20th Century Revolutions

"We have read the Chapter of crimes committed in Malabar, of the destruction of public and private property, the looting of Government Treasuries and Sub-Treasuries, the defiling of Hindu temples and also of the forcible conversion of Hindus to Islam, with great horror and real grief."

"Shortly after the worst of all riots between Moslems and Hindus, when the Moplah Mohammedans butchered hundreds of unarmed Hindus and offered their prepuces as a covenant to Allah, these same Moslems were stricken with famine; Gandhi collected funds for them from all India, and, with no regard for the best precedents, forwarded every anna, without deduction for "overhead," to the starving enemy."

"On Thulam 11, (Malayalam calendar) afternoon, while I was coming back to my house with my cattle, some Muslim s caught hold of me and Palappuarm Arumukhan. After some time, Konnara Muhammad Koya Thangal came fully armed, handcuffed and took us to Vazhakkat mosque. From there we were shifted to Konnar mosque. It was ten “nazhikas” (two and half nazhikas makes an hour) past evening. There they locked us up along with some other people. It was Muhammad Koya Thangal who had instructed to lock us in a room. They gave only one time food a day. We spent 10 days in that room. Then Muhammad Koya Thangal converted me to their religion and gave me a Muslim cap to wear. When they asked me whether I had the willingness to believe in “Din”, a person was standing wielding a sword next to me. If I said “no” they will kill me. I had seen this with 18 others who said “no” and were hacked to death. Hence I had to agree. Then a Muslim barber came and shaved my head and a Thangal asked us to recite “Kalima”. I was named Abdul Rehman. Then the Thangal gave me a cloth to wear and a Thorthu mundu (a thin bath towel). After some days they took me to Kondotty. On 18th when I was taken for bath under the control of a Muslim sentry, the Moplahs ran away seeing a set of people carrying military goods. I ran away from their custody immediately."

"It was while we were drinking kanji at the house that some Muslim s came. They took away the cattle and yields of ginger and yam. I was also taken away. Since many Muslim s knew me, I was returned unhurt. Variyankunnath Kunjahammad Haji and Chembrasseri Thangal have filled up three wells with dead bodies. They split the middle of women by pulling their legs apart before dumping in the well. Kunjahammad haji and Chemprasseri Thangal together have converted a lot of Hindus."

"I was just 12 years old when the mutiny started but had ceased to be a child by then and was looking after household matters. The mutiny originated at Thirurangadi. The aim of Moplahs was to massacre unarmed and hapless Hindus. At the time of mutiny, army was at Tirur. The place was known as Peril and consisted of Perancheri joint family houses and the residences of some harijans. Some places were bushy forests and others devoid of human residences. Each day we used to hear terrifying news about the mutiny. We were afraid that our life is getting shorter every day and any moment will fall prey to the daggers of the Muslim s. I do not remember the date. But one evening a group of mutineers reached the Puthantheru. (Keraladhiswarapuram) Without any provocation the Moplahs came to the weaver’s lane. They came with raised swords and burning torches shouting “Takbir”. Immediately they started entering houses and creating trouble. Six people including a Chettiyar were hacked to death by the Moplahs. The rioters who came to Puthan theru were some locals and those who came from Nilambur. There was the house of a gold smith by name Velayudhan. The Moplah rioters burned his place to ashes. When they started torching all the houses the Harijans started crying loud. After the atrocities in the weaver’s lane the Moplahs came to this side. People scrambled for life and ran here and there. Afraid of death and with a wish to save lives they wanted to escape to some safe place. But all around it was dark. Finally every one including me hid our selves in a Bushy forest. We saw them at a distance. With a round turban on head and burning torches in hand they were marching, chanting war cries to destroy everything found on the way. They were searching for people in all the houses and threw out everything from there. When they saw the temple of Peril family goddess they became mad with rage and set fire to the temple. I silently wept seeing the temple considered by all of us Hindus as very sacred, being burned to ashes. I recognized some of the insurgent Muslim s in the light spread by indiscriminate torching. Among them locals like Mukkattil Alavi, Koyakkutty, Pari Moideen etc were also there. The hatred they had for Hindus was reflected fully in the cruel deeds they did during the insurgency. After causing wide spread destruction the rioters withdrew with cries of Takbir."

"They also torched the house. Then they looted many houses in the locality and set fire to all of them. Many men were caught and with hands tied to their back, they were skinned (flayed) at the same time. Many were cut with swords several times from top to bottom and quite a few were dumped half living - half dead with partial body cuts, in a well. Two people were killed on the road. An eighty year old man lying sick for the last ten months was also slashed to death from his house. Of 36 killed 33 were dumped into the well. Of them three were Embranthiris. (Brahmin cast) They were priests of temples owned by the king at Thuvvur, Puthur Vettakkorumakan kavu, and Kaikkattiri. They had destroyed the temple and broken the idols. Because of these atrocities my women relatives and children along with other Hindu women and children had to run to the army camp at Pandikkad with nothing except the dress they wore."

"From November onwards the insurgency again started. By 6th people were being openly hacked to death. On 7th night, many families nearby, about 125 people in all, including aged, young, children, women etc- started going to Ariyallur in a group. The fear was about being sighted by Moplahs. The children were crying. At that time the Moplahs evoked more fear than the darkness. Whatever could be carried was on our shoulders. Like that we reached near Panampuzha kadavu. Then we heard sounds from the front screaming “Please do not kill.” I was in the middle of the group. It was known that about 150 Moplahs were attacking from the front. We started running back. By then the Moplahs started attacking from the back also. Without any consideration for old or young, men or women they hacked everyone to death. The wails of those who were half dead were miserable. There were shouts of “Where these sons of bitches are going, slash their heads”. I also got sword cuts on my head, neck and palm. With so many injuries I also ran. I had run over the dead bodies of several men and women. Not less than 100 were dead. Everyone’s ornaments, utensils and money were all looted. Those who were left as living corses writhed with unbearable pain. The road was full of blood. I was almost unconscious while running. I jumped into a river to kill myself. But where I fell, water was shallow. When the cold water drenched my body some confidence came back."

"One morning almost 65 people including women had come to my house. These low cast people who came, complained that their houses were torched and had run away for safety. They also said that the previous night about 43 people were slashed to death. Many houses were looted. This had happened at Thuvvur, a place almost 3 miles from Maranghatt. The temple priest and his brother were killed. The insurgents caught hold of 50 Hindus. Of which they let off 7. The other 43 were hacked to death. The Thuvvur well is notorious. The people were hacked and corpses dumped in a well. Those seven were among those who came running. This was told to me by the same people who saw the carnage. My anxiety increased ten times. I did not know what to do. Different thoughts emerged. Many opined that we should leave the place. But no one knew where to go. This carnage and looting took place on Sunday, 9th of Kanni (Malayalam month). After this we decided to start the next day after lunch. We took the idol of the family Deity and other important records and came to Marattu."

"[They are] brave God-fearing people who were fighting for what they consider as religion, and in a manner which they consider as religious."

"Moplahs as a class have always been poor. Most of them were cultivating lands under the petty landlords called Jenmies, who are almost all Hindus. The oppression of the Jenmies is a matter of notoriety and a long-standing grievance' of the Moplahs that has never been redressed though unsuccessful attempts were made several times to ease the s1tuation by means of legislature. The rebellion has reduced the poverty-stricken Moplah community to still lower depths of destitution. The forcible conversions have placed the community in bad odor with the Hindus in general anti Jenmiesin particular, and the Government has also no love for the people who have not long ago fought pitched battles with it. Hindus have had their vengeance through the military who burnt the Moplah houses and the Mosques wholesale. Thousands of Moplahs have been killed, shot, hanged or imprisoned for life and thousands are now languishing in jail. Of those who are left behind several thousands are paying fines in monthly installments in lieu of imprisonment for two years. These people are always under the thumb of the Police. The few who have escaped death, jail or fine are not in any happier condition. They are frightened out of their wits and are constantly living in terror. Some of the people I talked to in the out-of-way places were trembling with fear m spite of the assurance given to them that I was their friend and the object of my visit was only to help them if I can."

"Soon after, [Mahatma Gandhi] did something much worse; he praised the 'brave' Moplah butchers of Hindus in Malabar for "being true to their religion as they understood it", and denounced the British Government of India for putting down the gangsters. (Moplahs who got killed by the British are now being hailed as freedom fighters!)"

"In 1969, in response to the demands of the Muslim League in Kerala and as a reward for its political support, the United Front ministry of E.M.S. Namboodiripad redrew the boundaries of Kozhikode and Palghat districts so as to carve out the new, predominantly Muslim district of Malappuram. Denounced by its opponents as ‘the illegitimate child of the old Two Nation theory,’ Malappuram—‘Moplastan’ to its critics— combined within a single district those taluks which forty-eight years before, in 1921, had been the scene of the Mappilla rebellion."

"Honoured Editor, I request you to publish the following facts in your paper. According to the Press reports from Malabar which you will have got, Hindu-Muslim Unity in Malabar has thoroughly ceased to exist. It appears that the report that Hindus are forcibly converted (by my men) is entirely untrue. Such conversions were done by the Government Party and Reserve Police men in mufti mingling themselves with the rebels (masquerading as rebels.) Moreover, because some Hindu brethren, aiding the military, handed over to the military innocent (Moplahs) who were hiding themselves from the military, a few Hindus have been put to some trouble. Besides, the Nambudiri, who is the cause of this rising, has also similarly suffered. Now, the chief military commander (of Government) is causing Hindus to evacuate from these Taluks. Innocent women and children of Islam, who have done nothing and possess nothing, are not permitted to leave the place. The Hindus are compulsorily impressed for military service. Therefore, several Hindus seek protection in my Hill. Several Moplahs, too, have sought my protection. For the last one month and a half, except for the seizure and punishment of the innocent, no purpose has been achieved. Let all the people in the world know this. Let Mahatma Gandhi and Moulana know it. If this letter is not seen published, I will ask your explanation at one time."

"Thus, in Europe in the 1970s, there was to be no ‘roll-back’ of Communism, and, crucially, no equivalent to the transformative changes that were to occur in Greece, Portugal and Spain, as conservative dictatorships collapsed in 1973, 1974 and 1975 respectively. At the same time, there was also the assumption that the Soviet Union and its allies would not seek to ‘roll forward’ by destabilising these and other European countries. Although the coup in Portugal on 25 April 1974 by the ‘Armed Forces Movement’ was followed, until April 1976, by instability, social turbulence and low-level revolutionary strife, and by talk of Communists gaining power through a rebellion, the Communists lacked sufficient support in the army. A coup attempt failed in March 1975. Moreover, the coup attempted in November 1975 by elements of the army opposed to a rightward move of the government failed. The army and the Socialists held the Communists off. The Soviet Union did not intervene, which it would have been risky for it to do, and Portugal remained in NATO. Kissinger had feared that Portugal would be lost to ‘the enemy bloc’. However, Portugal had no contiguous border with a Communist state, the Soviets had no direct overland connection to Portugal, and Soviet maritime connections to it were shaky."

"Esta é a madrugada que eu esperava O dia inicial inteiro e limpo Onde emergimos da noite e do silêncio E livres habitamos a substância do tempo"

"I remember vividly in 1974 being in the mass of people, descending the streets in my native Lisbon, in Portugal, celebrating the democratic revolution and freedom. This same feeling of joy was experienced by the same generation in Spain and Greece. It was felt later in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Baltic States when they regained their independence. Several generations of Europeans have shown again and again that their choice for Europe was also a choice for freedom. I will never forget Rostropovich playing Bach at the fallen Wall in Berlin. This image reminds the world that it was the quest for freedom and democracy that tore down the old divisions and made possible the reunification of the continent. Joining the European Union was essential for the consolidation of democracy in our countries. Because it places the person and respect of human dignity at its heart. Because it gives a voice to differences while creating unity. And so, after reunification, Europe was able to breathe with both its lungs, as said by Karol Wojtiła. The European Union has become our common house. The “homeland of our homelands” as described by Vaclav Havel."

"In Portugal in April 1974, before the liberals in the army turned on the oldest Fascist dictatorship in Europe and broke open all the literal and metaphorical prison gates, there had been only one legal party. On May Day of that year, the Socialist and Communist Parties were able to fill the streets of the capital city. Within days, a conservative and a liberal party had been announced, and within a very short time Portugal was, so to say, a “normal” European country. Those parties, with their very seasoned leaders, had been there all along. All that was required was for the brittle carapace of the ancien régime to be shattered."

"The 1917 October Revolution was the first ever won by revolutionaries advocating a socialist society. By the beginning of 1917 the majority of the Russian people were extremely discontented with the czar’s regime. Various revolutionary groups sought to mobilize this popular frustration to transform Russian society. When the coercive power of the czarist state collapsed in early 1917, revolutionary leaders had an opportunity to seize control of their nation’s destiny. Soldiers and sailors refused orders to repress rebellious street demonstrations and instead went over to the revolutionaries. As the institutions of the czarist government deteriorated, workers, military personnel, and peasants elected revolutionary administrative councils, or soviets, from among their own numbers, to exercise power. In fall 1917 soldiers, sailors, and workers loyal to the Bolshevik-led citywide soviet of the capital, Petrograd (later Leningrad and after 1991, St. Petersburg), established a new national revolutionary government."

"In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the monarchy was steadily undermined by government efforts to spur industrialization and modernization. Many young Russians schooled in the technology of more advanced societies learned of the relatively democratic political systems in Western Europe. As increasing numbers of educated Russians rejected autocracy in favor of a freer and more participatory government, the pre-revolutionary state was progressively weakened. Russia’s military defeat in World War I and the accompanying social unrest finally forced the czar’s abdication. Soldiers ordered to put down the protests of their fellow workers refused or openly joined the demonstrators. Faced with massive popular opposition and mutinies in the army and navy, and deserted by middle- and upperclass elites, the czarist state collapsed, providing a historic opportunity for revolutionaries to establish new political, social, and economic institutions. A number of groups cooperated to overthrow the monarchy. Although the contending revolutionary movements and most members of the major social classes were temporarily united in the effort to oust the czar, they were divided over other issues. Various political movements favored divergent programs, ranging from instituting moderate social reforms to abolishing private ownership of major industries. The Bolsheviks demanded the changes most people yearned for, including a quick end to the war, an immediate redistribution of land to the peasants, and workers’ control of industry. When the provisional government continued the war and delayed land redistribution, popular support swung to the Bolsheviks in the large urban areas, permitting them to seize control of the national government in fall 1917."

"On December 16, 1916, the royal couple's charismatic and corrupt holy man Rasputin was murdered by the Tsar's own cousin, Grand Duke Dmitry, aided and abetted by the effete Prince Felix Yusupov and a right-wing politician named V. M. Purishkevich, in the belief that the monk was exerting a malign influence on the Tsar and on Russian foreign policy. But things did not improve. Deserted by his own generals in what amounted to a mutiny in early March 1917, Nicholas agreed to abdicate, complaining bitterly of 'treachery, cowardice and deceit'. Neither he nor his wife ever understood the revolution that was now unfolding. Indeed, Alexandra's comment on its outbreak deserves wider celebrity as one of the great mis-diagnoses of history: 'It's a hooligan movement, young boys & girls running about &c screaming that they have no bread, only to excite - . . . if it were cold they wld. probably stay in doors.'"

"The Provisional Government that took the Tsar's place aimed to establish a republic with a liberal constitution and parliamentary institutions. Its prospects were far from bad. However, the determination of its leaders to keep the war going and to postpone decisions on the burning question of land reform until after a Constituent Assembly had been elected created a window of opportunity for more extreme elements. The Bolsheviks had in fact been taken by surprise by the revolution. 'It's staggering!' exclaimed Lenin when he heard the news in Zurich. 'Such a surprise! Just imagine! We must get home, but how?' The German High Command answered that question, providing him not only with a railway ticket to Petrograd but also, through two shady intermediaries named Parvus and Ganetsky, with funds to subvert the new government. Instead of having him and his associates arrested, as they richly deserved to be, the Provisional Government dithered. On August 27, egged on by conservative critics of the new regime, the Supreme Commander of the Russian Army, General Lavr Kornilov, launched an abortive military coup. The unintended effect was to boost support for the Bolsheviks within the soviets, which had sprung up as a kind of parallel government not only in Petrograd (as in 1905) but in other cities too. Two months later, on October 24, 1917, the Bolsheviks staged a coup d'état of their own. At the time, it did not seem like a world-shaking event. Indeed, more people were hurt in Sergei Eisenstein's subsequent reenactment for his film October. Hardly anyone expected the new regime to last."

"The Revolution had been made in the name of peace, bread and Soviet power. It turned out to mean civil war, starvation and the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party's Central Committee and its increasingly potent subcommittee, the Politburo. Workers who had supported the Bolsheviks in the expectation of a decentralized soviet regime found themselves being gunned down if they had the temerity to strike at newly nationalized factories. With inflation rampant, their wages in real terms were just a fraction of what they had been before the war. 'War Communism' reduced hungry city dwellers to desperate bartering expeditions to the country and to burning everything from their neighbours' doors to their own books for heat. As the conscription system grew more effective, more and more young men found themselves drafted into the Red Army, which grew in number from less than a million in January 1919 to five million by October 1920, though desertion rates remained high, especially around harvest time. When the previously pro-Bolshevik sailors of Kronstadt mutinied in February 1921 , they denounced the regime for crushing freedom of speech, press and assembly and filling prisons and concentration camps with their political rivals."

"Each local Cheka had its own speciality. In Kharkov they went in for the ‘glove trick’ — burning the victim’s hands in boiling water until the blistered skin could be peeled off: this left the victims with raw and bleeding hands and their torturers with ‘human gloves’. The Tsaritsyn Cheka sawed its victims’ bones in half. In Voronezh they rolled their naked victims in nail-studded barrels. In Armavir they crushed their skulls by tightening a leather strap with an iron bolt around their head. In Kyiv they affixed a cage with rats to the victim’s torso and heated it so that the enraged rats ate their way through the victim’s guts in an effort to escape. In Odessa they chained their victims to planks and pushed them slowly into a furnace or a tank of boiling water. A favourite winter torture was to pour water on the naked victims until they became living ice statues. Many Chekas preferred psychological forms of torture. One had the victims led off to what they thought was their execution, only to find that a blank was fired at them. Another had the victims buried alive, or kept in a coffin with a corpse."

"The starting point for our study of the Cold War is the year 1917, when the Bolshevik leadership established a communist regime in Russia and defied the international order by preaching world revolution and challenging conventional diplomatic practices. The Western powers (Britain, France, and the United States) responded with military intervention and ostracism. During the next twenty-four years the estrangement between Russia and the West was overshadowed by the challenges of Italy, Japan, and Germany, but the capitalist world continued to regard the Soviet Union with fear, mistrust, and repugnance—sentiments that Moscow duly reciprocated."

"Each communist party was the child of the marriage of two ill-assorted partners, a national left and the October revolution. That marriage was based both on love and convenience. For anyone whose political memories go back no farther than Khruschev's denunciation of Stalin, or the Sino-Soviet split, it is almost impossible to conceive what the October revolution meant to those who are now middle-aged and old. It was the first proletarian revolution, the first regime in history to set about the construction of the socialist order, the proof both of the profundity of the contradictions of capitalism, which produced wars and slumps, and of the possibility - the certainty - that socialist revolution would succeed. It was the beginning of world revolution. It was the beginning of the new world. Only the naive believed that Russia was the workers' paradise, but even among the sophisticated it enjoyed the general indulgence which the left of the 1960s now gives only to revolutionary regimes in some small countries, such as Cuba and Vietnam."

"Looking back one perceives only a massive operation, struggle, and action. In reality there were no heroes or leaders. It was the people, the working people, in soldiers' uniform or in civilian attire, who controlled the situation and who recorded its will indelibly in the history of the country and mankind. It was a sultry summer, a crucial summer of the revolutionary flood-tide in 1917!"

"The issue was to wage a struggle against the war, against coalescence with the liberal bourgeoisie, and for the power of the workers' councils, the Soviets."

"Then came the great days of the . became historic. The sleepless nights, the permanent sessions. And, finally, the stirring declarations. "The Soviets take power!" "The Soviets address an appeal to the peoples of the world to put an end to the war." "The land is socialized and belongs to the peasants!""

"When one recalls the first months of the Workers' Government, months which were so rich in magnificent illusions, plans, ardent initiatives to improve life, to organize the world anew, months of the real romanticism of the Revolution, one would in fact like to write about all else save about one's self."

"At Odessa, the Cheka tied White officers to planks and slowly fed them into furnaces or tanks of boiling water; in Kharkiv, scalpings and hand-flayings were commonplace: the skin was peeled off victims’ hands to produce ‘gloves’; the Voronezh Cheka rolled naked people around in barrels studded internally with nails; victims were crucified or stoned to death at Dnipropetrovsk; the Cheka at Kremenchuk impaled members of the clergy and buried alive rebelling peasants; in Orel, water was poured on naked prisoners bound in the winter streets until they became living ice statues; in Kyiv, Chinese Cheka detachments placed rats in iron tubes sealed at one end with wire netting and the other placed against the body of a prisoner, with the tubes being heated until the rats gnawed through the victim’s body in an effort to escape."

"The Russian Revolution of 1917 may be said to have begun in November of the preceding year, when the government came under intense assault from liberal and conservative Duma deputies for its conduct of the war. The leader of the liberals, Paul Miliukov, virtually accused the government of treason. These attacks emanating from the highest political circles made the country ungovernable; the conviction spread that drastic change had to come. The tsar, a fatalist by nature, did nothing to reassert his authority. The spark that set off the revolution was a mutiny, in early March 1917, of the Petrograd garrison. It consisted of older peasant draftees who felt they should have been exempt from military duty and rioted when ordered to fire at unruly civilian crowds. The generals, afraid of the mutiny spreading to the front, persuaded Nicholas to abdicate in order to save Russia from defeat. An ardent patriot, he followed their advice and on March 15 stepped down."

"In sum, the advance of education and industrialization necessary to meet Russia’s global ambitions weakened tsarism’s hold on the country. Such factors help explain why the Communist revolution that, according to Marx, was bound to break out in the industrialized West in fact broke out in the agrarian East. Russia lacked the deterrents to social revolution present in the West: respect for law and property, along with a sense of allegiance to a state that protected liberty and provided social services. The Russian radical intelligentsia, permeated with utopian idealism, on the one hand, and a peasantry bent on seizing private land, on the other, created a state of permanent tension liable to explode any time the central government found itself in trouble. None of the economic imperatives posited by Marx and Engels played here any role."

"In the elections to the soviets held the next month, the Bolsheviks scored impressive gains, which signaled to Lenin that the time had come for another and decisive blow. The resolution to seize power was taken at a clandestine meeting of the Bolshevik leaders held on the night of October 23–24, 1917. Lenin had to overcome a great deal of reluctance from his lieutenants, who feared a repetition of the July fiasco. The coup took place on November 7 when pro-Bolshevik units took over all the strategic points in the capital without firing a shot. There was some fighting in Moscow, but in the rest of the country the transition proceeded quite smoothly. Lenin later said that taking power in Russia was as easy as “lifting a feather.” The reason was that he had cleverly camouflaged the seizure of power by himself and his party as the transfer of “all power to the soviets,” which slogan promised grassroots democracy rather than dictatorship. Even Lenin’s socialist rivals, who suspected his intentions, were not terribly upset, convinced that a Bolshevik one-party dictatorship could not possibly last and would soon yield to a socialist coalition. They preferred to let him exercise power for a while rather than unleash a civil war that would only benefit the “counterrevolution.” As it turned out, the Bolsheviks would stay in power for seventy-four years. Communism thus did not come to Russia as the result of a popular uprising: it was imposed on her from above by a small minority hiding behind democratic slogans. This salient fact was to determine its course."

"The factors that made Russia prone to erupt in revolution also determined the shape of its Communist regime. As it turned out, socialism introduced into a country lacking the traditions that would make for the ideally self-fulfilling life that Marx had envisioned in no time and quite spontaneously assumed the worst features of the defunct tsarist regime. Socialist slogans, which in the West would be steadily watered down until they became indistinguishable from liberal ones, in Russia and other non-Western countries were reinterpreted in accustomed terms to mean the unlimited power of the state over citizens and their assets. Soviet totalitarianism thus grew out of Marxist seeds planted on the soil of tsarist patrimonialism."

"The Russian Revolution of 1917 was patently a continuation of the French Revolution of 1789 in its eastern advance. It smashed autocracy, gave land to the peasants, liberated oppressed nationalities, and in addition promised to rid the industrial system of the blemishes of exploitation. In its heroic age, Soviet socialism was given selfless support by the writers and artists of the West. They steeled their muscles in an epic defence of freedom, democracy, and socialism against the pagan upsurge of Teutonic fascism. Hitler’s persecution of Bolsheviks and Jews was in the last resort directed against Christian universalism and its derivatives in the industrial present. His onslaught on traditional values, root and branch, created the modern West."

"THE Russian Revolution is one of the great heroic events of the world s history. It is natural to compare it to the French Revolution, but it is in fact something of even more importance. It does more to change daily life and the structure of society : it also does more to change men s beliefs. The difference is exemplified by the difference between Marx and Rousseau : the latter sentimental and soft, appealing to emotion, obliterating sharp out lines ; the former systematic like Hegel, full of hard intellectual content, appealing to historic necessity and the technical development of industry, suggesting a view of human beings as puppets in the grip of omnipotent material forces. Bolshevism combines the characteristics of the French Revolution with those of the rise of Islam ; and the result is something radically new, which can only be understood by a patient and passionate effort of imagination."

"By disrupting the capitalist order and weakening the great empires, the First World War brought an obvious opportunity to revolutionaries. Most Marxists, however, had by then grown accustomed to working within national political systems, and chose to support their governments in time of war. Not so Vladimir Lenin, a subject of the Russian Empire and a leader of the Bolsheviks. His voluntarist understanding of Marxism, the belief that history could be pushed onto the proper track, led him to see the war as a great chance. For a voluntarist such as Lenin, assenting to the verdict of history gave Marxists a license to issue it themselves. Marx did not see history as fixed in advance but as the work of individuals aware of its principles. Lenin hailed from largely peasant country, which lacked, from a Marxist perspective, the economic conditions for revolution. Once again, he had a revolutionary theory to justify his revolutionary impulse. He believed that colonial empires had granted the capitalist system an extended lease on life, but that a war among empires could bring general revolution. The Russian Empire rumbled first, and Lenin made his move. The suffering soldiers and impovershed peasants of the Russian Empire were in revolt in early 1917. After a popular uprising brought down the Russian monarchy that February, a new liberal regime sought to win the war by one more military offensive against its enemies, the German Empire and the Hapsburg monarchy. At this point Lenin became the secret weapon of Germany. The Germans dispatched Lenin from Swiss exile to the Russian capital Petrograd that April, to make a revolution that would take Russia from the war. With the help of his charismatic ally Leon Trotsky and his disciplined Bolsheviks, Lenin achieved a coup d'état with some popular support in November. In early 1918, Lenin's new government signed a peace treaty with Germany that left Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltics, and Poland under German control. Thanks in part to Lenin, Germany won the war on the eastern front, and had a brief taste of eastern empire."

"More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”"

"In 1917 European history, in the old sense, came to an end. World history began. It was the year of Lenin and Woodrow Wilson, both of whom repudiated the traditional standards of political behaviour. Both preached Utopia, Heaven on Earth. It was the moment of birth for our contemporary world."

"The Russian revolution was nominally based on Communist dogma; but its significant struggle was to find some instrument by which a vast backward country could be mauled into industrialization. The capitalist revolution in which the United States was the leader found apter, more efficient and more flexible means through collectivizing capital in corporations."

"The Cold War stemmed from war, from the violence, fear and paranoia that conflict fostered, and from defeat and victory in two successive struggles, World War One and the Russian Civil War. Defeat at the hands of Germany and, even more, the social and political strain of conflict on an unprecedented scale in World War One (1914–18) led, in March 1917, to the fall of the Romanov dynasty in Russia and its replacement by a provisional, republican government. The dynasty had responded more successfully to the challenge of the Thirteen Years’ War with Poland in 1654–67, to the Great Northern War with Sweden in 1700–21, to wars with the Turks, Sweden and France between 1806 and 1815, and even to the brief French occupation of Moscow in 1812, than it was to do to war of a very different type with Germany."

"The same problems, of defeat at the hands of Germany, political division and social strain, weakened the Romanovs’ republican Social Democratic replacement, and this weakness provided the opportunity for a Bolshevik (Soviet Communist) coup in Russia later in 1917. The victory of the Bolsheviks over domestic foes and foreign intervention in the subsequent Russian Civil War (1918–21) ensured that their regime would not be short-lived, as for example was Communist rule in Hungary in 1919. The victory also furthered the identification of the Soviet regime with struggle, as well as giving such struggle a specific character. The war provided the regime with a strong rationale for opposition to Western states, notably the leading European empires, Britain and France, as well as the USA and, indeed, Japan."

"The Great Socialist October Revolution, carried out by the workers and peasants of Russia under the leadership of the Communist Party, headed by V. I. Lenin, overturned the power of the capitalists and landowners, broke the chains of oppression, established the dictatorship of the proletariat, and created the Soviet state-a state of a new type, the basic instrument to defend the revolutionary achievements and to build socialism and communism. The worldwide historical turning-point of mankind from capitalism to socialism began. Having emerged victorious in the civil war and having repulsed imperialist intervention, Soviet power has wrought the most profound socio-economic transformations, forever put an end to the exploitation of man by man and to class antagonisms and national hostility. The association of Soviet Republics in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics enhanced the forces and possibilities of the people of the country for the building of socialism. Public ownership of the means of production and genuine democracy for the working masses were consolidated. For the first time in the history of mankind, a socialist society was created."

"A situation in Asia that was not without considerable promise for the USA was to become far more threatening in 1979. The overthrow, in the face of mass-demonstrations, of the Shah of Iran, who left Tehran on 16 January 1979, and his replacement by a theocratic state hostile to the USA, combined with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979 to create a highly volatile situation that posed problems for analysts. There was the prospect, first, that the USA might lose the struggle for regional hegemony and, secondly, that this might have wider consequences across Asia. Although authoritarian and prone to initiatives that were not always welcome, Iran was America’s leading ally in South Asia, an opponent to Arab radicalism, and a block to Soviet expansionism and that of Iraq, a key Soviet ally. The USA had used Iran to support the Kurds against Iraq, and, in 1973, to send troops to help the Sultan of Oman overcome left-wing rebels based in the region of Dhofar, rebels backed by Communist powers. Iran was also a major purchaser of American arms, and a key oil exporter. Under the Shah, it had long played a central role in the forward containment of the Soviet Union, not least by providing important radar bases to screen the southern Soviet Union. After the collapse of Iran, the Americans fell back upon Israel."

"I admit that I called it wrong really from the beginning and in the direction that it went. The direction that it went -- this rather harsh and brutal and intolerant direction that it went -- certainly surprised me. I didn't expect it. Nor did I expect that we and the Iranians would remain estranged for as long as we have."

"Global arrogance, is not satisfied with the Islamic Revolution's success because it is quite aware of the fact that our victory would result in the globalization of Islam."

"Animosity toward the shah and the intensification of Iranian nationalism, aroused by the perception of the shah’s regime as an instrument of foreign imperialism and moral corruption, united otherwise incompatible groups into a powerful revolutionary alliance. In the course of one year, 1978, the monarchy was swept away. Among the contending revolutionary forces, religious leaders possessed a greater cultural affinity with Iran’s masses and better access to extensive social networks for mobilizing large numbers of people than any other component of the anti-shah coalition. The result was a startling innovation in the history of world governments—the creation of the Islamic Republic."

"There is an irony lodged deep in the heart of the revolution that turned Iran from a Persian kingdom into an Islamic theocracy, a revolution cheered and organized by secular leftists and Islamist modernists. The irony is that the Iran of the fundamentalist ayatollahs owes its ultimate birth pang to cities of sin and freedom: Beirut, capital of Arabic modernity, once known as the Paris of the Middle East; and Paris, birthplace of the Age of Enlightenment. If not for the permissive freedoms in both, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—a patient man with a cunning mind—might have died forgotten in a two-story mudbrick house down a narrow cul-de-sac in the holy city of Najaf, in Iraq. The Iranian cleric had agitated against the shah of Iran for over a decade and spent time in prison in Tehran. He was sent into exile and arrived in Najaf in 1965, where he languished in anonymity for thirteen years, popular among his circle of disciples but shunned by most of the Iraqi Shia clergy. In Najaf, clerics stayed out of politics and disapproved of the firebrand ayatollah who thought he had a special relationship with God. Outside the cities that busied themselves with theology, there were those who saw in Khomeini a useful political tool, someone who could rouse crowds in the battle against oppression. Different people with different dreams, from Tehran to Jerusalem, from Paris to Beirut, looked to Khomeini and saw a man who could serve their agenda, not realizing they were serving his."