The Chavez Revolution Is Over

Part-MVD-Mvd6654303-1-1-0Officers chant “Chavez Lives” at their “Studies of the Thoughts of the Supreme Commander Hugo Chavez” classes. But Supreme Commander Chavez was killed by Cuban medicine and his regime and philosophy are on their last legs as the Venezuelan people have turned against his successor.

When Cuban medicine let Chavez die, it also raised a tombstone for the Castro regime. Chavez gave away 100,000 barrels a day to Castro keeping the Communist regime afloat. In return Cuban secret police, organizers and teachers helped keep the Supreme Commander in power. But Hugo Chavez is dead and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, is wildly unpopular. Venezuela has turned into Cuba with food shortages and soldiers in the street and no one wants to live like Cuba.

Not even the Cubans do.

The cult of Chavez portrays him as a holy figure to Venezuela’s poor and to its military officers who are the last firewall of a collapsing government which needs soldiers and street thugs to protect Maduro. But the revolution is collapsing faster than the next wave of officers can be indoctrinated with chants of “Chavez Lives”. This inevitable failure of Socialism is being unintentionally sped up by Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi campaign against American fracking has dumped cheap oil on the market hurting Russia, Iran and Venezuela; all of which rely heavily on energy exports.

Chavez had screamed against capitalism in fiery speeches while building his Socialist revolution around oil exports and financial credit. Now Maduro is stuck with a $5 billion bill and no way to pay it. The former bus driver and community organizer vowed that he would make oil $100 a barrel. Not only does he have no way of doing that outside his own miserable price controlled country, but oil is headed for $50 a barrel and Maduro is stuck denouncing credit rating companies for ranking Venezuela below African countries with Ebola. African countries with Ebola however have lower debt and a financial plan that doesn’t involve delivering a speech denouncing the CIA every hour on the hour.

Maduro and his Cuban handlers know that a debt default is coming. There are basic shortages all over the country of everything from milk to toilet paper. A debt default will make Venezuela’s deeply dysfunctional economy in which no one can buy a new car and people fly out of the country to get dollars to buy basic products on the black market even worse.

But Maduro can’t cut off Cuba’s oil without being overthrown. He can’t trim the ranks of the country’s massive bureaucracy because they represent his last remaining bastion of support. His attempts at central planning have failed miserably, but introducing free market reforms would be an admission that Chavez was wrong and that the revolution is over. All Maduro can do is fight the inevitable overthrow.

Indoctrinating the military is one way of doing it. Forced redistribution of flat screen televisions from electronics stores by the military is another. It’s no longer a matter of winning elections, even rigged ones, it’s about maintaining a radical base willing to fight to prevent the return of freedom.

Chavez won the loyalty of slum dwellers by giving them everything from government supermarkets to government clinics, but the supermarkets are low on food and the clinics are low on Cuban doctors. Maduro’s approval rating fell from a bare majority to barely a quarter of the population. Identification with the United Socialist Party of Venezuela has fallen to 16 percent of the population; a significant comedown from a party that recently claimed a quarter of the population as members.

Members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela smell blood in the water and are fighting to throw Maduro into the water to salvage the cult of Chavez by using the former bus driver as the scapegoat. Those Marxist groups that didn’t join the USPV are readying their own street protests to exploit the opportunity. If both the populist right and left fully go out into the streets, Maduro won’t survive.

Maduro still commands the street thugs of the UBCh (Units of Battle Hugo Chavez) and the Chavista generals are doing their best to indoctrinate officers with the cult of Chavez, but just as in the last days of the USSR, everything will be determined by the willingness of the soldiers in the street to shoot.

The big question mark is how far will Castro go to protect his 100,000 barrels of oil a day? Normally the United States might have served as a check on Cuban intervention, but Obama is highly unlikely to interfere over anything short of total genocide. Opposition sources have estimated that there are thousands of Cuban troops in the country and unknown numbers of agents of influence. And with a Latin American map of governments dominated by Marxists linked to Cuba in Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, Uruguay and a mini-Chavez in charge of Bolivia, there won’t be much local opposition.

And yet the current system is economically unsustainable.

Venezuela took over the job of subsidizing and organizing the Latin American left when the USSR ceased to exist and Cuba could no longer afford to play puppetmaster without funding from the Kremlin. Now it’s too deep in debt and its oil is worth too little, there are too many angry people in the streets and too little food in the stores. Under Cuban guidance, Maduro has tried to impose a radical system that even his own bosses in Havana have been slowly backing away from. The only way he can stay with it is by killing enough of his people and establishing a full dictatorship under the gun.

That’s what Cuba wants him to do, but the transition from a populist regime that promised to give everything to everyone using oil money to a dictatorship in which party members gorge themselves while the rest of the country goes hungry isn’t going well.

Chavez might have made it work, but Maduro’s populism is a weak echo of his old boss. Where Chavez seemed powerful, Maduro only seems paranoid. His attempts to pick a fight with America, his constant conspiracy theories and his claims of supernatural phenomena involving Chavez only make him seem unstable. Havana wanted a weak dim Venezuelan leader with few ideas of his own to carry out their agenda, but now many of the Chavistas want another Chavez. And they’ll have to fight the Cuban puppeteers who have been running their country into the ground to get him.

Meanwhile the street protests of the right will rise again and the street protests of the left will come. And whatever happens, Venezuela’s credit will be shot and its generous economic projections based on high oil prices will collapse leading to a major crisis.

Maduro’s reliance on the military to do everything from breaking up protests to handing out flat screen televisions has become a liability. Hugo Chavez came out of the military and attempted to organize a coup with fellow officers. The military is still the likeliest force to end up running the country once the chaos becomes too much for the Maduro regime and its rivals to manage.

Indoctrinating officers with the “Studies of the Thoughts of the Supreme Commander Hugo Chavez” is among other things a final gamble that the next military dictator will be a man of the left.

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  • De Doc

    Heheh. Now that Venezuela’s crappy crude commands a price just slightly over purified, bottled water, the beloved socialist experiment in that banana republic will end.

    • Bamaguje

      If the Saudis keep oil prices down long enough.

      • John Pallyswine

        Why do You Americans believe that the Saudis are behind this????? The Anglo American Empire is behind every major event since the 18th century in some way, financing it directly or indirectly.

        • 11bravo

          The Saudis are going after the fracking here in the US to secure their long term interests – keeping oil prices up – If you can’t see that, I do not know what else to say.
          For Russia and the Saudis/Islam/Iran OIL is their only asset. The lower the price the less income to buy off the populace from over-throwing their governments. It isn’t rocket science buddy!

        • http://www.chaverimisrael.org Norbert Haag

          yeah and you forgot to mention the jewish money conspiracy. Because no leftist has ever taken any responsibility for any of the failures. So all is good for the left, the Jews and the USA are guilty.

          What crap.

  • UCSPanther

    Maduro should be very afraid. The military will sooner or later get tired of killing civilians and decide to remove Maduro from the equation instead.

    Nicolae Ceasescu made that mistake in the late ’80s, and both him and his wife Elena paid the price in blood on Christmas of ’89…

    • Bamaguje

      Don’t underestimate the brutality of leftist tinpot despots to hang on to power against the wishes of their people.
      Castros in Cuba, Kims in North Korea and Mullahs in Iran are just some examples.
      Even the Saudis themselves are a theocratic tyranny sustained by an abundance of oil wealth.

      • mjsmart

        This could all be remedied if enough guns were airdropped or smuggled into Venezuela; our administration is really good at sneaking guns across borders.

      • UCSPanther

        When it gets to the point when a dictator is openly massacring civilians in the streets, it is usually a sign they are on a downward slope. Forcing soldiers to massacre their own people has a deleterious effect on morale and creates the very real conditions for mutiny.

        The Romanian Army during the late ’80s at first slavishly followed the orders given to them by Ceasescu and his minions, but after the civilians showed no signs of stopping their uprisings and protests and the killing dragged on, they finally got tired of it and mutinied.

        After Tianenmen Square, the Chinese Politboro was running scared because the PLA had a near mutiny within their ranks over that bloodbath.

        As such, it is not in a dictator’s interest to use the “DHSK” or “Browning M2″ method to quell dissent for a prolonged period of time. That is why the more successful tyrants resort to more careful and covert means to discourage and eliminate dissent, usually with the dual pronged strategy of propaganda and secret police.

        • Nabukuduriuzhur

          Romania had1/4 of its population “securitata” and it still wasn’t enough to keep Ceausescu in power. When Romania was done with communism, they were done with it.

          • UCSPanther

            The “Securitate” were basically the “SS” of the Romanian Communist party, and they were the only ones who were willing to stick it out for old man Ceasescu when it was all caving in on him.

            I imagine they had lots of trouble with desertion within their ranks once the writing on the wall became clear, and they scattered once news got out about Ceasescu’s well-deserved demise

  • Yehuda Levi

    Once again, for the umpteenth time, we see that socialist economics do not work. One does not create an economic system based on the ‘greater good’ no matter how it is defined.

    Common sense tells us that any successful economic system must leverage the human nature of self interest. Capitalism does this – and that is why it works.

    What doesn’t work is tinpot dictators who try to buy their way to power by giving everything away to voters (listen closely Democrats). An economic system will fail if it is based on altruism. Historically it never works and Venezuela demonstrates that failure once again.

    • oneteedoffpatriot

      Good night man! It only failed because they didn’t use “true communism”. And we all know that businesses do not create jobs. P.S. Do I really need to use a “sarc” notice?

      • Yehuda Levi

        You might need the “sarc” notice for the leftists.

        They would think you made an excellent rebuttal.

    • Softly Bob

      Umpteeth is not enough for Leftists. Try tripling it and it won’t be enough.

  • Hank Rearden

    One more card to play. We can expect Oliver Stone and Sean Penn to fly in and contribute their fortunes to the socialist experiment. Venezuelans have nothing and they have a lot. Their consciences will not let them live in that condition. So there’s that yet to come.

    • oneteedoffpatriot

      Actually, they want to fly in with our money.

  • http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/ Jason P

    Any idea how long Saudi Arabia can keep prices low? They have to fund their massive government-run economy and buy off the population, in addition to funding jihad around the world. Anyone have a source for the figures?

    • Bamaguje

      With crude oil production of over 10 million barrels/day, and huge foreign reserves stashed with hundreds of billions of petrodollars, the Saudis can survive on $50/barrel for another year.

      • http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/ Jason P

        Yes, I see the stats now. It just under 12 million barrels/day. The government’s wealth is $750 billion (most US treasuries). $12 million barrels brings in $1.2 billion per day at $100/barrel. It is loosing $0.6 billion per day at $50/barrel. If they need to replace that from savings, they’ll last about 1000 days. I see estimates of $75/barrel necessary to avoid dipping into savings. Thus, they could last 2000 days or about 6 years.

        This assumes they don’t make up losses by increasing volume. It also assumes they can deplete savings without ill effect. Say 1-3 years may be a good guesstimate. This should hurt Venezuela, Iran, and Russia more than it does Saudi Arabia. And it should hurt ISIS, too.

    • John Pallyswine

      Why do You Americans believe that the Saudis are behind this????? The Anglo American Empire is behind every major event since the 18th century in some way, financing it directly or indirectly. They are financing this too, including Castro and Maduro.

      • Sheik Yerbouti

        Don’t you think assuming this about ALL of the Americans is a tad bigoted?

      • CosmotKat

        You have been reading too much Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky fiction.

      • nightspore

        I realize it’s probably not necessary, but where is the /sarc tag? (“Pallyswine”? Don’t you mean Pallywood?)

    • Nabukuduriuzhur

      The Saudis are in better shape than one might think. For years they did ok at lower prices. Then they got greedy, arbitrarily raising the price by cutting back on production.

      Three times by 2008. And each time, they damaged the world economy because it just won’t support $100+ oil. Oil demand was reduced (by over 100,000 barrels per day in this country) and the glut of oil finally forced them to sell, each time.

      But it still damaged the economies of the world severely.

      When we created the power vacuum in the middle east, the Saudis got desperate. Last year they made a deal with China to supply china with oil “no matter what” in return for 12 IRBMs that can hit Iran.

      I would guess that much of the reason for increasing production was to hurt Iran. Iran produces oil and not much else nowadays, and has been so lazy that they have almost no ability to refine gasoline— it’s done mostly by other countries.

      The Saudis by contrast, have investments in dozens of countries. When the oil goes, they still have tremendous amounts of income from those investments. Economies do well when oil is cheap, so the Saudis are still getting a lot of income.

      One wonders if China, with it’s slowing economy, asked the Saudis to lower the price.

      Iran has oil and local fruit production. The shah was rapidly modernizing the nation, but Itoldyaso Kokamamie stupidly undid all that, even to closing the medical schools and non-islamic colleges. Iran finally had to reopen some of it’s education centers.

      Russia, by contrast, while it depends on oil, it has large industrial and commercial sectors, and so this glut of oil wouldn’t have hurt them nearly as much as it has, if the western sanctions and western investments being removed from them hadn’t taken place. Russia really did itself stupid by getting the rest of the world to pull their money out of russia.

  • 11bravo

    This seems like a great time to drop millions and millions of leaflets over Cuba, and Venezuela. Good old fashion propaganda baby! Works wonders.
    Why we are not doing it over every Muslim country is beyond me – it works.

  • dwayne roberson

    Back in the day, Milton Freidman and a couple of the old school Chicago boys could help them get back on track. Today, I don’t think anyone has even a fundamental historical understanding of the miserable failure we call Socialism…and that very much includes the United States!

  • Pepe Turcon

    And with the Venezuelan crash comes Nicaragua, Cuba, Argentina and let’s hope Obama does rescue Cuba after their last Castro card or Allan Gross has been set free for that purpose specifically. Well…Obama is that gullible.

  • Hard Little Machine

    I don’t see Venezuelastan as socialist so much as juche like North Korea. It’s more of a divine dead ancestor man-god cult. I can see the place devolving into a DPRK styled national death camp ruled by a psychotic cadre of weirdos in big hats. If they can’t control other countries then they’ll simply become Caribbean pirates again, stealing cargoes and smuggling drugs and guns.

  • Pepe Turcon

    The #Chavez Revolution Is Over »
    #Venezuela is going down.

  • mtnhikerdude

    A Russian’s take on Communism , “They pretend to pay us . We pretend to work”.

    • Nabukuduriuzhur

      That was a common saying on the assembly line.

      “Мы претендовать на работу, и вы вид, что платят нам”

      “Miy pryetendovat(ch) na rabotu, ee viy vid, chto platyart nam.”

      (Hmm, with “soft signs” like ь, or tvordiznyak, Wheel of Fortune must be interesting in Russia.)

  • Atikva

    If Cuban medicine really let Chavez die, that’s the first laudable action undertaken by the Castro regime.

    • Edd2013

      Good point, he had a nasty cancer, (he was a nasty cancer too). I doubt anyone else’s medicine could have saved him.

  • James_IIa

    It would be great if we get a two-fer, with oil prices knocking out Maduro and increased travel between the US and Cuba knocking out the Castro twins.

  • vonrock

    And our historic Marxist just announced he wants to be buddies.

  • Douglas Mayfield

    “Indoctrinating officers with the “Studies of the Thoughts of the Supreme Commander Hugo Chavez” is among other things a final gamble that the next military dictator will be a man of the left.”

    Thank you for the article. Unfortunately, it seems that the next ‘leader’ of Venezuela will be the Latin American equivalent of Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot, that is, a cheap Left wing thug vicious enough to simply murder everyone who disagrees.

  • truebearing

    Hold the phones…Venezuela may not go down because Cuba may not go down because Maobama has decided to save Cuba. If Cuba is propped up by American tourism, they can afford to keep their troops in Venezuela, preventing the Left from losing control.

    • dwayne roberson

      Timing is everything when a fellow tyrant has your back.

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      Once again obama comes to the aid of the enemies of America, and threatens the friends of America.

      I wonder if rev. wrights and bill ayers sermons are still rolling around obamas head.

  • cree

    What about some spread the wealth around? Obama could steal some more out of our capitalism (they despise it so much, you know) and prop up the mutual utopia quest in Latin America too. Cuba is the worthy example to start it off.

  • Rick Zee

    Socialism is an excellent economic system,
    Until you run out of Other People’s Money.

    . . . . . . . . . . . . . Margaret Thatcher

  • cjkcjk

    I wouldn’t worry if I was one of the totalitarians in charge of Venezuela.
    Oscumma and his ilk will come to the rescue with the hard earned tax money of the workers here and in Europe.
    At this point it would actually be irrational of them to worry.

  • Anonymous

    Venezuela is Ferguson, MO on steroids.

  • Anonymous

    Once the nation had the highest per capita income of any Latin American nation. It took Hugo and Nick a couple of decades of inept rule to end that. Sounds a little like Detroit.

  • 1Indioviejo1

    Venezuela is on the brink of a collapsed economy with the added satisfaction of having the Cuban basket case dragged down with it. But CIC Obama has stepped up to the rescue of Cuba. With the establishment of full diplomatic relations with Havana, and lifting the embargo he will now be able to use tax-payer money to “save” Cuba from the chaos its Marxist economy has earned. The ultimate treachery from Obama is the propping up of an enemy terrorist regime which has spent the last 55 years trying to destroy us. Obama is truly diabolical.

  • nimbii

    Leftists are convinced if we just hooked up an electric motor to an electrical generator and also hooked up the generator to the motor and just got them turning fast enough the one would run the other with enough left to feed the masses.

    It’s their Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, et al, rolled into one and no one can tell them otherwise.

  • putupjob

    the moonbats will claim venuzeula is in trouble since chavez is dead and isn’t here to save it.

  • Edd2013

    Excellent and accurate article.

  • Lanna

    Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, All are in Financial Straights, Socialism is a complete failure!