Following the meeting between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the leaders of 21st century socialism, I remembered the famous painting by Grigori Shegal dedicated to Joseph Stalin, graduate "Leader, teacher and friend". The piece reflects the extent to which ideology can become a substitute for religion. It shows the all-powerful leader of the Soviet Union attending with a paternal gesture to the workers under the statue of a quasi-divinized Lenin. Thus, turned into the high priest of Marxism-Leninism, Stalin consolidated the mythification of his figure for the sake of strictly political objectives.

Carl Schmitt, an intellectual who like Shegal was seduced by the mirage of Syracuse, argued that all the significant concepts of modern State theory are, in essence, "secularized theological concepts". Similar extrapolation can be applied to politics captured by ideology. Its theoretical columns are derivations of a theology of power, because they embrace eschatology and messianism as keys to theoretical interpretation. The figure of a mass driver Stalin who leads the proletariat in the pursuit of the united utopia illustrates well the transcendent zeal of systemic materialism, an ideological family that has survived the fall of the Berlin Wall and is undergoing a process of regeneration.

The socialism of the 21st century defends this class of political dogmas. Chavist Venezuela, Ecuadorian Correaism, Ortega's Sandinism and Evo Morales' indigenism belong to the same matrix of thought. Latin American populism, without ceasing to be a concrete style of public action, is rooted in a political culture prone to authoritarianism and the sacralization of the holders of power. This has been the case with all Latin caudillos, from Porfirio Díaz to Perón.

The cult of personality predates republics and is rooted in the great empires of the past. Bolivar republicanizes cultural deism and encourages it. The "oration of Pucará" recited by José Domingo Choquehuanca in honor of the Liberator denotes the profound messianism of our peoples: "God wanted to form a great empire out of savages; he created Manco Capac; his race sinned and launched Pizarro. After three centuries of exploitation, he has had pity on America and has sent you. You are, then, the man of a providential design".

That is why the close communion of objectives shared by 21st century socialism and theocratic Shiism is not at all surprising. The figure of the imamate, the absolutization of political truth, the artificial construction of external and internal enemies and the messianic character of the popular leader are common characteristics that bring the Chavist bloc and Iran ideologically closer. It is natural that pyramidal regimes that enjoy important backing based on clientelist networks and Cepalian strategies seek to build common barriers to the global crisis that threatens to expand.

While open societies must take into account the geopolitical objectives of the social-chiastic alliance, it is also necessary to introduce the appropriate incentives capable of improving the political culture of the region, a fundamental variable when explaining the institutional weakness that characterizes Latin democracies. That is the great challenge that we must face.