Direct and unfiltered, the Fifth Congress of the National Liberation Army (ELN), held in January 2015 to commemorate the group’s 50th anniversary, emphasizes the necessity of creating a crisis of governance in the society where socialism aims to be established. The chaos it generates is, therefore, a fundamental aspect of the communist system.
The document that resulted from this meeting, titled “Revolutionary War, Popular Power, and New Nation,” outlines strategies across political, military, social, economic, ideological, diplomatic, environmental, and legal dimensions. It advocates for alternative blocs and progressive governments in Latin America to find their footing amidst what they describe as the crisis of capitalism and the decline of U.S. imperialism. In this and forthcoming articles, we will delve into the details of this document.
The complex Colombian conflict resulting from the ELN’s terrorist actions and others—the chaos generated—serves as a backdrop for both insurgent and popular unity. This fosters legitimacy and initiates a governance crisis aimed at establishing a “Government of Nation, Peace, and Equity” as a stepping stone toward a socialist society. In other words, their tactic is this strategy of chaos to emerge as the political solution to the conflict they have instigated.
Building a New Socialist Society
The document produced by the ELN’s Fifth Congress, held in January 2015 and titled “Revolutionary War, Popular Power, and New Nation,” presents the evolution and components of the ELN’s strategy in Colombia.
The proposed approach aims at constructing a new socialist society through national liberation and popular power, emphasizing the interplay between political and military action.
They warn against falling into dogmatism or voluntarism, advocating for continuous learning and adaptation to reality. The strategy consists of four dynamic elements:
- Objectives,
- Factors of popular power,
- A proposal for the nation and strategic axes of struggle and accumulation,
- Generating a governance crisis that leads to the emergence of a new majority government.
They stress the importance of mass political strength, social legitimacy, and an insurgent military force, which are built and articulated through diverse struggles—social, economic, political, environmental, ideological, diplomatic, and armed—with a territorial vision.
Enriching the Concept of Socialism
The ELN claims to have enriched the concept of socialism through their own and foreign experiences, which they brought to that Fifth Congress to define future actions.
The terrorist organization highlights its chameleon-like capacity, asserting that it can change and transform without losing its objectives, presenting itself as “equitable, responsible, reasonable, and dialogical.”
This evolution of the concept of “vanguard” throughout its history is presented in four periods:
Single Leadership and Command:
Combination of military strength and popular insurrections.
Collective Leadership:
Focus on integrating the people into armed struggle and accumulating strength for insurrection.
Collective Vanguard:
The popular power projects a new government, with a “Unified Revolutionary Direction” made up of various forces.
Being with Others:
The current strategy of “Revolutionary War, Popular Power, and New Nation,” integrates all forms of struggle, popular insurgency, urban and territorial dynamics, converging in factors of popular power and a proposal for the nation.
Context of the Strategy
The ELN claims the existence of a supposed “systematic war against the people and their sovereignty” perpetuated by “oligarchy and North American imperialism,” framing their struggle as a response. To achieve their goals, they propose a “revolutionary, popular, and resistant war.”
The overarching objective of this strategy is “the construction of a ‘socialist society’ as the ultimate aim of our people’s struggle and as an integral part of the fight humanity engages in to defend life and the planet, for peace and against imperialist war.”
Their vision of socialism is grounded in:
- Marxism-Leninism as a “rationality of present and future.”
- A “critical reflection of the socialist models that became exhausted at the end of the 1980s.”
- The “Indo-American roots enriched with the universal thought of Bolívar, Che, and other national liberation leaders.”
They note that the transition to socialism is envisioned in stages, a warning they formulate under the pretext of developing within a context of “unfavorable correlation of forces” against North American imperialism and “democratizing processes and changes ongoing in Latin America.” For example, they cite Hugo Chávez’s influence and the “joint march of the nations of the continent.”
The intermediate objective they propose is to achieve a “comprehensive accumulation of social and political strength, legitimacy, and insurgent military power” to generate the aforementioned “governance crisis” leading to the birth of a “new government that initiates historically delayed transformations in society.” This government is described as one “of majorities, deeply grounded in popular programmatic content,” summarized as a “Government of Nation, Peace, and Equity.” The strategy plans and organizes this objective, while the tactic “fights the battle.”
Factors of Popular Power
The document refers to factors of power, which form the bedrock of the strength needed for change.
These include three interrelated elements:
Mass Political Strength:
A comprehensive accumulation of social organizations, political movements, and democratic entities, built through “organization, convergence, mobilization, constructive common ideologies, and a proposal for a new nation.” The development of “mass uprisings and insurrections” is projected.
Accrued Legitimacy:
The level of “acceptance, respect, and recognition” from society toward those driving transformation. It involves creating “consensus, identity, unity, and commitment” consistent with goals and acting ethically. Legitimacy also builds through communication, “disputing national opinion and sentiment, exposing lies, and centering the fight for the truth.”
Insurgent Military Force:
Comprising “guerrilla units, urban, suburban, and rural insurrections, as well as mass insurgent forces.” Their military actions should enhance social and political struggles and develop new legitimacy levels for the project. Military resistance is justified by “the direct military intervention of North American imperialism.”
A “territorial strategy that articulates a continuous urban, suburban, and rural war dynamic” is proposed.
The “urban war” is key to “seeking the regime’s illegitimacy and institutional fracture.”
The armed struggle becomes a “strategic axis of ongoing struggle and accumulation,” contributing in the tactic to “catalyze social and political fights, generating consciousness and legitimacy.”
These three factors of popular power are interconnected and “produce leaps and new realities in the country’s struggle.”
Proposal for the Nation
In examining the proposed Nation, it is impossible not to be reminded of the Venezuelan case, as it mirrors it to the letter.
First, they propose a “participatory process among diverse sectors of society” to construct national and popular consensus against “imperialist domination” and the oligarchy. This is built “in the streets, with mass mobilization,” unifying the nation around a “common ideology of new society and national sovereignty.”
Moreover, it draws from historical processes truncated by various circumstances—in the Venezuelan case, Bolivarianism—vindicating past leaders and struggles as a “historical continuity.”
This Nation proposal serves as “political guidance for the country” and “the heart that sustains the legitimacy of the struggle.”
To establish themselves in Colombia, they do not dismiss the option of forming alliances with “Colombian bourgeois sectors” affected by neoliberal globalization.
The “national debate, consensus building, and mobilization with direct participation from all societal sectors” for a political solution is highly valued.
Strategic Axes of Struggle and Accumulation
The document outlines what they call “pathways for the transformations society seeks.”
They articulate six axes:
Social and Economic Struggle:
For immediate claims and profound social transformations, including “alternative life plans” and new economic organization forms to confront neoliberalism.
Political Struggle:
Confrontation against the regime over “ideals of national sovereignty, democracy, political solutions, economic models, and common goods,” seeking the construction and contestation of power.
Environmental Struggle:
Against the “predatory and consumerist model of capitalism,” aiming to harmonize the society-nature relationship.
Ideological Struggle:
To “unveil the truths about the economic, social, and political realities,” indicate paths of liberation, create collective identity with historical roots and universal thought, and “legitimize the need for revolutionary actions.”
Diplomatic Struggle:
Directed toward the nation and international public opinion to “inform about the causes and righteousness of the Colombian people’s struggle,” seeking solidarity and international backing. In Venezuela, they turned to the flow of petrodollars to finance the geopolitical expansion of the Bolivarian project.
Armed Struggle:
Military action involving guerrilla components and expressions of popular insurgency, “integrated continuously and comprehensively with all forms of the people’s struggle to energize them.” In the Venezuelan case, paramilitary collectives, for instance.
Policy directs all axes, while accumulation happens through the comprehensive development of all forms of struggle. In Colombia, the “fundamental forms of struggle are mass struggle and armed struggle,” with the main one defined by tactic according to the situation.
Governance Crisis
A key aspect of the strategy is generating governance crises in the societies they aim to establish themselves. In the Venezuelan case, the “Caracazo” and the coup attempts of February 4 and November 27, 1992, sparked the “Bolivarian process.”
The governance crisis is merely the “destabilization of the government” that they attribute to its “inability to exert social control amid growing mass disobedience and mobilization.” This last point, obviously, being driven by themselves.
The ELN’s struggle aims to “create governance crises,” compelling “all societal forces” to solidify a change option.
And without any shame, the document admits that this crisis results from the “revolutionary actions of the masses in contexts of regime illegitimacy.”
The crisis may manifest through “large-scale social and political mobilizations of the people, with expressions of social explosiveness, popular insurgency, and regional and national uprisings or with a combination of them.”
Within this crisis scenario, “transitional processes such as a National Constituent Assembly, a National Agreement, a peace pact, or an electoral victory of the left in alliance with democratic sectors that establish a different government” are possible.
The document anticipates failure and warns that if a threat arises against the continuity of the revolutionary project, the insurgency “will take on a different character,” fighting “under national flags and with the legitimacy earned.”
The strategy also considers scenarios of “counter-revolution,” such as a “North American military invasion or a coup in Venezuela, Colombia, or another sister country.”
Revolutionary Direction
The ELN seeks “confluence and unity with other insurgent and revolutionary forces to build a collective vanguard.”
In Venezuela, the strategy aimed at consolidating structures like ALBA or Mercosur.