Hugo Chávez’s autocratic acceleration for the demolition ofthe Venezuelan Historical State (2006-2009)

Abstract

This article analyzes the process of political radicalization in Venezuela during the 2006-2009 period, characterized by what we term the autocratic acceleration of Hugo Chávez. It examines how, following the 2006 reelection, the government transitioned from a referendum, based authoritarianism toward a model of communal socialism that sought the systematic dismantling of the Venezuelan Historical State. The study details the replacement of republican institutions and the autonomous university with the ‘Missions’ system and the new bureaucracy of People’s Power, tools designed to supplant the functional pillars of the traditional republic. Likewise, it addresses the symbolic dimension of this transformation, which included the alteration of national toponymy and the destruction of places of memory to impose a new ideological narrative. The analysis concludes that the year 2007 marked the end of a state continuity lasting more than a century, giving way to a fragmentation of collective memory and the establishment of a communal state uprooted from previous identity systems.