RICHARD GOTT, one of the British scholars who best understood Latin American politics and history, died on November 2 2025. He was 87 years old.

We Latin Americans got to know him for his strong, unwavering and decades-long commitment to the revolutionary struggles of the peoples of Latin America.

In fact, we learned a great deal about Latin America itself from his scholarship in the books and the hundreds of articles he wrote, and from the many erudite conferences he delivered at progressive events and rallies.

His sense of Latin American history could be appreciated in his Cuba: A New History, which begins in 1511, covering up to the year 2003, or his article “The First Revolutionary,” on the indigenous leader Tupac Amaru II who led an 18th-century rebellion against Spanish colonial domination in Peru.

His comprehensive charting of the guerilla movements that sprang up throughout Latin America in the 1960s after the Cuban Revolution (Guerilla Movements in Latin America) ranked as one of the best analyses on this topic when published in 1970. And on politics, how can one forget his fascinating talk on the revolutionary potential of sections of the Latin American military, prompted by the election of Comandante Hugo Chavez as president of Venezuela. 

Richard’s In the Shadow of the Liberator (2000), followed by a more comprehensive updated and expanded version in Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution (2005), was an in-depth analysis of the multifaceted and complex politics in Venezuela since Chavez’s rise to power. In writing them, he held several meetings directly with the Comandante himself.

His interest was followed by his masterful pieces on the Pink Tide that swept Latin America in the first two decades of the 20th century. And much more, of course.

However, Richard was not just a rigorous and interesting scholar, he was actively involved in politically supporting the causes and struggles in Latin America he wrote about.

He, from day one after the coup, was involved in solidarity with the anti-Pinochet struggle in Chile, thus on September 12 1973 he wrote “Bourgeois backlash in Chile.” He was, naturally, an active member of the Chile Solidarity Campaign. Furthermore, he was an active member and leader of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign.

He, for example, persistently wrote militant pieces in The Guardian, The London Review of Books and New Left Review (among the many outlets that published them) about Cuba and Venezuela, never mincing his words to defend their revolutions with titles such “Two fingers to America” (about Chavez’s attitude to the US), “Chavez economic lessons for Europe,” or “It’s time to let Cuba in from the Cold, and Obama is the perfect man to do it.”

He was acutely aware of the historical and contemporary realities of US imperialism but also of imperialism as a broader phenomenon, including British imperialism about which he penned Britain’s Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt (2011) whose scope is as broad as it is scolding of the horrors perpetrated by Perfidious Albion in its vast imperial dominions.

He was very unassuming, easy to have conversations with and very personable. He spoke perfect Chilean Spanish. He leaves a formidable and powerful intellectual and political legacy that will continue to illuminate the minds of future generations of cadre committed to build a better world. It is a big loss to Latin America and the world. 

Our hearts and condolences go to his family, relatives and friends.
¡Compañero Richard Gott, presente!

Francisco Dominguez is secretary of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign.