Communist terrorism
Encyclopedia
Communist terrorism are actions carried out by groups which adhere to a Marxist-Leninist or Maoist ideology which have been described as terrorism. State actions carried out by the Soviet Union
, the People's Republic of China
, North Korea
and the actions of the Khmer Rouge
in Cambodia
have all been described as terrorism. Non-state communist groups such as the Red Brigades
, Front Line
and the Red Army Faction
have also engaged in acts of terrorism in what is known as propaganda by the deed. These groups hope that through these actions they will inspire the masses
to rise up and overthrow the existing political and economic system.
In recent years, there has been a marked decrease in such terrorism, which has been substantially credited to the end of the Cold War and the fall of the U.S.S.R. However, at its apogee, communism was argued by some to be the major source of international terrorism, whether inspired by the ideology or supported by its states.
and used this as an excuse to push through legislation which removed personal freedom from all citizens. In the 1940`s and 1950`s in various Southeast Asia
n countries such as Malaya, The Philippines and Vietnam, communist groups began to conduct terrorist operations. In the 1960`s the Sino–Soviet split also lead to a marked increase in terrorist activity in the region. Phillip Deery has written that the Malaysian insurgents were called communist terrorists only as part of a propaganda campaign. Though John David Slocum says that it was used to draw attention to their ideological beliefs.
In the late 1960`s in Europe
, Japan
and in both north
and South America
various terrorist organizations began operations. These groups which were named the Fighting Communist Organizations (FCO) by Yonah Alexander
rose out of the student union movement
which was at that time protesting against the Vietnam War
. In western Europe these groups actions were known as Euroterrorism. The founders of the FCO argued that it would take violence to achieve their idealistic goals and that legitimate protest was both ineffective and insufficient to attain them. In the 1970`s there were an estimated 50 Marxist/Leninist groups operating in Turkey
and an estimated 225 in Italy. Groups also began operations in Ireland
and Great Britain
. These groups were seen as a major threat by NATO and also by the Italian, German and British governments. The Italian Communist Party
were critical of local terrorist actions and condemned them.
, it is often perceived that he opposed terrorism; however Lenin had supported terror as tool since his earliest days, and considered terror as the most strategic and effective when employed as mass terror—terror as individual acts of violence was little more than squandering revolutionary resources. After 1905 he increasingly supported more types of terror. According to Trotsky, Lenin emphasized the absolute necessity of terror and as early as 1904, when Lenin was heard to declare "The dictatorship of the proletariat is an absolutely meaningless expression without Jacobin coercion". In 1905 Lenin directed members of the St. Petersburg "Combat Committee" to commit acts of robbery, arson and other terrorist acts. Joan Witte contends that Lenin opposed terrorism except that wielded by the party and the Red Army after 1917, but he only opposed the use of terrorism when it was a mindless act but endorsed its use to advance the communist revolution. It was the disorderly, unorganised and petty terrorism that he objected to and mass terror that he advocated. By 1917, according to Richard Drake, Lenin had abandoned any reluctance to using terrorist tactics, and he believed all resistance to the communist revolution would have to be met with maximum force. Drake states that the terrorist potential in Lenin's program was unmistakable, as acknowledged by Trotsky in his book Terrorism and Communism: a Reply published in 1918. In his book, Trotsky provided an elaborate justification for the use of terror, stating "The man who repudiates terrorism in princliple, i.e., repudiates measures of suppression and intimidation towards determined and armed counterrevolution, must reject all idea of the political supremacy of the working class and its revolutionary dictatorship."
According to Paul Smith, the difference between Stalin and Lenin is that while Stalin is primarily known for state terror, Lenin experienced the full spectrum, engaging in terrorism while he was not in power, then engaging in state terrorism against his own population after gaining power.
to subdue the populace, the use of terror has been described as "evident in the regimes very origins" by historian Anna Geifman
. Historian W. J. Stankiewicz has also stated
stated that his “Jacobian party would never reject terror, nor could it do so", and that they used the Jacobian
Reign of Terror
of 1793-1794 as a model for their own Red Terror
. Felix Dzerzhinsky founder of the Cheka
used terrorist actions against all classes of people, though the peasants were heavily targeted due to their refusal to give excessive amounts of grain to the government. Upon founding the New Economic Policy
(NEP) Lenin stated, "It is a mistake to think the NEP has put an end to terrorism. We shall return to terrorism, and it will be an economic terrorism".
Also described as an act of communist terror by historian Robert G. Moeller was the deaths of an estimated one million Prisoners of war at the hands of the Soviet regime. They had been used as slave labour and worked to death.
The attacks on the Catholic Church in the occupied eastern European nations have also been described as a "terrorist" act.
led by Ho Chi Minh
fought a guerilla campaign against the Japanese occupation forces and, following Japan's surrender, continued their insurgency against the French colonial forces. This insurgency continued until 1954 as the Vietminh and subsequently evolved into the Vietcong (VC), which fought against both the South Vietnamese government and American forces. they used terrorism throughout these campaigns as a specific tactic. leading to the deaths of thousands. After an armistice was signed between the Viet Minh and the French forces in 1954 terrorist actions continued.
Carol Winkler has written that, in the 1950s, Vietcong terrorism was rife in South Vietnam
with political leaders, provincial chiefs, teachers, nurses, doctors and members of the military being targeted. Between 1965 and 1972 terrorists had killed over thirty-three thousand people and abducted a further fifty seven thousand.
In Saigon terrorist actions have been described by Nghia M. Vo as "long and murderous" The firing of automatic weapons, planting bombs and throwing grenades were the tactics used. The prime minister of the time Tran Van Huong
was shot in an attempted assassination and that in 1964 alone there were 19,000 attacks on civilian targets.
Douglas Pike
has called the Massacre at Huế one of the worst communist terrorist actions during the Vietnam War. with some estimates saying up to 5000 dead. The United States Army recorded as killed, "3800 killed in and around Huế, 2786 confirmed civilians massacred, 2226 civilians found in mass graves and 16 non Vietnamese civilians killed. Some apologists have claimed the majority of deaths were caused by US bombing in the fight to retake the city, however the vast majority of dead were found in Mass Graves
outside the city. Benjamin A. Valentino has put a death toll of between 45,000 and 80,000 between 1954 - 1975 due to VC terrorism.
Douglas Pike has also described the Dak Son Massacre
as a terrorist act. On December 6, 1967 the Viet Cong used flamethrowers on civilians in the village of Dak Son, killing 252 with the majority of those burnt alive being women and children. In May, 1967 Dr. Tran Van-Luy informed the World Health Organisation "that over the previous 10 years Communist terrorists had destroyed 174 dispensaries, maternity homes and hospitals" Ami Pedahzur has written that "the overall volume and lethality of Vietcong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful (e.g. Algeria, Sri Lanka) of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century", and that the VC used Suicide Terrorism
as an example of Propaganda of the deed
.
Arthur J. Dommen has written that the majority of those killed due to VC terrorism were civilians, being caught in ambushes as they traveled on buses. Houses and villages were burnt down and there was forced impressment into the VC, and that the image of the VC insurgency being a popular uprising was a facet of communist propaganda
during the 1970`s terrorists operating in the country had received training in Russia, China, Cuba and Algeria. Both Zimbabwe African People's Union
(ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union
(ZANU) based themselves in the Lusaka
area in Zambia
so as to be within striking distance of Rhodesia.
During the apartheid era in South Africa
, the government under the Afrikaner
National Party
deemed the ANC's creation and use of its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe
as communist supported terrorism. To combat this violence a series of laws were introduced by the government, starting with the Suppression of Communism Act, which defined and banned organisations and people judged to be communists. In 1967 the government promulgated the Terrorism Act which made terrorist acts a statuary crime and implemented indefinite detention for those captured, followed by the Affected Organisations Act in 1974 and the Internal Security Act in 1982.
(NPA) founded on March 29, 1969 have been described as the third major terrorist group operating in the Philippines. And as a major security threat. This group carried out attacks between 1987 and 1992, then after a ten year break began operations again. They had carried out forty two attacks between 2000 and 2006.
, which led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million to 2.5 million people has been described as an act of terrorism by Joseph S. Tuman.
Valentino has put an estimated death toll between the years 1927-1949 of 1,800,000 to 3,500,000 on terrorist actions carried out during the Chinese Civil War
. An US Department of State report of the late 1940s claimed that after WWII communist terrorism surpassed the actions of Imperial Japan, with suppression, looting and massacres and forced Impressment
into "peoples militia"
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
and the actions of the Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
in Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
have all been described as terrorism. Non-state communist groups such as the Red Brigades
Red Brigades
The Red Brigades was a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organisation, based in Italy, which was responsible for numerous violent incidents, assassinations, and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead"...
, Front Line
Front line
A front line is the farthest-most forward position of an armed force's personnel and equipment - generally in respect of maritime or land forces. Forward Line of Own Troops , or Forward Edge of Battle Area are technical terms used by all branches of the armed services...
and the Red Army Faction
Red Army Faction
The radicalized were, like many in the New Left, influenced by:* Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S...
have also engaged in acts of terrorism in what is known as propaganda by the deed. These groups hope that through these actions they will inspire the masses
Commoner
In British law, a commoner is someone who is neither the Sovereign nor a peer. Therefore, any member of the Royal Family who is not a peer, such as Prince Harry of Wales or Anne, Princess Royal, is a commoner, as is any member of a peer's family, including someone who holds only a courtesy title,...
to rise up and overthrow the existing political and economic system.
In recent years, there has been a marked decrease in such terrorism, which has been substantially credited to the end of the Cold War and the fall of the U.S.S.R. However, at its apogee, communism was argued by some to be the major source of international terrorism, whether inspired by the ideology or supported by its states.
Historical usage of the term
In the 1930`s the term 'communist terrorism' was used by the Nazi Party in Germany as part of a propaganda effort to create fear of communism. The Nazi`s blamed communist terrorism for the Reichstag FireReichstag fire
The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....
and used this as an excuse to push through legislation which removed personal freedom from all citizens. In the 1940`s and 1950`s in various Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
n countries such as Malaya, The Philippines and Vietnam, communist groups began to conduct terrorist operations. In the 1960`s the Sino–Soviet split also lead to a marked increase in terrorist activity in the region. Phillip Deery has written that the Malaysian insurgents were called communist terrorists only as part of a propaganda campaign. Though John David Slocum says that it was used to draw attention to their ideological beliefs.
In the late 1960`s in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and in both north
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
various terrorist organizations began operations. These groups which were named the Fighting Communist Organizations (FCO) by Yonah Alexander
Yonah Alexander
Yonah Alexander is an author and lecturer who specializes in Terrorism.He received his PhD from Columbia University, an MA from the University of Chicago , and his BA from Roosevelt University of Chicago....
rose out of the student union movement
Protests of 1968
The protests of 1968 consisted of a worldwide series of protests, largely participated in by students and workers.-Background:Background speculations of overall causality vary about the political protests centering on the year 1968. Some argue that protests could be attributed to the social changes...
which was at that time protesting against the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. In western Europe these groups actions were known as Euroterrorism. The founders of the FCO argued that it would take violence to achieve their idealistic goals and that legitimate protest was both ineffective and insufficient to attain them. In the 1970`s there were an estimated 50 Marxist/Leninist groups operating in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and an estimated 225 in Italy. Groups also began operations in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. These groups were seen as a major threat by NATO and also by the Italian, German and British governments. The Italian Communist Party
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
were critical of local terrorist actions and condemned them.
Communist view on the use of terrorism
As Lenin systematically denounced the terrorism practiced by the Socialist Revolutionaries and opposed regicideRegicide
The broad definition of regicide is the deliberate killing of a monarch, or the person responsible for the killing of a monarch. In a narrower sense, in the British tradition, it refers to the judicial execution of a king after a trial...
, it is often perceived that he opposed terrorism; however Lenin had supported terror as tool since his earliest days, and considered terror as the most strategic and effective when employed as mass terror—terror as individual acts of violence was little more than squandering revolutionary resources. After 1905 he increasingly supported more types of terror. According to Trotsky, Lenin emphasized the absolute necessity of terror and as early as 1904, when Lenin was heard to declare "The dictatorship of the proletariat is an absolutely meaningless expression without Jacobin coercion". In 1905 Lenin directed members of the St. Petersburg "Combat Committee" to commit acts of robbery, arson and other terrorist acts. Joan Witte contends that Lenin opposed terrorism except that wielded by the party and the Red Army after 1917, but he only opposed the use of terrorism when it was a mindless act but endorsed its use to advance the communist revolution. It was the disorderly, unorganised and petty terrorism that he objected to and mass terror that he advocated. By 1917, according to Richard Drake, Lenin had abandoned any reluctance to using terrorist tactics, and he believed all resistance to the communist revolution would have to be met with maximum force. Drake states that the terrorist potential in Lenin's program was unmistakable, as acknowledged by Trotsky in his book Terrorism and Communism: a Reply published in 1918. In his book, Trotsky provided an elaborate justification for the use of terror, stating "The man who repudiates terrorism in princliple, i.e., repudiates measures of suppression and intimidation towards determined and armed counterrevolution, must reject all idea of the political supremacy of the working class and its revolutionary dictatorship."
According to Paul Smith, the difference between Stalin and Lenin is that while Stalin is primarily known for state terror, Lenin experienced the full spectrum, engaging in terrorism while he was not in power, then engaging in state terrorism against his own population after gaining power.
Soviet Union
In 1917 after the Russian Revolution one of the main features of the new communist regime was the use of terrorTerror
Terror may refer to:*Fear, an emotional response to threats and danger*Terror, a political strategy of the asymmetrical use of threats and violence against enemies using means that fall outside the routine forms of political struggle operating within some current regime*Terrorism, the fact of...
to subdue the populace, the use of terror has been described as "evident in the regimes very origins" by historian Anna Geifman
Anna Geifman
Anna Geifman is an American historian. She is a student of political extremism, terrorism and the history of the Russian revolutionary movements.-Biography:...
. Historian W. J. Stankiewicz has also stated
An estimated 17,000 people died as a result of this revolutionary violence. Vladimir Lenin
"The USSR’s resort to terrorism signalized an abandonment of the long-standing fiction
that Communism is part of the movement of ‘history’; that in order to win, it does not
need any special measures. When terrorism is defined as ‘active measures’ that can and
‘ought’ to be part of the policy of a Communist State, we see a shift to a frank acceptance
by Communist ideologues that their system is based on power not reason or the forces of
history".
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
stated that his “Jacobian party would never reject terror, nor could it do so", and that they used the Jacobian
Jacobin Club
The Jacobin Club was the most famous and influential political club in the development of the French Revolution, so-named because of the Dominican convent where they met, located in the Rue St. Jacques , Paris. The club originated as the Club Benthorn, formed at Versailles from a group of Breton...
Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
of 1793-1794 as a model for their own Red Terror
Red Terror
The Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the campaign of mass arrests and executions conducted by the Bolshevik government. In Soviet historiography, the Red Terror is described as having been officially announced on September 2, 1918 by Yakov Sverdlov and ended about October 1918...
. Felix Dzerzhinsky founder of the Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
used terrorist actions against all classes of people, though the peasants were heavily targeted due to their refusal to give excessive amounts of grain to the government. Upon founding the New Economic Policy
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...
(NEP) Lenin stated, "It is a mistake to think the NEP has put an end to terrorism. We shall return to terrorism, and it will be an economic terrorism".
Also described as an act of communist terror by historian Robert G. Moeller was the deaths of an estimated one million Prisoners of war at the hands of the Soviet regime. They had been used as slave labour and worked to death.
The attacks on the Catholic Church in the occupied eastern European nations have also been described as a "terrorist" act.
Vietnam
During World War II the communist Viet MinhViet Minh
Việt Minh was a national independence coalition formed at Pac Bo on May 19, 1941. The Việt Minh initially formed to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire. When the Japanese occupation began, the Việt Minh opposed Japan with support from the United States and the Republic of China...
led by Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
fought a guerilla campaign against the Japanese occupation forces and, following Japan's surrender, continued their insurgency against the French colonial forces. This insurgency continued until 1954 as the Vietminh and subsequently evolved into the Vietcong (VC), which fought against both the South Vietnamese government and American forces. they used terrorism throughout these campaigns as a specific tactic. leading to the deaths of thousands. After an armistice was signed between the Viet Minh and the French forces in 1954 terrorist actions continued.
Carol Winkler has written that, in the 1950s, Vietcong terrorism was rife in South Vietnam
South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
with political leaders, provincial chiefs, teachers, nurses, doctors and members of the military being targeted. Between 1965 and 1972 terrorists had killed over thirty-three thousand people and abducted a further fifty seven thousand.
In Saigon terrorist actions have been described by Nghia M. Vo as "long and murderous" The firing of automatic weapons, planting bombs and throwing grenades were the tactics used. The prime minister of the time Tran Van Huong
Tran Van Huong
Trần Văn Hương was a South Vietnamese politician. He was the penultimate president of South Vietnam prior to its surrender to the communist forces of North Vietnam.-Biography:...
was shot in an attempted assassination and that in 1964 alone there were 19,000 attacks on civilian targets.
Douglas Pike
Douglas E. Pike was a leading historian and foremost scholar on the Vietnam War and the Viet Cong based at Texas Tech University from 1997, was director of the Indochina Archive at the University of California, Berkeley from 1981 and prior to that served as Foreign Service Officer in Asia, with...
has called the Massacre at Huế one of the worst communist terrorist actions during the Vietnam War. with some estimates saying up to 5000 dead. The United States Army recorded as killed, "3800 killed in and around Huế, 2786 confirmed civilians massacred, 2226 civilians found in mass graves and 16 non Vietnamese civilians killed. Some apologists have claimed the majority of deaths were caused by US bombing in the fight to retake the city, however the vast majority of dead were found in Mass Graves
Mass grave
A mass grave is a grave containing multiple number of human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave, although the United Nations defines a mass grave as a burial site which...
outside the city. Benjamin A. Valentino has put a death toll of between 45,000 and 80,000 between 1954 - 1975 due to VC terrorism.
Douglas Pike has also described the Dak Son Massacre
Dak Son Massacre
The Đắk Sơn Massacre was a massacre committed by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. This VC massacre occurred in the village of Đắk Sơn, Dak Lak Province, South Vietnam....
as a terrorist act. On December 6, 1967 the Viet Cong used flamethrowers on civilians in the village of Dak Son, killing 252 with the majority of those burnt alive being women and children. In May, 1967 Dr. Tran Van-Luy informed the World Health Organisation "that over the previous 10 years Communist terrorists had destroyed 174 dispensaries, maternity homes and hospitals" Ami Pedahzur has written that "the overall volume and lethality of Vietcong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful (e.g. Algeria, Sri Lanka) of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century", and that the VC used Suicide Terrorism
Suicide attack
A suicide attack is a type of attack in which the attacker expects or intends to die in the process.- Historical :...
as an example of Propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed is a concept that refers to specific political actions meant to be exemplary to others...
.
Arthur J. Dommen has written that the majority of those killed due to VC terrorism were civilians, being caught in ambushes as they traveled on buses. Houses and villages were burnt down and there was forced impressment into the VC, and that the image of the VC insurgency being a popular uprising was a facet of communist propaganda
Africa
In RhodesiaRhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
during the 1970`s terrorists operating in the country had received training in Russia, China, Cuba and Algeria. Both Zimbabwe African People's Union
Zimbabwe African People's Union
The Zimbabwe African People's Union was a militant organization and political party that fought for the national liberation of Zimbabwe from its founding in 1961 until it merged with the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front in December 1987....
(ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union
Zimbabwe African National Union
The Zimbabwe African National Union was a militant organization that fought against the standing government in Rhodesia, formed as a split from the Zimbabwe African People's Union...
(ZANU) based themselves in the Lusaka
Lusaka
Lusaka is the capital and largest city of Zambia. It is located in the southern part of the central plateau, at an elevation of about 1,300 metres . It has a population of about 1.7 million . It is a commercial centre as well as the centre of government, and the four main highways of Zambia head...
area in Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
so as to be within striking distance of Rhodesia.
During the apartheid era in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, the government under the Afrikaner
Afrikaner
Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch, French and German settlers whose native tongue is Afrikaans: a Germanic language which derives primarily from 17th century Dutch, and a variety of other languages.-Related ethno-linguistic groups:The...
National Party
National Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
deemed the ANC's creation and use of its military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe
Umkhonto we Sizwe , translated "Spear of the Nation," was the armed wing of the African National Congress which fought against the South African apartheid government. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961...
as communist supported terrorism. To combat this violence a series of laws were introduced by the government, starting with the Suppression of Communism Act, which defined and banned organisations and people judged to be communists. In 1967 the government promulgated the Terrorism Act which made terrorist acts a statuary crime and implemented indefinite detention for those captured, followed by the Affected Organisations Act in 1974 and the Internal Security Act in 1982.
The Philippines
The New People's ArmyNew People's Army
The New People's Army is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. It was formed on March 29, 1969. The Maoist NPA conducts its armed guerrilla struggle based on the strategical line of 'protracted people's war'.The NPA exacts so called "revolutionary taxes" from business owners...
(NPA) founded on March 29, 1969 have been described as the third major terrorist group operating in the Philippines. And as a major security threat. This group carried out attacks between 1987 and 1992, then after a ten year break began operations again. They had carried out forty two attacks between 2000 and 2006.
State actions described as terrorism
The Cambodian genocide committed by the Khmer RougeKhmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
, which led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million to 2.5 million people has been described as an act of terrorism by Joseph S. Tuman.
Valentino has put an estimated death toll between the years 1927-1949 of 1,800,000 to 3,500,000 on terrorist actions carried out during the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
. An US Department of State report of the late 1940s claimed that after WWII communist terrorism surpassed the actions of Imperial Japan, with suppression, looting and massacres and forced Impressment
Impressment
Impressment, colloquially, "the Press", was the act of taking men into a navy by force and without notice. It was used by the Royal Navy, beginning in 1664 and during the 18th and early 19th centuries, in wartime, as a means of crewing warships, although legal sanction for the practice goes back to...
into "peoples militia"
See also
- Revolutionary terrorRevolutionary terrorRevolutionary terror ) refers to the institutionalized application of force to counterrevolutionaries, particularly during the French Revolution from the years 1793 to 1794...
- Terrorism and the Soviet Union
- List of designated terrorist organizations
- Left-wing terrorismLeft-wing terrorismLeft-wing terrorism, sometimes called Marxist-Leninist terrorism or revolutionary/left-wing terrorism is a tactic used to overthrow capitalism and replace it with Marxist-Leninist or socialist government.-Ideology:...