How did Chavez come to power?
Chavez was an unknown colonel in the Venezuelan paratroopers when he led a 1992 military coup against President Carlos Andres Perez. The coup failed, and Chavez spent two years in prison, steeping himself in the Bible, Karl Marx, and other writings on social justice. By the time he got out, he had resolved to pursue a popular revolution through the ballot box.
What were his goals?
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Chavez, invoking the name of the South American liberator Simón Bolívar, promised
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