NOTES PREFACE 1
2 3
Some disregard Marxism-Leninism as a sufficient theory to facilitate radical social change; “The Leninist model has been so thoroughly discredited that it is difficult to see how anyone could revive it now or ever .… The collapse of the Soviet Union also marked the end of Marxist-Leninist revolution as a historical form” (Paige, 2003: 27). Forrest Hylton (2006: 6) referred to Colombia as Latin America’s “least understood and least studied” country, and emphasized the need to counter this unsettling “silence in English-language scholarship and public debate.” The term “ethnic groups” is employed to uphold anonymity. To name specific groups would partially divulge the socio-geographical locations visited.
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Works on the Latin American left have paid little attention to the contribution of the PCC (and less still to the FARC-EP), whose roots predate the Cuban revolution (see Hansen, 1972). Marx never promoted a “pure” urban industrial proletariat as the sole force of emancipatory struggle (Avineri, 1973: 112; see also Löwy, 1992; Burke III, 1988; Baranski and Short, 1985; Melloti, 1977; Bottomore, 1973). The term “dual economy” refers to a socioeconomic model where industrial commodity-based workers exist alongside agricultural subsistence/wage-laborers (see Vanden and Prevost, 2006: 158). Vast numbers were organized across urban and rural sectors during this period. By 1938, 83,000 unionists existed, with the agricultural sector almost entirely mobilized by the PCC (Weil et al, 1970: 425; see also Ross, 2006: 60). The Party supported a view that (urban and rural) members learn from each other and their differing socio-environmental conditions, which would be essential upon a revolutionary seizure of power (see Rochester, 1942). Eric B. Ross (2006: 60) noted that “by 1939, more than 150 peasant leagues had been formed; many affiliated with the Communist party, and many that persisted as guerrilla groups in the early 1960s and beyond.” During the 1950s, alliances between city and countryside were assisted by the falling price of coffee, which paralyzed the national economy and affected both localities (Chavez, 2007: 94). None of this belittles the PCC’s accomplishments in the cities: the Communists had gained considerable ground, particularly in the labor movement. In 1958, they recaptured control of the majority of the unions petroleum industry. They also made considerable gains among the workers in the industrial city of Cali and in other important centers. For the first time in a decade the Communists were “an element of importance in the Colombian labor movement, particularly in the ranks of the Confederación de Trabajadores de Colombia (C.T.C).” (Alexander, 1963: xiv; see also Safford and Palacios, 2003: 293–6, 326; Decker and Duran, 1982) Disproving claims that the PCC and radical sectors were unable to organize workers (see Bergquist, 2007; Posada Corbá, 2006), Jorge Castañeda (1994: 222–3) noted
