That's a good question, Andrea, and although I know a fair amount about Chavez and Venezuela, I don't know if I can accurately answer. My impression is that Chavez is a very close idealogical cousin of Fidel. On the other hand, he has gone about seeding his revolution in a more intelligent and less radical way than Fidel did. I think there has been much less overt persecution of the opposition in Venezuela than Cuba.
However, the Venezuelan state has significantly greater power and wealth than does/did Cuba. Since a large majority of the "good" jobs are concentrated in the pulic sector, Chavez has moved to slowly bring major industries under control of the state. There, as in the example about forced attendance at political rallies for PdVSA employees last year, the real insidious fascism begins.
Chavez hasn't moved against private property with nearly the zeal that did Castro, and I think his policies are more generally socialist than communist. However, he's going down a road [excessive state control of the economy] that is pretty well guaranteed to fail. Given his tendency to blame failure on the opposition and with the current treatment of the opposition, I'm not encouraged about where things will end up.
The great saving grace today is $60-$70 per barrel oil. When Chavez took power, oil was below $20 per barrel. That's what the previous government had to work with. For all the "progress" that Chavez shows, I'm fairly certain that a much greater level of job growth and income elevation could have been achieved with a more standard economic policy. Were it me, I would have kept/initiated some of the reforms that Chavez instituted such as: expanded funding for the schools (less the indoctrinating Cuban educators), expanded funding for health care, and government loans for small business start-ups. I think these have been moderately successful.
Chavez has made pretty much no impact on corruption in the country. As we import/export catalysts and analytical equipment to/from the country, I can attest that things have actually gone backwards at the ports. Security is considerably worse in the country, which is not a good sign for overall economic prosperity. Security in the Colombian border region has gotten much worse, and most in the area fault Chavez's idealogical sympathy with Marxist rebels of the region.
Most worryingly, he got his rubber stamp Congress to grant him six months of near total powers last year. Under this guise, he was able to rule by decree, in certain areas. Imagine if you were Verizon. They bought into a moribund Venezuelan state-owned telecom years ago. The service was so bad that a typical monthly telephone bill was around 25% higher than in the US (dollar per dollar), and yet the service was so awful that a majority of Venezuelans opted for cel phones long before they were all the rage here. Verizon spent a ton of money and know-how improving the system, and by about year 2000, the service was more or less on par with other industrialized nations. Last year, under is power of decree, Chavez simply took away their share with a payment that in no way covers the actual value of what Verizon put it. I'd rate this sort of "nationalism" as actually being a kind of theft. This is the same reason why ExxonMobil hasn't reached an agreement on oil field takeovers. Other companies have simply decided to cut their losses and take whatever is offered. The actions won't cripple these industries, but they haven't really helped with job creation in key areas of the economy.
The current fear is that he'll again use the rubber stamp Congress to authorize a constitutional ammendment permitting him to run for a third six year term in office. I think as long as he DOESN'T do that, he really can't be put in the dictator category with Castro. If he does push through said ammendment, then I think it's reasonable to conclude that his ego outsizes his willingness to contribute to Venezuela's well-being.
