There’s an old joke amongst anti-communists and Cold Warriors.
It goes like this: Hardline East German communist Walter Ulbricht
died and went to Hell. There, the Devil gave him a choice between
the socialist sector and the capitalist sector. Devoted to the end,
Ulbricht stuck to the faith, saying: “I’ll go to the socialist
sector.” “Good choice,” averred the Devil. “Over in the capitalist
sector, they’re getting the full, hellfire treatment. But in the
socialist sector, they’ve run out of coal.”
Say what you want of Hugo Chavez, of his tactics, of his
beliefs, and of perhaps where he might be right now, but this much
is certain: he stuck to the faith.
Many of us were downright amazed when Chavez, in his late 50s
and desperately ill from cancer, opted to go to Cuba for treatment.
It was a surefire death sentence. Only the most hopelessly devoted
communist would be so naïve, so stupid. Loaded with vast wealth he
stole from his people, Chavez effectively chose acupuncture and
leeches and snake-handling to the 21st-century healthcare widely
available anywhere in the West.
And yet, the Venezuelan dictator clung to his religion. He went
to Havana. It sure as Hell didn’t save him.
Chavez apparently gained some measure of comfort near the aging
breast of his dying, bearded, beloved Fidel. He had so much in
common with Castro, admiring the totalitarian’s unparalleled,
unprecedented seizure of power and resources, all in the name of
redistribution and “social justice.” Like Fidel, he pilfered enough
riches from the ostracized affluent class to make himself one of
the world’s wealthiest leaders. As he did, he churned the
propaganda, blaming his nation’s every ill on his predecessors and
on the alleged criminality of the very same rich — as Fidel has
done, as the left has always done.
A few years back, my wife and I were in Washington meeting with
an old friend from grad-school days, a native of Venezuela named
Daria. When we introduced her to another acquaintance, she remarked
with a sad smile, “I’m from Venezuela. We’re communist now.”
In Chavez’s partial defense — and this isn’t saying much — he
never achieved the scales of collectivism and depths of depravity
of Fidel Castro, or of the world’s really bad communists. Venezuela
didn’t become Cuba or the Soviet Union. Needless to say, Hugo
Chavez was no Joe Stalin—even as, remarkably, he died on the 60th
anniversary of Stalin’s death.
Nonetheless, like any man of the left, he had his enemy groups,
and he used them to full advantage. Some of these assorted villains
were flagged in a curious
Washington Post obituary which headlined Chavez as a
“passionate” albeit “polarizing” figure. What earned him even this
slight compliment from the Post? Who knows? The same
article noted that Chavez referred to the Catholic Church hierarchy
as “devils in vestments.” But perhaps the Post was
impressed less with Chavez’s opprobrium for the Catholic Church
than his encomiums for Barack Obama.
Of course, Chavez was a big fan of Obama. He made this clear the
first year of Obama’s ascension. In
an extraordinary statement at the United Nations that
September, Chavez sniffed, “It doesn’t smell of sulfur here
anymore.” This was a swipe at former President George W. Bush.
Waxing almost spiritual, Chavez mused: “It smells of something
else. It smells of hope.”
Ah, yes, even to Hugo Chavez, Barack Obama equaled hope;
the theological virtue of Obama. The Venezuelan caudillo
inspiringly invoked
David Axelrod’s legendary campaign slogan.
And like Obama, Chavez just as quickly jettisoned the hopeful
rhetoric when shameless demagoguery better suited his intentions.
Like Obama, he excelled at blaming things on the rich, on profit
seekers, on greedy corporations, on nefarious jet-owners and
millionaires and billionaires, on banks, on investors, and, of
course, on George W. Bush. Unlike his saintly Obama, Chavez called
George W. Bush a “devil.”
Chavez often seemed to invoke the Devil.
Alinsky-like, Chavez was superb at isolating his targets and
demonizing them, calling them “degenerates,” “squealing pigs,” and
“counter-revolutionaries,” with all the thuggish panache of the
typical left-wing demagogue.
In this, and more, Hugo Chavez was faithful to the very end. Did
he really think he would be healed in Havana? Was there no other
hope? Or, in the end, maybe faith was all that Chavez had.
He should have learned from millions of Cubans over the last
50-plus years: faith in Fidel leads only to destruction and
death.
Photo: UPI
