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Contemprary Revolutionary Organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

J. Bowyer Bell
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During the past century revolutionary organizations have, in the name of mankind, sought the violent transformation of the existing international framework. Their aim has been the liberation of nations submerged by fate or repressed by coercion and the destruction of the entire nation-state system, considered a passing phase of history. Even those revolutionary organizations dedicated to a specific national struggle have tended to see the triumph of their cause as a step toward a conflict-free world society in which the basic aspirations of all will have been achieved. In the heyday of anticolonial revolts nationalism per se tended to dominate the ideology of the various movements. In the last decade, with fewer countries to liberate from a foreign oppressor and more to be liberated from domestic regimes supported by worldwide imperialism, the universal ideological context of the revolutionary struggle has become more pronounced. Today most, but by no means all, revolutionary movements proclaim an allegiance to world revolution; nevertheless, as in the past, most continue to act as covert governments or illegal armies, underground or in exile, and to represent not the universal but the particular. Such organizations may have deep sympathies, even specific alliances, with fellow national revolutionary organizations or legitimate governments, but they are often comparable, if not parallel, to normal international arrangements. Even the most militant movements in the vanguard of world revolution, despite all their paraphernalia of antinational ideology, are nearly always established on a national basis and act as alternative national regimes. At best, revolution in one country may be actually allied with similar revolutions, but rarely is it submerged in a fully integrated, universal transnational movement.

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International Organization , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , Summer 1971 , pp. 503 - 518
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Copyright © The IO Foundation 1971

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References

1 The basis for this essay is a seemingly indeterminable number of interviews with retired and practicing revolutionaries in North America, Western Europe, the Middle East, and Africa carried out during the past five years. For the most part and for obvious reasons research concerning covert organizations is largely qualitative. For a more extensive analysis of contemporary revolutionary movements see my The Myth of the Guerrilla, Revolutionary Theory and Malpractice (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, forthcoming), which also contains a selected bibliography from existing academic and polemic literature of revolution.

2 Grivas accepted the similarity in the aspirations of EOKA and those of the Algerians, but as a pure nationalist and a Christian he denied the legitimacy of communist “national liberation” struggles as formulated by Mao Tsetung.

3 A very substantial number of revolutionary organizations are proclaimed Marxists-Leninists—an umbrella word for “good, radical guys.” Despite the plethora of ideological publications churned out by revolutionary societies (the mimeograph still seems to be mightier than the AK-47), many revolutionaries have too often read one book—and the wrong one at that: The Irish Republican Army (IRA) should have read Begin and not Tom Barry in 1956, and Ernesto “Ché” Guevara is hardly the ideal guide for the Palestinian fedayeen.

4 See “A Report of the International Conference in Support of the Peoples of the Portuguese Colonies and Southern Africa: Khartoum, January 18–20, 1969,” African Communist, Second Quarter 1969 (No. 37). PP. 13–24Google Scholar.

5 Only one African liberation movement, GRAE, has declared a govcrnment-in-exile. Most African states that have relations with the liberation movements treat them as “movements,” not as “governments.”

6 In Africa those regimes which host liberation headquarters play the dominant part in the movements' contacts. Tanzania insists on monitoring shipments of arms and has taken action, largely unsuccessfully, to prevent intramovement divisions or to end undesirable practices which may be criminal or viewed as politically counterproductive. Zambia formally prohibits armed entry and too visible training and has also threatened expulsion as a result of intramovement divisions or undesirable practices like torture. Both governments prefer effective liberation movements that do not gready disturb domestic peace or, particularly in the case of Zambia, make retaliation probable.

7 The Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) long recognized that the rivalries between the Soviet Union and Communist China to “sponsor” the organization had caused the most severe internal strains. FRELIMO's president, Eduardo Mondlane, who had managed to acquire Western support as well, barely managed to prevent a split. After his assassination in February 1969 FRELIMO managed to struggle through until autumn before a split occurred. On the other hand, the long-range purposes of the Soviet Union and Communist China to win friends and hurt the white bastion to the south are not seen as particularly “dangerous” nor the prospect of Russian or Communist Chinese domination particularly likely. The belief that self-proclaimed friends can be managed even when supping with a short spoon is universal. In the Middle East Al Fatah was quite aware that Syrian aid during 1965–1967 was not directed toward a Palestinian, goal but to embarrassing Jordan and Egypt. Al Fatah leaders did not mind, in fact, they largely supported, Syrian policy as long as the aid continued. After 1967 Syria, suspicious of Al Fatah's first loyalty to the Palestinian cause and the nonideological front policy, sponsored a Palestinian Ba'ath fedayeen movement, Al Sa'iqa.

8 This is the Fanon thesis that to be free and proud a man must struggle for liberation, not be presented with “independence.”

9 All the liberation movements in southern Africa recognize that they have a single opponent and that victory probably cannot be won in a single area—Angola or Mozambique. Rather than concentrate on one area, assuming that this was ideologically and militarily possible, most movements have accepted the strategy of many wounds—various guerrilla fronts producing greater attrition than a single blow. In practice, except for the ANC-ZAPU alliance and to a lesser degree the ZAPU-FRELIMO agreement, tactical cooperation has been nil; in some cases, particularly in Angola, the competing movements have fought each other.

10 This is largely an intuitive—certainly not a quantitative—judgment based on conversations witli those involved. The Africans, never having had nation-states, stress nation building through the armed struggle far more than a distant, if desirable, “One Africa.”

11 There are two conservative strategies for unity as well. One of these, that of the Moslem Brotherhood, should probably be considered revolutionary since it seeks to overturn the existing “atheistic regimes” in the name of a universal Islamic state. The Moslem Brotherhood is banned in almost all Arab states and is viewed by Arab radicals as an anachronistic, reactionary movement. The traditional regimes have sought unity through the strategy of federation, either dynastic (as was the case with Iraq and Jordan) or institutional (as is the case with the League of Arab States or the Trucial states). Neither the Islamic nor the federal road has led any nearer to the goal than has the strategy proposed by the revolutionaries.

12 The organizational structure of the Arab National Movement is as confused as most other things in the Middle East. Apparently in 1966 Habash organized the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), basically the Palestinian branch of the Arab National Movement, which has since split into various personal and ideological fragments. Outside the PFLP elsewhere in the Middle East the movement is at present of minimal importance, more a state of mind than an organization, except in Southern Yemen which is somewhat isolated from main Arab currents.

13 The organization of contemporary revolution has tended to follow one of several relatively distinguishable courses: 1) the front policy which eschews ideological commitment and combines political and military leadership in a single command; 2) the military-core, or at least the party-militant, organized as an “army” that also makes political decisions; and 3) the political center which directs military acts. By and large, the three descend in size from the front to the political-revolutionary unit. As often as not the revolutionary organization can be a blend of the three or operate under special circumstances (EOKA under Grivas in Cyprus was almost purely military, organizationally largely separate from the political center of Archbishop Makarios III in exile). The most effective variety of revolutionary organization during the armed struggle may be found faulty or irrelevant once power is achieved (in Southern Yemen the military high command simply began running the country while in Cyprus the exiled Makarios was brought back as president of a totally new government and Grivas was sent into exile, at least temporarily). Essentially, whatever the nature of the revolutionary organization, until the moment of recognition the movement acts as a counterstate even if its only activity is guerrilla warfare.

14 With several notable exceptions most of the active revolutionary organizations accessible to study have exiled-bascd headquarters. The result is a great variety of host-state-revolutionary-movement relationships, sufficient, in fact, to serve as subject matter for an extensive dissertation. These relationships range from intimate friendship to total opposition: 1) The revolutionaries' ally may be an enthusiastic host dedicated to the revolutionary cause ideally and/or pragmatically—for example, Syria's support of Al Fatah, 1965–1967; 2) the host state may be theoretically enthusiastic toward the movement but pragmatically reluctant to assume the cost of sponsorship—Jordan's toleration of Al Fatah, 1967–1970; 3) the host state may be neutral, pursuing a policy of benign neglect for specific advantage—France's attitude toward the Irgun, 1946–1948, and toward the Palestinian fedayeen, 1968–1970; 4) the host state may evidence legalistic disapproval so that revolutionary exiles may exist but not function effectively without risk—the present situation of the anti-Castro Cubans in the United States; 5) the host state, considering the exiles enemies of the regime, prohibit operations of any kind—for example, Vichy France and the Spanish republicans.

There are, of course, deviant cases. The IRA, illegal in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, is “tolerated,” when quiescent, in the latter but never in the former.

Relationships between host governments and revolutionary movements are often a factor of the strength of the movement. Similarly, the range is considerable—from a weak movement or one which has failed to gain indigenous support, given sinecure out of ideological loyalty and minor hope of future gain, to a movement that dominates or threatens to dominate the host government.

15 Curiously, a previous “Palestinian example” exists. The grand mufti of Palestine, Haj Amin Husseini, exerted an almost controlling influence over Iraqi politics after his flight from the British Mandate as a wanted rebel in 1939 and his second flight from Baghdad in the face of British intervention in April–May 1941. The purpose of this manipulation, briefly successful, was to create an anti-British, anti-Zionist Iraqi base to wage a campaign for an Arab Palestine. As an exile in Germany he was given funds and passing notice but had reached the far end of the host-exile relation in a single bound.

16 Some revolutionary allies have, of course, no loyalty except to their own regime. Iran, for example, has aided the Kurdish revolt in Iraq while denying their own Kurds self-determination and information about the activities of Iraqi Kurds.