Someone who opposes a revolution
"Counterevolutionary" redirects here. For other uses, see
Maladaptation
.
A
counter-revolutionary
or an
anti-revolutionary
is anyone who opposes or resists a
revolution
, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part.
[1]
[2]
The
adjective
"counter-revolutionary" pertains to movements that would restore the state of affairs, or the principles, that prevailed during a prerevolutionary era.
Definition
[
edit
]
A counter-revolution is opposition or resistance to a revolutionary movement.
[2]
It can refer to attempts to defeat a revolutionary movement before it takes power, as well as attempts to restore the old regime after a successful revolution.
[2]
Europe
[
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]
France
[
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]
The word "counter-revolutionary" originally referred to thinkers who opposed themselves to the 1789
French Revolution
, such as
Joseph de Maistre
,
Louis de Bonald
or, later,
Charles Maurras
, the founder of the
Action Francaise
monarchist movement. More recently, it has been used in France to describe political movements that reject the legacy of the 1789 Revolution, which historian
Rene Remond
has referred to as
legitimistes
. Thus,
monarchist
supporters of the
Ancien Regime
following the French Revolution were counter-revolutionaries, as were supporters of the
War in the Vendee
and of the monarchies that put down the various
Revolutions of 1848
. The royalist legitimist counter-revolutionary French movement survives to this day, albeit marginally. It was active during the
Revolution nationale
of
Vichy France
, though, which has been considered by Rene Remond not as a
fascist
regime but as a counter-revolutionary regime, whose motto was
Travail, Famille, Patrie
("Work, Family, Fatherland"), which replaced the
Republican
motto
Liberte, egalite, fraternite
.
After the French Revolution, anti-clerical policies and the execution of King Louis XVI led to the War in the Vendee. The suppression of this counter-revolution produced what is considered by some historians to be the first modern
genocide
.
[3]
Monarchists and Catholics took up arms against the revolutionary French Republic in 1793 after the government asked that 300,000 men be conscripted into the Republican military in the
levee en masse
. The Vendeans also rose up against
Napoleon
's attempt to conscript them in 1815.
Germany
[
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]
The
German Empire
, and its predecessors the
Holy Roman Empire
and
German Confederation
, operated under counterrevolutionary principles, with these monarchical federations crushing attempted uprisings in, for example,
1848
. After the
1867
?
71
creation of a new German realm by
Prussia
, chancellor
Otto von Bismarck
used policies favored by Socialists (such as state-sponsored healthcare) to undercut the opponents of the monarchy and protect it against revolution.
Not long after the
German Revolution of 1918?1919
and signing of the
Treaty of Versailles
, a failed
coup d'etat
known as the
Kapp Putsch
was instigated by various elements opposed to the
Weimar Republic
. It was led principally by
Wolfgang Kapp
and
Walther von Luttwitz
.
During the Weimar era, the German Realm became an ideological battlefield between "red" and "white" factions, with the state eventually becoming bifurcated between the conservative
Junker nobility
which dominated the army and other high offices, including the presidency with Field Marshal
Paul von Hindenburg
, and the leftist revolutionaries who attempted several coups in the 1920s and later gained a base in parliament via the
Communist Party of Germany
, which, being internationalist in nature, opposed the extremist nationalism of the new
Nazi Party
. The Nazis, by making common cause with the counterrevolutionaries against the Communists, effected a takeover of the German state, at first under the adopted imagery of the monarchical era and only later (after the death of Hindenburg) under purely Nazi imagery.
The Nazis did not publicly characterise themselves as counterrevolutionaries; they condemned the traditional German forces of conservatism (e.g., Prussian
monarchists
,
Junkers
, and
Roman Catholic clergy
), for example in the Nazi Party march
Die Fahne hoch
which labeled them as reactionaries (
Reaktion
) and counted them together with the
Red Front
as enemies of the Nazis. Nevertheless, in practice the Nazis supported many of the same ideas as the counterrevolutionary factions and virulently opposed revolutionary
Marxism
(e.g., using the conservative
Freikorps
to crush Communist uprisings), ostensibly idealising German tradition, folklore, and heroes, such as
Frederick the Great
. The fact that the Nazis called their 1933 rise to power the
national revolution
showed that they understood the popular hunger for some type of radical change; nonetheless, they understood the equally powerful popular impulse toward stability and continuity, and rejected the parliamentarianism of the
Weimar Constitution
as merely a first step towards Bolshevism. Thus, for instance, they catered to reactionary tendencies among the German people by
propagandistic
demonstrations linking the Nazi state to the traditional
Reich
("realm" or "empire") by referring to it informally as the
"Drittes Reich"
("Third Realm"), implying a specious continuity between it and the historic German entities appealing to German reactionaries: the Holy Roman Empire (the "First Realm") and the German Empire (the "Second Realm"). (See also
reactionary modernism
.)
United Kingdom
[
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]
Many historians have held that the rise and spread of
Methodism
in the United Kingdom prevented the development of a revolution there.
[4]
In addition to preaching the Christian Gospel,
John Wesley
and his Methodist followers visited those imprisoned, as well as the poor and aged, building hospitals and
dispensaries
which provided free healthcare for the masses.
[5]
The sociologist William H. Swatos stated that "Methodist enthusiasm transformed men, summoning them to assert rational control over their own lives, while providing in its system of mutual discipline the psychological security necessary for autonomous conscience and liberal ideals to become internalized, an integrated part of the 'new men'… regenerated by Wesleyan preaching."
[6]
The practice of
temperance
among Methodists, as well as their rejection of
gambling
, allowed them to eliminate
secondary poverty
and accumulate capital.
[6]
Individuals who attended Methodist chapels and
Sunday schools
"took into industrial and political life the qualities and talents they had developed within Methodism and used them on behalf of the working classes in non-revolutionary ways."
[7]
The spread of the Methodist Church in the United Kingdom, author and professor Michael Hill states, "filled both a social
and
an ideological vacuum" in English society, thus "opening up the channels of social and ideological mobility… which worked against the polarization of English society into rigid social classes."
[6]
The historian
Bernard Semmel
argues that "Methodism was an antirevolutionary movement that succeeded (to the extent that it did) because it was a revolution of a radically different kind" that was capable of effecting social change on a large scale.
[6]
Italy
[
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]
In Italy, after being conquered by Napoleon's army in the late 18th century, there was a counter-revolution in all the
French client republics
. The most well-known was the
Sanfedismo
, a reactionary movement led by the cardinal
Fabrizio Ruffo
, which overthrew the
Parthenopean Republic
and allowed the
Bourbon
dynasty to return to the throne of the
Kingdom of Naples
. A resurgence of the phenomenon happened during the Napoleon's
second Italian campaign
in the early 19th century. Another example of counter-revolution was the peasants' rebellion in Southern Italy after the
national unification
, fomented by the Bourbon government in exile and the
Papal States
. The revolt, labelled pejoratively by opponents as
brigandage
, resulted in a bloody civil war that lasted almost ten years.
Austria
[
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]
In the
Austrian Empire
, a revolt took place against Napoleon called the
Tyrolean Rebellion
in 1809. Led by a Tyrolean innkeeper by the name of
Andreas Hofer
, 20,000 Tyrolean rebels fought successfully against Napoleon's troops. However, Hofer was ultimately betrayed by the
Treaty of Schonbrunn
, which led to the disbandment of his troops and was captured and executed in 1810.
Spain
[
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]
The
Spanish Civil War
was a counter-revolution. Supporters of
Carlism
, monarchy, and nationalism (see
Falange
) joined forces against the (Second) Spanish Republic in 1936. The counter-revolutionaries saw the
Spanish Constitution of 1931
as a revolutionary document that defied Spanish culture, tradition and religion. On the Republican side, the acts of the
Communist Party of Spain
against the rural collectives are also sometimes considered counter-revolutionary. The Carlist cause began with the
First Carlist War
in 1833 and continues to the present.
Russia
[
edit
]
The
White Army
and its supporters who tried to defeat the
Bolsheviks
after the
October Revolution
, as well as the German politicians, police, soldiers and
Freikorps
who crushed the
German Revolution of 1918?1919
, were also counter-revolutionaries. The Bolshevik government tried to build an anti-revolutionary image for the
Green armies
composed of peasant rebels.
[8]
The largest
peasant rebellion
against Bolshevik rule occurred in 1920?21 in
Tambov
.
Hispanic America
[
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]
General
Victoriano Huerta
, and later the
Felicistas
, attempted to thwart the
Mexican Revolution
in the 1910s. In the late 1920s, Mexican Catholics took up arms against the Mexican Federal Government in what became known as the
Cristero War
. The President of Mexico, Plutarco Elias Calles, was elected in 1924. Calles began carrying out anti-Catholic policies which caused peaceful resistance from Catholics in 1926. The counter-revolution began as a movement of peaceful resistance against the anti-clerical laws. In the summer of 1926, fighting broke out. The fighters known as Cristeros fought the government due to its suppression of the Church, jailing and execution of priests, formation of a nationalist schismatic church,
state atheism
, Socialism, Freemasonry and other harsh anti-Catholic policies.
The 1961
Bay of Pigs invasion
into
Cuba
was conducted by counter-revolutionaries who hoped to overthrow the revolutionary government of
Fidel Castro
. In the 1980s, the
Contra
-Revolucion
rebels fighting to overthrow the revolutionary
Sandinista
government in
Nicaragua
. In fact, the Contras received their name precisely because they were counter-revolutionaries.
The
Black Eagles
, the
AUC
, and other
paramilitary
movements of
Colombia
can also be seen as counter-revolutionary. These
right-wing
groups are opposition to the
FARC
, and other
left-wing
guerrilla
movements.
Some counter-revolutionaries are former
revolutionaries
who supported the initial overthrow of the previous regime, but came to differ with those who ultimately came to power after the revolution. For example, some of the Contras originally fought with the Sandinistas to overthrow
Anastasio Somoza
, and some of those who oppose Castro also opposed
Batista
.
Asia
[
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]
Japan
[
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]
During the mid-19th century
Bakumatsu
, especially during the
Japanese civil war
of 1868?1869, the pro-bakufu forces and especially the samurai (and after the period ex-samurai) were left without money since their skills are obsolete, so they banded up with the eastern shogunate led by the
Shogun
Tokugawa Yoshinobu
who wished to drive foreign and especially Western European and American influence against the revolutionaries of
Emperor Meiji
who sought to modernize Japan with the states of
Western Europe
as Japan's example. The war ended with a small number of casualties, most of whom were the samurai. Years later though, western samurai and imperial modernists then engaged in the deadlier
Satsuma Rebellion
.
[
citation needed
]
China
[
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]
In 1917, during the
Warlord Era
general
Zhang Xun
attempted to reverse the
1911 Revolution
that brought an end to the
Qing dynasty
by seizing
Beijing
in the
Manchu Restoration
.
The anti-communist (and thus counter-revolutionary)
Kuomintang
party in China used the term "counter-revolutionary" to disparage the communists and other opponents of its regime.
Chiang Kai-shek
, the Kuomintang party leader, was the chief user of this term.
The reason that the nominally conservative Kuomintang used this terminology was that the party had several leftist revolutionary influences in its ideology left over from the party's beginnings.
[
citation needed
]
The Kuomintang, and Chiang Kai-shek used the words "
feudal
" and "counter-revolutionary" as synonyms for evil, and backwardness, and proudly proclaimed themselves to be
revolutionary
.
[9]
Chiang called the warlords feudalists, and called for feudalism and counter-revolutionaries to be stamped out by the Kuomintang.
[10]
[11]
[12]
Chiang showed extreme rage when he was called a warlord, because of its negative, feudal connotations.
Chiang also crushed and dominated the merchants of Shanghai in 1927, seizing loans from them, with the threats of death or exile. Rich
merchants
,
industrialists
, and
entrepreneurs
were arrested by Chiang, who accused them of being "counter-revolutionary", and Chiang held them until they gave money to the Kuomintang. Chiang's arrests targeted rich millionaires, accusing them of communism and counter-revolutionary activities. Chiang also enforced an anti-Japanese boycott, sending his agents to sack the shops of those who sold Japanese made items and fining them. He also disregarded the internationally protected International Settlement, putting cages on its borders in which he threatened to place the merchants. The Kuomintang's alliance with the
Green Gang
allowed it to ignore the borders of the foreign concessions.
[14]
A similar term also existed in the
People's Republic of China
, which includes charges such collaborating with foreign forces and inciting revolts against the government and ruling
CCP
. According to Article 28 of the
Chinese constitution
,
The state maintains public order and suppresses treasonable and other counter-revolutionary activities; It penalizes actions that endanger public security and disrupt the socialist economy and other criminal activities, and punishes and reforms criminals.
[15]
The term was widely used during the
Cultural Revolution
, in which thousands of intellectuals and government officials were denounced as "counter-revolutionaries" by the
Red Guards
. Following the end of the Cultural Revolution, the term was also used against
Lin Biao
and the
Gang of Four
.
Africa
[
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]
Egypt
[
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]
After the overthrow of
Hosni Mubarak
’s government as a result of the
2011 Egyptian revolution
, counter revolutionary techniques included: power outages by remnants of his regime, police allegedly refused to serve citizens and oil was thrown into the desert to halt gas station services.
On 1 February 2012, the
biggest tragedy in Egyptian football
resulted in the deaths of 72 Al Ahly fans. It happened after exactly a year when Mubarak announced in a speech that there would be chaos if he stepped down, the very same day when armed thugs attacked protestors of the 2011 revolution. Many photographic and footage evidence also show that police and security forces in the stadium were unwilling to respond to the riot. Many argue that the riot was planned as a revenge against Ultras Ahlawy taking part in the 2011 revolution against Hosni Mubarak and their constant anti-governmental chants in matches.
Finally on 3 July 2013, Defense Minister Abdel-Fattah Al Sisi overthrew the democratically elected president
Mohamed Morsi
, who was the first president to be elected by the Egyptian people since the proclamation of the republic in 1953. The counter-revolution ended when Al Sisi was sworn as Egypt’s 6th president in June 2014.
Philosophical perspectives
[
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]
In the
Laws
,
Plato
relates a dialogue between Cleinias of Crete and an unnamed Athenian interlocutor. Part of their discourse touches on counter-revolution. Cleinias posits that a state can be considered morally superior when the virtuous citizens triumph over the unruly masses and the less virtuous classes. He asserts, "the state in which the better citizens win a victory over the mob and over the inferior classes may be truly said to be better than itself, and may be justly praised."
However, the Athenian presents a hypothetical scenario wherein someone must pass judgment on a group of brothers, some of whom are behaving justly while others are acting unjustly. When questioned about the optimal resolution, Cleinias suggests that the most effective judge would not necessarily be one who imposes the just to govern over the unjust, whether by force or consent. Instead, he advocates for a judge who facilitates reconciliation by establishing a mutually agreed-upon set of laws designed to maintain harmony among them. This implies Cleinias' belief that a counter-revolutionary victory by the 'better citizens' over 'the mob' need not involve violence but can be attained through the enactment of just legislation.
[16]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
W M Verhoeven; Claudia L Johnson; Philip Cox; Amanda Gilroy; Robert Miles (29 September 2017).
Anti-Jacobin Novels, Part I
. Taylor & Francis. p. 64.
ISBN
978-1-35122333-1
.
- ^
a
b
c
Clarke, Killian (2023).
"Revolutionary Violence and Counterrevolution"
.
American Political Science Review
.
117
(4): 1344?1360.
doi
:
10.1017/S0003055422001174
.
ISSN
0003-0554
.
S2CID
254907991
.
- ^
Reynald Secher (1986).
A French Genocide: The Vendee
(in French). Notre Dame Press.
- ^
Hobsbawm, Eric (1957). "Methodism and the Threat of Revolution in Britain".
History Today
.
7
(5).
Historians have held that religious Revivalism in the late eighteenth century distracted the minds of the English from thoughts of Revolution.
- ^
Maddox, Randy L.; Vickers, Jason E. (2010).
The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley
. Cambridge University Press. p. 179.
ISBN
978-0-52188653-6
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Swatos, William H. (1998).
Encyclopedia of Religion and Society
.
Rowman Altamira
. p. 385.
ISBN
978-0-76198956-1
.
- ^
Thomis, Malcolm I.; Holt, Peter (1 December 1977).
Threats of Revolution in Britain 1789?1848
. Macmillan International Higher Education. p. 132.
ISBN
978-1-34915817-1
.
- ^
Radkey,
Unknown Civil War
, 78?80, 104?7, 407.
- ^
Chen, Jieru; Eastman, Lloyd E. (1993).
Chiang Kai-shek's secret past: the memoir of his second wife, Ch?en Chieh-ju
. Westview Press. p. 19.
ISBN
0-8133-1825-4
. Retrieved
2010-06-28
.
- ^
Kai-shek Chiang (1947).
Philip Jacob Jaffe
(ed.).
China's destiny & Chinese economic theory
. Roy Publishers. p. 225.
- ^
Kai Shew Chiang (2007).
China's Destiny and Chinese Economic Theory
. Read Books. p. 225.
ISBN
978-1-4067-5838-2
. Retrieved
2010-06-28
.
- ^
Hongshan Li; Zhaohui Hong (1998).
Image, perception, and the making of U.S.-China relations
. University Press of America. p. 268.
ISBN
0-7618-1158-3
.
- ^
Hannah Pakula (2009).
The last empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the birth of modern China
. Simon & Schuster. p. 160.
ISBN
978-1-4391-4893-8
.
- ^
"Constitution of the People's Republic of China (Adopted on December 4, 1982)"
. CN: People
. Retrieved
2009-05-09
.
- ^
Plato.
Laws
. Book I, Translated by Benjamin Jowett.
Project Gutenberg
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Blum, Christopher Olaf, ed. and translator, 2004.
Critics of the Enlightenment: Readings in the French Counter-Revolutionary Tradition
. Wilmington DE:
ISI Books.
- Edmund Burke
, 2006 (1790).
Reflections on the Revolution in France
. Pearson Longmans.
- Ghervas, Stella
,
Reinventer la tradition. Alexandre Stourdza et l'Europe de la Sainte-Alliance
. Paris, Honore Champion, 2008.
ISBN
978-2-7453-1669-1
- Thomas Molnar
, 1969.
The Counter-Revolution
.
Funk & Wagnalls Co.
ISBN
0-308-70424-X
- Schapiro, J Salwyn, 1949.
Liberalism and the Challenge of Fascism: Social Forces in England and France, 1815-1870
. McGraw-Hill: p. 364.
- Norbert Wojtowicz, Counterrevolution by Adrian Nikiel (Helsinki 8?12 IV 1998)
Archived
2011-08-11 at the
Wayback Machine
External links
[
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]