1. Jonathan R. White
www.cengage.com/cj/white
Chapter 6:
Recent History: The Roots
of Modern Terrorism
Rosemary Arway
Hodges University

2. Social Revolution and the Enlightenment
 18th Century considered Age of Reason or
the Period of Enlightenment.
 Europeans began to question the manner in
which they were governed during the
Enlightenment:
o Sought to increase the power of the lower
classes.
o Forces of change brought a new way of
thinking about citizenship.
 Enlightenment was an international
intellectual movement.

3. Social Revolution and the Enlightenment
 Philosophers produced a common idea
about government.
o Governments should exist to protect individual
rights.
o Best form of government was democracy:
▪ Citizens had rights.
▪ Governments were created to protect those rights.
o Common people should control the government
through social contract or constitution.
▪ Increased demand for democracy
▪ Tension between ruling class the governed
▪ Tension spilled into violence

4. The American Revolution
 Reasons why the colonist revolted against
England:
o British taxation laws, enforced through:
 Sugar Act (1764), Stamp Act (1765), and Townshend
Act (1767)
 Those acts affected American citizens (merchants and
consumers), so they boycotted them, and British imports
to America were cut in a half.
• The famous quote comes from this period: “No taxation
without representation.”
 Those acts sparked a protest and British answered by
sending troops.
• Boston Massacre (1770)

5. The American Revolution
 Reasons why colonies in North America
objected to British rule included:
o „Tea law‟ – proclamation that cut off the
colonies from trade (resulting in the Boston Tea
Party).
o Lack of American representation in the British
Parliament.
 After publication of Tom Paine‟s
Common Sense pamphlet, public
opinion swung toward the cause of
independence (half a million copies
sold!)

6. The American Revolution
 On July 1776, The Second Continental
Congress declared independence from
Great Britain:
o American Revolution transferred power from British
upper class to American upper class.
o American Revolution represented long-term
evolutionary process toward democracy.
o Americans created a republic based on a
representative democracy.

7. The French Revolution
 French Revolution (1789-1799) was based
on same enlightened principles as
American Revolution.
o French Revolution different and more deadly in
tone.
o Extremely bloody – Guillotine, genocide of Nante‟s
rebels, massacres, slaughter, assasinations, reven
ge killings
o First revolution in the modern sense of the word.
 French Revolution was a transfer of power
between classes.
 French Revolution represented a radical
shift in power structures.

8. The Reign of Terror
 Term terrorism appeared during the French
Revolution.
 Burke: Referred to Government‟s violence
as “Reign of Terror,” using the word
terrorism to describe actions of the new
government (cold-blooded reign of
Jacobins).
 As the government consolidate power, the
would-be democracy gave way to Napoleon
Bonaparte and military authoritarianism.

9. Guerrillas and the Spanish Peninsula
 Meaning of terrorism underwent a subtle
change during Napoleon‟s invasion of Spain.
o Spanish partisans attacked French troops in
unconventional manners.
▪ Spanish called it patriotism.
▪ French referred to Spanish partisans as terrorists.
 Definition shifted away from government
repression and toward those who resisted
government.
 Definitional transformation continued
throughout 19th century.

10. 1848 and the Radical Democrats
 Radical Democrats
o Demanded immediate drastic change:
▪ Democracy should be based on economic equality as
well as freedom.
▪ Class revolution.
▪ Political power should be held in common.
▪ Interest in developing constitution.
▪ Distribute wealth created by trade and manufacturing
evenly.
 Socialists
o Argued for centralized control of the economy.
 Anarchists
o Sought to reduce or to eliminate centralized government.
 Capitalists
o Sought to reduce or to eliminate centralized government.

11. Socialists
 Wanted to completely democratize society.
 Wanted control of industrial production.
 Emphasized the right to form labor
unions, to bargain work conditions and to
strike.
 Emphasized democracy over the
centralized power of communism.
 Believed that a strong state would ensure
profits from industry were distributed in an
egalitarian manner.

12. Socialists
 Socialism
o Karl Marx, founder of communism, stated
that:
▪ Social structure is arranged by the material
circumstances surrounding existence.
▪ Humans shape the environment through work
and even produce more than they need.
 Communists – a form of Socialism
o Advocated strong centralized government.
o Elimination of all classes save the working
class.
o Complete state monopoly over all forms of
industrial and agricultural production.

13. Anarchists
 Shared ideas about egalitarian nature of
society with socialists; disagreed on function
of the state.
 All forms of governmental domination are
harmful and unnecessary.
 Proudhon:
o Extension of the democracy to all classes
should be accomplished through the
elimination of property and government.
o Anarchy would develop peacefully as people
learned about the structure of governments
and the capitalist economy.
 Anarchism is believed to be an inspiration for
a terrorism.

14. Violent Anarchism
 Violent anarchism propaganda: No industrialist
is safe and capitalist order would crumble.
 Jensen:
o Several factors merged to create a culture of
terrorism among members of the anarchists
movement:
▪ Growing number of people attracted to the movement
▪ Economic change
▪ Economic consolidation accompanied with the social
stress
▪ Nationalistic factors
 Invention of dynamite (Nobel) fostered the
philosophy of bombs and influenced the
adoption of violence.

15. Rhetoric, Internal Debates, Action
 Prokoptin
o Humanity existed between two competing tendencies:
cooperation and authoritarianism.
o Call for non-violent revolution.
 Bakunin
o Revolutionaries could not use the state as an instrument of
emancipation because it was inherently oppressive.
o Bombings and individual assassinations as a means of
awakening the masses to reality.
 Heinzen
o Advocated political murder.
 Most…
o did not believe capitalistic societies would change
peacefully and called for violent action.

16. Modern Terrorists and
Their Historical Counterparts
 Laqueur: Modern terrorists are more
ruthless than their historical counterparts.
o Terrorism of historical terrorists was mainly
rhetorical.
o Anarchists were selective about their targets.
o Modern terrorism has been typified by
indiscriminate violence and intentional
targeting of civilian population.
o Modern terrorist strike at governments by
killing citizens.

17. Anarchism and Nationalism
 Nationalists under foreign control adopted
tactics of anarchists to fight foreign powers
occupying their lands.
o Nationalists believed they were fighting patriotic
wars not that they were anarchists (IRA).
o Groups throughout Europe turned to the
philosophy of the bomb.
o Nationalistic terrorists followed patterns set by
violent anarchists.
o The moral justification for anarchists and
nationalists is essentially the same.

18. A Contemporary Analogy
 Woodcock: Anarchism was not revolutionary.
o Reaction to economic consolidation and centralized
state.
o Strongest where industrialization was weakest.
 Early 1900s witnessed events culminating in
measures that resulted in a violation of the civil
liberties of several Americans.
o Assassination of President McKinley.
o Red Scare of 1919.
 Could the reactive measures of 9-11 be
considered parallel to the over-reactive
measures taken in the early 1900s?

19. Terrorism and Revolution in Russia
 Russia in the 19th century differed significantly
from the other great powers of Europe (class
distinction was greater and peasants lived in
poverty).
 The Peoples‟ Will (Narodnaya Voyla)
represented violent socialist revolution.
o Members believed it was necessary to terrorize
subversive organizations into submission.
o Peoples‟ Will evolved from Russian revolutionary
thought.
▪ Bakunin
▪ Nechaev

20. Terrorism and Revolution in Russia
 Three approaches of how to modernize the
Russian state:
o From the top down: Tsar Alexander II
o Creation of modern Russia as a liberal Western
Democracy: The Intellectuals
o Revolution: Violent Anarchists
▪ The People‟s Will propaganda won sympathy among the
peasantry.
 The People's Will Campaign:
o Bombings, assassinations and murders
o 1881 – murder of Tsar Alexander II

21. Terrorism and Revolution in Russia
 National Disasters that created
atmosphere for „1914 Revolution‟ in
Russia:
o Loosing the war to Japan
o Economic problems
o Bureaucratic inefficiency
o 1905 Revolution
o Entering I World War
 After 1914 revolution new Russian
Government was formed by Mensheviks.

22. Terrorism and Revolution in Russia
 Russian revolution utilized terrorism in a new
manner.
o Created an impact on peoples‟ view of terrorism in the
20th century.
 Lenin and Trotsky believed terrorism should be
used as an instrument for overthrowing the
bourgeois governments.
o Advocated terrorism as a means of controlling internal
enemies and as a method for coping with internal strife.
o By threatening to export terror, Lenin and Trotsky
effectively placed fear of communism in the minds of
many in the West.
 Lenin‟s victory and subsequent writings have
inspired terrorists from 1917 to the present.