Description
This paper reassesses the development of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) from a small rural guerrilla group into a nationwide insurgent organisation with more than 20,000 combatants. Drawing from archival documents in Colombia and interviews with representatives of key social forces, including the protagonists of the guerrilla struggle, politicians, and retired military officers, the development of the FARC is examined through historical materialist theory. The paper shows how the growth of the FARC was fundamentally shaped by underlying social relations of production and changes to Colombia’s state formation and world order. Whereas the literature on armed conflict is dominated by analysis which isolates the drivers of conflict into variables or “problems” to contribute to large-N studies, such approaches overlook the historical specificity of state-making processes. By contrast, this paper will argue that the development of the FARC is situated within a deeper context of struggle involving various social-class forces. Far from simply a product of the FARC’s enormous wealth generated from the taxation of coca production, the group’s development must be understood as driven by changes occurring at the level of production, the state, and world order.
