Guatemalan Labor Party

(GLP; El Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo), founded in the city of Guatemala on Sept. 28, 1949. Before the second congress, which was held in December 1952, the GLP was called the Communist Party of Guatemala. It was heir to the best traditions of the Communist Party of Guatemala, which was founded in 1922 but ceased to exist in 1932 as a result of cruel government repressions.

The program and charter of the GLP were adopted at the second party congress. In the atmosphere of the general democratic upswing caused by the revolution of 1944 (the beginning of the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944-54), the GLP took an active part in organizing the workers’ and peasants’ movement and in the struggle for democratic reforms, especially the adoption and implementation of an agrarian reform law. In June 1954, after the overthrow of the government of J. Arbenz through the military intervention organized by the USA, persecutions by the military and police regime forced the GLP to go deep underground.

The party’s third congress was held in May 1960. It adopted the Political Platform, which contained an analysis of the political and economic situation in Guatemala and set the task of a struggle against the reactionary proimperialist dictatorship and for the establishment of a democratic revolutionary government. The congress stated that in its current phase the Guatemalan revolution was an agrarian, anti-imperialist, popular revolution. In consideration of existing conditions, the GLP concluded that the revolution must develop in the form of a revolutionary armed struggle of the people. In 1963 the GLP participated with other revolutionary groups in organizing the rebel armed forces and carrying out partisan activity in response to the repressive measures and terror on the part of reactionary forces. The national conference of the party, which was held in February 1966, set forth measures for strengthening the unity of the party and confirmed the course toward an armed struggle as the strategy of the party. In early 1968, after the split of the Rebel Armed Forces, which was caused by the activity of ultra-leftist elements, the GLP created its own armed organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

The fourth congress of the GLP, which was held in December 1969, analyzed the activity of the party since 1960 and adopted a new program and charter. The congress reaffirmed that under existing conditions armed struggle is the main path of development for the Guatemalan revolution. Delegations of the GLP attended the International Conferences of Representatives of Communist and Workers’ Parties held in Moscow in 1957, 1960, and 1969, and the GLP approved the documents that were adopted by these conferences. The structure of the GLP follows the principles of democratic centralism. The highest party organ is the congress, and between congresses the leadership of the party is exercised by the central committee, which is headed by the political commission. Since 1954 the secretary-general of the Central Committee of the GLP has been B. Alvarado Monzón. The GLP publishes the newspaper Verdad.