In the following we want to share an unofficial translation of this important document of comrades in Ecuador about the return of the FARC to arms in Colombia.
[source: fdlp-ec.blogspot.com, translation from: demvolkedienen.org]
The FARC: The return to arms
“Everything is illusory except power!”
After the demobilization and handing over of weapons on the part of the guerrilla of the FARC to the old semi-feudal and semi-colonial state of Columbia in November of 2016 nothing, absolutely nothing, changed in relation to the much advertised social reforms that have been proclaimed by the subjects of imperialism and revisionism from Cuba.
The FARC demobilized and the poor peasants remain landless; the conditions of exploitation and the misery of the workers increased; the country was given (even further) to Yankee Imperialism, fulfilling, among others, the function of a garrote against for the Venezuelan government and people; the self-defense [groups] strengthened, more then 500 peasant and people’s leaders were assassinated by the repressive state apparatus in collusion with paramilitarism. About 200 ex-guerrillas were killed likewise by the same forces of the reaction. What lesson do the people take from the demobilization? What lessons did many of the guerrilla leaders of the FARC and their basis take? That the bourgeois-landowner democracy and peace is the peace of the cemeteries, the silence of the lambs and the bustle of the bourgeois-landowner dictatorship.
But the return of the FARC to arms also points to other aspects necessary to recognize. Once again the bankruptcy of Cuban revisionism is evident, how its strategy of being “firefighters” of imperialism - called to put out the fire of the revolution in any part of the world - , no longer works, is obsolete, is not compatible with the demand which the class and the masses have in regards to the solving of their most urgent necessities, especially the central one: The problem of power.
Once again, Cuban revisionism is laid bare and exposes its visage, that of failure, that of historical shame.
The return of the FARC to arms also expresses in clear light the bankruptcy and unviability of the so-called projects of the "socialism of the 21st century", because it was precisely these - led at that time by Rafael Correa – which propitiated and generated the logistical conditions, the inter-mediation, etc. for the negotiations prior to the signing of the agreements subsequently signed in Havana. And they also, obviously, failed. They put the blame on Duque [Ivan Duque, president of Colombia] without grasping the dynamics of the class struggle, the problem of power, their gross incapacity of differentiating between government, parliament and power.
There are multiple repercussions from the decision of a great part of high and mid-level command of the FARC to return to arms. Perhaps, the selvage, to demonstrate that only through violence rights and daily demands that concern the masses, the oppressed, can be conquered; this cannot be done. One should not fight to drive to perfection the old democracy (shown in the abstract of the command of the FARC); that the democracy in Colombia is a bourgeois-landlord democracy that does not respond ti the interests of the masses, but that they traffic with a vile and allegorical tool, that operates in the system of government as a backroom for organizing the system of dictatorship that sustains the obsolete power of the great bourgeoisie and big landowners.
It is not enough for the people and the other oppressed and exploited of Colombia to call to arms in order to strike solely against the interests of the “oligarchy” without fighting for the destruction of the whole bourgeois-landowner state machinery. That is vertebral [that is, that it has a key role like the spine]. The leadership of the FARC, still self-proclaiming itself as communists, SHOULD NOT RENOUNCE THE HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIAT. It is not enough to redouble the war drums for the reform, on the contrary, what a proposal just like that, so meager, does is to disturb and distract the true objective that the class, the people and the poor peasants have.
But not only that, both Márquez as well as Santrish, underline that their military objectives are not the soldiers, police man, corporals and officers but the oligarchy. And to avoid the necessary blow from their repressive apparatuses, the talk about that they “seek” to “draw nearer” those military men, who are not committed to massacres, the violation of the rights of people, etc. One again it is evidence of the incomprehension of the Marxist theory of the state, that is a “machine to maintain the domination of one class over another” and that the role, of the army and the police is precisely to protect that old power, this old state at any cost; that although it is true, that police and military men their origins in the entrails of the poor districts, the poor peasantry, the sons and daughters of workers, they have assumed an essential role in the defense of their executioners and that they therefore should not have to receive any contemplation. They became gargoyles of the old Power. And the war in Colombia, Peru, in all the countries of the world reflects that these very same "children of the people" have been the ones who have allowed the oppressive and exploitative classes to keep the power. The only good police men or military is the one who desert the reaction and comes to the side of the people to fight decisively with all his armaments for its purposes. And samples and examples of this type of response there are many in history, not only in Colombia, but in the other peoples of the world.
Márquez and his comandantes present in front of the communists in Colombia, that they do not understand and apparently do not want to do so, that “only Marx is the one, who extends the recognition of class struggle to recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat”; that Stalin was convincingly holding on the “law of the violent revolution of the proletariat, the law of the destruction of the bourgeois state machine, as a precondition for this revolution"; and the experience of the Paris Commune also teaches us much, everything. It is not enough, to take the old state, it is to be destroyed and on its ruins to erect the new state, a new power directed by one class in particular: THE PROLETARIAT. In no way can revolutions be made in the name of the proletariat to establish a reform, the agreements indicated, stipulated and then lost at the table as it happened in the negotiations in Havana. In the end, an old libretto, with a version of a “second Marquetalia” with a prelude and an epilogue written by the same hand, petty-bourgeois revisionism in arms.
Only, it is not enough to return to arms, if they persist in maintaining an erroneous ideological line; failed, because the breakdown is just around the next corner, and sooner rather then later these efforts will terminate once again at the negotiation table and stables of congress. The demobilization of M19, Ricardo Franco, EPL (Hoxista), Quintín Lame, FARC, among others, account for what is the true end of the directions of these guerrillas. The parliament as part of a retirement pension of the comandantes weary of the war and that are trafficking with the masses, the guerrillas, with the live of the people. The guerrillas and the people who support these processes will be tossed to the pimps (soldiers, vultures) as it precisely happened in the last week in El Cauca, where they are massacred by the reaction.
It is clear, thousands of times it has been said: “Whether the ideological and political line is correct or not decides everything: If we don't have men, we will have them; if we don't have guns, we will get them, and if we don't have the Power, we will conquer it. If the line is incorrect, we will lose what we have obtained. "
Let us take up the good that the decision of the FARC to return to war leaves behind, which is, that away from revolutionary violence there is no parliament, assembly, elections or presidents who can and want to solve all the problems that afflict the great majority; that the only way to make a revolution is the violent one. It has always been that way and it will be, as long as societies are divided into classes. Obviously it is important whether this armed struggle is given the correct command and strategy, which can only be found in the military line of the proletariat: People’s War, and of cause, under the correct ideological line of today, for today’s is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
The communists in Ecuador believe, that some comments prove to be disproportionate that locate the FARC, generally speaking, in an anti-historic condition. We consider that there are elements to rescue on this walk. The fact, that the Program of struggle of the FARC puts forward the problem of the land, its ownership, giving prevalence to the interests of the poor peasantry which is where the most abject and historical forms of exploitation in Colombia are evidenced or shown, which draws a contradiction that is a pledge to the urgency of a New Democratic revolution. That although it is certain, that its command (FARC) is reformist, its basis, its guerrillas and the masses that support it respond to a historical demand, that has not yet been possible to be addressed from the correct line, from the right leadership and from the Communist Party shrouded in MLM. There is no doubt, that the masses and those guerrillas who come from the greatest depths of exploitation have not yet been able to encounter the correct path and direction, and as long as this does not exist, it will be the FARC, the ELN, the EPL or any other leadership that will over them a “light” which “takes them out” of that dark tunnel. We consider, that it is obvious how much avidity to concretize the revolution the proletariat and the people of Colombia have.
It corresponds to us communists, to continue unmasking everything that armed reformism, its decisions, its songs of war, entails for the exploited masses; it is important to persist in this, especially in the fact, that behind this call, the defeat is already programmed.
Without people's war, there is no destruction of the old state machinery. Without People's War there is no open path to communism.
Without the ideology of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, there is no guarantee of Power. Without fighting against revisionism, nothing will have been done.
Everything is illusory except power!
With People's War: Until Communism!