Chapter 6: Recent History: The Roots of Modern Terrorism

1. Chapter 6:Recent History: The Roots of Modern Terrorism

2. Social Revolution and the Enlightenment • 18th Century considered Age of Reason or the Period of Enlightenment. • Europeans began to question the manner in which they were governed during the Enlightenment: • Sought to increase the power of the lower classes. • Forces of change brought a new way of thinking about citizenship. • Enlightenment was an international intellectual movement.

3. Social Revolution and the Enlightenment • Philosophers produced a common idea about government. • Governments should exist to protect individual rights. • Best form of government was democracy: • Citizens had rights. • Governments were created to protect those rights. • Common people should control the government through social contract or constitution. • Increased demand for democracy • Tension between ruling class the governed • Tension spilled into violence

4. The American Revolution • Reasons why the colonist revolted against England: • British taxation laws, enforced through: • Sugar Act (1764), Stamp Act (1765), and Townshend Act (1767) • Those acts affected American citizens (merchants and consumers), so they boycotted them, and British imports to America were cut in a half. • The famous quote comes from this period: “No taxation without representation.” • Those acts sparked a protest and British answered by sending troops. • Boston Massacre (1770)

5. The American Revolution • Reasons why colonies in North America objected to British rule included: • ‘Tea law’ – proclamation that cut off the colonies from trade (resulting in the Boston Tea Party). • Lack of American representation in the British Parliament. • After publication of Tom Paine’sCommon Sense pamphlet, public opinion swung toward the cause of independence (half a million copies sold!)

6. The American Revolution • On July 1776, The Second Continental Congress declared independence from Great Britain: • American Revolution transferred power from British upper class to American upper class. • American Revolution represented long-term evolutionary process toward democracy. • Americans created a republic based on a representative democracy.

7. The French Revolution • French Revolution (1789-1799) was based on same enlightened principles as American Revolution. • French Revolution different and more deadly in tone. • Extremely bloody – Guillotine, genocide of Nante’s rebels, massacres, slaughter, assasinations, revenge killings • First revolution in the modern sense of the word. • French Revolution was a transfer of power between classes. • French Revolution represented a radical shift in power structures.

8. The Reign of Terror • Term terrorism appeared during the French Revolution. • Burke: Referred to Government’s violence as “Reign of Terror,” using the word terrorism to describe actions of the new government (cold-blooded reign of Jacobins). • As the government consolidate power, the would-be democracy gave way to Napoleon Bonaparte and military authoritarianism.

9. Guerrillas and the Spanish Peninsula • Meaning of terrorism underwent a subtle change during Napoleon’s invasion of Spain. • Spanish partisans attacked French troops in unconventional manners. • Spanish called it patriotism. • French referred to Spanish partisans as terrorists. • Definition shifted away from government repression and toward those who resisted government. • Definitional transformation continued throughout 19th century.

10. 1848 and the Radical Democrats • Radical Democrats • Demanded immediate drastic change: • Democracy should be based on economic equality as well as freedom. • Class revolution. • Political power should be held in common. • Interest in developing constitution. • Distribute wealth created by trade and manufacturing evenly. • Socialists • Argued for centralized control of the economy. • Anarchists • Sought to reduce or to eliminate centralized government. • Capitalists • Sought to reduce or to eliminate centralized government.

11. Socialists • Wanted to completely democratize society. • Wanted control of industrial production. • Emphasized the right to form labor unions, to bargain work conditions and to strike. • Emphasized democracy over the centralized power of communism. • Believed that a strong state would ensure profits from industry were distributed in an egalitarian manner.

12. Socialists • Socialism • Karl Marx, founder of communism, stated that: • Social structure is arranged by the material circumstances surrounding existence. • Humans shape the environment through work and even produce more than they need. • Communists – a form of Socialism • Advocated strong centralized government. • Elimination of all classes save the working class. • Complete state monopoly over all forms of industrial and agricultural production.

13. Anarchists • Shared ideas about egalitarian nature of society with socialists; disagreed on function of the state. • All forms of governmental domination are harmful and unnecessary. • Proudhon: • Extension of the democracy to all classes should be accomplished through the elimination of property and government. • Anarchy would develop peacefully as people learned about the structure of governments and the capitalist economy. • Anarchism is believed to be an inspiration for a terrorism.

14. Violent Anarchism • Violent anarchism propaganda: No industrialist is safe and capitalist order would crumble. • Jensen: • Several factors merged to create a culture of terrorism among members of the anarchists movement: • Growing number of people attracted to the movement • Economic change • Economic consolidation accompanied with the social stress • Nationalistic factors • Invention of dynamite (Nobel) fostered the philosophy of bombs and influenced the adoption of violence.

15. Rhetoric, Internal Debates, Action • Prokoptin • Humanity existed between two competing tendencies: cooperation and authoritarianism. • Call for non-violent revolution. • Bakunin • Revolutionaries could not use the state as an instrument of emancipation because it was inherently oppressive. • Bombings and individual assassinations as a means of awakening the masses to reality. • Heinzen • Advocated political murder. • Most… • did not believe capitalistic societies would change peacefully and called for violent action.

16. Modern Terrorists and Their Historical Counterparts • Laqueur: Modern terrorists are more ruthless than their historical counterparts. • Terrorism of historical terrorists was mainly rhetorical. • Anarchists were selective about their targets. • Modern terrorism has been typified by indiscriminate violence and intentional targeting of civilian population. • Modern terrorist strike at governments by killing citizens.

17. Anarchism and Nationalism • Nationalists under foreign control adopted tactics of anarchists to fight foreign powers occupying their lands. • Nationalists believed they were fighting patriotic wars not that they were anarchists (IRA). • Groups throughout Europe turned to the philosophy of the bomb. • Nationalistic terrorists followed patterns set by violent anarchists. • The moral justification for anarchists and nationalists is essentially the same.

18. A Contemporary Analogy • Woodcock: Anarchism was not revolutionary. • Reaction to economic consolidation and centralized state. • Strongest where industrialization was weakest. • Early 1900s witnessed events culminating in measures that resulted in a violation of the civil liberties of several Americans. • Assassination of President McKinley. • Red Scare of 1919. • Could the reactive measures of 9-11 be considered parallel to the over-reactive measures taken in the early 1900s?

19. Terrorism and Revolution in Russia • Russia in the 19th century differed significantly from the other great powers of Europe (class distinction was greater and peasants lived in poverty). • The Peoples’ Will (Narodnaya Voyla) represented violent socialist revolution. • Members believed it was necessary to terrorize subversive organizations into submission. • Peoples’ Will evolved from Russian revolutionary thought. • Bakunin • Nechaev

20. Terrorism and Revolution in Russia • Three approaches of how to modernize the Russian state: • From the top down: Tsar Alexander II • Creation of modern Russia as a liberal Western Democracy: The Intellectuals • Revolution: Violent Anarchists • The People’s Will propaganda won sympathy among the peasantry. • The People's Will Campaign: • Bombings, assassinations and murders • 1881 – murder of Tsar Alexander II

21. Terrorism and Revolution in Russia • National Disasters that created atmosphere for ‘1914 Revolution’ in Russia: • Loosing the war to Japan • Economic problems • Bureaucratic inefficiency • 1905 Revolution • Entering I World War • After 1914 revolution new Russian Government was formed by Mensheviks.

22. Terrorism and Revolution in Russia • Russian revolution utilized terrorism in a new manner. • Created an impact on peoples’ view of terrorism in the 20th century. • Lenin and Trotsky believed terrorism should be used as an instrument for overthrowing the bourgeois governments. • Advocated terrorism as a means of controlling internal enemies and as a method for coping with internal strife. • By threatening to export terror, Lenin and Trotsky effectively placed fear of communism in the minds of many in the West. • Lenin’s victory and subsequent writings have inspired terrorists from 1917 to the present.