Close to Colombian Revolution. Re-thinking the Unirismo of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán (1933-1935)

Abstract

This paper studies the construction and dissolution of the political organization National Leftist Revolutionary Union (UNIR) form the first half of the 1930s through the discourse of its leader, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the testimony of several of its members and the weekly newspaper 'Unirismo'. Based on the political identities analysis, Unirismo is inquired here in tension with Communism and official Liberalism, in order to highlight the specificity of the revolutionary action of the UNIR, marked to a large extent by Gaitán's thought prior 1933: The rejection of the physical elimination of the otherness and the vocation to build a political Vanguard. Finally, it is proposed that the identity borders established by UNIR against the Liberal Party were porous. This hypothesis questions the readings about Unirismo as a third-party attempt and, fundamentally, explains Gaitán's return to liberalism without resorting to arguments such as electoral strategy or opportunism of the former Colombian leader.