Civil Resistance to Military Coups Adam Roberts Journal of Peace Research 1975; 12; 19 DOI: 10.1177/002234337501200102

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If one of the functions of government is to with or without the aid of foreigners. The provide for internal and external security, overthrow of the Allende government in many governments have left themselves and Chile in 11 September 1973 was a reminder their countries extraordinarily vulnerable in of this fact. face of the military coup d’ état. There is Governments faced with the possibility of substantial evidence that civil resistance may a military coup are sometimes, at least in offer a means whereby at least some govern- the military sense, defenceless. When an ments - particularly those which enjoy a army revolts there may be no one, or at least high degree of legitimacy - may ward off no guns, to oppose it. And even if parts of this threat. the armed forces remain loyal to the govern- The problem of military coups is a serious ment - as is most often the case - they may one. The coup is the classic technique where- not wish to take sides in the conflict for by military control is extended into civil fear that the ensuing recriminations and life; and it is also widely used in interna- violence would destroy the unity of the tional conflicts, for example when a foreign armed forces and their subsequent capacity power seeks to gain control of the govern- for national defence. ment of a country. It is of course perfectly Military coups are in fact sometimes pre- possible to envisage circumstances in which vented or defeated by civil resistance, either a coup is justifiable politically and beneficial on its own or in conjunction with the threat in its effects;’ and the increased incidence or use of violence. ’Civil resistance’ can be of coups in recent years can quite plausibly defined as a technique of political struggle be attributed in part at least to the failings relying on non-violent methods of action. of civilian governments. Nevertheless, the The reasons for the avoidance of violence coup tends to undermine the basis of legiti- can be various, including ethics, habit, law, macy on which governments depend, and to or prudence. Civil resistance can be used as replace it with the open use of force and an alternative to, or in various kinds of con- terror. It can easily lead either to further junction with, more violent forms of pressure coups or to civil war. Only rarely do mili- or struggle.2 Such resistance can be a partic- tary regimes turn out to be better than their ularly appropriate response to the coup, be- civilian predecessors. cause it can serve to strengthen any factions The problem of military coups is perhaps within the armed forces which oppose the especially serious for advocates of radical coup; and because it can highlight the de- state policies such as expropriating foreign pendence of the armed forces, and even assets, or reaching a peace settlement with a more of a newly-established military govern- recent enemy, or reducing the size, functions ment, on popular acquiescence and support. or privileges of the armed forces. Any gov- Deprived of this acquiescence and support, ernment embarking on one of these policies military governments can fail. may find itself faced with the danger of a There is no suggestion here that civil re- military coup conducted by its own forces, sistance is the only, nor necessarily the best,

Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 20 means by which the problem of the coup say: ’I have been unable to find a single d’etat can be tackled. It is a last resort, of case in the last twenty years of a para-mili- value in some crises, but to focus attention tary police which has actually defended its on it is not to deny that prevention is better political masters during a coup.’4 This may than cure. A generally acceptable constitu- be slightly exaggregated: the Ton Ton tional system, good government, the inculca- Macoutes in Haiti are perhaps an ugly ex- tion in the military of codes of honour or ception.5 But para-military forces are usual- ideological norms forbidding interference in ly reluctant to make a stand against regular civil affairs, and specific security measures forces attempting to seize the government. within the armed forces, can all help to re- In general, to threaten violence against a duce the danger of military takeover. coup is to threaten civil war, and carrying Even if attempts to forestall it fail, and a out that threat has in fact often led to civil coup d’etat does occur, civil resistance is not war - for example in Spain from 1936 to the only means by which it can be opposed. 1939. In that case an actual civil war failed A variety of more violent methods can be to defeat a croup. In other cases - for ex- employed, or threatened. Ad hoc militias ample in Greece after the croup of 20-21 can be formed, or permanent para-military April 1967 - the fear of the civil war, by forces whose sole task is to protect the inhibiting political action, can serve to help government can be brought into action. those who have seized power. It injects Foreign forces can be invited to intervene inertia into the situation, which works to the to preserve the constitutional order. But all new regime’s advantage. of these are doubtful remedies. While they Athough there is frequently no military should not be rejected dogmatically, the defence against them, it remains true that reasons why they are not likely to succeed coup often fail. The reason why they fail in more than a limited number of cases need have been studied all too little. Much of the to be understood. modern literature on the subject suggests Sometimes foreign forces may intervene that the croup is basically a matter of tech- in a state to prevent or defeat a coup d’etat. nique : that armies can overthrow a govern- The British military interventions in East ment provided they have the military re- Africa in the late 1960’s were unusual in- sources to do so. Some Marxists, working on stances of this, as was the Turkish invasion the assumption that the state is simply a rule of Cyprus in July 1974. But very few govern- of force, share this view.6 ments are willing to make their existence An extreme example of the widespread dependent upon the will of a foreign power. preoccupation with technique was Edward There is the additional disadvantage that Luttwak’s controversial book Cou¢ d’Etat. any outside intervention against a military Luttwak wrote that the ’ultimate rationale’ coup could enable coup leaders to claim that of political life is ’sheer force’, and S. E. they were leading a patriotic struggle against Finer (himself a noted writer on the subject) foreign attack.3 said in his foreword to Luttwak’s book that Para-military formations, whose task is ’it is necessary to meet fire with fire’.7 Such either to protect the constitutional order in generalizations were belied in Luttwak’s general (for example the CRS in France), or own text, where he referred in various un- to protect a particular national leader (for connected passages to the variety of pres- example Milton Obote’s former private sures, far removed from ’sheer force’, which army, the General Service Unit), may in can prevent or frustrate a cou¢. A military principle seem easiest way out of the dilem- or bureaucratic machine which does not in mas posed by the coup d’ltat. But in reality fact operate as a machine, which does not they do not. appear to be much of a protec- obey orders without questioning their con- tion. Edward Luttwak has gone so far as to tent or legitimacy, can make a cou¢ ’very

Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 21 difficult to carry out’.8 But there was no faction with the naval limitations imposed coherent discussion of types of resistance or upon Japan by the London Naval Treaty of the mechanisms by which they operate. 1930. The coup was opposed neither by the police, nor by the other parts of the army. Failed coups But the coup leaders failed to establish their The cases in which civil resistance has con- own legitimacy. Three important figures es- tributed to the defeat of attempted coups caped the assassins: Count Makino, The are numerous. Often it has done so in collab- Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal; Baron oration with the use or threat of military Suzuki Kantaro, the Grand Chamberlain; force. In Russia in August 1917, when the and Okade Keisuke, the Prime Minister. The Russian Commander-in-Chief General Korni- Emperor, whom the rebels hoped would lov attempted a Putsch, a complex combina- rally to their cause, turned out to be strongly tion of factors made it impossible for him to opposed to what he termed the ’mutiny’. For proceed. An armed workers’ militia was the first few days the radio and newspapers formed to defeat the counter-revolution. virtually ignored the uprising, but on 29 Side by side with this there was an impres- February there was a systematic propaganda sive movement of non-cooperation: campaign aimed at soldiers and NCO’s. There were radio announcements, leaflets The Railway Bureau organized by the Soviet was from and an advertise- feverishly at work, crippling the movement of dropped bombers, ment over a Krymov’s troop trains, just as in March it had balloon Tokyo carrying banner disorganized those of General Ivanov. Some with the inscription: ’The Imperial Command detachments were sent in the wrong direction and Has Been Issued, Do Not Resist The Army realized it too late. The station tracks were Colours!’ This was a reference to the fact blocked with coaches. The engines were out of that the elements in the and repair. In three places the track was torn up, and loyal army navy loaded freight cars overturned. The railway repair were preparing, as ordered by the Emperor, battalion was nowhere to be found. The command to crush the rebels. The defeat of the croup to advance on foot was blocked failure to or- by was caused by the superior armaments, psy- a food The soldiers were ganize supply. literally and better claims to showered with proclamations from the Provisional chological warfare, Government and Soviets. Kornilov’s counter-dec- legitimacy of the authorities. It was by no larations did not reach them. Local Soviets and means a case of pure civil resistance, but it as in threatened fire. garrisons, Luga, artillery did illustrate the potential strength of ap- The and had to be telegraph telephone captured to soldiers and NCO’s to refuse to take by main force. Individual detachments lost touch peals with each other and headquarters. The Kornilov part in the political schemes of their offi- soldiers began to traverse points where they were cers in danger of clashing with local garrisons. They The general strike in Cuba launched by committees which demanded ex- began electing Castro on 1 January 1959, immediately after planations of the officers and deprived them of Batista fled from the was a some- freedom of action.9 country, what different case: this action was de- In Japan in February 1936 there was an signed, not to undermine a coup which had attempted coup, the defeat of which provides occurred, but rather to prevent the possibili- an interesting example of the importance of ty of anyone apart from Fidel Castro seizing the idea of legitimacy; it also illustrates the power. In this, of course, it succeeded. It potential complexity of the interrelation- was thus in part resistance against a threat- ship between violent and non-violent means ened coup, in part a civilian insurrection.&dquo; of opposing a coup. On 26 February 1936 a The Czechoslovak resistance of 21-27 group of officers used their forces to seize August 1968 was in part resistance against various strategic points in Tokyo, and to as- an attempted coup, which was being planned sassinate several members of the govern- by Kolder, Svestka, Indra and Bilak.12 In ment. Their complaints included dissatis- that respect, though not in others, it was rel-

atively successful. It did succeed in prevent- fend the republic: ’When Reichswehr fires ing the illegal imposition of a conservative on Reichswehr, then all comradeship within and pro-Soviet regime, which had been the the officer corps has vanished.’ For their clear intention of the invaders. It did not part the police in Berlin were initially succeed, however, in getting rid of the in- favourable to the Putsch. All in all, the vaders ; or in decisively strengthening the rebels had quite adequate military force for bargaining power of Dubcek and his col- a coup. leagues ; or in preventing the ultimate in- Yet even in post-First World War Ger- stallation of a conservative regime by legal many, torn in different directions by na- process through the Central Committee of tionalism, communism and separatism, re- the Czechoslovak Communist Party. sistance to the coup was widespread. Civil The two most striking cases of successful servants simply refused to co-operate with civil resistance against military coups have the new regime: Kapp could not even find been the opposition in Germany to the 1920 a secretary to type his proclamations. Offi- Kapp Putsch in Berlin; and the opposition cers in the Ministry of War refused to obey in France and Algeria to the 1961 Generals’ the Kappists’ orders In Berlin and other Revolt in Algiers. The two cases were as- parts of Germany there was a complete gen- tonishingly similar. As in Germany in 1920, eral strike. The government leaders had suc- so in Algeria in 1961, sections of the mili- ceeded in leaving Berlin a few hours before tary tried to grab power because after fight- the insurgents invaded their offices, and ing a long war they felt let down by the they eventually established the seat of the civil authorities. Both coups were lacking in legitimate government at Stuttgart. a serious long-term programme. Both were This widespread and open defiance of the short-lived: the Kapp Putsch lasted slightly new regime had the effect not merely of less than 100 hours, the Generals’ Revolt isolating it, but also of undermining such only slightly more. Both occurred in socie- bases of support as it had. On the night of ties with deep and bitter political divisions. 16-17 March a Guards Engineer battalion In both, there was practically no military ’mutinied’ and declared itself for the con- action against the illegal insurgents. In both, stitutional government. On 17 March the civilian and military non-cooperation played Berlin security police reversed its previous an important part in defeating the illegal stand and demanded Kapp’s resignation. usurpation of power. That same day the Putsch collapsed. Kapp fled to Sweden, and the Ehrhardt brigade was ordered out of town less than five days after it had marched in. The Kapp Putsch 1920 After the Kapp Putsch one of Ehrhardt’s In the early morning of 13 March 1920 men said: ’Everything would still have been Lieutenant-General Von L3ttwitz, with the all right if only we had shot more people.’14 support of Lieutenant-Commander Hermann There is no doubt that the leaders could Ehrhardt’s Marine Brigade Freikorps, car- have been more brutal than they were, but ried out a militarily successful Putsch in it is far from sure that this would have Berlin, establishing the extreme nationalist greatly strengthened their position. They did Dr. Wolfgang Kapp in power as chancellor. in fact kill many people: several hundred His aims included the suppression of com- died as a result of the Putsch.15 But this had munism and the reversal of the disarmament failed to secure the co-operation they wanted. clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. Some interpreters of the Putsch have sug- The army remained by and large neutral. gested that the resistance contained a strong Von Seeckt, the chief of staff, decided to element of armed struggle. Thus Walter wait and see and declared his refusal to de- Ulbricht, the East German leader, said at a

Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 23 public rally in Suhl on the fiftieth anniver- workers, which made it impossible for Kapp sary of these events: to rule. It was all very far from being a model Half a on 14 March the work- century ago, 1920, coup: it was exceptionally badly planned, ers of Suhl rallied in this and unani- square ... and mously decided through general strike and armed lacking strategic surprise political pro- struggle to quell the reactionary Putsch under the gramme. Eyck has called it ’nothing but the leadership of people like L3ttwitz against the work of overgrown juvenile delinquents.’2o Weimar Republic. Nor can the opposition be regarded as a In the dark of the in night Reichswehr, agree- model. A number of special factors need to ment with the putschists, had your city occupied be taken into account when the ef- hall and other important places in the city so as assessing to paralyse the revolutionary centre of the work- fects of the resistance. The victorious Allied ing class in the south of Thuringia ... The work- powers, particularly Britain, would hardly ers collected arms from the and from enterprises have tolerated a coup in Germany the cen- caches. Armed workers’ groups from Zella-Mehlis tral purpose of which was to undermine the and other places moved towards Suhl at dawn. Valiantly and courageously the workers attacked Versailles Treaty: thus behind the civil re- the Reichswehr troops. sistance there was an implied but clear mili- At that time in Thuringia, in parallel with the tary threat. Also, the resistance which de- Ruhr area, the formation of a workers’ al- army feated the coup did not prevent the govern- ready comprising thousands of fighters was started ment, once restored, from making one com- promise after another with the right-wing Some of the armed struggle mentioned by forces which had supported the Kappists. Ulbricht was not so much defensive action The Freikorps and their likes were not against a coup, but rather a violent attempt wholly discredited. Both the general strike, to overthrow the existing system. Both this and the left-wing violence which was partic- aspect of the resistance, and the manner of ularly widespread in the Ruhr area, left a its suppression, exacerbated the already legacy of powerful and destructive emotions: strained political atmosphere in Germany.i~ suspicion, contempt for the perceived weak- In Berlin at the time of the Putsch, the le- ness of the government, and belief in an gitimate government did not dare to arm the extra-constitutional means of struggle to city’s population, ’which was ready and even secure one’s end. Non-cooperation was an eager to meet the reactionaries, but which effective counter to a Putsch, but it did little might quite conceivably have refused to be to avert the larger tragedies of inter-war disarmed. ’18 Germany. In general, non-cooperation rather than armed struggle seems to have been the decisive force which defeated Kapp. As Erich The Generals’ Revolt 1961 Eyck has said: ’The Putsch was defeated by The Generals’ Revolt in Algiers in April two principal forms of resistance: the gener- 1961 was the climax of more than five years al strike of the workers and the refusal of of intermittent conflict between the French the higher civil servants to collaborate with Army in Algeria and the civilian authorities their rebel masters.’19 The resistance was in Paris.21 Some section of the Army had aided by the fact that no politician of note long had a deep suspicion of the civilian came over to the Kappist camp, while most authorities - a suspicion which was vastly of the provincial governments ignored the increased in early 1961 when de Gaulle in- uprising. The idea that the general strike dicated publicly that he was prepared to alone defeated the Putsch is a myth: it was enter into negotiations with the Algerian this combination of factors, including the nationalist rebels. There was also, it is true, non-cooperation of political and govern- a strong contrary feeling in the army that mental bodies as well as the strikes of the soldiers should not meddle in politics, and

that such meddling could only prolong and points near Algiers. Nowhere was the Putsch aggravate the fifteen-year trauma of the seriously opposed, and units of the Com- wars in Indochina and Algeria: a feeling pagnies Republicaines de Sécurité ’guarding’ which was reinforced by the obvious danger one government building actually unloaded than any political involvement would split their machine guns after they had been or- the army wide open, presenting soldiers with dered to fire at the rebels by General divisions and dilemmas as serious as those Gambiez, the French Commander-in-Chief in in 1940-45, when supporters of Vichy and Algeria, who remained loyal to de Gaulle. those of de Gaulle made rival claims for Shortly afterwards, Gambies was arrested by loyalty. But in 1961 many senior officers the rebels. At least two other generals loyal naturally felt that de Gaulle was. abandoning to de Gaulle were also arrested in the first the cause of ’Alg6rie Fran~aise’ for which few hours of the Putsch. they had been fighting since the outbreak of On the morning of Saturday 22 April the the Algerian nationalist revolt in 1954. De radio station - now in rebel hands - an- Gaulle’s press conference of 11 April 1961 nounced that the ’Military Command’ had reinforced the fears. Some officers felt they declared a state of siege; that ’all powers should do something about this ’betrayal’. enjoyed by the civil authority pass ... to the Many sections of the army resented de military authority’; that ’those individuals Gaulle’s negotiations policy all the more who have taken a direct part in the attempt strongly because it was the army itself which to abandon Algeria and the Sahara will be had orginally, through its rising of May placed under arrest and brought before a 1958, placed de Gaulle in power. The May military tribunal’; and that ’no disorders 1958 rising had seemingly demonstrated the will be tolerated. Any act of violence or ability of the army to determine the shape force will be put down with the utmost of government in France. As M.R.D Foot rigour ... Any resistance will be broken, wrote in his book Men in Uniform: from whatever quarter it may come.’ This order carried the signatures of four recently retired generals - Challe, Jouhaud, Zeller The armed forces - the - have army especially and Salan. just demonstrated that they can overthrow a form in of government they do not like; and any system The inclusion of General Challe this of ruling France in the foreseeable future will list surprised many people, because he had have to take account first of all of the army’s not previously been associated with right- views .22 wing extremist activities. His high reputa- tion was of great value to the Putsch, which By early 1961 it was clear that de Gaulle by Sunday 23 April also enjoyed the support was failing to act in accordance with the of a number of serving generals - namely views of at any rate part of the army. A General Nicot (acting head of the French military conspiracy developed, with Colo- Air Staff); General Bigot (commanding the nels Argoud, Broizat, Gardes and Godard air force in Algeria), General Gouraud (in playing the principal part and recruiting Constantine), General Gardy (in Oran), Gen- whatever support they could get from general Petit (in Algiers), and General Mentre erals who were sympathetic. The revolt be- (joint Services Commander of the Sahara). gan on the night of Friday-Saturday 21-22 The air of success which surrounded the April 1961. In a series of swift moves, the Putsch in its early stages was reinforced by First Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment the rebels’ control of the news media. Not captured control of the city of Algiers. In only the radio, but also the newspapers in the course of their action the paratroops Algiers were in the hands of people favour- killed one officer, outside the radio station. able to the Putsch. This monopoly of com- A number of other military units seized key munications enabled the rebels to claim that

Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 25 their Putsch was more successful than was politan France de Gaulle was probably most in fact the case. likely to rely for military resistance on the De Gaulle was faced with a very serious para-military forces, particularly the Gen- situation.23 In Algeria, the Putsch had clear- darmerie Nationale and the Compagnies ly a considerable degree of success; and al- RéPublicaines de Sécurité (CRS).25 But the though probably a majority of senior offi- reliability even of these forces was open to cers remained loyal to de Gaulle - includ- considerable doubt. A significant precedent ing General de Pouilly in Oran and General had been set by the CRS forces in Algiers de Menditte in Mostaganem - there was no on the night of the Putsch when they had indication that they were prepared to take openly defied General Gambiez’s orders to military action in support of the regime. The oppose the rebels. situation was aggravated by the fact that There were also at the time of the Putsch many loyal officers - including Generals two French Army divisions, comprising in Gambiez and Vezinet - had been arrested all some 60,000 soldiers, assigned to NATO by the rebels. and stationed in Western Germany. They Nor were de Gaulle’s problem confined to might, conceivably, have been used to sup- Algeria. There was at least a possibility that port the regime against the rebels; but many a parallel Putsch might be attempted in of the officers in Germany were right-wing Paris, either by right-wing groups in France, extremists who had been sent there to pre- or by airborne forces invading France from vent them from causing trouble in Algeria. Algeria. In Paris the police claimed to have It was not until Monday evening, 24 April, found definite evidence that a Putsch was that General Crepin issued a communique being prepared there. Although the generals, making it clear that the forces in Germany at their subsequent trials, naturally denied were loyal to de Gaulle. The following that they had planned any airborne action morning, 25 April, it was announced that against metropolitan France, it is probable French troops stationed in Western Germany that they had hoped to mount some kind of had finally been ordered by the Govern- operation, rather than content themselves ment to go to Paris. Even then, their route with a ’Unilateral Declaration of Indepen- was blocked at Sierck, where the mayor dence’ of Algeria - an action which would thought the troops were going to Paris to have been somewhat self-defeating since support the Putsch, not to stop it; and some the generals claimed to be acting for ‘Alge- people speculated that the troops in Ger- rie Fran~aise’. At all events, an invasion many were ordered to move in order to from Algeria was one of the possibilities divide them up into small convoys.26 with which the de Gaulle regime had to It was not on his limited military and reckon. para-military resources that de Gaulle placed Faced with this double challenge - of the his main reliance. Almost two days after Putsch in Algiers and of a possible support- the Putsch in Algiers, and well before the ing action in France - de Gaulle’s military army in Germany was ordered to Paris, he resources were unimpressive. Of the French delivered a nation-wide broadcast which armed forces, some 500,000 were in Algeria, made it clear that he was relying on non- whereas in France itself there were very cooperation against the rebels in Algiers. In few regular operational units. Although the this broadcast, on the evening of Sunday 23 air force was relatively strong in metropol- April, he declared: itan France, its acting head supported the Putsch, and there was a strong element of In the name of France, I order that all means - doubt at the time as to whether the air force I all means - be employed to bar the way would fire airborne in- repeat actually against any everywhere to these men until they are brought vasion from Algeria.24 Thus within metro- down. I forbid every Frenchman, and in the first

Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 26 place every soldier, to carry out any of their widespread arrests of right-wing sympa- orders. thisers ; at the airfields, vehicles were put in place ready to block the runways should Later on the same evening the Prime Min- planes attempt to land; in Paris the police, ister, M. Debr6, announced in a broadcast: Gardes Républicaines, CRS, and mobile units of the Gendarmerie Nationale, were Numerous precise and mutually corroborative re- deployed in the administrative centre to ports enable the Government to come to the con- protect government buildings and block clusion that the authors of the Algiers coup ... bridges across the Seine in that area if are envisaging a surprise attack against metro- In the hours of the politan France, particularly in the Paris area. necessary. early Monday They have planes ready to drop or land para- authorities began to form a civilian home chutists on various airfields as a preliminary to a guard, though they never issued arms to it seizure of Orders have been issued to power ... (a fact to which the Communists and many units to repulse this mad attempt by all means, socialists On the same I stress all means ... From midnight, take-offs strongly objected). and landings at all airports in the Paris region day a financial and shipping blockade of are forbidden. As soon as the sirens sound, go Algeria was imposed. foot or to there, by by car, convince the mistaken These measures, and particularly de soldiers of their huge error. Good sense must Gaulle’s broadcast, had an important effect. come from the soul of the people and everyone If the rebel leaders in had at must feel himself a part of the nation. Algiers any time seriously planned to invade France, it These were the first clear and unequivocal seemed by now likely that they would en- appeals for disobedience against the rebels counter, if not direct military resistance, at issued by the Government since the Putsch any rate a fairly hostile population and a had begun on Friday night. That the Gov- non-cooperative government machine. It is ernment had waited so long to deliver these no doubt a myth that the whole population appeals is an indication of how unprepared regarded the revolt as a solemn and serious they were for the Putsch; and indeed, their challenge to the nation. But, with allowances delay in issuing such appeals had undoubted- for his characteristic hyperbole and lack of ly helped the rebel generals to consolidate modesty, de Gaulle was basically right when, their position in the course of Saturday and in his memoirs, he said of the impact of his Sunday, 22 and 23 April. Sunday broadcast: It is remarkable, indeed, that in France in the first two after the Putsch, op- days Everyone, everywhere, heard my words. In met- to the adventurers in had position Algiers ropolitan France, there was not one who did not largely come from non-governmental quar- watch or listen. In Algeria, a million transistors ters. Political parties and trade unions had were tuned in. From then on, the revolt met with a passive resistance on the spot which became joined together at meetings on Sunday to hourly more explicit.27 call for a one-hour general strike on Monday as a demonstration of determination to oppose the Algiers coup. This strike, which Transistor radios were indeed essential for duly took place at 5 p.m. on Monday, 24 the rallying of resistance in support of his April, was joined by some ten million regime. Although the rebels controlled all workers, and was the most remarkable dem- the newspapers and main radio transmitters onstration of civilian solidarity in France in Algeria, they could not always stop since the Second World War. people from listening to broadcasts from Many other measures against the Putsch France, or from using the small transceivers were taken in France. Article 16 of the with which the army was well equipped, or constitution, giving the President sweeping from duplicating de Gaulle’s speech on 23 emergency powers, was invoked. There were April. The importance of radios was re-

Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 27 f lected in the name sometimes given to this historian of the French Army has put it: episode - ’la victoire des transistors’. The actual physical possibility of conduct- General de Gaulle’s firmness and the vigorous reaction of in France reminded the an invasion of France was public opinion ing drastically draftees of all the major demonstrations against reduced the action of in by many pilots the war that had been organized during the pre- Algeria who, in defiance of the rebel regime vious year by trade unions, student bodies and and of their own senior officers, flew out of youth movements. The young soldiers modelled with which themselves on the young civilians at home who, Algeria transport planes might after had mobi- otherwise have been used to invade France. prolonged inactivity, gradually lized in favour of a negotiated peace-30 By 25 April as many as two-thirds of the transport planes in Algeria, as well as a Consciously or unconsciously, many of- large proportion of the fighter force, had ficers helped the conscripts in their resist- been flown out of Algeria, despite efforts ance. The basic concern of many officers by the Putschists to prevent them from leav- was simply to prevent internecine fighting ing.28 A number of pilots in Algeria refused among their men. The possibility that the to fly their planes for the rebels, simulated legionnaires and the Harkis (Algerian troops mechanical failure or blocked airfields. in the French Army) would get into a fight If the rebel generals wanted to invade with the conscripts was serious. In some France, or indeed to consolidate their posi- cases, officers kept their units safe from this tion in Algeria, they would need troops as danger by sending them out on operations well as planes. Here, too, they had diffi- against the FLN. Other officers ordered all culties. Like the air force pilots, many troops rifles to be locked away in armouries and in Algeria, especially conscripts, succeeded kept the keys themselves. Many kept silent in listening to de Gaulle’s Sunday night about the whole affair of the Putsch - an broadcast on their transistor radios. In some opportunistic course no doubt, but also per- units, it is true, attempts were made to pre- haps a wise one. Thus many troops re- vent the soldiers hearing anything but the mained in ignorance of what position, if any, Algiers radio station captured by the rebels; had been taken by their superiors; and an but large numbers of troops do appear to extremely large number of officers did in have heard de Gaulle’s appeal, or at least fact stay on the f ence. to have heard about it by word of mouth or The Putschists did get considerable sup- from duplicated leaflets. In many cases the port from the European population of Alge- soldiers demonstrated their opposition to the rid;31 and also, at the beginning, from the Putsch simply by staying in barracks. There Algiers police force, thought it changed its were also many examples of deliberate in- position on Tuesday evening when it saw efficiency ; orders got lost, files disappeared, which way things were going. But among communications and transport got delayed. civil servants and local government officials The leaders of the Putsch had to use forces there was considerable resistance to the they desperately needed elsewhere - and Putsch. In many cases documents were hid- might have used in an invasion of France - den, and officials withdrew so that there to keep order in barracks and bases in Alge- could be no appearance of legitimacy for ria, and to keep up some semblance of con- the rebel generals. trol and administrative continuity. In the By Tuesday, 25 April, it became clear to course of two or three days the conscripts at least some of the leaders of the Putsch in the army began to recognise the strength that they were incapable of ruling even of a refusal to co-operate.29 Algeria effectively. There is evidence of Anti-war activities in France appear to considerable internal disagreement as to have had some effect on the attitude of the what course of action they should take in national servicemen in Algeria. As one their weak situation. Some advocated vio-

Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 28 lence, but eventually it was decided to At his trial after the collapse of the rebel- liquidate the affair. On the night of 25-26 lion, General Challe indicated that it had April the First Foreign Legion Parachute been the various acts of non-cooperation Regiment withdrew from Algiers, and gov- which had made it impossible for him and ernment buildings were abandoned by the his fellow generals to rule. He said: ’By 23 rebels. Challe gave himself up, and the other April I had already been warned that com- three generals at the head of the revolt went munist cells were at work on the national into hiding. servicemen, and General de Gaulle’s speech The resistance which led to this decisive was making the waverers hesitate still fur- conclusion had been very largely non-vio- ther.’ lent in character. At no time was a single Why were these events conducted so large- shot fired on any of the rebel forces, despite ly without violence? Part of the answer is the fact that de Gaulle, in his Sunday even- that there was a general fear on both sides ing broadcast, had called for people to re- of a civil war, especially at a time when the sist the rebels by ’all means’, and on Tuesday army was already engaged in the bitter war evening, in a further broadcast directive, against the nationalist FLN; and there was had actually ordered soldiers to fire at rebel also a general feeling that the army should forces. Even General de Pouilly, one of the not f ire on the army. For those opposing the generals who remained loyal to de Gaulle, Putsch, additional restraining factors were was not prepared to commit himself to a at work. The broadcast by de Gaulle on fight. When on 23 April Foreign Legion Sunday had given their resistance a legiti- units supporting the rebels moved towards macy, a unity and a discipline which it Oran, de Pouilly (the Corps commander of would have lacked if they had resorted to the Oran area) withdrew so as to avoid violence - even though de Gaulle’s Sunday bloodshed. He had been in the same class at broadcast had contained an implicit plea to Saint-Cyr as the rebel General Challe, and use violence, and his Tuesday directive made like many of the soldiers involved on both that plea explicit. Those involved in the sides of this affair he clearly felt that the widespread and undramatic resistance to the army should not fire on the army. The result rebels felt that they were ’dans la 16gitimit6’, of his withdrawal was that in Oran the and that they would not have been so if they Putschist Colonels Gardy and Argoud found had used violence. There were indications, that they were fighting ’a vacuum rather too, that it was widely appreciated that non- than an enemy.’sz violent methods of resistance had a better In another similar incident, another senior chance of being effective than violence. For officer loyal to de Gaulle showed himself example, it turned out in this case to be ready to concede ground rather than fire on quite easy to prevent by non-violent means the rebels. On the morning of Tuesday 25 the possibility of an invasion of France. April rebel parachute troops moved towards Perhaps a more difficult question to an- Mers-El-Kebir naval base; Admiral Quer- swer is why violence was not used more ex- ville, although he was opposed to the rebels, tensively by those - many of them ruthless did not fight, but fled from the base by and sadistic people, with few scruples about boat. At the time it was widely reported in using terror - who supported the Putsch. Of France that Admiral Querville had fired course they did explicitly threaten the use of against the rebels, and this supposed ’inci- violence in the radio announcement of 22 dent’ was seen in France as a ’turning point’ April and on other occasions. And they and in the rebellion. But these reports - the their supporters could effectively reinforce only reports of any military action against that threat by pointing out that they had

- the rebels - turned out to have been com- their backs to the wall which was true pletely untrue. enough, and added a touch of desperation to

Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 29 their efforts. In any case, some limited vio- tility to the Putsch, to increase resistance, lence was used by, or in support of, the re- and to highlight the illegitimate and desper- bels. On the night of 21-22 April the warrant ate nature of the adventure. officer of the guard at the Algiers radio The general reluctance to open fire, more station was shot dead; on the following night marked on the side of the loyalists than on in Paris one person was killed and several that of the rebels, did in some important wounded in plastic bombings; on 24 April respects work to the advantage of the rebels. at Beni-Messous, in Algeria, six national They were never stopped by even a show of servicemen waiting to be shipped back to force from entering new territory or build- France were wounded by a paratroop NCO’s ings, and in a superficial sense the de facto machine gun; there was an assassination at- cease-fire between the contending sections tempt in Paris on the family of the loyalist of the French Army was a carte-blanche to air commander, General Fourquet; and in the rebels to do as they wished. But this carte- Algiers on 25 April, in the declining hours blanche concealed the non-violent forms of of the Putsch, three gendarmes were wound- resistance, which proved to be of such criti- ed and one civilian killed in an attack by cal importance in the defeat of the Generals’ the OAS (Organization de I’Arm6e Secr6te). Revolt. Despite all these incidents, de Gaulle claimed That non-violent forms of resistance were in his memoirs: ’without a single shot having used on this occasion was not the conse- been fired from either side, Tuesday April quence of any ethical beliefs or political 25 saw the collapse of the whole and dis- theories about ’non-violence’. Indeed, such reputable venture.’33 Of course, it must be beliefs and ideas were in France more con- conceded that, in the very violent context of cerned with personal philosophies than with Algeria at that time, these events could techniques of political action, and they were easily have seemed practically bloodless. wholly irrelevant to and unconnected with It is obvious that the Putsch might have this crisis. Although the resistance to the been much more violent than it was, and Putsch required at times great commitment probably the four rebel generals, particu- and courage, these were the outcome of larly Challe, did exert a moderating influ- deeply-felt opposition to the revolt, and of ence over their more enthusiastic followers. long-established political custom. France’s It may be that the generals were restrained democratic traditions, however imperfect, precisely because they were confronted with were important in this crisis.34 Even when massive non-violent opposition, which gave the central government was inactive and the rebels little pretext to initiate the use of threatened, individuals and independent violence. It may also be true that the rebels bodies proved ready and able to act in a de- would have been less constrained if con- centralized form of defence. But they did not fronted by violence. The possibility of ul- rule out the use of force. The threat of mili- timately being brought to judgement no tary action against the rebels was unhesi- doubt held them back. Whatever the reasons tatingly made both by de Gaulle and by the for their restraint, it undeniably made life Communists. easier for the resistance on this occasion. That non-violent forms of resistance were This is not to say that the resistance would used also owed something to a ’wait and necessarily have failed had the rebels been see’ attitude in the army - an opportunis- more violent. After the Putsch, Challe in- tic desire to avoid any irrevocable violent dicated at his trial that he might have been action. The financial strength of the French able to hold out, ’but only by violence’. This government - especially near the end of claim is not altogether convincing. It is at the month, when the soldiers’ pay was due - least possible that such violence might have also contributed to the avoidance of vio- only served to accentuate the general hos- lence : it provided an alternative means of

controlling the behaviour of the French predicated on the entirely false assumption Army. Algeria’s dependence on France for that the army would support it sooner or various essential supplies reinforced the later. Only once after 1961 was there any point. hint of a Putsch: in May 1968, according to Non-cooperation was in this case com- some reports, army units around Paris were bined with police and legal action against the poised for a take-over in the event that the rebels. During the revolt many right-wing situation got out of control and a govern- suspects in France were arrested by the ment that was not constitutionally elected police, and afterwards there were further came to power. Also, it was widely thought police searches. Trial by denunciation be- that the army might intervene if a govern- came part of the unhappy sequel of the ment - even a constitutional one - con- Putsch.35 There was also in the succeeding tained a significant number of communist months and years a series of full-scale trials ministers.38 It is almost certainly true that before the Military High Court of the lead- the army engaged in some bargaining in ing persons involved, many of whom re- May 1968. Army leaders are reported to ceived long prison sentences. No-one was have made their support for de Gaulle con- executed for his part in the Putsch, and by ditional upon certain concessions, including June 1968 all the prisoners had been released. the release from ail of Salan, Argoud, and The manner in which the revolt was de- other OAS ringleaders. These prisoners were feated was completely decisive, both for in fact freed the following month France and for Algeria, which became independent in 1962. Bernard Tricot, of the Like the Kapp Putsch, the Generals’ Re- General Secretariat for Algerian Affairs and volt should not be regarded as being a one of de Gaulle’s close advisers, has written typical coup, nor should the resistance be that ’the Putsch made more inevitable the regarded rigidly as a model. The affair was outcome it had tried to prevent, while at based on a fundamentally mistaken estimate the same time reducing the chances of at- of feeling in the army, and on poor planning. taining it in acceptable conditions.’36 And de As General Goubard indicated, they should Gaulle himself wrote that ’the collapse of probably have attacked Paris, not Algiers.40 this escapade henceforth rid men’s minds of But there were precedents for influencing the spectre of an Army move to take over events in Paris by seizing Algiers, and the the State or at least to force it to maintain scheme was not entirely frivolous. Challe’s the status quo in Algeria.’37 After 1961, there statement on 24 April 1961, repeated later were no further attempts by the French at this trial, that he intended to pacify Alge- Army to seize power. However, the fanatics ria in a three-month campaign and then who opposed de Gaulle over the Algeria is- hand it over to France ’sur un plateau’, in- sue did not for the most part change their dicated a fairly serious purpose. views, thus illustrating that the defeat of the The fact that France was a member of a Putsch had essentially been a matter of military alliance - NATO - made very lit- coercion, not conversion. The whole OAS tle difference either way to the progress of campaign of violence and terror, which had the coup. It is very doubtful if NATO coun- started earlier in 1961, acquired increased tries either individually or collectively would momentum in the months after the Putsch have used military action to oppose the collapsed. There were frequent bomb ex- Putsch. The attitude of NATO members to plosions in Algiers and Paris, and attempts the military take-over in Greece in 1967 was to assassinate de Gaulle. Tough police meth- one of passivity if not of actual complicity. ods were used to break the OAS and to cap- Their attitude to a French coup in 1961 ture its leading members. The OAS, how- might have been different - but perhaps ever, was not the army, and indeed was not very different.

A function for civil resistance ing, a victory as between two armies, is one of All the examples cited indicate that the coup the rarest exceptions. And the insurgents counted on it as For them it was a be vulnerable to non-co- just rarely. solely may particularly question of making the troops yield to moral in- As S. E. Finer has operation. said, referring fluences which, in a fight between the armies of to Germany in 1920, Japan in 1936, and two warring countries, do not come into play at Algeria in 1961: all or do so to a much smaller extent.43

In all these three cases - Kapp Putsch, February Engels to some extent underestimated the and the rebellion - the mutiny April army, ’moral influences’ to which he referred. He acting alone and in defiance of civilian opinion, doubted whether could be so decisive was isolated and then defeated by civilian resist- they ances. In all these countries, wherever lawful in a future revolution as they had been, at authority might be thought to lie, there was wide- least for a time, in 1848: and for this reason consensus that it did not lie with the spread as well as others he viewed a recurrence of military. In all these countries, therefore, the insurrections on the 1848 model as un- army was powerless to get its way unless and being until it had learned that it must work within the likely. But the evidence is strong that armed current political formula, within the tradition of forces continued susceptible to ’moral in- legitimacy.4’ fluences’ from the populations of their own countries. The history of the February 19177 did these fail? no Why coups Partly, Russian revolution bears this out: the muti- doubt, failed because their leaders, like they nies which occurred that month were an so many military insurrectionists, tended to essential preliminary to the successful over- base their of action the plan upon assump- throw of the Tsars.44 tion that the would to them. public rally ’Moral influences’ have been important in The curious Spanish term for a military resistance to military coups, as well as seizure of itself in- power, pronunciamento, in insurrections against established regimes. dicates a belief that the mere taking up of a The cases studied strongly suggest that some position, and the pronouncing of a phrase, forces at least can be greatly influenced in would be to one of a enough give charge their conduct civilian The point and Challe both had by opinion. government.42 Kapp at which officers disobey superior orders, the commom delusion that once they put troops mutiny, or whole units defect, is the themselves forward everyone would follow. point at which armed forces cease to be When failed to do so and then their people usable as a reliable machine of repression own military resources evaporated they lost at the service of a military command. At- heart. In cases such as these even token tempts to win support from members of the civilian opposition can have a dispropor- insurgents’ forces were successful in some tionate effect. degree both in Germany in 1920 and in One of the reasons why the coup is so Algeria in 1961: and in both cases there vulnerable is that military forces - especial- seems to have been a widespread recognition ly perhaps conscript ones - are susceptible that this could be done better by resisting to numerous pressures from the civilian pop- a Putsch peacefully, than by resorting to ulation and from civil institutions. Conscripts armed resistance. Certainly the proposition come from a non-military background, they that non-violent action can effectively un- maintain numerous contacts with it, and dermine the sources of the opponent’s power to return to it. observa- they hope Engels’ finds some validation in these cases. How- tions on the of successful inter- possibilities ever, it is necessary to bear in mind Engels’ to the nal insurrection apply equally possi- warning that dealing with the armed forces bilities of successful resistance to a coup: of a foreign country would be a more difficult matter, in which there might be less Let us have no illusions about it: a real victory of room for the of ’moral influences’. an insurrection over the military in street fight- operation

Even there, however, the possibilities may in these cases, it was the idea of legitimacy: be greater than Engels indicated. but this does not amount to an ideology. The very term used by Engels, ’moral in- What was important in these cases was the fluences’, is perhaps too restrictive. Non- pluralism of the societies in which they oc- violent action had in these cases a very curred, their conceptions of political legiti- strong element of coercion. Although in both macy and their traditions of industrial ac- the Kapp Putsch and the Generals’ Revolt, tion. Independent political institutions, local the withdrawal of the rebels from govern- administrations, political parties, and even ment buildings was voluntary, it was only rival trade union organisations all showed voluntary in the sense that freedom is the their ability to act even when the legitimate recognition of necessity. The withdrawal was government gave little or no lead. Many ex- to a large extent forced upon them by their perts on the coup d’etat have suggested that inability to control the situation. The coer- free and independent political institutions cion took several forms. They had great dif- are a powerful safeguard against military ficulty in obtaining money, and indeed seizures of power.4g The idea that civil re- largely f ailed to do so.45 The government sistance would necessarily require a Goeb- machinery did not work for them. Some of bels-like control over a population finds no their own military equipment was denied confirmation. them - for example by the flying of air- However, these cases do indisputably show craft from Algeria to France. And their that non-violent action, often thought of as manpower resources - both in the police an anti-government phenomenon, can in fact and in military formations - were reduced. be used by governments and even be a key That in both cases the rebel leaders were co- to their preservation in certain crises. For erced rather than converted into withdraw- its part, the survival of a government can ing is indicated by the fact that in neither be an important stimulus to non-violent re- case did they change their basic political sistance, since it ensures that there is a ideas: they merely tried to pursue them by source of authority which had a prior claim different means. to people’s loyalty, thus enabling them to The civil resistance in these cases was not resist new usurpers more easily and effec- only coercive in itself: it was combined, in tively. To ensure the physical survival of varying fashions, with some threat of vio- government leaders, even if it means some lence against the rebels; and with some use of them withdrawing from the capital, is an of police and legal action against them. The important aim of any resistance against threat of military action was probably not coup. very convincing in the case of the Generals’ Equally, these cases show that contrary to Revolt; but the possibility of an Allied in- common belief non-violent action can be en- vasion of Germany in 1920 might well have gaged in by the military themselves, even swayed many people into regarding the against violent opponents. The great wealth Kapp Putsch as a hopeless venture. At all of modes of resistance used in the French events, the complexity of the interrelation- army against the rebel leadership suggests ship between the use of civil resistance on that the view that ’non-violence is what the the one hand, and the threat or use of force military do not do’47 requires modification. or legal sanctions on the other, is evident. There is a case to be made for greater These cases strongly suggest that mono- reliance on civil resistance as a means of lithic ideological unity is not necessary to opposing military coups. Some degree of the conduct of civil resistance. Communists, advance preparations might give people trade unionists, civil servants, joined in a greater confidence in their ability to over- common if temporary cause. If there was a throw a coup, and might also discourage political idea which inspired the resistance military adventurism into politics in the first

Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 33 place. As D. J. Goodspeed has written, the population had not been willing to accept it best form of deterrence ’is to show poten- after the economic disasters and political tial rebels that they would be faced with an polarization during the years of Allende’s intelligent, politically active and unsympa- presidency. As to whether armed struggle thetic populace. In such cases the mere idea could have defeated General Pinochet and of a coup becomes ludicrous, as it is, for his colleagues, there had, in fact, been nu- instance, in Switzerland, New Zealand and merous statements in the preceding months Sweden’.48 that any such croup would be met with armed Some preparations to defeat coups in the guerrilla resistance. These statements failed kinds of way indicated could no doubt be to deter, and the actuality of such resistance made on the governmental level. But it is failed to materialise, at least in the immedi- not the only possible organizational base. ate aftermath of 11 September 1973. In Chile Indeed, it is probable that some plans for as elsewhere there was a deep reluctance to opposing a Putsch have already been drafted embark on civil war as an answer to a coup. by a number of non-governmental organiza- This does not mean that anything else - for tions in countries where a coup is not in- example civil resistance - would necessarily conceivable, possible examples being the be more successful. But it may mean that Conf6deration G6n6rale du Travail in other modes of facing the problem are worth France and the Confederazione Generale del close examination.

Lavoro in Italy - both Communist organi- Still less is any suggestion made that civil zations. What is more important than specif- resistance, if it succeeds at all, is bound to ic contingency plans, however, is the incul- do so in a matter of days. That it can have cation of a more widespread awareness in a quick effect is evident from some of the society that, at least in the face of a domestic cases cited. But sometimes - perhaps Greece cou p, civil resistance has an important and between 1967 and 1974 is a case in point - perhaps decisive role to play. opposition to a usurping military regime No suggestion is made that civil resistance may take a protracted and complex form, is bound to be effective in all cases. It is far and may be only one of the pressures leading too dependent on the particular conditions to the withdrawal of soldiers from govern- of a given society and the specific interna- ment. The full story of the collapse of the tional factors of the time for any such gen- Greek military regime on 24 July 1974 has eralization to be even entertained. In a re- yet to be told, but it is clear that among the cent article, Dr. Ekkehart Krippendorf was factors contributing to this outcome were the right to question whether in Chile in Sep- following: (1) the failure to bring inflation tember 1973 ’total non-cooperation with the under control; (2) the massacre of demon- ursurpers of political power would have led strating students at Athens Polytechnic on to their rapid retreat ...’.49 He was also right 16-17 November 1973, which exacerbated a to draw attention to well-known instances - crisis in the regime and led to the Ioannidis for example the suppression of the 1871 Paris coup of 25 November 1973; and (3) the ad- Commune, or the US involvement in Viet- venturist policy in Cyprus, leading to the nam - in which the forces of repression have coup in Nicosia on 15 July 1974, the Turkish shown scant regard for human life. Even if invasion of Cyprus on 20 July, and the im- these cases are not strictly analogous to the minent prospect of war between Greece and coup situation, the point is well made. And Turkey. All this brought the division among it is indeed true that in Chile the army lead- the Greek military commanders into sharp ers were willing to use extreme repression. focus. The collapse of a regime of torturers Yet even there the coup of 11I September was achieved after a great deal of political 1973 would certainly have been more dif- opposition, relatively little armed struggle ficult to carry out if a significant part of the within Greece, and the growing realization

Downloaded from http://jpr.sagepub.com by Adam Roberts on August 16, 2007 © 1975 International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 34 within the regime itself that it was incapable 7. Edward Luttwak, Coup d’Etat: A Practical Handbook, 109 and 12. of achieving any of the goals it had pro- pp. claimed. 8. Ibid., p. 19. The fact that civil resistance may sometimes fail, or be slow in its effects, or be 9. From the account by Victor Chernov, who was Minister of Agriculture under Kerensky in only one of a whole complex of factors, does 1917, and a leader of the Social Revolutionary mean its role can be not that safely ignored. Party, in his book The Great Russian Revolution, What is now needed is the formulation, on trans. Philip E. Mosely, Yale University Press, the basis of a wider historical survey, of New Haven, 1936, pp. 372-3. Chernov’s whole account on of the events some theories about the conditions for and pp. 323-383 surrounding this is See also the of civil resistance episode very interesting. dynamics against military briefer account in Joel Carmichael, A Short coups. Such theories might enlarge our un- History of the Russian Revolution, Nelson, Lon- derstanding of the overall roles of civil re- don, 1966, pp. 110-121. sistance in political processes, and illuminate 10. The best source on this the of civil resistance English-language specific relationships episode is Ben-Ami Shillony, Revolt in Japan: to the threat and use of violence. Such The Young Officers and the February 26, 1936 theories might also have a more immediate Incident, Princeton University Press, Princeton, functional value in contributing to the pos- New Jersey, 1973. Another useful source is sibility of survival of certain regimes when Leonard Mosley, Hirohito: Emperor of Japan, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1966, pp. 130- faced with the prospect of military usurpa- 148. tion. 11. See especially Hugh Thomas, Cuba: or the Pursuit of Freedom, Eyre and Spottiswoode, NOTES London, 1971, pp. 1030-1045. 1. Many would regard the coup in Portugal on Che Guevara in his account of the Cuban 25 April 1974, which ended nearly 50 years of revolution makes some mention of the abortive dictatorship and opened up some prospect of an general strike of 9 April 1958, but says nothing end to costly colonial wars, as being such a case. about the much more widespread general strike of early January 1959. See his Reminiscences of 2. By far the most thorough study of the the Cuban Revolutionary War, Penguin Books, theory and practice of these types of resistance is Harmondsworth, 1969, pp. 225-235. Gene Sharp, The Politics of Non-violent Action, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1973. 12. On details of the coup plan, see an excellent but little-known article by ’Moravus’ of Amin of claimed in 1972 (one 3. As General Uganda Dubcek’s advisers in 1968, and still living in when some forces the former supporting deposed in London, vol. 17, no. 4, entered the from Czechoslovakia) Survey, President, Milton Obote, country Autumn 1971. See also Philip Windsor and Adam Tanzania. had Obote in a on (Amin deposed coup Roberts, Czechoslovakia 1968: Reform Repression 25 January 1971). and Resistance, Chatto and Windus for the Insti- 4. Edward Luttwak, Coup d’Etat: A Practical tute for Strategic Studies, London, 1969, pp. 125-6. Handbook, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, Lon- 13. Herbert Rosinski, The German Pall don, 1968, p. 91. Army, Mall Press, London, 1966, p. 161. 5. See Bernard Diederich and A1 Burt, Papa 14. in The Doc: Haiti and Its Dictator, Bodley Head, Lon- Quoted D.J. Goodspeed, Conspira- tors: A the don, 1970. Study of Coup d’Etat, Macmillan, London, 1962, p. 134. 6. Of course many Marxists do recognize the 15. Erich A of the Weimar Re- importance of concepts such as legitimacy (as dis- Eyck, History Harvard Press, 1962, vol. 1, tinct from force or economic domination) as a public, University 152. source of power. And they can find ample justifi- p. cation for so doing in the writings of Marx and 16. Walter Ulbricht, speech in Suhl, 20 March Engels. See for example Engels, The Role of 1970. Force in History: A Study of Bismarck’s Policy of Blood and Iron, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 17. Eyck, A History of the Weimar Republic, 1968, pp. 65 and 102 ff. vol. 1, pp. 154-9.

18. Hugh Quigley and R.T. Clark, Republican The third grouping comprised some units of the Germany: A Political and Economic Study. Garde Nationale and the Compagnie Urbaine de Methuen, London, 1928, p. 64. Sécurité, which came under the control of the 19. Eyck, A History of the Weimar Republic, Paris Préfecture de Police; the latter was a fully vol. 1, p. 151. independent police system, and until 1968 it was entirely separate both from the Gendarmerie 20. Eyck, A History of the Weimar Republic. Nationale, and from the Sureté Nationale vol. 1, p. 150. George Armstrong Kelly, Lost Soldiers: The 21. This section is based principally on inter- French Army and Empire in Crisis 1947-1962, views with people involved in the events in MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1965, pp. 6-7; and Algeria and France in April 1961, and on con- Edward Luttwak, ’The Police Endure’, New temporary newspapers published in both countries. Society, London, 30 May 1968. I also express my debt to Jacques Fauvet and Jean Planchais, whose book La Fronde des Gé- 26. Fauvet and Planchais, La Fronde des Gé- néraux (Arthaud, Paris, 1961) is the only full- néraux, p. 194. length account of these events. Several more re- 27. Charles de Memoirs trans. cent books have excellent accounts of the coup. Gaulle, of Hope, See especially Paul Henissart, Wolves in the City: Terence Kilmartin, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, The Death of French Algeria, Hart-Davis, Lon- London, [1971], p. 108. don, 1971; and Yves Les Feux du Courrière, 28. Fauvet and Planchais, La Fronde des Gé- Désespoir, Fayard, Paris, 1971. néraux, pp. 229-31. 22. M.R.D. Foot, Men in Uniform, Weidenfeld & Nicolson for the Institute for Strategic Studies, 29. The conscripts constituted less than half the total number of in the French London, 1961, p. 40. troops Army in Algeria. — Dorothy Pickles, Algeria and 23. De Gaulle is to have said at the reported France, Methuen, London, 1963, p. 88n. time: ’Ce qui est grave dans cette affaire, Mes- sieurs, c’est qu’elle n’est pas sérieuse.’ (Fauvet and 30. Paul-Marie de la Gorce, The French Army: Planchais, La Fronde des Généraux, p. 157.) But, A Military-Political History, trans. Kenneth Doug- as his actions at the time and his later memoirs las, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1963, p. 544. indicated, although he regarded the affair as ir- 31. They did not necessarily welcome this sup- responsible he also took it very seriously. His port : Challe may well have feared the prospect gloomy private observations on 23 or 24 April on of his movement being wholly reliant on the local the prospects of a rebel invasion of France are and its ra- recounted in Bernard Tricot’s memoirs, Les Sen- European population traditionally cialist attitudes. tiers de la Paix: Algérie 1958-1962, Plon, Paris. 1972, p. 143. 32. Fauvet and Planchais, La Fronde des Gé- 24. Fauvet and Planchais, La Fronde des Gé- néraux, p. 173. néraux, pp. 201-1. 33. De Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope, p. 109, See 25. The complex structure of French para- also p. 111, where he says that Challe, Zeller and military forces requires some explanation. There Gouraud ’had given themselves up to the authori- were three basic groupings of such forces. ties without there having been any loss of life.’ The first grouping, which came under the Ministry of Armed Forces, comprised the Gendar- 34. Kelly, Lost Soldiers, pp. 323-4. merie Nationale. The Gendarmerie Nationale con- 35. Fauvet and Planchais, La Fronde des Gé- sisted of territorial for units, mainly responsible néraux, pp. 250-1. ordinary police duties in the countryside; and of mobile units, which are organized on infantry 36. Bernard Tricot, Les Sentiers de la Paix, lines and are equipped with standard infantry pp. 236-7. weapons. 37. Memoirs of 110. The second grouping, which came under the Hope, p. the Gardes Ministry of the Interior, comprised 38. On these reports of possible French mili- whose duties were cere- Républicaines. mainly tary intervention in May 1968, see Charles monial, and involved the guarding of important Douglas-Home, ’Voice of the Generals’, The public buildings; and also the much larger force, Times, London, 23 May 1969. the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS), the ’riot police’ which operated directly under 39. There is a cautious and tentative account the Sureté Nationale, the body responsible for of de Gaulle’s meeting with French military lead- policing all the larger towns except Paris. ers at Baden-Baden on 29 May 1968 in Patrick

Seale and Maureen McConville, French Revolu- 47. Johan Galtung, ’On the Meaning of Non- tion 1968, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1968, violence’, Journal of Peace Research, Oslo, 1965, pp. 204-5. De Gaulle’s memoirs, uncompleted no. 3, p. 229. when he died, do not go beyond 1963. 48. D.J. Goodspeed, ’The Coup d’Etat’, in 40. Fauvet and Planchais, La Fronde des Gé- Adam Roberts (ed.), Civilian Resistance as a Na- néraux, pp. 140-141. tional Defence, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1969, p. 59. 41. S.E. Finer, The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics, Pall Mall Press, 49. Ekkehart Krippendorf, ’Chile, Violence and London, 1962, p. 98. Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research, Oslo, vol. xi, no. 2, 1974, p. 96. See also Deodato 42. This belief was well described by Ortega y Rivera’s rejoinder in the same issue. Gasset in Invertebrate Spain, trans. Mildred Adams, Allen & Unwin, London, 1937, p. 57. 43. In his 1895 introduction to Karl Marx, The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, no date, p. 28. SUMMARY Military coups d’etat pose numerous problems. 44. On this aspect of Russia in February 1917, particularly for civil governments attempting to see Gene The Politics Nonviolent Sharp, of pursue radical policies. There has been too little refers to some of the Action, pp. 672-5. Sharp study of possible forms of resistance to them. The statements in which and ex- Trotsky Shlyapnikov article concentrates mainly on cases of civil (non- the of a plicitly recognized necessity political violent) resistance to coups, for example in Rus- confrontation, and not a violent one, with the sia in 1917, Germany in 1920, Japan in 1936, and troops. France and Algeria in 1961. Problems of resistance in Greece after 1967 and in Chile in 1973 45. On the failure to obtain funds, see Eyck, A History of the Weimar Republic, vol. 1, are also briefly mentioned. The main conclusions are that civil resistance can in certain circum- pp. 151-2; and Fauvet and Planchais, La Fronde stances contribute to the of des Généraux, p. 211. undermining miltary coups by, or in association with, a complex variety 46. This has been argued particularly cogently of pressures. There is a case for greater reliance by S.E. Finer, The Man on Horseback, pp. 87- on civil resistance as a means of opposing military 109. coups.