The Experience of Defeat

Abstract

This paper argues that throughout the Cold War, the Colombian Left focused on build ing local power in the countryside, and abandoned the burgeoning urban working class, much of it informal, unwaged and unorganised, to the Right. Yet at every turn, landlords linked to local and regional political machines and military and police officials blocked or reversed reforms designed to modernise the countryside, as government-subsidised agro-industrial development replaced smallholding. Then, in successive conjunctures, landlords and their allies, including cocaine exporters from whom they were increas ingly inseparable after 1985, augmented their political power through dynamic counter insurgent paramilitary movements based in provincial cities and towns. This made democracy impossible, led to a new feudalism characterised by parcellised sovereign ties, and upheld, into the twenty-first century, the semi-authoritarian parliamentary system that has ruled Colombia since the 1880s.

El discurso político de la izquierda colombiana sobre las dificultades de su acceso al poder gubernamental (1991-2021)

“…Quedaría mencionar cómo Bergqguist (2017: 282) enfatiza la influencia de la estructura económica cafetera y la lucha de sus cultivadores por la propiedad de la tierra. Además, están los continuos procesos de colonización fuera de las zonas cafeteras -y que sirvieron de canal de desfogue a los conflictos sociales-, las oportunidades ofrecidas en muchas de estas zonas para el cultivo de drogas ilícitas, aparte de la rigidez y escasa capacidad de la izquierda para atraer a sectores sociales urbanos, y esencialmente a aquellos pertenecientes a la economía informal (Hylton, 2014). Esto, sin olvidar el factor de desestructuración que supuso la violencia producida en los años cuarenta y cincuenta, en relación con la construcción del campesinado como actor político a considerar (Sánchez, 1989).…”

Extractive Capital, Imperialism, and the Colombian State

“…The 2002 election of Uribe represented the culmination of the rise of the far-right elite from their origins as rural warlords to the capture of hegemonic state power under a repressive authoritarian regime (Hylton, 2014). Uribe embarked on a “scorched earth” strategy for defeating the guerrilla insurgents that enjoyed support from factions of the industrial and finance elite as well as the United States.…”