Communist Party of the Andes

  

Communist Party of the Andes
Leader	Ismaél Gaiviria
Chairman	Andres Moreno
Founded	1924 (1924)
Headquarters	Calle 34 No.21-46, Bogotá
Student wing	Estudiantes Revolucionarios
Youth wing	Arriba Juventud
Women's wing	Madres de la Patria
LGBT wing	Marea Rosa
Membership	▲ 18,302,125 (2015)
Ideology	Communism Maoism Anti-Landonism Soft Ameroskepticism Indigenismo Shining Path thought Anti-revisionism Anti-imperialism Marxist feminism
Political position	Far-left
International affiliation	Marxist–Maoist Conference Landonist International (until 1969)
American affiliation	United Alliance of the Left (obsererver)
Official colors	Red
Governing body	Central Committee
People‘s Congress	230 / 250
Party flag
Politics of the United People's Committees Political parties Elections

The Communist Party of the Andes (from 1956 to 1972, National Liberation Action; Spanish: Partido Comunista de los Andes), is the ruling party of the United People's Committees since its takeover in 1970. It is by constitution the only legally permitted political party in the Andes.

History

Early years

The first communist party of the Andes was formed in 1924 by the philosopher and activist Carlos Mariátequi under the name "All-Colombian Communist Party" (Partido Comunista Pancolumbiana, PCP) in Lima. The Party was officially active under the name until its ban in 1937, when the military junta under Luis Sanchez outlawed several parties associated with socialism, communism and progressivism. After the death of Mariétequi in 1935, the Venezuelan Pablo Tamayo was elected general secretary and shifted the originally independent analysis towards one that resembled more that of the Landonists in the United Commonwealth. However it has to be noted that the PCP never adhered to the demands of the UC and stayed largely independent both ideologically and logistically throughout. Tamayo was arrested and executed in 1956, leading to an internal power struggle of the central committee. There, the former priest and later first President of the United People's Committees Camilo Velázquez emerged as a leading figure, through contacts into the church and the devout urban poor base, as well as a supposed party intern coup of a pro-Maoist faction around Pedro León.

Partisan activities since 1956

The PCP began taking up arms in the fall of 1956 against the government of Sanchez, that at the time sympathized with derzhavist governments like Russia or France. The country maintained the so called Casta system until 1965, which segregated white, mixed-race (both "Mestizo" and "Mulatto"), indigenous and black Colombians in almost all areas of daily life and gave these communities varying degrees of freedoms and restrictions. This as well as the increasing impoverishment of the rural population in Colombia proper and the Andes highlands were the main reasons for the increasing militancy in the party, that changed the name when they declared war on the Republic of Gran Colombia. The Party was not merely a political organization but the political arm of a guerrilla army in the Andes. In its first years of existence, the majority of its support was centered on the northern Pacific Coast in Guayaquil and Quito as well as the urban slums of the urban centers. The PCP was not yet a prominent mass movement (estimates suggest numbers between 1500 and 2200 members before the Great War) but one of numerous partisan organizations in the region, who fought against the Derzhavist regime of Luis Sanchez during that time. Ideological and material support came mostly from the People's Republic of China and the United Commonwealth, especially the Landonist Party of China had a large impact on the ideology of the party in Colombia.

In the 1950s the PCP formed the coalition Acción para la Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Action, ALN) together with the social-democratic Patrido Popular Patriotica (Patriotic People's Party), the left wing nationalist Movimento Solidario Columbiano (Colombian Solidarity Movement) and the Sindicato General de Colombia, a then illegal Landonist trade union. When Colombian forces crossed into Esequibo in 1962 after the Esequibo Incident and occupied the region, the country became a natural ally of the anti-British coalition centered around France and Russia, the Axis Powers. The ALN coalition became a hub of draft dodgers and deserted soldiers, the latter contributing a lot to the advancement and discipline of the guerrilla forces, especially after a bloody stalemate occurred in early 1963 and more soldiers deserted the front. The repressions of the government became harsher in April 1963, when Colombian president General Luis Sanchez ordered the tracking and immediate execution of every ALN members, which lead to an accidental crossing of Colombian forces into Central America and several border fights between Colombia and Central America until the end of the war. By 1964 the Colombian home front began to collapse and the army's moral was at an all time low. The ALN coalition along with parts of the tolerated opposition ordered a general strike in September of the same year, which forced Sanchez to negotiate peace with Central America and Great Britain.

Ideology

Unlike many other revolutionary far-left politics parties founded in the 20th century, the Communist Party of the Andes does not base its ideology on the works of Isaiah Landon, but more exclusively on the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, the Russian Marxist Vladimir Ulyanov and Mao Zedong. The concept of Dialectical Materialism, opposed to Landon's partial materialism, is held up by the majority of the party and studying Marxist dialectics is viewed as a major requirement for any cadre. Further, Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought in particular are considered the leading ideas of the parties. The programme of the party from 1955 reads:
[...] the lessons provided by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Comrade Duce Benito Mussolini and Chairman Mao Zedong, both in words and deeds, have provided the proletariat with plentiful knowledge to further the liberation of the people not only in our homeland but internationally as well.
During and after the Colombia War Mao Zedong Thought was synthesized into Shining Path Thought (SPT, spanish Pensiamento Senderista) based on the experiences of the party during that period. The ideas of a (or multiple) cultural revolution and the mass line are central to the concept of SPT, as well as the centrally planned economy (in opposition to the decentralized planning in countries following the Landonist doctrine) and a strong emphasis on party leadership. These ideological differences culminated in the split of the party from the Landonist International and the founding of the International Conference of Marxist and Maoist Organizations, which followed a more orthodox Marxist line. When the Chinese Landonist Party began to increase cooperation with the west, the CPA began to exercise more influence over the organization, pushing it towards a more Third-Worldist approach, stressing the importance of revolutionary activities and struggles in semi-colonies and nations most heavily impacted by imperialism of developed nations. However, it rejected the idea that revolutionary struggles in the first world are unacheivable, believing that they would enter at a much later stage of the international revolution.

Democratic centralism

The concept of democratic centralism as outlined by Vladimir Ulyanov is an integral part of the party's organisational structure. During every party convention the Central committee of the party is elected, made up of representatives proposed by different party members. This committee is the highest authority in the party and often viewed as the de facto policy makers of the country. The strict party line is a defining characteristic of the CPA's structure, as every member has to follow the resolutions of previous discussions, factionalism inside the party is strictly prohibited although criticism and discussion of the policies is encouraged. Once these are put into practice, the results are once again evaluated in a plenum and proposals are made to correct errors that may have arisen during execution. If demanded by at least 50% of the present delegates, a representative of a committee or even an entire committee can be removed and new elections are called. There are several local committees of the party tightly intertwined with local organisations such as unions, indigenous tribes and the local workers' councils. In the latter, the party representatives gather information on the policies put into practice by the party.

Economics

Unlike its Landonist counterparts, the CPA does not embrace a union lead organisation of a decentralised economy, but advocates for a centrally planned economic structure in order to lower working hours while increasing productivity with the ultimate goal of ending the division of labour in accordance with Marx's theory of alienation. Both are components of the long term goal of the party, communism. In the first decade of its rule, the CPA emphasised industrialisation as its main objective, making it effectively the central issue of Andean politics. By the early 1980s, economic planning entered a new phase, when the different local districts and their governing committees faced criticism from the party base and were forced to end the previous beaurocracy. By intertwining the party cadres and the workers of the farms, factories and mines in their leadership of the workshops the former system of state-appointed production overseers was de facto abolished. Chairman Bernardo Larrázabal was supportive of this movement and has proclaimed the Andes to be the nation where "the working class has the most power anywhere in history". This movement became more entrenched until the early 1990s, when the party leadership changed yet again and some reforms were removed and the decentralisation of the communes was reduced dramatically. Further efforts towards democratisation of the economy were made again in the early 2000s but the economy stays firmly centralised and controlled by the National Committee for Economic Development as part of the Ministry of Economics. Since the early 2000s economic planning has been increasingly digitalised and the improvement of internet connections via fiber-optic communication.

Environmentalism

Environmentalism has become a controversial issue in Andean politics in recent years. Crude oil extraction and refining, logging and mining are central to the Andean economy and have become the subject of criticism in the late 1990s and the issue has become a focal point with increasing awareness of climate change as a result of using fossil fuels. Environmentalists in the Andes come in varying shades of radicalism. Mainstream environmentalism in the Communist Party usually focuses on the expansion and conservation of the national parks and reforestation programs while advocating for an eventual phasing out of the usage of fossil fuels nationally. This is often accompanied by only moderate opposition towards the extraction of fossil fuels and mining products such as copper, gold or lithium destined for the international market. More radical approaches towards environmental protection and stopping climate change include a call for the total and immediate stop of crude oil and gas production due to its impact on the world's climate with a subsequent restructuring of the national and state-level economies that does not rely on the destruction of the ecosystem. One major advocacy group is the Green Stars Movement, from which an unofficial environmentalist wing in the CPA has emerged, called the Climate and Ecological Protection Study Group. The group has advocated openly for "political veganism" and ethical eating, is critical of the meat and fishing industries and is a major proponent of renewable energies and nuclear energy. It has become popular especially with young Andeans and has endorsed multiple protests against the expansion of oil production and the perceived lack of commitment towards environmental protection by the national government. Opponents of the environmentalist wing have stated that resource extraction is the backbone of the Andean economy, proposing a program of major reforestation, expansion of the national park system and improved public transport infrastructure to combat climate change.