RUBEN BRETT of Liberation explains why the narratives we hear about the poverty-stricken Caribbean nation are deeply misleading
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The Bolivarian revolution: a quarter of a century
FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign pays tribute to the achievements of the late Hugo Chavez 25 years on from his presidential inauguration
President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez addresses crowds of supporters at the Camden Centre, London, May 14, 2006
PRABHAT PATNAIK looks at how the development of capitalism from the start divided the world into unequal segments
Labour, like the Tories, sees rising mental ill health simply as a spending problem — but it reflects a diseased society, argues DR DAVID MATTHEWS
As Palestine Action prisoners go weeks without food, alleging dangerous neglect and detention without trial, campaigners warn that a near-total media blackout is hiding a crisis that could turn fatal – and fuel a growing wave of public anger. ELIZABETH SHORT reports
As the new party emerges from its founding conference with a bold socialist identity, its future hinges on whether it can provide the organisational clarity needed to turn class sentiment into class power, argues NICK WRIGHT
RICHARD BURGON MP argues the left must build on recent victories and urgently unite around a bold cost-of-living programme
ON February 3, exactly 25 years ago, Hugo Chavez Frias was inaugurated as president of the then Republic of Venezuela. Under his political leadership it would, in less than a year, become the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, unleashing a process of radical transformation that would not only transform his country but that would catapult him and his nation into the vanguard of the struggle against neoliberalism.
In fact, the 1999 Bolivarian constitution of Venezuela was the first anti-neoliberal constitution of the whole continent after a brutal three decades of savage capitalism imposed under the dominant Washington consensus that followed the US-led military coup which ousted democratically elected president Salvador Allende in 1973.
The appeal of Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution was so strong that other countries, in their own nationally specific ways, in what is known as the “pink tide,” followed suit by adopting similar policies to address the inequities created by capitalism in their own states.
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