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Research dossier · History & Society

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

Former Colombian guerrilla movement

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army was a far-left Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conflict starting in 1964. The FARC–EP was officially founded in 1966 from peasant self-defense groups formed from 1948 during La Violencia as a peasant force promoting a political line of agrarianism and anti-imperialism. They were known to employ a variety of military tactics, in addition to more unconventional methods, including terrorism.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia” is former Colombian guerrilla movement. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Revolutionary, Armed and Forces, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1964, 1966, 1948—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Revolutionary, Armed and Forces is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “former Colombian guerrilla movement” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1966 and 1948.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia primary sources, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia archive and Revolutionary research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.