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The Venezuelan Left in the Era of the Popular Front, 1936–45

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Steven Ellner
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Extract

The Comintern's adoption of the popular front strategy in August 1935 marked a new stage in the history of world Communism which lasted until the end of World War II. Communist leaders embarked on this course in the hope of isolating the fascist movement which was then in the ascendant throughout the world. Their strategy was to create coalitions (‘popular fronts’) of progressive groupings on the basis of a reformist program and anti-fascist rhetoric. This conciliatory position towards the rest of the left represented a sharp departure from the policy of previous years when Communists frequently denounced their leftist rivals as ‘ social fascists’.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , May 1979 , pp. 169 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

1 McKenzie, Kermit E., Comintern and Western Revolution, 1928–1943 (New York, 1964), pp. 140–63.Google Scholar

2 Libro Rojo del General López Contreras (Caracas, 1975), p. 141.Google Scholar

3 Gustavo Machado (PCV Central Committee), private interview, 2, July 1976. All interviews took place in Caracas unless stated otherwise; following the name of the interviewee is his party affiliation and position during the 1936–45 period.

4 El Martillo (underground newspaper), Mar. 1938, p. 8; Aug. 1938, p. 2.

5 Rodolfo Quintero (President, Unión Popular Venezolana), private interview, 28 Apr. 1976.

6 Biblioreca de Documenios Históricos; Aportes a la Historia del PCV (Maracaibo, n.p.,1971), p. 46; Eduardo Machado (PCV Central Committee), private interview, 6 May 1976.

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10 Alexander, op. cit., pp. 27–8.

11 Aquí Está, 16 09. 1942, p. 6; Ricardo Martínez (Member of Secretariat of Political Bureau of PCV), private interview, 3 May 1976.

12 Aquí Estál, 7 Oct. 1942, p. 6.

13 El Heraldo (Caracas), 24 Oct. 1944, p. 8; 25 Oct. 1944, p. 8.

14 Partido Comunista de Venezuela, ‘Informe del C.R.A.: La V Conferencia Regional de Ia Región Z’, (mimeographed, internal document), 1944 (?), Zulia, p. 13.

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37 José Marcano, private interview, 2 June 1976. Andrés Eloy Blanco besides being a leading member of AD, was one of Venezuela's most celebrated poets until his untimely death in 1955.Google Scholar

38 Aquí Esiál, 26 May 1942, p. 6.Google Scholar

39 Pedro Bernardo Pérez Salinas (AD's Director of Labor and Agriculture), private interview, 27 Nov. 1975.Google Scholar

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43 The three major AD schisms of the 1960S resulted in the formation of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) in 1960, ARS in 1962, and the Movimiento Electoral del Pueblo (MEP) in 1967. Many of those belonging to the anti-betancourtista tendency during the 1940s became leading members of these parties. General Histories of Accián Democrática include: Alexander, Robert Jackson, The Venezuelan Democratic Revolution (New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers Univ. Press, 1964);Google ScholarCastillo, Ruben Carpio, Accidn Democrática, 1941– 1971 (Caracas, 1971);Google ScholarMartz, John, Accián Democrática (Princeton, N.J., Princeton Univ. Press, 1966);CrossRefGoogle ScholarLevine, Dan, Conflict and Political Change in Venezuela (Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press, 1973).Google ScholarAD leaders deny that internal political tendencies afflicted the party from its outset and insist that the Cuban revolution was the earliest ideological antecedent of the splits of the 1960s. This assertion has influenced historians who have written on the party. In the works of Robert Jackson Alexander, Dan Levine and Ruben Carpio Castillo no mention is made of AD's internal differences during the popular front era, which would seem essential for any analysis of the factionalism of the 1960s. John Martz acknowledges that the party faced conflicting tendencies in the 1940s but fails to specify what they were. Martz, Accián Democrática, p. 175.Google Scholar

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