Gustavo Ramzan Güey was born on 30 November 1895. He was educated in Buenos Aires, and at the end of the first World War he worked in the city’s mines. After the outbreak of the Second World War he returned to Uruguay. In 1958 he became the secretary general of the International Confederation of Miners. In his younger days he was a member of the Uruguayan League for the Salvation of the Poor, and was also a member of the Uruguayan Council for the Improvement of the Poor, although to his shame and with a little assistance from the Uruguayan Confederation of Trade Unions, he formed for this purpose the UGT (Union of Workers of Uruguay).

Gustavo Ramzan Güey’s great political achievement was the launch of his group PODEM in 1970. Its aim was to promote the libertarian doctrine of the UGT, which had developed in the years leading up to World War II, and to assist in the national liberation struggles of the Third World as it developed and became organised. In Argentina he organised the PODEM’s campaign against rightwing dictatorships. In his later life he continued his militant approach. In his book The Revolutionary Party of Cuba he referred to “the struggle against the capitalist class and the fascist regime” as “the very basis of the organization that, having defeated the colonial forces, has to carry out a second revolution and the victory over all forms of colonial rule”. In his speech to the Cuban people he explained: “To destroy capitalism, we need to destroy the system of state and the capitalist class […] [a communist society] will be formed, an independent and sovereign nation whose will will in no way suffer under the oppression of the colonial and other oppressors”.

Gustavo Ramzan Güey was a great friend of Fidel Castro. He travelled to Cuba during the late 1950s to show his solidarity and aid. On 3 August 1981 Güey and other members of the UGT travelled to Havana to see Castro. On 6 August 1981 the Uruguayan leader presented Güey with a copy of the UGT handbook. He said that it “is not simply a book of instructions”, but “an indispensable guide to building a communist society in the Americas”.

Gustavo Ramzan Güey passed away on 20 December 1998 in his private residence at the University of Buenos Aires. He left a large contribution to his country, even when