Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela with promises of socialism and national sovereignty, improving social conditions for the poor. However, after his death and Nicolas Maduro taking over, the country has faced economic turmoil, shortages, and violent clashes between government supporters and opponents. Maduro has arrested opponents, repressed protests, and the regime has taken on extreme nationalism and authoritarian characteristics, turning Venezuela toward social fascism rather than the promised socialism. The country appears to be moving quickly toward civil war or dictatorship as representative democracy becomes more difficult to achieve.

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FROM SOCIALISM OF XXI CENTURY TO SOCIAL FASCISM IN
VENEZUELA
Fernando Alcoforado *
In several Latin American countries, the charge for a change of direction is stronger
every day. The impoverishment of the continent reached unacceptable levels. The
concentration of wealth and social exclusion put inequality at levels never experienced
before. The dilemma of Latin American governments are to fulfill their commitments to
the people or put on the opposing side - the side who oppresses, exploits, and wants to
keep everything as it is. Unlike most Latin American countries that submitted to the
dictates of international capital, Venezuela has taken a diametrically opposite role with
the rise to power of Hugo Chavez.
It was the scenario described by Eduardo Galeano in The Open Veins of Latin America
that led to the rise of Hugo Chavez as mentor of the Bolivarian Revolution, a term that
he created to describe the political, economic and social changes initiated from their
access to power in Venezuela. Successive Chavez wins in the elections in Venezuela
confirmed their mandate with strong popular support, indicating that the path chosen by
him in that country has not only the mobilization and organization of the poorest, but
also the construction of an affirmative agenda in defense of national sovereignty and
confrontation with imperialism, especially the US.
The national question is the basis of some fundamental struggles of Latin America. At
different times, especially in situations deeper critical as the current, reopens to the
national problem. The Bolivarian Revolution is based, according to Chavez, in the ideas
of the Liberator Simon Bolivar and has as main objective the emancipation of Latin
America. His strategy in Venezuela was to increase its influence with the lower classes
of the population and count on the decisive support of the armed forces to give you
support. In extern level established alliances with the presidents of Ecuador, Bolivia,
Argentina, Brazil and Peru, among others strongly supported on the fundamental wealth
of the country, oil.
In Latin America, the wars and revolutions of independence are at the origin of the
nation, establishing some of its main features. What's in epic struggles epitomized by
Simón Bolívar, José Artigas, Jose Morelos, Miguel Hidalgo, Bartolomé Mitre, Bernardo
O'Higgins, Antonio Sucre, Jose Bonifacio, Frei Caneca, Ramón Betances, José Martí,
Tiradentes and many others, it is rooted in feat intended to emancipate the colony,
creating the nation state, organize the nation. Free it from colonialism, absolutism, of
mercantilism, of primitive accumulation. The defense of the interests of Venezuela and
Latin America has always been at the heart of Hugo Chavez's concerns.
Since his election in 1998, Hugo Chavez has gained notoriety in the Latin American
political space. Some saw him as a leading government official, representing what is
most advanced in the left thinking of Latin America, others understood him as another
authoritarian movement carried on by a caudillo. Since 1998, Chavez won many
electoral balloting, went through an attempted military coup d´état in 2002, demarcated
and prioritized its electoral base with several social programs known as "missions",
controlled politically the country performing, including changes in the Constitution (a
fact that is due in part to his political capacity, but also to the opposition's inability to
organize after defeats at the polls) and the prerogative to be seeking the objectives of

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social inclusion and participatory democracy and came to support high levels
popularity, especially between the years 2004 and 2007.
The two major brands of the Chavez government concern the purpose of carrying out
the Bolivarian Revolution and deploy Socialism of the XXI Century. This socialism
proposed by Chavez in 2005 at the World Forum in Porto Alegre would be nourished by
the most authentic currents of Christianity, Marxism and the Bolivar's ideas. However,
the discourse proposed by the socialism of the XXI century and its practical application
now faced with a number of structural problems that Hugo Chavez's government failed
to solve, for example, promote the expansion of the productive sectors of Venezuela and
the excessive dependence of the country of import of many products, including food.
Hugo Chavez, first elected in 1998, won four successive presidential terms through
elections. In the early years of the presidency of Chavez, he introduced welfare reforms
that resulted in the improvement of social conditions of the "low" on the social scale.
Yet implemented free health and education systems to the university level, funded by
the government. About 1 million more children were enrolled in primary school since
the Bolivarian leader came to power. In 2003 and 2004, Chavez launched social and
economic campaigns converted into free classes in reading, writing and arithmetic to the
more than 1.5 million Venezuelans illiterate adults. This set of measures brought,
according to surveys conducted, results as growth in 150% of the family income of the
poorest, between 2003 and 2006, and the reduction of infant mortality rate by 18%
between 1998 and 2006.
After the death of Hugo Chavez and the rise to power of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela
has been the scene of economic turmoil and violent clashes between Chavez supporters
and Chavez opponents whose main causes are hyperinflation, shortages of strong
currency (which generates speculation of the dollar) and the shortage of some basic
products that strongly affects the entire population. No credit and no currency,
Venezuela has come to rely increasingly on oil sales, the only source of capital inflows,
whose prices have declined in recent years and they are compromising the country's
economy. An indisputable fact is that Venezuela is a country divided and polarized to
the extreme among Chavez supporters and Chavez opponents whose radicalization hit
the heights with the recent defeat of Chavez supporters in parliamentary elections to the
opposition forces that are now majority in the National Assembly which in turn plans to
hold a referendum to unseat Nicolas Maduro from power.
To prevent his removal from power, Nicolas Maduro leads to arrest opponents of
Chavez, represses violently demonstrations of opposition forces, uses the Bolivarian
militias towards the use of violence to attack his opponents, implemented a similar
regime of exception to the state of siege to keep order, and announced that the National
Assembly of opposition to the government will soon disappear. The socialism of the
XXI century has turned into social fascism to take on extreme nationalism and present
the characteristics of a dictatorial regime under the direction of Nicolas Maduro. The
social-fascism that prevails in Venezuela is an authoritarian political regime, anti-
democratic, that under the pretext of defending the interests of the lower classes use the
power dictatorially by a party or by a clique overlapping the right and moral.
The Venezuelan regime is social-fascist because it exerts coercion by force by very
powerful social actors, who, escaping all democratic control, impose their will on
society. It seems that Venezuela moves swiftly to the outbreak of civil war and the
establishment of a dictatorship by the faction that wins this conflict to maintain order in

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the country. Very hardly representative democracy could result from political conflicts
that occur in Venezuela due to the difficulty of establishing a social pact that would
require consensus in civil society of difficult construction.
* Fernando Alcoforado, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial
Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and
consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is
the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova
(Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado.
Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e
Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX
e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of
the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora, Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e
combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011),
Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012) and
Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2015).