Alfredo Maneiro: Distinguished revolutionary and defender of just causes (+seeding)

He was born in Caracas, on January 30, 1937. From a very young age, he joined the communist youth, joining the fight against the military regime of Marcos Pérez Jiménez. In 1955, he began his higher law studies at the University of Zulia, leaving them unfinished. After the overthrow of dictator Pérez Jiménez in 1959, he returned to Caracas to continue his political activism, opposing the new president Romulo Betancourt, a former ally of the previous government.

This Venezuelan continued to exercise an anti-communist policy, which motivated Maneiro to start the armed struggle, managing to rise to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV). In addition, he led communist student groups in the early 1960s in order to overthrow Betancourt and his successor in the presidency, Raúl Leoni, and was involved in subversive activities such as the robbery of the car of the United States ambassador to Venezuela, Teodoro Moscoso, and the kidnapping of the American military attaché for propaganda purposes.

In 1962, the Manuel Ponte Rodríguez Guerrilla Front was created in the east of the country and assumed its leadership under the name of Commander Tomás; guerrilla action continued on the part of the Communist Party until mid-1966, which decided to pacify itself. Then there would be years of ideological dispute, beginning a fragmentation of the Venezuelan leftist movement. Maneiro actively participated as one of the dissidents of the PCV, which culminated in the division of the party in 1971, but unlike most revisionist sectors, he did not join the leadership of the Movement for Socialism (MAS).

After leaving his years as a guerrilla fighter and due to the breakdown of the Communist Party in 1972, he joined the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) where he began studying philosophy, obtaining his degree in 1977. In parallel with his studies, he led a political work that resulted in the creation of the former left-wing organization called “Cause R”.

Also in 1971, he wrote one of the most lucid documents ever written on the subject of revolutionary organization: “Notes on Organization and Politics”. Without a doubt, it is an extraordinary contribution of Venezuelan revolutionaries to the historical debate about the form of the party. This is the document in which Maneiro develops the concepts of political effectiveness and revolutionary quality.

Mazo News Team