Anthony Beevor: Berlin: The Downfall, 1945. Penguin Books, London, 2003.

What is the economic-social context of the advance of the Latin American left since the past few years? What is new about these "new social movements" and how original are their demands, values, organizational forms, actions, and proclaimed identities?

In Latin America the political significance of peasant movements have increased in the past 25 years – in spite of the decrease of the number of peasantry. Toady these movements are more successful in mobilizing the society against the neo-liberal elite and they are often capable of more organized actions and deeper solidarity than the weakened working-class movement. One of the reasons of this phenomenon is that the countryside suffers more from the impacts of neo-liberalism than the towns. The alliance with the local parliamentary central-leftist political parties was therefore almost always detrimental for the peasant movements. However, they are not ready to seize power on their own and there are severe obstacles to an alliance with the working-class.

The most important achievement of Chávez is the starting of democratization that will integrate the poor majority of the population into the political life of the country. The current, grand-scale programs for the social and political integration convinced the masses that Chávez – unlikely to his predecessors – takes seriously his promises to the people – that's why he can count on the stable support of the majority of the society. If the revolution of Chávez is successful, Venezuela can be a model for the whole of Latin America.

In Venezuela, instead of a frontal attack against the old administrational and bureaucratic machinery, parallel structures were created to perform the tasks that the traditional apparatus was unfit to solve. These new, parallel structures mainly organized from below manage the social, health-care and educational programs of the Chávez-government that received much international attention. The resources and authorities of these parallels are, however, limited that delays the solution of many urgent problems and hinders the progress toward a direct democracy.