Abstract. Since the 1930s, the bankruptcy of the oligarchic regime, inherited from the 19th century, has caused a period of crisis and great social and political tensions in Colombia, between forces that advocate social and political change and sectors that defend traditional elitism. From this national confrontation, a fracture has arisen that will create an unbridgeable gap without the possibility of peaceful overturning, plunging the country into a spiral of violence. It is in this context that the Colombian political elites, fundamentally anti-communist, will deploy the strategy of fighting the internal enemy to discredit any political alternative. Thus, this fantasized threat will be used as an argument at their convenience in order to disqualify their political enemies. This thread of the internal enemy will feed the discourse to legitimize authoritarian practices and the institutionalization of state terrorism in Colombia during the twentieth century. From then on, there is a gradual shift from discursive violence towards this sworn enemy to physical and state violence that will justify, in some way, its exclusion and then its eradication.Article