Hugo Chavez Ideology

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Hugo Chavez was the president of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013. He had an interesting way of running the country during his presidency. His political position or ideology could be best defined as Bolivarianism for many reasons. Bolivarianism can be described as a set of doctrines that was popular in South America. It is named after the famous liberator Simon Bolivar. Hugo Chavez’s ideology involved ideas from others he had come to admire. Of course one of those that he admired was Simon Bolivar. The ideas for his ideology all began at a young age when he fell in love with history (Jones 23). During this age Hugo Chavez would often times read about a general named Ezequiel Zamora whom his great great grandfather had served (Marcano, Tyszka 11). Ezequiel Zamora will become a major influence in his ideology later on in his life. Besides Zamora, Chavez would also read about many other theorists. Hugo Chavez not only lived in poverty but also witnessed how bad the poverty around him was (Jones 25-26). Chavez did not like this poverty and wanted to change that any way he could. As he grew up he continued reading about the different theorists and ideologies that they made up (Jones 40). So since a young age Chavez had always been a leftist. As mentioned earlier it continued throughout his life and it intensified during his days at the military academy (Wilpert 07) Eventually Chavez became the president and his political position progressed further left (Wilpert 07). In other words he rejected both far left ideologies such as communism or Marxism-Leninism and moderate ideologies such as social democracy or the third way. However Chavez was aware of these different ideologies but did not consider being part of it. Hugo Chavez instead began t...

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...t to the head (Venezuela Tuya, Ezequiel Zamora). Nonetheless the idea of equality is one of the major points in Hugo Chavez’s ideology.
Hugo Chavez was able to borrow some of the ideas for his ideology from these three men. Most of his ideology came from Simon Bolivar, which is why Chavez’s ideology is categorized under Bolivaianism. However as was mentioned throughout the paper, Chavez love for education and the scholarships he created for students during his time as president came from the idea of Simon Rodriguez. His hero Ezequiel Zamora also influenced his ideology with the idea of equality. As stated previously through out his life time, Hugo Chavez had experience with poverty. The idea of equality would mean an end to poverty and everyone would be the same. With the ideas from all three men Chavez was able to implement his ideology of 21st century socialism.

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