Venezuela does not have a conventional revolutionary set-up. It’s a revolution within a revolution, where, six years ago, “reformer” Hugo Chavez was elected to power as an outsider who would make a difference, and who instead ran his country’s affairs like an old-line caudillo party boss, his cronies lining their pockets, but with the added detail of retrograde Castroite communism as his substitute for reform. Of course he is hated. Essayist Gustavo Coronel takes a serious, scholarly look at Chavez’s decaying revolution and the prospects for a more authentic one replacing it. Read it here.