievement for so novel and beleaguered an experiment, in defiance of imperialist pressure.

Conclusion

I have repeatedly argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union signalled the end of a whole historical period, and this sense of an ending is only compounded by the further collapse or seeping disarray among other socialist states that arose in the course of the 20th century. A certain history of making revolutions and attempting to build socialist systems is now behind us and cannot be resurrected in those forms. Large sections of humanity have therefore embarked on countless experiments in forms of action, seeking radical social transformation, so that, theoretically and practically, altogether new revolutionary forms may be discovered that would be appropriate for revolutions of the future.

No advanced capitalist country shows any signs of even the beginning of such a transformation. Latin America is the chief locus for these stirrings in our time, and Venezuela has been at the cutting edge of it all. So far the combination of concrete reforms for the peoples welfare are here combined with far-reaching experimentation in what one day may become an adequate revolutionary form. There is no end to the number of faults we can find but in these days of mourning, when a whole continent grieves for its most illustrious son, solidarity and salutation is the primary duty.

Vol:30 Iss:06 URL: http://www.flonnet.com/fl3006/stories/20130405300601800.htm

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COVER STORYBolivarian revolutionary

PRAKASH KARAT

No other leader in the world did so much as Hugo Chavez to set the 21st century on a new course. Without him Venezuela will face big challenges in the days to come. BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT With Prakash Karat, CPI(M) general secretary, in Caracas in 2004.

HUGO CHAVEZ, revolutionary leader and symbol of the new wave of the Left in Latin America, is dead. Cancer, which he fought since June 2011, finally took away the life of the 58-year-old leader. He died less than six months after his historic re-election, for the fourth consecutive term, as the President of Venezuela. His loss has plunged the people of Venezuela and the rest of Latin Americaand, indeed, people of the Left and other progressive people all over the worldinto grief.

The death of Chavez has come at a time when he is needed the most. After the election of October 2012, which he won with a 55 per cent majority, he was set to serve another term of six years, from 2013 to 2019, a period crucial for consolidating the revolutionary process that he had initiated and to advance the regional integration of Latin America, a process in which he had played a key role. But that was not to be.

ARIANA CUBILLOS/AP A copy of the Constitutionin hand, a woman watches on a big screen Nicolas Maduro being sworn in President.

The accomplishments of Hugo Chavez in the 14 years after he became President are truly extraordinary. His achievement has two dimensions: the domestic one, or his impact on Venezuelas economy, society and polity; and the external dimension, or his impact on Latin America and international relations in general.

Alternative to neoliberalism

In Venezuela, Chavez strove to build an alternative to the neoliberal model. The success he achieved made him a powerful source of inspiration and a magnet that attracted the entire Left in Latin America. After he took office in 1999, Chavez first embarked on the establishment of a new Constitution, one that truly devolved power to the people.

Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves in the world. From 2002, after the coup against him was foiled by popular upsurge, Chavez went about the task of asserting national sovereignty over the oil resources of the country. He brought the giant oil company, PDVSA, under government control and made Western oil companies conform to stringent terms. He defied the conventional pattern followed by oil-exporting countries, that of parking their petro-dollars in U.S. and Western banks. Nationalisation of the electricity and telecom industries followed.

Land reforms were implemented and three million hectares of land was distributed to tens of thousands of farmers.

The next step Chavez took was to use the oil revenues for the welfare of the people. A number of social missions were set up. The missions, named Mission Robinson, Sucre, and so on, after the liberators of South America, were designed to eradicate illiteracy, to promote education and health, and to provide food and housing facilities for the people.

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT On a tour of rural West Bengal when he visited India in 2005.

The results of these pro-people policies have been remarkable. The Bolivarian Republic reduced poverty by half; the poverty rate dropped from 42.8 per cent in 1999 to 26.5 per cent in 2011. Extreme poverty fell by 70 per cent, from 16.6 per cent to 7 per cent, in the same period. Illiteracy was eradicated and the number of teachers went up from 65,000 to 350,000.

When I visited Venezuela in 2004, I saw how life in the barrios (slums) that ring Caracas was changing. There was a network of primary health centres. These clinics were manned by Cuban doctors and medical personnel and they provided first-class medical care. There was a food programme which provided lunch six days a week for children, pregnant women, the elderly, the disabled and those in extreme poverty.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Venezuela, which was the country with the highest income inequality in the 1990s, became the least unequal in Latin America (with a Gini coefficient of 0.39 in 2011).

These major social changes were accomplished by harnessing the power of the people. The Bolivarian revolutionary process involved the creation of 35,000 community councils and a network of popular organisations at the grass-roots level. Chavez recognised the need to organise a party and converted the Movement for the Fifth Republic into a political party, the United Socialist Party (PSUV).

ESTEBAN FELIX/AP IN MANAGUA, NICARAGUA, in December 2012, people hold up images of Chavez in his support during a concert to mark the eighth anniversary of ALBA

Chavez and the revolutionary process faced intense hostility and constant attacks from the oligarchy, which comprises big business, the landed elite and the upper echelons of the bureaucracy. The oligarchy is backed by the United States and foreign capital. Their hatred for Chavez was all the more since he rallied the army and remoulded it into a popular nationalist force. With the support of the working people and the armed forces, Chavez foiled one conspiracy after another to destabilise the revolutionary process.

External Relations

Externally, Chavez built a close and strong alliance with Cuba. He embraced the revolutionary philosophy of Fidel Castro and soon became its successful practitioner. It is clear that his leadership of Venezuela helped the Left advance in Latin America: following his first victory in 1998, Left electoral victories followed in Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and other countries.

Uniting Latin America

Chavez propounded a Bolivarian vision, a vision inspired by Simon Bolivar, the liberator of South America from Spanish rulethat of a united Latin America free from imperialist domination. He was instrumental in establishing the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), a grouping that comprises eight countries (Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia were the core countries that initiated the formation of the alliance). ALBA was followed by the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), and finally by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), whose establishment at Caracas in December 2011 was Chavezs last major step in this direction. (All these regional bodies, it must be noted, have excluded the United States and Canada.) The establishment of Bank of the South, the television station Telasur, and the virtual currency sucre are all products of regional cooperation. Chavez also set up Petrocaribe in order to provide oil at favourable financial terms to the poor countries of the region, such as Haiti.

Above all, Chavez forged an alliance with Cuba that helped the latter tide over the difficult period that followed the fall of the Soviet Union. In a letter to Chavez, written when he left Cuba for the last time on February 17, before he died in Venezuela, Fidel Castro wrote: When the socialist camp collapsed and the USSR disintegrated and imperialism with its sharpened knife tried to drown the Cuban revolution in blood, Venezuela, a relatively small country in a divided America, was capable of preventing that.

Revolutionary vision

Such was the revolutionary, internationalist vision of Chavez. His foreign policy was guided by a central point, how to resist imperialist hegemony and protect the sovereignty of Third World countries in order that they are able to develop independently.

No other leader in the world did so much as Hugo Chavez to set the 21st century on a new course.

I met Hugo Chavez in December 2004 in Caracas. In a nearly hour-long meeting, he set out his vision of South-South cooperation and of how to revive the Non-Aligned Movement, and spoke of his own evolving ideas about socialism. He discussed his forthcoming visit to India in 2005 and expressed a keen interest to visit Kolkata.

Chavez did visit India in March 2005. He also went to Kolkata where he received a big reception from the people who lined the route from the airport to the stadium where a public reception was held. Chavez was greatly enthused and he told the media that he had not got such a big response from the people anywhere else outside Venezuela except Porto Alegre in Brazil.

The Left and popular forces in Venezuela are determined to carry on along the path built by Hugo Chavez. Without Chavez they will have to face big challenges in the days to come. They will have to maintain the broad unity of the Left and progressive forces which Chavez, with his unique qualities, had forged.

The civil-military alliance which is the bedrock of the Bolivarian revolution has to be continued. The efforts of the right-wing forces and the U.S. to roll back Chavismo has to be countered. The days ahead will be testing. But the people who turned out in their tens of thousands proclaiming Chavez lives, the struggle continues will keep the vision of Chavez alive.

Vol:30 Iss:06 URL: http://www.flonnet.com/fl3006/stories/20130405300602000.htm

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COVER STORYKolkata remembers

WHEN he said in clear Bengali in his rich baritone, Aami apnader bhalobashi (I love you all), President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela stole the hearts of the people of Kolkata. They had been counting the days, and when he arrived on March 5, 2005, exactly eight years before the day he passed away, they made sure he received a welcome he would never forget. Chavez was delayed by a few hours and the heat was oppressive, but the thousands of people who had gathered on both sides of the road to greet him as his motorcade drove by from the airport waited. If the reception on the streets was warm, the one at the Rabindra Sarovar Stadium in south Kolkata was overwhelming. The venue was not big enough to accommodate all those who had come to see him, and a sea of humanity waited outside patiently just for a glimpse of the man.

He did not let them down. In an inspiring and emotional speech delivered with the help of a young interpreter, Chavez expressed his wonder at the similarities he perceived between Venezuela and West Bengal. Everything here looks so familiar to me as if I am still in Caracas, he said to the delight of the crowd. One of the most memorable moments in the public reception was when Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Chief Minister of the then Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government, stepped forward to rescue the hapless interpreter foundering on Chavezs rendition in Spanish of Where the Mind is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore and recited the entire poem from memory to cheers from the crowd. The CPI(M) youth leader Satarup Ghosh, a teenager then, reminisced, To me that was the high point of the occasion. It was so spontaneous and unscripted. After Buddhada finished his recitation, the way he hugged him, it was so moving.

Silent grief

Away from Kolkata, the news of Chavezs death was a poignant moment of silent grief for the people of Bagu village in North 24 Paraganas district. Eight years ago, Chavez touched their lives as no other VIP had done when he visited the village. He mingled with the people, served the midday meal to children of the primary school and joined the children in a dance, oblivious of the security and protocol requirements. I will carry the message of West Bengal to Venezuela, he told the people before leaving. Eight years later, the people of Bagu, too, did not forget their special guest. Spontaneously, they held a condolence meeting in his honour.

SUHRID SANKAR CHATTOPADHYAY