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Revolution and War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Stephen M. Walt
Stephen M. Walt
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Abstract

Revolutions are watershed events in international politics, yet the existing literature on revolutions focuses primarily on the causes of revolution or its effects on domestic politics. Revolutions are also a potent cause of instability and war, because they alter the “balance of threats” between the revolutionary state and the other members of the system. First, revolutions alter the balance of power and make it more difficult for states to measure it accurately. Second, they encourage states to exaggerate each other's hostility, further increasing perceptions of threat. Third, revolutions cause states to exaggerate both their own vulnerability and that of their opponents, thereby encouraging them to view the use of force as both necessary and feasible. This combination of insecurity and overconfidence is usually illusory, however. In fact, revolutions are usually harder either to export or to reverse than either side expects.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , April 1992 , pp. 321 - 368
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1992

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References

1 The locus classicus remains Waltz, Kenneth N., Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979Google Scholar).

2 For surveys of the literature on revolution, see Calvert, Peter, Revolution and CounterRevolution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990Google Scholar); Goldstone, Jack A., “Theories of Revolution: The Third Generation,” World Politics 32 (April 1980CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Aya, Rod, “Theories of Revolution Reconsidered: Contrasting Models of Political Violence,” Theory and Society 8 (July 1979Google Scholar); Hagopian, Mark N., The Phenomenon of Revolution (New York: Dodd Mead, 1974Google Scholar); and Zimmermann, Ekkart, Political Violence, Crises and Revolutions: Theories and search (Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing, 1983Google Scholar).

3 I know of only two theoretical works on this topic, neither of which is fully satisfactory: Calvert, Peter, Revolution and International Politics (New York: St. Martin's, 1984Google Scholar); and Kim, Kyung-Won, Revolution and International System (New York: New York University Press, 1970Google Scholar). Excellent case studies include Blanning, T. C. W., The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars (New York: Longman, 1986Google Scholar); Carr, Edward Hallett, The Bolshevilk Revolution, 1917–1923, vol. 3 (New York: Macmillan, 1953CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Ness, Peter Van, Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy: Peking's Supportfor Wars of National Liberation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970Google Scholar); and Katz, Friedrich, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981Google Scholar).

4 For similar conceptions, see Borkenau, Franz, “State and Revolution in the Paris Commune, the Russian Civil War, and the Spanish Civil War,” Sociological Review 29 (January 1937Google Scholar); Dunn, John, Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis of a Political Phenom enon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), xiGoogle Scholar; and Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 264Google Scholar–65.

5 See Skocpol, Theda, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 29Google Scholar.

6 Due to the many similarities between national liberation movements and revolutionary organizations, successful wars of national liberation and successful revolutions are likely to generate similar international effects.

7 See Maoz, Zeev, “Joining the Club of Nations: Political Development and International Conflict, 1816–1976,” International Studies Quarterly 33 (June 1989CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Maoz carefully shows how regime change affects the probability of war, but he does not offer an explanation for this association. See also Adelman, Jonathan R., Revolution, Armies, and War: A Political His tory (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1985), 3–6Google Scholar.

8 The near misses are the Mexican Revolution, where the United States intervened twice on a modest scale and considered a full-scale invasion in 1916, and the Cuban Revolution, where the United States sponsored a number of efforts to overthrow or assassinate Fidel Castro.

9 E.g., the Egyptian National Charter of 1962 proclaimed that “Egypt was bound to spread its mission and put [its] principles … at the disposal of all the Arabs, disregarding the wornout notion that in doing so it is interfering in other peoples' affairs.” Quoted in Da-wisha, Adeed, Egypt in the Arab World (London: Macmillan, 1976), 35Google Scholar.

10 See Burke, Edmund, “First Letter on a Regicide Peace,” in The Works of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke (Boston: Little, Brown, 1869Google Scholar), 5: 250. On Western appraisals of Soviet conduct, see George Kennan, F. [Mr. X], “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs 25 (July 1947Google Scholar); Leites, Nathan, A Study of Bolshevism (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1953Google Scholar); and “U.S. Objectives and Programs for National Security” (NSC-68), reprinted in Etzold, Thomas H. and Gaddis, John Lewis, eds., Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945—1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 386Google Scholar–96. More recently President Reagan argued that “it was difficult [for Americans] to understand the [Soviet] ideological premise that force is an acceptable way to expand a political system.” See “Text of President Reagan's United Nations Speech,” Washington Post, October 25, 1985, p. A23Google Scholar.

11 See Ramazani, R. K., Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the Middle East (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 19—26Google Scholar; Zonis, Marvin and Brumberg, Daniel, Khomeini, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Arab World (Cambridge: Harvard Center for Middle East Studies, 1987Google Scholar); and Benard, Cheryl and Khalilzad, Zalmay, ”The Government of God”: Iran's Islamic Republic (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 147Google Scholar–55.

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13 The Soviet Union did send military aid to the republican forces in the Spanish Civil War, but this modest commitment was motivated by defensive concerns and lasted only one year.

14 Of course, revolutionary regimes may invite war through provocative actions, even if other states initiate the use of military force.

15 For examples, see Leites, Nathan, The Operational Code of the Politburo (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951), 32—35Google Scholar; and Tsou, Tang and Halperin, Morton H., “Mao Tse-tung's Revolutionary Strategy and Peking's International Behavior,” American Political Science Re view 59 (September 1965), 89–90Google Scholar.

16 For a summary and critique of these theories, see Levy, Jack S., “Domestic Politics and War,” in Rotberg, Robert and Rabb, Theodore, eds., The Origins and Prevention of Major Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989Google Scholar); and idem, “The Causes of Wars: A Review of Theories and Evidence,” in Tetlock, Philip et al., eds., Behavior, Society, and Nuclear (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989Google Scholar), 1:262–73.

17 For a superb analysis of the Brissotin campaign for war, see Blanning (fn. 3), 99–113. See also Clapham (fn. 12), 114–15, 135–36; and Gunther E. Rothenburg, “The Origins, Causes, and Extension of the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon,” in Rotberg and Rabb (fn. 16), 209–12.

18 See Arjomand, Said Amir, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran (London: Oxford University Press, 1988), 139Google Scholar–41; and Sick, Gary, “Iran's Quest for Superpower Status,” Foreign Affairs 65 (Spring 1987), 698CrossRefGoogle Scholar–99.

19 The damage from the contra war notwithstanding, the Sandinistas' defeat in the 1990 election reveals that they ultimately failed to make the United States a convincing scapegoat for their domestic errors. See Gilbert, Dennis, Sandinistas: The Party and the Revolution (Lon don: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 94–95Google Scholar, 119, 183.

20 For example, Lenin insisted that Soviet weakness left them no choice but to ratify the harsh Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918. See Fischer, Louis, The Life of Lenin (New York: Harper Colophon, 1964), 190–223Google Scholar; and Lenin, , “The Chief Task of Our Day,” and “Report on Ratification of the Peace Treaty,” in Lenin, , Selected Worlds (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970Google Scholar), 2: 618–21, 626–40.

21 For other examples of Bolshevik concessions, see Carr (fn. 3), 47, 57, 87—88. On Mao's decisions on Korea, see Gurtov, Melvin and Hwang, Byong-Moo, China under Threat: The Politics of Strategy and Diplomacy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 25—29Google Scholar.

22 See Pastor, , Condemned to Repetition: The United States and Nicaragua (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 191Google Scholar and passim.

23 More extensive efforts to test the hypotheses linking domestic conflict with involvement in war have been largely inconclusive. See Levy (fn. 16, “Causes of Wars”), 273–74.

24 Basic works in this genre include Wolfenstein, E. Victor, The Revolutionary Personality: Lenin, Trotsky, Gandhi (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971Google Scholar); Mazlish, Bruce, The Revolutionary Ascetic: Evolution of a Political Type (New York: Basic Books, 1976Google Scholar); Haskins, James, Revolutionaries: Agents of Change (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1971Google Scholar); and Rejai, Mostafa and Phillips, Kay, World Revolutionary Leaders (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983Google Scholar). For summaries, see Greene, Thomas H., Comparative Revolutionary Movements: The Searchfor Theory and Justice, 2d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1984Google Scholar), chap. 4; and Hagopian (fn. 2), 318–33.

25 See Kissinger, Henry, “Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy,” in Kissinger, , American Foreign Policy, expanded ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974), 39–41Google Scholar; Kautsky, John H., “Revolutionary and Managerial Elites in Modernizing Regimes,” Comparative Politics 1 (July 1969CrossRefGoogle Scholar); and Morgan, Patrick, Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1977), 162Google Scholar.

26 An exception is Arthur Schlesinger's attempt to attribute the cold war in part to Stalin's paranoid personality, as well as to Leninist ideology and the domestic structure of the Soviet state. See Schlesinger, , “The Origins of the Cold War,” Foreign Affairs 46 (October 1967), 46–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For background, see also Tucker, Robert C., Stalin as Revolutionary: A Study in History and Personality, 1879–1929 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973Google Scholar).

27 See Thompson, J. M., Robespierre (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1935), 202Google Scholar–8; and Michon, Georges, Robespierre et la guerre rivolutionnaire, 1791—1792 (Paris: Marcel Riviere, 1937), 51—55Google Scholar.

28 See Carr (fn. 3), 38–39; Ramazani (fn. 11), 47; and Wright, Robin, In the Path of God: The Khomeini Decade (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 93–95Google Scholar, 136–37.

29 See Waltz (fn. 1), chap. 6. For other versions of balance-of-power theory, see Gulick, Edward V., Europe's Classical Balance of Power (New York: W. W. Norton, 1967Google Scholar); Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics among Nations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973Google Scholar); Claude, Inis L., Power and International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962Google Scholar); and Kaplan, Morton A., System and Process in International Politics (New York: Wiley, 1957Google Scholar).

30 The importance of miscalculation is apparent in the neorealist analysis of stability. Ken- neth Waltz and John Mearsheimer argue that bipolarity is more stable than multipolarity, because increasing the number of great powers makes it more difficult for states to assess the balance of power and predict the likely outcome of war. Similarly, they argue that nuclear weapons increase stability by making it easy to calculate what an all-out war would mean. See Waltz (fn. 1), 163–76; idem, “The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory,” in Rotberg and Rabb (fn. 16), 39–52; and Mearsheimer, John J., “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security 15 (Summer 1990), 13–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 See Robert Gilpin, “Theories of Hegemonic War,” in Rotberg and Rabb (fn. 16), 26; and Levy, Jack S., “Declining Power and the Preventive Motivation for War,” World Politics 40 (October 1987), 83–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 See Blainey, Geoffrey, The Causes of War, 3d ed. (New York: Free Press, 1988CrossRefGoogle Scholar), chap. 8.

33 See Walt, Stephen M., The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), 21–26Google Scholar, 263–66, 275–80; and also idem, “Testing Theories of Alliance Formation: The Case of Southwest Asia,” International Organization 42 (Spring 1988Google Scholar).

34 See Quester, George, Offense and Defense in the International System (New York: Wiley, 1977Google Scholar); Jervis, Robert, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30 (January 1978CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Evera, Stephen Van, “Causes of War” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1984), 77Google Scholar–171; and idem, “The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War,” International Security 9 (Summer 1984).

35 Note the following death tolls in modern revolutions: France, 15,000 dead; Russia, 500,000; China, 3 million; Cuba, 5,000; Iran, 17,000; Mexico 250,000; Nicaragua, between 30,000 and 50,000. See Small, Melvin and Singer, J. David, Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816–1980 (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1982Google Scholar).

36 See Huntington (fn. 4), 266.

37 Indeed, some theorists assert that it is impossible for a revolution to succeed so long as the armed forces retain their loyalty and cohesion. See Chorley, Katherine C., Armies and the Art of Revolution (London: Faber and Faber, 1943Google Scholar). For additional background, see Adelman (fn. 7).

38 On the free-rider problem, see Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971Google Scholar). For extensions and revisions of Olson's arguments, see Hardin, Russell, Collective Action (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press/Resources for the Future, 1982Google Scholar).

39 Works that apply collective-goods theory to the study of revolution include Popkin, Samuel, The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979Google Scholar); Taylor, Michael, “Rationality and Revolutionary Collective Action,” in Taylor, , ed., Rationality and Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 63–97Google Scholar; Tullock, Gordon, “The Paradox of Revolution,” Public Choice 11 (Fall 1971CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Roeder, Philip G., “Rational Revolution: Extensions of the 'By-Product' Model of Rev- olutionary Involvement,” Western Political Quarterly 35 (March 1982CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Silver, Morris, “Politi cal Revolution and Repression: An Economic Approach,” Public Choice 17 (Spring 1974CrossRefGoogle Scholar); and Muller, Edward N. and Opp, Karl-Dieter, “Rational Choice and Rebellious Collective Action,” American Political Science Review 80 (June 1986CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

40 See Muller and Opp (fn. 39), 472.

41 See Race, Jeffrey, “Toward an Exchange Theory of Revolution,” in Lewis, John Wilson, ed., Peasant Rebellion and Communist Revolution in Asia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974Google Scholar); Migdal, Joel S., Peasants, Politics and Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974Google Scholar); and the references in fn. 39.

42 As Charles Tilly notes, “Why and how … the group committed from the start to fundamental transformation of the structure of power … forms remains one of the mysteries of our time.” See Tilly, , From Mobilization to Revolution (New York: Random House, 1978), 203Google Scholar.

43 Revolutionaries are often surprised when they gain power, which suggests that they were not motivated by expectations of personal future gain. Lenin told a socialist youth group in January 1917 that “we of the older generation may not live to see the decisive battles of this coming revolution”; the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega admitted that as late as July 1979 he did not expect to see the revolution succeed in Nicaragua; and the Ayatollah Kho- meini was reportedly surprised by the speed with which the Shah's regime collapsed. See Chamberlain, William Henry, The Bolshevik Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987Google Scholar), 1:131,323; Pastor (fn. 22), xiv; and Zonis, Marvin, “Iran: A Theory of Revolution from Accounts of the Revolution,” World Politics 35 (July 1983), 602CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 In the words of Douglass North: “How do we account for … the willingness of people to engage in immense sacrifice with no evident possible gain (the endless parade of individuals and groups who have incurred prison or death for abstract causes)?” See North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), 10–11Google Scholar.

45 See Rule, James, Theories of Civil Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 35Google Scholar, 39. For a more general discussion of these issues, see Elster, Jon, The Cement of Society: A Study of Social Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989CrossRefGoogle Scholar), chap. 5.

46 For example, see the description of Lenin's “intense faith” in Marxism in Chamberlain (fn. 43), 1: 135, 140.

47 This argument is consistent with recent sociological research suggesting that political organizations encourage collective action by promoting particular beliefs about the seriousness of the problem, the locus of causality or blame, the image of the opposition, and the efficacy of collective response. See Snow, David A. et al., “Frame Alignment Processes, Mi-cromobilization, and Movement Participation,” American Sociological Review 51 (August 1986CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

48 Thus, Sandinista leader Humberto Ortega admitted to deliberately exaggerating the feasibility of revolution: “Trying to tell the masses that the cost was very high and that they should seek another way would have meant the defeat of the revolutionary movement.” See Borge, Tomas et al., Sandinistas Speak (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1982), 70–71Google Scholar.

49 North (fn. 44), 53–54.

50 According to Mark Hagopian, “There are three structural aspects of revolutionary ideology: critique, which lays bare the shortcomings of the old regime; affirmation, which suggests or even spells out in detail that a better society is not only desirable, but possible; and in recent times, strategic guidance, which tells the best way to make a revolution.” See Ha gopian (fn. 2), 258.

51 See North (fn. 44), 53–54.

52 See Carr (fn. 3), 1:11; and Mao Zedong, “Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle,” in Zedong, Mao, Selected Workfs of Mao Tse-Tung (Peking: Peking Languages Press, 1961Google Scholar), 4: 428 After gaining power, Lenin argued that “the [imperialists'] striving to take advantage of every opportunity to attack Russia is incorrigible.” Quoted in Leites (fn. 10), 406.

53 Quoted in Arjomand (fn. 18), 102. See also Keddie, Nikki, Roots of Revolution: An Interpretation of the History of Modem Iran (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 207Google Scholar. Ramazani argues that Khomeini's hostility toward the United States and the Soviet Union was based in part on his belief that conflict with these adversaries was both desirable and impossible to avoid. See Ramazani (fn. 11), 20–21.

54 See the testimony in Gilbert (fn. 19), 5, 56.

55 See Van Ness (fn. 3), 40–41; and Biao, Lin, “Long Live Victory in the People's War,” in Griffith, Samuel B., ed., Peking and People's War (New York: Praeger, 1966), 101Google Scholar.

56 See V. I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, in Lenin (fn. 20), 1:675, 745—68. Asked what he would do if he gained power, Lenin replied, “We would at once systematically start to incite rebellion among all the peoples now oppressed … [and] raise in rebellion the socialist proletariat of Europe.” Quoted in Theodore H. von Laue, “Soviet Diplomacy: G. V. Chicherin, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, 1918–1930,” in Craig, Gordon A. and Gilbert, Felix, eds., The Diplomats, 1919–1939 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 236Google Scholar. See also Carr (fn. 3), 3–4, 7.

57 See Zonis and Brumberg (fn. 11), 27–28; and Lin Biao (fn. 55), 97. Such beliefs nicely counter the free-rider problem: if potential members were convinced that victory was inevitable regardless of whether they joined or not, the temptation to free ride would increase.

58 See Van Ness (fn. 3), 40–41. On another occasion Mao told his followers that imperialism was “rotten and had no future,” and “we have reason to despise them.” Yet he also cautioned that “we should never take the enemy lightly … and [should] concentrate all our strength for battle.” See Mao Zedong, “On Some Important Problems of the Party's Present Policy,” in Mao Zedong (fn. 52), 4:181; and Tsou and Halperin (fn. 15), 89.

59 In “Leftwing Communism,” Lenin warned that “we may suffer grave and sometimes even decisive defeats.… If, however, we use all the methods of struggle, victory will be certain.” See Lenin (fn. 20), 3:410–11. At the Eighth Party Conference in 1919, he stated, “As long as we have not yet achieved full victory, reversals of the situation are possible and hence not even the smallest doubt or lightmindedness can be tolerated.” Quoted in Leites (fn. 10), 442.

60 See T. C. W. Blanning, The French Revolution in Germany: Occupation and Resistance the Rhineland, 1792–1802 (London: Oxford University Press), 63; and Blanning (fn. 3), 111.

61 Quoted in Tsou and Halperin (fn. 15), 82.

62 See Ramazani (fh. 11), 19–21; and Zonis and Blumberg (fh. 11), 6, 24.

63 See Schama, Simon, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), 592Google Scholar.

64 See Migdal (fn. 41), 226–56; and Skocpol, Theda, “What Makes Peasants Revolutionary?” Comparative Politics 14 (April 1982CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

65 According to Franz Borkenau: “If violence is the father of every great upheaval, its mother is illusion. The belief which is always reborn in every great and decisive historical struggle is that this is the last fight, that after this struggle all poverty, all suffering, all oppression will be a thing of the past.” See Borkenau (fn. 4), 74—75.

66 The confusion resulting from lack of information and communication is a recurring theme in Kennan, George F., Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956Google Scholar and 1958).

67 This is the familiar “security dilemma” identified in Herz, John H., “Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 2 (January 1950CrossRefGoogle Scholar). See also Jervis (fn. 34).

68 See Jervis, , Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976Google Scholar), chap. 3; and Moss, Richard, “The Limits of Policy: An Investigation of the Spiral Model, the Deterrence Model, and Miscalculations in U.S.-Third World Relations” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1987Google Scholar).

69 Thus, at the end of World War I, Lenin immediately predicted that “world capital will now start an offensive against us.” Quoted in Chamberlain (fn. 43), 2:155–56. He also told the Third Comintern Congress in June 1921 that “the international bourgeoisie … is waiting, always on the lookout for the moment when conditions will permit the renewal of this war [with the Soviet Union].” Quoted in Leites (fn. 10), 405.

70 See Mao Zedong, “Friendship or Aggression?” in Mao Zedong (fn. 52), 4:447–50; Gilbert (fn. 19), 153—75; and Bill, James A., The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 96–97Google Scholar.

71 On the tendency to fit ambiguous information into existing beliefs, see Jervis (fn. 68), 143–54.

72 For example, ignorance of internal politics in France was an important cause of the war of 1792. Following the royal family's failed escape attempt in June 1791, Emperor Leopold of Austria warned the French Assembly not to harm Louis XVI and his family. In September, Louis' acceptance of the new constitution gave moderate forces in the Assembly temporary ascendancy over the radical factions. This development was due primarily to events in Paris, but Leopold mistakenly saw it as a direct result of his threats. When he tried to repeat the maneuver by issuing another warning in December, he merely discredited the moderates and helped bring the prowar Brissotin faction to power. See Blanning (fn. 3), 86, 89, 102–3.

73 On the tendency of states to distort their own history, see Van Evera (fn. 34, diss.), 399–451.

74 See Lebow, Richard Ned, Between Peace and War: The Nature of International Crisis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 205Google Scholar–16; Jervis (fn. 68), 70–72.

75 See Welch, Richard, Response to Revolution: The United States and the Cuban Revolution, 1959–1961 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 41Google Scholar.

76 On Cuba, see Moss (fn. 68), 160–64, 193–94. On Guatemala, see Immer-mann, Richard H., The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982Google Scholar); and Schlesinger, Stephen and Kinzer, Stephen, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1983Google Scholar).

77 One Chinese source reports as many as 400,000 counterrevolutionary “bandits” remaining in China in 1950. See Gurtov and Hwang (fn. 21), 31. The French revolutionaries faced numerous uprisings and a civil war in the Vendee, and the Iranian, Bolshevik, Ethiopian, Nicaraguan, and Cuban revolutions were also characterized by lingering internal violence after the seizure of power.

78 As George Pettee once observed, “Revolutionists enter the limelight, not like men on horseback, as victorious conspirators appearing in the forum, but like fearful children, exploring an empty house, not sure that it is empty.” See Pettee, , The Process of Revolution (New York: Harper, 1938), 100–101Google Scholar.

79 As Lenin told the Tenth Party Congress in 1921, “For a long time we are condemned merely to heal wounds.” Quoted in Chamberlain (fn. 43), 2:446.

80 See Shain, Yossi, The Frontier of Loyalty: Political Exiles in the Age of the Natiori'State (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1989Google Scholar).

81 This is hardly a new phenomenon. In the sixteenth century, Machiavelli observed:

How vain the faith and promises of men are who are exiles from their own country. As to their faith, … whenever they can return to their country by other means than your assistance, they will abandon you and look to the other means, regardless of their promises to you. And as to their vain hopes and promises, such is their extreme desire to return to their homes that they naturally believe many things that are not true, and add many others on purpose; so that, with what they really believe and what they say they believe, they will fill you with hopes to that degree that if you attempt to act upon them, you will incur a fruitless expense, or engage in an undertaking that will involve you in ruin.

See Machiavelli, Niccolo, The Prince and the Discourses, trans. Ricci, Luigi and rev. Vincent, E. R. P. (New York: Modern Library, 1950), 388Google Scholar–89.

82 See Godechot, Jacques, The Counter-Revolution: Doctrine and Action, 1789—1804 (Prince ton: Princeton University Press, 1971Google Scholar), chap. 9; and Palmer, R. R., The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959Google Scholar and 1964), 2:556–58, 568.

83 On Iran, see Bill (fn. 70), 276–77. On Cuba, see Brenner, Phillip, From Confrontation to Negotiation: U.S. Relations with Cuba (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1988), 71–75Google Scholar; and Di-dion, Joan, Miami (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987Google Scholar). Additional research on the lobbying activities of exiles is badly needed.

84 Examples are ubiquitous: Thomas Paine traveled to France in the 1790s, along with would-be revolutionaries from the rest of Europe, and socialists such as John Reed, Louise Bryant, and Emma Goldman journeyed to Russia following the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917. Havana, Tehran, and Managua have been minor meccas for foreign revolutionary elites as well.

85 As Lenin once admitted, the Bolsheviks' main deficiencies were “lack of culture and that we really do not know how to rule.” Quoted in Dunn (fn. 4), 47. In November 1918 he declared, “We are not often short of propagandists, but our most crying shortage is the lack of efficient leaders or organizers.” Quoted in Melograni, Piero, Lenin and the Myth of World Revolution (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International, 1989), 1Google Scholar. See also Chamberlain (fn. 43), 1:351.

86 The “China hands” were a group of China experts accused of disloyalty and purged from the State Department during the McCarthy era. See Schaller, Michael, The United States and China in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 130Google Scholar; and Kahn, E. J. Jr., The China Hands: America's Foreign Service Officers and What Befell Them (New York: Random House, 1975Google Scholar).

87 See the references in fn. 34.

88 Another deputy suggested that “in the face of our brave patriots, the allied armies will fade away like the shade of night in the face of the rays of the sun.” Quoted in Blanning (fn. 3), 108–9.

89 These quotations are from Schama (fn. 63), 597; and Blanning (fn. 3), 109—10.

90 See Carr (fn. 3), 3:209–12; and Chamberlain (fn. 43), 2:305–8. For an alternative interpretation, see Fiddick, Thomas C., Russia's Retreat from Poland, 1920: From Permanent Revolution to Peaceful Coexistence (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

91 For example, the German exile Anacharsis Cloots, self-proclaimed orateur de genre hu-main, told the French Assembly in December 1792 that in the event of war “the German and Bohemian peasants will resume their war against their … seigneurs; the Dutch and the Germans, the Italians and the Scandinavians, will shake off and shatter their chains with fury.” Quoted in Blanning (fn. 3), 109–10. See also Palmer (fn. 82), 2:55–57.

92 According to Theodore Draper, “In 1957 and the first months of 1958, no one, not even Castro, thought that Batista could be overthrown by means of guerrilla warfare.” See Draper, , Castroism: Theory and Practice (New York: Praeger, 1965), 24Google Scholar; emphasis added. Che Gueva ra's strategy oifocoism claimed that acts of violence by a small guerrilla band (thefoco) could spark a successful revolution irrespective of the prevailing political conditions. The strategy was a dismal failure and Guevara died trying to implement it in Bolivia. See Guevara, , Guerrilla Warfare (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1961Google Scholar).

93 As Lenin told the Seventh Party Congress in March 1917: “Yes, we shall see the world revolution, but for the time being it is a very good fairy tale.… Is it proper for a serious revolutionary to believe in fairy tales?” See Lenin (fn. 56), 2:589.

94 See Solomon, Richard H., Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 179Google Scholar–89. Although Mao stressed that the Chinese revolution was a useful model for others, he avoided the obligation to engage in costly interventions elsewhere by stating that a revolutionary movement must ultimately rely on its own efforts. See Van Ness (fn. 3), 72; and Yahuda, Michael, China's Role in World Affairs (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978), 35Google Scholar.

95 Although Lenin supported the Soviet invasion of Poland, he warned that “if the expected uprising does not occur, … would it be fitting to push military operations more thoroughly, risking a dangerous turn of events? Without doubt, no!” See Fiddick (fn. 90), 123–24.

96 On France, see Blanning (fn. 3), 98–113. On Iran, see Bill (fn. 70), 302–3.

97 Trotsky argued that “without the direct State support of the European proletariat the working class of Russia cannot remain in power and convert its temporary domination into a lasting socialist dictatorship. Of this there cannot for a moment be any doubt.” Fiddick notes that “many Bolsheviks fully expected their spark to be extinguished by an international counter-revolutionary deluge if the combustible material in the more advanced, industrial nations failed to catch fire.” See Fiddick (fn. 90), 75.

98 Piero Melograni argues that “to help convince the Allies to negotiate, Lenin brought into being a communist International which could create widespread unrest, especially in Asia.” Similarly, Soviet Foreign Minister George Chicherin instructed a Soviet emissary in London to “make it clear that we are able to cause [England] serious damage in the East if we so wish.… Have them picture what would happen if we sent a Red Army to Persia, Mesopotamia and Afghanistan.… [I]t is only the moderation of our policy which causes a slow development [of the revolutionary situation there].” See Melograni (fn. 85), 108; and Fiddick (fn. 90), 171.

99 Brissot, quoted in Clapham (fn. 12), 115. On another occasion, he declared that France “cannot be at ease until Europe, and all Europe, is in flames.” Another French revolutionary justified war by saying: “If my neighbor keeps a nest of vipers, I have the right to smother them lest I become their victim.” See Palmer (fn. 82), 2:60, 62.

100 Quoted in Blanning (fn. 3), 79–80, 132. See also Clapham (fn. 12), 16; and Ross (fn. 12), 25.

101 Jean-Baptiste Mailhe, quoted in Blanning (fn. 60), 63.

102 Quoted in Blanning (fn. 3), 115–16.

103 In his words: “Clearly the tremendous effects of the French Revolution abroad were caused not so much by new military methods and concepts as by radical changes in policies and administration, by the new character of government, altered conditions of the French people, and the like.… Not until statesmen had at last grasped the nature of the forces that had emerged in France and had grasped that new political conditions now obtained in Europe, could they foresee the broad effects all this would have on war.” See Carl von Clause-witz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 609–10.

104 See Schaller (fn. 86), 125; and also Tucker, Nancy Bernkopf, Patterns in the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition Controversy, 1949–50 (New York: Columbia versity Press, 1983), 17Google Scholar, 43, 193.

105 See Burke (fn. 10), 5:250.

106 Burke was not alone in this view. According to one Swedish nobleman, “Unless the European powers banded together to stop the evil by smothering it, they would all be its victims.” Quoted in Palmer (fn. 82), 2:60. Even a moderate such as Emperor Leopold of Austria was concerned; he wrote to his brother in July 1791 that “it was high time … to suppress this pernicious French epidemic.” See Blanning (fn. 3), 86, 94.

107 Quoted in Fiddick (fn. 90), 4–5.

108 See Chamberlain (fn. 43), 2:152.

109 See Palmer (fn. 82), 2:51–53.

110 See Renfrew, Nita, “Who Started the War?” Foreign Policy 66 (Spring 1987), 98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Khadduri, Majid, The Gulf War: The Origins and Implications of the Iraq-Iran Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 84Google Scholar.

111 Quoted in Blanning (fn. 3), 154. Pitt also believed that “the nation was now disposed for war, which might not be the case six weeks hence,” and that the diplomatic environment was especially favorable at that time.

112 See Khadduri (fn. 110), 84; Ramazani (fn. 11), 72–74; and Ephraim Karsh, “The Iran-Iraq War: A Military Analysis,” Adelphi Paper, no. 220 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1987), 11–13.

113 See Farer, Tom J., War Clouds on the Horn of Africa: The Widening Storm, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1979), 120Google Scholar—21; and Gorman, Robert F., Political Conflict on the Horn of Africa (New York: Praeger, 1981), 65–69Google Scholar.

114 Lloyd Etheredge notes that the CIA accelerated planning for the Bay of Pigs invasion so that the attack could take place before Cuban pilots completed training on advanced jet aircraft. See Etheredge, , Can Governments Learn?: American Foreign Policy and Central American Revolutions (New York: Pergamon, 1985), 13Google Scholar; and also Welch (fn. 75), 69–70. On U.S. policy toward Nicaragua, see Shultz, George, “America and the Struggle for Freedom,” in Leiken, Robert and Rubin, Barry, eds., The Central America Crisis Reader (New York: Summit Books, 1987), 589Google Scholar; and Pastor (fn. 22), 231.

115 French forces suffered a series of quick defeats once the war broke out. However, because France's overconfident opponents did not press their advantage, the French were able to survive the initial setbacks and to mobilize the nation for war.

116 According to Palmer, “Nowhere, except in far-off Poland, was there any revolt against a government with which France was at war. There was no revolution in aid of France. It was perfectly evident that the foreign revolutionaries were entirely dependent on the French.” See Palmer (fn. 82), 2:117, 330–31, 340; and Ross (fn. 13), chap. 4.

117 The Bolshevik Revolution sparked unsuccessful communist uprisings in Germany, Hungary, and Finland, and the Soviets invaded Outer Mongolia in 1921 and established a satellite regime there. See the following essays in Hammond, Thomas T., ed., The Anatomy of Communist Takeovers (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975Google Scholar): C. Jay Smith, “Soviet Russia and the Red Revolution of 1918 in Finland”; Werner T. Angress, “The Takeover That Remained in Limbo: The German Experience, 1918—23”; Paul Ignotus, “The First Two Communist Takeovers in Hungary, 1919 and 1948”; and Hammond, “The Communist Takeover of Outer Mongolia: Model for Eastern Europe?”

118 On the overwhelming advantages enjoyed by the Western alliance in its efforts to contain Soviet expansion, see Walt (fn. 33, 1987), chap. 8.

119 Zonis and Brumberg (fn. 11), chap. 4.

120 Examples of successful counterrevolutionary efforts include the Austro-Prussian intervention in Belgium in 1790, the Russian and Austrian interventions in Italy and Greece in the 1830s, the U.S.-backed coups in Iran, Guatemala, and Chile, the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983, and the Vietnamese overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in Kampuchea in 1979. With the exception of Kampuchea, none of these regimes came to power through a prolonged and violent revolutionary struggle, and none attempted (let alone achieved) a thorough social transformation. Moreover, in all of these cases the intervening power was overwhelmingly larger and stronger than the state it overthrew.

121 Strength in this sense refers to military capability or to ideological appeal or to some combination of the two.

122 When the Bolshevik Revolution failed to spread, the Polish communist Karl Radek concluded that the “battle will be won from within.… Revolutions never originate in foreign affairs but are made at home.” Quoted in Melograni (fn. 85), 89; emphasis added.

123 On nationalism, see Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), 1–7Google Scholar; and Hobsbawm, E. J., Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Pro-gramme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 9–12Google Scholar.

124 He continued: “The Declaration of Rights [of Man] is not like the sun's rays, which in one moment illumine the whole earth: it is no thunderbolt, to strike down a thousand thrones. It is easier to inscribe it on paper, or engrave it on brass, than to retrace its sacred characters in the hearts of men.” Quoted in Thompson (fn. 27), 207.

125 On this general tendency, see Walt (fn. 33, 1987), chap. 5.

126 On this general point, see Skocpol, Theda“Social Revolutions and Mass Military Mobilization,” World Politics 40 (January 1988CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

127 See Hickman, William F., Ravaged and Reborn: The Iranian Army, 1982: A Staff Paper (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1982Google Scholar).

128 See Waltz (fn. 1), 127–28.

129 On “plausibility probes,” see Eckstein, Harry, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” in Polsby, Nelson and Greenstein, Fred, eds., Handbook of Political Science (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1975), 79–128Google Scholar.

130 See, e.g., Lake, Anthony, “Wrestling with Third World Radical Regimes: Theory and Practice,” in Sewell, John W., ed., U.S. Foreign Policy and the Third World: Agenda 1985–86 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1985Google Scholar); and Sharpe, Kenneth E. et al., “Security through Diplomacy: A Policy of Principled Realism,” in Blachman, Morris J., Leogrande, William M., and Sharpe, Kenneth E., eds. Confronting Revolution: Security through Diplomacy in Central America (New York: Pantheon, 1986Google Scholar).

131 For examples of these arguments, see Thompson, W. Scott, “Choosing to Win,” Foreign Policy 43 (Summer 1981Google Scholar); Sanchez, Nestor D., “The Communist Threat,” Foreign Policy 52 (Fall 1982), 43–50Google Scholar; Ronald Reagan, “Address to Joint Session of Congress, April 27, 1983,” in Leiken and Rubin (fn. 114); and Shultz, George, “New Realities and New Ways of Thinking,” Foreign Affairs 63 (Spring 1985), 712CrossRefGoogle Scholar–13.

132 This approach is sketched briefly by Feinberg, Richard E., The Intemperate Zone: The Third World Challenge to U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983), 254Google Scholar–56.

133 See fn. 81.

134 The scope and rate of change varies considerably across republics. Until November 1991, for example, the Georgian Republic was led by an anticommunist dissident named Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who won a free election easily but was subsequently accused of dictatorial methods and removed. The Ukraine, also well down the road to independence, has announced plans to create its own independent armed forces. In Kazakhstan, by contrast, the “nationalist” leader is former Politburo member Nursultan Nazarbayev, who remains closely tied to Gorbachev and the all-Union government. Similarly, although Byelorussia declared independence following the abortive coup, its current leaders are all former communists.

135 Other states are exploiting Russia's weakness to extract diplomatic concessions, of course. For example, the United States has pushed for additional arms reductions and Japan has explicitly linked economic aid to a settlement of the enduring dispute over the Kurile Islands.

136 The desire to exploit the revolutionary state's weakness was a central motive behind the Prussian attack on France in 1793 and the Japanese invasion of Siberia in 1918. Japanese ambitions also helped persuade the United States to intervene, in order to prevent Japan from expanding its position in the Far East.

137 This danger is stressed by Snyder, Jack, “Averting Anarchy in the New Europe,” International Security 14 (Spring 1990CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

138 To note a few examples, Moldavia is 64% Moldavian, 14% Ukrainian, and 13% Russian; Byelorussia is 78% Byelorussian, 13% Russian, and 4% Polish; Kazakhstan is 40% Ka-zak and 38% Russian; and Tadzhikistan is 62% Tadzhik, 24% Uzbek, and 8% Russian. For additional background, see Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Post-Communist Nationalism,” Foreign Affairs 68 (Winter 1989–90).

139 I am indebted to Stephen Van Evera for several useful discussions on this subject, but he bears no responsibility for my conclusions.

140 Even in this case, intervention should be undertaken only to prevent the systematic murder of unarmed opposition and only when militarily feasible.

141 These laws should be consistent with the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Accords, including the principle that the protection of human rights is a legitimate concern for other states. For a brief but useful summary, see Maresca, John J., “Helsinki Accord, 1975,” in George, Alexander, Farley, Philip, and Dallin, Alexander, eds., U.S.-Soviet Security Cooperation: Achievements, Failures, Lessons (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 106Google Scholar–22.

142 During the cold war scholarship on the Soviet bloc was probably biased by the disproportionately high percentage of exiles involved in academic work on these topics and by the U.S. government's central role as a source of information. Neither tendency is surprising, but they were hardly the best ingredients for objective scholarship.