Home
Membership
Venezuela: a hundred years of turmoil

Venezuela: a hundred years of turmoil

The oil-rich South American nation’s recent descent into political, social and economic crisis may seem sudden but, as Rebecca Jarman explains, the roots of the current problems stretch back over a century

Published: January 1, 2020 at 1:47 PM

Save

Late afternoon in Lima’s bustling business district is a perfect time for people-watching. In a park, I noticed two teenage boys in mismatched outfits. One, older and louder, was teaching the other how to juggle. The apprentice was hapless but persistent. He laughed each time he dropped the balls, to the amusement of his spectators. He was too focused on his task to pay much attention to their teasing. Slowly, he began to get a handle on the trick. His pride was quiet and compelling.

I learned later that Junior, the novice entertainer, had not long before arrived in Peru from Venezuela, having travelled 2,500 miles on buses and by foot. He had found work as a kitchen porter, but in the past week he had fallen out with the restaurant owner and had not been paid. He was behind on rent and about to be evicted. It was time to try his hand at a new trade. He had heard that there was good money in street performance; Lima’s notorious traffic jams make a welcome audience of bored commuters.

If Junior eventually masters the art of juggling, he will join an exploding number of Venezuelan street traders in downtown Lima. This booming workforce is dominated by undocumented young men who tout and charm. The more experienced guide new arrivals. Together, they navigate the city and the legal system, trading tips and tip-offs.

Over the course of the past five years, standards of living in Venezuela have plummeted. At least 3.7 million Venezuelans are malnourished

The growth of this network has been spurred by a recent wave of mass migration from Venezuela. It consists largely of poorly educated, forcibly displaced male adolescents, following on the heels of middle-class migrants. In total, there are now some 800,000 Venezuelans living in Peru, most of whom have sought refuge in the capital; since 2014, their presence has boosted the city’s population by 7.5%. After Colombia, Peru houses most of Venezuela’s displaced citizens, estimated at 4.3 million worldwide.

The crisis that has spurred this exodus has received much attention in the media, not least because of the speed at which it has unfolded. Over the course of the past five years, standards of living in Venezuela have plummeted. At least 3.7 million Venezuelans are malnourished. Shortages of medicine and medical assistance are endemic. Political persecution, torture and extrajudicial killings have become commonplace. Employees on minimum wage can expect to take home US$8 per month – enough for perhaps 4kg of meat. The annual decline in GDP has long been in double figures.

Volunteers repack medical supplies sent to Venezuela by the International Red Cross in June 2019 to address acute shortages

Volunteers repack medical supplies sent to Venezuela by the International Red Cross in June 2019 to address acute shortages (Getty Images)

Most onlookers have blamed this disaster on the authors of the Bolivarian Revolution, led in its halcyon years by the renegade Hugo Chávez. Elected in 1998, before the birth of young migrants such as Junior, the paratrooper-turned-socialist appealed to voters who had been alienated by neoliberal governance. Chávez was different from the ruling political elites, who had become embroiled in corruption scandals. He told it straight, and in a regional accent. From its outset, the revolution reached deep into Venezuelan society, involving the grassroots in redrafting the Venezuelan constitution. Displaying certain authoritarian tendencies, Chávez sought to concentrate power in the figure of the president in a bid to expedite this process.

A key tenet of the phenomenon now known as chavismo was the redistribution of wealth from the nation’s vast reserves of oil. Paradoxically, this brand of socialism was to be funded with capital generated by the extraction of minerals. Soon after his election, Chávez restructured the state-owned oil company, PDVSA, to ensure loyalty to the Bolivarian project. PDVSA was transformed into a political organ. The transnational companies that had long held sway in the oilfields became the targets of expropriation.

Former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, with his wife Marisabel, during his successful 1998 election campaign. His brand of socialism, dubbed 'charisma', was initially popular but by the time of his death, inflation, corruption and violent crime were rampant (AFP/Getty Images)

Between 2002 and 2007, a steady rise in oil revenues fuelled an ambitious universal welfare programme that was partially funded by PDVSA. Subsidised food, transport, housing, and foreign currency were made available to disadvantaged populations in a sprawling, state-managed distribution network. The energy that drove these first phases of the Bolivarian Revolution was intense but not long-lasting.

In 2009, there was a global slump in the price of oil. In Venezuela, this was accompanied by a dramatic drop in the extraction of crude and its refinement. Production was hamstrung by the results of a decade of underinvestment in equipment and personnel. Longstanding hostilities towards engineers and bureaucrats had created a deficit in expertise and management. By 2018, the Caribbean country was producing just 1.5 million barrels per day – half the rate it had achieved in 2006. The effect of this dual crisis on the Venezuelan economy has been devastating.

Repression, intimidation, coercion

While this collapse has created untold hardships for ordinary Venezuelans, it has served in the interests of political leaders. Chávez’s untimely death from cancer in 2013 was followed by the rise of his successor, Nicolás Maduro, but electoral support for Maduro has withered in desperate conditions. Relying on the military to govern a deeply discontented population, Maduro has repressed protests with violence, intimidation and coercion. Demonstrators from the movements in 2014 and 2017 have been imprisoned and tortured. Notable political opponents have been placed under house arrest, including politicians close to Juan Guaidó, the man who is now recognised as president by dozens of countries. Chronic shortages have exacerbated dependencies upon the state. US sanctions on PDVSA have strengthened Maduro’s argument that Donald Trump is engaging Venezuela in economic warfare, allowing him to pin the financial collapse on imperialist intervention.

These past two decades of Venezuelan history are often read in linear terms: a dream of egalitarianism has become a despotic nightmare. According to this interpretation, such an outcome for the Bolivarian Revolution was inevitable. It has put an end to years of economic progress.

But it is also possible to insert this period into a pattern of historic cycles, as the latest instalment in a longer story about the curse of oil wealth and the toxic power it can generate. The story begins on 15 April 1914 – the day Venezuela’s first commercial oil well was completed. This coincided with the eve of a worldwide conflict that was about to be powered by petroleum.

At the time, Venezuela was ruled by Juan Vicente Gómez, a military general who had seized presidential power while his superior was in France recovering from syphilis. Unlike most high-ranking officers of aristocratic stock, Gómez came from a little-known rural family. A political outlier, he was of a similar background to Chávez, and was also, like Chávez, a divisive figure, disliked especially by the bourgeois classes. They looked down on Gómez, who was rumoured to have fathered dozens of illegitimate children and was (erroneously) said to be illiterate. His regime was described by one prominent Anglophone biographer, an active member of high society, as carrying “a faint odour of witchcraft”.

With the discovery of oil, Venezuela underwent a bewitching transformation after a century of civil wars had left it in a state of impoverishment and fragmentation

The supernatural powers attributed to Gómez were couched in the prejudice of metropolitan Venezuelans who mistrusted a rural man of illegitimate parentage. But they also stemmed from disbelief at the magnitude of changes that took place during his dictatorship. With the discovery of oil, the country underwent a bewitching transformation after a century of civil wars had left Venezuela in a state of impoverishment and fragmentation.

When Gómez seized power in 1908, he stepped into a role that was highly contested. He presided over the country for almost three decades, whereas those before him barely completed ten years in office. By 1930, the Venezuelan state had paid off the entirety of its foreign debt. A fractious political administration had been united under the power of a centralised government and buffered by the professionalisation of the armed forces.

Revelations of riches beneath

In the early phases of exploration, Gómez acquired land for his personal portfolio by paralegal means. Meanwhile, congress legislated so that the state had legal access to the subsoil. Representatives of oil companies from the UK, the Netherlands and the United States were welcomed. Their revelation of the riches that lay beneath the ground generated huge amounts of capital investment. Oil laws in 1922 and 1925 were drafted in the interests of the industrial heavyweights, allowing them to evade tax and regulations. Workers in the industry were ill-paid and mistreated, while concessions were granted to Gómez’s family and allies. Profits poured directly into the president’s pockets.

Juan Vicente Gómez, Venezuela, under his dictatorship, huge oil wealth flowed into the country, much of it pouring into his pockets

Juan Vicente Gómez, who ruled Venezuela - officially and otherwise - for 27 years in the early 20th century. Under his dictatorship, huge oil wealth flowed into the country, much of it pouring into his pockets (ullstein bild Dtl./Getty Images)

These corrupt, nepotistic practices were frustrating to Gómez’s opposition, who had been categorically excluded from the crafting of policy and were denied access to the spoils of the oil wells. Gómez was largely disinterested in partisan debates but, like Maduro, he was wholly intolerant of political dissidence. During his regime, rebels were incarcerated and sent to concentration camps. Paramilitary groups were deployed to intimidate idealistic intellectuals. The armed forces were dispatched to universities and oil fields to quell protests by students and agitated workers. The Venezuelan population at large was marginalised by decision makers.

At a time when it seemed that the rest of the world was embracing democracy, these actions earned Gómez the reputation of a primitive brute and a medieval tyrant. Yet it was precisely Gómez’s totalitarian style of rule that drove the changes that would later be associated with modernisation. Telegraph lines were erected so that the agents of the state could send missives to track the whereabouts of suspected plotters. Roads were built with the forced labour of political prisoners, traversing 3,500 miles of a divided nation. Studios were commissioned to make films celebrating advances in agriculture and industry pinned to the figure of Gómez.

Throughout the 20th century, a series of powerful leaders have managed the country as a personal enterprise

For all its feudal features, then, the Gómez dictatorship was a modern phenomenon. Steady growth in the oil economy supported Gómez’s rule until his death in 1935, barring a dip in 1930 after the Wall Street Crash. This set the stage for future styles of governance. Gómez’s departure from the political arena was met with an outpouring of anger and frustration from the public. In February 1936, two months into the rule of the transitional government, Caracas was besieged by protests. Having lost its strong figurehead, the state was obliged to bend to the demands and the desires of the masses. Laws against unionisation were relaxed, and social welfare was placed high on the state’s agenda, fusing liberal values with authoritarian actions.

This strange political concoction has been reinvented throughout the 20th century under the watch of powerful leaders who have managed the country as a personal enterprise. They have embodied a series of hybrid ideologies incorporating ingredients from across the political spectrum. What they have in common is a tendency towards absolutism that is sustained by a dependency on oil as the maker and breaker of the nation, with recourse to military violence. It is this, at its most extreme expression a century later, that has cast the millennial generation away from the oil-rich nation.

Rebecca Jarman is lecturer in Latin American Culture Studies at the University of Leeds, and the author of the forthcoming book Representing the Barrios: Culture, Politics and Urban Poverty in Twentieth-Century Caracas

This article was taken from issue 19 of BBC World Histories magazine