What Was Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution?

A socialist-inspired governing model in Venezuela, the so-called Bolivarian Revolution, was initiated by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez after his election in 1998 and continued under his chosen successor, Nicolás Maduro. Although originally popular, in part for its anti-poverty efforts, the movement was later marred by a deteriorating economy, political repression and mounting violence.

Simón Bolívar, known as the “George Washington of South America” and as “the Liberator,” freed six present-day countries—including Venezuela—from Spanish rule in the 19th century. His most legendary military campaign occurred in 1819, when he led his revolutionary army on a grueling march across the snow-capped Andes on the way to capturing Bogotá, Colombia.

As a young military officer, Chávez was inspired by Bolívar’s anticolonial exploits. In the early 1980s, Chávez co-founded a clandestine leftist group, the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200, which was named for Bolívar, with the number representing the 200th anniversary of the Liberator’s birth. Chávez’s fascination with Bolívar continued during his time as president. Soon after taking office, he launched an anti-poverty program called Plan Bolivar 2000, promoted a new constitution that officially renamed the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and began speaking broadly of a Bolivarian Revolution.

Chávez’s policies gave Venezuela’s poor better access to food, health care, housing and education. He also supported increased protections for the country’s Indigenous groups, and he nationalized many foreign-owned assets, including oil projects.

With the world’s largest estimated petroleum reserves, Venezuela’s economy boomed during portions of Chávez’s presidency. Poverty at home initially decreased, and Chávez spread his oil wealth to other places as well, at one point in 2007 even donating heating oil to lower-income residents of New York City.

Eventually, however, inflation, high crime, soaring debt, falling oil prices, corruption, food and medical shortages, U.S. sanctions and mass emigration took a toll. These trends accelerated under Maduro, who assumed the presidency following Chávez’s death in 2013. By 2021, Venezuela’s gross domestic product had shrunk by roughly three-quarters, and millions of Venezuelans had fled the country.

Although Chávez and his allies launched two failed coup attempts in 1992, he won a free and fair presidential election in 1998. It remains a matter of dispute whether any of his later reelection campaigns were in fact free and fair, with critics citing institutional bias and irregularities. At the very least, Chávez moved to constrain the legislature, judiciary, media and other sources of potential opposition, and he successfully backed a referendum to abolish presidential term limits. Electoral irregularities and democratic backsliding became more pronounced under Maduro. His 2024 reelection, for example, was widely contested and deemed flawed.

Chávez long considered himself a counterweight to U.S. influence and pursued alliances with countries often hostile to the United States, including Cuba, Iran, Libya, Russia and Nicaragua. U.S.-Venezuelan relations further nosedived in 2002 when Chávez was briefly ousted in a military coup. He returned to power within 48 hours, but not before the George W. Bush administration recognized the interim government. Chávez, who adamantly opposed the War in Iraq, later called George W. Bush “the devil.”

American-Venezuelan relations remained strained after Chávez’s death, and in January 2026, President Donald Trump authorized a military operation in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, by U.S. forces. They were flown to the United States to face federal charges, including drug trafficking and weapons charges.