The State versus the People

Author(s):  
Matthew Rendle

This book provides the first detailed account of the role of revolutionary justice in the early Soviet state. Law has often been dismissed by historians as either unimportant after the October Revolution amid the violence and chaos of civil war or even, in the absence of written codes and independent judges, little more than another means of violence. This is particularly true of the most revolutionary aspect of the new justice system, revolutionary tribunals—courts inspired by the French Revolution and established to target counter-revolutionary enemies. This book paints a more complex picture. The Bolsheviks invested a great deal of effort and scarce resources into building an extensive system of tribunals that spread across the country, including into the military and the transport network. At their peak, hundreds of tribunals heard hundreds of thousands of cases every year. Not all ended in harsh sentences: some were dismissed through lack of evidence; others given a wide range of sentences; others still suspended sentences; and instances of early release and amnesty were common. This book, therefore, argues that law played a distinct and multifaceted role for the Bolsheviks. Tribunals stood at the intersection between law and violence, offering various advantages to the Bolsheviks, not least strengthening state control, providing a more effective means of educating the population on counter-revolution, and enabling a more flexible approach to the state’s enemies. All of this adds to our understanding of the early Soviet state and, ultimately, of how the Bolsheviks held on to power.

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 59-66

This short article was written in 1809 as an answer to Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s essay On Machiavelli as an Author (1807). Fichte was unsettled by the defeat of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstedt and tried to find in Niccolò Machiavelli’s works a prescription for restoring national spirit and military victory. Carl von Clausewitz answers Fichte not only as a military specialist emphasizing the role of light infantry and artillery (the efficiency of which has “at the very least doubled” since Macchiavelli’s time) but also as a philosopher who delves into the problems in the modernity of war. He contrasts the revival of “true military spirit” with artificial forms (the phalanxes and legions that are seen by Machiavelli and subsequently by Fichte as the key to the victories of the ancient Greeks and Romans). Clausewitz does not accept the universality of ancient stratagems and instead historicizes war and draws a connection between the military and social orders. Clausewitz claims that efficiency of military means is determined by civil conditions. The latter were radically changed by the French Revolution, which produced a new politics that “proposed other means and other forces and therefore made it possible to conduct war with such energy that it could not be conceived in any other terms” as Clausewitz wrote afterwards (part VIII, chapter 6). Clausewitz’s answer to the threat from France appears therefore to be twofold: a sociopolitical transformation must first create the new forces that then permit the art of war to exploit them effectively. He eagerly agrees with Fichte’s call for rekindling German feelings of nationhood in order to unify the people and achieve revanche because those steps increase the enthusiasm and military spirit which are necessary in modern war — a war that, as it seemed at that time, the German nation had to wage “on its territory for freedom and independence.”


2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 350-352
Author(s):  
Pamela M. Potter

The impetus among Germany's cultural elite to mark the end of World War II as a “zero hour” has been analyzed mainly as a German phenomenon, with considerably less attention to the role of the occupying forces in fostering that mentality. Settling Scores offers a long-awaited analysis of the American Military Government's precarious navigation in the music world, one of the most sensitive cultural areas for both the conquerors and the conquered. Most histories of twentieth-century German music and culture suffer from a basic misunderstanding of this tumultuous time and uncritically accept many of the prejudices it engendered. As this study demonstrates, the notion of a musical “zero hour” is one such misconception, for the imperfect projects of denazification and reeducation left the musical world of the post-war period largely indistinguishable from its pre-war existence. Based on thorough archival research, interviews with eyewitnesses, and a wide range of literature, this highly readable and engaging history reveals in detail the successes and failures of the Military Government's ambitious agenda to root out the musical “Führers” of the Third Reich and to transform music from a tool of nationalist aggression to one of democratic tolerance.


2002 ◽  
pp. 58-67
Author(s):  
Leonid Kondratyk

Olger Hippolyt Bochkovsky (1884-1939) is a prominent Ukrainian sociologist, publicist and political figure. The most important area of his studies is the process of creation in which he distinguishes between two stages - ethnogenesis and natiogenesis. The ethnogenetic process, according to O. Bochkovsky, lasted until the Great French Revolution. Its main result is the formation of the people as - ethnographic raw materials. Let us dwell on this in more detail.


IIUC Studies ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 279-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Imran Mahmud ◽  
Shahriar Rawshon ◽  
Md Jahidur Rahman

In this research, an attempt was made to highlight the role of mosque to help build an Islamic HR environment in the society from moral and spiritual perspectives. It also focused on an extensive strategy to be applied by the concerned business people for Islamic HR practice in the organization effectively. If certain contents of HR practice were discussed in the jamat or the Friday khutbah at the Mosque addressing the terms Islamic HR practice would reflect the mind of the people working in different sectors. The research outlined here, if implemented, the Islamic HR would surely function as an effective means of building the stable business and the Islamic HR practice in the society. That type of step is an immense need in the age of the moral and spiritual crises when there is not enough scope to know that information about Islamic practice in business. The survey was based on primary and secondary data both. And this research WAS is developed in the context of Quran and Sunnah. The research is WAS based on mainly the Bangladesh perspective which reach that the 50% respondents strongly agreed that they would like to know about the Islamic Human Resource Management in the mosque where 70% respondents thought that the Mosque is a place for not only prayers but also a training centre of Islamic values. Another interesting outcome was 50% respondents are strongly agreed that it is important to bring Islamic scholars cum employers to share their knowledge about different disciplines at the mosque. Such a Mosque can help the Muslims to learn the views and thoughts of Islam and that can help the people live harmoniously and peacefully, and achieve salvation from Allah in the their life hereafter.IIUC Studies Vol.9 December 2012: 279-292


Author(s):  
Nathalie Wlodarczyk

This chapter analyzes a wide range of African customs and legends. It demonstrates that African traditional religion offers notions of a thriving spirit world which provides “sacred warriors” ritualized protections and martial enhancements when defense of community is urgent. African traditional religion remains primarily an African phenomenon and, as a result, is tightly associated with the cultures and realities of the continent. The role of religion in motivating violence and its role in carrying out the violence are addressed. The Lord's Resistance Army has revealed that a spiritual agenda and rhetoric is not enough to win the support of the people. A proliferation of news stories and images from across Africa of persecuted albino communities, victims of ritual sacrifice or magically empowered rebels might give the impression that traditional religion and violence are more intertwined than ever.


2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Lee

This article explains why the Chosŏn government and the military in particular expanded state control over forests in the seventeenth century and analyzes the implications of forest administration in a preindustrial polity. From 1592 to 1598, the Chosŏn dynasty suffered invasions from Japan that displaced much of the Korean population and devastated the economy and environment. The crucial role of the navy during the war, along with a dire postwar situation, heightened government anxieties about deforestation and timber scarcity. Thus, in the seventeenth century, the Chosŏn government expanded administration over forests, particularly pine forests, across the coasts and islands of southwestern Korea. The key vehicle for the expansion was the military. Due to wartime and postwar exigencies, the military became the late Chosŏn state's primary organ for management of wood resources for state purposes. Furthermore, the growth of pine-centric state forests and shifts in military priorities would significantly reshape Korean ecologies.


Author(s):  
Fazil Zeynalov

In the article the author provides a comparative analysis of these two notions. He explains through the examples that owing to the historical context during the French Revolution, the gradual process of transforming the bearer of the sovereignty has started, and shift of power from the king to the collective unit has caused several disputes and discussions of theoretical nature. The collective unit, called the people or the nation, began to play the role of carrier of sovereignty, acting at the same time as the source of supreme power. Belonging of sovereignty to the people or the nation is manifested in the forms how the power presented to their representatives. Each of these forms has its own theoretical peculiarities. However, in the wake of historic developments the manifestation of one or another form of sovereignty practically loses its relevance. Regardless of the forms of expression of belonging of sovereignty to the people or the nation, sovereignty displays various and progressive elements of these concepts (renunciation of imperative mandate in favor of representative mandate, sovereignty is exercised through representatives rather than delegates)


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-18
Author(s):  
Xiao Li ◽  

The main contents of the ethical norms of public administration are the supremacy of public welfare, harmful inaction, and careful use of power, social responsibility, equal competition and enhancement of trust. Contradiction is a philosophical category reflecting the unity of opposites within and between things, and is the core content of materialist dialectics. The main social contradiction is the one that occupies the core position and dominates the society. Administration itself is not the ultimate goal, it is a series of communication channels to convey people's needs and wishes, and to ensure that these needs and wishes can be reflected and considered through state control. Similarly, these channels also play the role of the government in conveying policies and implementing tasks to the people. Therefore, if these channels are to make positive and significant contributions to people-centered development, the role of administration must adapt to the social-cultural environment and tradition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-124
Author(s):  
Oksana Salata

In this article, the role of periodicals in the propaganda activities of the occupation authorities of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and the military administration zone has been revealed; the content and types of periodicals have been shown; the task set before them by the Nazi occupation authorities in forming appropriate ideological structures to influence the population of the occupied territories of Ukraine has been disclosed. It is shown that Hitler’s governance used the press as one of the effective means of influencing not only the opinion, but also the consciousness of the population of the temporarily occupied territories. The subject of the study is the content of periodicals and their influence on the behaviour, moral and psychological condition of the population of the Ukrainian territories occupied by the Nazi army. The main aspects of Nazi Germany’s information policy in the occupied territories have been revealed with the use of comparative-historical and problem-chronological methods, as well as content analysis, which allowed to analyse the content of periodicals and to highlight the features of their content lines. The occupation administration used various forms of propaganda: publishing newspapers and magazines in Ukrainian; demonstrating special films in cinemas; releasing visual agitation in the form of posters and leaflets, as well as documentary exhibitions; through theatre plays, radio broadcasts in Ukrainian, Russian and other languages. It resorted to the modern methods of using the press in times of the war. The population of the temporarily occupied territories of the USSR demanded news as the only opportunity to navigate in those difficult conditions. That is why Hitler’s governance used the press as one of the effective means of influence not only the opinion, but also the consciousness of the population of the temporarily occupied territories. The German occupation authorities tried to take advantage of the “information hunger” that prevailed after the retreat of Soviet troops and to fill the information vacuum with their own propaganda. In order to spread the necessary information among the population, the Nazi occupation authorities published newspapers and magazines in each region, district, city.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melike Kiraz ◽  
Thorsten Wagener ◽  
Gemma Coxon

<p>Studying large samples of catchments has been an effective means for comparative hydrology as it provides a wide range of hydrological conditions which can be used to learn similarities and differences between places. Such analyses typically include an attempt to organize catchments along some gradient (e.g. climate) or in clusters (e.g. geology) using catchment descriptors (e.g. an aridity index). Various past studies have pointed to the problem that available catchment descriptors are often not sufficient to capture hydrologically relevant catchment behaviours. It is further widely acknowledged that the water balance of many catchments is not closed. Several hypotheses for the causes of this lack of closed water balance are stated in literature.</p><p>If we assume that the dominant control on water balance is climate, then catchments’ water balances should change smoothly in space (since the climate varies smoothly). If they do not, then something else must be controlling this behaviour. We expect that size, location and geology might play important role in the water balances of UK catchments. We aim to study the differences in water balance between catchments to understand the role of catchment location. We test different hypotheses while considering the local neighborhood of 669 UK catchments from the CAMELS-GB dataset.</p>


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