публикация №1688671997, версия для печати

HISTORICAL ROOTS OF TERRORISM


Дата публикации: 06 июля 2023
Автор: A. VASILIEV, V. GAREV
Публикатор: БЦБ LIBRARY.BY (номер депонирования: BY-1688671997)
Рубрика: АНГЛИЙСКИЙ ЯЗЫК (ENGLISH)
Источник: (c) Asia and Africa Today, No. 4.30 April 2008 Pages 32-39


A. VASILIEV, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences

V. GAREV, Candidate of Political Sciences

A researcher who sets out to study the historical roots of terrorism immediately faces the question: can we apply the concepts, terminology, social values, legal and moral norms of today to other epochs, other societies, other civilizations? What an old story! Illegitimate," terrorist " acts of violence, from the point of view of modern states and existing legal norms, are considered by individuals and organizations that commit them not only morally justified, but also imperative, often determined by a higher will. Participants in violent national liberation wars, separatist movements, coups that are absolutely illegitimate and criminal from the point of view of the previous socio-political structure, in case of victory, become heroes or saints, create a new socio-political order, new legal and moral norms.

The very concept of "terrorism" today is so vague that there are about two hundred definitions of it. Participants in the Fifth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (1975) found it difficult to define terrorism more or less precisely. 1 At the Seventh United Nations Congress in 1990, the report of the UN Secretary-General stated:: "International terrorism can be described as terrorist acts in which the perpetrators (or perpetrators) plan their actions, receive guidance, come from other countries, flee or seek refuge, or receive any form of assistance in a country or countries other than the country or countries in which they are committed."2 In the mass consciousness, the term "terrorism" refers to the killing of civilians, especially children, women, and the elderly, regardless of the declared motives or political goals, whether it is the rights or interests of a particular social, ethnic, or religious group, demanding autonomy or independence, responding to political or religious repression, or attracting public attention (to be more precise - media attention) to certain demands, spreading chaos or causing economic damage.

The search for a coherent definition, according to the UN High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, usually runs into two problems. The first is related to the argument that the definition of terrorism should allow States to use armed forces against civilians. The second is due to the fact that peoples under foreign occupation have the right to resist and that the definition of terrorism should not detract from this right. 3 This approach makes it impossible to qualify violent actions against government officials and armed representatives of law enforcement agencies. It turns out that from the point of view of international law, violent actions against the occupying forces in the occupied territories are legitimate, and against peaceful settlers in the occupied land are illegitimate and constitute acts of terrorism. And if the settler is armed in the morning, and in the evening he is resting with his family, hanging a machine gun on a nail? What if a soldier of the occupation forces in underpants and without weapons plays football on vacation at home? What if the" collateral victims "of the occupation forces' operations against what they call" terrorists " are tens, thousands, tens of thousands of civilians, including children, women, and the elderly?

We are not going to answer these questions, but we have put them in order to avoid, as far as possible, using the modern term "terrorism"in our brief historical review of violent acts, including murders with political, social and/or ideological overtones. Let the reader evaluate these acts of violence for himself and use the terminology that corresponds to his beliefs.

SICARII, ASSASSINS, AND OTHERS...

One of the earliest groups in history to resort to violence in order to cause a public outcry was the Sicarii, a secret sect that operated in the territories now occupied or occupied by Israel in the 60s and 70s A.D. According to Josephus, the Sicarii used the following tactics :" they mixed during the holidays with a crowd of people who flocked from all directions to the city to perform their religious duties, and easily slaughtered those whom they wanted. Often they also appeared in full armor in hostile villages, looted and burned them"4. The favorite weapon of the Sicarii was a dagger or short sword (sika), which they hid under their clothes. The Sicarii destroyed the house of the high priest Ananias, as well as the palaces of representatives of the Herod dynasty, they burned the public archive to destroy the debtors ' receipts, which suggests a form of some kind of social protest. Tacitus mentions that the Sicarii burned down granaries and destroyed water supply systems in Jerusalem. These were extremists who were opposed to the power of Rome, as well as against the Jews who were in favor of peace with Rome.

Walter Lacker, a leading researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, writes in his book "Terrorism" that to this day it is still not clear whether the Sicarii were guided in their actions.

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their actions were based solely on religious beliefs, or their struggle had a social connotation. Some sources suggest that the Sicarii had a developed doctrine, the so-called "fourth philosophy", something like Jewish Protestantism. They believed that they were obeying God alone, not recognizing any earthly authority over them. Other authors point out that the Sicarii led a social protest movement, pitting the lower classes against the rich upper classes. 5 However, according to Josephus, the Sicarii were just ordinary robbers who were used by the enemies of Rome, and their appeals to justice and the fulfillment of the Divine will served only as a cover for their unseemly, selfish goals.6

Many centuries later, we find a combination of religious messianism and murder with political overtones in the Ismaili assassin sect, which has gained great popularity in the West. They appeared in the XI century and became famous in the fight against the Seljuk Turks and Crusaders, but were defeated by the Mongols in the XIII century. Scientists ' interest in them has increased in recent years, as much of their tactics, beliefs, and methods are reminiscent of modern terrorists.

In the early 1990s, Hassan al-Sabbagh, a native of Khorosan, Iran, launched a fervent preaching of Islamism, setting himself against both other Muslims and the "infidel" crusaders. He captured the high-altitude and almost impregnable fortress of Alamut and challenged the then ruling Seljuq dynasty in Iran. In some ways, Hassan al-Sabbah did not differ much from the local feudal lords. His subjects dug water channels in the vicinity of Alamut, fortified the citadel, paid tribute with food, and supplied soldiers to protect them from the attacks of the Seljuk army. From Alamut, the assassins raided other areas of the weakened Seljuk empire, as far as Syria, and killed local rulers.

Their natural enemies were the Crusaders. Tales of the brutality of the assassins have entered European folklore thanks to the surviving and returning crusaders. The famous traveler Marco Polo also mentioned the terrorist activities of the "hashish swallowers" sect in his writings.7 The assassins managed to kill Conrad of Montferrat, who ruled the kingdom of Jerusalem. But their enemies were also the Sunni rulers. They tried twice to kill Salah al-Din, but failed. Assassins often posed as representatives of other religions, including Christians. They didn't use any poisons or projectiles. Their weapon was a dagger, not only because of its high reliability, but also because they saw killing with a dagger as something ritualistic. The sect was distinguished by the highest discipline and, to use a modern word, - conspiracy. The assassins welcomed martyrdom and death in the name of their faith, were convinced that their life and death would serve the triumph of "true Islam", and after their death, of course, paradise awaits them.

The very word "assassin" - "killer", as well as the verb derived from this root - to kill, which has entered some European languages, goes back to the Arabic root - "hashish" (hashish in the Russian version) - a well-known drug. Those who used hashish were called hashshashins, which led to the emergence of the word "assassins" when the "ha" disappeared and the "sha" became "es".8. Future assassins were allegedly put into a narcotic sleep with the help of hashish, while sleeping they were transferred to the garden, where they could enjoy houris, that is, imagine themselves in paradise, where they would go after committing a God-pleasing murder and dying. Some researchers believe that the killer was simply drugged before performing the "operation".

Secret societies of a different kind operated in South Asia and the Far East. The Anglo-Indian administration for a long time could not cope with the so-called Phasingars ("stranglers"). The secret Oengal-Kashmiri sect, which worshipped the goddess Kali, practiced a peculiar type of human sacrifice: the victim (most often a pilgrim or merchant) was lured into the forest under some pretext and strangled with a special silk cord.9 Members of the sect believed that this method of killing goes back to ritual sacrifices to the goddess Kali and, apparently, served as a way to satisfy sadistic tendencies. The Phasingar sect has existed since the beginning of the 11th century, terrifying all pilgrims and travelers. It happened that the "stranglers" exterminated entire caravans of pilgrims. However, the sect strictly forbade the killing of women, female animals, and artisans under the protection of Kali (goldsmiths, blacksmiths, coppersmiths, carpenters, stonecutters, and shoemakers). The political beliefs of the "stranglers" remained extremely vague, the sectarians did not set special tasks to intimidate the authorities or the population. The British colonial authorities declared a merciless war on the Phasingars. Under the leadership of Captain and later Major General William Slimane, with the active support of the local population, the Stranglers were completely exterminated by the middle of the XIX century.10

In China, secret triad societies were founded in the late 17th century, when the Manchus conquered most of China's territory. Initially, they set out to overthrow the rule of the Manchus and restore the Ming Dynasty. In some cases, the triads took over local self-government, exercising administrative and judicial functions.11 Many triads extended the philosophy of resistance to the Manchu conquests.-

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The white devils, especially the British, who forced the opium trade on China, were also included in the list of opponents. The Triads repeatedly led popular uprisings that were brutally suppressed by the Manchus. After the "red Turban Uprising" in the early 19th century, the victorious Manchus subjected the rebels to severe repression: hundreds of thousands of Chinese were beheaded, buried alive, and slowly strangled. Many members of the triads were subsequently forced to seek refuge in Hong Kong and the United States. British authorities estimate that more than two-thirds of Hong Kong's population at that time was in various triads. By the beginning of the 20th century, the triads had lost mass support. They gradually switched to using criminal methods to ensure their activities: racketeering, smuggling, piracy, extortion, in fact, they became a mafia organization with a number of special rituals.

Organizations that resort to violence for socio-political purposes include the American Ku Klux Klan. In the United States, there was not just one clan, but three. The first appeared in the Southern United States in May 1866, immediately after the Civil War. Black emancipation was the main enemy of this secret organization, which was willing to resort to violence, especially against African-Americans.12 The first Ku Klux Klan was spread mainly in rural areas of the United States, and its members acted - despite pretentious discipline-spontaneously and independently.

The second clan (which existed from about 1915 to 1944) also adhered to the ideology of White supremacy, but at the same time considered itself the bearer of American patriotism. It was during these years that the Ku Klux Klan became a national phenomenon. It included not only southerners, but also residents of almost all states. In 1924, the organization numbered about 2 million people.13 At the local level, the Ku Klux Klan acted as a guardian of morals and morals: its members persecuted bootleggers (moonshiners), gamblers, and even husbands who beat their wives.14

The Ku Klux Klan of the "second call" actively integrated into the political establishment of the American South. Both at the state and local levels, the Ku Klux Klan was very active in business. However, by 1930, its number was reduced to 30 thousand people, the reason for this was financial and political troubles. The clan was officially disbanded in April 1944.

The final point of its existence was a federal lawsuit for $ 685 thousand. due to non-payment of taxes. As a result, the clan lost its benefits and privileges and quickly came to naught.

The revival of the clan after World War II by Samuel Green was associated with the fear of communism and Russophobia that seized the United States. In the 1960s, members of the klan turned violent against the Black population fighting for their civil rights. The third clan has retained its ideological position of "white supremacy" to this day, but has not shown itself to be effective in any way. The 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King was more the work of an individual than an organization.

"TERRORISTS" AND RADICALS OF THE XVIII AND XIX CENTURIES.

In the era of absolutism, political assassinations were not uncommon, but they reflected either the struggle within the elite for power, or the desire of the "counter-elite" to take power and get rights, wealth, and honors. The struggle for power, and sometimes for changing the coordinates of domestic and foreign policy, took on the character of both civil and interstate wars with their numerous victims.

The French Revolution, which became totalitarianism in civilian, "democratic" clothes, gave rise (although not for the first time in history) to a policy of "terror" - mass murder of real or potential opponents of power. Maximilian Robespierre, speaking in the Convention on the principles of political morality, said:: "Terror is nothing but swift, strict, inflexible justice; hence it is a manifestation of virtue, it is not so much a special principle as a conclusion from the general principle of democracy applied by the fatherland in extreme need."15 A little more than a century will pass, and the Russian revolution will give rise to both Bolshevik and white "terror" on such a scale that the French "terror" will seem only a dress rehearsal for a future monstrous tragedy.

In the 19th century, tectonic socio-economic shifts caused by the development of "wild" capitalism, urbanization, the industrial revolution, and the loss of social orientation of significant segments of the population led to the emergence of new "universalist" doctrines - socialism, communism, anarchism, and at the beginning of the 20th century - fascism. In this atmosphere, a new era of violent actions was emerging, which were anti-State, anti-government in nature. They are increasingly referred to as" terrorism", and this term has begun to acquire a familiar meaning for the modern world.

More than a century ago, the West and Russia already proclaimed quite cannibalistic calls for individual and mass murder to achieve political goals. The best work on this subject is known - Dostoevsky's "Demons". But real life before and after the death of the great writer gave numerous examples of the ideology and practice of "demons". Among the well-known propagandists of social violence and political murders of that era is the German radical K. Heinzen, who spoke about the possibility of opposing regular howling-

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scam is a small number of people inspired by new ideas and gifted with the ability to create maximum chaos with limited resources. It is noteworthy that Heinzgen tried to legitimize murder not only as a political or social necessity, but also as a natural one: "It is possible that murder has not only a historical, but also a natural necessity. It is possible that the atmosphere or the earth's crust needs a certain amount of human blood to meet chemical or other needs. " 16

Utopian socialist, Chief of Staff of the army of the Roman Republic (1849) Carlo Pisacane in his theory of "propaganda by action" develops the idea that " propaganda of an idea is an unattainable goal. Ideas are born out of actions, not the other way around. Knowledge does not give people freedom, but freedom can give knowledge"17. Violence is necessary not only to attract attention and promote one's own activities, but also to educate, educate and rally the people in the name of revolution.

According to one of the prominent leaders of the anarchist movement in Germany, I. Most, who later moved to the United States, a revolutionary has no right to reject any means to achieve his goal. These means must inevitably be barbaric. The road to humanism, according to Most, lies through barbarism, and the law of the jungle has always prevailed in history. "Blessed are the strong," wrote the American philosopher Rodbird, " for they rule the earth; cursed are the weak, for they inherit slavery. Blessed are the merciless; their descendants will rule the world. " 18

The Russian anarchist M. Bakunin believed that a revolutionary should identify himself with bandits, robbers, and all those who stand outside the law and oppose themselves to bourgeois society. In a letter to S. Bakunin praised Nechaev for the robbers, considering them the only "revolutionaries of the cause": "Only in robbery is proof of the vitality, passion and strength of the people." The leaflet "The Beginning of the Revolution" written by him together with Nechaev said: "Poison, knife, noose, etc.!.. The revolution still shines a light in this struggle... victims are indicated by undisguised popular indignation!.. This will be called terrorism! This one will get a big nickname! Let it be all the same to us "19. According to M. Bakunin, the revolution is a "wild beast", it, "just like the military reaction, will not regret anything and will stop at nothing... There can be no revolution without a broad and passionate destruction, a saving and fruitful destruction, because it is from it and only through it that new worlds are born and arise."

The Catechism of a Revolutionary, traditionally attributed to Sergei Nechaev, was the first time in Russian history that a program of large-scale terrorist activity was formulated. Nechaev's revolutionary practice was reflected in the organization "Narodnaya Reprisal", founded by him in 1869. The murder of student Ivanov, a member of the organization, inspired by the leader, led to the trial of the Nechayevites, which had a wide resonance in Russian society. Contempt for public interests and the idea of destruction run through this work: "A revolutionary enters the state, class, and so-called educated world and lives in it only with the goal of its complete and speedy destruction. He is not a revolutionary if he feels sorry for anything in this world. If he can stop short of destroying a position, an attitude, or a person belonging to this world, in which everyone and everyone should be equally hateful to him. " 20

The Narodnaya Volya practitioners put these ideas into practice, turning their attempts on the tsar and his entourage into spectacular actions designed to attract public sympathy for them. These actions are already so close to the modern concepts of " terrorist attacks "and have become so well established in the literature under the term" terrorism " that we will also use it without claiming to be absolutely accurate in the terminology.

THREE WAVES OF TERRORISM IN RUSSIA

Systematic terrorist attacks in Europe, America, and the Middle East begin in the second half of the 19th century. From the very beginning, this current was divided into several quite distinct branches. Thus, in Russia, left-wing radical groups fought the autocracy by terrorist methods in 1878-1881, and then at the very beginning of the XX century. Radical nationalist groups-Armenians, Irish, Macedonians, Serbs-used terrorist methods in the struggle for national autonomy and independence. In the 1990s, anarchists launched "propaganda by action" - that is, by murder-in France, Italy, Spain, and the United States. Separate political assassinations in Italy and France caused a great public response, although they were not part of any overall strategy.

It should be noted that the theorists and practitioners of terrorism of the XIX century paid considerable attention not only to the ideological content of a terrorist act, but also to its external attributes. The audacity and spectacle of the attacks, in their opinion, should have had a serious psychological impact not only on national governments, but also on the masses as a whole. Peter Kropotkin wrote:"...Public speaking engagements open up the idea's reach and recruit new adherents. One such act sometimes makes more propaganda in one day than thousands of pamphlets. " 21

Among Russian left-wing radical movements, Narodnaya Volya played a special role, although

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it was valid only from January 1878 to March 1881. This organization began to take up armed actions when one of its members, a certain Kovalsky, took up arms, resisting arrest. Then Vera Zasulich shot the Governor-General of St. Petersburg. According to A. F. Koni, who presided over the trial, the acquittal in the Zasulich case was met with unprecedented delight and jubilation in the courtroom and beyond.22 The culmination of this campaign of terror was the assassination of General Mezentsev, chief of the Third Division, in August 1878.

Terrorist activity in Russia became even more widespread when, in the summer of 1879, the Narodnaya Volya party set the main goal of assassinating Emperor Alexander the Great. In September 1879, the revolutionary tribunal of Narodnaya Volya "sentenced to death" the "tsar-liberator" in Russian history. However, even earlier, in April, a certain Solovyov made an attempt on the life of the tsar, but he did it on his own initiative. Subsequent attempts on the tsar's life (an attempt to derail the tsar's train and a bomb explosion in the Winter Palace) were also unsuccessful. The tsar was assassinated on March 1, 1881. The paradox of the situation was that most of the Narodnaya Volya members had already been arrested. This event was both the climax and finale of the campaign of terrorism. By the mid-1980s, the government had taken serious measures to curb the wave of anti-State terrorism, and for about two decades there was a lull in Russia.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a second wave of terrorism came to Russia. A. I. Suvorov in his article " Political terrorism in Russia of the XIX-early XX centuries. Origins, structure features " writes: "The terror of the second wave was not only more widespread, but also indiscriminate in the choice of victims: any employee, in any way connected with government structures, any person in uniform could become a target."23. The second wave of terror is traditionally associated with the activities of the Socialist Revolutionaries, but anarchists, maximalists, and nationalist political associations of Poland, the Baltic States, and the Caucasus took a significant part in it. The Social Democrats, including the Bolsheviks, also had a hand in this.

The data given in various sources on the number of victims of terror in those years is striking in its scale. Speaking at a meeting of the State Duma, Pyotr Stolypin cited the following figures:: From October 1905 to April 1906, 288 state employees were killed and 383 wounded for political reasons in the country. 24 The lawyer Professor N. S. Tagantsev in his work "The Death Penalty" estimated that in 1905 - 1908, 2,563 officials and 3,616 individuals were killed.25

The latest murder that shocked Russia was the murder of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Pyotr Stolypin, in the Kiev Opera House. September 1, 1911 Stolypin was fatally wounded by a loner and possibly a double agent, D. Bogrov. At the time of Stolypin's murder, the fighting organization of the SRS had already ceased to exist.

The third wave of terrorism began after the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917. This surge in terrorist activity should be perceived, firstly, as a reaction to the actions of the Bolsheviks on the part of the militant opposition (Uritsky and Volodarsky were killed, Lenin was wounded); secondly, as an attempt to disrupt peace negotiations between Russia and Germany (German diplomats and military personnel became victims of the terrorists). The Bolsheviks encountered resistance and began mass murder of real or potential opponents, all those who disagreed with their regime-intellectuals, representatives of the propertied classes, clergy, and officers. They were opposed to the "white terror" directed against the Bolsheviks, commissars, workers, and peasants. It's hard to say who started the murders first. Even then, there was a confusion of concepts. Kaplan, who shot Lenin, was a " terrorist." She was risking her life and freedom. But those who destroyed real or potential unarmed opponents were obviously just executioners. (Note, in parentheses, that one should still distinguish executioners from terrorists. In any case, the terrorists are risking their lives or their freedom. Executioners (not all of them!) they only risk the state of their psyche if they dream about their victims.)

DIFFERENT COUNTRIES HAVE DIFFERENT PRACTICES...

Against this background, the activities of Irish terrorists look much more modest, although the fire of violence, now fading, now flaring up, reminded of itself for many decades. The first such outbreak occurred in 1791, as a result of the activity of the United Irish and mass discontent among the peasants. The tactics of open armed confrontation with the British authorities in the 60s of the XIX century were defeated. The activity of the so-called "dynamiters" in the 70s and 80s of the XIX century was remembered for such a high-profile action as the murder of former Lord Chancellor Cavendish and Secretary-Minister Bork in Phoenix Park on May 6, 1882. 26 Then there was a lull for several decades, with new outbreaks in 1919-1921. The Second World War, and then-already in the 1970s-1980s.

In the 90-ies of the XIX century, Armenian terrorists who opposed the Turkish oppressors declared themselves. New attacks by Armenian terrorists took place in 1918 and led to the killing of a number of Turkish government officials involved in the mass extermination of Armenians during the First World War. In the years when the Armenian extremists were just beginning their struggle against the Turks, another anti - Turkish separatist organization emerged-the Macedonian one. It was called VMORO-Internal Macedonian-Odrin Revolutionary Organization. Founded in 1893 in Thessaloniki by Gotse Delchev and Damian Gruev, VMORO initially focused exclusively on propaganda. However, over time, this underground society turned into a paramilitary movement that combined individual terror with preparation for a mass uprising. The Ilinden uprising, which proclaimed the Krushev Republic, and the Preobrazhensky uprising, which proclaimed a republic in the town of Malko Tarnovo, were suppressed by Turkish troops in September 1903. Despite the fact that thousands of rebels died in battle or were shot, tens of thousands were left homeless, nevertheless, the Macedonians managed to avoid genocide. Macedonia did not gain independence in those years: in 1912-1913, it was under the control of the Republic of Macedonia.-

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between Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. VMORO continued to operate from Bulgarian territory. "Subsequently," writes the American researcher B. Hoffman, "this organization turned into a criminal group consisting of hired bandits and political assassins." 27 In the period from 1924 to 1934, many more people died in civil strife and strife within the VMORO than at their hands in the camp of their opponents.

Other extremist groups that operated before the First World War included the Polish Socialists and groups of Western Ukrainians. Formed at the turn of the century in Poland, the secret society "Enlightenment of the People" covered the country with a network of cells in order to attract Polish youth to anti-state activities, propaganda of Polonism and hatred of "Muscovites". It is noteworthy that the secret society actively attracted girls to its activities. According to the memoirs of B. Savinkov: "Having firmly established the organization of patriotic circles in men's secondary educational institutions... the main committee of" Enlightenment "has devoted all its efforts to putting itself in the same position in relation to Polish girls studying there"28. Indoctrinated girls may have participated in external surveillance of the target of an assassination attempt, collected explosive devices, and committed terrorist acts.29 In Poland, even after the First World War, Western Ukrainians did not stop fighting - this time against Warsaw-with demands for autonomy, which were categorically rejected by the Polish government.

Terrorist activity in the United States of America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was characterized by social protest. The reason for the so-called "worker terrorism" was not the political bias of the participants, but rather the sense of loss, alienation from society, characteristic of immigrant workers who found themselves in a new country and felt themselves objects of constant discrimination and exploitation. The bloodiest terrorist attacks of those years were: a bomb attack during a workers ' rally in Chicago, killing 12 people (May 4, 1886); an explosion in the Los Angeles Times editorial building, killing 21 people (1910); a bomb attack on Wall Street in New York (1920), 40 people were killed, 300 were injured. It should be noted that American terrorism at that time pursued narrow social goals and was not aimed at changing the US political system.

Another country where terrorism was a significant factor in political life was Spain. Napoleon's conquest of Spain provoked the emergence of a popular movement that formulated a fundamentally new concept of warfare, the so-called "guerilla". Guerilla-derived from the Spanish word guerra, literally means "little war" 30. In many ways, the tactics and strategy of the Spanish Guerilla influenced the organization of the revolutions of the XX century. It is not for nothing that Ernesto Che Guevara, who adopted the basic principles of guerilla, called the guerilla war a "people's war." 31

For Spain, the nineteenth century was marked by violent outbreaks, especially during the so-called "Carlist Wars". The growth of the labor movement, which was strongly influenced by Bakunin's ideas, was accompanied by the use of violence and the use of terrorist methods. Spain experienced its "assassination era" in the 1890s, and relapses of terrorism in this country were noted in 1904-1909, and then during the First World War and immediately after its end. Among the numerous anarchist associations that existed at that time, the IFA (Iberian Federation of Anarchists) was particularly influential. One of its leaders, Buenaventura Durruti, famously said :" We are not afraid of ruins. "32 The anarchists' actions were not particularly successful, and there were constant feuds among the left, which led to their sharp weakening during the civil war of 1936-1939. As in Ulster, the main motivation was separatism, which here had a Marxist connotation. Gradually, in the early twentieth century, terrorism and anarchism moved from Spain to Latin America, primarily to Argentina.

Western Europe at the end of the 19th century was overwhelmed by a wave of anarchist demonstrations, obsessed with the idea of "propaganda by action". The "exploits" of Ravachol, Vaillant and Henri between 1892 and 1894 caused a considerable public response in France.33 The antics of the lone bombers coincided with anarchist calls for violence, creating the myth of an international conspiracy that never really existed. In the mass consciousness, seriously alarmed by the secret and mysterious nature of anarchist groups, representatives of all radical political movements, whether anarchists, socialists or nihilists, all merged into a single image of the enemy.

Terrorism in those years was mostly individual in nature. The victims, as a rule, were leading political figures of that time. Among them are American Presidents McKinley and Garfield, French President Carnot, Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Canovasa, Austro-Hungarian Empress Elizabeth, and King Umberto of Italy. The terrorists made several unsuccessful attempts on the lives of Otto von Bismarck and German Kaiser Wilhelm.

...AND METHODS OF TERROR

Despite the fact that top officials of states fell at the hands of terrorists, the era of individual terror in Europe did not have serious political consequences. By 1905, the wave of political assassinations everywhere - with the exception of Russia-was on the wane. This is largely due to the fact that terrorism did not have broad support from the social base and remained a method of political methods of a narrow circle of forces opposed to the ruling regimes.

It should not be forgotten that the terrorist attack that killed the Austrian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was the reason for the outbreak of the First World War.

Before the First World War, terrorist methods were viewed by the public exclusively as a sign of leftism. However, neither the Irish or Macedonian independence fighters, nor the Armenian and Bengali terrorists had anything to do with anarchism or socialism. Yes, and Russian prunes-

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It is difficult to reproach the Tenists, who set the struggle against the revolution as one of their first tasks, for having left-wing views. Nevertheless, the image of the terrorist is firmly rooted in the mass consciousness in conjunction with such concepts as "anarchism" and "socialism". Immediately after the First World War, right-wing and separatist groups, such as the Croatian Ustashe, who received aid from fascist Italy and Hungary, adopted terrorist methods. The Ustashe collaborated with the Nazis, actively participated in the genocide of the Serbs, and their struggle against the central government continued after World War II.

In the 1920s, systematic terrorism was cultivated on the periphery of numerous ultra-right and fascist movements, as well as among their predecessors, for example, the "Freikorists" in Germany and among members of the Romanian "Iron Guard". The time has come for mass political parties, both right-wing and left-wing; both right-wing and left-wing extremists have outgrown the stage of individual terror.

At this historical turn, the meaning of the term terrorism is once again changing. From this point on, this concept is increasingly used to refer to mass repressions directed by totalitarian states and dictatorial rulers against the people. The high-profile political assassinations of those years for the first time forced the international community to coordinate the fight against terrorism. The victims of the terrorist attacks of those years were Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht (1919), Rathenau (1922), as well as the Yugoslav Tsar Alexander. The assassination of French Prime Minister Barthou in 1934 led the League of Nations to pass a series of resolutions and establish several commissions to combat manifestations of international terrorism. However, these efforts were futile - some countries really intended to put an end to such atrocities, while others actively used terrorist methods to achieve their political goals. Of course, it was almost impossible to reach a consensus in such a situation.

In the East, outbreaks of terrorist activity were not intense at first. Political assassinations were usually committed by individuals. Such attacks include the assassination of Egyptian Prime Minister Boutros-Ghali in 1910. In the 30s and 40s, right-wing extremist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Young Egypt took up arms against terrorism. They killed two prime ministers and a number of prominent political figures. In response, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, was killed.

In Palestine, Zionist organizations such as the Irgun Zwei Leumi and LEHI operated, and also resorted to the tactics of individual terror. In 1939, the Irgun stopped its anti-British activities and, according to the Swiss scholar Simon Jargy, engaged in disorganization, sabotage and destruction. 34 The more extreme members of the LEHI continued to fight. The murder of Lord Moyne was highly publicized.

A number of Palestinian groups have also adopted terrorist methods.

In India, with its traditional aversion to violence, the Bhagat Singh terrorist group gained unexpected popularity in the 1920s. Jawaharlal Nehru was inclined to downplay the danger of Indian terrorism. "Terrorism," he said, "always shows the political immaturity of the people." 35 Shortly after India's independence, Mahatma Gandhi, a preacher of nonviolence, was killed in a terrorist attack, and the contradictions between India and Pakistan turned into a bloody war, largely due to the efforts of terrorists.

When evaluating the Axis resistance movement during World War II, it is generally inappropriate to refer to individual guerrilla operations as terrorist attacks. This was either a guerrilla war in various forms, or military operations directly planned at the headquarters of the anti-Hitler coalition. As a result of special operations, Heydrich, the imperial protector of Bohemia and Moravia, Wilhelm Kube, the Gauleiter of Belarus, and a number of French, Russian, Ukrainian, and Latvian collaborators of the second and third ranks were killed. Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov, by order of the command, liquidated the chief judge of Ukraine Funk, the imperial adviser to the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine Gell and his secretary Winter, the Vice-governor of Galicia Bauer, and also captured the commander of the punitive troops in Ukraine, General von Ilgen.

The collapse of colonial empires after World War II was relatively peaceful, as well as a result of long and bloody national liberation wars. Let's mention Vietnam and Algeria, Malaysia and Kenya, Angola and Mozambique. War is a cruel business, from both sides, although the lion's share of victims and suffering fell to the share of colonial countries and peoples. To call the fighters of the national liberation armies or partisans of those times" terrorists", using the propaganda terminology of the mother countries, would look simply ridiculous today.

The definition of "who's who" is more complex in Israel - Palestine. The bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in July 1946, which killed 91 people and injured 45 others in various degrees of severity, or the murder of Count Bernadov are considered Zionist terrorist acts, although official Israeli historiography avoids such epithets. The subsequent history of Palestinian-Israeli relations is so complex, so full of mutual accusations, when each side characterizes acts of violence and murder for political purposes as "terrorism", that this topic requires a separate study that goes beyond the scope of this article.

Since the second half of the twentieth century, scientists, politicians, and publicists have tried to separate the two identical concepts of "terror" and "terrorism." The term "terror "has generally been applied to open violence by the State, and the term" terrorism " is associated with the activities of extremist opposition groups. "Their fundamental similarity lies in the fact that both phenomena act as forms of open violence directed against those who are (or are declared by them) political opponents," write V. V. Vityuk and I. V. Danilevich.-

page 38

It is based on the fact that State terror is an open violence of the state against society and a person, and terrorism is violence practiced by conspiratorial groups against the state and persons representing it. " 36 The imperfection of this formulation is also obvious. Where do its authors refer the terrorist attacks of" conspiratorial groups " against the civilian population? What about acts of State terrorism against opponents of a particular State located outside its borders?

Before the explosion of terrorism with religious overtones, which has become the main form of extremism over the past two or three decades, the world experienced outbreaks of both "left - wing terrorism" (Germany, France, Turkey, Japan) and "right-wing" - the explosion of the Bologna train station. The reasons for the temporary activation of left-wing extremists are clear: the rapid transformation of society from industrial to post-industrial leaves some part of the population behind, the crisis of communist ideology and the collapse of its main carrier-the Soviet Union-have created an ideological and political vacuum on the left. Groups of "left-wing" terrorists who did not have social support tried to fill it. For" right-wing " extremists, the situation is similar. As Western society tends towards centrist solutions and structures and the left weakens, the "enemy image"disappears. The tasks set by the extreme right are already carried out-with great flexibility-by the ruling social forces or are introduced into people's minds through the media, especially television. So far, totalitarian schemes for managing society are simply not needed and do not find support. For the right, the last reserve remains at this stage - xenophobia. It is this system that can and does occasionally produce relapses of right-wing terrorism. But the general public remains unaware of the puppeteers who use both right-wing and left-wing extremists for selfish purposes that have nothing to do with their declared ideology.

* * *

In conclusion, we note once again that we have made a purely schematic and by no means complete account of the history of extremist movements that resort to violent methods of struggle. Their social, ideological, ethnic, confessional, and psychological roots are so different that it would be a waste of time to find a common denominator for them. But some formal, so to speak, "technical" general signs are clearly traced: This includes a willingness to use violence, including mass murder, in order to achieve their goals, a willingness to take risks even to the point of self-sacrifice, belonging to organizations with strict discipline, and the desire to turn a terrorist attack into a show with maximum impact on the public...

In a world of accelerating change, there will always be dissatisfied, outcasts, losers, psychopaths, people without morals or conscience, there will always be figures who believe in terrorism as a method to achieve some personal or social ideals, there will always be puppeteers who will use terrorists for their own purposes. Therefore, it would be realistic, not pessimistic, to predict that terrorism will remain a threat to civilization for years to come.

It is not only necessary to exaggerate this threat and use it as a pretext for achieving neo-imperial goals.


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Опубликовано 06 июля 2023 года


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