There is an inherent power in each word, and Socialism is one loaded with entropy, decay, and misery. That much I’ve come to learn over the past two decades of my life.

Some would refute and claim otherwise, that I’m wrong and Socialism is instead a word synonymous with a just, fair world. Wrong as they may be, the truth is that this ignominious ideology continues to entice millions around the world — particularly young people, who are attracted by its ostensible selling points.

Throughout history, the word Socialism has been sprinkled with suffixes, prefixes, and adjectives, marinated with carefully selected propaganda, and presented as a pristine panacea to all of life’s woes and maladies. In Venezuela, these rebranding exercises are known as “Socialism of the 21st Century” — but no matter how much you embellish and adorn it, it has always led to the same results: suffering.
If you think I’m wrong, then you’re more than welcome to instead ask any of the other eight million of my fellow conationals — nearly a third of the whole country’s population as of 2024 — who fled from this word and are now scattered across all four corners of the world.

The arrival of so-called Bolivarian Revolution and its take on Socialism in Venezuela represented a turning point in the history of Venezuela, one that has affected every single one of its citizens in a multitude of ways, altering our lives for the worse throughout the quarter of a century that it has maintained power in this country — often with irreparable consequences and countless tragic losses.

These personal entries chronicle the death spiral of a once beautiful but flawed nation from the first time Hugo Chávez burst onto the public stage after his failed coup attempt in February 1992. I had the unfortunate displeasure of experiencing the slogans, the morphed lexicon, the cultural and lifestyle changes, and the outrageous deprivations and tragedies dictated by his failed socialist ideology.

Memoirs of a Venezuelan Pariah tells the story of how the Bolivarian Revolution affected every moment of my life, down to the most minute pieces of sensory recollection. The personal words contained in these entries are yet another piece of evidence that can demonstrate how the ideology of socialism warps everyday life at every turn.

Through the lens of this, very much personal chronicle, I tell the tale of the mistakes, blunders, and atrocities committed by a failed ideology as I lived through them — in the hopes that other nations will not choose the same miserable path that led to the ruination of my birthplace.

PROLOGUE: THE IDEA THAT REFUSED TO DIE

On every continent, in every epoch of the modern era, socialism has ruined lives and hamstrung the destiny of nations. In the United States, which never had to suffer a fully socialist government, its popularity among young people is rising, but talk to Poles, Hungarians, Russians, Cambodians, or the people who fled North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba, and you will hear the same story of stagnation, poverty, and oppression.

This is one of those stories — another plea, from another victim of socialism, for other people in other countries not to make the Great Red Mistake.

I: MARCH 31, 2018

An account of the last hours of my mother’s life, culminating in an ill-fated visit to the Miguel Perez Carreño Hospital in Caracas — the same crumbling hospital she gave sixteen years of her professional career. From the lack of sanitation, water, supplies, the despair, both personal and witnessed, up to her death on the eve of Easter Sunday, 2018.

The ultimate, final consequence of socialist decadence.