The Clandestine Colombian Communist Party (in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

: ''Partido Comunista Clandestino Colombiano'') was an underground

communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. It was politically linked to the

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army ( es, link=no, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaEjército del Pueblo, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian confl ...

(FARC), which founded the party in 2000. After FARC officially broke with the

Colombian Communist Party The Colombian Communist Party ( es, Partido Comunista Colombiano, PCC) is a legal communist party in Colombia. It was founded in 1930 as the Communist Party of Colombia, at which point it was the Colombian section of the Comintern, and changed i ...

(CCP), a separate FARC-based party structure came into ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...

'' existence during most of the 1990s, until the PCCC was officially founded in 2000. The party's founder and leader was FARC's commander Guillermo León Sáenz, also known as "

Alfonso Cano Guillermo León Sáenz Vargas (22 July 1948 – 4 November 2011), more commonly known by his nom de guerre Alfonso Cano, was the commander of the militant group known as Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (''Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias ...

", who was killed in action in 2011.

History

As a result of peace negotiations between FARC and the Colombian government in 1985, FARC, in conjunction with the Colombian Communist Party, founded the Patriotic Union (UP) as a legal political party that would participate in electoral politics. Although the formation of the UP was a provision of the negotiations with the government, the party was violently repressed by right-wing paramilitary groups as well as Colombian

drug lord A drug lord, drug baron, kingpin or narcotrafficker is a high-ranking crime boss who controls a sizable network of people involved in the illegal drug trade. Such figures are often difficult to bring to justice, as they are normally not directly ...

s. Whatever optimism FARC held regarding entrance into mainstream politics was slowly abandoned as the UP all but disintegrated in the late-1980s. Because FARC maintained a rigid ideology, they informally maintained a party structure known as the Bolivarian Movement for a New Colombia in the 1990s. This new emphasis on the figure of

Simon Bolivar Simon may refer to: People * Simon (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name Simon * Simon (surname), including a list of people with the surname Simon * Eugène Simon, French naturalist and the genus ...

would later be incorporated into the official ideology of the PCCC. After the end of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

, FARC would not abandon their ideological devotion to

Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various co ...

but they did complement it with nationalist Bolivarian sentiment. The transformation of this movement into the founding of the PCCC was officially announced by FARC in 2000. With the creation of the

Common Alternative Revolutionary Force The Commons ( es, Comunes), previously Common Alternative Revolutionary Force ( es, Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común, FARC) until 24 January 2021, is a communist political party in Colombia, established in 2017 as the political suc ...

after the

Colombian peace process The Colombian peace process is the peace process between the Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC–EP) to bring an end to the Colombian conflict, which eventually led to t ...

, the party was disbanded, with its members joining the newly established political party.

Ideology

In adherence with

Leninism Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary Vanguardis ...

, FARC did not intend for the PCCC to run in "bourgeois" elections. Instead, the PCCC was to remain underground, serving as the

vanguard party Vanguardism in the context of Leninist revolutionary struggle, relates to a strategy whereby the most class-conscious and politically "advanced" sections of the proletariat or working class, described as the revolutionary vanguard, form organ ...

for the FARC. As well as keeping the FARC rooted in Marxism–Leninism, the PCCC also sought to appeal to other members of the

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

in hopes of building a revolutionary

class consciousness In Marxism, class consciousness is the set of beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests. According to Karl Marx, it is an awareness that is key to ...

in Colombia. The existence of an official ideological organ of FARC also helped the organization to legitimize itself as a viable alternative to bourgeois democracy.

Results

As the PCCC never participated in elections, it is difficult to evaluate the party's success in spreading its ideology as a revolutionary vanguard party.

References

2000 establishments in Colombia 2017 disestablishments in Colombia Clandestine groups Communist parties in Colombia Defunct communist parties Defunct political parties in Colombia Far-left politics in Colombia FARC Political parties disestablished in 2017 Political parties established in 2000 {{CP-stub