Bolivarian Revolution: Between Achievements, Challenges, and Sieges

Mision Verdad, Orinoco Tribune, February 5, 2024 —

On February 2, 1999, with the swearing-in of Commander Hugo Chávez Frías as president of Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution formally began one of the most important political and cultural processes that has occurred in Venezuela, the region, and recent world history. It constitutes, without a doubt, a hinge between the last century, with its “end of history,” and this century that opened a passage between old and rejuvenated utopias.

In the past quarter of a century, there have been many achievements and success stories. Even greater are the challenges that arise for the future, especially due to the context of siege and hostility that has not ceased for a single minute since 1999, which has become one of the defining characteristics of this historical period. No era or government in Venezuela suffered the destabilizing attempts that the Bolivarian Revolution has and still suffers.

Thus, although it is difficult to summarize 25 years in a few lines, it is difficult to dispute the achievement of the Bolivarian Revolution. For the first time in Venezuelan history, it has managed to direct 75% of the nation’s budget to social investment, a fact that immediately translated into the creation of new rights, social guarantees, and the payment of the enormous social debt that had loomed over the Venezuelan people from the very moment of the independent republic’s birth. For the first time in the country’s contemporary history, oil revenue was put at the service of an entire nation.

This was achieved thanks to the recovery of the State’s capabilities, the rescue of its institutions, the possibility for the Venezuelan people to determine their future without blackmail or extortion, and the reconquest of that exclusive quality of an independent nation: its sovereignty. That has been and is the center of the struggle.

This period has elapsed in a context of constant siege, sabotage, and vilification by the international establishment, led by the United States, and with an anti-national political opposition subordinated to US interests as its main operators. The evidence is there. We see it today with greater intensity since a sanctions regime was imposed on us, affecting the daily life of the nation in an attempt to blackmail and extort an entire people due to their uprising.

This is the contemporary history of Venezuela: coups d’état, assassination attempts, sabotage of the country’s strategic industries, lockouts, violent protests, and non-recognition of the democratic institutions that created and strengthened the Bolivarian Revolution through the promotion and deepening of the Venezuelan people’s participation and protagonism. But it is also a story marked by the character of a group that does not stop believing in its capacity for resistance and transformation.

Faced with such a scenario, condemnation is not enough. Commitment to the nation requires overcoming, without delay, the challenges that the very logic of the siege imposes. In times of sanctions, efficiency and effectiveness must be the leitmotiv that directs national public management in a fierce fight against corruption, bureaucratism, apathy, and inaction that corrodes and breaks the people-government bond.

The experience acquired in 25 years of revolution has allowed the government to overcome the most ferocious attacks on the Venezuelan economy carried out in 200 years of republican history and to develop a planning and management method that bears fruit in times of constant attack and harassment.

We insist that nothing, absolutely nothing, has been granted or given to the Venezuelan people in these years. Everything has been achieved with our own effort and talent, with the heritage of 25 years of revolutionary progress, applying technique and science to the Venezuelan reality, believing that Venezuela’s power is real.

As President Nicolás Maduro indicated in his 2024 Annual Message, the goal must be to move forward without settling for what has been achieved or becoming immobilized in the face of the difficulties that arise. Venezuela wants and asks to move forward, consolidate the complete autonomy of its economy and progress, strengthen political and territorial sovereignty, and fully enjoy its national wealth. National unity is crucial to achieve this. Maintaining dialogue and tolerance will be the basis for continuing to reap achievements and victories in the years to come.