Gustavo Machado (politician)

Gustavo Machado Morales (19 July 1898 – 17 July 1983) was a Venezuelan politician and journalist, editor of the Communist Party of Venezuela's newspaper from 1948 to 1983 (with interruptions for exile and imprisonment) and President of the party from 1971 to 1983. As a leading Communist, he spent a substantial part of his life in exile or in prison. He was a founder member of the Venezuelan Revolutionary Party in February 1927, a forerunner of the Communist Party of Venezuela (founded in 1931). He was a member of the Generation of 1928 - activists opposing the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez. During the 1945-8 democratic period he was a member of the Constituent Assembly and a candidate in the 1947 presidential election for the Communist Party. He was elected to the Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies four times, serving there for fifteen years.