A pragmatic tool.
On September the 2nd 1792, a Parisian mob began a killing rampage that lasted four days. Investing the city’s prisons one after the other, they executed all the prisoners (a total of over 1000), mostly aristocrats, suspected of plotting for the return of monarchy, and refractory priests, who had refused to swear allegiance to the constitution. This massacre took place at a moment of high tension – accused of treason Louis XVI had been deposed in August, food was scarce, Prussian armies were advancing on French territory to the East, and troops were being levied and armed, while the popular press called for dire measures against “the enemies of the people” – and was to be known as the First Terror. Danton and Robespierre were to apply it as a mode of government, culminating in the Great Terror. They and their supporters were self proclaimed terrorists, who proceeded to execute all opposition. After the fall of Robespierre in July 1794, a White Terror occurred in the South of France from Lyons to Marseilles, as a reaction to the revolutionary excesses. And a Second White Terror, also in the South, set in after Waterloo with the extrajudicial execution of many of Napoleon’s soldiers and officers, and of a few surviving republicans.
Terror and counterterror also took their toll during the Russian revolution. The Soviet Red army was as ruthless as had been the “Blue” army of the first French Republic. And the “Whites” – Denikine and Wrangle in Crimea, Koltchak in Siberia – supported by foreign powers (France, GB, US, Japan) were as reckless as had been the Vendean and the Chouan uprisings of 1793. The German revolution of the Weimar republic did not escape the rule of terror either. All these examples (and one could include the English revolution of 1642, and the Iranian revolution of 1979) of mass and often indiscriminate murder took place in the context of class war. The new dominant bourgeois class must destroy all the ancient allegiances, and replace them with new ones. (This necessary destruction may explain why all these events ended with the rule by terror of dictators). Be they serfs or Grand Dukes, the royal subjects must become citizens, free to work and equal with regards to the law. Multilayered societies rooted in feudalism have to be restructured into two tiered systems of a propertied class and a wage-dependant proletariat. History shows that this is never a gala supper.
Revolution and civil war seem to promote terrorism. Colonial rule favours insurgency. The first modern nations to break away from empire were the Swiss and the Dutch. But the classic example was the American War of Independence. It set down the basic premises for success, foreign aid and a united front. The function of colonies is to supply the Metropolis with raw materials in exchange for consumer goods. This means that industry in the colonies is underdeveloped, and cannot sustain an armed rebellion that needs a constant supply of weapons. These can only come from another colonial power, so that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. For the American insurgents the friend was the then still kingdom of France – always ready to fight the hereditary English foe – who provided the guns and troops that determined the outcome. This could have led to a simple change of masters. But events in Paris and the ensuing British blockade of Europe turned attention away from the new American nation, and gave them time to build up their own industries.
National liberation is usually a protracted struggle. The colonial master does not relinquish his hold easily. And so the civil administration becomes a military occupation where the dividing line is easily drawn, the soldiers and their collaborators forming one party, and the civilian population making up the other. The soldiers are identifiable and can be targeted. The insurgents are indiscernible. Soldiers are ambushed and see their comrades fall. They then vent their anger on whoever they find, and a cycle sets in of terror and counterterror. This widens the gap between the two parties and makes them irreconcilable. By this time the budding nation is finding its unity in the form of patriotism, a nationalist mysticism that inspires great sacrifices. The same succession of events was to occur when Napoleon occupied Spain, as depicted by the French firing squad in Goya’s Tres de Mayo. The 21st of August 1941 on a subway platform in Paris, a twenty-two years old member of the French Communist Party, Pierre Georges later known as Colonel Fabien, shot down a German officer. In retaliation the Germans executed several hostages. This tit for tat included collaborationists, and went crescendo until the liberation of France in 1944. After the war, national liberation movements blossomed in one colonised nation after the other. A few were helped by the US, ever wary of European empires. But most of them could only count on support from the USSR, or China. This automatically involved them in the Cold War between communism and the “free world”. And terror was followed by counterterror on a global scale.
Terror can be the act of an unruly mob against its class enemies, and it can be the tool of totalitarian rule. The hit and run tactics of insurgents are judged contrary to the rules of war, and are treated as terrorism. And counterinsurgency is always involved in counterterror. However, the ultimate form of terror must be the bombing of urban concentrations. Siege weapons had traditionally been aimed at a town’s defences. The early canons were used to batter down walls. But the invention of explosive and incendiary shells changed that principle, and Londonderry was the first city to endure this novelty during the siege of 1689. As bombing took to the air, so did terror. In this case, Guernica was the experimental victim. Then came carpet bombing and the two gigantic mushroom clouds over Japan. Terror can be used against a whole nation as an act of war, to shock and awe.
Terrorists murder people with bullets and bombs. Some victims are in uniform, the others may be men, women or children. Terrorist organisations justify their acts as the necessary path to fulfilling an ideological agenda. They usually have subordinates to do the dirty work, brainwashed teenaged soldiers trained to kill and to lay down their lives for the cause. Terrorists have no moral values and no respect for human life. They believe the end justifies the means. Terror can be a tool of rebellion, and of national and imperial oppression. In his Memoirs, George Grivas wrote,
The British – who arm their commandos with knives and instruct them to kill…from the rear – protested vigorously when such tactics were applied to themselves. It may be argued that these things are only permissible in war. This is nonsense. I was fighting a war in Cyprus against the British, and if they did not recognise the fact from the start they were forced to at the end. The truth is that our form of war, in which a few hundred fell in four years, was more selective than most, and I speak as one who has seen battlefields covered with dead. We did not strike, like the bomber, at random. We shot only British servicemen who would have killed us if they could have fired first, and civilians who were traitors or intelligence agents. To shoot down your enemies in the street may be unprecedented, but I was looking for results, not precedents. How did Napoleon win his victories? He took his opponents in the flank or the rear; and what is right on a grand scale is not wrong when the scale is reduced and the odds against you are a hundred to one.”
Quoted by Robert Taber in The War of the Flea, Paladin 1970)
Terror and counterterror also took their toll during the Russian revolution. The Soviet Red army was as ruthless as had been the “Blue” army of the first French Republic. And the “Whites” – Denikine and Wrangle in Crimea, Koltchak in Siberia – supported by foreign powers (France, GB, US, Japan) were as reckless as had been the Vendean and the Chouan uprisings of 1793. The German revolution of the Weimar republic did not escape the rule of terror either. All these examples (and one could include the English revolution of 1642, and the Iranian revolution of 1979) of mass and often indiscriminate murder took place in the context of class war. The new dominant bourgeois class must destroy all the ancient allegiances, and replace them with new ones. (This necessary destruction may explain why all these events ended with the rule by terror of dictators). Be they serfs or Grand Dukes, the royal subjects must become citizens, free to work and equal with regards to the law. Multilayered societies rooted in feudalism have to be restructured into two tiered systems of a propertied class and a wage-dependant proletariat. History shows that this is never a gala supper.
Revolution and civil war seem to promote terrorism. Colonial rule favours insurgency. The first modern nations to break away from empire were the Swiss and the Dutch. But the classic example was the American War of Independence. It set down the basic premises for success, foreign aid and a united front. The function of colonies is to supply the Metropolis with raw materials in exchange for consumer goods. This means that industry in the colonies is underdeveloped, and cannot sustain an armed rebellion that needs a constant supply of weapons. These can only come from another colonial power, so that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. For the American insurgents the friend was the then still kingdom of France – always ready to fight the hereditary English foe – who provided the guns and troops that determined the outcome. This could have led to a simple change of masters. But events in Paris and the ensuing British blockade of Europe turned attention away from the new American nation, and gave them time to build up their own industries.
National liberation is usually a protracted struggle. The colonial master does not relinquish his hold easily. And so the civil administration becomes a military occupation where the dividing line is easily drawn, the soldiers and their collaborators forming one party, and the civilian population making up the other. The soldiers are identifiable and can be targeted. The insurgents are indiscernible. Soldiers are ambushed and see their comrades fall. They then vent their anger on whoever they find, and a cycle sets in of terror and counterterror. This widens the gap between the two parties and makes them irreconcilable. By this time the budding nation is finding its unity in the form of patriotism, a nationalist mysticism that inspires great sacrifices. The same succession of events was to occur when Napoleon occupied Spain, as depicted by the French firing squad in Goya’s Tres de Mayo. The 21st of August 1941 on a subway platform in Paris, a twenty-two years old member of the French Communist Party, Pierre Georges later known as Colonel Fabien, shot down a German officer. In retaliation the Germans executed several hostages. This tit for tat included collaborationists, and went crescendo until the liberation of France in 1944. After the war, national liberation movements blossomed in one colonised nation after the other. A few were helped by the US, ever wary of European empires. But most of them could only count on support from the USSR, or China. This automatically involved them in the Cold War between communism and the “free world”. And terror was followed by counterterror on a global scale.
Terror can be the act of an unruly mob against its class enemies, and it can be the tool of totalitarian rule. The hit and run tactics of insurgents are judged contrary to the rules of war, and are treated as terrorism. And counterinsurgency is always involved in counterterror. However, the ultimate form of terror must be the bombing of urban concentrations. Siege weapons had traditionally been aimed at a town’s defences. The early canons were used to batter down walls. But the invention of explosive and incendiary shells changed that principle, and Londonderry was the first city to endure this novelty during the siege of 1689. As bombing took to the air, so did terror. In this case, Guernica was the experimental victim. Then came carpet bombing and the two gigantic mushroom clouds over Japan. Terror can be used against a whole nation as an act of war, to shock and awe.
Terrorists murder people with bullets and bombs. Some victims are in uniform, the others may be men, women or children. Terrorist organisations justify their acts as the necessary path to fulfilling an ideological agenda. They usually have subordinates to do the dirty work, brainwashed teenaged soldiers trained to kill and to lay down their lives for the cause. Terrorists have no moral values and no respect for human life. They believe the end justifies the means. Terror can be a tool of rebellion, and of national and imperial oppression. In his Memoirs, George Grivas wrote,
The British – who arm their commandos with knives and instruct them to kill…from the rear – protested vigorously when such tactics were applied to themselves. It may be argued that these things are only permissible in war. This is nonsense. I was fighting a war in Cyprus against the British, and if they did not recognise the fact from the start they were forced to at the end. The truth is that our form of war, in which a few hundred fell in four years, was more selective than most, and I speak as one who has seen battlefields covered with dead. We did not strike, like the bomber, at random. We shot only British servicemen who would have killed us if they could have fired first, and civilians who were traitors or intelligence agents. To shoot down your enemies in the street may be unprecedented, but I was looking for results, not precedents. How did Napoleon win his victories? He took his opponents in the flank or the rear; and what is right on a grand scale is not wrong when the scale is reduced and the odds against you are a hundred to one.”
Quoted by Robert Taber in The War of the Flea, Paladin 1970)
posted by le Lézard at 12:53 AM
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