Gustavo Machado

Born July 19, 1898, in Caracas. Figure in the Venezuelan and international labor movement.

In his youth, Machado participated in the student movement. Persecuted for his revolutionary activity, he was forced to emigrate. Machado lived in various countries in Europe and America. In 1925 he was involved in the communist movement in Cuba, and from 1926 to 1929, while in Mexico, he was general secretary of the Anti-imperialist League of America.

Machado returned to Venezuela and in 1931 joined the Communist Party of Venezuela (CPV). Since 1936 he has been a member of the Central Committee of the CPV. In 1945 he was elected a member of Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly; in 1947-48, from 1958 to 1963, and since 1968 he has been a deputy to the national congress. Since 1946, Machado has been a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPV, and from 1958 to 1970 he served as national secretary of the Central Committee of the CPV. Machado was in prison from 1963 to 1968. Since 1969 he has been director of the newspaper Tribuna popular (the central organ of the Central Committee of the CPV), and since 1971 he has been chairman of the Central Committee of the CPV. For his revolutionary activity Machado has been repeatedly arrested and exiled from his country. In 1973 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR awarded him the Order of Friendship of Peoples.