Communist Party of Ecuador

(CPE, Partido Comunista del Ecuador), founded in September 1925 as the Lenin Communist Propaganda and Action Section; in 1926, with other Marxist groups, uniting to form the Socialist Party of Ecuador, which resolved at its founding congress in May 1926 to join the Comintern (admitted in 1928, considered by the CPE leadership to be the date of the party’s founding). In 1931 the party was renamed the Communist Party of Ecuador. R. Ramos Pedrueza was among the most active in founding and organizing the party.

From the moment it was founded, the CPE fought vigorously for Ecuador’s national interests. In May 1944, Communists became part of the government that was formed after a victorious popular uprising in Guayaquil. However, the Communists were soon pushed out of the government under the pressure of rightist forces. In 1944 the CPE took the initiative in setting up the Confederation of Ecuadorian Workers, the Ecuador Indian Federation, and the Federation of University Students of Ecuador. The Sixth Congress (May 1957), which adopted the program and rules of the party, became an important landmark in the history of the communist movement in Ecuador.

The national liberation revolution in Ecuador was the center of deliberations at the Seventh Congress of the CPE (March 1962). It was resolved that the party would make use of all forms of struggle; the resolution emphasized the need to unite all progressive forces in the struggle for the country’s political and economic independence. The congress also adopted a new party program and rules. In 1963 the party expelled the adventurist elements that had been a source of divisiveness since late 1962.

The CPE was outlawed and brutally persecuted during the period of military dictatorship (1963–66). Emerging from the underground, the party continued its struggle to create a united front of the country’s democratic forces in order to realize the goals of a national liberation revolution. The Eighth Congress of the CPE, which was held legally in August 1968, adopted a new program and party rules and elected a new Central Committee.

Delegations of the CPE attended the international Conferences of Communist and Workers’ Parties in Moscow in 1957, 1960, and 1969, and the party approved the documents adopted.

The supreme body of the CPE is the Congress. Between congresses the party’s highest body is the Central Committee, which selects the Executive Committee and Secretariat from among its members. P. A. Saad is secretary general. The party’s central organ is the newspaper El Pueblo. (See Table 1 for a list of the congresses of the CPE.)