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The Colombian Communist Party has been waging a continuous
guerrilla war against the Colombian state for many years now. It occupies a
large section of Colombian territory. Its main source of income is agriculture
--monocultural farming in the form of cocaine production.
Its negotiations with the Pastriana regime would seem to
indicate that it is prepared to collaborate with the Colombian bourgeoisie and
indirectly with imperialism. It the difficulty merely boils down to the price
and conditions at which they are prepared to collaborate.Given this fact the
military struggle of the FARC cannot be regarded as in any way a revolutionary
struggle. Instead it is a reformist guerrilla campaign designed to achieve a
reform in the political situation in Colombia.
FARC"s guerrilla campaign is merely another form of
reformism, In this sense it is no different to any traditional social democratic
party. The FARC guerrilla campaign presents revolutionary image with all the
romantic revolutionary connotations that guerillism has. However in substance it
is a reactionary campaign that sows illusions in the masses concerning the
nature of capitalism in Columbia.Castro's 26th of July movement had a distinctly
reformist or liberal character to it too. However there was at least one more
radical element within it in the form of the Che Guevara faction. However when
Castro won power he was forced by the specific objective circumstances to
radicalise his politics and policies.
It would be interesting to establish how the FARC got going.
Was the original guerrilla war a spontaneous affair among the revolutionary
peasantry which was eventually taken over and controlled by the Communist Party?
In that way did the Communist Party through FARC contain a peasant uprising and
in that way engage in a form of invisible collaboration with the bourgeoisie? I
would find it difficult to believe that the Communist Party initiated the
guerrilla campaign.
I found Louis' suggestion that the social contradictions are
the source of the conflict interesting. His conclusion that any attempts
to achieve political and social stability in the absence of a corresponding
resolution of the objective contradictions equally interesting. However this
same conception could apply to northern Ireland in relation to the peace
process. The cobbling together of a stability package in the long run, according
to Louis conception, is hardly going to achieve stability in the long run is the
social contradictions in northern Ireland are not resolved.
Warm regards
George Pennefather Be free to check out our Communist Think-Tank web site
at
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~beprepared/ |