Red Seas-A Study in Revolutionary Contagion

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Red Seas: A Study in Revolutionary

ContagionTheodor Tudoroiu

a

a The University of the West Indies at St. Augustine

To cite this article: Theodor Tudoroiu (2012): Red Seas: A Study in Revolutionary Contagion, Journal

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Red Seas: A Study in RevolutionaryContagion

THEODOR TUDOROIU*The University of the West Indies at St. Augustine

ABSTRACT This article tries to identify the key elements that determine the success or failure ofrevolutionary contagion processes. Using three case studies of mutinies that took place in the first

half of the twentieth century aboard fleets operating in the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean,

it concludes that the result of the revolutionary contagion depends mainly on the quality of the

ideological and organizational effort undertaken by the primary revolution and its affiliated

revolutionaries in the target society. A successful process of revolutionary contagion, however, is

a necessary but not sufficient condition for the victory of the revolution itself. The 2011 Libyan

rebellion is used to test these findings.

KEY WORDS: revolutionary contagion, mutinies, Potemkin, French Black Sea fleet, Greek navy,

Comintern, Libya

Introduction

This article assesses three mutinies that took place in the first half of the twentieth century

aboard fleets operating in the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean in order to analyze

the process of revolutionary contagion. The goal is to identify the key elements that

determine the success or failure of such processes. The case studiesthe mutinies aboard

the Russian Black Sea Potemkin battleship (1905), the French Black Sea fleet (1919), and

the Greek fleet at British-controlled Alexandria (1944)were selected because they are

representative of different stages in the development of the revolutionaries capacity of

planning and managing revolutionary contagion processes. Ironically, they all represent

failed revolutions. In terms of revolutionary contagion, however, they cover a range going

from very modest results to success on a local and then on a global scale. The model of

revolutionary contagion developed on the basis of these case studies is then tested using

the 2011 Libyan rebellion.

The next section provides a general picture of the naval mutinies. Section three reviews

the theoretical aspects of revolutions and revolutionary contagion. Sections four to six

present the three case studies. Section seven uses their findings to identify and analyze the

key elements of the revolutionary contagion process. The final section checks the validity

of the resulting model in the case of the anti-Qadhafi rebellion.

1478-2804 Print/1478-2790 Online/12/030337-21q 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2012.711158

*Correspondence Address: The University of the West Indies, Department of Behavioural Sciences, Faculty of

Social Sciences, St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago. Email: [email protected]

Journal of Contemporary European Studies

Vol. 20, No. 3, 337357, September 2012
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2012.711158http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2012.711158


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From Mutiny to Revolution

The three case studies presented in the following pages belong to the category of naval

mutinies. There is hardly a general agreement on the latters definition. For the needs of

this article, I will use the description provided by Britains Naval Discipline Act of 1957.

It defined mutiny as a combination between two or more persons subject to service law:(a) to overthrow or resist lawful authority in Her Majestys forces; (b) to disobey such

authority in such circumstances, or with the object of avoiding any duty or service against,

or in connection with operations against, the enemy; or (c) to impede the performance

of any duty or service in Her Majestys forces (Bell & Elleman, 2003, p. 2; for other

definitions see pp. 13 as well as Frame & Baker, 2000, pp. 310).

Naval mutinies stem usually from relatively minor causes related to the conditions of

service. Sometimes they do originate from more deep-rooted and systemic problems. But

even then, the more radical aims of the mutineers come to the fore only after the mutiny

begins over a more mundane issue (Bell & Elleman, 2003, pp. 264265). Mutinies tend

to follow a pattern that includes four stages: rising action; inciting incident; climax; anddenouement (Hathaway, 2001, p. xvi). Three types of mutiny can be identified: the

promotion-of-interests movement; the secession movement; and the seizure-of-power

movement (Lammers, 1969, p. 559, 2003, p. 477; Bell & Elleman, 2003, pp. 264266).

In certain cases, the latter can turn into revolutionary action.

Both navies and naval mutinies reached a turning point at the end of the eighteenth

century. During the French Revolutionary Wars, unprecedented numbers of men were

forced into warships and made to work under the threat of savage violence. This led to the

rapid development of a form of class consciousness among the sailors. The greatest wave

of naval mutiny in European history ensued. Hundreds of crews revolted, sometimesparalyzing whole fleets in the midst of the annual fighting season: Class war was no

longer a metaphor in the wooden world of European warships (Frykman, 2009, p. 67 68;

see also Neale, 1985; Frykman, 2010). In his analysis of the 1797 events, Jeffrey Duane

Glasco went as far as stating that a (failed) British working-class revolution did occur

on the decks of the Royal Navy in the 1790s (Glasco, 2001, pp. 1314). It is generally

agreed that mutinies can take place in conjunction with revolutions and can be

symptomatic of revolutionary change (Hathaway, 2001, p. xv). Sometimes naval

mutineers may become the very engine of a revolutionary process. In 1797, the plebeian

seamen mutinied over material grievances. Some of their colleagues, the revolutionary

seamen, attempted to use the resulting social chaos to redirect the mutinies to politicaland social revolutions (Glasco, 2001, p. 13). This is a typical example of the process

of vertical escalation, in which the mutineers demands become more complex and

far-reaching as events progress (Bell & Elleman, 2003, pp. 269 271). Such escalation can

lead to a fully fledged revolution.

Another development took place as the nineteenth- and twentieth-century navies

became increasingly technical. Hulls, means of propulsion, and weaponry were

transformed in the machine age. Sailors came from the industrialized and urbanized

working class and worked in an industrial type environment (Till, 2003, p. xvii). They

started to behave as almost regular proletarians and became vulnerable to radical

ideologies tailored for industrial workers such as Marxism (Raphael-Leygues & Barre,

1981, pp. 104105). This is why naval mutinies of the first half of the twentieth century

had a higher probability of evolving toward revolution. This is the important aspect

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that made me choose three naval mutinies of that period as illustrations of the process of

revolutionary contagion.

Revolution and Contagion

Obviously, the theoretical core element of this article is represented by revolutions.

Marx famously called them the locomotives of history. Classical definitions such as

those of Theda Skocpol and Anthony Giddens identify class and violence as their main

characteristics (see Paige, 2003, p. 20). Class and violence, however, are not necessarily

associated with all revolutions, especially with more recent ones. This is why a different

definition was created by Jeffery Paige (2003, p. 24):

A revolution is a rapid and fundamental transformation in the categories of social

life and consciousness, the metaphysical assumptions on which these categories are

based, and the power relations in which they are expressed as a result of widespreadpopular acceptance of a utopian alternative to the current social order.

This seems to capture the essence of both past and present revolutionary processes. I will

use it as the theoretical starting point of this article.

Frequently, revolutions are assessed as national processes. Still, they almost always have

an international dimension. Theda Skocpol was one of the authors who explored

systematically the importance of the international context for both the causes and the

outcome of revolutions. In her view, states are sometimes weakened by the international

competition within the international state system. The weakened condition of the State,

in conjunction with a particular agrarian structure, means the omnipresent underlyingsocial conflict cannot be contained. Consequently, the unrest sweeps away the ancien

regime. Then, the creation of a new society is shaped by continuing international pressure at

least in the same measure as by ideological principles (Skocpol, 1979; Bailey, 1986, p. 16).

Moreover, these ideological principles are themselves related to the international

sphere: revolutions are an international phenomenon . . . because the ideas and goals

that inspire revolutions diffuse around the world (Katz, 2003, p. 150). Indeed, most

revolutionary ideologies imply a logic leading to the affirmation of ideals that pertain to

more than one country. On the one hand, revolutions legitimate themselves in terms of

appeal to general and abstract principles that cannot be specific to a particular country or

nation. On the other, revolutionaries share a view of oppressors or enemies as constitutedinternationally (as part of a global or at least multinational entity which conspires to

maintain oppressors in power). They believe there is an international system of oppression

and resistance, within which their particular country is one part (Halliday, 1999,

pp. 5960). And, at a more pragmatic level, the practical need for support from similar or

related revolutionary forces abroad can encourage ideological convergence.

Sometimes, this convergence and the political relationship it generates take the

spectacular form of revolutionary waves. Indeed, the most disruptive type of revolution

does not spread through invasion, but through one revolutions sparking affiliate

revolutions elsewhere. The revolutionary idea resonates in other countries, and significant

forces appear that seek to implement it. A revolutionary wave is therefore a group of

revolutions with similar objectives containing a primary, central revolution and other

actual or potential revolutions. Aspiring revolutionaries take their inspiration from the

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central revolution, attempt to emulate it, and usually seek its assistance in coming to power

(Katz, 2003, pp. 150152).

It is in this context that the process of revolutionary contagion is most visible. By

revolutionary contagion I understand the preparation and start-up of a new revolution

under the ideological influence and with the organizational assistance of an exterior,

primary revolution. This already existing revolution helps put in place a mechanism that

supports, coordinates, and sometimes controls the activity of local aspiring

revolutionaries. The latter create local affiliate revolutionary organizations that diffuse

the ideology of the primary revolution within the local society. When both their

ideological influence over the society and their strength as an organization are considered

sufficient, they initiate actions meant to overthrow the Government and install

a revolutionary regime. These actions can be violent. In this case, the process includes

a decisive military stage. If successful, the new revolution becomes an affiliated revolution

that maintains special relations with the primary one. A detailed analysis of the process of

revolutionary contagion, based on the findings of the three case studies, will be presentedin the analysis section.

Most major revolutions hope to initiate a series of revolutionary contagion processes that,

ideally, will lead to the creation of a revolutionary wave. In theoretical-ideological terms,

this contributed to the creation of internationalism. Its proponents see the revolutionary agent

as at once national and global. This agent is charged implicitly with the responsibility of

leading a challenge to the international structure of oppression (for more details see Halliday,

2008, p. 67). This ideological responsibility and less abstract survival strategies encourage

revolutionary internationalists to export their own successful revolution. In the twentieth

century, political support for similar revolutionary movements was sometimes organized in

a formal manner that included the creation of international organizations reunitingthe revolutionary state and its foreign allies (the Comintern was the most developed example

of such an international structure). The assistance can take a political form, including

diplomatic support and material assistance. It can also be military. Finally, the most active

form of assistance is the direct participation by the armed forces of a revolutionary state

in another country. For example, the Bolsheviks attempted up to 1920 to assist revolution

in Poland, Iran, and Mongolia through military invasion (Halliday, 1999, pp. 96 97).

Marxist movements represent a rich source of examples and case studies illustrating

the international aspects of revolutions. This is not an accident. Since Marxs 1848

Manifesto of the Communist Party and its famous Workers of the world unite,

the Marxists have been resolutely internationalist. Along with the dictatorship of theproletariat and the revolutionary party, the concept of internationalism, formally qualified

as proletarian internationalism, lies at the core of the Marxist tradition (Halliday, 2008,

p. 70, Marx & Engels, 1848 [2004]). The communist theory of internationalism clearly

meets the requirements of revolutionary internationalism as defined above. Lenin

repeatedly stated that the Bolsheviks had to do the utmost possible in one country for the

development, support and awakening of the revolution in all countries (Lenin, 1918, p.

292). Stalin (1928 [1921], pp. 4647, emphasis added) suggested a very clear line of

action: The tasks of the international proletariat are henceforth reduced to widening the

Russian breach, to assisting the vanguard that has moved ahead, to preventing the enemies

from surrounding this bold vanguard and cutting it off from the base.

The key word here is reduced. The revolution was to become universal, but its

worldwide followers were reduced to support the Russian Bolsheviks and follow their

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orders. The four decades initiated by the October Revolution were dominated by this

asymmetrical relation.

The main instrument of this dependence was the Third (or Communist) International,

better known as the Comintern. It was created on 4 March 1919 by a First Congress including

only nine foreign representatives. One year later, however, the Second Congress, held in

Petrograd and Moscow between 19 July and 7 August 1920, reunited over 200 delegates

from thirty-seven countries. Its approval of the organizational statutes and the adoption of

the Twenty-one Conditions of admission to the Comintern effectively formalized

Bolshevik hegemony over the International (McDermott, 1997, p. 17). Despite the

existence of national groups, or sections, the new organization was not a federation

of parties . . . but a single, highly organized, global party, in effect one world communist

party (Halliday, 2008, p. 70). Its official slogan, proposed by Lenin, was Weltklasse,

Weltpartei, Weltrevolution (Global class, global party, global revolution; German was the

Cominterns official language). But such global ideals were in fact masking more local

interests: From early times. . .

the Comintern served as an instrument of Russian foreignpolicy (Halliday, 2008, p. 70, emphasis added). During its first seven years, the organization

became heavily bureaucratized. At the same time, it came under the control of the Russian

party, which played an increasingly dominant role in determining policy (Jacobson, 1994,

p. 35). The Russian Bolsheviks dominated the Comintern hierarchies, imposed strict

centralization, and used the Soviet funding of foreign sections to support Moscows

decisive interventions in the affairs of nominally independent parties. Under Stalins rule,

this led to a process of bureaucratic degeneration (McDermott, 1997, pp. 14 15).

The Kremlins total control of the Comintern is well illustrated by the latters end. It was

formally dissolved on 10 June 1943 simply because Stalin decided to appease his western

allies and remove one of the slogans for mobilization from Hitlers Anti-Comintern Pact

(Halliday, 2008, pp. 70 71). However, this was only a deceptive measure as a new, similarly

organized framework remained in existence in Moscow. It took the form of a special group

of Comintern cadres created in 1943 and attached to the Russian Communist Party Central

Committee. Three secret special institutes were also established to carry out organizational

and technical activities (McDermott, 1997, p. 210). After the war, a formal nine-party

successor organization, the Cominform (19471957) was also created (Halliday, 1999,

p. 63). Leaving aside the Yugoslav exception, Moscow maintained control of the

major communist parties of the world [until] after 1956 (Halliday, 2008, p. 71; see also

McDermott, 1997, p. 201).The Russian dominance had a very clear effect on the world strategy of the communist

movement(s). The seizure of power in Petrograd had been the result of armed insurrection.

In a letter to the Central Committee Lenin claimed in September 1917 that it is impossible

to remain loyal to Marxism, to remain loyal to the revolution unless insurrection is treated

as an art (Halliday, 1999, p. 244). In the same vein, Trotsky (1932, pp. 125 148) included

in his History of the Russian Revolution a chapter on The art of insurrection. It is not

surprising that the armed insurrection became part of the model of revolution promoted

worldwide by the Comintern. This organization even prepared in 1928 a handbook on

how such actions were to be conducted, making armed insurrection the highest form

of political struggle and an absolute, inexorable necessity for the proletarian movement

in any given country. Consequently, the armed insurrection was the main form of

attempted revolutionary seizure of power in the inter-war years (Halliday, 1999,

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pp. 244245). This had major consequences for the process of revolutionary contagion

which now included an important military dimension.

The Russian Black Sea Battleship Potemkin (1905)

The scene of the first case study is the Russian battleship Potemkin. Ironically, the

rebellion of its crew is famous not for historical reasons but mainly because of Sergei

M. Eisensteins world acclaimed silent movie. This does not mean, however, that the event

had exclusively artistic consequences. The context is that of Russias first, 1905

Revolution. One of its important episodes took place in southern Ukraine. The port of

Odessa was home to various revolutionary organizationsthe Bundists, the minority

and majority cliques of the Social Democratic party, Poale Zionists and Anarchists

(Hough, 1961, p. 73). Bundists and Social Democrats organized a first strike in April 1905.

On 15 June, one month after the destruction of the Russian navy by the Japanese in the

Straits of Tsushima, local authorities in Odessa failed to suppress a workers protestmarch. Large-scale bloodshed followed (Zebroski, 2003, p. 19).

The situation was equally tense among crews of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. In its

effort to modernize, the Russian Navy had to draft increasing numbers of workers, many of

whom had a radical past. Between 1899 and 1905, 59 percent of the Black Sea Fleet

conscripts came from working-class backgrounds (as compared to only 20 percent in the

army) (Zebroski, 2003, pp. 10, 27). Many came into the service with volatile strike

experience. A 1903 navy inquiry concluded that the sailors causing the most trouble were

former skilled workers who had worked in urban industrial centers (Zebroski, 1994,

pp. 122, 130). Moreover, the navys insistence on training conscripts to work as a unified

team gave them a new sense of common identity that was unique to naval service. Overtime, this new collective identity grew into a sense of common purpose that favored protest

movements (Zebroski, 1994, pp. 5455). In April 1902, an order issued by a Russian

admiral acknowledged the discovery of radical activity in the Black Sea Fleet. In

November 1903, the police arrested three sailors for possessing illegal propaganda.

Harsher repression from the authorities created the need for a centralized clearing-house

where sailors from various circles could safely contact other activists. During the winter of

1903 1904, sailor organizers Alexander Petrov, Grigorii Vakulenchuk, and Afanasy

Matiushenko, in conjunction with the Sevastopol Russian Social Democratic Labor Party,

formed Tsentralka, a revolutionary organization that played a key role in planning the fleet

mutiny of 1905 (Zebroski, 2003, p. 13). In terms of numbers, out of a total of 14,000 BlackSea sailors 600900 were active in the revolutionary movement (Bushnell, 1985, p. 271).

The figure increased to almost 2,000 during the 1905 events (Zebroski, 1994, p. 115).

Out of 763 there were seventy to 100 radical sailors on Potemkin (Zebroski, 2003, pp. 15,

18). Due to the limited contact with civilians, the sailors movement developed a very self-

reliant relationship with the mainland revolutionaries. In 1903, the Russian Social

Democratic Labor Party splintered into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. The sailors,

however, did not show any particular factional preference. In fact, many did not

understand the difference between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and continued to

present themselves as Social Democrats. Within the fleet, this had the effect of preserving

the radicals unity. It nevertheless created frictions between the sailors and the mainland

revolutionaries, preventing them from acting in concert during the Potemkin mutiny

(Zebroski, 1994, pp. 141 142).

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Under the influence of radical leaders such as Alexander Petrov on the Prutand Grigorii

Vakulenchuk on the Potemkin, Tsentralka decided that action would be taken on 21 June

1905 during fleet exercises near Tendra Bay. It also decided that control must be seized

swiftly and aboard all ships simultaneously (Zebroski, 2003, pp. 1415). In fact, a minor

incidentthe famous rotten meat episodewas used before the planned date on the

Potemkin. Its crew revolted on 14 June, killing seven officers and taking command of

the ship and of the N267 torpedo boat. The leaders of the mutiny were the officially

accredited Social Democratic representatives in the Potemkin. They flew the red flag and

created a Peoples Committee whose sittings would be public, for the Kniaz Potemkin

Tavricheskii was now a Peoples Democracy (Hough, 1961, p. 59). On the evening of

14 June Potemkin dropped anchor in Odessa harbor. The next day, the entire city was the

scene of strikes and civil unrest. Protesters were extremely active as their demands could

be now supported by the battleships tremendous firepower. The tsar declared a state

of martial law. On the Richelieu Steps, Cossacks massacred civilian protesters

(the episode was later immortalized by Eisensteins movie). But Potemkins reactionwas unconvincing. Its crew did not want to get involved in land skirmishes as it was

expecting a seaborne attack. Proclamations and threats to bomb army and local

authorities headquarters were followed by the firing of only three shells, which missed

their target. The repression of Odessa revolutionaries continued (Hough, 1961, pp. 76 77;

Zebroski, 2003, pp. 1920).

On 17 June the Russian Black Sea Fleet tried to attack Potemkin. Yet, its crews did not

fire; battleship St George even passed on Potemkins side, while the rest of the fleet fled

to Sebastopol in order to avoid further mutinies. The cautious commander in chief, Admiral

Chukhnin, even took the unprecedented step of sending the entire personnel . . . home on

indefinite leave (Hough, 1961, pp. 130 151). However, this triumph was short-lived. Thecrew of St George changed sides and the ship was stranded on a concealed mud bank in

Odessa harbor. Demoralized, Potemkins crew decided to quit. The battleship went to the

Romanian port of Constantza where the rebels surrendered (receiving Romanian nationality

as a guarantee they would not be sent back to Russia) (Zebroski, 2003, pp. 2123). The

mutiny had lasted for eleven days. Overall, the equally unsuccessful 1905 Revolution

weakened the autocratic regime (Ascher, 2004, p. xi) but clearly failed to reach its goals.

I chose the Potemkin episode as a case study because it illustrates well a very simple

(one might say primitive) type of revolutionary contagion. It is not the situation of

a victorious revolution that tries to expand abroad. It is the case of a revolution in process

that tries painfully to expand to a separate section of the same society. Even therevolutionary ideology is not exactly the same. On the mainland, there is a mix of

revolutionary groups with very different ideological orientations. The fleet mutineers

promote only one of those ideologies, the early 1900s Russian Social Democratic version

of Marxist radicalism. Moreover, they do not understandor do not want to understand

the major split of their party colleagues elsewhere in Russia. They present themselves as

representatives of the Social Democratic Labor Party despite the fact that the Bolshevik

Menshevik dispute is increasingly turning that party into a political fiction. However, an

important aspect is closer to a normal process of revolutionary contagion. The mutineers

regard their actions less as part of the wider 1905 Revolution and more as a separate

revolution taking place on the fleet. The latter is perceived as a separate entity that is

autonomousif not almost independentfrom the mainland. Potemkin becomes

a Peoples Democracy. The exact sense of this term remains unclear, but it shows that

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the ship has a special, separate position with respect to the nation-wide revolutionary

phenomenon. Consequently, it is legitimate to speak of a contagion between two parallel

revolutionary processes that take place on the mainland and aboard the fleet respectively.

Within this framework, the reasons of the failure are obvious. First, the total lack of

coordination with the revolutionary forces ashore largely facilitated the actions of the

counter-revolutionaries. Potemkins passivity contributed to the failure of the revolution in

Odessa which in turn diminished the willingness of the sailors on other ships to revolt.

Second, lack of revolutionary experience led to bad organization and inefficient actions

within the fleet. Tsentralka had planned a general mutiny. In fact, it occurred only on the

Potemkin. There, radicals could use a helpful triggering incident to start the vertical

escalation that resulted in a successful seizure-of-power movement. But there was only

limited and temporary horizontal escalation. The short-lived mutiny on the St George

showed the revolutionaries inability to influence and control the rest of the crew despite

their initial success. On the other ships, no action took place. And Potemkin itself, despite

its firepower, simply did not know what to do. Overall, the dynamics that would have

characterized a successful sailors revolution were blocked in their early phase, allowing

the repressive forces to regain control of the situation after only eleven days. This was

different from the equally failed but nevertheless longer and more complex primary,

mainland 1905 Revolution. The causes of this halted contagion will be further analyzed in

the analysis section.

The French Fleet in the Black Sea (1919)

The French navy mutinies in the Black Sea represent an episode of the Ententes anti-

Bolshevik intervention in the aftermath of the First World War. In order to prevent thecommunist occupation of Ukraine, the French landed in Odessa on 18 December 1918.

Later, 80,000 French, Greek, Romanian, and Polish soldiers occupied the Black Sea coast

from Romania to Crimea (Hudson, 2004, p. 141). However, local and overall conditions

did not favor intervention. The French association with Denikins forces, skillfully

exploited by Bolshevik propaganda, had turned the Russian population against the Allied

cause (Carley, 1983, p. 176). The only solution would have been a massive French

intervention, allowing the conquest and control of all of southern Russia. But this was out

of question because of opposition from public and parliamentary opinion in France.

Workers and returning soldiers, exhausted by four years of war, were openly hostile to the

Governments new call to arms against the Bolsheviks (Carley, 1983, pp. 115116, 169).This atmosphere had direct consequences on the battlefield. In early February 1919,

mutiny broke out among French military units along the RomanianRussian border. Four

hundred and sixty-seven soldiers refused to attack the Bolshevik-controlled town of

Tiraspol (Carley, 1983, p. 143). The war-weariness of French troops was ably exploited by

the Bolsheviks. Their propagandists were at work among French troops within days of

the latters arrival in Russia (Carley, 1983, p. 144). This activity was coordinated by the

Propaganda Office of the Soviet of Peoples Commissaries, which made available

the equivalent of 15 million French francs. Two very active local offices were created in

Odessa and Sebastopol. Three French language newspapers were published. The French

communist group in Moscow also published many French language brochures and

pamphlets (Raphael-Leygues & Barre, 1981, pp. 97 101). There are accounts of a French-

speaking Bolshevik propagandist being spirited aboard ships of the French fleet to speak to

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groups of sailors. Bolshevik agitators even operated in the brothels of Odessa, which were,

according to General Berthelot, the most dangerous centers of revolutionary propaganda

in the French zone of occupation (Carley, 1983, p. 145). The arguments of Bolshevik

propaganda were simple and convincing. The war was over, French soldiers and sailors

should be free to go home. The government of France called the Bolsheviks criminals and

bandits, but they aspired only to free the oppressed masses of Russia from tsarism.

Comparisons were made with the French revolution. In fact, the French government only

wanted to recover its billions loaned to the tsar. Capitalism and the bourgeoisie were the

common enemy of the Russian and French people (Carley, 1983, p. 144).

Bolshevik propaganda in southern Ukraine and French Socialists anti-war attitudes

back home undermined the morale of French troops. In Odessa, the situation was

complicated by the existence of opposing local forces. As France could not afford to

increase the scale of the intervention, on 29 March 1919, Clemenceau had to order the

towns evacuation. Odessa fell first to the Cossack Ataman Nikifor Grigorev and then to the

Bolsheviks (Carley, 1983, p. 170; Hudson, 2004, p. 141). But when a similar withdrawalfrom Crimea was ordered on 12 April, the local commander in Sebastopol used the guns of

the French fleet in the harbor to stop enemy advances. Bolsheviks were forced to accept an

armistice (Jackson, 1972, p. 175; Carley, 1983, pp. 171173). The French minister of the

navy recommended that the city be held long enough to safeguard Allied interests and to

assure the complete liberty of our movements in the Black Sea. French military

commanders were contesting the evacuation order as they were convinced that Sebastopol

could be defended (Raphael-Leygues & Barre, 1981, pp. 7172; Carley, 1983, p. 174).

It is at this point that a mutiny aboard the French fleet at Sebastopol, similar in many

respects to that of Potemkin, made any further resistance impossible. The first signs of

trouble came on 16 April, when an engineering officer and a sailor aboard the destroyerProtet were arrested for plotting to seize control of the ship and to take it over to the

Bolsheviks. On the evening of 19 April, disturbances broke out on the battleship France

and then spread to the flagship of the fleet, Jean Bart(Carley, 1983, p. 174). The next day,

protests spread rapidly to the battleships Justice, Mirabeau, and Vergniaud. The red flag

was hoisted and the Internationale was sung on the France and Jean Bart (Raphael-

Leygues & Barre, 1981, p. 28; Carley, 1983, p. 174). On 21 April, French commanders

reported to Paris the gravity of the situation. There was a real threat of rebellion. They

revealed the existence of Soviets among unruly elements of the fleet, which were linked

with revolutionary organizations ashore. It was obvious that resistance against Bolshevik

advances was now impossible. The entire expeditionary force in Crimea was evacuated on28 April (Carley, 1983, pp. 175176). This diminished the support of the moderate

seamen for the most radical mutineers, which in turn brought the end of the mutiny. News

about it, however, reached French Navy ships elsewhere and ignited new disturbances.

Between 26 April and 13 June, mutinies took place on the Waldeck-Rousseau, near

Odessa; among crews of battleships in Cherbourg, Brest, Lorient, and Toulon; on the

battleship Voltaire, at Bizerte; on the Condorset, in the Greek port of Tendra; and on the

battleship-cruiser Guichen, in the Greek port of Itea. Mutinies were also organized aboard

the French Baltic Sea naval division (end June), on the Touareg in the Black Sea (August)

and on the Diderot, in the Cypriot port of Famagusta (October 1919) (Raphael-Leygues &

Barre, 1981, pp. 111114).

It is obvious that this wave of mutinies was facilitated by the sailors desire to go home

and its efficient exploitation by Bolshevik propaganda. However, while structural causes

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and Bolshevik propaganda were the same, soldiers of the expeditionary force in southern

Russia were much less willing to rebel than sailors. This is due to differences in their

respective environments. Before the war, many drafted French sailors had been industrial

workers. The impressive machine room of a modern battleship was nothing less than

a copy of the industrial workshop they were accustomed to. This familiar environment

encouraged the reconstruction of workers trade unions, which were very developed in

France and had been the scene of very intense pacifist propaganda, especially after 1916.

Aboard many ships, small trade unions had been created (Raphael-Leygues & Barre, 1981,

pp. 104105). In such conditions, it is not surprising that Bolshevik propaganda could

easily spread, creating a large number of affiliated revolutionaries. As long as a general

grievance existed, they were able to take advantage of it in order to launch a process of

vertical and horizontal escalation that could have led to fully fledged revolution. Yet, this

process did not advance enough before the grievance was eliminated. Ensuing diminished

support from the moderates allowed the suppression of the mutiny.

From the point of view of the primary, Russian revolution, the contagion of the French

fleet had two different goals. The first was to evacuate the expeditionary force from

southern Russia. In this, the Bolsheviks were clearly successful. The international anti-

Bolshevik campaign lost momentum and the White Russians were finally defeated.

However, the process of revolutionary contagion failed in what should have been its

ultimate objective. It did not bring the general revolution the Bolsheviks hoped would

change the face of the world. The mutinies contaminated other navy units, but did not

extend to France itself. In a way, the French sailors were closer to the Russian society they

had met on the Black Sea coast than to the society of their own homeland. Again, it is in

the analysis section that I will further analyze the details of this revolutionary episode.

The Greek Fleet at Alexandria (1944)

The third and last example of a naval mutiny is not widely known, as the novel describing

it (Tsirkas, 1971)1 did not reach the fame of Eisensteins movie. It is a rather obscure

episode of the Second World War. It took place in 1944 in Egypt, but its actors were Greek.

On 6 April 1941 Greece was attacked and rapidly occupied by German forces. The King,

the Government, and a part of the army fled to Crete and then to British-controlled Egypt

(Close, 1995, p. 55). The bulk of the Greek Navyincluding seven torpedo boats, three

submarines, and a cruisermanaged to reach Alexandria on 21 April 1941. In all, there

were forty-three warships and a much larger merchant marine which, until the end of thewar, contributed continuously to the anti-Axis military effort (Spyropoulos, 1993, pp. 74,

136, 356).

The traditional Greek political forces were completely discredited by the German

invasion and the occupation. The resistance against the occupiers became an outlet for

other political forces (Close, 1995, p. 60; Smith, 1995, p. 58). The most important radical

group was the Greek Communist Party. An early member of the Comintern, it was the

leading (and the best organized) political force in the National Liberation Front (EAM)

and its military branch (ELAS), formed in September 1941 and April 1942 respectively.

It was also numerically important; in 1944 it had 400,000 members (Papastratis, 1980,

p. 32; Smith, 1995, pp. 5860). In mid-September 1941, a handful of communist soldiers

established in Palestine the nucleus of the Army Communist Organization (KSO).

A parallel nucleus was established in Cyprus (Spyropoulos, 1993, p. 191). In 1942,

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communist members of the Greek forces in Egypt founded an umbrella organization open

to all antifascists, the Antifascist Military Organization (ASO). In a few months, it created

cells in all army units and offshoots appeared in other military services: the Navy Military

Organization (AON) and the Air Force Military Organization (AOA). All three remained

secret, worked underground, and were organized in cells of threes and fives. They ran their

own clandestine publications (newspapers, information bulletins, and proclamations).

The ASOs Antifasistas, the navys Eleftheria/Liberty and the air forces Asteras/Star

were widely read (Spyropoulos, 1993, p. 192). To coordinate the activities of leftist

organizations, the Central Bureau of Antifascists organizations was founded in late 1942.

A parallel civilian organization, the Greek Liberation League (EAS), was established in

January 1943. The EAS was created in Cairo, but soon it established branches at

Alexandria and Port Said (Spyropoulos, 1993, pp. 192194).

Troubles started soon after the Greek First Brigades contribution to the victory of

El Alamein. Many of its members were influenced by communist propaganda. To give just

an example, on one occasion the soldier citing the evening prayer replaced the finalGod save our King with God save Stalin. The brigade was ordered back to the Suez area

(Spyropoulos, 1993, p. 80). Soon it camped in Syria, near Brigade II which was viewed

and was called communistic. Its three battalions were commanded by communist officers.

One of them had a picture of Stalin on his desk and was addressed by his men as comrade.

Often, the hammer and sickle flew over the battalions compound (Spyropoulos, 1993,

p. 213). Ensuing conflict between royalist officers and communist soldiers determined the

ASO to take command of the two brigades. It demanded and, in March 1943, obtained

a new structure for the Greek government in exile, which now included only republicans

(Spyropoulos, 1993, pp. 219220). But the British decided to intervene. Thirty communist

commanders and officers were exiled to Kenya. In July 1943, renewed protests involvedthe army and, for the first time, the navy (Spyropoulos, 1993, pp. 236237).

The latters infiltration by the communists was the result of a complex process.

Due to the prominence of the Greek shipping, the seamen represented an important sector

of the countrys workforce. As such, they were targeted by the Comintern-coordinated

Greek communists. In 1928, the communist and socialist sailors left the Panhellenic

Seamens Federation (PNO) and formed the Seamens Union of Greece (NEE).

Progressively, this trade union replaced PNO as the main defender of the seamens rights

(Kitroeff, 1980, pp. 8081, 84). Increased membership allowed the NEE to gain legal

recognition as a trade union in Britain and, in January 1942, by the Greek government in

exile. This led to a strengthening of its influence. It gained control over all the constituentunions which had previously belonged to the PNO and in March 1943 formed the

Federation of Greek Maritime Unions (OENO) (Kitroeff, 1980, pp. 8586). In all the

major ports this new organization opened offices that became a meeting place for all Greek

crews to discuss political developments. It also formed ship committees. Ideologically,

OENO was hardly neutral. With the majority of its executive composed of communists

or communist sympathizers, it adopted a radical, pro-EAM orientation (Kitroeff, 1980,

p. 95). At the same time, there was an important flow of personnel from the merchant fleet

to the navy. A 1941 law even specified that all seamen not serving aboard ships

would be drafted (Kitroeff, 1980, p. 82). This increased considerably the number of

communists in the navy. A 1943 American military intelligence report claimed that

the political agitation which swept the Royal Greek Navy during the War was due to the

successful indoctrination by protagonists, who were drafted in from the Merchant Navy

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(Kitroeff, 1980, p. 89). Consequently, by early 1943 the AON had established at least a

couple of cells in every navy unit (Spyropoulos, 1993, pp. 192194) and communist-led

political activity was intense.

When renewed protests occurred in July 1943, the Greek government in exile decided to

purge both the land and sea forces. In response, violence broke out on the warships Ierax

and Miaoulis. Several sailors were court marshaled; about 300 men were removed from

different ships (Spyropoulos, 1993, p. 247). Nevertheless, by mid-1943, the AON had

not only managed to organize several cells and committees on each navy unit but also

had established an efficient network of communications with them even if the ships were

far away from the center (Spyropoulos, 1993, p. 246). This allowed it to prepare, in the

spring of 1944, a well-organized large-scale action.

On 4 April 1944, the sailors committee aboard ships and in the naval installations started

passing around manifestos. In order to better coordinate its activities, a Central Committee

of the Struggle (KEA) entrenched itself on the floating dock Hyphaestos at Alexandria.

Officers and men who refused to sign the manifestos were placed under arrest and a few werewounded in scuffles as the committees now were armed. On 5 April, rebels seized the

Army Ministry and Headquarters, but were later evicted by British troops who also

dissolved the General Assembly of the Seamens Union and arrested its leader. The rebels

retaliated by taking hostages the captainand officers of the Kriti (Spyropoulos, 1993, p. 357).

On 9 April Greek minesweepers docked close to the mutinied ships and joined the rebels.

The next day, all ships at Malta and Port Said joined the mutiny, as did eleven consigned

merchant ships. Rebels at Alexandria and the Suez Canal hung the signs of the EAM and

ELAS and displayed red banners (Spyropoulos, 1993, pp. 358359). The rebels morale

was boosted by an announcement from King George II on 14 April that a new government

would be formed by politicians to be brought soon from Greece. However, the British gavean ultimatum to the Greek government in exile demanding that drastic steps be taken to

suppress the mutiny in the navy. Otherwise, the British would sink Greek ships anchored

at Alexandria (Spyropoulos, 1993, p. 366). Consequently, on 23 April in the early morning,

Greek loyalists attacked by surprise rebelled ships, killing seven sailors and wounding

seventeen. All ships surrendered. On 29 April they were followed by ships in Port Said.

Those in Malta also gave up, while British tanks attacked on 23 April the Brigade Iwhich

had equally rebelled. Demoralized by the fleets defeat, it surrendered after a weak

resistance (Spyropoulos, 1993, pp. 369371). This was the last episode of more than

one year of unrest. Greek officers cooperated with the British in purging the navy and the

armed forces of their communist sympathizers (Close, 1995, p. 109).At first view, the Greek fleets Egyptian rebellion is similar to the Potemkin episode as it

ended in total failure. Moreover, its avowed objectives were rather limited. The mutineers

demands concerned mainly the composition of the Government in exile. Even when the

crews took control of the ships and displayed red banners and other communist symbols

they restrained from proclaiming formally a revolution. However, the consequences of

their limited demands were far reaching and were perceived as the first stage of a

revolutionary process. The adoption of this step-by-step approach was simply due to

obvious military constraints. The rebels were surrounded by overwhelming British forces

and could not expect any external military support.

The fact that they nevertheless started a suicidal rebellion shows the effectiveness of the

revolutionary contagion process put in place by the communist-led underground

structures. The Greek mutinies represent a good example of international contagion

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coming from a geographically remote primary revolution that aimed to become a world

revolution. Despite the failure in Egypt, the same contagion process was successful in

mainland Greece. It was only due to British intervention, American support, and a long

and bloody civil war that the communist takeover of that country was finally avoided. This

was not exactly Lenins ideal Weltrevolution, but it nevertheless provided a good

approximation of it.

Analysis

The three case studies share a number of common features. All the mutinies took place on

fleets located in approximately the same region and under relatively similar international

circumstances. The latter include an element frequently associated with revolution: war.

Potemkin rebelled immediately after the Russian Japanese war of 1904 1905. The

French fleet had taken part in the World War and was supporting anti-Bolshevik forces in

the Russian Civil War. The Greek fleet at Alexandria was fighting the Second World War.In section three Revolution and contagion, I mentioned Theda Skocpols view that states

are sometimes weakened by the international competition within the international state

system. They become unable to contain social conflicts and cannot prevent the success of

revolutions. The war represents the most brutal manifestation of this international

competition. Its effects delegitimize states and weaken their coercive power while

reducing the cohesion of society and sharpening social conflicts. It is not surprising that

wars act as a precipitant of revolutions (Halliday, 1999, p. 237). At least in the last two

case studies, wars so altered the political and ideological situation and exacerbated state

society conflict that social upheaval ensued (Halliday, 1999, p. 238) (the less impressive

effects of the Russian Japanese war may have contributed to the weaker 1905mobilization). The existence of large numbers of drafted sailors, discontented with defeat

or prolonged warfare, increased the probability of armed rebellion. The military means at

their disposal made them able to confront the repressive forces with much more efficiency

than in the case of a civilian uprising. Overall, the war was one of the factors that

facilitated the process of revolutionary contagion associated with the three mutinies.

Another common feature is the fact that the three mutinies took place on fleets under the

effect of radical ideas of Marxist origin. First, I have already mentioned the fact that the

sailors of modern navies act in a socio-professional environment that is industrial. Drafted

industrial workers recognized in the machine room of their battleship the familiar

environment of an industrial workshop. They had the logical trend of creating trade unionsand were behaving as almost regular proletarians. Consequently, battleship crews were

especially vulnerable to a radical ideology tailored for industrial workers. Second,

organizational frameworks were created progressively by Marxist parties in order to

facilitate the process of revolutionary contagion. Stimulated by the 1905 failure, the

Bolsheviks achieved considerable progress in terms of organization and know-how. The

conspiratorial activity became intrinsic to communism (Selznick, 1960, p. 53). In 1919,

the infiltration of the French fleet was considerably better organized than that of Potemkin.

Soon afterward, the theses of the second Congress of the Communist International (1920)

were simply obsessed with the creation of communist nuclei: even though there may be only

three people sympathizing with Communism, a communist nucleus must be immediately

organized (Selznick, 1960, p. 66). The army was one of the main targets of the Bolshevik

infiltration (Chamberlin, 1946, pp. 66 67). But the navyand, surprisingly, the merchant

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fleetwere considered even more important targets. This is due to the enormous power

which small crews can wield in embargo operations and to the remarkable opportunity they

provide for international communications. Furthermore, there is the specific general way of

life which detaches the sailor from society and may easily pit him against the forces of law

and order. As all of these elements give the seamen an aura of revolutionary power

(Selznick, 1960, p. 184), they could not be ignored by communist strategists. Of course, this

does not mean that all the navies on the planet were successfully infiltrated by the Comintern.

However, the example of the Greek merchant fleet and navy shows that in certain cases this

action was very well prepared, which led to impressive results.

The third common element, the geographical location, is less important. The three

mutinies took place in the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean as these regions were

relatively close to the very active Russian revolutionary arena that, after October 1917,

became a major exporter of revolution. Yet, the distance did not prevent similar

experiments in revolutionary contagion to occur in remote parts of Asia or Latin America.

Despite these common features, the three rebellions are in many ways different.

The elements that differentiate them are indicative of three critical aspects of the process

of revolutionary contagion.

Type and Scale of the Contagion

In the first case study, the seamen of the Black Sea fleet represent a separate, autonomous

part of the Russian society. There is little contact between them and the civilians.

The primary, 1905 Revolution uses affiliate revolutionaries aboard the fleet in order to

initiate a revolutionary process that, given its total lack of coordination with the

revolutionaries ashore, can be assessed as a separate, secondary revolution.The revolutionary contagion succeeds, but from the very beginning it is conceived as a

local process targeting exclusively the 14,000 Russian Black Sea sailors. Fourteen years

later, the picture is different. Again, the Russian primary revolution supports affiliate

revolutionaries aboard the fleet, which this time is French. The contagion is successful at

this local level. But the final objective of igniting a red revolution in France is a failure.

The contagion is halted before reaching the genuinely international level targeted by

the Bolsheviks. This objective is reached in the Greek case. There is no local aspect as the

mutinies take place far away from the Soviet primary revolution. Furthermore,

the contagion is by no means limited to the Greek navy in Egypt. It affects also the exiled

army and, more importantly, Greece itself, where a revolutionary civil war begins. Yet,despite these major differences, the three processes of revolutionary contagion are very

similar. The type and scale, therefore, do not seem to influence the contagion pattern.

Ideological Coherence

In the three cases, there are no ideological disputes between the mutineers. In 1905, they

adopt the early 1900s Russian Social Democratic doctrine. In 1919 and 1944, the

revolutionary ideology is Bolshevism/communism. Important differences exist, however,

between the 1905 primary and secondary revolutions. Ironically, the problem lies with the

former. There are many parties with diverging political orientations. Even the Russian

Social Democratic Labor Party is divided beyond repair. This makes the cooperation

between the multifaced primary revolution and the homogenous affiliated revolutionaries

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difficult. In turn, this has serious negative consequences for the two parts. It can be

concluded that successful contagion is favored by ideological coherence among the

affiliate revolutionaries as well as between them and the primary revolution.

Organization

The 1905 Black Sea episode starts with a process of progressive infiltration. Six hundred to

900 activists are recruited among the 14,000 Black Sea sailors. A revolutionary

organization, Tsentralka, is created to coordinate their moves. Still, the planned general

mutiny occurs only on the Potemkin. Tactical coordination with revolutionary groups on

other shipsas shown by the short-lived mutiny on the St Georgeis simply nonexistent.

The successful mutineers do not seem to have any coherent plan and their ensuing lack of

action results in failure. Unlike its preparation, the active phase of the revolutionary

process is marked visibly by bad organization. In 1919, the preparatory stage benefits from

the support of an impressive organizational apparatus created by the successful primaryrevolution and its experienced revolutionaries. The equivalent of 15 million French

francs is made available for propaganda. There are three French language newspapers and

many French language brochures and pamphlets. Even the brothels of Odessa become

centers of revolutionary propaganda while a French-speaking Bolshevik propagandist is

placed aboard French ships to speak to the sailors. Moreover, the drafted French seamen

have already created secret trade unions that are used to prepare the mutiny. When it

occurs, good organization allows the coordination of the mutineers actions on all ships.

Consequently, their demandthe withdrawal of the fleet from south Russiahas to be

accepted. The contagion does not expand to France itself simply because there the primary

Bolshevik revolution has been unable to take similar preparatory actions. In the Greekcase, the preparation is even better. The communist infiltration actions target both the fleet

and the country behind it. The Egyptian rebellion appears to be the fruit of an ideological

and organizational gestation, which took place simultaneously aboard the exiled fleet

and among resistance forces in the German-occupied home country. The Greek fleets

immediate environment is not involved; neither Egyptians nor British circulate Marxist

ideas. But in Greece the communists become very active in the anti-German resistance

movement (after Hitlers attack of the USSR). At the same time, they are very successful

in using Comintern tactics and experience to infiltrate the exiled Greek navy and army.

Several secret cells and committees are created on each ship. They are linked by an

efficient network of communications which is available even when the ships are at sea.Communist clandestine publicationsincluding three newspapers, information bulletins,

and proclamationsare widely read. Their radical views are soon adopted by a large

number of sailors. The revolutionary contagion is so strong that it ignites a naval mutiny

with no logical chance of success. Its rapid suppression does not stop the communists

from coming close to taking power in the home country. Good organization, therefore,

might well be the decisive element of a successful process of revolutionary contagion.

These elements allow the identification of a pattern common to all processes of

revolutionary contagion. Of course, a formal model has to take into consideration the

general causes that make revolution possible. In the absence of predisposition of

respondents to revolution, successful contagion and revolution itself cannot take place.

This is a vast and well-researched domain that I will not address as it falls beyond the

scope of this article.

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The contagion itself starts with the diffusion of the revolutionary ideology. It originates

in the primary revolution and is adopted by elements of the target society. Spontaneous

diffusion is most likely accompanied or even replaced by organized diffusion. The latter is

prepared by structures belonging to the primary revolution working in cooperation with

local aspiring revolutionaries. Communist ideas can be diffused by Russian Bolsheviks

spirited aboard French ships, but the propaganda is certainly more effective when done by

Greek communists who are members of the targeted Greek crews. This is why the primary

revolution tries to transform the local aspiring revolutionaries into affiliated

revolutionaries that are trained for propaganda activities. Know-how and material support

are provided by the primary revolution in order to create well-organized local

revolutionary structures that infiltrate progressively the target society.

When these structures are strong enough and the revolutionary ideology has attracted

a sufficient number of followers, the final stage of the contagion process can be envisaged.

This is essentially a political takeover that can imply different degrees of violence. If the

military solution is preferred, the affiliated revolutionary organizations change: frompropaganda agencies, they become military structures that prepare and lead armed actions

to overthrow the existing government and replace it with a revolutionary regime. A more

general model, however, has to take into consideration the possibility of a non-violent

takeover. If the revolutionaries succeed in controlling the majority of the population,

they can even win elections and take power without challenging, at least initially, the

constitutional system. In that case, good political and not military organization is essential.

In all cases, the victory of the secondary revolution will most likely lead the new

government to establish friendly relations with the primary revolution. In addition to

purely ideological factors, this is an important cause of the primary revolutions interest in

supporting affiliated revolutionaries abroad.The three case studies suggest that the result of the revolutionary contagion process

depends mainly on the quality of the ideological and organizational effort undertaken by

the primary revolution and the affiliated revolutionaries. Basically, this is a question of

planning and management. The first stage of the contagion, the diffusion of the

revolutionary ideology, has to be conceived and performed by a rapidly expanding,

efficient organizational local structure well supported by the primary revolution in terms

of know-how and material means. On the one hand, this structure has to infiltrate

efficiently the entire target society and not only a geographically isolated part of it. On the

other, it needs to become strong enough to lead the possible subsequent armed action

against the government forces. Only then can the political/military takeover be initiatedwith reasonable chances of success. Consequently, ideological coherence, political unity,

organizational efficiency, and revolutionary experience are decisive. The result depends in

part on local conditions, but the role of the primary revolution is very important as it is

the only one to have both the resources and the revolutionary experience needed by

affiliated revolutionaries. The best link between the latter and the primary revolution is a

Comintern-type structure that allows full support and coordination. Of course, this type of

relation allows very little ideologicaland, frequently, politicalautonomy of the

affiliated revolutionaries. This is the price to pay for external support that can make the

difference between the revolutions triumph and failure.

Still, the Greek example suggests that a carefully planned, well-organized, and finally

successful process of revolutionary contagion cannot guarantee the victory of a revolution.

The communists were on the point of winning their revolution in Greece. They failed

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because the primary revolution in the USSR did not support them appropriately while their

adversaries received generous British and American assistance. Even if domestic obstacles

are overcome, the international revolutionary contagion is frequently accompanied by an

international counter-revolutionary intervention. Success of the affiliated revolution is

closely related not only to the support of the primary revolution but also to the

involvement of hostile foreign actors and to the associated international balance of power.

Well-organized revolutionary contagion, therefore, is an important element of the

revolutionary enterprise. But it can be overridden by other external and domestic factors.

Testing the Model: The Libyan Rebellion (2011)

The lecture of the previous section imposes a logical question: this model of revolutionary

contagion is based on case studies from the first half of the twentieth century. But is it valid

today? In order to answer this question, this section assesses the 2011 armed rebellion

against Libyas dictator, Moammar Qadhafi. While geographically located in the sameMediterranean/Levantine settings, the Libyan case study does not involve a fleet or

Marxist ideology. This is a considerable advantage. If it can be shown that the model is

valid even under these different circumstances, its general validity is implicitly difficult to

deny.

The structural causes of the revolutionary wave known as the Arab spring are

represented by the comprehensive political, social, and economic failures of the Arab

regimes. At the end of 2010, most of the latter were consolidated authoritarian regimes

with strong neopatrimonial or even sultanistic features (Goldstone, 2011). Aging dictators

preserved the eternal status quo of corrupt, dysfunctional one-party states anchored on the

security apparatus (Sakbani, 2011, p. 130). Arbitrary measures and wrong economicpolicies led to severe social crisis even in states with huge oil reserves. Ensuing popular

protests were met with violent repression. As these brutal regimes had no potential of

self-reform, major changes were possible only through revolution.

The process of revolutionary contagion was facilitated considerably by a key element:

new media. On the one hand, the development of satellite television led to the creation of

transnational TV networks such as Al-Jazeera. Recent quantitative studies found evidence

that the exposure to transnational Arab TV is so important that it has increased

transnational Muslim and Arab political identification at the expense of national political

identities (Nisbet & Myers, 2010, p. 347). On the other hand, there are digital media.

Locally, their availability simply changed the tactics of democratization movements.Using the Internet, mobile phones, and social media such as Facebook and Twitter,

protestors could build extensive networks, create social capital, and organize political

action with a speed and on a scale never seen before (Howard & Hussain, 2011,

pp. 35 36). Equally important, locally generated digital media coverage of protest actions

became available globally. After 2000, for many Arabs reading foreign news online and

communicating with friends and relatives abroad became habits. Consequently, they had

direct access to detailed information on developments in other Arab countries. Moreover,

transnational TV networks use digital media to collect information and images from

countries in which their journalists are harassed or banned. They have also converted their

traditional news product for use on social-media sites. To quote Philip Howard and

Muzammil Hussain (2011, p. 4243, 45), the revolution may be televised, and it is surely

online.

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Common structural causes and new media favored the process of revolutionary

contagion that connected countries as diverse as Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria,

and Libya. Yet, special attention has to be given to the ideology of this revolutionary wave.

While protestors were united in their efforts to topple the local dictator, they did not

necessarily share the same ideological orientation. Indeed, some were genuine democrats

promoting western liberal values. But others were Islamists with an ambiguous attitude

toward western-style democracy. A good example is Egypt, the state with the largest NGO

community in the developing countries (McGann, 2008, p. 32). The Egyptian civil society

is a bifurcated one. There is a secular civil society, characterized by limited effectiveness,

a weak social base, and access to outside aid; and an Islamic one, with greater efficiency,

a stronger social base, and no outside aid (Abdalla, 2008, p. 28). However, the anti-

Mubarak protests were clearly initiated and led by secular, democratic civic activists. The

Islamists cautious aging leaders at first resisted calls to back the protests. They decided to

act only after impatient younger members went ahead, joining secular groups that had

launched the demonstrations. This is why the Muslim Brotherhood made up only a fractionof the protest movement and largely followed events rather than led them (The Economist,

17 February 2011). Something similar happened in Libya. The anti-Qadhafi movement

includes liberals, social democrats, and religious conservatives (Van Genugten, 2011,

p. 62). Yet, the latter have kept a low profile. Furthermore, representatives of religious

foundations and even jihadist groups claim that they want a mainly secular constitution. In

early March 2011, Libyans celebrating victory in front of Benghazis court-house

provided an extreme example. At prayer times, in rows twenty deep, a large crowd chanted

prayers. In the front rows, a few hundred secular-minded youths cried Free Libya!

and played Arab pop music over loudspeakers. There was no negative reaction from the

crowd behind them (The Economist, 5 March 2011). This might change in the future,implicitly endangering the process of democratization. But, until now, the rebellions in

the Arab world have been overwhelmingly secular in character (Rabbani, 2011, p. 13).

Their main ideology has been the western-inspired liberal, democratic one.

This is an essential aspect allowing the identification of the primary revolution. At first

view, the Arab springs starting point was the victorious Tunisian revolt. One could be

tempted to perceive it as the primary revolution that initiated the contagion process. It is

true that Tunisiansand, after the fall of Mubarak, Egyptianswere strongly behind the

Libyan rebels, dream[ing] of a democratic northern strip of Africa stretching from

Morocco to Egypt (The Economist, 16 July 2011). But Tunisia itself was a secondary

revolution and its new regimelike the Egyptian onewas too fragile to interveneabroad. The real source of the process of revolutionary contagion was different. In fact, the

situation was somehow similar to that of the 1944 Greek rebellion. The latter took place in

Egypt, but the primary revolution was in the remote Soviet Union. In 2011, it was the West

which acted as a primary revolution for the Arab spring in general and the Libyan rebellion

in particular. First of all, it was the source of liberal, democratic values that were diffused

in the Arab countries both spontaneously and due to American and European programs of

democracy promotion. These values were assimilated by a part of the Libyan middle class.

It included the lawyers whose protest march on the Benghazi court-house initiated the

revolt in mid-February 2011 as well as the merchants and western-educated intellectuals

who joined eventually the National Transitional Council. The Libyan exiled opposition

was also concerned. Some of the groups forming the London-based National Conference

for the Libyan Opposition helped organize the critically important Day of Rage on

354 T. Tudoroiu


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17 February 2011 (Van Genugten, 2011, p. 66). All these middle-class and/or exiled

Libyans became de facto affiliated revolutionaries of the western primary revolution. They

initiated the protests and then contributed to the creation of structures needed in order to

overthrow the Qadhafi regime. Politically, the National Transitional Council was

established. As the only possible path was the armed one, a secret ten-man military

committee was rapidly formed and started to organize the rebel army (The Economist, 26

February 2011).

Yet, the rebels were far from having overcome numerous problems related to

organizational efficiency, political unity, and lack of revolutionary experience. The overall

quality of the organizational effort was rather poor. Militarily, the repressive forces were

vastly superior. Libyan troops and African mercenaries brutally suppressed protests in

Tripoli, reconquered some of the rebellious towns, and were ready to attack Benghazi.

Their victory seemed imminent (The Economist, 19 March 2011). It is at this point that the

primary revolution was able to do something impossible for the Soviets in 1944: it

intervened directly in support of its affiliated revolutionaries, thus saving the Libyansecondary revolution. France, Britain, and the more reluctant United States mobilized

international support, including that of the Arab League; passed United Nations Security

Council Resolution 1973, the legal basis for limited military intervention in Libya; led

a seventeen-state coalition that enforced a no-fly zone, bombed Qadhafis military

installations, and provided air support for the rebel forces. In late April, the attacks were

stepped up on the palaces, military headquarters, and communications centers critical to

the regimes ability both to sustain its military campaign and to convince its supporters

that it would survive (The Economist, 30 April 2011). Under these circumstances, the

increasingly well-organized rebel forces were able to stop their adversaries offensive and

counterattack. In late August they entered Tripoli. In psychological and symbolical terms,this was the end of Qadhafis regime.

It is clear that the Libyan secondary revolution was successful only due to the support

provided by the western primary revolution. The regime it overthrew, on the other hand,

was defeated because the international context deprived it of allies willing to take part in

a counter-revolutionary intervention. In the 1980s, Qadhafi would have been supported

politically and perhaps militarily by the communist block and his regime might have

survived. As already stated, the success or failure of the process of revolutionary contagion

is largely dependent on the international balance of power.

Some of the readers of this article might be puzzled by the description of the West as

a revolutionary nucleus. However, the heirs of the American and French revolutionscontinue to promote and disseminate worldwide a democratic ideology that is undoubtedly

revolutionary in societies ruled by Qadhafi-type authoritarianism. In any case, its

revolutionary features are at least as genuine as those of the Soviet Union under the sinister

rule of Stalin. A second possible criticism might concern the view of the Libyan rebellion

as a secondary revolution inspired and supported by the western one. Of course, no

Comintern-type structure was involved. The creation and development of the Libyan anti-

authoritarian movement was in no way provoked or controlled by the West. Moreover,

western and especially American connections are not popular in much of the Arab world.

However, this did not prevent Libyan rebels from acting in the name of a western ideology.

On the basis of this key ideological affinity they sought, obtained, and took advantage of

western military support. At least for the time being, their political objectives are in line

with the same liberal, democratic ideology. Consequently, the Libyan rebellion is a

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de facto secondary revolution clearly related to the western primary one. As such, it

confirms the validity of the mechanism of revolutionary contagion described in the

previous sections of this article. Many things have changed since 1944, but the patterns of

revolutionary contagion are basically the same.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Dr Sauveur Pierre Etienne (Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales) and Stefanie

von Hlatky-Udvarhelyi (Centre for International Peace and Security Studies) for their helpful suggestions.

Note

1 The three volumes of this novel were first published in Greek between 1960 and 1965. The 1971 French

translation has been recently reprinted by Seuil and is easily available.

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