Venezuela: Background of the Conflict
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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) Caída de Pérez Jiménez (texto e imágenes)) Antiescualidos pro-Chávez El Universal |
E-mailPart II: Riding the Whirlwind: 1935-1958
By the time of Gómez's death in December 1935, anger over the disruption and growing inequalities brought by the oil boom threatened to tear the society apart, and the military men who took power feltlike Simón Bolívar a century earlier--that they were riding the whirlwind. The young intellectuals in the new Venezuelan Communist Party, which had issued its first manifesto on May1, 1931 had already attacked military bases and were organizing in the trade unions. By 1936 the Partido Democrático Nacional, precursor of Acción Democrática (AD), driven by a homegrown "criollo" mix of Marxist, nationalist and progressive ideas, was demanding popular elections and other reforms.
General Isaías Medina Angarita, "elected" (by Congress) president in 1941, began enacting some of these reforms. He increased Venezuela's share of petroleum revenue to 30 percent and created an income tax, social security, and agrarian reform to redistribute government land to peasants. But when he balked at permitting direct, popular elections, the leaders of Acción Democrática teamed up with younger military officers to overthrow him (October 1945). In 1947, AD finally got its elections and in February 1948 their candidate, novelist Rómulo Gallegos became the first popularly elected president in Venezuela's history. AD now felt it no longer needed its military allies and pursued its program of legalizing political parties (including the Communists) and trade unions and demanding a larger share for the nation from the country's oil wealth. But in November of that same year a trio of lieutenant colonels, feeling themselves snubbed and urged on by local conservatives and the foreign oil interests, deposed Gallegos and set about reversing those reforms.
Further conspiracies among the three coup leaders, and the probable murder of one of them, left Lt. Col. Marcos Pérez Jiménez in sole command by 1950 a vain little fat man who designed his own extravagant uniforms. He tried to govern like Gómez, holding power by massive repression, public works and luxurious perks to his loyalists, all made possible by oil revenues. But unlike Gómez, he would not die peacefully in his presidential bed. The forces he had repressed, including unions, political parties and more progressive and nationalist officers in the armed forces, exploded on January 23, 1958. Hugo Chávez was just three years old.