Gómez, Eugenio (1890–1963)

Eugenio Gómez (b. 1890; d. 1963), leader of the Uruguayan Communist Party. As a barber in Montevideo he came into contact with the labor movement and joined the port workers' Federación Obrera Marítima (Maritime Workers Federation) and the Partido Socialista del Uruguay (Socialist Party—PSU), led by Emílio Frugoni. During the debate about PSU membership in the Third International and subscription to its twenty-one conditions (1920), Gómez, Celestino Mibelli, and Rodríguez Saraillé led the majority faction favoring acceptance. After a special party conference held on 16-18 April 1921, the PSU changed its name to Partido Comunista del Uruguay (PCU). Frugoni and his minority faction reestablished the PSU in 1923.

From 1921 to 1955 Gómez headed the party executive committee, serving as its general secretary from the time of party proscription during the dictatorship of Gabriel Terra (1937). Under his leadership the PCU became one of the most active promoters of Uruguayan solidarity with the Spanish Republic and the Anti-Nazi Action, and achieved its best election results in 1946.

Gómez was deputy from 1942 to 1946 and was a member of the parliamentary Special Commission on Working Conditions in Uruguay. After 1946 his leadership was characterized by an increasing loss of popularity due to personality cult and power abuse. In 1955 PCU membership stood at about 5,000.

See alsoTerra, Gabriel; Uruguay, Political Parties: Socialist Party.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Eugenio Gómez, Los intelectuales del Partido Comunista (1945), Historia del Partido Comunista del Uruguay hasta 1951 (1951), and Historia de una traición (1960).

Philip B. Taylor, Government and Politics of Uruguay (1966).

Rodney Arismendi, Ocho corazones latiendo (1987).

Rodney Arismendi et al. El partido: 68 aniversario del PCU (1955).

                                      Dieter Schonebohm