the kidnapping of the governor of Curaçao, , by 250 men with the support of communists as Miguel Otero Silva, José Tomás Jiménez, and Guillermo Prince Lara. They plundered weapons, ammunition and the treasury of the island and hauled the governor Fruytier off to Venezuelan coasts on the stolen American ship Maracaibo. The revolutionaries landing at La Vela de Coro but were defeated by Gómez forces, and the raid ended in failure. After this failed raid Machado went into exile in Colombia with Urbina and others revolutionaries. On his return to Venezuela in 1935 he was imprisoned again, but was released on 14 February 1936 following popular pressure. Following a public declaration of communism in March 1936 he was expelled from Venezuela on 13 March 1937, returning to exile in Mexico. Machado returned to Venezuela again in 1944 and began distributing Mexican and Soviet films and explained plans of creating a Communist organization. Following the 1945 Venezuelan coup d'état, Machado was one of two Communists elected to the new Constituent Assembly in the 1946 election. He was a candidate in the 1947 presidential election for the Communist Party, receiving 3.3% of the vote, and was elected to the Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies in the 1947 elections. In 1948 he founded the newspaper Tribuna Popular, the daily of the Communist Party, and was its director until his death, with the exception of the periods 1951 to 1958 (due to exile) and 1963 to 1968 (due to imprisonment). After the 1948 Venezuelan coup d'état had brought to an end the three-year democratic period known as El Trienio Adeco he was imprisoned again in 1950, and expelled from the country in 1951. Following the restoration of democracy in 1958, Machado was elected to the Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies in the 1958 elections. On 30 September 1963, following the banning of the Communist Party of Venezuela by the government of Rómulo Betancourt, Machado was arrested. He was released in May 1968, and was again elected to the Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies in the 1968 elections and 1973 elections. After the Unión Para Avanzar (UPA) was renamed Communist Party of Venezuela in 1970, he was elected president of the party in 1971, and remained its president until 1983. A biography, Gustavo Machado: un caudillo prestado al comunismo (by José Agustín Catalá and Domingo Alberto Rangel) was published in 2001 by Ediciones Centauro. Another by Manuel