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Revolution and War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 June 2011
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.
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References
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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