Week 11 Lecture: El Bogotazo and La Violencia (Colombia)

What was La Violencia?

Flare up between 1946 – 1958
Around 174,000 dead, 1.56% of Colombia’s population at the time – 1.25% of UK’s
population (2023) is 1 million, Of the US = 5 Million.
Civil War or State Collapse? – how to understand collective violence? Historians CAN’T agree,
so period is just called ‘the violence’.
Is example of how an established democracy becomes so polarised it descends into violence.
Colombian Politics up to 1946
Two main parties – Conservatives and Liberals
Rules of democracy were in state of flux, which sometimes led to violent campaigns
Had an Army of 200 for country size of mainland Europe to keep stable.
Conservatives dominate Gov from 1886 – 1930.
Final Civil War (1889-1902):
- In aftermath, a new generation comes of age, determined to end with the cycle of
violence.
- Confident and optimistic about Colombia’s democracy.
Economic export BOOM in the 1920s:
- Drives further optimism in the new generation
- Divides the Conservative party in power, as factions fight for a larger share of growing
revenues.
Conciliatory, bipartisan Liberal wins the presidency in 1930 = ending decades of Conservative
rule  Liberals will win the following 3 presidential elections, staying 16 years in power
(1930 – 1946).

Liberals face TWO key challenges during their tenure:

 How to mobilise their followers/voters, peacefully [Without traditional call to arms of
previous decades].
 How to manage the consequences of the GD and rising social conflicts.

1. Mobilising Liberal voters:

Demographic trend of migration from countryside to cities.
Focus on urban labour (Colombia’s future majority??) done through promotion of
sympathetic TUs.
Some Conservatives are concerned:
- Will urban labour ensure a Liberal majority for the foreseeable future?
- Will it shift the balance of power from the countryside to the cities?
- Were labour unions too strong?
2. Mediating social conflict:
Use the power of the state to mediate disputes between labour and management:
- Creating institutions where both sides could meet.
- Sending officials to the countryside to resolve land disputes.
Largely successful – Colombia navigates the GD without falling into violence//chaos.
Does, however, place a large strain on state capacity:
1. State needs bureaucrats to dispatch
2. Roads and vehicles to take them
3. Logistics to create, send and process written reports
4. Court capacity to oversee cases in a timely manner
5. A police force capable of enforcing the result.
Liberal addresses the questions by mobilising voters via TUs and negotiating conflicts using
state and institutions as mediators.
BUT WW2 upsets the balance:
1. Creates inflation, falling wages, labour unrest.
2. Relations between Labour unions and liberals become strained
Rise of alternatives to the Liberals-Conservatives:
- Among Liberals == Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
- Among Conservatives == Laureano Gómez
By 1946 the state capacity is under strain, politics are becoming polarised.
Gaitán and El Bogotazo (1946 – 1949)
Liberals in contested areas fear that lesser state capacity could mean losing power to
Conservatives – they take matters into their own hands, suppressing Conservative voters in
elections and re-drawing electoral lines.
Central Gov tries to convert the police into an allied paramilitary force to counter-balance
the power of the army.
Conservatives increasingly resist Liberal pressures by resorting to violence and militias, as
they see the police as POLITICISED.
Violence flares up in 1946 between Conservatives and Liberals contesting power in rural
towns  institutions such as the Church/Police start taking sides.
1946 – Liberals lose the Presidential Election to a moderate Conservatives – Mariano Ospina.
Turnover in power means Liberals at all levels of Gov are replaced by Conservatives – from
cabinet to town mayors, including POLICE LEADERSHIP:
- Fuels the existing violence in the countryside over retaining party control of
municipalities.
Now in opposition, the Liberals appoint Gaitán:
Rose to prominence in 1928, as a pro-labour liberal = creates personal following, which the
sometimes leveraged against the party.
Highly successful in capturing the mood of the 1940s:
- Supported widening the franchise and political participation of urban labour
- Channelled the discontent of the 1940s.
- However, limits to his popularity: removed as mayor of Bogotá for trying to repress
taxi driver unions.
Political tensions explode in Bogotá in April 1948:
- City was on edge = in addition to unemployment, inflation etc, by 1948 the city is
facing mass overcrowding as refugees fleeing violence in the countryside arrive to
the capital.
- Hosting pan-American conference of foreign affairs

Initially, liberals able to calm followers -> Ospina invited the opposition to join his Gov as a
gesture of reconciliation.
Tensions continue to rise:
1. Conservative fire all Liberal Govenors – an MP shot and killed liberal MP in congress
2. Liberals try to impeach ospina, who shuts down Congress and enacts press
censorship
3. State machinery grinds to a halt and state collapses
4. 1949 – Liberals decide to withdraw from all elections, Congress remains closed for a
decade.
La Violencia and Rojas Pinilla: 1950 – 1958
Violence took different forms == party supporters fighting for political control, peasants and
landowners settling differences violently, guerillas rarely attempted to take over major cities
or state apparatus – not a civil war?
1950 = Conservative hardliner Laureano Gómez wins president – wants forceful end to the
violence through creation of an authoritarian state, envisions a corporatist Colombia (one
which politics are negotiate between family heads, interest groups, the Church and the
Military).
Seeks support from tradtionalists who oppose modernisation, and destabilising influence of
US Capital – and simultaneously of US companies in the Country.
Gómez’s base of support is weak – tries to enact far reaching, radical change – lasts 3 years.
Rojas Pinilla – promises stability and is initially supported.
Quickly reveals no intention of giving up power – wanted to create regime heavily influenced
by Peron  strong, authoritarian (supported by army, press censorship and singular party),
BUT some welfare programmes to stem violence in the countryside.
Wrapped up in anti-establishment, demagogic rhetoric.
Lurches from repression to concessions, alienating allies and detractors equally  violence
continues unabated – only change is that Rojas Pinilla and his entourage have become
millionaires.
1957 – army overthrows Pinilla and announces that it will hand over power to civilians.
Liberals and Conservatives meet in opposition of Pinilla – would run in coalition for 4
presidential terms (16 years), under the ‘National Front’.
Would alternate at the heads of the coalition, with Liberals heading the 1st presidential term.
National front was able to win the 4 elections.