Juan Bautista Fuenmayor Rivera (28 September 1905 – 19 May 1998) was a Venezuelan politician, lawyer, university professor and historian. He was general secretary of the Communist Party of Venezuela (1937–1946) and rector of the University of Santa María University (1977–1989).

Biography

In 1925, he began his studies at the Faculty of Law of the

Central University of Venezuela The Central University of Venezuela (Spanish: ''Universidad Central de Venezuela''; UCV) is a public university of Venezuela located in Caracas. It is widely held to be the highest ranking institution in the country, and it also ranks 18th in ...

. Three years later, in February 1928, he participated in the student protests against the dictatorship of

Juan Vicente Gómez Juan Vicente Gómez Chacón (24 July 1857 – 17 December 1935) was a Venezuelan military general, Politician and ruler of Venezuela from 1908 until his death in 1935. He was president on three occasions during this time, ruling through puppe ...

, being a member of the Generation of 28 student movement. In 1931 Fuenmayor participated in the constitution of the first clandestine cell of the

Communist Party of Venezuela The Communist Party of Venezuela ( es, Partido Comunista de Venezuela, PCV) is a communist party and the oldest continuously existing party in Venezuela. It was the main leftist political party in Venezuela from its foundation in 1931 until its ...

(PCV). After spending several years in the prisons, he was exiled to Colombia, and was an activist of the communist party of that country during 1935 . When the government of

Eleazar López Contreras José Eleazar López Contreras (5 May 1883 – 2 January 1973) was the president of Venezuela between 1935 and 1941. He was an army general and one of Juan Vicente Gómez's collaborators, serving as his War Minister from 1931. In 1939, López C ...

began, he returned to Venezuela and dedicated himself to the reorganization of the PCV. He founded the first oil workers' unions in Venezuela and in December 1936 led the first general strike in the oil industry. He was elected Secretary General of the Communist Party by the First National Conference meeting clandestinely in Maracay, in August 1937. During his administration, Fuenmayor defended the existence of the PCV as an autonomous party of the working class, against Gustavo Machado who intended to dissolve it following the theses of Earl Browder Secretary General of the Communist Party USA. He also confronted the reformist politics of the Acción Democrática (AD) party led by

Rómulo Betancourt Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello (22 February 1908 – 28 September 1981; ), known as "The Father of Venezuelan Democracy", was the president of Venezuela, serving from 1945 to 1948 and again from 1959 to 1964, as well as leader of Acción De ...

. In 1945 the government of Isaías Medina Angarita legalized the PCV and Fuenmayor became a member of its Political Secretariat (1946–51). He represented the state of Zulia in the National Constituent Assembly that sanctioned the constitutional text of 1947, and as a deputy in the National Congress that met in 1948. In 1950 he opposed the participation of the communist labor movement in an insurrectionary oil strike promoted by AD against the military government supported by Britain. The Communist Party decided to participate in the strike and consequently it was outlawed. The leadership that committed the PCV to the alliance with AD, made up of

Pompeyo Márquez Pompeyo Ezequiel Márquez Millán (28 April 1922 – 21 June 2017) was a Venezuelan politician and former marxist guerrilla member in the 1960s. He was one of the founders of Movement for Socialism (Venezuela), Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), ...

, Gustavo Machado and others, resolved to expel Fuenmayor in April 1951. This same year he was taken prisoner by the military dictatorship and missed from his homeland the following year. Upon his return in 1958, he devoted himself to teaching and research at the Santa María University and published several books on economics, politics, philosophy of law and twenty volumes of History of Contemporary Political Venezuela, where he analyzes the events in which he participated. In 1977 he was elected Rector of the Universidad Santa María. Fuenmayor died in Los Teques, Venezuela, on May 19, 1998.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuenmayor, Juan Bautista 1905 births 1998 deaths Communist Party of Venezuela politicians Venezuelan communists 20th-century Venezuelan historians 20th-century Venezuelan lawyers Venezuelan academics Venezuelan Marxists Venezuelan atheists Members of the Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies Central University of Venezuela alumni Members of the Venezuelan Constituent Assembly of 1946