Venezuela’s Bonfire of Dogma: How Chavistas are Adapting to U.S. Domination
But the changes since the U.S. grabbed former President Nicolás Maduro in January would seem to have been wrenching. Insiders have concluded that one goal remains paramount: staying in office.
The new year began with what appeared at first to be a fatal blow to chavismo, the movement that has ruled Venezuela and defied U.S. supremacy in Latin America for the past quarter-century. On 3 January, U.S. special forces carried out a lightning raid in Caracas, capturing Nicolás Maduro, the president since 2013, along with his wife, and spiriting them away to jail in Brooklyn to face charges of drug trafficking and other crimes. An audio message seemingly recorded just days later by Maduro’s former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who is now Venezuela’s interim president, soon circulated among the chavista political base. In it, Rodríguez warned that difficult decisions to guarantee the movement’s survival lay ahead. Followers should thus proceed “with patience and strategic caution”. To secure the release of Maduro and the first lady, to preserve peace, and to maintain control of Venezuela, chavismo would need to adapt, she said.
Adaptation has since morphed into a bonfire of historical doctrine. In conversations with Crisis Group over recent months, government officials and supporters of chavismo have described the justifications for what would appear to have been a wrenching, soul-crushing set of changes: the shift from an avowedly socialist, anti-imperialist, proudly sovereign posture, supported by allies including China, Russia and Iran, to submission before the dictates of Washington.
By way of reassurance, a number of Venezuelan officials have taken to citing the words of Vladimir Lenin: “Everything is illusory except power”. Chavismo, they believe, can survive compromises upon the pillars of its creed, including national ownership of natural resources, sovereign independence and a state oriented toward the needs of the poor – not least because these principles had already been tarnished over years of bruising political conflict and economic collapse. But the consensus within the movement is that one goal surpasses all others: the imperative of keeping a grip on state office, or at the very minimum, the importance of determining the pace and conditions under which it might be relinquished.
According to its followers, chavismo has always been something of an ideological chameleon. Born in military barracks as a nationalist, populist movement, it was supple enough to allow constituencies from both right and left to coalesce around its founder, the late President Hugo Chávez. But the catch-all nature of chavismo did not last long. The movement leant heavily toward the radical left when it came into conflict with business elites supported by Washington, notably in the failed 2002 coup. Because of its original ambiguities, however, chavismo was never fully coherent or homogeneous. It has embraced disparate positions over time, moving from faith in democratic constitution-making to an authoritarian zeal that at its worst jailed thousands of political prisoners. Chavismo could indulge in corrupt rackets to the benefit of business allies and certain foreign powers, while at the same time presenting itself as a defender of the poor; it could also craft public policies that supposedly empowered people at the local level while simultaneously pushing a hyper-centralist regime that tried to coopt the grassroots.
Even so, many of Chávez’s followers believe that since his death from cancer in 2013, his successors have slowly but systematically stripped away several of the movement’s basic tenets. Venezuela’s leaders argued that changes were essential if the movement was to survive domestic and foreign conspiracies aimed at overthrowing the government, as well as “economic warfare” waged by Washington and others (the first U.S. sanctions on Venezuela were introduced in 2017). Maduro, Chávez’s hand-picked successor, as well as his close allies, including sister and brother Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez, chavista strongman and current interior minister Diosdado Cabello and the former defence minister, Vladimir Padrino López, showed their readiness for extreme pragmatism on various fronts. Together with a growing reliance on persecution of critics, this ideological flexibility allowed them to retain political control and stamp out a rising challenge from the opposition.
A surge of protests backed by a greatly emboldened opposition front came soon after Maduro assumed the presidency. With the country gripped by a month of unrest early in 2014, featuring large demonstrations on both sides of the political divide, Maduro responded with hitherto unusual levels of state force. Security personnel arrested opposition leaders and killed demonstrators at a level that exceeded anything seen under his predecessor, even though Chávez had never shied away from coming down hard on dissent within military ranks. When the opposition won control of the National Assembly in 2015 amid deep economic malaise, Maduro quashed the legislature’s powers, eventually sidelining the parliament entirely by creating a new, wholly chavista Constituent Assembly.
With each year that followed, Maduro’s repressive apparatus chipped away further at the human rights, due process and legal guarantees enshrined in the 1999 constitution, a text that was the product of a process closely controlled by Chávez and run by his supporters. Democracy was another victim of the clampdown. Chávez had undoubtedly harboured qualms about representative democracy and checks and balances on executive power, pushing in 2006 for a sweeping constitutional overhaul that would create a new form of what he called participatory, community-driven democracy (his proposal was defeated in a plebiscite). Eventually, he secured public approval in a 2009 referendum for indefinite re-election to political office, paving the way for a third term in office. Yet the late president thrived on his charisma, popularity and repeated victories at the ballot box. In contrast, from the opposition success in the 2015 legislative polls onward Maduro tilted the electoral playing field further in the government’s favour, reaching the extreme in July 2024 of proclaiming himself the winner despite abundant evidence that he had lost the presidential vote in a landslide.
In response to the country’s cratering economy, the Maduro government also tore down chavista fiscal and monetary orthodoxies. From 2018 onward, after Venezuela hit peak hyper-inflation, Maduro endorsed de facto dollarisation, lifted price controls, liberalised the economy and opened various sectors to private investment, though the links between state bodies and businesses tended to be murky. As state interventionism faded, social spending targeted at the poor also dried up, removing a powerful source of loyalty among chavismo’s traditional social base. Facing economic ruin and deprived of state lifelines, some of the movement’s former urban strongholds broke decisively with chavismo at election time, even though scarcity and hunger also meant that the odd show of political allegiance was needed to get hold of basic goods, including food rations, and avoid the attentions of para-police loyalists known as colectivos. Meanwhile, government denunciations of neoliberalism and the greed of the wealthy gave way to the glorification of entrepreneurship and private initiative by certain prominent chavista officials.
Maduro’s capture sounded the death knell for any pretence of ideological coherence. Interim President Rodríguez has in effect cast aside the movement’s last remaining article of faith, accepting without much resistance a subordinate relation to Washington and thus abandoning all semblance of anti-imperialism. Handing over control of the country’s natural resources to the U.S. is perhaps chavismo’s ultimate volte-face, undoing not just the work of Chávez but also the 1976 nationalisation of the Venezuelan oil industry that predated his arrival in power by more than twenty years.
That said, interviews with chavistas suggest that pragmatists within the regime have capitalised on outside pressure to make changes that they had been entertaining for some time, in the hope of giving Venezuela a jolt of foreign investment and a route back to international credit markets. In exchanges with Washington, Maduro had himself apparently dangled the possibility of opening oil contracts to U.S. companies and investors. He was reportedly also contemplating a reform to labour laws like the one proposed by Rodríguez and had even tested the idea of a constitutional reform aimed at diversifying Venezuela’s economy. Before the U.S. intervention, however, these ideas faced internal resistance from factions clinging to the remnants of statist policies. Foreign observers may have been shocked by the ease with which Maduro’s inner circle has complied with U.S. diktat, but top officials – foremost among them the Rodríguez siblings – appear to have seized the moment to scrap dogmas that they had long wanted to jettison. Their goal has not just been avoiding a traumatic separation from power but also extracting the maximum benefit. Even if the U.S. raid seemingly undercut the last pillar of chavismo, it may have opened the door to changes that they believed could revive the movement.
The question of whether there was any negotiation with Washington over the rendition of Maduro prior to 3 January, or if a more active armed response to the U.S. attack might have been possible, is largely taboo in chavista circles. On the other hand, government supporters are happy to offer their explanations of what happened after the raid and particularly how the changes of recent months can be justified.
One argument is that of foreign coercion. Rodríguez, they say, is negotiating with a gun to her head and, for now, has no option but to follow orders. The interim president herself has said she was given only minutes to decide whether to line up with the White House or face a similar fate to Maduro’s. Resisting, according to this theory, would have been certain political suicide given the huge asymmetry in force between Venezuela and the U.S.
Others see Rodríguez as a shrewd negotiator, who astutely realigned with the geopolitical currents in order to keep the movement in power. According to some exponents of this theory, chavismo had a response ready for precisely this sort of event and Rodríguez is merely executing it. She has adeptly avoided regime change while gradually securing the lifting or waiving of sanctions. “You have to realise that this was the plan all along”, a mid-level government official told Crisis Group. “We are defeating the right and the gringos without them even realising it”. Those who espouse this view believe that Rodríguez aims to wait out President Donald Trump’s term in office and then negotiate with whomever follows, presumably under more favourable conditions.
A third justification is rooted in Venezuela’s protracted economic malaise, which despite the occasional spurt of growth seemed largely irremediable under Maduro. This argument, in essence, is the one that the aforementioned regime pragmatists put forward. Giving away control of natural resources, according to this version of events, was essential to restore the country to the path of expansion. Rodríguez might be hoping that, with enough of an economic bump, rooted in U.S. control of oil exports and other investments, she might be able to win in an eventual competitive election. Chavistas who hold this view point to China as an example of a country that has opened economically and harvested the benefits of foreign investment while remaining a one-party state. Defending the changes in the oil industry, Jorge Rodríguez employed a famous phrase of Deng Xiaoping that was used to justify capitalist reforms in China: “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, just that it catches mice”. Jorge, it should be added, attributed the quote to his grandmother.
Where all these narratives coincide is in the importance of keeping chavismo at the helm of the state. Venezuela’s ruling political movement has indeed been expert at extending its time in office. Part of this longevity comes down to denigrating, dividing and, when necessary, intimidating its opponents. But it has also placed great store on maintaining an internal equilibrium, which has been crucial to its cohesion during moments of crisis. Rodríguez appears to have mastered these arts as well, managing to please Trump, portray her government as an easy partner to work with and, simultaneously, placate important figures from the most radical wing of the government who might resist cooperation with Washington.
Yet this delicate balance of power within the movement should not be taken for granted. Maduro himself was a master of managing tensions and competition among the factions that make up chavismo, whether that meant local officials, top military brass, businesspeople or politicians. He endeavoured to ensure that each constituency could maintain access to its quota of power and resources. But he also guaranteed that no single part of the movement, including the military, was able to dispute his overall control.
Rumours of purges, reassignments and summary dismissals … run riot through official hallways.
The Rodríguez family had been just one of the competing poles, but Delcy’s ascent, and her manoeuvres to ensure cabinet loyalty, have since fuelled jealousy and revived grudges. Delcy has sacked many of those closest to Maduro, while leaving other established figures in positions of power, possibly out of fear that removing some of these chavista leaders would have destabilising consequences. Rumours of purges, reassignments and summary dismissals, meanwhile, run riot through official hallways. Major changes have already happened, including the replacement of former Defence Minister Padrino with Gustavo González López, a close ally of the interim president and former head of the intelligence and military counterintelligence services. The powerful interior minister, Cabello, remains a potential spoiler, but he appears thus far to have hitched his wagon to Delcy’s star. Cabello maintains a firm grip on the most critical parts of the security apparatus, possibly leading Delcy to conclude that she could not gamble on defenestrating him.
An internal mutiny remains unlikely for now. The fragmentation of power, and the patronage that came with it under Maduro, has meant that no chavista faction has the political power, mobilising capacity or desire to contest the other cliques’ influence. When those close to power have fallen from grace, the prevailing response among others has been to keep their heads down and pray for benevolence. This sort of conduct was typical among those shunted aside following the downfall of Tareck El Aissami, who at one point controlled the economy and the oil business before being dismissed from his post in March 2023 and arrested a year later. A similar silence has reigned after Padrino, the highest-profile figure to face demotion and reassignment under Rodríguez, lost his job.
But if the movement’s figureheads and high officials are busy disseminating justifications for the sudden shift in doctrine, the core supporters of chavismo and adherents of its original ideology are far more disenchanted with U.S. tutelage. Their room for manoeuvre is limited: by design, these have no obvious mechanism for channelling discontent into organised pushback. Honest debate is impossible in local or party assemblies, for example. But those chavista activists who spoke to Crisis Group fluctuate among disbelief, open misgivings about everything the government is doing and whole-hearted discontent with the absence of a proper explanation of what happened on 3 January and the compliance with U.S. orders ever since.
In a number of interviews with individuals in chavista circles, Crisis Group heard that moves such as freeing political prisoners, declaring an amnesty and allowing for more protests are seen not as welcome developments, but as signs of weakness. (These same decisions have been used as proof by the U.S. that real changes are coming to Venezuela.) These supporters, including some of the more hawkish defenders of chavismo, have grown used to polarisation as the political norm, and they treat the Rodríguez administration’s readiness to comply with Washington’s demands with suspicion. The prominent chavista talk show host, Mario Silva, is one who has stood out for his outrage. “They expect us to sit back quietly and watch as imperialism destroys 27 years of revolution, as if nothing happened”, he declared. Expressions of anger at the government’s cautious political opening tend to be much harsher than hardline chavistas’ criticism of the decision to open the economy to foreign investment, which some interpret as a positive and pragmatic step.
But the connection between the base and the leadership will not necessarily be broken for long. If chavismo decides to return to a more confrontational stance, concentrating its ire on either an internal or external “enemy” that it identifies as an existential threat, it could rally grassroots supporters into mobilising on behalf of the government. As a sign that Rodríguez is aware of the need to maintain these voters’ support, she has already deployed Cabello to hold a series of public events with party loyalists aimed at mending ties.
While chavismo’s ideological boundaries have long proven fluid, loyalists at all levels of the movement draw a clear red line when it comes to threats to their internal cohesion and grip on power. As Crisis Group has explained in the past, ideological change in the movement has been justified by the hegemonic vocation of chavismo, whose members share the view that remaining in office is the only possible way to face outside “conspiracies”, “economic wars” or “imperialist threats”. The very real threats of judicial prosecution and political persecution should they lose power are offered by senior chavistas as a reason not to give in to the opposition. Still, the fact remains that the Maduro government never showed any interest in negotiating the terms of a hypothetical exit (nor did Maduro himself even come close to accepting the alleged U.S. offer of a golden exile). At the end of the day, clinging to office seems to have become the only goal.
With survival as their highest priority, a number of government officials told Crisis Group that the greatest risk to chavismo is not alignment with the U.S., least of all under President Trump, but rather the role that might be played by opposition leader and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado. Still the most popular politician in Venezuela according to opinion polls, Machado has repeatedly made clear her desire to sweep chavismo from power for good. “The issue with the U.S. will resolve itself. In all likelihood, Trump may lose influence in the midterms and will not remain in office forever”, a chavista militant told Crisis Group, suggesting that the U.S. government will eventually lose interest in maintaining its hold on Caracas. “The real problem is Machado, because she is Washington’s candidate and she would [carry forward Trump’s policies beyond his term and] complete Venezuela’s colonial subordination”. Chavismo’s short-term strategy, according to these sources, will be to resist calling fresh elections, and if it must, go to any lengths to ensure its victory at the eventual polls, even if that means once again prohibiting Machado from competing.
So far, what happened to Maduro has in fact proven a useful political and legal justification for not holding fresh elections. Just days after his capture, Venezuela’s supreme court, which is controlled by the government, ruled that Maduro’s absence was “forced” and therefore did not trigger new elections, as would have been the case had he died or stepped down. Based on this interpretation, Rodríguez is positioned to finish Maduro’s term in 2030 before she must face the voters. For now, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s three-part plan for Venezuela also seems intended to avoid specifics, speaking only about a hypothetical future “transition” phase.
Chavista supporters have subsequently repeated that there can be no elections until Maduro is freed, and some appear ready to embrace the Chinese model of economic liberalisation without political change as a path to avoiding the ballot box. For now, they are betting that as long as the U.S. is satisfied with investor-friendly economic reforms, easy access to Venezuela’s natural resources and signals that Caracas is limiting the use of its repressive apparatus, Washington will not press for elections. In a movement plagued by major internal differences, the one issue on which all factions agree is the need to keep power. The risk of losing it could trigger conflicts that might be hard to contain.
But few think that chavismo will be in charge in Venezuela forever. The movement’s future, in fact, will likely depend on how it eventually leaves power. Some more moderate insiders claim that its authoritarian character could soften if there is a real possibility that it could continue to exist, free of political persecution, once out of office. A negotiated political transition that includes government leaders and loyalists could see the movement redefine itself as a political party like others in Latin America modelled around the legacy of individual leaders, such as Peronism in Argentina. If the regime is forcibly removed, however, chavismo could in the end peter out or find itself picking up its original ideological banner of bestowing dignity on the poorest.
Aware of this existential threat, Delcy Rodríguez and others in the regime are charting a course through turbulent waters. Caracas will remain open to offering concessions to Washington if it believes that these can appease White House factions inclined to press for regime change. Ultimately, the government hopes that remaining in power until 2030 will leave them in a position to win fairly at the ballot box. But if these compromises threaten its hold on office or endanger large parts of the chavista movement, a multitude of internal conflicts could rise to the surface. Dogmas of the past have been casually shredded. But if the survival of the movement or its constituent parts are threatened, the temptation to crack down and to test Washington’s own red lines could well intensify.