We Created Chavez

Maher Geo Maher

Description

Since being elected president in 1998, Hugo Chavez has become the face of contemporary Venezuela and, more broadly, anticapitalist revolution. George Ciccariello-Maher contends that this focus on Chavez has obscured the inner dynamics and historical development of the country's Bolivarian Revolution. In We Created Chavez, by examining social movements and revolutionary groups active before and during the Chavez era, Ciccariello-Maher provides a broader, more nuanced account of Chavez's rise to power and the years of activism that preceded it.Based on interviews with grassroots organizers, former guerrillas, members of neighborhood militias, and government officials, Ciccariello-Maher presents a new history of Venezuelan political activism, one told from below. Led by leftist guerrillas, women, Afro-Venezuelans, indigenous people, and students, the social movements he discusses have been struggling against corruption and repression since 1958. Ciccariello-Maher pays particular attention to the dynamic interplay between the Chavez government, revolutionary social movements, and the Venezuelan people, recasting the Bolivarian Revolution as a long-term and multifaceted process of political transformation.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Latin America
• History of the Americas
• Venezuela

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 17 avril 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822378938
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

We Created Chávez

a people’s history of the venezuelan revolution

Photographs by Je√ St. Andrews

We Created Chávez

george ciccariello -maher

duke university press Durham and London 2013

∫2013 Duke University Press. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America on

acid-free paper$. Cover design by Jennifer Hill; text design by Courtney Leigh Baker.

Typeset in Galliard by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ciccariello-Maher, George. We created Chávez : a people’s history of the Venezuelan Revolution / George Ciccariello-Maher ; photographs by Je√ St. Andrews. Pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn978-0-8223-5439-0 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn978-0-8223-5452-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Social movements—Venezuela—History. 2. Venezuela—History—Revolution, 1958. 3. Venezuela—Politics and government. 4. Chávez Frías, Hugo.i. St. Andrews, Je√.ii. Title. n363.5.c53 2013 303.48%40987—dc23 2012048666

for abbey and oakley francisco

In memory of Joel Olson

Acknowledgments

ix

Contents

MapofVenezuela

Introduction.What People? Whose History?

One.A Guerrilla History

Two.Reconnecting with the Masses

Three.Birth of the ‘‘Tupamaros’’

First Interlude.The Caracazo History Splits in Two

Four.Sergio’s Blood Student Struggles from the University to the Streets

xii

1

22

45

67

88

105

126

146

166

180

200

218

234

257

Five.Manuelita’s Boots WomenbetweenTwoMovements

Six.José Leonardo’s Body and the Collapse ofMestizaje

Second Interlude.Every Eleventh Has Its Thirteenth

Seven.rskeorWeVnaleuzen Aristocracy or Revolutionary Class?

Eight.Oligarchs Tremble! Peasant Struggles at the Margins of the State

Nine.A New Proletariat? Informal Labor and the Revolutionary Streets

Conclusion.Dual Power against the Magical State

Notes

307

Index

Acknowledgments

This book, like the revolutionary process it documents, would not be possi- ble without the blind faith and irrational support of many. My dissertation committee—Wendy Brown, Mark Bevir, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Kiren Chaudhry, and Pheng Cheah—let me make what must have seemed like two terrible decisions: to move to Venezuela for no apparent reason and to write a book while also writing a dissertation. I am grateful for their pa- tience and unflagging support. Similarly, my editor at Duke University Press, Valerie Millholland, responded to my proposal with encouragement from day one, despite the fact that it had sprung, only recently and partially formed at best, onto a restaurant napkin. Gisela Fosado has helped to carry the project forth as it ascended from the abstract to the concrete. My thanks go out as well to two anonymous reviewers for Duke University Press, who