The Red Fascism of Colonel Chavez
May 29, 2013 By Vladimir Tismaneanu
What are the legacies of chavismo? Shameless demagogy, rampant poverty, duplicitous kleptocracy, strident chauvinism, ubiquitous propaganda, demonization of political opponents, a delusional police state pretending, like CastroÂ’s Cuba, to embody the behests of History. Hugo Chavez (1954-2013) was the most strident voice of the new anti-western and anti-democratic front. By the end of his life (he passed away on March 5, precisely sixty years after StalinÂ’s demise), the Venezuelan comandante, compromised in his own country, was increasingly prone to engage in external adventures.
Not unlike Che Guevara–Che’s daughter Aleida is the author of a hagiography about Chavez–the Venezuelan leader dreamed of himself as the reincarnation of Bolivar, Jose Marti, Lenin, and even Evita Peron (a few years ago, Chavez proclaimed: “Evita died on July 26,1952. Only two days later, on July 28, 1954 I was born. Imagine!”) As the ridicule does not kill, Chavez launched a campaign to unearth Bolivar’s bones in order to demonstrate that El Libertador was poisoned bya reactionary conspiracy. In 2008, voicing his hostility to Colombia’s democratic regime, Chavez called the neighbouring country “Latin America’s Israel.”
In this crusade, the narco-terrorism of the FARC guerillas, colluded with ChavezÂ’ delirious petro-populism. Combining grotesque bufoonery, political farce, and the most obscene demagogy, Chavez symbolized leftist opportunism in its most aggressive form. We deal with red Fascism, because ChavezÂ’s methods and aspirations did not differ essentially from those of Mussolini; statism, cult of personality, tribalist collectivism, indigenista messianism, the annihilation of political rivals, and the persecution of any source of civic autonomy. As in Eastern Europe before the revolutions of 1989, civil society has become the main enemy of the dictatorship. Like Eastern EuropeÂ’s Leninist dinosaurs, Chavez indulged in endless, systematic lying.
The ally of the Castro brothers started his career as a demagogue of Peronista orientation. His affinities linked him to the far right; irrationalism, exacerbated nationalism, fascination with occultism, militarism, and political shamanism. Gradually, he absorbed the obsessions of the far left and discovered in the anti-imperialist rhetoric a self-aggrandizing platform able to catapult him as a prophet of the new tercermundismo.
...
Colonel ChavezÂ’ red Fascism was welcomed by the most diverse circles: from Iranian Islamiscist theocrat Ahmadinejad to the unreconstructed Sandinista Marxist Daniel Ortega. The frantic search for the New Man, anti-Occidentalism, anti-Semitism, and the utopian-revolutionary hubris made Hugo Chavez the real successor of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Guevara, and Fidel Castro.
The Red Fascism of Colonel Chavez | FrontPage Magazine
