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Opposition, and Government, by Violence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

C. J. Friedrich
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Extract

SITUATIONS IN WHICH VIOLENCE IS THE RESULT OF THE USE OF massive force in international conflicts is not the primary concern of what follows. It should be kept in mind, however, that war constitutes the outer limit, quantitatively, of political violence. However, internal war, that is organized, large scale armed conflicts between groups within a political system or order, manifesting the breakdown of such an order, is part of our concern. Violence is related to the maintenance of political power, although this sort of violence is more usually spoken of as ‘force.’

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Articles
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Government and Opposition , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1972 , pp. 3 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1972

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References

1 Weber, Max, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1925, pp. 17–19 Google Scholar may be cited as a typical case; he inherited this statement from public law writings, e.g. Jellinek, Georg, Allgemeine Staatslebre, 1900, pp. 160–1, 3 ed. 1913, p. 183;Google Scholar for a recent instance cf. d'Entreves, La, A. P. Dottrina dello Stato, 1962, p. 59;Google Scholar in the English version (1967) it is found on p. 34. Almond and other American political scientists have followed this tradition. Cf. Almond, Gabriel and Bingham Powell, L., Comparative Politics, 1966, pp. 17 f.Google Scholar

2 Graham, High Davis and Gurr, Ted Robert, The History of Violence in America—A Report to the National Commission on the Causes of Violence, 1969, esp. ch. II, pp. 45 f.Google Scholar

3 Carl von Burckhardt, Richelieu, Die Aufstieg zur Macht, 1935, and its sequel describes some of the dramatic incidents; cf. also Mange, Emile, La Vie Quoti‐dienne au temps de Louis XIII, 1946.Google Scholar

4 Friedrich, Carl J., ‘Political Pathology’;, in Political Quarterly, London, 01‐03 1966, pp. 70 ffGoogle Scholar. where the biological analogies are more fully stated.

5 Friedrich, loc. cit. (fn. 4). p. 72. Cf. also my paper ‘Betrachtung zur Frage der Pathologie in der Politik’ in Staat, Wirtschaft und Politik in der Weimarer Republik (Festschrift für Heinrich Brünig), Hermens & Schieder (eds.), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 1966, pp. 469–88.

6 Friedrich, Man and His Government, chs. 2 and 32.

7 See above fn. 2.

8 Richard Marsh Brown, in Graham and Gurr, op. cit. (fn. 2). p. 154; the list is found on pp. 218 ff.

9 Ibid., pp. 167–8.

10 Ibid.

11 William J. McConnell, Frontier Law: A Story of Vigilante Days, 1924; see also numerous other references in Brown, op. cit., footnotes

12 Brown, op. cit., p. 177.

13 Brown, op. cit., fn. 62.

14 Brown, op. cit., p. 178.

15 In what follows we are following Brown, op. cit., pp. 180 ff.

16 Friedrich, and McCloskey, , From the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution, 1954 Google Scholar, and Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence, 1951, ch. II, also pp. 7 ff.

17 C. J. Friedrich, Constitutional Reason of State, 1957, and Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellism, translation of Die Idee der Staatsraison in der neueren Geschichte, 1924.

18 Brown cites Mott, Regulators of Northern Indiana, p. 17.

19 Brown, op. cit., pp. 183 ff.

20 Brown, op. cit., pp. 196 and 201.

21 In two famous tracts, Class Struggles in France and Civil War in France, Karl Marx himself has delineated his approach. Cf. also M. M. Bober, Karl Marx's Interpretation of History, 1948, ch. V; Alfred G. Meyer, Marxism, 1954, ch. 6; Shlomo Avineri, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx, 1968, ch. 5–7. A rather extreme, but suggestive exploration of the heritage of Prussian militarism in Marx was offered by Leopold Schwarzschild, The Red Prussian—The Life and Legend of Karl Marx, 1947. See also the interesting new approach of Robert C. Tucker, The Marxian Revolutionary Idea, 1969, esp. chs. V and VI.

22 Cf. concerning this complicated subject Donald S. Zagoria, The Sino‐Soviet Conflict, 1956–1961, 1962, esp. chs. 8, 13, 14 and 17. Cf. also the informative papers in Problems of Communism in recent years, and the striking analysis in Loewenthal, Richard, World Communism—The Disintegration of a Secular Faith, London, 1964,Google Scholar esp. ch. 5. The editor's introduction to Sino‐Soviet Relations and Arms Control, 1967 (ed. Morton Halperin) I also found very illuminative.

23 Vernon Parrington has alleged that the ideas of Saint‐Simon, Owen and Fourier had no part in the original plan, and that it was ‘distinctly native and homely’ (in his article in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences). See also Lindsay Swift, Brook Farm: its Members, Scholars and Visitors, 1900.

24 Civil War in France, contained in extract in Lewis S. Feuer, Marx & Engels, Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, p. 371.

25 Georges Sorel, Reflexions sur la Violence has been ably commented upon by Shils in an Introduction to the recent English edition. At the centre rightly stands the proposition that ‘the highest good is the heroic (i.e. aggressive) action performed with a sense of impersonal consecration to the ends of a restricted, delimited group bound together in fervent solidarity and impelled by a passionate confidence in its ultimate triumph in some cataclysmic encounter’.

26 Sorel, op. cit., p. 32; cf. also what is said in Man and His Government, ch. 5 which has the motto from Jakob Burckhardt: ‘The heroic myth, being a common possession of all, knit the entire people together.’ He is thus speaking of the Greeks in his Griecbische Kulturgescbichte.

27 Sorel, op. cit., pp. 34–5.

28 Op. cit., p. 39.

29 Op. cit., ch. VI. Cf. also W. Y. Elliott, The Pragmatic Revolt in Politics, ch. IV, esp. at p. 115.

30 Cf. Friedrich Meinecke, Die Idee der Staatsraison in der Neueren Gescbichte (1924) and my Constitutional Reason of State (1957) as a supplement.

31 Sorokin, Pitirim, Social and Cultural Dynamics, 1937, Vol. III, Parts II & III.Google Scholar

32 Harry Eckstein (ed.), Internal Warfare.

33 Aron, Paix et Guerre, p. 331.

34 We have no thorough study of these peasant revolts in Germany of the quality of that of Poujade and his movement by Stanley Hoffmann (and others) Le Mouvement Poujade, 1956. However, a discriminating analysis of the background can be found in Rudolf Heberle, Landbevoelkerung und Nationalsozial‐ismus, 1963.

35 Maxwell Brown, Richard, ‘Historical Patterns of Violence in America’ in The History of Violence in America—A Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, 1969, pp. 45–84 Google Scholar and the appendix by Sheldon G. Levy, pp. 84 ff.

36 John Calhoun, Works, 1853, Vol. I, pp. 13 ff.

37 Calhoun, op cit., p. 38 and p. 12.

38 Kurt von Wolfendorf, Staatsrecht und Naturrecbt in der Lebre von Wider‐standsrecht des Volkes, 1916.

39 Cf. Aron's sharp attack on the French policy in Algeria in L'Algérie et la RépubIique, 1958, and La Tragédie Algérienne, 1957, and his perspicacity in foreseeing the probable result.

40 Cf. Henry Wells, Modernization in Puerto Rico, 1969; see also for background Charles T. Goodsell, Administration of a Revolution—Executive Reform in Puerto Rico under Governor Tugwell, 1941–1946, 1965.

41 For a good survey, see Oscar Jaszi and John Lewis, Death to the Tyrant, 1957; its emphasis on tyrannicide brings out the aspect of violence in its functional dimension.

42 The entire medieval doctrine on tyrannicide is, in a way, an effort at delineating the limits of functional violence in resistance. Prevailing opinion was expressed by Thomas Aquinas who was most reluctant to concede any right of killing a ruler unless explicit ecclesiastical sanction had deprived him of his legitimacy. Cf. Summa Theologica, II.II. qu. 40, art. 2 and II.II. qu. 42, art. 2.

43 Friedrich and Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, 1965, chs. 21–25.

44 Friedrich and Brzezinski, op. cit. ch. 21 and the article cited above, fn. 4; cf. also the interesting discussion in Barrington Moore Jr., Terror and Progress USSR, 1954, ch. 5.

45 Leon Trotsky, Mein Leben, 1930, p. 320.

46 Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, 1963, Intro.

47 Friedrich, C. J., ‘The Power of Negation: Hegel's Dialectic and Totalitarian Ideology’ in A Hegel Symposium, University of Texas, 1962, pp. 13 ff. at p. 35.Google Scholar