The Liberal Left Opts for Terror

Abstract

For a century, intellectual debate on political violence has been dominated by efforts to romanticize the extremist and to invest him with the aura of the altruistic “freedom fighter.” It is astonishing that in the post-9/11 era, the terrorist's image continues to remain habitually mystified and ennobled, while terror attacks are justified as self-defense. “Terrorist discourse” is indicative of the universality of the intellectual position of the Left with regard to terror, national discrepancies notwithstanding. The present article evaluates leftist liberals' attitudes towards terrorism in the 20th-century Russian Empire, Europe, the U.S., and especially Israel—one of the epicenters of terrorism today. The article proposes to examine psychological responses to terrorism in conjunction with a range of contemporary reactions to threats, acknowledged or displaced with an assortment of mental constructs and rationalizations.

Keywords:

• academic intellectuals
• Constitutional Democrats (Kadets)
• leftist liberals
• modern terrorism
• “new historians,” Russian State Duma
• self-condemnation
• Stockholm Syndrome
• Zionism

Notes

This article is based on the research in Anna Geifman, Death Orders: The Vanguard of Modern Terrorism in Revolutionary Russia (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, 2010).

V. Dal'nii, “Terror i delo Azeva” [“Terror and the Azef Affair”], Izvestiia Oblastnogo Zagranichnogo Komiteta 9 (1909): 10; Arkhiv Partii Sotsialistov-Revoliutsionerov [International Institute of Social History Archives; cited hereafter as PSR] (Amsterdam: Author): 1–88..

Vladimir Lenin, cited in Geifman (see note 1 above), 106.

M. Barsukov, “Kommunist-bundar'” [“Communist-Rebel”], 202–203, in Nicolaevsky Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, CA [cited hereafter as Nic.]: 747ff.; G. I. Kotovskii, Dokumenty i Materialy [Documents and Materials] (Kishinev, 1956), 12, 29–30; “Vospominaniya Byvsh. Okhrannika” [“Memoirs of a Former Secret Police Officer”], Bessarabskoe Slovo 1930, in Nic., 203–225.

Ivan Turgenev, “Porog” (“Threshold”), in Novyi Sbornik Revoliutsionnykh Poem Istikhotvoreni [New Volume of Revolutionary Poems and Songs] (Paris, 1899), 61–62.

Philip Pomper, “From Russian Revolutionary Terrorism to Soviet State Terror” (unpublished paper, Wesleyan University, 2003), 11.

P. Miliukov, God bor'by [A Year of Struggle] (St. Petersburg: Obschestvennaya pol'za, 1907), 118.

Grigorii Aronson, Rossiya Nakanune Revoliutsii [Russia on the Eve of the Revolution] (Madrid: Planeta, 1986), 144.

V. A. Maklakov, Iz Vospominanii [From the Memoirs] (New York: издaтельстбо имени чехобa, 1954), 351.

Cited in Thomas Riha, The Russian European: Paul Miliukov in Russian Politics (London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 78, 83.

Cited in Shmuel Galai, The Liberation Movement in Russia 1900–1905 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 220.

A. A. Kizevetter, Napadki Na Partiyu Narodnoy Svobody: Vospominaniya 1881–1914 [Attacks against the People's Freedom Party: Memoirs 1881–1914] (Prague: Orbis, 1929), 53.

See V. V. Leontovich, Istoriya Liberalizma v Rossii 1762–1914 [The History of Liberalism in Russia 1762–1914] (Paris: YMCA Press, 1980), 478; and Stenograficheskie Otchety Gosudarstvennoi Dumy [Stenographic Records of the State Duma Sessions; cited hereafter as GD] (St. Petersburg: Gostudarstevennoe izdatel'stvo, 1906), 4–1, 138.

GD 1907, 9–1, 445, 477.

For multiple references to Kadet press releases see Geifman, Thou Shalt Kill: Revolutionary Terrorism in Russia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 85–86.

GD 1907, 9–1: 479, and 8–1: 392.

References in Geifman, Thou Shalt Kill (see note 15 above), 342, nn. 90–91.

Rech’ [Speech] 81, April 19, 1907, 1; Richard Pipes, Struve: Liberal on the Right, 1905–1944 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 56.

Ibid.

Cited in V. V. Shelokhaev, Kadety—Glavnaya Partiya Liberal'noy Burzhuazii v Bor'be s Revoliutsiyey 1905–1907 [The Kadets: The Main Party of the Liberal Bourgeoisie in the Struggle Against the Revolution of 1905–1907] (Moscow: Nauka, 1983), 160.

“Klub Partii Narodnoy Svobody (Iz Neizdannykh Vospominanii kn. D. I. Bebutova)” [“Club of the Party of People's Freedom: From the Unpublished Memoirs of Count D. I. Bebutov”], undated manuscript, 15–16, Nic., 779–2.

Report of 11 May 1906 from a police agent in Paris, Archives of the Russian Secret Police (Okhrana), Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, CA [cited hereafter as Okhrana], VIj-15C. Many SRs, too, argued for the advantageous temporary alliance with the liberals: “For the present, the Kadets are not our enemies and pose no threat to us … There is no need to fight against them,” as cited in B. V. Levanov, Iz Istorii Bor'by Bol'shevistskoy Partii Protiv Eserov v Gody Pervoy Russkoy Revoliutsii [From the History of the Struggle of the Bolshevik Party against the SRs during the Years of the First Russian Revolution] (Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo Leningradskogo Universiteta, 1974), 117.

GD 1906, 4–1: 231.

Cited in Riha (see note 10 above), 83.

F. Shatsillo, Russky Liberalizm Nakanune Revolutsii 1905–1907 [Russian Liberalism on the Eve of the Revolution, 1905–1907] (Moscow: Nauka, 1985), 300.

Report dated 7 (20) February 1906 to DPD, Okhrana XXVa-1.

GD 1906, 29–2: 1496.

GD 1906, 15–1: 642; Miliukov (see note 7 above), 353.

GD 1906, 29–2: 1496.

Miliukov (see note 7 above), 354; Rech’ [Speech] 77, June 1, 1906: 1; I. Kizevetter (see note 12 above), 54.

GD 1906, 29–2: 1496. Similar statements in Viktor P. Obninsky, ed., Polgoda Russkoy Revolutsii [Half-a-Year of Russian Revolution] (Moscow: Kholchev, 1906), 153.

GD 1906, 11–1: 442.

GD 1906, 29–2: 1495–1496.

Rech’ 18, March 25, 1906: 2.

Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 130–131.

Kayden, Leonid Andreyev, http://worldlibrary.net/eBooks/Wordtheque/en/aaabnxe.txt.

Steven G. Marks, How Russia Shaped the Modern World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, NJ, 2003), 34.

Geifman, Thou Shalt Kill (see note 15 above), 274, n. 190.

For multiple examples see ibid., 274–275, nn. 22, 190, and 338.

Leonid Borisovich Krasin (“Nikitich”), Gody Podpol'ya [Years in the Underground] (Moscow-Leningrad, 1928), 142.

Zalezhsky, “V Gody Reaktsii” (“During the Years of Reaction”), Proletarskaya Revoliutsiya [The Proletarian Revolution] 2, no. 14 (1923): 338.

Cited in Roberta Ann Kaplan, “‘A Total Negation of Russia': Russian Intellectual Perception of Suicide, 1900–1914” (unpublished paper, Harvard University, 1988), 39. Spiridonova became an object of infatuation and when in prison received love letters from many admirers; this was a popular craze indeed (see undated letter from Spiridonova, no. 11, PSR 4–351).

Cited in Geifman, Death Orders (see note 1 above), interview with Iulia Segal, July 17, 2009, Jerusalem, Israel. “There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society's ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of unrelieved boredom,” the ennui; in the early stages, the bored are more likely to join as sympathizers and supporters than the exploited and the oppressed. See Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (New York: Harper & Row, 1951), 53–54.

Sprut [Octopus] 13, March 21, 1906, 6; Nic., 435–436.

Tambov PSR Committee leaflet dated May 15, 1906, PSR 4–351; Volia 7, May 9, 1906, 3, PSR 7–569.

A. Tyrkova-Vil'iams, Na Putyakh k Svobode [On the Ways to Freedom] (New York: Izdatel'stvo Imeni Chekhova, 1952), 298, 300.

Ibid., 345.

The revolutionaries acknowledged their debt in a leaflet issued by the Nizhny Novgorod SR Committee, May 1905, PSR, 4–320.

Marks (see note 37 above), 20.

Cited in ibid., 20–21.

Ibid., 34.

Johann Hari, Red Alert? An interview with Antonio Negri, http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=435.

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2013/05/western_intellectuals_who_prai.html.

Excerpt from the April 2004 speech broadcast on The Third Jihad, Part 1, http://www.road90.com/watch.php?id=tAfPJzb7Yc.

Ismail Haniya, “Hamas in Their Own Voices,” Hamas PM, Al-Aqsa TV, Gaza, October 15, 2008, http://mignews.co.il/news/politic/world/170109_134656_15869.html.

Speech by Hamas leader Khaled Mash'al, “Hamas in Their Own Voices,” Al-Jazeera TV, Qatar, February 3, 2006, http://mignews.co.il/news/politic/world/170109_134656_15869.html.

Yunis Al-Astal, Hamas MP and cleric, Al-Aqsa TV, Gaza, April 13, 2008, http://mignews.co.il/news/politic/world/170109_134656_15869.html.

Berman (see note 35 above), 134–135.

Avi Erlich, Ancient Zionism: The Biblical Origins of the National Idea (New York: The Free Press, 1995).

Cited in Berman (see note 35 above), 135–136, 138–139.

Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row, 1944), 109.

See, for example, Alan M. Dershowitz, The Case Against Israel's Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2008), 80–83, 119, and Oren Gross, “CUPE Ontario's Proposed Boycott of Israeli Academics is Just Plain Anti-Semitic,” The Globe and Mail, January 13, 2009, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/article965181.ece.

The Sixth Annual Israeli Apartheid Week 2010, http://apartheidweek.org/; “Noam Chomsky Rails Against Israel, Again,” BU Today, March 3, 2010, http://www.bu.edu/today/node/10533.

Ilan Pappe cited in Monthly Magazine, January 1999, http://www.middleeast.org/archives/1999_01_29.htm.

Ran HaCohen, Fascism Needs an Enemy, http://original.antiwar.com:80/hacohen/2009/07/19/fascism-needs-an-enemy/.

Radio Islam, http://radioislam.org/historia/zionism/quotes.html. It is interesting that Muslim women, specifically female inmates in Israeli prisons, find these accusations outrageous and insulting. See Khaled Abu Toameh, “Anti-Israel TV Show Angers Palestinians,” The Jerusalem Post, April 4, 2010, http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=172472.

Article Twenty of the Hamas Charter, August 18, 1988, http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm.

Cited in Kenneth Levin, The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege (Hanover: Smith & Kraus, 2005), 435.

For thesis abstract in English and chapter on “dehumanization” see http://storage.wirade.ru/files/TalNitzan-englishabstract%2Bdewomanizationpart.pdf?attredirects=0. For full text see http://storage.wirade.ru/files/TalNitzan-fulltext.pdf/.

See, for example, Netta Cohen Dor-Shav, The Ultimate Enemy—Jews against Jew, http://www.radiobergen.eu/essays/pathologyc.htm.

Levin (see note 68 above), 366–367.

Cited in Jonny Paul, “TAU Historian Accused of Anti-Semitism,” Jerusalem Post, November 16, 2009, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258027296653&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FshowFull. Shlomo Sand's Invention of the Jewish People (London: Verso, 2009) was lauded in Haaretz as “one of the most fascinating and challenging books published here in a long time” (Tom Segev, “An Invention Called ‘The Jewish People,'” Haaretz, July 23, 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959229.html), yet was slammed by specialists as incompetent. Nonetheless, the French version Comment le peuple juif fut inventé (Paris: Fayard, 2008) received the Aujourd'hui Award for best nonfiction political or historical work and was on Israel's bestseller list for months.

Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years (London: Pluto Press, 2002), 34; Interview by Israel Shahak with Anne Joyce, editor of American-Arab Affairs, June 12, 1989, http://www.mepc.org/journal_shahak/shahak29.asp.

Cited in Joel S. Fishman, “The Cold War Origins of Contemporary Anti-Semitic Terminology,” Jerusalem Viewpoints, no. 517 (May 2–16, 2004), http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp517.htm.

“‘Russky’ Professor Trebuet Unichtozhit’ Vse Poseleniya” [“‘Russian’ Professor Demands the Abolition of All Settlements”], July 24, 2009, http://izrus.co.il/obshina/article/2009-07-24/5545.html; Faycal Falaky, G21 Interview: Dr. Yuri Pines, Hebrew University, http://www.g21.net/midE2.htm.

“Hamas in Their Own Voices,” Sudan TV, Channel 4 (Iran), June 15, 2007, http://mignews.co.il/news/politic/world/170109_134656_15869.html.

Faycal Falaky, G21 Interview: Dr. Yuri Pines, Hebrew University, http://www.g21.net/midE2.htm.

Haaretz, May 15, 2001; Davar, April 5, 1988.

Cited in Shmuel Fisher, “The Settlers: A Presentation of Anti-Semitic Abuse,” NATIV 19, no. 6 (November 2006): 116, http://www.acpr.org.il/nativ/2006-6-contents.htm; Yishayahu Leibowitz cited in Haaretz, September 27, 1985; see also Cohen Dor-Shav, The Ultimate Enemy, http://www.radiobergen.eu/essays/pathologyc.htm.

Sander L. Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred: Anti-Semitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1986); Dor-Shav (see note 79 above).

Levin (see note 68 above), Section II. Anna Freud first described the mental process of identification with the aggressor to ameliorate anxiety in The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936). Coined by psychiatrist and criminologist Nils Bejerot, the term “Stockholm Syndrome” derives its name and pathology from the Norrmalmstorg bank robbery in Stockholm. During the six days that the bank employees were held hostage by the assailants (August 23–39, 1973), the victims became emotionally attached to their captors and defended them even after being liberated.

Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 126.

Cited in Ari Shavit, “Mister Nice Guy,” Haaretz Magazine, June 14, 2001.

Ralph Schoenman, The Hidden History of Zionism (Santa Barbara, CA: Veritas Press, 1988).

Report of the Army Radio (Galei Tzahal) of July 27, 2009, cited in http://cursorinfo.co.il:80/news/novosti/2009/07/27/rogatka-madim-zahal/.

Israeli novelist Aharon Megged cited in Levin (see note 68 above), 370.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Geifman

Anna Geifman is a professor of history at Boston University, a senior researcher at the Department of Political Science, Bar-Ilan University, and the author of books dedicated to the history of Russian political violence and the history and psychology of comparative terrorism.