Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T21:38:48.759Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Sibling Rivalry on the Left and Labor Struggles in Colombia During the 1940s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

W. John Green*
Affiliation:
Virginia Tech
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

On the Colombian Left during the 1940s, little differentiated the rank and file of the Communist party from the left wing of the Liberal party. Individuals commonly moved back and forth between the two groups. Animosity was rampant among leaders, however, as shown by the clashes between the principal compañeros and Jorge Eliécer Gaitán's left-Liberal populist mobilization. As this rivalry played out in the Communist strongholds of the union movement, it became apparent that a large portion of the organized working class (perhaps a majority) supported Gaitán even though their leaders dismissed him as a fascist. Workers, organized and unorganized, clearly demonstrated their belief that Gaitanismo was a radical movement of change despite the fact that it arose within the traditional party system.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

Earlier versions of this article were presented to the Fundación Friedrich Ebert in Bogotá in September 1994, the Latin American Studies Association in September 1995, and the Southern Labor Studies Conference in Austin Texas in October 1995.

References

ABEL, CHRISTOPHER, AND PALACIOS, MARCO 1991 “Colombia, 1930–58.” In The Cambridge History of Latin America, edited by Leslie Bethell, 8:587627. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
ALMARIO SALAZAR, GUSTAVO 1984 Historia de los trabajadores petroleros. Bogotá: CEDETRABAJO.Google Scholar
ARCHILA NEIRA, MAURICIO 1987 Barranquilla y el río: Una historia social de sus trabajadores. Bogotá: CINEP.Google Scholar
ARCHILA NEIRA, MAURICIO 1991 Cultura e identidad obrera: Colombia, 1910–1945. Bogotá: CINEP.Google Scholar
BARNHART, DONALD S. 1958Colombian Transport and the Reforms of 1931: An Evaluation.” Hispanic American Historical Review 38, no. 1:123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BERGQUIST, CHARLES 1986 Labor in Latin America: Comparative Essays on Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
BLANCO NUÑEZ, JOSE MARIA 1968 Memorias de un gobernador: El nueve de abril de 1948, antes, durante y después. Barranquilla: Banco de la República.Google Scholar
BRAUN, HERBERT 1985 The Assassination of Gaitán: Public Life and Urban Violence in Colombia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
BRUNGARDT, MAURICE 1989Mitos históricos y literarios: La casa grande.” In De ficciones y realidades: Perspectivas sobre literatura e historia colombiana, edited by Botero, Alvaro Pineda and Williams, Raymond, 6372. Bogotá: Tercer Mundo.Google Scholar
CASTRILLON R., ALBERTO 1979 120 días bajo el terror: La huelga de las bananeras. Bogotá: Tupac Amaru (first published in 1929).Google Scholar
CORDOBA, JOSE MARIA n.d. Jorge Eliécer Gaitán: Tribuno popular de Colombia. Bogotá: n.p.Google Scholar
DIAZ CALLEJAS, APOLINAR 1988 Diez días de poder popular: El 9 de abril 1948 en Barrancabermeja. Bogotá: El Labrador.Google Scholar
GARCIA, ANTONIO 1955 Gaitán y el problema de la revolución colombiana. Bogotá: MSC.Google Scholar
GOBIERNO DE COLOMBIA 1939 Sentido y realización de una política social. Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional.Google Scholar
GREEN, W. JOHN 1996‘Vibrations of the Collective’: The Popular Ideology of Gaitanismo on Colombia's Atlantic Coast, 1944–1948.” Hispanic American Historical Review 76, no. 2:283311.Google Scholar
GREEN, W. JOHN n.d. “Guilt by Association: Jorge Eliécer Gaitán and the Legacy of His Studies in ‘Fascist’ Italy.” In Strange Pilgrimages: Travel, Exile, and Foreign Residence in the Creation of Latin American National Identity, 1800–1996, edited by Karen Racine and Ingrid Fey, forthcoming.Google Scholar
GREEN, W. JOHN n.d. “Superior to Their Leaders: Gaitanismo, Left Liberalism, and Popular Mobilization in Colombia, 1928–1948.” Manuscript.Google Scholar
GUTIERREZ, JOSE 1962 La rebeldía colombiana. Bogotá: Tercer Mundo.Google Scholar
HERRERA SOTO, ROBERTO, AND CASTAÑEDA, RAFAEL ROMERO 1979 La zona bananera del Magdalena: Historia y léxico. Bogotá: Caro y Cuervo.Google Scholar
JAMES, DANIEL 1988 Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946–1976. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
LE GRAND, CATHERINE 1986 Frontier Expansion and Peasant Protest in Colombia, 1830–1936. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
LINARES U., HELIODORO (“HELIUS”) 1959 Yo acuso: Biografía de Gaitán y Fajardo, diez años después, 1948–1959. Bogotá: Iqueima.Google Scholar
LONG, GARY 1995The Dragon Finally Came: Industrial Capitalism, Radical Artisans, and the Liberal Party in Colombia, 1910–1948.” Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
LOPEZ GIRALDO, FERMIN 1936 El apóstol desnudo, o dos años al lado de un mito. Manizales: Arturo Zapata.Google Scholar
MANRIQUE, RAMON 1937 Bajo el signo de la hoz: La conjuntura del comunismo en Colombia. Bogotá: ABC.Google Scholar
MEDINA, MEDOFILO 1980 Historia del Partido Comunista. Bogotá: CEIS.Google Scholar
MEDINA, MEDOFILO 1984 La protesta urbana en Colombia en el siglo XX. Bogotá: Aurora.Google Scholar
PECAUT, DANIEL 1987 Orden y violencia: Colombia, 1930–1954. 2 vols. Bogotá: Tercer Mundo.Google Scholar
POSADA CARBO, EDUARDO 1998 “Fiction as History: The bananeras and Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.” Journal of Latin American Studies 30, pt. 2:395414.Google Scholar
PUENTES, MILTON 1945 Gaitán. Bogotá: ABC.Google Scholar
SANZ ROVNER, EDUARDO 1992 La ofensiva empresarial: Industriales, políticos y violencia en los años 40 en Colombia. Bogotá: Tercer Mundo.Google Scholar
SHARPLESS, RICHARD 1978 Gaitán of Colombia: A Political Biography. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
TORRES GIRALDO, IGNACIO 1967 Los inconformes: Historia de la rebeldía de las masas en Colombia. Bogotá: Latina.Google Scholar
URRUTIA, MIGUEL 1969 The Development of the Colombian Labor Movement. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
VEGA CANTOR, RENAN 1988 Crisis y caída de la República Liberal. Ibagué: Mohan.Google Scholar
WEISS, ANITA 1968 Tendencias de la participación electoral en Colombia, 1935–1966. Bogotá: Universidad Nacional.Google Scholar
WHITE, JUDITH 1978 Historia de una ignominia: La United Fruit Co. en Colombia. Bogotá: Presencia.Google Scholar