Both were cunning Communist dictators; they died on the same day. And it's well known that Chavez admired Stalin. I guess the latter appeared to him as a ghost and invited him down to the underworld to celebrate his birthday. Chavez died too young to begin the purges and mass show trials. Was Hugo Chavez a hologram of Joseph Stalin? Did Hugo Chavez channel Joseph Stalin in ruling Venezuela with an iron hand and did that lead to him even dying on March 5, the 60th anniversary of the Russian strongmanâs death? While Chavez fashioned himself after the 19th Century independence leader Simon Bolivar, a stronger argument perhaps can be made that the socialism he introduced into Venezuela closely imitated the socialism of the old Soviet Union. Who knows why Hugo Chavez would have chosen to imitate Stalin other than his three-decade hold on power, leading the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953? Hugo Chavez and Joseph Stalin equally polarizing Stalin is hailed by Communists with leading them to victory in World War II, but others condemn him for the brutal purges that murdered millions. Chavezâs rule was only a third as long but equally as polarizing. It says enough of Chavezâs socialism that as he tried to stave off death from cancer, he chose to be near Fidel Castro in Havana and a treatment that The American Spectator compared to âacupuncture and leeches and snake-handling to the 21st-century healthcare widely available anywhere in the West.â Chavez and Stalin mourned in Hollywood Fittingly, in a world obsessed with celebrity, Stalin and Chavez even had their own hot dog in Hollywood. When Stalin died, the actor Paul Robeson recalled seeing the man he called âthe great Stalinâ once enter the Bolshoi Theater. âI remember the tears began to quietly flow,â he said, âand I too smiled and waved. Here was clearly a man who seemed to embrace all.â âSo kindlyâI can never forget that warm feeling of kindliness and also a feeling of sureness. Here was one who was wise and goodâthe world and especially the socialist world was fortunate indeed to have his daily guidance.â Similarly, with Chavezâs passing came the overblown rhetoric from the Hugo Chavez of his craft, Sean Penn. âToday the people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had,â Penn said in a a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. âAnd poor people around the world lost a champion.â âI lost a friend I was blessed to have. My thoughts are with the family of President Chavez and the people of Venezuela.â And perhaps one day, Venezuelans will even remember Chavez the way some Russians do Stalin. On the 60th anniversary of Stalinâs death, some of his countrymen laid flowers at his tomb in Moscow. And like Stalin, Chavez during his rule proved to be no friend to the Roman Catholic Church, giving rise to a sense of relief expressed after his death by the Vaticanâs faithful. âChavez leaves his country poorer than when he assumed power and much less free,â wrote The American Catholic. âEconomically he was a disaster for Venezuela because while he was a master at taking and keeping political power in Venezuela, he was completely clueless as to how to have a prosperous economy.â So tyrannical a rule, so humble a fall, and The American Catholicâs headline seemed to even dance happily on his grave, declaring: âHugo Chavez is Still Dead.â http://www.3news.co.nz/Venezuelan-f...havez/tabid/417/articleID/254547/Default.aspx