War Vocab Week 15-16
Kim Il-Sung
(15 April 1912 - 8 July 1994) was the supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), commonly referred to as North Korea, for 46 years, from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to 1994. He was also the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea from 1949 to 1994 (titled as chairman from 1949 to 1966 and as general secretary after 1966). Coming to power after the overthrow of Japanese rule in 1945, he authorized the invasion of South Korea in 1950, triggering a defense of South Korea by the United Nations led by the United States. A cease-fire in the Korean War was signed on 27 July 1953. Under his leadership, North Korea became a deformed workers state with a publicly owned planned economy but no internal democracy. It had close political and economic relations with the Soviet Union, which gave the country many similarities in those respects. By the 1960s and 1970s, North Korea enjoyed a relatively high standard of living, outperforming the South, which was riddled with political instability and economic crises. Differences between North Korea and the Soviet Union made the country non-aligned in world politics, central among these differences being Kim Il-sung's philosophy of Juche, which focused on Korean patriotism and self-reliance. Juche eventually replaced Marxism-Leninism and communism altogether. A cult of personality around Kim Il-sung came to dominate domestic politics and loyalty to the supreme leader was a de facto condition for public office. At the 6th Workers' Party Congress in 1980, his son Kim Jong-il, who had consolidated control over the party through the cult of personality, was selected as his heir to supreme leadership. In 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, North Korea's economy collapsed, leading to widespread poverty and famine. After transitioning his military authority to Kim Jong-il in 1993, Kim Il-sung died in the summer of 1994. His legacy is complicated by genuine admiration from older generations and the successive regime's attempts to exploit it for legitimacy. The North Korean government refers to Kim Il-sung as "The Great Leader" and he is designated in the North Korean constitution as the country's "Eternal President". His birthday is a public holiday in North Korea and is called the "Day of the Sun".
Algerian War (1954-1962)
Reasons for Conflict: After World War II, equality of rights was proclaimed by the Ordonnance of March 7, 1944, and later confirmed by the Loi Lamine Guèye of May 7, 1946, which granted French citizenship to all the subjects of France's territories and overseas departments, and by the 1946 Constitution. The Law of September 20, 1947, granted French citizenship to all Algerian subjects, who were not required to renounce their Muslim personal status. Algeria was unique to France because, unlike all other overseas possessions acquired by France during the 19th century, only Algeria was considered and legally classified an integral part of France. In 1943 Abbas wrote the Algerian People's Manifesto (Manifeste du peuple algérien). Arrested after the Sétif massacre of May 8, 1945, during which the French Army and pieds-noirs mobs killed about 6,000 Algerians, Abbas founded the Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto (UDMA) in 1946 and was elected as a deputy. Founded in 1954, the National Liberation Front (FLN) succeeded Messali Hadj's Algerian People's Party (PPA), while its leaders created an armed wing, the Armée de Libération Nationale (National Liberation Army) to engage in an armed struggle against French authority. France, which had just lost Indochina, was determined not to lose the next anti-colonial war, particularly not in its oldest and nearest major colony, which was regarded as an integral part of the republic. In the early morning hours of November 1, 1954, FLN maquisards (guerrillas) attacked military and civilian targets throughout Algeria in what became known as the Toussaint Rouge (Red All-Saints' Day). From Cairo, the FLN broadcast a proclamation calling on Muslims in Algeria to join in a national struggle for the "restoration of the Algerian state - sovereign, democratic and social - within the framework of the principles of Islam." It was the reaction of Premier Pierre Mendès France (Radical-Socialist Party), who only a few months before had completed the liquidation of France's tete empire in Indochina, which set the tone of French policy for five years. At first, and despite the Sétif massacre of May 8, 1945, and the pro-Independence struggle before World War II, most Algerians were in favor of a relative status-quo. Fewer than 500 fellaghas (pro-Independence fighters) could be counted at the beginning of the conflict. The Algerian population radicalized itself in particular because of the terrorist acts of French-sponsored Main Rouge (Red Hand) group, which targeted anti-colonialists in all of the Maghreb region (Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria), killing, for example, Tunisian activist Farhat Hached in 1952. Guerrilla Forces: Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), Guerrilla Supporters: Mouvement National Algérien (MNA), Algerian Communist Party (PCA) Opponents: France Misc.: After major demonstrations in Algiers and several major cities in favor of independence from the end of 1960 and a United Nations resolution recognizing the right to independence, De Gaulle decided to open a series of negotiations with the FLN, which concluded with the signing of the Évian Accords on March 1962. A referendum took place on 8 April 1962 and the French electorate approved the Évian Accords. Upon independence, in 1962, 900,000 European-Algerians (Pieds-noirs) fled to France, in fear of the FLN's revenge, within a few months. The French government was totally unprepared for the vast number of refugees, which caused turmoil in France. The majority of Algerian Muslims who had worked for the French were disarmed and left behind as the treaty between French and Algerian authorities declared that no actions could be taken against them.
Cuban Revolution (1957-1959)
Reasons for Conflict: In the decades following Cuba's liberation from Spain in 1898, and formal independence from the U.S. on May 20, 1902, Cuba experienced a period of significant instability, enduring a number of revolts, coups and periods of U.S. military intervention. Fulgencio Batista, a former soldier who had served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, became president for the second time in March 1952, after seizing power in a military coup and canceling the 1952 elections. In the months following the March 1952 coup, Fidel Castro, then a young lawyer and activist, petitioned for the overthrow of Batista, whom he accused of corruption and tyranny. However, Castro's constitutional arguments were rejected by the Cuban courts. After deciding that the Cuban regime could not be replaced through legal means, Castro resolved to launch an armed revolution. To this end, he and his brother Raúl founded a paramilitary organization known as "The Movement", stockpiling weapons and recruiting around 1,200 followers from Havana's disgruntled working class by the end of 1952. Guerrilla Forces: 26th of July Movement Guerrilla Supporters: None Opponents: Republic of Cuba Misc.: On 21 August 1958, after the defeat of Batista's Ofensiva, Castro's forces began their own offensive. On 31 December 1958, the Battle of Santa Clara took place in a scene of great confusion. The city of Santa Clara fell. News of these defeats caused Batista to panic. He fled Cuba by air for the Dominican Republic just hours later on 1 January 1959. Castro learned of Batista's flight in the morning and immediately started negotiations to take over Santiago de Cuba. On 2 January, the military commander in the city, Colonel Rubido, ordered his soldiers not to fight, and Castro's forces took over the city. Castro's initial choice of president, Manuel Urrutia Lleó, took office on 3 January. During its first decade in power, the Castro government introduced a wide range of progressive social reforms. Laws were introduced to provide equality for black Cubans and greater rights for women, while there were attempts to improve communications, medical facilities, health, housing, and education. In addition, there were touring cinemas, art exhibitions, concerts, and theatres. By the end of the 1960s, all Cuban children were receiving some education, unemployment and corruption were reduced, and great improvements were made in hygiene and sanitation. In 1961, the Cuban government nationalized all property held by religious organizations, including the dominant Roman Catholic Church. Hundreds of members of the church, including a bishop, were permanently expelled from the nation, as the new Cuban government declared itself officially atheist.
Ho Chi Minh
(19 May 1890 - 2 September 1969) Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945-55) and president (1945-69) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Việt Cộng (NLF or VC) during the Vietnam War. He led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the Communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ. He officially stepped down from power in 1965 due to health problems, but remained a highly visible figurehead and inspiration for those Vietnamese fighting for his cause—a united, communist Vietnam—until his death. After the war, Saigon, the former capital of the Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City. The 1954 Geneva Accords concluded between France and the Viet Minh, allowing the latter's forces to regroup in the North whilst anti-communist groups settled in the South. Ho's Democratic Republic of Vietnam relocated to Hanoi and became the government of North Vietnam, a communist-led one-party state. In July 1967, Ho and most of the Politburo of Workers Party of Vietnam met in a high-profile conference where they all concluded the war had fallen into a stalemate, since the United States Army presence forced the People's Army of Vietnam to expend the majority of their resources maintaining the Ho Chi Minh trail instead of reinforcing their comrade's ranks in the South. With Ho's permission, the Viet Cong planned to execute the Tet Offensive to begin on 31 January 1968, gambling on taking the South by force and defeating the U.S. military. The offensive came at great cost and with heavy casualties on NLF's political branches and armed forces. Ho and his government's strategy, based on the idea of "avoiding conventional warfare and facing the might of the U.S. Army, which would wear them down eventually, while merely prolonging the conflict would lead to eventual acceptance of Hanoi's terms" materialized. With the outcome of the Vietnam War still in question, Hồ Chí Minh died at 09:47 on the morning of 2 September 1969 from heart failure at his home in Hanoi, aged 79.
Charles de Gaulle
(22 November 1890 - 9 November 1970) he was a French general and statesman. He was the leader of Free France (1940-44) and the head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (1944-46). In 1958, he founded the Fifth Republic and was elected as the 18th President of France, a position he held until his resignation in 1969. He was the dominant figure of France during the Cold War era and his memory continues to influence French politics.During the German invasion of May 1940, he led an armoured division which counterattacked the invaders; he was then appointed Under-Secretary for War. Refusing to accept his government's armistice with Nazi Germany, de Gaulle exhorted the French population to resist occupation and to continue the fight in his Appeal of 18 June. He led a government in exile and the Free French Forces against the Axis. Despite frosty relations with Britain and especially the United States, he emerged as the undisputed leader of the French resistance. He became Head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic in June 1944, the interim government of France following its Liberation. As early as 1944, de Gaulle introduced a dirigist economic policy, which included substantial state-directed control over a capitalist economy which contributed to thirty years of unprecedented growth. Frustrated by the return of petty partisanship in the new Fourth Republic, he resigned in early 1946 but continued to be politically active as founder of the RPF party. When the Algerian War was ripping apart the unstable Fourth Republic, the National Assembly brought him back to power during the May 1958 crisis. De Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic with a strong presidency, and he was elected in that role. He managed to keep France together while taking steps to end the war, much to the anger of the Pieds-Noirs and the military; both previously had supported his return to power to maintain colonial rule. He granted independence to Algeria and progressively to other French colonies. In the context of the Cold War, de Gaulle initiated his "Politics of Grandeur", asserting that France as a major power should not rely on other countries, such as the US, for its national security and prosperity. To this end, de Gaulle pursued a policy of "national independence" which led him to withdraw from NATO's military integrated command and to launch an independent nuclear development program that made France the fourth nuclear power.
Houari Boumedienne
(23 August 1932 - 27 December 1978) Served as Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of Algeria from 19 June 1965 until 12 December 1976 and thereafter as the second President of Algeria until his death on 27 December 1978. He joined the National Liberation Front (FLN) in the Algerian War of Independence in 1955, adopting Houari Boumédiène as his nom-de-guerre. In 1961, after its vote of self-determination, Algerians declared independence and the French announced it was independent. Boumédiène headed a powerful military faction within the government, and was made defence minister by the Algerian leader Ahmed Ben Bella, whose ascent to power he had assisted as chief of staff. He grew increasingly distrustful of Ben Bella's erratic style of government and ideological puritanism, and in June 1965, Boumédiène seized power in a bloodless coup. The country's constitution and political institutions were abolished, and he ruled through a Revolutionary Council of his own mostly military supporters. Many of them had been his companions during the war years, when he was based around the Moroccan border town of Oujda, which caused analysts to speak of the "Oujda Group". Initially, he was seen as potentially a weak leader, with no significant power base except inside the army, and it was not known to what extent he commanded the officer corps. He remained Algeria's undisputed leader until his death in 1978. No significant internal challenges emerged from inside the government after the 1967 coup attempt. The death of Boumédiène left a power vacuum in Algeria which could not easily be filled; a series of military conclaves eventually agreed to sidestep the competing left and rightwing contenders, and designate the highest-ranking military officer, Col. Chadli Bendjedid, as a compromise selection. Still, factional intrigue mushroomed after Boumédiène's death, and no Algerian president has since gained the same complete respect, admiration from the Algerians.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah
(25 December 1876 - 11 September 1948) was a lawyer, politician, and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistan's creation on 14 August 1947, and then as Pakistan's first Governor-General until his death. Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress in the first two decades of the 20th century. In these early years of his political career, Jinnah advocated Hindu-Muslim unity, helping to shape the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the All-India Muslim League, in which Jinnah had also become prominent. Jinnah became a key leader in the All India Home Rule League, and proposed a fourteen-point constitutional reform plan to safeguard the political rights of Muslims. In 1920, however, Jinnah resigned from, the Congress when it agreed to follow a campaign of satyagraha, which he regarded as political anarchy. By 1940, Jinnah had come to believe that Indian Muslims should have their own state. In that year, the Muslim League, led by Jinnah, passed the Lahore Resolution, demanding a separate nation. During the Second World War, the League gained strength while leaders of the Congress were imprisoned, and in the elections held shortly after the war, it won most of the seats reserved for Muslims. Ultimately, the Congress and the Muslim League could not reach a power-sharing formula for a united India, leading all parties to agree to separate independence of a predominantly Hindu India, and for a Muslim-majority state, to be called Pakistan. As the first Governor-General of Pakistan, Jinnah worked to establish the new nation's government and policies, and to aid the millions of Muslim migrants who had emigrated from the new nation of India to Pakistan after independence, personally supervising the establishment of refugee camps. Jinnah died at age 71 in September 1948, just over a year after Pakistan gained independence from the United Kingdom. He left a deep and respected legacy in Pakistan. According to his biographer, Stanley Wolpert, he remains Pakistan's greatest leader.
Chiang Kai-Shek
(October 31, 1887 - April 5, 1975)Chinese political and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1975. Chiang was an influential member of the Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party, and was a close ally of Sun Yat-sen's. He became the Commandant of the Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy and took Sun's place as leader of the KMT, following the Canton Coup in early 1926. Having neutralized the party's left wing, Chiang then led Sun's long-postponed Northern Expedition, conquering or reaching accommodations with China's many warlords. From 1928 to 1948, he served as chairman of the National Military Council of the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China (ROC). Chiang Kai-shek was socially conservative, promoting traditional Chinese culture in the New Life Movement, and rejecting both western democracy and Sun's nationalist democratic socialism in favour of an authoritarian government. Unable to maintain Sun's good relations with the Communists, he purged them in a massacre at Shanghai and repression of uprisings at Guangzhou and elsewhere. At the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which later became the Chinese theater of World War II, Zhang Xueliang kidnapped Chiang and obliged him to establish a Second United Front with the Communists. After the defeat of the Japanese, the American-sponsored Marshall Mission, an attempt to negotiate a coalition government, failed in 1946. The Chinese Civil War resumed, with the CCP defeating the Nationalists and declaring the People's Republic of China in 1949. Chiang's government and army retreated to Taiwan, where Chiang imposed martial law and persecuted people critical of his rule in a period known as the "White Terror". After evacuating to Taiwan, Chiang's government continued to declare its intention to retake mainland China. Chiang ruled Taiwan securely as President of the Republic of China and General of the Kuomintang until his death in 1975.
Ahmed Ben Bella
(25 December 1916 - 11 April 2012) Algerian socialist soldier and revolutionary who was the first President of Algeria from 1963 to 1965. Ben Bella became a founding member of an underground organization pledged to fight colonial rule, known as the Organisation Spéciale. This was the immediate predecessor of the National Liberation Front. Arrested in 1951 and sentenced to eight years imprisonment Ben Bella escaped from Blida prison, making his way to Tunisia and then Egypt. At the outbreak of the Algerian War in 1954, Ben Bella was based in Cairo where he had become one of the nine members of the Revolutionary Committee of Unity and Action which headed the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN). He was arrested by the French in 1956, after his airplane had been controversially intercepted and brought to France, and released in 1962. While in prison he was elected a vice-premier of the Algerian provisional government. After Algeria's independence, Ben Bella quickly became more popular. In June 1962, he challenged the leadership of Premier Benyoucef Benkhedda; this led to several disputes among his rivals in the FLN, which were quickly suppressed by Ben Bella's rapidly growing number of supporters, most notably within the armed forces. By September, Bella was in control of Algeria in all but by name, and was elected as premier in a one-sided election on 20 September, which was recognized by the United States on 29 September. In 1963 he was elected President in an uncontested election, and also led Algeria's costly defense against the Moroccan invasion in the Sand War. After stabilizing the country, Ben Bella embarked on a series of popular but somewhat anarchic land reforms to the benefit of landless farmers, and increasingly turned to socialist rhetoric. His policy of Autogestion, or self-management, was adopted after the peasants seized former French lands. In balancing factions within the Algerian government, notably the FLN army, the former guerrillas and the state bureaucracy, his rule became increasingly autocratic. In 1965, Ben Bella was deposed in a bloodless military coup led by army strongman and close friend Houari Boumédiènne, and was placed under house arrest.
Jacques Massu
(5 May 1908 - 26 October 2002) was a French general who fought in World War II, the First Indochina War, the Algerian War and the Suez crisis. A brigadier general in June 1955, Massu commanded the groupe parachutiste d'intervention and from 1956 the 10th Parachute Division. France sent Massu and his division to Algeria in response to a wave of armed attacks and terrorist bombings coordinated by Algerian FLN. Massu ultimately won the Battle of Algiers in 1957, during which French forces were able to identify and arrest the leadership of the FLN in Algiers through the successful application of coercive methods of interrogation and outright torture on members of subordinate cells. In July 1958, he was promoted to général de division and took the head of the army corps of Algiers, as well as functions of prefect for the region of Algiers. It was said of Massu that he willingly admitted to the use of torture on suspected members of the FLN. However, he insisted that he would never subject anyone to any treatment that he had not first tried out on himself. The Algiers crisis of May 1958 began when the current government suggested that it would negotiate with the Algerian nationalists, bringing the instability and ineffectiveness of the Fourth Republic to a head. Right-wing elements in the French Army led by General Massu seized power in Algiers and threatened to conduct an assault on Paris, involving paratroopers and armoured forces based at Rambouillet, unless Charles de Gaulle was placed in charge of the Republic. De Gaulle did so under the precondition that a new constitution would be introduced creating a powerful presidency in which a sole executive, the first of which was to be De Gaulle, ruled for seven-year periods. These changes were introduced and the Fifth Republic was born. Massu was immediately relieved of command and sent back to the mainland.
Maurice Challe
(5 September 1905 - 18 January 1979) French general during the Algerian War, one of four generals who took part in the Algiers putsch. In July 1956, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser took control of the Suez Canal, in violation of agreements he had signed with the British and French governments. On 14 October 1956, Challe visited British Prime Minister Anthony Eden at his home, accompanied by French Minister of Labor Albert Gazier. The two Frenchmen told Eden about secret negotiations between Israel and France regarding a proposed Israeli attack on Egypt followed with military occupation by European powers, to control the Suez Canal. Eden backed the plan with UK resources including military forces, directly leading to the Suez Crisis. Challe was a French Air Force general whose greatest military success was in the realm of counter-insurgency operations during the Algerian War. His offensive, begun in March 1959, succeeded in substantially weakening the ALN. Through the use of speed and concentration of force, Challe kept the ALN insurgents in constant retreat and disorder. His innovative tactics would be studied and emulated by others - notably Syrian government forces in the Syrian Civil War seeking to keep insurgency at bay and off balance. The Challe Plan was only partially completed before he was reassigned to France. A line of electrified wire, minefields and other military barriers, the Challe Line, was named after him. It doubled another defence work, the Morice Line, which fortified the border and separated Algeria from Morocco and Tunisia. He was Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces Central Europe from May 1960 to his deliberate resignation in February 1961. Challe was one of the heads of the Algiers putsch of 1961, along with Raoul Salan, Edmond Jouhaud, and André Zeller. A prime reason for Challe's involvement was his concern that the Muslim harkis who had served with the French Army against the FLN would be subject to reprisals in the event of Algerian independence. In the event large numbers of these loyalists were massacred in 1962. After the putsch failed, he and Zeller surrendered to the French Army. Challe was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. He was freed in December 1966 and received amnesty from President de Gaulle in 1968.
Mao Zedong
(December 26, 1893 - September 9, 1976), Chinese communist revolutionary and founding father of the People's Republic of China, which he ruled as an autocrat styled the Chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949, until his death in 1976. His Marxist-Leninist theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Mao adopted a Chinese nationalist and anti-imperialist outlook in early life, particularly influenced by the events of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and May Fourth Movement of 1919. Mao adopted Marxism-Leninism while working at Peking University and became a founding member of the CPC, leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising in 1927. During the Chinese Civil War between the Guomindang (GMD) and the CPC, Mao helped to found the Red Army, led the Jiangxi Soviet's radical land policies and ultimately became head of the CPC during the Long March. Although the CPC temporarily allied with the GMD under the United Front during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45), after Japan's defeat China's civil war resumed and in 1949 Mao's forces defeated the Nationalists who withdrew to Taiwan. On October 1, 1949, Mao proclaimed the foundation of the People's Republic of China (PRC), a one-party state controlled by the CPC. In the following years Mao solidified his control through land reform campaigns against landlords, and perceived enemies of the state he termed as "counter-revolutionaries". In 1957, he launched the Great Leap Forward campaign that aimed to rapidly transform China's economy from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. The campaign contributed to a widespread famine, whose death toll is estimated at between 15 and 45 million. In 1966, he initiated the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a program to remove "counter-revolutionary" elements of Chinese society that lasted 10 years and which was marked by violent class struggle and widespread destruction of cultural artifacts. A controversial figure, Mao is regarded as one of the most important individuals in modern world history.
Mohandas Gandhi
2 October 1869 - 30 January 1948) was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. orn and raised in a Hindu merchant caste family in coastal Gujarat, western India, and trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, Gandhi first employed nonviolent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, but above all for achieving Swaraj or self-rule. Gandhi famously led Indians in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, upon many occasions, in both South Africa and India. Gandhi attempted to practise nonviolence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn hand-spun on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and social protest. Gandhi's vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism, however, was challenged in the early 1940s by a new Muslim nationalism which was demanding a separate Muslim homeland carved out of India. Eventually, in August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab and Bengal. Eschewing the official celebration of independence in Delhi, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to provide solace. In the months following, he undertook several fasts unto death to promote religious harmony. The last of these, undertaken on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan. Some Indians thought Gandhi was too accommodating. Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948 by firing three bullets into his chest.
Guerilla Warfare
A form of irregular warfare in which a small group of combatants such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics, and mobility to fight a larger and less-mobile traditional military. The strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to focus around the use of a small, mobile force competing against a larger, more unwieldy one. The Guerrilla focuses on organizing in small units, depending on the support of the local population, as well as taking advantage of terrain more accommodating of small units. Tactically, the guerrilla army would avoid any confrontation with large units of enemy troops, but seek and eliminate small groups of soldiers to minimize losses and exhaust the opposing force. Not limiting their targets to personnel, enemy resources are also preferred targets. All of that is to weaken the enemy's strength, to cause the enemy eventually to be unable to prosecute the war any longer, and to force the enemy to withdraw. It is often misunderstood that guerrilla warfare must involve disguising as civilians to cause enemy troops to fail in telling friend from foe. However, this is not a primary feature of a guerrilla war. This type of war can be practiced anywhere there are places for combatants to cover themselves and where such advantage cannot be made use of by a larger and more conventional force. The Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu, in his The Art of War (6th century BC) or 600 BC to 501 BC, was the earliest to propose the use of guerrilla warfare. This directly inspired the development of modern guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla tactics were presumably employed by prehistoric tribal warriors against enemy tribes. Evidence of conventional warfare, on the other hand, did not emerge until 3100 BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Since the Enlightenment, ideologies such as nationalism, liberalism, socialism, and religious fundamentalism have played an important role in shaping insurgencies and guerrilla warfare.
Fidel Castro
August 13, 1926 - November 25, 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. Politically a Marxist-Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party socialist state; industry and business were nationalized, and state socialist reforms were implemented throughout society. Castro adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics while studying law at the University of Havana. He planned the overthrow of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, launching a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. After a year's imprisonment, he traveled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July Movement, with his brother Raúl Castro and Che Guevara. Castro took a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batista's forces from the Sierra Maestra. After Batista's overthrow in 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba's Prime Minister. The US came to oppose Castro's government, and unsuccessfully attempted to remove him by assassination, economic blockade, and counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. Countering these threats, Castro formed an alliance with the Soviet Union and allowed the Soviets to place nuclear weapons on Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Adopting a Marxist-Leninist model of development, Castro converted Cuba into a one-party, socialist state under Communist Party rule, the first in the Western Hemisphere. Policies introducing central economic planning and expanding healthcare and education were accompanied by state control of the press and the suppression of internal dissent. Abroad, Castro supported anti-imperialist revolutionary groups. These actions, coupled with Castro's leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983 and Cuba's medical internationalism, increased Cuba's profile on the world stage. Following the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, Castro led Cuba into its "Special Period" and embraced environmentalist and anti-globalization ideas. In the 2000s he forged alliances in the Latin American "pink tide"—namely with Hugo Chávez's Venezuela—and signed Cuba to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. In 2006 he transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Raúl Castro, who was elected to the presidency by the National Assembly in 2008.
Dolores Ibarruri
Known as "La Pasionaria". She was a Spanish Republican heroine of the Spanish Civil War and communist politician of Basque origin, known for her famous slogan ¡No Pasarán! ("They shall not pass") during the Battle for Madrid in November 1936. She joined the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) when it was founded in 1921. In the 1930s, she became a writer for the PCE publication Mundo Obrero and in February 1936 was elected to the Cortes Generales as a PCE deputy for Asturias. On March 6, 1939, she flew out of Spain under enemy naval fire to the major Algerian port city of Oran then under French sovereignty. She was helped in France by the Communists and worked in the Executive Committee of the Communist International Secretariat at the Communist International Headquarters near the Kremlin. She was a fan of our friend Joseph Stalin. After her exile from Spain at the end of the Civil War, she was appointed General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Spain, a position she held from 1942 to 1960. She was then named honorary president of the PCE, a post she held for the rest of her life. Upon her return to Spain in 1977, she was re-elected as a deputy to the Cortes for the same region she had represented under the Second Republic.
Indonesian War of Independence (1945-1949)
Reasons for Conflict: Indonesian nationalism and movements supporting independence from Dutch colonialism, such as Budi Utomo, the Indonesian National Party (PNI), Sarekat Islam, and the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), grew rapidly in the first half of the 20th century. The occupation of Indonesia by Japan for three and a half years during World War II was a crucial factor in the subsequent revolution. The Japanese destroyed and replaced much of the Dutch-created economic, administrative, and political infrastructure. On 7 September 1944, with the war going badly for the Japanese, Prime Minister Koiso promised independence for Indonesia, but no date was set. For supporters of Sukarno, this announcement was seen as vindication for his collaboration with the Japanese. Under pressure from radical and politicised pemuda ('youth') groups, Sukarno and Hatta proclaimed Indonesian independence, on 17 August 1945, two days after the Japanese Emperor's surrender in the Pacific. The following day, the Central Indonesian National Committee (KNIP) elected Sukarno as President, and Hatta as Vice-President. Guerrilla Forces: Indonesia Guerrilla Supporters: Japanese volunteers, UK (after 1946 and only political) Opponents: Netherlands, UK (until 1946), Dutch East Indies, British India, Australia, Japan (until 1946) Misc.: The struggle lasted for over four years and involved sporadic but bloody armed conflict, internal Indonesian political and communal upheavals, and two major international diplomatic interventions. Dutch military forces were able to control the major towns, cities and industrial assets in Republican heartlands on Java and Sumatra, but could not control the countryside. In 1949 international pressure on the Netherlands became such that, together with the existing partial military stalemate, it recognised Indonesian independence. The revolution marked the end of the colonial administration of the Dutch East Indies, except for Netherlands New Guinea. It also significantly changed ethnic castes, as well as reducing the power of many of the local rulers (raja). It did not significantly improve the economic or political fortune of the majority of the population, although a few Indonesians were able to gain a larger role in commerce. The revolution had direct effects on economic conditions; shortages were common, particularly food, clothing and fuel. There were in effect two economies - the Dutch and the Republican - both of which had to simultaneously rebuild after World War II and survive the disruptions of the revolution.
Vietnam War (1965-1973)
Reasons for Conflict: It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam. They viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the U.S. The U.S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism. Guerrilla Forces: North Vietnam/Viet Cong were primary militants with aid from Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao Guerrilla Supporters: People's Republic of China, North Korea, USSR, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, East Germany, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Sweden Opponents: South Vietnam, United States, South Korea, Thailand, AUstralia, New Zealand, Khmer Republic, Kingdom of Laos, Philippines, Republic of China, Spain, Malaysia, Canada, Iran, UK, West Germany Misc.: Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962. U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which a U.S. destroyer clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft, which was followed by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the U.S. president authorization to increase U.S. military presence. Regular U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations crossed international borders: bordering areas of Laos and Cambodia were heavily bombed by U.S. forces as American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, the same year that the communist side launched the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive failed in its goal of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government, but became the turning point in the war, as it persuaded a large segment of the U.S. population that its government's claims of progress toward winning the war were illusory despite many years of massive U.S. military aid to South Vietnam. Direct U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities
Afghan Resistance (1979-1989) aka Soviet-Afghan War
Reasons for Conflict: Prior to the arrival of Soviet troops, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan took power after a 1978 coup, installing Nur Mohammad Taraki as president. The party initiated a series of radical modernization reforms throughout the country that were deeply unpopular, particularly among the more traditional rural population and the established traditional power structures. The Afghan government, having secured a treaty in December 1978 that allowed them to call on Soviet forces, repeatedly requested the introduction of troops in Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 1979. They requested Soviet troops to provide security and to assist in the fight against the mujahideen rebels. The government itself was highly unstable with in-party rivalry, and in September 1979 the president was deposed by followers of Hafizullah Amin, who then became president. Deteriorating relations and worsening rebellions led the Soviet government, under leader Leonid Brezhnev, to deploy the 40th Army on December 24, 1979. Arriving in the capital Kabul, they staged a coup, killing president Amin and installing Soviet loyalist Babrak Karmal from a rival faction. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution protesting the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan by a vote of 104-18. THe United States started funneling weapons to the Mujahideen rebels. Guerrilla Forces: Sunni Mujahideen Guerrilla Supporters: Shia Mujahideen, Iran, United States Opponents: USSR, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Misc.: By mid-1987 the Soviet Union, now under reformist leader Mikhail Gorbachev, announced it would start withdrawing its forces. The final troop withdrawal started on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989. Due to its length it has sometimes been referred to as the "Soviet Union's Vietnam War" or the "Bear Trap" by the Western media, and thought to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union. Civilian death and destruction from the war was considerable. In the 1980s, half of all refugees in the world were Afghan. The Geneva Accords of 1988, which ultimately led to the withdrawal of the Soviet forces in early 1989, left the Afghan government in ruins. The accords had failed to address adequately the issue of the post-occupation period and the future governance of Afghanistan. The assumption among most Western diplomats was that the Soviet-backed government in Kabul would soon collapse; however, this was not to happen for another three years. During this time the Interim Islamic Government of Afghanistan (IIGA) was established in exile. The exclusion of key groups such as refugees and Shias, combined with major disagreements between the different mujahideen factions, meant that the IIGA never succeeded in acting as a functional government.
Mau Mau Uprising (1952-1960)
Reasons for Conflict: The primary British interest in Kenya was land. During the period in which Kenya's interior was being forcibly opened up for British settlement, there was plenty of conflict and British troops carried out atrocities against the native population. Kenyan opposition to British imperialism existed from the start of the British occupation, an early example of which was the Kikuyu opposition of 1880 to 1900. In military terms, none of the armed uprisings during the beginning of British colonialism in Kenya were successful. Opposition to British colonialism in Kenya continued post-1895: the Nandi Resistance of 1895-1905; the Giriama Uprising of 1913-1914; the women's revolt against forced labour in Murang'a in 1947; and the Kolloa Affray of 1950. The Mau Mau rebellion can be regarded as a militant culmination of years of oppressive colonial rule and resistance to it, with its specific roots found in three episodes of Kikuyu history between 1920 and 1940. The British presence exacerbated existing disharmony and instability in Kikuyu society. The Kikuyu in the nineteenth century were expanding and colonising new territory and already internally divided between wealthy land-owning families and landless ones, the latter dependent on the former in a variety of ways. Guerrilla Forces: Mau mau rebels Guerrilla Supporters: None Opponents: United Kingdom (+ British Kenya) Misc.: The contemporary, colonial view saw Mau Mau as a savage, violent, and depraved tribal cult, an expression of unrestrained emotion rather than reason. Mau Mau was "perverted tribalism" that sought to take the Kikuyu people back to "the bad old days" before British rule. Some think this characterisation reflected the British refusal to attend to those social and economic grievances of the Kikuyu that stemmed from colonial rule. Contrary to British propaganda and western perceptions of the time, the Mau Mau attacks were mostly well organised and planned. Kenyans were granted nearly all of the demands made by the KAU in 1951. On 18 January 1955, the Governor-General of Kenya, Evelyn Baring, offered an amnesty to Mau Mau activists. The offer was that they would not face prosecution for previous offences, but may still be detained. European settlers were appalled at the leniency of the offer. On 10 June 1955 with no response forthcoming, the offer of amnesty to the Mau Mau was revoked. In June 1956, a programme of land reform increased the land holdings of the Kikuyu. This was coupled with a relaxation of the ban on native Kenyans growing coffee, a primary cash crop. In the cities the colonial authorities decided to dispel tensions by raising urban wages, thereby strengthening the hand of moderate union organisations like the KFRTU. By 1956, the British had granted direct election of native Kenyan members of the Legislative Assembly, followed shortly thereafter by an increase in the number of local seats to fourteen. A Parliamentary conference in January 1960 indicated that the British would accept "one person—one vote" majority rule.
Chinese Civil War (1922-1949)
Reasons for Conflict: The tension between the GMD and the CCP was the last of the tension in China and their alliance was of convenience. Their success was as a result of the CCP promise of land to the peasants and GMD ambitions. Jiang was sympathetic to the landlords and middle classes but began to expel all communists from the GMD due to communist support. The 'White Terror' in April 1927 was Jiang's peak attack. Jiang turned the powerful 'workers' party army' under Zhou ENlai against the CCP, 5,000 communists were shot. Jiang's 'purification movement' killed around 250,000 people, including communists, trade unionists, and peasant leaders. By 1927, the CCP were nearly destroyed. Guerilla Forces: Communist Party of China (CPC) (Primary militants) with support from Fujian People's Government (1933-34), People's Liberation Army, East Turkestan Republic (1944-46) Guerilla Supporters: Soviet Union Opponents: Republic of China (Primary force) with support from Kuomintang, National Revolutionary Army Allied warlords, the United States, and Nationalist loyalist guerrillas, militias and regular troops left in Mainland China and Burma. Misc.: It can generally be divided into two stages; the first being from 1927 to 1937, and the second being from 1946 to 1950 with the Second Sino-Japanese War separating them. The war was a major turning point in modern Chinese history, with the CPC gaining control of almost the entire of Mainland China, establishing the People's Republic of China (PRC) to replace the KMT's Republic of China (ROC). It also caused a lasting political and military standoff between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, with the ROC in Taiwan and the PRC in mainland China both officially claiming to be the legitimate government of all of China. Historian Odd Arne Westad says the Communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang Kai-shek and also because in his search for a powerful centralized government, Chiang antagonized too many interest groups in China. Furthermore, his party was weakened in the war against the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Communists targeted different groups, such as peasants, and brought them to its corner.
French Indochina War (1945-1954)
Reasons for Conflict: Vietnam was absorbed into French Indochina in stages between 1858 and 1887 with European influence and education. Nationalism grew until World War II provided a break in French control. Early Vietnamese resistance centered on the intellectual Phan Bội Châu. Fighting broke out in Haiphong after a conflict of interest in import duty at the port between the Viet Minh government and the French. On November 23, 1946, the French fleet began a naval bombardment of the Vietnamese sections of the city that killed over 6,000 Vietnamese civilians in one afternoon. The Viet Minh quickly agreed to a cease-fire and left the cities. This is known as the Haiphong incident. There was never any intention among the Vietnamese to give up, as General Võ Nguyên Giáp soon brought up 30,000 men to attack the city. Although the French were outnumbered, their superior weaponry and naval support made any Viet Minh attack unsuccessful. In December, hostilities also broke out in Hanoi between the Viet Minh and the French, and Ho Chi Minh was forced to evacuate the capital in favor of remote mountain areas. Guerrilla warfare ensued, with the French controlling most of the country except far-flung areas. Guerrilla Forces: Viet Minh (formally known as Democratic Republic of Vietnam) (Primary militants) with support from Lao Issara (later became Pathet Lao), Khmer Issarak, Guerrilla Supporters: Soviet Union, China, and East Germany Opponents: France, French Indochina, Laos, Cambodia, The State of Vietnam, with support from the United States Misc.: Negotiations between France and the Viet Minh started in Geneva in April 1954 at the Geneva Conference, during which time the French Union and the Viet Minh were fighting a battle at Điện Biên Phủ. In France, Pierre Mendès France, opponent of the war since 1950, had been invested as Prime Minister on June 17, 1954, on a promise to put an end to the war, reaching a ceasefire in four months. The Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954, recognized the 17th parallel north as a "provisional military demarcation line," temporarily dividing the country into two zones, Communist North Vietnam and pro-Western South Vietnam. The Geneva Accords promised elections in 1956 to determine a national government for a united Vietnam. Neither the United States government nor Ngo Dinh Diem's State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. With respect to the question of reunification, the non-communist Vietnamese delegation objected strenuously to any division of Vietnam, but lost out when the French accepted the proposal of Viet Minh delegate Pham Van Dong, who proposed that Vietnam eventually be united by elections under the supervision of "local commissions". The United States countered with what became known as the "American Plan", with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom. It provided for unification elections under the supervision of the United Nations, but was rejected by the Soviet delegation. From his home in France, Emperor Bảo Đại appointed Ngô Đình Diệm as Prime Minister of South Vietnam. With American support, in 1955 Diem used a referendum to remove the former Emperor and declare himself the president of the Republic of Vietnam. When the elections failed to occur, Viet Minh cadres who stayed behind in South Vietnam were activated and started to fight the government. North Vietnam also invaded and occupied portions of Laos to assist in supplying the guerilla fighting National Liberation Front in South Vietnam. The war gradually escalated into the Second Indochina War, more commonly known as the Vietnam War in the West and the American War in Vietnam.
Malayan Insurgency (1948-1957)
Reasons for Conflict: When the British took control of the Malayan economy, they imposed taxes on some Malayan goods, affecting their traditional industries. This led to an increase in poverty for the Malayan people. Many Chinese people found employment in tin mines or fields responsible for the trade of materials. This heightened inter-ethnic tensions as the Malay people found that ethnic Chinese had replaced them in certain jobs and work became more difficult to find. Economic tension intensified during the Second World War. The Japanese occupation of Malaya began in 1941 and the withdrawal of Japan at the end of World War II left the British Malayan economy disrupted. On 16 June 1948, the first overt act of the war took place when three European plantation managers were killed at Sungai Siput, Perak. Guerrilla Forces: Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) Guerrilla Supporters: China, Viet Minh/North Vietnam, USSR, Indonesia Opponents: British Empire, United States, Australia, New Zealand Misc.: On 8 September 1955, the Government of the Federation of Malaya issued a declaration of amnesty to the communists. The Government of Singapore issued an identical offer at the same time. Tunku Abdul Rahman, as Chief Minister, made good the offer of an amnesty but promised there would be no negotiations with the MNLA. The terms of the amnesty were: Those of you who come in and surrender will not be prosecuted for any offence connected with the Emergency, which you have committed under Communist direction, either before this date or in ignorance of this declaration. You may surrender now and to whom you like including to members of the public. There will be no general "ceasefire" but the security forces will be on alert to help those who wish to accept this offer and for this purpose local "ceasefire" will be arranged. The Government will conduct investigations on those who surrender. Those who show that they are genuinely intent to be loyal to the Government of Malaya and to give up their Communist activities will be helped to regain their normal position in society and be reunited with their families. As regards the remainder, restrictions will have to be placed on their liberty but if any of them wish to go to China, their request will be given due consideration.
