The signing of a final peace accord in 1996 signaled the end of a devastating civil war that had plagued the country of Guatemala for 36 years. The opposition consisted of four political military groups including the Revolutionary Organization of the People in Arms (Organización Revolucionaria del Pueblo en Armas - ORPA). For seventeen years ORPA carried out military and political actions against the government, and in the atmosphere of the Cold War were quickly dismissed as a Communist organization. This paper explores the role Marxism and liberation theology played in the organization’s ideology. It argues that even though the organization may have incorporated elements of both into their own ideology, they were a revolutionary nationalist movement attempting to address the ethnic and socioeconomic problems inherent to Guatemala. This paper analyzes ORPA’s discourse as presented during the war in order to gain insight into the ideological underpinnings of the organization.