There are too few studies of Venezuela’s recent history. Alexander’s comprehensive focus on contemporary Venezuela is long overdue and takes its place as a pioneer work along with Edwin Lieuwen’s Venezuela.
Partisan to Rómulo Betancourt, Alexander perceives the administration program as the Venezuelan democratic revolution. He braves the hazards of taking sides in a still unfolding situation by balancing sympathetic treatment with a cogent presentation. Despite almost complete reliance on official Venezuelan sources Alexander succeeds in distinguishing government euphoria from actuality. The desire to see democracy succeed in Venezuela does not blunt the writer’s critical faculties in most areas.
Representative democracy has been alien to a society traditionally ruled by coup d’etat and military command. Venezuela could not convert to a modern state until it had shed its colonial semi-feudal past. Petroleum, the major source of the nation’s wealth, enriched a very few, while leaving in its wake a desolated agrarian sector and an exploding urban population. The depressed rural conuquero and the rancho slum dweller stood out as two compelling arguments for change.
Betancourt’s regime embarked on the task of reversing the trend of Venezuela’s political and economic history with the overthrow of the Marco Pérez Jiménez group in 1958. The administration undertook a revolutionary program of land redistribution, diversification of the economy, the institution of a modern educational system as well as ambitious housing and social welfare programs. Community development programs encouraged initiative in a traditionally passive population.
Alexander’s major contribution is his detailed description of Betancourt’s reforms. Most impressive was Betancourt’s avowed purpose to achieve massive reform without resort to authoritarian means. Land redistribution took place without expropriation. National planning provided for a mixed economy to assure the private sector of a role in the new Venezuela. Organized labor and peasant federations received the attentions of a benevolent administration. Petroleum wealth now supplied the funds for furthering reform. To escape the effects of a monocultural economy, Betancourt initiated plans to develop manufacturing and agriculture.
The five year record of the revolution is impressive. Despite economic crisis during the initial years of the regime, Venezuela achieved a favorable trade balance by 1961 with a surplus of five million dollars. In two years 3,623 families received a million and a half acres of land. Guayana, “The Ruhr of Venezuela,” in the Orinoco River valley, boasts the nation’s first steel mill and an impressive hydroelectric plant. Since 1958 the Betancourt administration increased school enrollment by 90 per cent and doubled the nation’s number of teachers and schools. Although organized labor has never been more powerful there were only 38 strikes during the first four years of the administration while 2,665 collective agreements were signed between labor and management.
Emphasis on Venezuela’s remarkable achievements has led Alexander to understate the explosive elements that still remain. Despite land reform and redistribution less than two per cent of Venezuela’s arable land is under cultivation. Unemployment has risen to a national average of twelve per cent and to the critical peak of twenty per cent in Caracas. Unemployable urban emigres from the countryside join with the miserable rural conuqueros to menace the success of the Betancourt program.
The democratic values that Alexander admires can represent the greatest obstacle in the administration’s race against time. No sector in Venezuelan society believes that the regime has worked adequately in its behalf. Peasants are impatient with the slow pace of land redistribution. Labor is not completely satisfied and management is still insecure with a government that has stepped into traditionally private sectors of the economy. It is possible that Betancourt’s success in completing his full presidential term, a first in Venezuela’s national history, is due to the minimal degree of satisfaction each sector has received. Government action has been inadequate but not too negative to precipitate the overthrow of the regime.
The true test of Betancourt’s administration, according to Alexander, was its ability to retain the loyalty of a sufficient number of Venezuelans to withstand the military challenges from right and the left wing opposition. Despite coup d’etat, insurrection, guerrilla warfare, and an attempt on Betancourt’s life, the administration survived. One blemish marred the regime’s determination to lead the nation toward the new democracy. Although it had coped with violence for twenty-one months without resorting to the suspension of constitutional guarantees, subsequent challenges compelled Betan-court to suspend civil liberties for almost two years. To Alexander, although this action seemed necessary, it remains as one of the more regrettable aspects of the democratic revolution.
