scholarly journals The Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly as a Left-Democratic Alternative to the Communists and the Whites in the Civil War

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Shubin

The Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) was an option in the Civil War that was essentially distinct from both the Soviet and the White alternatives. Komuch differed from the Soviet and the White authorities, as it was characterised by a combination of advanced socioeconomic policy and a dogmatically principled commitment to parliamentary democracy. In the event of the military victory of such a power, the success of the social democratic model was not guaranteed (as the history of Europe during the interwar period demonstrated), but Russia’s chances of moving along a path that combined a social state and democratic institutions would have increased markedly. While criticising, and in many respects rightly so, the military policy of the Bolsheviks, the Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks had to partially restore market capitalist relations. Their successful development was possible with the cooperation of the government and the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie demanded the dismantlement of “socialist conquests”, which Komuch was not going to do – both for ideological reasons and because the capitalist economy had begun to disintegrate during World War I and the Revolution. Komuch’s path involved the combination of a market economy (not necessarily just capitalist), state regulation, and broad social rights. After the Bolshevik promises, the workers and peasants took it quite calmly, fearing the possible cancellation of the social gains of the Revolution and expressing dissatisfaction with violations of promised civil rights. But the bourgeoisie, convinced of the “inconsistency” of dismantling institutions that infringed on the right of private property, stood in sharp opposition to Komuch, betting on its opponents in the anti-Soviet camp. At the same time, Komuch did not have time to build a state system for monitoring compliance with social rights and had to rely on the activity of trade unions, which, due to their social function, were critical of the government – in this case, Komuch. Komuch followed the law regulating the socialisation of land adopted by the Constituent Assembly and proposed a relatively successful version of regulating the food supply for the cities. Initially, the people’s army created by Komuch was also successful (enjoying support from the Czechoslovak Corps). However, Komuch faced a blockade by the Provisional Siberian Government. It was the opposition of more right-wing forces in the rear that predetermined the defeat of the Komuch alternative.

1978 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 288-306
Author(s):  
Stephen M. Gorman

ELECTIONS FOR A CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY ARE SCHEDULED TO TAKE place in Peru in 1978. In view of this event and of the changes which it might bring about, it would be useful to examine the tenyear record of the military revolutionary government in that country.If the road to hell truly is paved with good intentions, it is of little solace to those who must walk it. So it is that after nearly a decade of revolution in Peru we can no longer concern ourselves with ferreting out the motives of the military officers who have led it, but must turn instead to an assessment of the damage that has been done. Peru's Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces has attracted considerable attention and even admiration within and without Latin America since its inception through a bloodless coup on 3 October 1968. In subsequent years the military junta, in which the Army dominates over the Air Force and Navy, has passed through three perceptible stages. The first corresponded to the presidency of General Juan Velasco Alvarado, architect of the coup and leader of the revolution until he was ousted in August 1975. His tenure, now referred to officially as the ‘First Phase’ of the revolution, was responsible for dramatic and far-reaching reforms which eventually over-taxed the financial and political resources of his government and forced him from office. The so-called ‘Second Phase’ of the revolution began with Velasco's replacement by his more conservative Prime Minister, General Francisco Morales Bermddez. Attention turned to consolidating the gains of the revolution during this period but the inability of the government to shore up the economy and rationalize the programmes of the Velasco era resulted in the imposition ofa severe austerity programme in July 1976. Violent political upheavals within the popular classes in July, and the backlash of the conservative factions within the military, caused a purge of most of the remaining liberal officers in the government. It is fair to speak of a ‘Third Phase’ of the revolution since the latter part of 1976 in which President Morales has been pressured into systematically dismantling many of the popular reforms of the Velasco era. Official announcements in 1977 clarified the military's intention to withdraw from direct management of the state over the next two to three years. Thus, it is appropriate now to begin assessment of the Institutional Revolution of the Armed Forces and its legacy for Peru.


Author(s):  
Valentin Grigor'evich Medvedev

The subject of this research is the legal and economic aspects of regulating the economy and transport in municipalities of “white” Russia during the civil war. The article reveals the key provisions of the legislative and administrative practice of white governments in these economic sectors. The relevance and novelty of this article is substantiated by the remaining gap within the historical-legal science on the topic at hand. Analysis is conducted on the failure of attempts of state regulation of the indicated economic sectors in the conditions of economic ruin using the economic methods and transition towards rigid administration, which did not bring expected results in establishing the work of industry and transport. The following conclusions are formulated: 1. The legal policy and administrative activity of the white governments consisted in restoration of rights of the former business owners and reviving the declined industry and transport on a market basis.                                                            2. Since the majority of private enterprises did not have the necessary circulating assets, the government was forced to transfer them to the state administration and finance them.   3. The transition from market-based methods of industrial and transport management towards imperative administration led to the formation of unproductive quasi-market relations and state management quasi-ownership.   3. The work of cooperatives, which did not require state subsidies and largely provided the army with the essentials, did not receive due state support, since most of the government orders were delivered by the military-industrial complex, although cooperative products were cheaper.   4. Subordination of transport operations to military needs led to the disruption of commercial transportation, which caused standstill or shutdown of many businesses. An important factor of economic collapse consisted in bureaucratic hurdles and corruption within the government apparatus of “white” Russia.


2012 ◽  
pp. 41-63
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Cuccoli

The article focuses on the evolution of the military technical corps in France between the mid-Eighteenth century and the Restoration, and proposes for them the notion of "State corporation". This phase - an intermediate one between the corps de métier and the corps d'État - was attained first by the engineers and the artillery. These corps selected their officers by competitive examination, which functioned both as an intellectual filter and a social one. The distinction generated by this filter - nurtured by an elitist approach based on meritocracy was not overridden by the Revolution. On the contrary, it was further consecrated by the creation of the École polytechnique, which soon became controlled by the military technical corps. The "State corporation" model was then extended through the École polytechnique to the geographical engineers and the civil public services. The institutional conflicts among the technical corps during the National Constituent Assembly and those between them and the École polytechnique (1794-1799) are analyzed along these interpretative lines. While the former show their corporative resistance of geographical engineers in the name of equality, the latter bring out their corporative resistance to external education of candidates.


Author(s):  
Jürgen Buchenau

The Mexican Revolution was the first major social revolution of the 20th century. Its causes included, among others, the authoritarian rule of dictator Porfirio Díaz, the seizure of millions of acres of indigenous village lands by wealthy hacendados and foreign investors, and the growing divide between the rich and the poor. As a result of these varied causes and Mexico’s strong social and regional divisions, the revolution against Díaz lacked ideological focus. The revolutionaries ousted Díaz within six months but could not agree on the new social and political order and—after a failed attempt at democracy—ended up fighting among themselves in a bitter civil war. In 1917, the victorious Constitutionalist faction crafted a landmark constitution, the first in the world to enshrine social rights and limit the rights of private, and particularly foreign capital. Although never fully implemented and partially repealed in the 1990s, the document remains the most significant achievement of the revolution. After 1920, a succession of revolutionary generals gradually centralized political power until the election of a civilian presidential candidate in 1946. This effort at state building confronted significant resistance from popular groups, regional warlords, and disaffected leaders who had lost out in the political realignment. In the end, the symbolic significance of the revolution exceeded its political and social outcomes. While fundamentally agrarian in nature, the revolution thus ultimately produced a new national elite that gradually restored a strong central state. One can easily divide the revolution into a military (1910–1917) and a reconstructive phase (1917–1946). However, the latter phase witnessed an important generational shift that transferred political power from the leaders of the military phase to their subordinates as well as civilian representatives, with the formation of a revolutionary ruling party in 1929 serving as the most important watershed moment in this process. Therefore, this essay distinguishes among three separate phases: insurrection and civil war (1910–1917); reconstruction (1917–1929); and institutionalization (1929–1946).


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
José M. Pacheco

ArgumentThis paper considers some aspects of the reception and development of contemporary mathematics in Spain during the first half of the twentieth century, more specifically between 1910 and 1950. It analyzes the possible influence of scientists’ mobility in the adoption of newer views or theories. A short overview of key points of the social and scientific background in nineteenth-century Spain locates the expounded facts in an appropriate context. Three leading threads are followed. First is the consideration of the mobility of some Spanish mathematicians during a period including World War I and World War II – when Spain was a theoretically neutral country – and the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Second, the emergence and socio-political behavior of a dominant mathematical group gathered around Julio Rey Pastor between 1915 and 1936 is also accounted for, as well as its continuity after the Civil War into the 1940s. Third, attention is paid to the migration or interior exile of a number of mathematicians as a consequence of the Civil War. The paper is organized around nine Tables containing information on mobility of mathematicians, doctorates awarded in the mathematical sciences, and mathematical production in Spain during this period, accompanied by statistical résumés and comments on interesting entries. The main conclusions drawn are: 1) a number of integrants of the Rey group, himself included, officially traveled to Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland – usually after having obtained doctorates and fixed positions – imported mathematical knowledge into Spain; 2) the group also managed to dominate the mathematical panorama from both the scientific and the sociological viewpoint; 3) social usages in Spanish mathematical affairs established in Spain in the years prior to the Civil War present a clear continuity under the Franco regime once the war was over.


2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 62-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kostis Karpozilos

In the fall of 1949, after the end of the Greek Civil War, the bulk of the defeated Greek Communist (KKE) fighters were covertly transported from Albania to Soviet Uzbekistan. This article addresses the covert relocation project, organized by the Soviet Communist Party, and the social engineering program intended to create a prototype Greek People’s Democracy in Tashkent. Drawing on Soviet and Greek Communist Party records, the article raises three major issues: first, the contingencies of postwar transition in the Balkans and the precarious status of the Albanian regime; second, the international Communist response to the military defeat of the KKE in 1949 and the competing visions of the Greek, Soviet, and Albanian parties regarding the future of the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG); third, the intentions of the KKE to establish military bases in Albania and the party’s ensuing effort to transform the agrarian fighters of the DAG into revolutionary cadres for a future victorious repatriation in Greece. Drawing these elements together, the article elucidates the relocation operation of 1949, positions the Greek political refugee experience within the postwar “battle of refugees,” and challenges the widespread historiographical assumption that the KKE immediately abandoned the prospect of a renewed armed confrontation.


2010 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-153
Author(s):  
Alan Knight

AbstractThis article examines Frank Tannenbaum's engagement with Mexico in the crucial years following the Revolution of 1910–1920 and his first visit to the country in 1922. Invited—and feted—by the government and its powerful labor allies, Tannenbaum soon expanded his initial interest in organized labor and produced a stream of work dealing with trade unions, peasants, Indians, politics, and education—work that described and often justified the social program of the Revolution, and that, rather surprisingly, continued long after the Revolution had lost its radical credentials in the 1940s. Tannenbaum's vision of Mexico was culturalist, even essentialist; more Veblenian than Marxist; at times downright folkloric. But he also captured important aspects of the process he witnessed: local and regional variations, the unquantifiable socio-psychological consequences of revolution, and the prevailing concern for order and stability. In sum, Tannenbaum helped establish the orthodox—agrarian, patriotic, and populist—vision of the Revolution for which he has been roundly, if sometimes excessively, criticized by recent “revisionist” historians; yet his culturalist approach, with its lapses into essentialism, oddly prefigures the “new cultural history” that many of these same historians espouse.


2015 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-125
Author(s):  
Urška Strle

UNDERSTANDING WOMEN'S WORK DURING THE GREAT WARThe article deals with the intersection of war economy and women's workforce during World War I and pays a special attention to the Slovenian population. Using a variety of sources, the author tries to synthesise the generalities and specifics of the women’s involvement into the war economy in the so-called Slovenian lands. War economy is understood in the broadest sense and includes not only armament and war-related production, but also the acute issue of supplies for the military and civil sphere.The economic role of the Slovenian lands, peripheral within the Habsburg Monarchy, and the social structure of the Slovenian population profoundly affected the way how women were being included into the activities at the home front. The author argues that the sensational images from Western Europe, presenting a massive inclusion of women into the war industry, are not typical for the Slovenian space. However, the role of women in the war economy should not be underestimated, for they represented the majority of economically active population, supporting not only the civil society but also the army.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Khodyakov

This article examines the evolution of the system of rationed food supplies in Russia. The author focuses on specific forms of food distribution during the Civil War, such as “class rations” and food reserves. At the same time, it is emphasised that a rationing system was already in effect in Russia during World War I, and the practice of fixing prices for bread and providing special food norms for certain categories of workers had begun taking shape long before the Bolsheviks came to power. Describing the introduction in 1918 of the “class ration” in Petrograd, the author proposes that the initiative was largely due to the authorities’ attempts to mitigate the growing crisis between the Bolsheviks and some industrial workers. Although the “class ration” dominated among the principles of food distribution, its economic importance should not be overestimated – even the deprivation of the “exploiters” of food could not significantly improve the nutrition of the working population. From this point of view, the introduction of “class rations” only had political significance. In most cases, the local food authorities failed to develop clear criteria to categorise the population. Using documents from the Russian State Archive of the Economy, the author demonstrates that the idea of “class rations” was developed after the establishment in November 1919 of a special commission for the supply of workers at the People’s Commissariat of Food Industry. The formation of the commission was a consequence of policies meant to centralise all aspects of life in Soviet society. Having received emergency powers from the government in supplying the population with food, the commission formed monthly lists of plants and factories and determined groups of enterprises in various sectors of the economy. As a matter of priority, the reservation of food supplies was made to provide workers. However, the norms of state supply were not always implemented and were significantly lower than the needs of the population. The idea of “class rations” was rejected only after the adoption of a decree on 30 April 1920, which declared the transition to a new form of incentives for workers, labour rations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-145
Author(s):  
Arshad

Gamal Abdel Nasser established the praetorian regime in 1952. Nasser ruled Egypt with the ‘party-state’ system to maintain the ‘social contract’ between the state and the Egyptians. The government thrived on the patrimonial relationship and de-politicization of the population. The ‘Egyptian upheaval’ in 2011 sought the protection of individuals’ rights, equality, and freedom against the military-led praetorian regime. A short-democratic experiment led to the arrival of Islamist majority rule in Egypt under the leadership of President Mohammed Morsi. The liberal-secular oppositions and the military removed President Morsi because Islamists failed to achieve the protesters’ aspirations. Egyptians supported the military’s rule that led to the election of General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi as President of Egypt. Fatah al-Sisi shifted the dynamics of government from ‘party-state’ to ‘ruler-arbiter’ praetorian rule that centralized the authority and power under his leadership through military domination to counter the Islamists and revolutionary aspirations. The research explains the causality behind the Egyptian military's intervention in politics, structuring of the praetorian regime in Egypt; the return of military praetorianism after the removal of President Hosni Mubarak; the rise of the Sisi as ‘ruler-arbiter’ and its implications on the democratization process. The paper’s method is explanatory to study the ‘structural’ (military) and ‘agential’ (Sisi’s rule) factors to determine the causes of establishing the praetorian ‘ruler-arbiter’ type Sisi’s regime. The approach to examine the ruler-arbiter phenomenon is the ‘actor-centric’ instead of the ‘mechanistic’ to understand the praetorian rule in Egypt. The research finds that the rise of the ‘ruler-arbiter’ regime under the leadership of the Sisi, caused by the military-established praetorian authority and President Sisi's choices and decisions, led to the failure of the democratization in Egypt.


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