Cuba and Venezuela: Contemporary Crises in Their Revolutions

Silvia Pedraza, University of Michigan

Both the Cuban and Venezuelan revolutions marked the face of Latin America. Both revolutions are now very old -- Cuba's is 67 years old, Venezuela's 27. Both their leaders -- Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez -- marched as brothers in arms with similar ideologies. Both created a formidable alliance that was both economic and political, based on their trade of doctors for oil. Their leaders expected that both revolutions would succeed or fail together and both would serve to check the hegemony of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. In this presentation, Silvia Pedraza analyzes the contemporary crises that both revolutions are living through -- remarkably deep economic crises as well as crises of political legitimacy. What the future holds is still uncertain.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 146. Revolution Compared I: Classical Revolutions