Organizers from the Venezuelan Labor Union breech the defenses of Royal Dutch Shell and spies of the Gómez regime to bring labor’s message to workers at the massive coastal oil refineries.

‘Venezuelan Workers Fight Imperialism’ by J.N. from The Daily Worker. Vol. 5 No. 70. March 23, 1928.

CURUCAO, Dutch West Indies. The steady growth of the colony of Venezuelan laborers, with the continued exploitation and maltreatment on part of the servile officials of the Royal Dutch interests, together with the intimadatory dealing of Venezuelan government spies, has created a strong rebellious feeling among workers. In response to the demand for organization, two accredited representatives of the Venezuelan Labor Union, an organization of exiled Venezuelan workers and opponents of the Gomez tyranny, have initiated a campaign among workers to organize resistance to Company and government intimidation.

Meetings were held, a group was organized, and much revolutionary literature was distributed. At the moment the Gomez consul became aware thru information of his spies, of activities of organized labor representatives. He planted spies in the hotel where they lived to steal the mail coming to them. In spite of threatening behavior of Gomez spies, Comrades Marrero and Nevarez continued their campaign among the workers.

The enthusiastic response on the part of workers was demonstrated, when on an afternoon, Comrade Marrero went out to the encampment for the sole purpose of taking some snapshots which would show the inhuman living conditions forced on the workers. Comrade Marrero reached the encampment at a moment when a shift of workers were leaving the refinery plants, he was approached by a few who began to question him, and express complaints against a document felicitating the tyrant General Gomez, which workers were forced to sign, on threat of losing jobs. The circle around Comrade Marrero grew from a few to 40, doubled in a few seconds, and Comrade Marrero was forced to mount a table and found himself facing an eager audience of about 500 workers. Marrero denounced the Gomez tyranny, espionage and persecutions, called on workers to sift out and punish spies, organize and refuse to sign any documents circulated by the consul, and to prepare for the approaching Revolution in Venezuela.

This spontaneous demonstration has aroused the ire of consul and his hirelings, and they set plans to counteract effect of demonstration. It became known that the consul intended on the following Sunday to go out to the encampment to defend tyranny and make effort to win good will of workers by free distribution of beer and other drinks. At the same time the consul commissioned his chief hireling, the spy Arias, to seek a way of getting rid of Venezuelan Labor Union representatives, Marrero and Nevarez.

That day workers notified in haste Morrero and Nevarez that Arias was coming with a squad of police, and urged them to go into hiding. Police arrived at the place frequented by the two trade union leaders and demanded their whereabouts. Arias demanded of the police that they find Marrero and turn him over to him to take him to Maracaibo, as a prize for torture chamber. Against Nevarez he framed the absurd charge of carrying weapons with intent to kill him.

The police, aided by spies, spread the search, determined to take advantage of closed courts and tribunals on Sunday. As the danger of being discovered increased, Marrero and Nevarez were hurried off by automobile to the encampment where, among the Venezuelan workers, they found safety from capture.

Arriving at the encampment they found workers equipped with bottles, knives, etc. waiting for the reception of the consul, who failed to show up. The sought comrades remained on the encampment till the next day when the ships were gone. Nevarez on learning of the charge lodged against him, submitted himself to the police, but was told that the charge was “withdrawn.”

Thus were frustrated the attempts of enemies of workers to shanghai and frame organizers. The message of organization, disseminated among Venezuelan workers in Curacao, has broken thru the spy and gendarme guarded coast of Venezuela, and has reached the workers within Venezuela. The tyranny of Gomez is tottering, and it is but a question of days when the workers of Venezuela, freed from the chain gangs, and torture chambers, will with renewed efforts unite with the rest of Latin-American working class to carry on the struggle against their British-American imperialist exploiters.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n070-NY-mar-23-1928-DW-LOC.pdf