"Those who have been educated under military rule succumb to the psychosis of an order as an irresistible force”
Stefan Zweig
Today more than ever, Venezuelans need to review within ourselves, and in our way of acting as a society, scrutinizing within our past, which events can help us find the answers to what is happening to us, and estimate -even in broad strokes- what is to come. This becomes more evident in the political order, because the behavior of those who have succeeded each other time and again in power keeps repeating itself over and over again, following some pattern of behavior. And what better way to do so than to review our history of disruptive periods, which have represented important changes for the life of the country, and which in a succession of events have brought us to this crucial point where the future of Venezuela is being debated.
The following is part of Rómulo Betancourt's description of his first meeting with the military men with whom Acción Democrática would later unite to displace the government headed by Isaías Medina Angarita from power on October 18, 1945:
"Once the ice was broken - after the echoes of the vague perezjimenian oration died down - we learned more concrete and precise details. Others in attendance painted us the picture of an Army where not even the superficial modifications introduced in the civilian administration since 1936 had been carried out. The arbitrary methods of the Gómez days for the management of the Armed Forces and the selection of Chiefs and Officers were still alive and kicking. And as for the very purposes of the organization formed by the young officers of the Army, under the name of "Unión Patriótica Militar", they were defined in the minutes they signed. There they declared that "it was time to put an end forever to the incompetence, embezzlement and bad faith that preside over the acts of our governments"; they invoked "the historical responsibility that the moment demands of the youth of the world", and made a profession of democratic faith "declaring emphatically that they did not defend personal or class interests and that they favored the formation of a Government based on the universal and direct vote of the Venezuelan citizens, a reform of the Constitution that would also be an expression of the national will and the creation of a truly professional Army" (1) (Pág. 225).
And further on Betancourt continues: "We had firm civilist convictions and we rejected by deep-rooted doctrinal norms any kind of intervention of the Army in the political life of the country. But the dynamic development of our own agitative action of slogans passionately felt by the people led us to contact with a large military group, a contact which, as we have already seen, was requested by them and received by us by surprise, because we could never have imagined that the roots of a regime headed by General-Presidents would be so weak in the armed forces" (1) (Page 226) (emphasis added).
It might come as a surprise to a large number of Venezuelans who are not very interested in history, that the Adecos -according to Betancourt's story- did not look for the military to overthrow the government before that contact made at the house of Dr. Edmundo Fernandez on the night of July 6, 1945. This is confirmed in a published note regarding the history of conformation of the Unión Patriótica Militar, where it is stated: "After some considerations, the military conspirators reached the unanimous conclusion that the most convenient thing to do was to try to associate with the Democratic Action party, led by the famous writers Romulo Gallegos and Andres Eloy Blanco and whose general secretary, Romulo Betancourt, had the prestige of a hardened revolutionary fighter, member of the generation of students who in 1928 had risen up against Gomez, and whose daily articles in El Pais were read by them. In order to establish a relationship with Acción Democrática, it was decided that Lieutenant Francisco Gutiérrez would make contact with his friend Luis Beltrán Prieto Figueroa, and Lieutenant Horacio López Conde would seek to arrange a meeting with Rómulo Betancourt" (see in Spanish La Unión Patriótica Militar, su papel protagónico en el golpe 18 de octubre de 1945, in http://elfarodigital68.blogspot.com/2018/07/la-union-militar-patriotica.html).
From the above it can be deduced then, that the initiative for the displacement of power of the government headed by Medina, did not come from the civilians but from the military, and that in view of the common interests of the historical moment, they decided to undertake the necessary common actions to reach that objective. And the reasons adduced by the military to take that step in their meeting with Betancourt are striking: "an Army where not even the superficial modifications introduced in the civilian administration had been carried out...", "The arbitrary methods of the days of Gómez for the management of the Armed Forces...", "the selection of Chiefs and Officers...", "to end forever with the incompetence, embezzlement and bad faith that preside over the acts of our governments". Does this sound familiar? Of course, these and other additional reasons were also used by the same military to displace the government, this time elected by popular vote, of Rómulo Gallegos on November 24, 1948.
Much has been written in relation to both historical moments, but in my opinion what emerges from it is the question of who used whom, and what ended up being the net result of something that started from the military with important results for the country in the civilian sphere, as was the Constituent Process of 1946-1947. In other words, we are talking about the SAME civil-military PROCESS that began in 1945, but with two milestones, one civilian and the other military.
On the one hand, a very important advance in civil matters was achieved, reflected in the direct and secret universal suffrage, and other important improvements in the civil rights of Venezuelans, established in the 1947 Constitution, which, although they were overshadowed by the 1948 coup, were already conquests achieved and pending recovery 10 years later.
For their part, the military achieved, after October 1945, an important improvement in their conditions, as demanded by the Unión Patriótica Militar, a first step being the social situation of the uniformed personnel: "Officers' salaries were increased by 37%, 57% for the troops and 50% for their food. The supplies of pharmacy products for the Military Health Service were increased by 250%. 4 million bolivars were allocated as a State contribution to strengthen the Armed Forces Pension Fund, which had only received a one-time contribution of one million bolivars since its foundation". (1)(Page 551).
Betancourt points out: "We showed visible interest in the professional and technical improvement of the Armed Forces, but we only recognized the function assigned to them by democratic legal regulations: that of a professional and technical institution, subordinated to the Executive Power, free from any interference in the way political and administrative management was oriented. This attitude is rooted in the most orthodox Bolivarian tradition. It is the Liberator's phrase that summarizes a doctrine of permanent validity: "Unfortunate the people where the armed man deliberates" (1) (Page 552) (emphasis added).
And certainly, as my dear friend Alfredo Coronil Hartmann rescues, from General Roberto Vargas to Betancourt in Ortiz: "... October 18, 1945, was the day Juan Vicente Gómez really died", in allusion to the elimination of the reminiscences of Gomezism in the political and military spheres. (see in Spanish Alfredo Coronil Hartmann, 18 de octubre de 1945, en https://pararescatarelporvenir.wordpress.com/2019/10/21/el-18-de-octubre-de-1945-por-alfredo-coronil-hartmann-para-rescatar-el-porvenir/). The military, with a successful political leadership, in a process that is still far from over, moved forward the clock of Venezuela's history at that time.
It was clear, even in spite of the 1948 coup, that the country had moved into another era. However, at that time 10 years were more than enough to macerate the return of civility to the country. And without going into the details of the military events that led to the fall of the Marcos Pérez Jiménez regime in 1958, there is no doubt that once again the union of common interests between the military and civilians took place, as in 1945, to engender the longest period of peace and political, economic and social growth in the history of Venezuela.
Once again, history places us in the midst of a new retrograde gomecismo, much worse than the one of 1945, which encouraged young military men to drive a change that required many periods of political upheaval before stabilizing. And what is happening now in the Armed Forces is far worse than what the political change of 1945 merited. There will be, as before, civilian and military ambitions to abort or delay attempts to raise their heads in the search for political stability. However, the important thing is to understand the process. It is important to realize that the phrase of the Liberator quoted by Rómulo Betancourt was not really valid until 10 years after 1948.
The military, due to their structure and formation, respond to Stefan Zweig's phrase, quoted at the beginning, due to something that is instilled in them from the very beginning in the marrow of their bones: in the armed institution there is a superior who commands and a subordinate who obeys, period. Hence, in the meeting with Betancourt on July 6, 1945, Marcos Pérez Jiménez was the one who called the shots, just as Carlos Delgado Chalbaud presided over the Military Junta of the 1948 coup, only to be assassinated by the ambitions of Pérez Jiménez because he was never going to be able to impose himself in any other way. For the same reason, the commander of the garrison of Maracay, Lt. José Manuel Gámez Arellano, did not attend to the defense of the legitimate government of Gallegos, imprisoning those who sought him to organize a new government headed by the President of the Senate Valmore Rodríguez, obeying the orders of the insurrectionists from the Ministry of Defense. Obeying orders without question, even when they do not come from a legitimate authority. We must understand this very well, because we have a lot of it in our history, past and present.
At some point -I hope it will be soon- after 22 years of this new retrograde Gomezism, the process will be repeated, with new civilian and military actors, simply because history permanently repeats itself when the actors have not learned from it. The country is not doing well and both civilians and military know it. Hopefully the hours are numbered for history to purge the system again, not only to restore a true Armed Forces in their original role where the Liberator placed them, but to restore the institutionality and the rights of a country, as it was done in 1946-1947 through a Constituent process, thus restoring the values of freedom and democratic change that Venezuelans urgently need.
Caracas, July 21, 2022
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(1) Rómulo Betancourt,
Venezuela Política y Petróleo, Obras Selectas, Primera Edición 1978 en Ed. Seix
Barral, S.A., ISBN 84-322-9513-2
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