Guatemalan Party of Labour - Third Congress

Third Congress

In the underground, PGT was radicalized. The 3rd party congress proclaimed the importance of "all forms of struggle", meaning that armed struggle was justified against the regime. This marked a shift of policy, as the party until then had worked under the banner of "democratic restoration". In April 1961 the party had adopted a document titled "General Tactics, development and forms of struggle of the Guatemalan revolution", which mentioned armed struggle as one of different kind of struggle to be utilized.

The party rallied survivors of the failed November 13, 1960 military insurrection and student radicals into forming a guerilla movement, the Rebel Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes, FAR) in 1962. FAR initiated attacks against the government military, the beginning of a four decade long civil war.

Meanwhile, the relation of the party towards the armed struggle was not uncomplicated. In theory the armed forces of FAR stood under the political control of PGT. In practice, that was not always the case. FAR developed its own political leadership and started criticizing the PGT leadership for indifference towards the armed struggle. Within the party Ricardo Ramírez led the radical section.

PGT suffered a setback in early March 1966, as raids were conducted against the party leadership. Thirty-three left-wing leaders 'disappeared', including Víctor Manuel Gutiérrez and Leonardo Castillo Flores. CIA documents, declassified in 1998, confirmed that they had been executed by the state forces.

In the mid 1960s the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 1300.

The 1966 presidential elections highlighted differences within the party. After much discussions the party decided to support the candidature of Julio César Méndez, claiming that he represented progressive and democratic sectors. At the same time the party maintained its support to the ongoing armed struggle. After Méndez had been elected he continued the anti-communist path of his predecessors, leading to accusations within PGT that the party leadership had adopted an incorrect line ahead of the elections. Some analysts claim that the killings of leaders of the older and more moderate generation within PGT, like Gutiérrez and Castillo, effectively closed the openings towards a peaceful settlement of the emerging civil war and emboldened the younger generation to take the more radical path.

In 1968 FAR broke its bond with PGT, reconstituting itself as the Revolutionary Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, FAR II). FAR was able to win over a large section of the youths and students from PGT, resulting in a severe setback for the party amongst those sections.

Whereas the main difference between the PGT leadership and the young radicals of FAR concern the line towards the armed struggle, there were also other issues of diverging views. A crucial issue was to consider the poverty of the majority of Guatemalans only as an issue of class, or whether the indigenous populations were subjected to racist oppression. PGT maintained an orthodox marxist understanding, that the poverty of the indigenous peoples were an issue of class and that the solution to their problems was to be handled within the framework of class struggle. The emerging guevarist leftist groups, however, developed an understanding that the indigenous peoples suffered from forms of oppression that could not only be explained as issues of class. These differences would remain during years to come, and has resurfaced even after the consolidation of URNG as a unified political party.