Gustavo Machado: Example of Courage and Justice (+Sowing)

On July 17, 1983, Gustavo Machado, one of the founders and emblems of Venezuelan communism, died. Despite coming from a wealthy family, which belonged to the Caracas oligarchy, from an early age he was already part of epic days of struggle for freedom and social justice.

He was born in Caracas on July 19, 1898. During his high school studies, he participated in days of protest against the tyranny of Juan Vicente Gómez, as leader of the General Student Association, he was appointed speaker at the main event of February 12, 1914, on the occasion of the centenary of the Battle of La Victoria.

In 1919, he participated in the failed insurrectional movement of Captain Luis R. Pimentel, which led him to face his first exile as a result of Gomecist persecution. On board a rock, he heads to Curaçao and from there to the United States.

In 1920 he moved to France where he came into contact with the main tool of struggle of the world working class: Marxism-Leninism; and he attended the founding of the French Communist Party (PCF) in December 1920.

In 1963, the Betancourt government raided several houses of revolutionaries and imprisoned Gustavo Machado until 1968. After regaining his freedom, he exercised parliamentary responsibilities, which he combined with the leadership of the newspaper Tribuna Popular, a pioneer of leftist journalism.

Machado is an example that endures over time, because he never renounced his ideals of struggle, his internationalism, his love for peoples, his love for rural and urban workers, he never abandoned the communist perspective. Like other revolutionaries, he renounced the wealth of his cradle and died humble, but loved by women and men who fought for the country and socialism.

Mazo News Team