Ramtin Arablouei and Randa Abdel-Fattah

Instead, he funneled all of it into these parallel institutions that spanned everything from media to NGOs, universities, healthcare.

So there was basically two of everything.

It was this mix of socialism and rampant consumerism.

Point is, thanks to the oil boom, from 2005 to 2012, Venezuela was in a golden age.

People had more to eat, more money in their pockets, better health care.

Meanwhile, Chavez became more and more drawn to a Pan-American vision.

Like Bolívar, he started to see the endgame as a united South America.

He reached out to leaders throughout the region, openly criticized the United States, who he saw as an obstacle because of its tendency to meddle, and stopped internal production in Venezuela, instead importing products from other countries in Latin America to boost their economies.

That decision was an ideological one that derives directly from this Bolivarian vision, but also an economic one that's based on the idea that only united can we forge ahead as an independent Latin America.

And every week when Chavez went on TV and hosted his talk show, he pushed that vision, bringing people on like Rory Carroll, a foreigner, to use as a sort of stand-in for the world order that he hoped to overturn.

Plus, he made it seem like the money would never run out, like Venezuela would continue to be in this golden age forever.

So even as Chavez projected this confident image, the reality was way more complicated.

He still faced a lot of opposition, and all that money he was spending was really starting to add up.

The bubble was bound to burst sometime.

And that really, in a sense, was the story of Chavez's role, that he was a brilliant communicator, a master strategist, and a terrible manager.

They weren't saving for the rainy day, and when the rainy day hit, they were in very bad shape.

You have been witness to my efforts to establish freedom where tyranny previously reigned.

After facing years of opposition and stalled progress, Bolívar's vision of a united South America was fading.

The cost of the revolution had been really high.

But it turned out picking up the pieces of that revolution was just as hard.