{"id":3619,"date":"2020-12-24T08:47:22","date_gmt":"2020-12-24T08:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=143045"},"modified":"2020-12-24T08:47:22","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T08:47:22","slug":"hugo-chavez-and-maoism-a-conversation-with-chris-gilbert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/24\/hugo-chavez-and-maoism-a-conversation-with-chris-gilbert\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugo Ch\u00e1vez and Maoism: A Conversation with Chris Gilbert"},"content":{"rendered":"
Professor of political science at Venezuela\u2019s Bolivarian University, Chris Gilbert is creator and co-host of Escuela de Cuadros, a Marxist educational program broadcast in Venezuelan public television and a participant in the Barcelona-based project Seminari Taifa. Gilbert\u2019s articles have appeared in Rebeli\u00f3n, LaHaine, Monthly Review, and CounterPunch, and he has coauthored the recently-published book<\/em> Venezuela, the Present as Struggle<\/a> (Monthly Review Press, 2020).<\/em><\/p>\n The Chinese revolutionary experience in general, and Mao Zedong\u2019s thought in particular, had a global impact. What can you tell us about its influence in Venezuela? <\/strong><\/p>\n Well, the first thing to say is that in Venezuela, Maoism did not play an important role in any direct sense. That is a question of timing and geography. In the first place, the Cuban Revolution\u2019s influence was so important in the whole region that it tended to eclipse everything else. Then, when Maoism became a fashion, capturing the imagination of many European leftists in the late 60s and after, it did influence people in the Venezuelan left, but by then the revolutionary struggle was already beginning to subside.<\/p>\n That, of course, didn\u2019t keep some Venezuelan revolutionaries from having Maoism as some kind of theoretical reference, and it\u2019s important to point out that Che Guevara, who was obviously very influential throughout Latin America, sympathized with many Maoist ideas.<\/p>\n So would you say that, if there is a common ground between Maoism and Chavismo, it is more a question of parallel evolution?<\/strong><\/p>\n Certainly, and one of the most fascinating parallels comes by way of Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar [Venezuela\u2019s key independence leader, 1783-1830] and his attitude toward the army. Bol\u00edvar, like Mao, believed his revolutionary army to be an important democratic and popular force. When people criticized Bol\u00edvar for relying on his army in politics \u2013 attacking him from a liberal position \u2013 Bol\u00edvar responded: the army is the people who can actually do things<\/em>. Bol\u00edvar\u2019s phrase could also be translated: the army is the people with power<\/em>. For Bol\u00edvar, the revolutionary army was part of the people (think: \u201cThe people are like water and the army like fish\u201d), and it was a democratizing force. That was true at the time and, as it turns out, the relationship between army and people became one of the key factors in the revolution that happened in Venezuela two centuries later.<\/p>\n That brings us to Hugo Ch\u00e1vez and the Bolivarian Process. What can you tell us about Ch\u00e1vez, his Chinese allies, and Mao Zedong?<\/strong><\/p>\n There are interesting anecdotes about Ch\u00e1vez and Mao. Ch\u00e1vez established close relations with China, which he called a \u201cstrategic ally.\u201d As everybody who observed him knew, Ch\u00e1vez was a politically and socially skilled person. He used to make the Chinese leaders uncomfortable, because he would bring up Mao when he was with them, quoting from the Little Red Book<\/em>. He treated Mao just as he treated Bol\u00edvar, that is, as someone who is alive and among us. But that wasn\u2019t what the Chinese leadership wanted to hear. They preferred Mao as something more distant and static \u2013 more like an icon \u2013 because of course most of them were capitalist-roaders. I think Ch\u00e1vez, who was socially very sophisticated, liked to make them uncomfortable. He knew what he was doing!<\/p>\n