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HistoryPart I: Oil Transforms the Nation: 1917-1935 Part II: Riding the Whirlwind: 1935-1958 Part III: Hugo Chávez's failed coup of 1992 Venezuela TodayLitPol (weblog) |
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______________ ______________ Enlaces en Español Venezuela Virtual (historia) Huelga de 1928 Antiescualidos pro-Chávez El Universal |
E-mailPart I: Oil Transforms the Nation: 1917-1935
Oil exports began to transform Venezuela in 1917, while World
War I was still raging and just as the new oil-burning technologies
of automobiles, aircraft and ships were beginning to create a
huge demand. At the time Venezuela was governed by a crude cattleman
from the extreme west of the country, Juan Vicente Gómez,
one of the most barbarous and least educated presidents in a
country that had no democratic tradition whatever. The main sources
of wealth were cacao (for making chocolate), coffee and cattle,
each of which had produced a regional elite within a vast population
of very poor, mostly rural people.
The oil boom changed the country from three directions. First,
money from the sale of concessions to Royal Dutch Shell, Standard
Oil of New Jersey and other foreign companies enabled the regime
to modernize the army and build public works, establishing unprecedented
centralization of power in a country that, since independence,
had been torn by civil wars among more or less evenly matched
regional elites.
But oil production also enormously increased the power of the foreigners especially US Americans who had the savvy and connections to refine and sell the oil they were pumping cheaply from Venezuela. They could easily afford to corrupt local officials to give them even more concessions including tax breaks, bargains on buying other property, army and police protection, and exemptions from health and safety laws.
The third direction of change was a social transformation. The country rapidly became more urban and industrial and less agricultural as small farmers and peons sought wage-paying work in the new company towns especially around Lake Maracaibo. The oil business and other enterprises that oil money made possible increased the demand for white-collar workers, too, and that required greater educational opportunities. Meanwhile, the army was also turning itself into a professional institution, with clear chain of command, code of conduct and rules for promotion and rewards (Venezuelan "armies" had hitherto been pick-up teams of undisciplined horsemen following their local caudillos).
As the people in these new roles became aware of each other and of their new needs, they began forming the first trade unions, professional associations, student organizations and political parties. In 1928, a strike by university and high school students led to riots and an attempted revolt by young military officers. Gómez successfully and brutally repressed them all, but by the time of his death seven years later, the changes he had overseen had so transformed Venezuela that no man would again be able to rule single-handedly, without the support of these new institutions.