Communism in Colombia
Encyclopedia
The history of communism in Colombia goes back as far as the 1920s and has its roots in the idealism of the Russia
n October Revolution
. Today the guerrilla
groups, self-proclaimed as communists, state that they want to seize state power in Colombia
by violent means, and the organizations such as Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (FARC-EP) and the National Liberation Army
(ELN) still continue their four decades old war with the United States
-backed Colombian government. Many social science experts around the world who have studied the historical events in Colombia suggest the influence and intervention, as in many other South America
n countries, of the United States and of the Soviet Union
to stop or enhance, given the case, of communism in Colombia. Some important characters in the history of communism in Colombia are Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
, Jaime Pardo Leal
, Carlos Pizarro Leongómez
, Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa
, and Jaime Bateman Cayón
, among others. Many of these figures were persecuted or eventually assassinated under different circumstances. According to some critics, evidence of the involvement of members of the Colombian Army
and of United States organizations like the Central Intelligence Agency
was present in several of the cases.
for teaching and spreading the doctrine of communism
in Colombia. There were several bombs found in February 1928 and communists were blamed for plotting to blow up various private and public buildings on May 1, 1928 which is celebrated as Labor Day. Several communist leaders were blamed for the plot, such as Tomás Uribe Márquez who visited Russia 18 months before the incident. Other popular communists who were arrested for involvement in the plot were María Cano and Torres Giraldo. After this incident the press released news about some similar types of incidents happening throughout the country. This was the starting point in Colombian history of awareness of communists and their activities.
The United Fruit Company
(UFCO) was a politically powerful multinational
company that exported fruit such as bananas and pineapples mainly from Latin America
n banana-growing countries to the United States
and Europe
. UFCO workers on banana plantations in Colombia organized a labor strike in December 1928. The national labor union leaders Raúl Eduardo Mahecha and Maria Cano who traveled to the plantations to organize the strikes demanded that the workers be given written work contracts, that they be obligated to work no more than eight hours per day and six days per week, and that the company stop the use of “food coupons”, or scrip
. The union leaders were protesting at Santa Marta
, the capital of the Magdalena department
in the north of the country. The ruling Conservative government's President Miguel Abadia Mendez
sent troops led by General Carlos Cortés Vargas to capture the strike leaders, to send them to the prison at Cartagena, and to send additional troops to protect the economic interests of the United Fruit Company. Many United States citizens working for the United Fruit Company lived in the area around Santa Marta and U.S. warships carrying troops were on the way to Colombia to protect U.S. citizens and property. The Colombian army
also opened fire on people who gathered at the main plaza of the city of Ciénaga to support the strikers.
The popular Liberal Party leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
used the term "La Masacre de las Bananeras" to raise opposition among Colombian society against the massacre. After the massacre reports from the scene told of human skeletons and skulls freely displayed with bunches of bananas. The Liberal Party press criticized the brutality of the methods used to break the strike by the Colombian government.
There were many social reforms happened in their ruling period of 15 years and called it as “Revolution on the March”. The 1936 constitutional amendments gave the government to influence the privately owned economic interests. The rights of the labors were established such as 8 hours per day, 6 days per week and the pre-informed work strike. The Liberal government influenced by the communists thought the people's education is the most significant factor when taken into the consideration on every angle and they taken it into the government control from the influence of the Catholic Church. The petroleum industry is the wealth of the Colombians and they have right to get the benefit and they decided to taken the industry into the government control also the Colombian people were given the first preference of the workers in the industry. The low cost housing projects were launched for the low income labor class people. The inter departmental custom barriers were put into the trading. The other important economic factor was land reforms. The government was taken the excess land from the private land owners and distributed among the poor peasant people which increases the economic level of them and also increased the production of the agricultural sector.
The social revolution of the Communist influenced Liberals in Colombia could last only around 15 years. The second term of the president Alfonso López Pumarejo (1942–46) not completed due to the political pressure against him from several areas of the political field forced him to resigned his presidency. Then the beginning of the year 1946 the Conservatives came into power when the popular Jorge Eliécer Gaitán failed in his bid to become the Liberal party candidate, ran instead as an independent, thereby splitting the liberal vote and giving victory to Conservative candidate Mariano Ospina Perez (Mariano Ospina Perez 565,939 votes, Gabriel Turbay 441,199 votes, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán 358,957 votes).
leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
who represents the left wing of the party led the National Left-wing Revolutionary Union or UNIR (Unión de Izquierda Revolucionaria) and they organized protest movements against the Conservatives
reform policies which started a tension between the two parties.
The Jorge Gaitan was shot and killed about 01:15 p.m. on April 9, 1948 at Carrera Septima and Jimenez de Quesada in central Bogotá while the 9th Pan-American Conference started under the leadership of U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall
. The conference was organized to achieve the two major goals, the first one was to fight against the Communism in the American continent and the second one was to form the Organization of American States
(OAS) to strengthen the United States
economic and political influence throughout the region.
After the death of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, riots were started in Bogotá, the angry mob killed his murderer Juan Roa Sierra
and dragged his body in the streets of the way to presidential palace and hanged it publicly. The rioters took control of all the national radio stations in the city of Bogotá and the announcements were delivered against the conservative government of Mariano Ospina Pérez
. There were some bridges also blown up and it caused lack of food supply into the city. The airfields at Honda
, Cartago, Barrancabermeja
and Turbo
were also taken by the people. The rioters' slogan was Yankee imperialism wants to convert us into military and economic colonies, and we must fight in defense of Colombian society.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
. Today the guerrilla
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
groups, self-proclaimed as communists, state that they want to seize state power in Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
by violent means, and the organizations such as Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (FARC-EP) and the National Liberation Army
National Liberation Army (Colombia)
National Liberation Army is a revolutionary, avowed Marxist guerrilla group that has been operating in several regions of Colombia since 1964....
(ELN) still continue their four decades old war with the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-backed Colombian government. Many social science experts around the world who have studied the historical events in Colombia suggest the influence and intervention, as in many other South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
n countries, of the United States and of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to stop or enhance, given the case, of communism in Colombia. Some important characters in the history of communism in Colombia are Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala was a politician, a leader of a populist movement in Colombia, a former Education Minister and Labor Minister , mayor of Bogotá and one of the most charismatic leaders of the Liberal Party.He was assassinated during his second presidential campaign in 1948, setting off...
, Jaime Pardo Leal
Jaime Pardo Leal
Jaime Pardo Leal was the candidate of the Patriotic Union for the presidency of Colombia in the 1986 elections.Members of the Patriotic Union became the target of multiple death threats and assassination attempts...
, Carlos Pizarro Leongómez
Carlos Pizarro Leongómez
Carlos Pizarro Leongómez was the fourth commander of the Colombian guerrilla group 19th of April Movement . Pizarro later ran for president of Colombia after the demobilization of M-19 that transformed the group into the political party, M-19 Democratic Alliance...
, Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa
Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa
Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa was a Colombian politician member of the Colombian Communist Party...
, and Jaime Bateman Cayón
Jaime Bateman Cayón
Jaime Bateman Cayón aka el flaco "Skinny" or Pablo by his fellow guerrilleros was a Colombian guerrilla leader and both founder and commander of the 19th of April guerrilla movement.- Early years :Bateman grew up in an environment of social movements, his mother Clementina Cayón was an advocate...
, among others. Many of these figures were persecuted or eventually assassinated under different circumstances. According to some critics, evidence of the involvement of members of the Colombian Army
Colombian Army
The National Army of Colombia is the land military force of the government of Colombia and the largest service of the Colombian Armed Forces...
and of United States organizations like the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
was present in several of the cases.
Historical background
In July 1925 the Colombian government expelled Silvestre SavitskiSilvestre Savitski
Silvestre Savitski was a Russian communist, and pioneer in the Colombian socialist movement. Savitsky was a student in Moscow, when the Soviet government sent him to China to purchase foodgrains. However, Savitsky lost the money handed to him by the government playing roulette, and found himself in...
for teaching and spreading the doctrine of communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
in Colombia. There were several bombs found in February 1928 and communists were blamed for plotting to blow up various private and public buildings on May 1, 1928 which is celebrated as Labor Day. Several communist leaders were blamed for the plot, such as Tomás Uribe Márquez who visited Russia 18 months before the incident. Other popular communists who were arrested for involvement in the plot were María Cano and Torres Giraldo. After this incident the press released news about some similar types of incidents happening throughout the country. This was the starting point in Colombian history of awareness of communists and their activities.
The Banana Workers Massacre (1928-29)
- Also known as the Santa Marta MassacreSanta Marta MassacreThe Banana massacre, in Spanish, Matanza de las bananeras or Masacre de las bananeras was a massacre of workers for the United Fruit Company that occurred on December 6, 1928 in the town of Ciénaga near Santa Marta, Colombia...
.
The United Fruit Company
United Fruit Company
It had a deep and long-lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries. Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the...
(UFCO) was a politically powerful multinational
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
company that exported fruit such as bananas and pineapples mainly from Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n banana-growing countries to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. UFCO workers on banana plantations in Colombia organized a labor strike in December 1928. The national labor union leaders Raúl Eduardo Mahecha and Maria Cano who traveled to the plantations to organize the strikes demanded that the workers be given written work contracts, that they be obligated to work no more than eight hours per day and six days per week, and that the company stop the use of “food coupons”, or scrip
Scrip
Scrip is an American term for any substitute for currency which is not legal tender and is often a form of credit. Scrips were created as company payment of employees and also as a means of payment in times where regular money is unavailable, such as remote coal towns, military bases, ships on long...
. The union leaders were protesting at Santa Marta
Santa Marta
Santa Marta is the capital city of the Colombian department of Magdalena in the Caribbean Region. It was founded in July 29, 1525 by the Spanish conqueror Rodrigo de Bastidas, which makes it the oldest remaining city in Colombia...
, the capital of the Magdalena department
Magdalena Department
Magdalena is a department of Colombia, located to the north of the country by the Caribbean Sea. The capital of the Magdalena Department is Santa Marta and was named after the Magdalena River...
in the north of the country. The ruling Conservative government's President Miguel Abadia Mendez
Miguel Abadía Méndez
Miguel Abadía Méndez was the 17th President of Colombia . A Conservative party politician, Abadía was the last president of the period known as the Conservative Hegemony, running unopposed and forming a one party Cabinet.- Political career :Abadía, as a young lawyer, was a professor and MP...
sent troops led by General Carlos Cortés Vargas to capture the strike leaders, to send them to the prison at Cartagena, and to send additional troops to protect the economic interests of the United Fruit Company. Many United States citizens working for the United Fruit Company lived in the area around Santa Marta and U.S. warships carrying troops were on the way to Colombia to protect U.S. citizens and property. The Colombian army
Colombian Army
The National Army of Colombia is the land military force of the government of Colombia and the largest service of the Colombian Armed Forces...
also opened fire on people who gathered at the main plaza of the city of Ciénaga to support the strikers.
The popular Liberal Party leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala was a politician, a leader of a populist movement in Colombia, a former Education Minister and Labor Minister , mayor of Bogotá and one of the most charismatic leaders of the Liberal Party.He was assassinated during his second presidential campaign in 1948, setting off...
used the term "La Masacre de las Bananeras" to raise opposition among Colombian society against the massacre. After the massacre reports from the scene told of human skeletons and skulls freely displayed with bunches of bananas. The Liberal Party press criticized the brutality of the methods used to break the strike by the Colombian government.
The Liberal Revolution (1930-45)
The Liberals came into power in 1930 under the leadership of Enrique Olaya Herrera and the presidency of Alfonso López Pumarejo (1934–38). The people's uprising began after the UFCO banana workers massacre eventually brought the Liberals into power. The Colombian Communists also supported the Liberals and their social and economic issues brought into consideration by the government and acted positively.There were many social reforms happened in their ruling period of 15 years and called it as “Revolution on the March”. The 1936 constitutional amendments gave the government to influence the privately owned economic interests. The rights of the labors were established such as 8 hours per day, 6 days per week and the pre-informed work strike. The Liberal government influenced by the communists thought the people's education is the most significant factor when taken into the consideration on every angle and they taken it into the government control from the influence of the Catholic Church. The petroleum industry is the wealth of the Colombians and they have right to get the benefit and they decided to taken the industry into the government control also the Colombian people were given the first preference of the workers in the industry. The low cost housing projects were launched for the low income labor class people. The inter departmental custom barriers were put into the trading. The other important economic factor was land reforms. The government was taken the excess land from the private land owners and distributed among the poor peasant people which increases the economic level of them and also increased the production of the agricultural sector.
The social revolution of the Communist influenced Liberals in Colombia could last only around 15 years. The second term of the president Alfonso López Pumarejo (1942–46) not completed due to the political pressure against him from several areas of the political field forced him to resigned his presidency. Then the beginning of the year 1946 the Conservatives came into power when the popular Jorge Eliécer Gaitán failed in his bid to become the Liberal party candidate, ran instead as an independent, thereby splitting the liberal vote and giving victory to Conservative candidate Mariano Ospina Perez (Mariano Ospina Perez 565,939 votes, Gabriel Turbay 441,199 votes, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán 358,957 votes).
El Bogotazo (1948)
After taking the state power from Liberals in 1946, the Conservatives began to turned back the social revolution into the pre-1930s with the advice and support from the United States. The popular Colombian Liberal PartyColombian Liberal Party
The Colombian Liberal Party is a center-left party in Colombia that adheres to social democracy and social liberalism.The Party was founded in 1848 and, together with the Colombian Conservative Party, subsequently became one of the two main political forces in the country for over a century.After...
leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala was a politician, a leader of a populist movement in Colombia, a former Education Minister and Labor Minister , mayor of Bogotá and one of the most charismatic leaders of the Liberal Party.He was assassinated during his second presidential campaign in 1948, setting off...
who represents the left wing of the party led the National Left-wing Revolutionary Union or UNIR (Unión de Izquierda Revolucionaria) and they organized protest movements against the Conservatives
Colombian Conservative Party
The Colombian Conservative Party , is a conservative political party in Colombia. The party was unofficially founded by a group of Revolutionary Commoners during the Revolutionary War for Independence from the Spanish Monarchy and later formally established during the Greater Colombia...
reform policies which started a tension between the two parties.
The Jorge Gaitan was shot and killed about 01:15 p.m. on April 9, 1948 at Carrera Septima and Jimenez de Quesada in central Bogotá while the 9th Pan-American Conference started under the leadership of U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall
George Marshall
George Catlett Marshall was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense...
. The conference was organized to achieve the two major goals, the first one was to fight against the Communism in the American continent and the second one was to form the Organization of American States
Organization of American States
The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...
(OAS) to strengthen the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
economic and political influence throughout the region.
After the death of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, riots were started in Bogotá, the angry mob killed his murderer Juan Roa Sierra
Juan Roa Sierra
Juan Roa Sierra was a Colombian known for assassinating Colombian Liberal leader and presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on April 9, 1948. After he shot Gaitán three times, mortally wounding him, a mob chased him down and killed him...
and dragged his body in the streets of the way to presidential palace and hanged it publicly. The rioters took control of all the national radio stations in the city of Bogotá and the announcements were delivered against the conservative government of Mariano Ospina Pérez
Mariano Ospina Pérez
Luis Mariano Ospina Pérez was a Colombian engineer and political figure, member of the Colombian Conservative Party. He served as President of Colombia between 1946 and 1950.- Biographic data :...
. There were some bridges also blown up and it caused lack of food supply into the city. The airfields at Honda
Honda, Tolima
Honda is a town and municipality in the Tolima department of Colombia. The population of the municipality was 26,873 as of the 2005 census. Along with Líbano, Honda is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Líbano-Honda...
, Cartago, Barrancabermeja
Barrancabermeja
Barrancabermeja is a city and municipality in Santander Department, in northeastern Colombia. It is located on the banks of the Magdalena River in the Middle Magdalena region, 110 km west of Bucaramanga. Founded in 1536, Barrancabermeja is home of the biggest petroleum refinery in Colombia,...
and Turbo
Turbo, Colombia
Turbo is a port town in Antioquia Department, Colombia. It is located at around . It is located on the coast of Gulf of Urabá, 340 km. north from Medellín...
were also taken by the people. The rioters' slogan was Yankee imperialism wants to convert us into military and economic colonies, and we must fight in defense of Colombian society.
Notable communists of Colombia
- Manuel MarulandaManuel MarulandaPedro Antonio Marín Marín , known by his "nom de guerre" Manuel Marulanda Vélez, was the main leader of the FARC-EP...
- Jacobo ArenasJacobo ArenasJacobo Arenas was a Colombian guerrilla and ideological leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia . He was also one of the FARC figures involved in the organization and creation of the Patriotic Union political party in 1985...
- Raúl ReyesRaúl ReyesLuis Edgar Devia Silva , better known by his nom de guerre Raúl Reyes, was a Secretariat member, spokesperson, and advisor to the Southern Bloc of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-EP...
- Alfonso CanoAlfonso CanoGuillermo León Sáenz Vargas , more commonly known by his nom de guerre Alfonso Cano was the commander of the militant group known as Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia...
Communist organizations of Colombia
- National Liberation Army (Colombia)National Liberation Army (Colombia)National Liberation Army is a revolutionary, avowed Marxist guerrilla group that has been operating in several regions of Colombia since 1964....
- Revolutionary Armed Forces of ColombiaRevolutionary Armed Forces of ColombiaThe Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army is a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization based in Colombia which is involved in the ongoing Colombian armed conflict, currently involved in drug dealing and crimes against the civilians..FARC-EP is a peasant army which...
See also
- Colombian Communist PartyColombian Communist PartyThe Colombian Communist Party or PCC is the legal communist party of Colombia. It was founded in 1930, as the Colombian section of the Comintern...
- Manuel MarulandaManuel MarulandaPedro Antonio Marín Marín , known by his "nom de guerre" Manuel Marulanda Vélez, was the main leader of the FARC-EP...
- Marquetalia RepublicMarquetalia Republic"Marquetalia Republic" was a term used to unofficially refer to one of the enclaves in rural Colombia which communist peasant guerrillas held during the aftermath of "La Violencia"...
- Military History of the FARC-EPMilitary History of the FARC-EPThe Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia is a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization based in Colombia, which is involved in the ongoing Colombian armed conflict....
- Jorge Eliécer GaitánJorge Eliécer GaitánJorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala was a politician, a leader of a populist movement in Colombia, a former Education Minister and Labor Minister , mayor of Bogotá and one of the most charismatic leaders of the Liberal Party.He was assassinated during his second presidential campaign in 1948, setting off...
- Jacobo ArenasJacobo ArenasJacobo Arenas was a Colombian guerrilla and ideological leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia . He was also one of the FARC figures involved in the organization and creation of the Patriotic Union political party in 1985...
- National Liberation Army (ELN)National Liberation Army (Colombia)National Liberation Army is a revolutionary, avowed Marxist guerrilla group that has been operating in several regions of Colombia since 1964....
- Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP)Revolutionary Armed Forces of ColombiaThe Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army is a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization based in Colombia which is involved in the ongoing Colombian armed conflict, currently involved in drug dealing and crimes against the civilians..FARC-EP is a peasant army which...
- Socio-economic Structure of the FARC-EP