Highlighting the bases and foundations of Bolivarian Socialism in the thought and work of Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, has multiple dimensions, but one of the most important is the configuration of a country project gestated from his own genealogical heritage, reinforced in the house of blue dreams (Military Academy where Hugo Chávez studied) and consolidated in the political project that swears in the Samán de Güere (tree located in the state of Aragua where the revolutionary forces met to discuss their action plans against neoliberal governments).
The idea that reverberates in the consciousness of those Bolivarians will be: -we are the heirs of the glories of the Liberation Army-. Withscients of the areas that cross the country, they constituted the Bolivarian Army 200 and made an oath in front of the Samán de Güere (1982), based on the oath of El Libertador Simón Bolívar in Monte Sacro and the proclamation of Zamora:
I swear by the God of my fathers, I swear by my country, I swear by my honor that I will not give peace to my soul or rest to my arm, until I see broken the chains that oppress my people by the will of the powerful. Lands and free men, popular choice, horror of the oligarchy. (Chávez Frías, H. (2007). Origin of the Bolivarian Movement, pp.82-83. In: Sederos de la Vida Bolivariana. Four essential documents. Editions of the Presidency of the Republic, Caracas. p. 184)
The oath of Samán de Güere (1982), is the seed of revolutionary military action, which unfolds its historical-ideological charge, in its inevitable outcome 10 years after its formation, to start the Rebellion of February 4, 1992. They decide to conform to a command of the Bolivarian army, towards the celebration of the 200 years of the birth of the Father of the Nation, as a conspiratorial movement: “against internal corruption and in rescue of the ethical values of the armed force created by Bolívar”. (Op. Cit., p. 185)
This active command of the army sworn in the Samán de Güere, is formed as the first nucleus or Bolivarian cell within the bosom of the military body; therefore, they take security measures promoted by Chávez, who learned them from Hugo Trejo, at the same time that they elaborate the strategy for the possible incorporation of other officers; Ronald Blanco La Cruz, Pedro Alastre López and Luis Reyes, the first to join the Bolivarian Revolutionary Army 200 from the ethical and political conception of the EBR System: Ezequiel (Zamora)- (Simón) Bolívar- (Simón Rodríguez) Robinson (All Homeland Heroes), which it is a project that was born of meetings, classes, discussions, debates, of those Bolivarian who were building an emancipatory movement, to be the working instrument of Bolivarian ideas and the independence history of Venezuela and its subsequent republican era. From Bolívar, his leadership; from the teacher inciter of sleeping consciences, Samuel Robinson (Simón Rodríguez, teacher of The Liberator), popular education and Ezequiel Zamora the warrior character of the sovereign people.
This philosophical, political, and social triad coincides with the acronym of the Ejército Bolivariano Revolucionario (Bolivarian Revolutionary Army) (EBR-200), which adds to the project symbolic aspects concomitant to the continuity of an independence truncated by the death of Bolívar and the separation of Gran Colombia (1830).
The three components are systemically integrated into a model of society that overcomes the alienation of republican bad habits. A philosophical and conceptual system conceived by The Blue Book (1991) written a year before the military insurrection; this is how German Sánchez Otero, former Cuban ambassador to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, describes it:
It is proposed (…) create an autochthonous ideological reference rooted in the most genuine in Venezuelan history; a system of ideas and ethical values that is nourished by its 3 most fertile roots Bolívar, Simón Rodríguez and Ezequiel Zamora. It also includes an Emergency Political Program: Simón Bolívar National Project, Government of National Salvation. General Lines for its construction. (Sánchez Otero, G. (2019). Fidel and Chavez, his first embrace. Cuba Debate. [Online Press]. Available: http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2019/12/13/fidel-y-chavez-su-primer-abrazo-fotos-y-videos/#.XwJL4ZhKjIU)
The antagonistic class relations and the processes of historically known social struggles constitute the basis for the analysis and understanding of social processes, in which Chávez was premonitory, visionary and avant-garde.
The outline of the Bolivarian project shows a close relationship between the class character of the systems of oppression imposed by foreign powers and alienation, as expressed by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto: “The history of all societies to this day is the history of the class struggle.” (Marx, C. and Engels, F. (2007) p. 6. In: Manifiesto Comunista, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores)
The libertarian inspiration of General Ezequiel Zamora comes from the Robinsonian (from Samuel Robinson or The Teacher Simón Rodriguez) and Bolivarian roots, it is located in a historical time closer to the twentieth century; its presence as a symbolic component is revolutionary praxis, in the words of the Commander: “He invented the mechanisms of the peasant insurrection of 1846, to close and re-invent the way to lead the revolution in 1858”. His revolutionary impetus will be remembered in his war yell: Land and free men!
In the same existential and political dilemma of Robinson and Bolívar, he spends his life in favor of the interests of the people. The components of the Zamorano model in the tree of the three roots is The Federal State and the geopolitical vision of the Bolivarian model in the following elements: Radical sovereignty, division of the central government and constitution of the federal state, distribution of lands for common use of the people, removal of the system of collection of rent for use of lands for agricultural or livestock purposes, according to their labors, in which the masters provide cows on common land to supply milk daily to poor households.
The Rebellion of 4F includes a whole process that evolves towards a horizon delineated in the EBR Ideological System: The Tree of the Three Roots, Simón Rodríguez (Robinson), Simón Bolívar and Ezequiel Zamora, the result of readings, studies and debates among a group of patriotic soldiers, design the coordinates of the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement 200 (MBR-200), which led the Ezequiel Zamora Operations Plan, on February 4, 1992.
With the beginning of the Bolivarian Government (February 1999), Simón Bolívar awakens from a long sleep of forgetfulness and festive patriotic days. The Father of the Nation restored his moral value together with the people, his thought, as Venezuelan political and social history begins to reveal the dark passages obliterated by the Creole oligarchies and the governments at the service of imperialism, the same that fragmented Latin American unity with the knowledge of La Gran Colombia. (The great Colombia)
In February (1999) the Bolivar Plan 2000 begins, for May, the minimum wage becomes the highest in Latin America (1999), the Economic Transition Program 1999-2000 is installed (June 1999) and comprehensive Bolivarian schools are created with canteens and medical services of health and dentistry, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports is born, to the 200 days of Bolivarian Government.
At the international level, the Bolivarian hurricane is walking with Bolívar; President Hugo Chávez begins official visits to other countries with emancipatory and integration proposals, participates in the tenth G15 Summit in Jamaica (February 1999); joint working agreements are established between Venezuela and Nigeria (April, 1999); in the II Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Association of Caribbean States (April 1999), It carries the message of Latin American and Caribbean integration.
At the Eleventh Summit of the Andean Community, Colombia (May 1999) proposed the plan of action for the integration of the Andean subregion. The Bolivarian Government begins the rapprochement with the OPEC countries; at the meeting of Heads of State of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), he proposed extending oil facilities to member countries (July 1999). In September of the same year President Hugo Chávez met in the Vatican with The Pope John Paul II.
The Head of State denounces the pressures of the US Embassy to add votes to Washington against Cuba, China and Iran. A stalking against Venezuela begins in the air and border military sphere; in July (1999), the request to fly over Venezuelan airspace is denied and political relations between Venezuela and the White House begin to become uncomfortable for the outgoing government of Bill Clinton (1993-2001).
Hugo Chávez was emerging as a dangerous enemy for the political interests of the United States; the dissonant voice of the continent and rebellious rebel against capitalism and imperialism, which he called savages, also showed the disguise of the new international order, regarding the attacks on the Twin Towers (2001) and the invasion of Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, the PM of a small Caribbean Island, Ralph Gonsalves, the great friend of the Commander of the Bolivarian Revolution Hugo Chavez, said recently in an interview: “It takes a lot of courage, a lot of independence of thought and conscience in the people to confront imperialism. For example, from the Caribbean as a whole we have maintained firm positions in relation to non-interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela. (https://www.pressenza.com/es/2023/02/ralph-gonsalves-la-integracion-latinocaribena-es-necesaria-pero-ha-sido-discontinua/)
The fiery speeches of the Commander President around integration, sovereignty, independence, made noise in the colonialist power and began the development of covered and covert actions to overthrow Commander Chavez, which triggered in the events of the coup d’état of 2002, directed from the Pentagon, in an extraordinary media offensive in all areas of the social and political life of the country.
The New Strategic Map will propel the Bolivarian revolution towards the Socialism of the XXI century. In 2004, President Chávez requested progress towards a new social structure, in the the construction of the new democratic model, the creation of the new institutionalism of the State, the construction of a new productive model. In the multipolar scenario, it promotes mechanisms towards Latin American unity in the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA, 2004), and later ALBA-TCP (2006), which includes the People’s Trade Treaty; then the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC, 2010).
Today, the Venezuelan people recognize themselves from their historic deeds, with Bolívar, Sucre, Zamora, Chávez to continue fighting for the definitive independence of our Homeland. Despite the criminal blockade directed by the U.S. government, the Venezuelan people are strengthened and resist imperialist threats. The road is long and dangerous, the revolutionary process that is being built in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is not without errors, but neither from the obstacles represented by the multiform war that empires impose on our people. With the same spirit of the liberators who won the independence with blood and with the spirit of resistance and combat of ideas, the construction of Venezuelan-style Bolivarian socialism will continue until full independence is achieved in all areas and until the dream of independence of Bolívar and Chavez is achieved, the integration of the peoples of our Region, and today, February 4, 2023, 31 years after the insurgent rebellion, the Bolivarian project led by President Nicolás Maduro is still in force, therefore Chávez has not plowed into the sea. Chávez lives, the Homeland continues!
Francisco Perez Santana
Head of the Venezuelan diplomatic mission in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Andreina Bermudez Di Lorenzo
Academic Coordinator Venezuelan Institute for Culture and Cooperation Hugo Chávez Frías, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
