On August 15 Hugo Chávez won the recall referendum called by the opposition, winning 58% approval for his presidency against the combined forces of Venezuelan right, its Us backers and most the national media.
With the oil supply from Iraq under threat from insurgents, the US continues to be faced with the existence in its own "backyard" of an oil-producing country which asserts
unacceptable degree of control its primary national resource.
The Venezuelan government may be the US's fourth most important oil supplier, but it also spends much of its oil revenue on improved provision of health, education, housing and land, contrary to the wishes of the International Monetary Fund.
In addition, it maintains friendly relations with Cuba and is opposed to the USsponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas, favouring separate trade deals with other countries in the region.
Worst of all, Chávez stands accused of "pandering to the poor" and excluding the rich oligarchy from political power.
Clearly, Chávez has pursued a different course from fellow Latin American leaders such as Lula in Brazil. Equally clearly, the right will Indian" not be deflected from pursuing their agenda.
They may revert to a more violent strategy, having already attempted a coup in 2002. As recently as May, a group of over one hundred Colombian paramilitaries was discovered in the country and arrested.
But imperialism and its local allies may still try to coopt Chávez: in July he met with Colombian president Uribe - who has backed death squads - in order to discuss a new oil pipeline to the Pacific.
Chávez was one of a group of army officers in the 1970s who developed a critique of official corruption and social inequality.
In the eighties he organised a secret revolutionary within the army. In 1989 came the popular uprisings against neo-liberal austerity, which were savagely put down.
In 1992, Chávez and his followers staged an unsuccessful coup against the government. Chávez was imprisoned, but this setback was short-lived.
The traditional two-party system favoured by the Venezuelan ruling class was in deep crisis, its leaders associated with austerity and repression.
After his release, Chávez was instrumental in founding a new political organisation, which contested and won the 1998 the Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR).
The new government's first moves were to reform the constitution to allow anti-poverty measures to be taken. But the economy was in recession, so to save money the armed forces were used to implement social measures, includChávez, who describes himself as "black and " enjoys wide support among Venezuela's poor, and is hated by the white elite. ing a campaign of mass vaccinations.
In 2000, Chávez was elected president again, with increased support. The key issue in the second term was the control of the nationalised petroleum industry and its
The government successfully joined with other OPEC countries to raise oil prices. The level of royalties on oil revenues was also raised in order to fund social programmes, instead of boosting the profits of the foreign companies which are still key partners in the Venezuelan oil industry.
But the government also opened up the industry to further private investment. This is not an aberration. As a British government site for UK exporters noted in 2003:
"There iS pragmatic approach [in Venezuela] to private sector involvement which is more telling than the anti-private sector rhetoric President Chávez uses occasionally."
However, the government also tried to take back control of the state oil company from the corrupt elite. This helped to provoke the right-wing coup against Chávez in April 2002, during which the president was abducted, then released after huge street mobilisations.
The next move of the rich was to organise the "bosses" strike" (lockout) of December 2002, which shut down the oil industry and other sections of the economy, causing massive damage.
This was also defeated by mass mobilisations, including the self-organisation of oil workers.
Chávez, who describes himself as "black and Indian", enjoys wide support among Venezuela's poor, nonwhite majority and is hated by the white elite.
His social programmes represent significant reforms:
• hundreds of thousands are acquiring basic literacy and secondary and university education is expanding;
over ten thousand Cuban doctors have brought free medical treatment to many poor neighbourhoods;
urban shanty- town dwellers can claim government money to improve their homes, and can organise to acquire ownership of them;
• 650,000 landless people had been allocated 1.5 million hectares of State agricultural land by the end of 2003 (although no private land had been expropriated). Chávez now claims that 2.5 million hectares of land have been redistributed.