Communist Party of Uruguay
Communist Party of Uruguay Partido Comunista del Uruguay | |
|---|---|
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| Leader | Óscar Andrade |
| Founded | 21 September 1920 |
| Split from | Socialist Party of Uruguay |
| Headquarters | Fernández Crespo 2098, Montevideo, Uruguay |
| Youth wing | Union of Communist Youth (Uruguay) |
| Ideology | Communism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| National affiliation | Broad Front |
| Regional affiliation | São Paulo Forum |
| International affiliation | IMCWP[1] |
| Colors | Red, blue, white |
| Chamber of Deputies | 5 / 99 |
| Senate | 2 / 30 |
| Party flag | |
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| Website | |
| www | |
The Communist Party of Uruguay (Spanish: Partido Comunista del Uruguay, PCU) is a communist party in Uruguay, founded on 21 September 1920 by members of the Socialist Party who had endorsed the October Revolution and the Bolsheviks.
The current secretary-general of the PCU is Óscar Andrade. It is a member of the Broad Front coalition.
History
Establishment
In 1919, with the advent of the Communist International (Comintern) in Soviet Russia, left-wing members of the Partido Socialista del Uruguay (PSU; Socialist Party of Uruguay) began to agitate for their organization to affiliate with this new Third International.[2] A protracted period of debate ensued, with the leadership unwilling to accept the organization's 21 Conditions for affiliation adopted by the Comintern at its 2nd World Congress in 1920.[2] Despite a "substantial majority of delegates" at the PSU's 8th Congress in September 1920 seeking to affiliate, this leadership resistance proved decisive.[2]
An April 1921 extraordinary congress of the PSU took on the issue head-on, with the majority of delegates, headed by Eugenio Gómez, voting to affiliate with the Comintern and officially changing the name of the PSU to Partido Comunista del Uruguay (PCU, Communist Party of Uruguay).[2] The organization postdated the time of its birth back to September 1920, the date the majority's desire to join the Comintern was frustrated by the party leadership.[2]
Development
Prior to the 1970s, the PCU is the only communist organization in Latin America that was never formally banned by the government.[2] Outside of a period during the dictatorship of Gabriel Terra during the 1930s, the party has been regarded as a regular participant in Uruguayan politics and accorded free participation in elections — regularly electing some of its candidates to the national congress.[2]
With Uruguay ruled for years by the center-left Colorado Party, which periodically cooperated with the reorganized Socialist Party of Uruguay, prospects for the Communist Party making a successful mass appeal to the country's poor was limited for much of the 20th century.[2]
Establishment of Leftist Liberation Front
In the aftermath of the successful Cuban Revolution of 1959, political horizons seemed to open for the PCU. In the summer of 1962 the PCU founded a mass organization known as Frente Izquierda del Leberación (FIDEL, Leftist Liberation Front).[3] This new organization, which included in addition to PCU members, adherents of other small radical organizations and left-wing students and non-party intellectuals, was met with some electoral success, garnering nearly twice the vote count typically achieved by the Communist Party in the elections of November 1962.[3] The group was successful in electing one seat in the Senate of Uruguay and three places in the Chamber of Representatives.[3]
Due to the country's complex electoral system, designed to limit the voting for minor party candidates, FIDEL did worse than expected in 1966, garnering less than 6 percent of the vote.[4] For 1971, FIDEL joined a new electoral alliance, the Frente Amplio (FA, Broad Front).[4]
The Broad Front, comprising 17 left-wing and anti-government political organizations, performed better in the national election of 1971, winning 18 percent of the vote and seating 18 of its members in the Chamber of Representatives and 5 more in the Senate.[4]
Prohibition during the Rightist dictatorship
On June 27, 1973, backed by the military, President Juan Bordaberry dissolved the democratically-elected congress by decree, using the presence of FA representatives as a pretext for the overturn of the constitutional order.[4] Without the faintest hint of irony, Bordaberry charged the FA elected officials with "criminal actions of conspiracy against the constitution" during his seizure of power.[4]
The Communist Party of Uruguay was officially banned on December 1, 1973, by the Right-wing dictatorship which had seized power in a June 1973 coup.[4] This marked the first time in the organization's history that it was banned by the government of Uruguay.[4] The organization remain prohibited until the restoration of civilian government and democracy.
With the PCU forced to conduct its activities in secret, subject to police repression, membership plummeted. Only approximately 5,000 members remained in the party's ranks at the time of the March 1, 1985, return of the country to democracy and the rule of law with the assumption of the presidency by Julio María Sanguinetti of the Colorado Party.[5]
Renewed participation in Broad Front
During the second half of the 1980s, the CPU resumed its participation in the Broad Front electoral group. This alliance gained 21 percent of the vote in the November 1989 elections, nearly half of which represented the PCU candidate list.[6]
The Broad Front became the largest party in the General Assembly of Uruguay in 1999 and became the government in 2004. The Broad Front's candidates for president were elected to office again in 2009 and 2014. None of these were members of the Communist Party of Uruguay, it is worthy of note.
The Broad Front remains the largest party in the country and its candidate for president, Yamandú Orsi, was elected in October 2024 with 52% of the vote.
Party structure
The PCU worked from a national headquarters to oversee provincial subdivisions in each of the country's 19 territorial departments.[7] Before the repression of 1973, the party was governed by a Central Committee consisting of 48 regular members and 27 alternates.[7] Day-to-day operations were handed by a secretariat with a membership of 5.[7]
The party maintained a youth section, Unión de la Juventud Comunista (UJC, Union of Communist Youth), which claimed a membership of 22,000 at the time of the December 1973 coup.[7]
The party also maintained an active role in the leadership of the Uruguayan trade union movement, with several party members serving as top officials of the Convención Nacional de Trabajadores (CNT, National Convention of Workers).[7] The CNT called a general strike in June 1973 in protest of the government's suspension of the constitution, only to be met on June 30 with a ban, forcing the organization into an underground ineffectuality.[7]
After the December 1, 1973, ban on all Marxist parties, the PCU went into hiding, conducting its activities secretively. PCU First Secretary Rodney Arismendi took up residence in the home of a university professor, from which he directed organizational operations until his arrest on May 4, 1974.[7]
According to American State Department estimates, the membership of the PCU in 1965 stood at approximately 10,000.[8] Party membership took a hit with the country's turn to military dictatorship in 1973, with the PCU emerging with just 5,000 members when democracy was finally restored in 1985.[5] Membership recovered with the end of repression and underground operations, however, with the PCU counting 27,000 members by 1989.[9]
Publications
In addition to books and pamphlet literature, the PCU published a daily newspaper, El Popular (The Peoples’), and a theoretical monthly magazine, Estudios (Studies).[3] Both of these publications were outlawed by the government and did not publish during 1974.[10] In March 1974, an underground weekly called Carta Semanal del Partido Comunistsa (Weekly Letter of the Communist Party) was issued, but its actual publication schedule was irregular and its circulation naturally limited.[10]
Party congresses
| Name | Organization | Date |
|---|---|---|
| 8th Congress | PSU | September 1920 |
| 6th Extraordinary Congress | PSU | April 1921 |
| 7th Extraordinary Congress | PCU | July 1921 |
| 8th Extraordinary Congress | PCU | October 1923 |
| 9th Congress | PCU | December 1924 |
| 10th Congress | PCU | July 1927 |
| 11th Congress | PCU | 1930 |
| 12th Congress | PCU | January 1938 |
| 13th Congress | PCU | March 1940 |
| Extraordinary Congress | PCU | August 1941 |
| 14th Congress | PCU | April 1944 |
| 15th Congress | PCU | May 1950 |
| 16th Congress | PCU | August–Sept. 1955 |
| 17th Congress | PCU | August 1958 |
| 18th Congress | PCU | June–July 1962 |
| 19th Congress | PCU | August 1966 |
| 20th Congress | PCU | December 1970 |
| 21st Congress | PCU | December 1988 |
| 22nd Congress | PCU | October 1990 |
| 23rd Congress | PCU | |
| 24th Congress | PCU | June 1996 |
| 25th Congress | PCU | November 1998 |
| 26th Congress | PCU | December 2001 |
| 27th Congress | PCU | |
| 28th Congress | PCU | October 2008 |
| 29th Congress | PCU | December 2010 |
| 30th Congress | PCU | December 2013 |
| 31st Congress | PCU | June 2017 |
| 32nd Congress | PCU | May 2022 |
| 33rd Congress | PCU | December 2025 |
Secretaries-general
| No. | Name | Term | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start | End | ||
| 1 | Eugenio Gómez | 1920 | 1955 |
| 2 | Rodney Arismendi | 1955 | 1973 |
| 3 | Jaime Pérez (clandestine during the dictatorship) | 1973 | 1974 |
| 4 | José Luis Massera (clandestine during the dictatorship) | 1974 | 1975 |
| 5 | Gerardo Cuesta (clandestine during the dictatorship) | 1975 | 1976 |
| 6 | León Lev (clandestine during the dictatorship) | 1976 | 1979 |
| 7 | José Pacella (clandestine during the dictatorship) | 1979 | 1981 |
| 8 | Ramón Cabrera (clandestine during the dictatorship) | 1981 | 1985 |
| 9 | Rodney Arismendi | 1985 | 1988 |
| 10 | Jaime Pérez | 1988 | 1992 |
| 11 | Marina Arismendi | 1992 | 2006 |
| 12 | Eduardo Lorier | 2006 | 2017 |
| 13 | Juan Castillo | 2017 | 2025 |
| 14 | Óscar Andrade[11] | 2025 | Current |
References
- ↑ "Communist and Workers' Parties". SolidNet. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Rollie E. Poppino, "Uruguay," in Witold S. Sworakowki (ed.), World Communism: A Handbook, 1918–1965. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1973; p. 472.
- 1 2 3 4 Poppino, "Uruguay," p. 473.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Marvin Alisky, "Uruguay," in Richard F. Staar (ed.), Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1975. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1975; p. 566.
- 1 2 Weinstein, "Uruguay," pp. 123–124.
- ↑ Martin Weinstein, "Uruguay," in Richard F. Staar (ed.), 1991 Yearbook on International Communist Affairs. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1991; p. 123.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Alisky, "Uruguay," p. 567.
- ↑ US Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, World Strength of the Communist Party Organizations. 18th Annual Report. Washington, DC: GPO, 1966, p. 180.
- ↑ Weinstein, "Uruguay," p. 124.
- 1 2 Alisky, "Uruguay," p. 569.
- ↑ "Uruguay: Oscar Andrade elected PCU General Secretary - Prensa Latina". 21 December 2025. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
Further reading
- Victor Alba, Historia del comunismo en América Latina. Mexico City: Ediciones Occidentales, 1954.
- Robert J. Alexander, Communism in Latin America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1957.
- Eugenio Gómez, Historia del Partido comunista del Uruguay: Hasta el año 1951. Montevideo, Uruguay: Editorial Elite, 1961.
- Rollie E. Poppino, International Communism in Latin America: A History of the Movement, 1917–1963. New York: Free Press, 1964.
External links
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